We are calling on Byron Council to Save Wallum | Act now to Save Wallum

We are calling on Byron Council to Save Wallum

Council will be voting this week on whether to give final consent to the developer to proceed with bulldozing Wallum. We need to make sure our Councillor’s understand the community don’t want this project to go ahead.

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I am calling on you to vote against issuing the subdivision works certificate for the development at ‘Wallum’ 15 Torakina Road, Brunswick Heads NSW at the next council meeting. Approval of the subdivision works certificate will allow the developers to begin bulldozing a significant Wallum Heathland.

This 30 hectare site contains 230 trees, including old-growth Scribbly Gums, Wallum Banksias, She-oaks and Swamp Mahoganies that will be cleared for this DA.  All of these trees, within their respective ecological communities, provide critical food and shelter for an exceptionally large host of threatened species found on-site. 
Of the 76 Scribbly Gums marked for destruction, many have well-established hollows, the size of which indicates over 300 years of growth.

The development’s impacts will not be limited to the construction site, but will include indirect and accumulative impacts, damaging to the surrounding ecology, and undermining the mitigation and protection zones. This ecology does not work like others, is a function of its associated geology and hydrology, and is unsuitable for development or restoration works.
 
The current Vegetation Management Plan and Threatened Species management plans are erroneous and inadequate, and I have grave concerns for the Koala, Wallum Sedge Frog and Mitchell’s Rainforest Snail in particular. For example the Koala feed trees are not even being offset and are mis-identified, and the constructed frog ponds are known to be experimental and have failed to support threatened species locally. Dismal trial examples from the past few years sit stagnantly on site and are a far cry from what these threatened species genuinely need to survive longitudinally. There is real risk of local extinction contributing to broader extinction, and I’m sure you don’t want to be in any way responsible for that legacy.

Council will be responsible for the mitigation ponds once the development is completed. This represents a bad deal for Council and ratepayers,  as the ponds will fail in their intent to replace the threatened species habitat that the development threatens to swallow up. 
This is a Zombie DA, originally passed in 2013, which means the Development has not been held to the current ecological and conservation standards now demanded by current legislation and as such is out of step with Council’s own planning laws and the community’s values that council is employed to serve.

There is a process underway with the Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, who is actively considering whether to call the project in under the EPBC act, which would require the developer to asses the presence of MNES. Councilors, if you vote to approve the subdivision works certificate now you may undermine the potential to protect this site at a Federal level as that evidence will be destroyed.

Slashing of known threatened species habitat on Wallum has been an issue known to council since 2006, and confirmed by the EPA. The slashing event of 3/11/23 is currently under legal investigation by Council Compliance, and a Subdivision Certificate should not be issued until this case is resolved. It was also a breach of the current DA, as the conditions of consent state no clearing of native vegetation until a subdivision certificate is granted.

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