Fraser Island waterways under tourism threat
Sat 15 November 2008
Jacob Grams, Journalism
Private and commercial tourism continue to threaten Fraser Island’s pristine lakes and creeks, with environmental groups pushing for more to be done reduce their impact.
The hundreds of waterways on the island are fed by a massive underground freshwater table, which has developed through natural processes over millions of years.
Eli Creek, which lies on Fraser Island’s eastern coastline, is the island’s largest freshwater creek, attracting thousands of tourists each year.
Although many actions have been taken to limit tourism impact on the creek, which dumps 80 Ml of water into the ocean each day and caters for much of the local wildlife, environmental groups are still concerned.
Fraser Island Defenders’ Organisation (FIDO) secretary and Honorary Project Officer John Sinclair said “trampling impact” was the biggest issue for Eli Creek, with many tourists walking along the creek each day.
“That was of such concern, our organisation constructed the first boardwalk in 1981 that was put in there to try and confine the physical impact,” Mr Sinclair said.
“And that seems to be the main course and it has worked…the area rehabilitated successfully.”
Mr Sinclair said FIDO was also forced to build a toilet block to prevent people wandering into the bush and damaging the vegetation on either side of the creek.
In December, 2007 a $520,000 Queensland State Government upgrade was completed, including a replacement of some sections of the boardwalk and improved access to the toilet block.
A media release about the project says the upgrade “gives visitors an opportunity to see the creek and its surroundings from an elevated platform while reducing impacts from visitors to the area on the natural environment”.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife officers have also been trained in “boardwalk management” to help maintain the area and a maintenance schedule has been developed.
However a set of stairs now leads from the boardwalk down to the creek, encouraging tourists to continue walking on the creek bed.
Mr Sinclair said there were a number of projects FIDO were pushing in an attempt to limit the negative impacts tourism was having on other lakes and creeks on Fraser Island, particularly the effects of vehicles.
“We’d like to see the road that runs between Central Station and Pile Valley [in the middle of the island] closed to heavy transport immediately, because it is causing subsidence [of the sand] and a huge amount of impact on Wanggoolba Creek [on the western side of the island],” Mr Sinclair said.
Mr Sinclair said the roads around Lake McKenzie, Lake Allom and Lake Boomanjin all needed to be diverted or traffic stopped altogether, with runoff “changing the whole nature” of the lakes.
“There’s a whole range of things we’d like to see done to protect the lakes,” Mr Sinclair said.
Mr Sinclair also said tour operators were partly to blame for the damage associated with the inland tracks on the island, but that “if they were really concerned [about their environmental impact], they wouldn’t be operating those big [tour] buses”.
“The buses are the most environmentally unfriendly vehicles going through its [the island’s] surroundings... and I’ve already been told that it’s unsustainable and not in the best interests of Fraser Island,” Mr Sinclair said.
Sunrover Expeditions tour guide Ray Dennis, who runs four-wheel-drive safaris on Fraser Island rather than large tour buses, said the business does all it can to limit its “environmental footprint” on the island, especially Eli Creek.
“We park a fair way away from the creek so as to try not to contribute to erosion,” Mr Dennis said.
He said the facilities at Eli Creek “make it a lot easier” to conduct tours in an environmentally friendly way, and the boardwalks and toilet facilities stop people “disappearing into the bush”.
He recognised the importance of having as little impact as possible on the island.
“If the place gets ruined we won’t be able to go back,” Mr Dennis said.
University of the Sunshine Coast head of Fraser Island research and associate professor Bill Carter said it was important for tour operators to have as little impact as possible.
“That’s always a trade-off, everything people do has an impact... it always has a socially-driven perspective,” Prof Carter said.
Prof Carter said, other than tourism, weather can have an influence in the long-term, especially in the case of Eli Creek.
“If you have people wandering down the creek and you add significant weather events, it speeds up the erosion process,” Prof Carter said.
Prof Carter said climate change could also impact tourism to Fraser Island in the future, especially considering rising sea levels resulting in increased erosion.
“If the beach is gone people won’t be able to access it,” Prof Carter said.
“It will probably give the beach fauna a break.”
He said the general consensus between researchers was that climate change had the potential to make island sand dry quicker, and could lead to movement of the sand dunes and increased erosion.
Image(s) designed by Jacob Grams