THE TWEED Volume 2 #39 Thursday, June 10, 2010 Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au www.tweedecho.com.au
LOCAL & INDEPENDENT
Page 11
Illegal clearing to be probed Ken Sapwell
A small army or workers used chainsaws, brush cutters and a spray last week to clear protected areas of a contentious development site at Hastings Point ahead of an inspection by Department of Planning officials. Tweed Shire Council’s compliance officers ordered the work to cease on Friday when they visited the 18hectare creek-front property after residents complained a day earlier of workers using the tools to slash areas of regrowth in a riparian buffer zone. A council spokesperson said the officers confirmed that work was being carried out in an environmental protection zone without consent. The workers had cooperated with the cease-work order and the council would now ‘consider what action to take’.
‘Maintenance work’ ‘When officers attended the site (they) noted that branches and limbs had been trimmed in the 7(a) zone,’ the spokesman said in a statement. A spokesman for the land owner, Walter Elliott Holdings, said only maintenance work was being carried out. But residents, who’ve been locked in a long-running battle with the landowner, say the clearing, which coincided with World Environment Day, extended beyond normal maintenance and pruning of some tree branches. ‘A few workmen arrived on Thursday with a ride-on mower and whipper-snipper and started clearing vegetation in the buffer zone,’ said one resident who photographed the unfolding events but asked that his name
not be used after copping abuse the next day from a few of the workers. ‘They mowed down small regrowth trees and trimmed branches off others. The next day at least eight workers arrived on the scene armed with some heavy artillery and really got stuck in until council staff arrived in the afternoon to tell them to stop. ‘They brought in a container loaded with chainsaws, brush cutters and steel-bladed whipper-snippers and began thinning a dense littoral forest area next to the estuary where migratory birds could nest. ‘They were cutting the tree branches to provide better access for their equipment and one worker with a spray pack was seen spraying in the environment protection zone along a fence line erected among salt marshes and mangroves.’ Hastings Point Progress Association’s lawyer said the Department of Planning had confirmed that it planned an on-site inspection later this month to further process the company’s application to develop the site into 36 housing lots and two tourist lots, with 14 hectares of mainly 7(a) land reserved for open space. The development application, which has been in the department’s hands for about two years, is strongly opposed by the association which believes it will further degrade the creek and worsen flooding of nearby homes and a caravan park – flooding which already occurs after heavy rain. Residents have complained several times about clearing activities by the developer since he acquired the site 10 years ago, but only one had led to a successful court prosecution for the
Sun shines bright on environment day Mr Recycle was a standout participant at World Environment Day celebrations in Murwillumbah’s Knox Park last Sunday. The man behind the mascot, William Davies, promotes recycling with a passion, saying government refunds for post-consumer recyclables are the key to reducing carbon emissions and environmental impact. Photo Jeff ‘Box Camera’ Dawson Luis Feliu
Hundreds of people turned out to enjoy sunshine-filled World Environment Day celebrations in Murwillumbah’s Knox Park last Sunday. Environmental experts, information stalls, demonstrations, petitions, installations, food and entertainment kept many Tweed locals interested in their environment and sustainability during the 10th annual event organised by the Caldera Environment Centre, Tweed Council and other community groups. A keynote speaker, Janis Birkeland, a professor of architecture at Queensland University of Technology, told a workshop that changes were urgently needed in the way communities approached development, saying ‘we’ve already overstretched our environcontinued on page 2 mental carrying capacity’.
Professor Birkeland, author of Positive Development, was invited to address a council workshop recently by Greens Cr Katie Milne but was turned down by the mostly prodevelopment councillors. Cr Milne, the only councillor to attend the environment day celebrations, agreed with Professor Birkeland’s views on how best to ‘retrofit’ a built environment to reduce the heat generated by too much concrete and steel. ‘There is a four-to-five degree increase in heat in the cities and urban areas compared with rural areas, generated by too much concrete development and not enough vegetation’ Cr Milne said. ‘It’s really become a health issue now as thousands of people die from heat stroke in cities around the world as a result,’ Cr Milne said.
‘We need to retrofit the area with green walls and roofs. It’s very easy, you wrap a building with “green scaffolding” and grow plants up and around it, with water filtration built in to become a whole cycle which has zero impact on the environment. ‘They should be living buildings created as part of the whole ecosystem, it’s called “vertical landscaping”,’ she said. At a stall run by koala campaigners, Team Koala president Jenny Hayes was collecting signatures for a petition to protect koalas in the Tweed. She praised Tweed-based ecologist Dr Stephen Phillips as ‘the best friend the koalas have in this area. If the developers of Kings Forest had followed his koala friendly plan in the first place, Team Koala would never have had to form,’ she said. ■ More pictures, page 6
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