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NATIONAL PARKS ARE NOW “NATIONAL PARK” IN NAME ONLY.

Breaking a pre-election promise, the Palaszczuk government innovated the Nature Conservation Act to allow Big Tourism on Hinchinbrook Island (as boasted by Innovation Minister Kate Jones on ABC TV).

Big Tourism disrespects village communities and their sustainable lifestyle and economy. Big Tourism would rob Cardwell, Lucinda and Dungeness of their economic and social connections with one of the world’s greatest treasures, and their greatest treasure, Hinchinbrook Island.

Hinchinbrook Island’s wilderness value benefits Cardwell by generating tourism business for locals – but only while it remains a non-residential and low-visitation destination.
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CONTACT: Margaret Moorhouse (Mob) 0427 724 052 email: [email protected]
 
Photos:
White shoes – Hinchinbrook Campaign postcard 1990s - ASH files 
Black shoes –"Former rivals Geoff Dixon and Brett Godfrey partner in walking tourism venture"   Australian Financial Review Magazine 24 Nov 2016 

Queensland Government wants built accommodation OUTSIDE resort lease – on self-reliant WILDERNESS walk!   
The last time we called HANDS OFF HINCHINBROOK! was in the 1990s – to protect Hinchinbrook Island from the depredations of white shoe brigader Keith Williams. Williams wanted track hardening of the Thorsborne Trail, rock walled harbours and other built infrastructure on Hinchinbrook Island - outside the resort lease.

By Anthony Brown

BRISBANE — After the receivers moved in on his Hamilton Island resort in 1992, infamous Queensland developer Keith Williams started looking around for another part of North Queensland in which to open up his brand of tourism.

He found the site of a failed resort development on the Queensland coast about 250 kilometres south of Cairns at Oyster Point, Cardwell. In 1985, Tekin Australia Ltd proposed a marina-based resort for the site. In 1990, Tekin backed by the ill-fated Victorian Pyramid Building Society, went bust and the development was aborted leaving a cleared site with a partly excavated boat harbour.

Tekin was floated by two former business associates of Williams — Williams' accountant Bob Murphy and his insurance broker, Roland Elems — and an old friend, Jeff Leigh-Smith, whose family developed Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast.

In 1992, Williams, through his company Cardwell Properties, bought the development along with the existing development permits. Over the next seven to ten years he plans to build a $100 million, 1000-room three- or four-star resort with a 250-berth marina. He also plans to have railway day-trips from Cairns to the resort and day-trips from the resort to the Great Barrier Reef and its islands. Williams boasts that "Port Hinchinbrook" will be the largest resort development in Australia.

The development site is next to two areas listed on the Register of the National Estate: the Cardwell Range and the Great Barrier Reef, both protected by World Heritage Listing. It also overlooks the Hinchinbrook Channel, a Queensland Marine Park managed by the state Department of Environment and Heritage, and the world's largest island national park, Hinchinbrook Island. On the mainland, it is surrounded by a multitude of national parks and state forests all within the Wet Tropics Management Area.

Conservationists are concerned that Williams' development will devastate the local natural environments which support species including dugongs, sea-turtles (the Hinchinbrook Channel alone provides suitable habitat for four sea-turtle species listed on the Australian endangered species' list) and dolphins. They are also worried about the effect the dredge spoil will have on sea ecosystems.

The proposed marina will be excavated on site and connected to the Hinchinbrook Channel by an access channel which will extend to the edge of the tidal flat. This will mean an initial dredging of 64,OOO cubic metres of soil with a planned annual maintenance dredging of 35,000 cubic metres. Williams also plans to remove 6.4 hectares of mangroves, some over 60 years old, to provide a better beach frontage.
Conservationists have pointed out that Williams has failed to provide adequate information on how he proposes to treat the resort's sewage other than stating he would work with Cardwell Shire Council.
Local Aboriginal communities are also angry that they have not been consulted and fear that several important Heritage sites may be threatened.

Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (WPSQ) Director Adrian Jeffreys said conservation groups were mainly concerned about the size of the proposed resort. He said that a draft management plan for Hinchinbrook Island prepared by the Department of Environment and Heritage recognises its environmental importance and indicates that environmental values will be maintained "only if limits are placed on visitor numbers". The suggested total daily limit is approximately 200 people.

"Reports prepared by the developer indicate that, at completion, Port Hinchinbrook will generate a demand for visits to offshore sites of at least 800 people per day. Not only will this displace all existing tour operators, but Hinchinbrook Island is likely to come under damaging pressure."

No social impact assessments have yet been undertaken, but a majority of Cardwell's 1600 residents appear to support the development.

The Goss government did not carry out a standard environmental impact study of the proposed development. It now tries to justify this by saying that Williams had bought a degraded site which already had some development permits. This amazed many conservationists, including WPSQ Tully branch secretary Sue Smith who has accused the government of "fast tracking" approvals for the development.

"There appears to be an inordinate haste to push through the approvals for the development so that dredging (for the marina and canal) can take place in this year's dry season," she said.

Instead of having the environmental impacts of the proposal reviewed — standard procedure by the Department of Environment and Heritage — the Goss government turned it over to its Coordinator General's Department, which prepared an Environmental Review Report.

During a federal Senate Estimates Committee hearing into the Great Barrier Marine Park Authority in May, the committee's chair, Senator Margaret Reynolds asked the Marine Park's executive officer, Wendy Craik, why the state government had not prepared a full environmental impact statement. Craik replied: "I cannot answer that question".

When asked why the Queensland Coordinator General's Office, not the Department of Environment and Heritage, was reviewing the proposal, Craik said she was not privy to why but that there were other instances of this having occurred.

The Environmental Review Report released by the Coordinator General's Office in early May came as no great surprise to conservationists. It found no evidence to suggest that the Williams' development would have adverse effects on the local environment.

Conservationists argue that the report is not a standard environmental impact assessment and that the Coordinator General's Office staff are not properly trained in assessment procedures.

WPSQ director Adrian Jeffreys described the government's approval of the development as "a joke" and demanded the abolition of the Office of Coordinator General.

Conservationists are most annoyed that the review even concedes that "it does not have sufficient information to adequately quantify all potential impacts of such a project in the area".

After releasing the report, the Office of the Coordinator General called for public comment and received 200 submissions on the proposed development; 193 came from the public who were dealt with by two staff in a record nine days.

In response to the state government's environmental review, the assistant secretary of the World Heritage Unit, Gerard Early wrote a scathing letter to the Office of the Coordinator General saying the review failed to "address fundamental environmental assessment criteria"
Early also said he was concerned about the potential impact of tourism generated from the marina on the Hinchinbrook Channel and the adjacent areas of the Great Barrier Reef. He said the Environmental Review Report implied that the viability of the project "may depend on the success of the developer's applications for extensions to existing limits [on tourists] or increases to the number of permits". Early also called on the state government to delay giving the green light until a "much more comprehensive assessment of the proposal was undertaken".

In late June, federal environment minister John Faulkner said his government was prepared to step in if the project threatened world heritage values.

He also announced that he had appointed a consultant to review the world heritage values of the area around the proposed development and that he had told the Queensland government that no further decisions should be made until the consultancy was completed.
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​Source GreenLeft