Maquarie University Young Scientist Survey Huskisson

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.