Elder Malcolm Burns welcomed us to country with his
understanding of the role of country and the way in which our indigenous
people relate to it. Interestingly he focused on how in traditional times,
the Butchella would concentrate on managing the
impacts on both themselves and their guests and visitors on the environment.
Some things have not changed.
Professor Bruce Thom emphasized that long associations
with Fraser Island are important. He reminded us that shifting sands make and
remake the island. All of Australia is moving and populations within Australia
are moving, this leads to battles for contested space.
Examples include Fraser Island, Shark Bay, the Kimberly and the Courong. This attracts to the cause people such as Judith
Wright and Tim Winton.
Australia
faces particular challenges because 86 % of the population live within 50km of
the sea.
The main
5 power challenges are:
1. The dominant growth paradigm
2. Population growth (especially on
the Coast)
3. Legacy’s of the past. Example:
weeds
4. Institutional disfunctionality
including the Governments arrangement and the three layers of Government.
5. Climate change.
Recent positives include growing federal awareness of issues indicated by
such things as the Department of Climate change. Questions for the future are
how to get results and meet the challenges that are still there and always will
be.
Dr. Terry Brown discussed the capacity of Fraser
Island to support people. It is interesting that the leader of Sustainable
Visitor Capacity report only could see a copy of it after FOI on the EPA to
find out what happened to the process or why it has apparently disappeared into
the ether. Dr Brown reminded us that there is a shortage of places within South
East Queensland where people can just fish, camp, swim and enjoy nature.
He
emphasized that numbers matter and managing people as part of the eco-system is
a large part of the function of the EPA. Numbers promotes the management of
conservation through the effective management of recreation. Dr Brown took us
through how the SVC was established as part of a consultative group visiting
every site and rating it. The SVC numbers were to be reviewed every five years
and two example sites referred to are Basin Lake where is was thought to have
passed its sustainable visitor capacity which should be reduced and Lake
McKenzie where there may be some residual capacity.
The fact
that nothing has happened in relation to the SVC reminds us that the decision
by the EPA to do nothing is in fact a decision to do something. That is, to leave
the status quo in place.
The next
speaker was Greg Carter. Greg was a EPA employee who now works in New Zealand. Greg explained
the cultural differences that New Zealand has to Queensland which has lead to
there being a large number of Huts in New Zealand national parks.
In New
Zealand they have three levels of huts:
· Basic – which are generally two bunks.
· Standard – six bunks, double
insulated.
· Serviced – up to thirty-two
bunks, with wood and cleaned.
The
system for payment is an honour system where people can pay $90 per year or anywhere between $5 - $15 per night. Greg showed us reports
which that showed the use of huts lead to less seasonal variation and thus
increased site capacity that reduced impact and greater preference for females
for huts.
He also
showed that the greatest user of both huts and camping were 18 – 35 year olds
and that people outside this group were also more likely to use huts. Huts have
a smaller environmental footprint, less seasonal variation, they have less
equipment provided and they facilitated longer stays on the track. I contrasted
this to a couple at Cooloola who we met on a recent walk who had a 4WD campervan
and travelled as turtlebacks. We saw them at Harry’s
Hut, Freshwater and Bymien and even though they were travelling
by 4WD and we were walking we saw them three times over three days.
The next
speaker was Dr Wade Hadwen.
Wades research on perched lakes asked the question ‘Can tourists adversely
affect the ecology at the Lakes?’
One of
the most interesting aspects of this study was a small demographic research
effort done on the shores of Lake McKenzie that showed 81% of visitors were 18
– 35 year olds and more than 60 % were international travellers. 80% were first
times. 96% were had or were intending to go swimming, most of them though 76%
for less than 30 minutes. 70 % had a preference for a clear lake. The inherent
difficulty in managing a large young group who are not familiar with the island
ecology and will probably never come back that is obvious.
Wade’s
research discovered that the Lakes had very low levels of nutrient so low in
fact that everything that was added by the people was snapped up by algae. He
also established of his testing of the lakes that every lake is unique and
comparisons cannot be made between them. He showed that as summer progresses
the tourist numbers increase and so does the amount of algae.
He
conducted a test where he applied a trace chemical and stimulated weeing in a small area of the lake within 10 days there was
a strong biomass response showing from the trace of that all the excess
nutrients from stimulated weeing had been picked up.
His overall conclusion that the clear lakes are the most attractive and
vulnerable and peeing in the water is enough to cause an alga response.
The next
speaker was the minister The Honourable
Kate Jones MP who officially opened the conference. She specifically
mentioned that Billy Watts, former secretary of FIDA was a mentor and
inspiration for her. Billy Watts of course is also long associated with Fraser
Island from the fact that her father surveyed surveyed
Fraser Island and in fact surveyed AB Lake now Lake Allom.
