With megaphone in hand Spencer Hitchen led a rally and march on Monday 5 June, World Environment Day, to protest the clearing of a five hectare wallum habitat, identified as a priority feed area for endangered Glossy Black Cockatoos, earmarked for clearing by BlueCare for a 122-home retirement village.
“We’ve been trying to save this Glossy Black Cockatoo habitat for about five years now. It’s important to come and make a stand,“ Spencer, 12, said to about 60 supporters who joined the protest at Sunrise Beach.
“The Uniting Church has already destroyed 0.8 hectares of this endangered forest and now intends to destroy the remaining 5 hectares,“ he said.
“The trees that they have planted to offset the loss of the critical habitat will take more than a decade to mature. The Glossies are fussy eaters so there is no guarantee that they will choose to feed on the offset trees. Furthermore, the offset trees are planted on a contaminated dump site.“
Queensland Conservation Council land care campaigner Natalie Frost told the group they shouldn’t have to stand up for the wallum habitat, part of the last remaining 200 hectares, but they were there “because our Federal and State laws are flawed“.
Natalie said sadly it was not an isolated case with 400,000 hectares of land being cleared each year in Queensland, most of it unregulated.
“It’s very important we are here to protect Lot 9,“ she said.
BlueCare said it had approval from Noosa Council and State and Commonwealth governments to start construction of a retirement village, comprised of 122 independent living retirement homes on the site at Lot 9, Grasstree Court.
“This forms part of the Sunrise Beach Village by BlueCare precinct, combining aged care (currently under construction on Lot 6 on the opposite side of the road) and retirement living, providing much needed accommodation for the growing local population,“ Uniting Care property project lead Michael Jorgensen stated in leaflets distributed to a few residents surrounding the development site.
However, despite council assurances of appropriate action, the community continues to question the use by council of staff-delegated authority, in a development of high significant interest to the community, to approve an off-set site on a nearby former dump, that requires capping, as suitable when there is evidence to the contrary.
“The offset deal was approved as a “minor change” but without it the development could not proceed,“ retired barrister Barry Cotterell said.
Mr Cotterell said the evidence shows that in five years the seedlings would still only be two metres tall and many years away from being a possible food source for the endangered Glossy Black cockatoos that will be deprived of the trees they currently live off.
Wildlife scientist Dr Ellie Sherrard-Smith told the protest group in a recent study of more than 100 offset sites scientists found it could take hundreds or even thousands of years to recover the ecological health of a habitat.
She said habitats needed to be studied over several years during different times of the year to identify all the species on a site before an offset site, intended to replicate the habitat, could be established.
There should be no net loss to the area, but that is never really the case, she said.
Dr Sherrard-Smith said it was important for the community to be heard and for governments to listen.
Tim Rossi and Angela Whitbread told the protest they had supported a legal case to council, inspired by the environmental warriors to do their best.
“We are going on a journey. We are not giving up,“ Tim said.
“On World Environment Day we are fighting to the end.“
The protest group marched the length of Grasstree Court chanting including:
“Sunrise Glossies need their trees, Uniting Church stop your greed;
“On World Environment Day today, the endangered glossies are here to stay;
“Uniting Church it’s not about the money, I’m standing here with my mummy.”
