THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 26 #10 Tuesday, August 16, 2011 Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au www.echo.net.au 23,200 copies every week
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Community garden for North Ocean Shores Story & photo Eve Jeffery
Writers’ festival shakeup Victoria Cosford
With the spring weather on the way the newly formed Shara Community Gardens in North Ocean Shores will soon be ready to start digging and planting and last Saturday hundreds gathered at the site for a blessing of the land and family picnic. Local artist Jacquelina Wills guided the construction of a central mandala, a focal point for the gathering’s good wishes and intentions. Many brought flowers and earthly decorations to add to the circle. With much singing and laughter the plot was blessed and the community enjoyed a picnic and Lions’ sausage sizzle. Many who came to visit the garden signed up as members of the group. The highlight of the celebrations for the kids was a performance by the Curly Cousins. Organisers were very happy that their first event was very successful which they see as a healthy sign that this project is welcome and supported by the community. In the coming weeks swales will be created on the steeper part of the land to improve water retention, and for planting fruit and nut trees. The site for a rotunda will be prepared so the team of generous local
Candida Baker has stepped down from her role as Byron Bay Writers’ Festival and Writers’ Centre Director after one year in the saddle. According to the Centre’s Chairman Chris Hanley, running both had become too big a job for one person and will now be split into two positions. He said that going back over the past ten years each of the Festival directors had told the committee that doing all the different jobs involved in running the Centre as well as the Festival was too much. ‘Candy put in great energy into what many are saying was the best Festival yet, but we’re being sensible and practical about all this,’ he told The Echo. ‘We’ve made the position of the whole shebang redundant and split it into two jobs. It will be best for us and best for the Writers Centre.’ Mr Hanley said that there were 200 events at the Writers’ Festival this Central to Saturday’s Shara Community Gardens blessing was an earth mandala which caught the imagination of year. ‘It was monstrous,’ he said. ‘It’s 9-year-old Oshanna from Mullumbimby. giant and we need to specialise. Over volunteer tradies can build a shaded Shara Gardens is also very pleased can look forward to many little hands the next few months we’ll be advertising for a manager for the Writers’ summer meeting place. to be joining with Ocean Shores Pub- being in the dirt. After that, raised beds will be built lic School on a program for their acFor more information on how you Centre and a specialist person to look and then the community can begin tive education in growing food. In the can be involved in the gardens, email: after the Festival.’ planting. coming months and years the garden info@sharacommunitygardens.org. continued on page 2
Marine park inquiry now taking public submissions adding that no-fishing zones in fact act as a subsidy to those who fish, because they ultimately increase fish numbers. Mary Gardner is coordinating a science film festival this weekend in conjunction with the CSIRO, which will feature the award-winning David Suzuki film One Ocean, screening this Saturday night at the Byron Community Centre. Still relatively new compared to land-based national parks, marine parks and their sanctuary zones which prohibit fishing are the sites of much conflict. While some fishing groups are extremely keen to see the winding back of sanctuary zones,
local conservationists worry that current restrictions around important habitats like Julian Rocks may be watered down as a result of the inquiry now underway. Last week the state government announced the six-member panel which will run the inquiry, including people with expertise in fisheries, conservation, and social and economic assessments. It will be chaired by an academic ecologist, Associate Professor Bob Beeton from the University of Queensland. The inquiry is scheduled to open for public submissions this week and will close at the end of next month. More at www.marineparkaudit.nsw.gov.au.
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in marine parks might be strengthened rather than wound back. A statement released earlier this month by more than a hundred scientists revealed new parks in other parts of Australia are not being properly designed, and may be failing to conserve important habitats: ‘We have grave concerns about the lack of protection caused by these gaps in the proposed system of marine reserves,’ said the statement, coordinated by high-profile Queensland University Professor Hugh Possingham. Locally, marine biologist and writer Mary Gardner says, ‘If political compromise guts reserve design then any network of reserves is doomed to fail’,
The state government’s review of marine parks will start taking public submissions this week, as an award-winning film on the power and beauty of the oceans screens in Byron Bay. The government’s inquiry will examine the scientific evidence underpinning marine parks, which has been strongly attacked by fishing groups. Byron-based Ecofishers chief executive Ken Thurlow told The Echo earlier this year his group had pushed hard for the inquiry, which he predicted would lead to a reduction in the no-fishing zones within the Cape Byron marine park.
While environment and scientific groups have cautiously welcomed the government’s review, they’ve also expressed concerns about recent decisions to wind back protections at marine parks elsewhere in the state, and lift fishing restrictions in the habitat of the critically endangered Grey Nurse shark around South West Rocks. Globally, scientists are increasingly worried by the growing threat of extinction to many ocean species, including the grey nurse shark, and sanctuary zones within marine parks are being promoted as part of the solution. Nationally, senior scientists point to evidence suggesting protections with-
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Ray Moynihan