MANY may be sceptical about real opportunities for making Kiama Municipality even more beautiful and environmentally healthier but our community, led by Kiama Council, now has the first chance in nearly 120 years to do just that.
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For 15 months, a committee comprising five community representatives and three Kiama councillors, together with a council officer, a consultant and state government representatives, have been formulating a 254-page draft Coastal Zone Management Plan for the Minnamurra River Estuary.
The plan is now out for public comments and submissions by May 29.
Available for viewing at Kiama Library and council offices and for downloading from the council's website, the plan is far from just another dry, bureaucratic or scientific document. The promise it holds is exciting, not only for the future of the Minnamurra River estuary but for that vast area and jewel of the Illawarra formed by the catchment of the river and all its many tributaries, from the sea to Jamberoo and beyond, to the top of Jamberoo Mountain in the west and Saddleback in the south.
If you do nothing else, read the plan's first 16 pages. They set out a well considered, practical, costed and programmed long-term project which, once Kiama Council shows the lead by approving it, will offer something for everyone in our community, from involvement in the many facets of its planning and implementation, to the countless benefits and enjoyment that the completion of its various phases will bring.
Simply stated, the plan is for the rehabilitation and enhancement of the Minnamurra River catchment and particularly its streams and riparian (streamside) vegetation and its natural plant, animal and fish communities.
The protection and enhancement of the environmental and recreational values of the river's estuary is also, of course, an integral and essential part of the plan with the estuary benefiting additionally and increasingly from the project's environmental and ecological improvements to the river and its tributaries upstream.
Few people realise that from the mid to late 1800s, the Minnamurra River was straightened for much of its length below Jamberoo and the river's catchment was cleared of sub-tropical and other natural vegetation to provide the basis for our rich agricultural heritage. But with the environmental changes wrought by river straightening and land clearing came the loss of quite large tracts of agricultural land and alluvial soils. Banks collapsed into the river and tributary streams during flood flows and the freed soil was carried downstream to the estuary. They're effects that continue today.
Rehabilitation will take some years but as the draft plan shows, with landholders, remediation specialists, governments and the community working together on the project, the Minnamurra River, its estuary, its tributary streams and its catchment will become a national demonstration of how the land's productivity, natural beauty and plant and aquatic biodiversity can be renewed and enhanced for all.
Graham Pike
Community member,
Minnamurra River Estuary
Management Plan Review Committee