There is never nothing we can do.
There are just people who do nothing.
With a world that is not on track to meet its climate targets, in the face of government failure it is the community who must act. It is time to do something.
Right now in Brunswick Heads our wild heathland is calling.
It calls us to be people who care for country. To be the line in the sand. To be the community who push back on opportunistic greed. And this development is opportunistic. It’s no coincidence that after sitting dormant since 2013, Zombie DA it found its way to the Regional Planning Panel in 2021, during Covid. When we were distracted. With just 3 hours of community consultation. When we were all looking the other way. Well, we aren’t looking the other way now. Blocks may be sold, but it’s not too late.
It’s not too late because it’s still there, and while those 230 trees still stand, so can we.
There is so little wilderness left. So little of the environment not decimated by human intervention, whether it’s through habitation or extraction.
Last week ecologist James Barrie introduced me to the wallum wildflower heathland salt marsh at the end of Omega Circuit in Brunswick Heads. It’s the most extraordinary place.
This wildly beautiful habitat for sugar gliders, koalas, the glossy black cockatoo, microbats, large bent-winged bats, the grass owl, the rainbow bee-eater, native bees, and the Wallum froglet and the Wallum sedge frog. The frogs are both classified as vulnerable to extinction, and the koala and the cockatoo are critically endangered. Australian Wetland Consulting have listed 14,000 fauna at this site. Surely the Biodiversity Conservation Act should protect this site? If not, I’d want to know why? 14,000 species seems pretty bloody biodiverse to me.
There are a range of critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable and threatened species on this site, as well as four threatened ecological communities (vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered), which weren’t given proper consideration in light of the DA. Because somehow the Regional Planning Panel decided to green light a luxury development. In a flood plain. FFS. Have we learnt nothing?
Yes we are in a housing crisis. But it is not a luxury housing crisis. The last Census told the truth – when one million homes sat empty, many were giant high-end palaces of privilege.
Maybe the habitat we need to push in on isn’t the precious and fragile remnants of wilderness, but the housing portfolios of the super wealthy. According to some sources, stage one has seen some of these blocks, as small as 450 sq metres sell for close to $1 million. Just around the corner is a pod village of flood victims. This is clearly not going to be their housing. Who is this housing even for? More out of town investors? It’s wrong.
We are at a crossroads. We are living in that part of the Venn diagram where the climate crisis intersects with the housing crisis. We need systemic change, we cannot build our way out. And we cannot and must not destroy places like this heathland full of scribbly gums. Scribbly gums that predate colonialism. Scribbly gums that have been luxury housing to so many species for over 400 years.
It can take up to 200 years for a hollow to develop. Imagine waiting that long for your home to be built.
The developers have the hide to call this Wallum. Named after the habitat they are destroying. This is not as the developers suggest ‘an ecology-led solution’. This is an ecology dead solution.
So it’s up to us. Let’s make Bruns the new Bentley. It’s not too late.
It’s still here. And while this sensitive coastal area bordering Simpsons Creek remains intact, we can save it. And we should.
Please be someone who does something. Join the Facebook group ‘Save the Scribbly Gums’ and be part of the community action.
Watch this space.
“There is so little wilderness left. So little of the environment not decimated by human intervention”
Fact: the byron shire is much more vegetated and protected now than it was 50-75 years ago. your statement is nothing more than trumpism fear mongering.
These people’s stop at nothing to propagate bullshit..they have zero conscience…
A disingenuous claim when most of that ‘new vegetation’ is either Macadamia plantations & camphor laurel forests – many 50%-80% camphor, & some 100% Camphor according to Councils mapping, especially around Coorabel & fringes of Goonengerry & Mullum.
It’s not as though native vegetation is spreading & regenerating. The Shire is still experiencing an ongoing net native vegetation loss, particularly the older High Conservation Value forests & woodlands.
Camphor sure does seem better at sucking up CO2 than Koala trees. Grows much faster, and when you cut it down, it grows back without help. High carbon sequestration could be accomplished by replacing the slower growing natives.
that is 100% false, native vegetation is spreading and growing
And that ongoing net native vegetation loss I refer to is despite the excellent efforts of council regen team, landowners, Big Scrub Landcare, Brunswick Valley Landcare & all the local affiliated groups & National Parks at protecting , conserving & expanding native vegetation. A single development like this can wipe out the equivalent of years of regeneration work in a week.
Then there’s the ongoing increment loss of retained trees & shrubs being cleared in & adjacent to the development or dying due to soil & groundwater effects, Phytophthora, compaction by vehicles, edge effects, changed fire regimes, more garden escapee weeds etc but the camphor keeps spreading
where is evidence of net native vegetation loss ? that is complete rubbish, by the way I’m not for this DA, i’m just sick of the amount BS being claimed as truth
Our very own Byron Council’s mapping. Aerial photography doesn’t lie. What small pocket of the Shire are you using as a reference point?
And that ongoing net native vegetation loss I refer to is despite the excellent regeneration efforts of council, landowners, Big Scrub & Brunswick Valley Landcare & National Parks at conserving & expanding native vegetation. A single development like this can wipe out the equivalent of years of regeneration work in a week.
Then there’s the ongoing incremental loss of retained trees & shrubs being removed or dying due to soil & groundwater effects, Phytophthora, compaction, edge effects, fire management etc; & the camphor keeps spreading
oops
Its actually worse than “people who do nothing”. Our collective obsession with faux affluence (we used to call this “keep up with the Jones’s)
means “we” crave bigger houses crammed onto smaller blocks, overwhelmingly buy bigger and bigger vehicles (neither an SUV nor a dual cab ute is a “car”), buy and consume more and waste more and all of these things combine to degrade the planet at an ever faster rate. Do we really care about the environment? We say we do and we want action on climate change, but our actions and our choices are at odds with what we say we want. Studies suggest that on average, SUV’s and dual cabs have increased in size by around one-third compared to 2020 and Australia and as a general rule, a vehicle that weighs 1/3rd more uses 1/3rd more fuel, lagging the world in introducing fuel efficiency standards, is the global dumping ground for gas-guzzlers that now make a measurable contribution to carbon emissions and yet if 100 people went out to buy a new car, 2/3rds are likely to buy an SUV or dual cab (and the FBT-exemption for dual cabs continues to encourage many to buy such vehicles to take advantage of what is a tax subsidy). Are we doing nothing? Hell no. We’re actively doing plenty to trash the earth.
I am gutted and galvanised by such a destructive development approved by the State during lockdown.
A desperate action by a disgraceful government body.
Bruns IS the new Bentley, and those trees, flora, and fauna, and wetland, must stay pristine.
I remember how Patternson hill was saved…..I give thanks everytime I go there……..that was the day I realised community activism is power.
Great cause Mandy!
published 7 hours ago SMH Quote. The state government wants Byron Shire to come up with 4522 new homes by 2041 – a 25 per cent increase in its housing stock – and the council has honed in on Brunswick Heads as the answer, saying the village and surrounding rural area could host another 1990 properties over the next 20 years, on top of the 1125 ..dwellings that are already in Brunsick heads area.. WTF !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
any mention of infrastructure ??