By Phil Jarratt
The residents of Teewah Village have had it up to the high tide mark with escalating visitor numbers on the North Shore and constant streams of often reckless drivers on their once-pristine beach.
Following Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service data revealing a 40 per cent increase in visitation since 2019 and anecdotal evidence that summer 2022-23 has been the busiest and most dangerous yet, the Teewah Landowners Association is demanding immediate action.
They have called for a remedy to the situation, and better planning for the future, following a December-January holiday period in which a tourist overload was exacerbated by king tides and high seas making beach driving dangerous for even experienced 4WD exponents and a time bomb for the growing number of inexperienced hoons who plagued the Teewah beach most weekends and holidays.
Photos posted on social media over the holidays showed vehicles overturned in creek beds, dune devastation and kilometre-long queues to get through a soft sand pass, but they only hinted at the broader picture of loss of flora and fauna, human waste dumps behind dunes and a beach that some residents say they were frightened to use.
Even last Friday, in relatively quiet February, photographer Rob Maccoll and I were astounded by the constant stream of beach traffic at speeds nearly double the 50 km limit in front of the village.
Landowners Association chairman Paul Winter just shook his head slowly and said: “We see hundreds if not thousands of vehicles coming up the beach every weekend and it’s increasing all the time. It’s not sustainable and no one wants to do anything about it.”
Committee member Peter Brooker added: “[Noosa MP] Sandy Bolton is certainly having a crack but I came away from the meeting we had with QPWS totally disillusioned because they’re not dealing with the cause of the problem, only the effect.”
So the Landowners Association has embarked on an awareness program they hope will force the issue, and it presents a grim picture of current realities for the once-secluded beach village.
An information email titled Potential World Heritage Area Under Threat: Management Issues with Teewah Beach/Cooloola Recreation Area that went out to a long list of stakeholders, all levels of government and fellow residents last week didn’t pull any punches.
It began: “Residents of Teewah Village have witnessed record vehicle numbers travel over the sensitive coastal foreshore. Tides in excess of two metres and large ocean swells have compounded damage to vegetation, wildlife habitat, and turtle nesting areas.
Many recreational vehicles are travelling in excess of designated speed limits with no regard for other beach users. There is little respect for the natural environment and the focus seems to be on hooning, drinking and aggressive behaviours.”
The document continued: “A significant number of vehicle rollovers occurred during this holiday period including a group of seven young adults all in one vehicle and not wearing seatbelts, four being seriously injured. Many of these rollovers occurred during very high tides when vehicles attempted to traverse over dunes, which subsequently collapsed into the ocean.
On Teewah Beach last week, resident and fire brigade volunteer Jo Brown told Noosa Today: “When we get a call-out [to a rollover or other incident] we often just survey the scene and report to police or ambulance on what’s required, but the last couple of times we’ve been to the scene we’ve had beer cans thrown at us and had nothing but abuse.
“They yell out that they can look after the situation themselves, which obviously they can’t.
“We had one call-out where we were in the fire truck with our lights on, leading the way with the police and ambulance behind us. We pulled up at the site of the accident and there was a very angry mob there trying to roll the car back right side up.
“The police wouldn’t get out of their car!”
According to the Landowners Association document: “Numbers of vehicle access permits have reached unsustainable levels and reduced this potential World Heritage Area into a highway.
“An inequitable situation has emerged where the disrespectful behaviour and sheer weight of numbers are impacting not only on the environment, but the amenity for other users and our emergency service personnel.
“Emergency services are being called to the region on at least a weekly basis to treat/transport people injured in vehicle incidents largely arising from their own stupidity.
“During the January extreme tides police were diverting vehicles onto the Teewah Village helipad to wait until the beach was traversable. If a medical emergency had occurred, a helicopter evacuation would not have been possible. The adjacent foredunes were used as a toilet by these visitors and rubbish was left behind on the helipad.”
The Teewah document summarises the problem as:
• Too many people being allowed onto a sensitive environmental foreshore with little or no regard for their actions.
• QPWS clearly unable to effectively manage the number of vehicles/users allowed on to the beach at any point in time.
• Inadequate toilet facilities for day users and they are not required to provide their own portable cassette toilets.
• Campers required to bring their own toilets, but very little compliance, compounded by incorrect disposal of waste into dunes or the ocean.
In the short-term, the Teewah Landowners are calling for:
• Immediate elimination of one-day and weekly permits in line with K’gari, Moreton, and North Stradbroke Islands.
• Reduction of speed limit on the beach adjacent to Teewah Village to 40 kph as per village zones on K’gari, Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands.
• Lifetime bans for people found guilty of negligent and illegal actions.
• Close the beach to recreational vehicles two hours either side of spring high tides and during large swell events.
• Work collaboratively with local residents, interest groups, and universities to monitor outcomes and determine massively improved management guidelines.
• Immediately start the transition of beach camping on Teewah Beach to an extended Noosa North Shore camping zone where infrastructure and services have been established and are more easily upgraded.
The call to action concludes: “These problems have been occurring for many years on vehicle-accessible beaches in other parts of Australia and other countries where appropriate action has been implemented to preserve the natural environment.
“Teewah/Cooloola is a very special place that requires immediate intervention.”
