Walking back in time. Image: greghardwick.com.au

The Sunshine Coast was home to two gifted writers, Vance and Nettie Palmer, from 1925. In those days when few white people were exploring  the bush, they were out most days, glorying in the earth and sea and sky.

These were the years of their daughters growing, running free among the heath and sheoaks; the time of struggling as poets and freelance writers to find a voice and to write of the land; the time of learning how to get across their political message about how the bush was being whacked, and how a sheoak is not a sheoak unless the child is reared to name and love it.

The Palmers went on to be one of Australia’s most important literary couples in the 1940s and ’50s. Vance was novelist, dramatist, cultural critic and political commentator; Nettie was journalist, literary critic, historian, biographer and essayist. Some of you will know Vance’s  novel The Passage.

Through their early environmental writings, drawing directly on their experiences, we can begin to see another dimension of our landscape, of our society in transition from the pristine environment while cared for only by Aboriginal custodians to the skyscrapers of the present. This early piece by Vance was written for the Daily Mail (3 October, 1925).

There is something in the liquid beauty of the name [Caloundra] that suits the place for the vowels fall on the ear like the musical dripping of water. In coming here, I was personally prepared for beauty, but hardly for such variety in its forms. There are the rocks that run out from the little headland, for instance, a perfect wonderland in themselves. When the tide is out, it is possible to spend endless hours exploring the little pools that have been left behind, some still and clear as dew-drops, others receiving continual little frehets of water and swarming with all kinds of marine life…

Gorgeous anemones, red and green, spread out their flower-like tentacles, cowries are hidden in the fissures: and in the wide, shallow pools the beche-de-mer lies like a harvest of black cucumbers, whose vines have mysteriously vanished. Here is all the life and colour of a coral reef. Peering into the still pools one sees fantastic patterns like those woven on Chinese cloths delicate tracings in black and heliotrope that seem part of a deliberate design. Occasionally under a ledge of rock an octopus finds cover, an image of absolute evil in its startling green and orange, with the white disc-like suckers showing vividly against the colour of its waving tentacles. Looking at it, one suddenly discovers where the Chinese artist got their idea of a dragon from. Indeed Chinese art must have found a good deal of its inspiration in the marine life of places like this. There are the delicate colourings, the grotesque shapes, the sense of an intense, unreal world of beauty and monstrosity.

Rowing over to Bribie across the still water, one enters another world that is just as absorbing in its own way. The boat noses against a tangled beach that is lined with a thin strip of sand, with the water running green, and deep quite close to shore. A paradise for fishermen, especially those of the amateur kind. On lucky days one will find the bream and whiting swarming round the bait as soon as it is thrown into the water. There is no need of the infinite patience and cunning that comes of long years of angling in less populous waters. They say that fishing was once a still easier business at Caloundra, and that continual netting at the mouth of the passage has spoilt the place from the angler’s point of view.

That may be so, but every place has the legend of a golden past, even when the present is brightly-coloured enough.

From the other side of the island comes the boom of the surf, tempting one through the trackless growths of scrub. A tangled, semi-tropical scrub, filled with birds. Even the grey harmonica is here, that sweetest singer of all our birds, that seems to belong to the cool, fern gullies of the South. From one side of the island to the other is barely a hundred yards in places, yet so dense is the scrub, so primitive and secret, that it seems to mark a division between two different worlds. One emerges at last on the blinding white ocean beach, with the sense of having made a journey of exploration.

This end of Bribie that abuts on Caloundra will ultimately become one of the chief playgrounds of Queensland, if not of the whole Commonwealth, and it should be kept as a rigid sanctuary for native birds and animals. There is still plenty of wild life on it. As we push off from the shore, a grey kangaroo stands by the waters edge as motionless as a figure carved in stone, looking at the boat with wondering eyes. Suddenly it is gone, thudding through the dense, brittle scrub and startling the birds. Overhead comes a flight of swans, formed in a phalanx. Their long necks stretched out and their heads turned to the settling sun. Hardly a drip comes from the oars as they lift from the still water. It is all magically beautiful, and ought to be allowed to remain undisturbed for the next hundred years a paradise from which guns are barred, or any other weapon more deadly than a scout knife of a fish-hook.

Can any-one tell us does the Grey Harmonica still inhabit Bribie, or has any-one seen the beche-de-mer?

SCEC is the umbrella organisation of more than 50 community groups. In this issue of Eco, we look at a member group from the beleaguered Bribie Island.