The Minister discussed the sustainable carrying capacity of the Island and
Dingo interaction. She also revealed the department had done some preliminary
water testing and the early results from McKenzie, Basin, Allen and White Lakes
were that the water was effectively clean. It was noted that there was an algae
in Lake Allen. Commit was made to further regular testing.
She
mentioned that the Federal Government had given some increase in investment
from $8,000 in 2003 to $1.8 million in 2009. $2.8 million is to be spent on
Lake McKenzie that spent on toilets. There is also some money to be spent on
portable loos for the Eastern Beach and $470,000 for Central Station. The Eli Creek
board walk is to be re-built and extended. It is to be noted that this board
walk is the first piece of hard infrastructure provided on the Island that was
actually built by FIDO using volunteer labour.
The next
speaker was Dr Bill Carter who
presented some very early work on testing what is in the water. He posed the
question after observing a number of people camping on the eastern beach a
survey summary reveals that there are probably (based on the number of campers
and the number of nights spent) 4.3kilograms of faeces and 18.3 litres of urine
for every meter of the beach. The question was, “What effect is this having on
the water?”.
Five
creeks were tested from a depth on one metres to the water table overall there
was 1.4 to 7.3 times the nutrient level, chloroforms were 31 times the level
and the unique choprostinol human maker was 5.3 times
the normal level. 56 – 100 % of all camping failed the tests of acceptable
levels on average. Beach flows were also tested and shown to be better but
still somewhat high. Dr Carter emphasized that there was a low number of
samples with high variability but it was clear that there was a build up of
nutrients with some residual effects. His observations that the plant life
around the common camping areas were literally ‘the grass is always greener’
would indicate that the peeing in the bushes is having an effect on the island.
His main concern was there needed to be further and more detailed testing in
order to establish the strength of these links and remedial possible
action.
Next
speaker was Dr Noam Levin from
Israel. In relation to shifting sands he gave interesting talk on the fact that
they really are. The Island is dynamic and is one of the few places where you
can observe the geological events in our own life time. He talked about the two
different types of sand blows, that is Detached - cut off from the beach and Coastal – still connected to beach. He
surveyed aerial photos and looked at weather reports over a period of time.
In 1982
there has been a dramatic decrease in both the size and movement rates of sand
blows. The wind direction in according to his research has not changed much.
The overall wind pressure during that period measured by the variable called DP
has dropped from 2000 to 500. There is a strong correlation with DP and the
area change observed from aerial photographs in
the size of sand blows. There are also fewer and weaker cyclones and the average
movement rate has dropped from 8 metres a year to 1 metre a year. He’s
hypothesis is that cyclones have a strong role in creating and moving sand
blows.
Adam O’Neil gave a very interesting talk on
dingos addressing the Top down regulation
by the top predator. He showed us that you didn’t need to be a PhD in order
to discover and share valuable information relevant to conservation. He’s been
involved in saving endangered species such as bilbys and
the Marla and he’s written the book ‘Living with Dingos’. Along with his
partner he’s made a study and survey throughout Australia about the habits of
dingos and shown us some significant contribution that can be made by lazy land
holders. These were people that hadn’t bated their foxes and therefore the
dingos were still around and have suppressed the lower level predators
resulting in the fact that that endangered species were more likely to be found
where there were dingos. Where there were no dingos, the middle predators and
grazers over powered the endanger species.
The last
speaker was Peter Stanton who spoke
of fire management on Fraser Island. His paper is available on the FIDO
website. Peter’s talk was very interesting from the point of view of the need
to actually change things from the ground, that is to make things happen rather
than simply planning them or failing to plan them and failing to do them.
He
emphasized the importance of actually doing or trying something, anything
however small as long as it’s a move in the right direction. It is inevitable
he says that we should test, probe and experiment every act of burning is doing
research and contributes towards knowledge. We need to accept that there will
be mistakes and learn from them. He said our fear of fire and our fear of doing
something wrong is promoting inaction.
Three
issues that fire are very important for is the fire management is important for
is:
1. Preservation of life and
property;
2. reducing the risk of a single
large intense fire;
3. weed control.
His
talk reminds us again of the need for the long association with the Island in a
world to learn about fire patterns in an area. He’s commented on the fact that
shifting rangers from place to place on short term means much of the knowledge
is lost.
Again the
need for long associations and experience shows us that Malcolm’s mob the Butchella had a long time to learn and practice their fire
management skills. It is ironic though that Malcolm’s surname is Burns.
FIDO’s
fourth biannual conference will be held in 2011 at which time FIDO will be
forty years old. We are hoping to do a photo research project in much the same
way as Dr Noam Levin did to show how Fraser Island has changed over that forty years. It is interesting to note that the person
most directly responsible for the Island, The Minister herself, is not as old as
FIDO is itself.