A gathering of over 100 people attended a forum to determine what a heathy estuary would look like in 100 years. A range of speakers presented on issues to identify values we have now and what to expect in the future. It was interesting to hear that industry and other ‘growth’ values can be compatible with community values that often reflect a return back to a more natural, pre-european condition.
Held by Murdoch University and hosted by ICLEI member council, the City of Mandurah, the Healthy Estuaries 2111 forum was held on Wednesday 24th October as an all day forum between government, researchers and community representatives. This forum aimed "to share values and identify a common vision for the estuaries of South West Australia" as a first step in ensuring healthy estuaries for all in a future of population growth and changing climate.
A range of speakers presented on sectorial perspectives on sustaining the esturine values into the future. It was certainly timely to identify the values our estuaries provide and what the community expectations, from this group anyway, we could expect to have in 100 years time.
It was great to hear from a wide range on industry perspectives, including presentations from urban development, tourism and agriculture could be compatible with the community values, which included youth, indigenous and environmental presentations.
The next day, a selected group developed the findings from the previous day into a draft framework to capture the initial responses and provide strategic direction to progress the opportunities developed through the process.
So while no answers are yet known, the responses from this forum still concentrated on the remedies of today, such as landuse planning, awareness and governance issues. Besides major environmental shocks, what are the tools required to enable the radical solutions required to address the scale of the problems we continue to economically ignore.
Greg Hales
November 2012
