IMPACT OF BEACH DRIVING ON BRIBIE ISLAND AND BRIBIE ISLANDERS

In November 2021, the Bribie Island Environmental Protection Association (BIEPA) and the School of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Queensland (UQ) entered into a partnership to study the impacts of Off-Road Vehicle (ORV) driving on Bribie’s beaches. The impacts studied have included impacts on First Nations Heritage, impacts on the beach environment above and below high tide, impacts on the local Bribie economy, and social impacts including impacts on the health and lifestyle of affected residents. Articles relating to this study have been previously published in The Bribie Islander on Jan 14, 2022 (scope of the project) and on July 29, 2022 (impact on First Nations Heritage and on the environment). This article assesses the impact of beach driving on the local Bribie economy.

Numerous concerns have been raised over many years by concerned Bribie Islanders and visitors to Bribie Island about the negative impacts that beach driving is having on Bribie Island. Numerous representations have been made to Local, State and Federal Government representatives requesting action on this issue. In 2021, a petition to the state minister for Environment calling for some modest restrictions attracted over 28,000 signatures. However, these efforts have resulted in only minimal changes. The petition included a list of nearly 50 research articles from around the world that detail the negative impacts of beach driving. But one of the Minister’s senior advisors said this research was irrelevant as it was not conducted on Bribie. As a result, the study with UQ was initiated. Research for this project has been undertaken by a mix of graduate and undergraduate students. The study on economic impacts was undertaken by two master's students who are both graduates in business and economics – one from McGill University and one from Beijing Technology and

Business University.

Despite the many claims made that beach driving makes a significant contribution to the local economy, the researchers were unable to find any published reports that would support that claim. If some government department or agency has conducted such a study, it has not been published and/or made available to the UQ researchers for their research. So they had to review various published materials and extract any relevant data, and then supplement that data with some field observations.

A recent State Government study by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) shows that approximately 80% of the visitors to the Moreton Bay area were day visitors. PwC shows that overnight visitors actually stayed for an average of around 4.5 days. MBRC’s tourism arm, MBRIT, estimates that around 840,000 visitors came to Bribie in 2021. MBRIT further estimates that each tourist to MBRC spent an average of $330. But it is not clear what MBRIT includes in those numbers.

The Federal Government’s Tourism Research Australia (TRA) estimates the average spend of day tourists at around $81/day and the average spend of overnight tourists is around $425. Using these numbers, the estimate of annual tourist spending in Bribie ranges from $118m (using TRA data) to $240m (MBRIT).

The methodology used by TRA is open and transparent and disciplined and is probably a better estimate of spending.

At a conference here on Bribie last year, State Department of Environment (DOE) consultants, EarthCheck, estimated that around 85,000 vehicles would travel on Bribie’s beaches in 2022. The DOE advises that approximately 15% of the beach permits issued are held by residents of the area. So using estimates by UQ researchers of the number of beach-driving vehicles that stop to purchase goods and services on Bribie, and estimates of the number of people in those vehicles, the researchers estimated that around 75,000 beach drivers made purchases that contributed to the local economy. This results in an estimate of the contribution to the local economy by beach drivers of around $6m - $8m (or around 5% of the total spend by tourists on Bribie using the TRA numbers). While this may seem a sizeable number, there are some costs that have to be taken into account. Taxes have to be paid. MBRC ratepayers have had to install and maintain traffic calming devices along the access streets as a result of this traffic. MBRC ratepayers also have to pay for emptying garbage bins and additional sand removal from the access routes. And there is extra overtime for QPWS Rangers and for Queensland Police. When all these and other costs are taken into account, there is a strong implication here that beach driving may have no real economic impact on Bribie’s economy and may even be a cost to taxpayers. That conclusion is not all that surprising. That was the experience in South Africa where beach driving was banned in 2002. It was found that banning beach driving had a significant positive economic benefit.

Those wishing to obtain further information on this project can contact the co-supervisor Professor Paul Dargusch or John Oxenford at contact@biepa.online