25/11/2022
Have you done your submission on the Toondah draft EIS to help stop this disastrous development?
It really doesn’t take long, here’s an example of one below. There are other good points and content on the website too. Every submission will have to be responded to by Walker Corporation and be recorded by the department so we need everyone who cares to submit!! Now is the time. If you have any objection to the environmental or social impact of a 3,600 unit marina development beings constructed over two decades on the Cleveland foreshore - please please write your submission before 6 December 2022.
This is a submission on the Toondah Draft EIS sent to Save Straddie. The submitter agreed to publication without identifying details. It is a good example of a short, personal submission. We encourage everyone to send short or long submissions on the Draft EIS to [email protected] before 6 December.
"Submission- Toondah Harbour: Draft EIS for EPBC Act Referral 2018/8225
I have holidayed and resided on North Stradbroke Island (aka Minjerribah, Terangeri) for many years. The island has played a large role in the lives of our family, children and grandchildren. Crossing Moreton Bay by boat or vehicle ferry is a defining experience of times spent at Straddie.
We enjoy the vistas and the changing moods of the bay. Spotting birdlife and sea-life is of great interest to all of us. Home to a myriad of creatures- dolphins, dugongs, turtles, even whales at times, Moreton Bay’s life-giving mud flats and mangroves are also the destination for migratory birds, many threatened and some, like the Eastern Curlew and Great Knot, critically endangered.
The bay is a functioning, important ecosystem and has been recognised as such by the World Ramsar Convention since 1993. Our family want to continue to experience nature close to our city. I hope our grandchildren and their children will continue to have this connection with the natural world and that the Moreton Bay Ramsar Site will continue to be a protected area in perpetuity for the benefit of all.
Of course the crux of the issue in relation to this development is that this EIS is an attempt by real estate developers and political donors, Walker Corporation (Walker), to distort and intrude on the existing Ramsar protections in order to build on top of and within the boundary of a wetland of international significance. This has never been done in the way this company is attempting in any of the 170 countries (including Australia) who have signed the Ramsar Convention.
The Ramsar Convention makes it clear that the total destruction, even annihilation, of an area as planned at Toondah Wetlands is not sanctioned. Australia has within its own environment laws a section which insists on the Government Environment Minister not acting inconsistently with Australia’s obligations under the Ramsar Convention. Article 2.5 of the Convention and Section 138 of the EPBC Act make clear the Minister must reject this development scheme.
The only way building on top of this intact wetland, and thereby restricting the Ramsar boundary, is possible is if it is argued that the project would be in the ‘urgent national interest’. Walker has not attempted to make a case for this and the Queensland State Government as manager of the site has stated that there is no justification for changing the boundary.
It would be absurd to accept that any real estate project especially on a wetland inundated at high tide would be in anyone’s interest apart from those that seek commercial benefit. Walker in their long running attempt to pursue this development is revealed in the EIS document to be ignoring the EPBC act and Ramsar rules by suggesting they are somehow excluded from rules that have preserved wetlands worldwide.
Wetlands have been considered of importance for many reasons but more recent research has demonstrated their role in capturing and storing organic carbon via algae, seagrass, mangroves and salt marshes. The Toondah wetlands containing all these components are an excellent example of a Blue Carbon system. The preservation of these wetlands is in our national interest."
If you would like to have a read of other possible submission points see our website guidelines - https://savestraddie.com/guidelines-for-submissions-on-toondah-harbour-draft-environmental-impact-statement-eis/