Members of the Bribie Island Environmental Protection Association

Rampant development can be a juggernaut that crushes eco-systems in its path, but on Bribie Island a community group is managing to apply the brakes.

The Bribie Island Environmental Protection Association Inc (BIEPA) has been fighting to keep the island’s natural assets safe forever, and has notched up some impressive wins in its 30 year history.

Bribie Island is the only island in Queensland connected by bridge to the mainland, and being close to Brisbane, it is well in the firing line of creeping urbanisation. Housing estates and canal developments have had a huge ecological impact. Much of the interior is a monoculture of sterile pine forest, and a far cry from what artist Ian Fairweather described as Bribie’s “friendly bush” where he painted many masterpieces.

BIEPA’s role in protecting some of this friendly bush has been crucial.

A good example is the preservation of Lot 402. This 37 hectare block of untouched bushland in the island’s south had the highest conservation rating of any block in the Caboolture Shire. It’s a beautiful mosaic of eucalyptus, tea-tree and banksia forest and wallum heath. Then in 1998 a developer persuaded Council to rezone – to change its classification from Open Space to Urban Designation.

Galvanised by a strong community spirit and representing themselves in court, BIEPA lodged a successful appeal with the Planning and Environment Court. Lot 402 was saved from urbanisation, and this year, along with other parts of Bribie totalling 3690 hectares, was gazetted as national park. This took the total area of national park to nearly 10,000 hectares, or about half the area of the island.

Another notable victory involved Buckley’s Hole, a freshwater lake close to the ocean, and one of Queensland’s top birding sites with over 280 species recorded. Just the place for a marina, some thought, until BIEPA managed to have the Hole and surrounding area protected as a conservation park in 1992.

Strong community participation is the key to the BIEPA’s effectiveness, according to President Ian Bell.

“We have over 240 members who are passionate, determined and contribute all sorts of skills, such as technical expertise, which has given us credibility and some influence with government ministers and bureaucrats.

“We also link with other organisations including the Bribie Island Community Association and Friends of Woorim Beach on issues of common concern.

“BIEPA’s vision for Bribie is a special natural area where a vibrant and cohesive community can live in harmony with the wonders of our national parks and marine parks and Ramsar areas.

“A community-led approach to development and proper community consultation is essential if we are to achieve this.”

As part of community engagement, the group sponsors a wildlife carer on the island, as well as environmental awards to local schools.

BIEPA’s regular meetings often feature a guest speaker. Recently dugong authority Dr Janet Lanyon gave a talk on the plight of this threatened creature. Where Pumicestone Passage was once home to huge herds, now a mere dozen remain, and they may soon be as impossible to sight in the Passage as the mermaid, the legendary creature described by early European sailors when seeing a dugong from a distance.

Harassed by speeding boats and jet skis, dugongs face a major threat from the algae lyngbya majuscula, commonly known as fireweed or mermaid’s hair. It’s a toxin best avoided by swimmers, and can blanket sea grass beds, the dugong’s food source.

There was an unprecedented outbreak of the deadly algae in Pumicestone Passage last year, with Council harvesting 6000 tonnes and trucking it to landfill sites. It’s thought that high water temperatures combined with massive nutrient loads – phosphorous, nitrogen, iron and dissolved organic matter, are responsible.

Many more threats to Bribie’s environment keep BIEPA busy.

Coastal erosion, especially on the southern side of the ocean beach, is a significant issue, and likely to increase as climate change generates rising sea levels and more storm surges.

As part of the SEQ Water Grid Plan, Caboolture Council last year began the Bribie Bores project, which involves extracting fresh water from underground aquifers. Community consultation was zero and no environmental impact studies were done.  BIEPA has identified risks of seawater intrusion and lowering of the water table, with possible devastating consequences for plant communities and associated fauna of Bribie’s delicate wetlands.

Another disturbing proposal involves a desalination plant on the eastern shore. BIEPA is concerned with high tension power pylons creating an ugly blight on Bribie’s holiday skyline, and the effect of concentrated saline discharge on marine life.

Challenges for the future revolve around Moreton Council’s Town Plan, which doesn’t effectively recognise Bribie’s unique features, according to Ian Bell.

“Moreton’s growth rate of 3.3 per cent is a real concern. If maintained it will cause the population to double within 21 years,” he said.

“If environmental impacts double as well, how can we retain dugongs and other iconic marine species such as turtles in Pumicestone Passage?

“Exponential population growth must be curbed if we are to successfully manage environmental threats in the region,” said Mr Bell.