WITH the Southern Hemisphere’s largest wetlands conference winding up at the Cockburn Wetlands Centre this week, board member Felicity Bairstow says they’ve had some wins this year, but it’s still an uphill battle protecting the critical habitat.
Dr Bairstow, who gave a keynote speech on the importance of turtles, said the animals played a crucial role in keeping wetland ecosystems balanced, but getting research funding wasn’t easy.
“It’s this mentality which is just so counterintuitive to me: If they’re not endangered, we don’t need to worry about them.
“Maybe we should look after them before they get endangered.
“You’ve got something like our other local turtle, the western swamp turtle, and that’s critically endangered and they’re having to do all these ridiculous things at the zoo to keep it alive.
“Actually, we don’t want to get to that. We’d just rather look after it while we’ve got a decent population.
“They’re actually one of the apex predators for our wetlands, they eat midges and midge larvae.
She said small but hard-fought changes had helped protect wildlife.
“A big win has been lately has been the speed limit on Hope Road down from 70 to 60. It only took 20, 30 years to do that… it gives our turtles a little bit more chance. So yeah, a few wins, but they don’t come easily.”
Dr Bairstow said attitudes toward wetlands had shifted over decades, but key protections were still lacking.
“We’ve come a long way from 40 years ago when Farrington Road was going through.
“At that point in time, wetlands were stinky swamps, places to put car bodies, fill in, to build houses.
“That was the level of understanding… but it’s still an uphill battle. We’re still fighting for proper buffer guidelines,” she said.
• Dr Felicity Bairstow at Bibra Lake, which was teeming with swans and birdlife this week. Photos by Steve Grant
The conference, held on February 5 and 6, brought together scientists, educators, cultural leaders and community groups.
“This year’s theme of Wetlands and Traditional Knowledge: Celebrating Cultural Heritage is especially relevant to our local area where we have archaeological records showing indigenous habitation of this country for over 40 000 years,” Dr Bairstow said.
She said one of the first priorities for the Rehabilitating Roe 8 project, which has been focussed along Hope Road, was to have Aboriginal heritage sites relisted after they were controversially stripped during the Barnett government.
“We got some more archaeological work done in there, and it just reproved everything, and it’s actually pushed the date of occupation back.
Regions
“We’ve also been able to get Lotterywest to pay for people from the regions to come in, so we’ve got people from Pilbara, the Kimberleys, down south, to come and give their perspective on things, which I think is great because, well, I also come from the country and country people do things well.”
by STEVE GRANT