Plea for a community designed project working with Council
Phone 07 3371 9355 or Email
3 October 2003
I have suggested therefore that the waterways and edges should be subject to a series of community projects working with Council expert officers and following the various waterways and bushcare models. It is imperative that Council treats this asset as a major ecological and environmental site and part of a complex that includes UQ, and from UQ, the river edge all the way to the Indooroopilly bridges, and beyond, and includes Long Pocket and the golf courses as well as the area up Sandy Creek through Robertson and Lex Ord Parks and the Indooroopilly State High School, St Peters and the soccer ground. The golf course is right in the middle, a vital link if ever there was one.
Therefore, given Council's ownership of the golf course, it is EXTREMELY surprising that, according to Council advice I understand was given to Cr Prentice, there has been no ecological or environmental study or audit carried out for the property.
In other words, despite the rhetoric of concern for things green and wet, here is Council ignoring its own rhetoric....!
Clearly NO MORE work should be carried out in the golf course (and that includes "the fence", bush clearing etc) until a full and public ecological audit has been carried out. Council simply does not know how many plant species, birds or whatever live or use the course.
Who enjoys the distant wailing of the curlews or the crack of the whipbirds? How many bird species have been recorded in the golf course?
However we, the community, know that the tortoises have all but disappeared due to Council's mis-management of Sandy Creek as a drain and its management of the golf course only to meet the needs of golfers...!
So no more broad-area and indiscriminate spraying with poisons in the creeks and bush margins, no more removal of the edge grasslands, no more cutting of the reedbeds, no more filling and (illegal?) dumping in the dry gullies, no more removal of trees, no more piling of green waste and weeds, etc.
It IS time for a change ... time for Council to take responsibility for the bigger picture issues, not just concern about building "the fence" ....!
I have prepared two sets of photos which are sent separately to this as some people may have computers that will not receive large emails.
The first set of photos shows how Council is treating this area using examples from Sandy Creek ... spray the weeds and everything else, allow it to rot, then allow it to wash to Moreton Bay ... no different to putting the lawn clippings down the drain ... yet Council does not want us to do the latter and spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on "educational campaigns" and advertising and specialised expert officers in Council whose job includes seeing "we" do the right thing ... but not Council?
I have not included photos of Councils waste dumps yet Council officers are very critical (and rightly) of people who dump their lawn clippings and weeds etc in bushland, no matter what the quality. Why does Council do what it asks the community not to do? There are also very good pictures of the weed infested areas and the bush margins being eroded etc.
More importantly, the danger in drawing attention to these "illegal" or undesirable practices lies in those responsible rushing out and creating even more vandalism by trying to hide or remove the evidence. Fortunately, enough people have seen the various sites, on walks or through the many photos people have taken, so any change by Council will be obvious....!
Michael Yeates
Photos...
