- Written by K2 Base Camp Ambassador Lachlan Short, edited by Maya Darby and published in Wild Magazine 185, Green Pages pg.36 -
Saving Cooloola
One of the most precious, undeveloped regions on Australia’s east coast is being threatened by commercial developments within Great Sandy National Park.
Great Sandy National Park Need to Know:
The Great Sandy National Park is one of the only undeveloped coastal landmasses on the east coast and includes Fraser Island.
It is the only place known on earth where rainforest is found on sand, formed by thousands of years of topsoil nutrient build-up.
Biodiversity includes 44% of Australia’s known birdlife, including eastern ground parrots, wallum froglets, and kauri, hoop and white beech pines.
Commercial luxury cabins and glamping development in Great Sandy National Park remains a battleground issue within Queensland national parks. The proposal would develop five sites on private leases along the iconic Cooloola Great Walk, a 102km thru-hike from the Noosa North Shore to Rainbow Beach, with construction due for completion in 2024. But with adequate camping sites existing already, sites currently used for guiding outdoor programmes and personal trips, there is significant local opposition to the proposal; Keep Cooloola Cool and Protect our Parks are just two of the NGOs spearheading the fight.
Lying north of the Sunshine Coast—home to the famous Noosa Everglades and Double Island Surf Point—the Cooloola region is both special and precious. It is one of the only remaining undeveloped coastal sand land masses on Australia’s east coast, and Poona Lake is one of the only perched dune lakes in mainland Australia.
The Queensland Parks website identifies the company CABN as the preferred tenderer for constructing accommodation along the Cooloola Great Walk. The proposal places development at highly significant and sensitive locations, including Double Island Point, and near the well-known Campsite 3 on the Upper Noosa River, gateway to the Great Sandpatch. And at Poona Lake, ten 38m2 luxury-accommodation units are proposed to be built, in an area now populated by massive old-growth blackbutt trees. Safety standards would require the trees’ destruction.
National parks are established for the conservation of biodiversity and so that all people might experience and develop a positive connection with the natural environment. Commercial operators in national parks can play a crucial role in providing education and recreational experiences for people. Surely, though, they have a responsibility to not degrade the environment. Commercial operators should therefore not be in a position to develop extensive infrastructure in national parks that results in increased human traffic, land clearing and furthers pollution.
Such actions destroy and compromise the very notion of wilderness, the reason many people come to visit such places. Greater awareness and action against the issue can be taken by following Keep Cooloola Cool (keep-cooloola-cool.org) and Protect our Parks Initiatives (protectparks.net), who both have really detailed sites explaining what’s involved and what’s at risk here. And you can help by spreading awareness about such issues so that Australians can make a stand against the commercialisation of our national parks.