After a 60-year battle against developers, a 30-hectare property in Aireys Inlet adjacent to the Great Otway National Park has been secured for environmental restoration. Non-profit BioDiversity Legacy has taken a 99-year lease, planning to reinstate a natural floodplain to improve water and soil health. The project aims to connect habitats for vulnerable species like the white-footed dunnart and swamp antechinus, following a successful smaller-scale restoration nearby.
The stretch of land was once a property developer’s dream. Set against the Great Otway National Park and running up toFor decades the community fought off various development proposals on this Aireys Inlet property of about 30 hectares.
Residential housing, a caravan park and sporting field are among the uses mooted for the site over the years. But last month, the property’s future took an unlikely turn that brought relief and hope to many locals. Non-profit environment group BioDiversity Legacy has now taken over a 99-year lease on the land and will work with the community to return it to a natural state.
Rather than building houses, there are plans to reinstate a natural floodplain in the hope of improving water health in the Painkalac Creek and soil quality in the Painkalac Valley. Painkalac Project president Mick Loughnan and wife Jacinta Halloran own a smaller neighbouring property where a similar restoration project was undertaken. In just seven years, Loughnan said, his site had been transformed through work from environment experts and volunteers.
Loughnan said it had been a joy to watch native plants and animals thriving on his property, which is about 4.5 hectares. He said restoring the neighbouring property would enable small colonies of vulnerable species to connect and extend their genetic diversity.
Recently, camera traps on his property recorded the presence of the white-footed dunnart, a small carnivorous marsupial that is listed as Dozens of bird species have also been recorded on Loughnan’s land, along with the swamp antechinus, a threatened small marsupial about the size of a mouse. He said developers had been eyeing off the Painkalac Project site since the 1960s, but local people were determined to fend them off.
“The community has been fighting to keep that valley available for restoration,” Loughnan said. “After a 60-year battle, this is it. ”Loughnan said reinstating wetlands might also help protect properties downstream from flooding by capturing water before it flows into the creek.
“At the moment the stormwater drains direct water into the creek,” he said. “When you establish wetlands you allow the water to go somewhere else. ”Loughnan said a plan for the site would be presented to the Surf Coast Shire next week. But because the project does not require land rezoning or major construction works, he did not expect any significant impediments to council support.
Jason SouthAdvertisement Ord said it could take years to provide public access to the land through walking trails, but she was looking forward to the land being placed in community hands. She declined to reveal how much funding she and Godfrey donated with the project still in its early stages. Surf Coast Shire Mayor Libby Stapleton said the Painkalac Project resulted from decades of effort from groups and community members.
The lease takeover by BioDiversity Legacy means the land is removed from the property market and cannot be sold or developed. In 1999, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruled out a proposal to build dozens of houses on the land. It was most recently being used for horse agistment.
Barbara Wilson, an associate professor in ecology at Deakin University, has been researching the Painkalac Valley since the 1990s and said floodplains in the area were cleared for agriculture more than 100 years ago. Wilson lives in Aireys Inlet and said both the Painkalac Project and the restoration of Loughnan’s land had buoyed people’s spirits.
Wilson said the Painkalac Project would extend the natural habitat from the Great Otway National Park to the coast justPainkalac Project supporters point to Loughnan’s property as an example of how land can be rehabilitated with both expert and community support. In an article for the Anglesea and Aireys Inlet Society’s quarterly publication, the group’s former president, Sally White, said the property was a meeting place for Wadawurrung and Gadubanud peoples.
From the middle of the 19th century, she wrote, the area was used for grazing land for more than 100 years. A plan for a caravan park was considered in 1965, which triggered the creation of a local association, and the group opposed private development and plans for a sports ground. White said the new arrangement would reinstate and preserve that slice of the natural environment for generations.
“The Painkalac Valley is the largest and most significant estuarine wetland along the Great Ocean Road,” she said. BioDiversity Legacy project officer Jyoti Kala hoped the property might eventually provide habitat for the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot among other species. Kala said the lease acquisition had been secured after two years of work and negotiations.
“Now this land is protected and outside the private market, it can be managed by the community,” she said. Kala hoped the project could provide a model for how other communities might protect environmentally important land. Now the community can realise their own dream and develop that land with a green visions, just as nature intended.is The Age's regional editor. He was previously state rounds reporter and has also covered education for The Age.
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