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| Macquarie Uni young scientists gather to present the findings of their week long intensive applied research methodologies |
On
Friday 15 April, I had the great pleasure to attend a presentation at Huskisson
Community Center.
Five
teams of post graduate scientist have been very busy during this last week in
Huskisson looking at a variety of Environmental issues affecting our coast. The
five topics were Social perspectives, water quality, aquatic ecology, coastal
geomorphology, terrestrial ecology.
The
5 groups presented the findings from their research during the week. With about
40 young scientist in the room I was prepared to be way out of my comfort zone and
perhaps lost in scientific talk, but of the presentations I was able to attend,
the data presented was very easy to access and interesting. All students had
involvement in each topic as the objective of the week was to reinforce the
application of research methodologies.
Fortunately
for Shoalhaven City Council, Macquarie University has agreed to share this
information with Council staff as it is mostly relevant to the work that
Council does.
The
first presentation is most close to my own area of expertise Social Science. A
survey had been developed to gather information about how people felt towards Jervis
Bay, the Marine Park and towards litter in the area.
The
hot topic of the day at Council is Dune management along Collingwood Beach so
the responses in respect to dune management were of high interest to me. In the
Shoalhaven the discussion on dune vegetation has become so polarized it is extremely
difficult to find any common ground on management strategies. That polarization stems around some (not all) beach front property owners wanting Council to
clear the vegetation on the dunes to preserve views. Along the Collingwood
Beach dune there is evidence of illegal clearing and vegetation damage due to
poisoning.
Over
the week the Scientist were able to survey a statistically significant group of
348 people who demographically were closely aligned to our census data and
equally importantly were a pretty good split of 52/48 in percentage of
residents to visitors.
What
was very clear from the survey results was more that 88%+ of the people
surveyed valued the area for its natural beauty and scenic environment and that
walking and swimming were the most popular activities undertaken. The survey
respondents had a high knowledge of the existence of the marine park, they also
considered that litter in the area was most likely generated by the human
activity rather than from marine debris- this was further qualified and
quantified by the litter group.
In
respect to dune management 25% of respondents had a lower level of
understanding what dune management was about, but they did understand why dunes
were important.
When
reporting back to the collective the scientist were genuinely surprised that
90% of respondents thought that the dunes should be ‘managed for stability and
ecological purposes’ and that they either holidayed or settled in the area for
the natural aesthetic – the scenic environment and natural beauty. These
respondents also understood that illegal clearing was one of the top methods of
damaging dunes.
The
options given to the respondents were
Should
the dunes be…
Maintained for views
Maintained for stability
Maintained for bird and animal habitat
(ecological purposes)
Maintained for recreation
These
findings need to be taken into consideration as Shoalhaven City Council go
about setting its future direction for dune vegetation management, the findings
are not insignificant and with some further analysis would closely align to the
attitude that Council encountered in its early rounds of consultation in
respect to the current draft dune
management plan which set about to try and find some common ground and
compromise around illegal clearing, views, maintaining vegetation and dune
stability.
With
the attitude of tourists similarly aligned to the residents in respect to managing
dunes for stability and ecological purpose, Council needs to value the opinions
of the variety of tourists who visit our coast and see our vegetated dunes as
part of our delight. Managing for stability and ecological purpose will also
help protect the tourism ‘product’ that has be parleyed into the #unspoilt
#Shoalhaven tourism campaign.
Litter.
The
second presentation looked at mapping litter in and around Jervis Bay beaches with
some control beaches just outside the area. The teams gathered litter that they
found in different beach area’s and also measured the quantity of micro
plastics within the sand by passing it through a 2mm sieve. They quickly
realised that marine debris is currently not a huge issue in and around Jervis
Bay. However the human debris was a different issue with the cigarette butt being
a huge problem for Collingwood and Sanctuary Point Beaches which were the worst
of those surveyed. The group offered suggestions from butt bins, to
multilingual education signs and increased ranger presence. Overall though the
beaches within the Bay were very clean on a global standard.
Aquatic
Ecology was the last presentation I was able to attend. They scientists looked
at marine biodiversity on rocky reefs and shores- in a nutshell their brief
survey showed that in marine sanctuary zones biodiversity was improving- this
backs up the ongoing data that is being collected by the Marine Park authority through
a number of scientific sources.
