Plan for environment

KIAMA Greens candidate Ben van der Wijngaart has put forward a plan to help look after what is left of the electorate"s environment.

During his election campaign launch at Bomaderry Community Centre on Friday night, Mr van der Wijngaart said he was the only candidate in the electorate to put together a local environment policy.

"This is a grassroots policy, emphasising "local"," Mr van der Wijngaart said.

"It is intended to draw attention to the ongoing losses and threats to our local environment and to support the many community groups that continuously fight developers and politicians to look after what is left of their local environment.

"I want to stress that the environmental losses in Kiama electorate are not just a thing of the past, they are happening right now.

"We have to turn around this culture of compromising what"s left to facilitate development because all the losses add up and pretty soon nothing will be left.

"Labor has not only failed to protect our local bushland, wetlands and coastal areas, but they also are the perpetrators of much of the environmental decline in the electorate.

"The Shellharbour marina, Bomaderry Creek link road and draining of Shoalhaven River are all Labor initiatives."

Mr van der Wijngaart"s policy highlights environmental "hot spots" such as:

" The "destructive" link road proposed for the Bomaderry Creek Regional Park;

" The ongoing draining of the Shoalhaven River and Kangaloon aquifers to quench Sydney"s water needs.;

" The ongoing clearing of endangered forests for quarrying at Gerroa and Dunmore;

" The proposed golf resort in Foys Swamp at Seven Mile Beach, and

" The proposed destruction of Shellharbour South Beach and wetlands to build a marina.

The policy called for constructive measures to protect environments under threat through the establishment of a new nature reserve, extensions to national and State parks and funding for studies and environmental protection and rehabilitation programs.

He"s also called for an extension of the Bomaderry Regional Park.