IT’S the last stand. After 16 years of losing every battle to preserve bush at Cockburn Central, Felicity McGeorge is down to one tiny wetland.

Now, that remnant is under threat from Cockburn council’s plan to lure the Dockers from Fremantle. She’s been told the wetland will be a drain for the planned sports field and aquatic centre at the corner of North Lake Road and Beeliar Drive.

Dr McGeorge and her partner Peter, members of the Wetlands Conservation Society have teamed up with Rex Sallur and Simon Stott from the Cockburn Wetlands Education Centre to try to save the site.

Despite being tiny, the un-named wetland contains the greatest variety of macro-invertebrates of any wetland in the Beeliar regional park. It also has some of the cleanest water.

• Peter and Felicity McGeorge, Simon Stott and Rex Sallur want the Dockers to help protect this tiny wetland survivor. Photo by Steve Grant.

Mr Sallur argues people living in apartments or working in offices that will eventually cover the site will benefit more from a rehabilitated wetland than a standard drain. He says with a little foresight and imagination it can be a valuable natural feature of the increasingly developed area.

Dr McGeorge isn’t too hopeful though, noting previous promises by state government developer LandCorp have amounted to nothing.

She first started lobbying for the area’s bush as a member of the Tea Tree Close Action Group, 16 years ago. Since then she says every promise to retain even small portions of bushland have been broken, with LandCorp even reneging on planting native trees for manicured landscaping.

The four volunteer conservationists say wetlands in the southern suburbs have been so poorly treated and over-developed they simply can’t afford to lose this one.

They are concerned many are in critical condition from the joint effects of a drying climate and over-use of the Jandakot water mound.

by STEVE GRANT