Glad, as I said in a recent post, to hear that the connection between land use and our waterways is becoming better understood.
Over recent months I have been writing letters in to newspapers, and on other blogs hoping that this issue will get in to the spot-light.
Here is one of the submissions I wrote to the Age, and sometime later an article was done on this. So hopefully annoying the Editor or the environmental editor did make a difference.
Like
land – like local landscapes.
Most of us tend to think of
private landscapes, public landscapes or rural landscapes, as though these are
separate, distinct and different. “One is out in my backyard, one is shared,
and the last one is lurking out there in the wild, somewhere.” With land-management issues, like weeds, and
land-clearing, we city-dwellers tend to think, 'Oh, that only happens on the
land.’
In fact, we all live on the land,
and all land zonings have a lot in common. Our landscapes are teeming with natural and
man-made biological processes which may be in need of some taming!
Take the blue-green algae
outbreak in Lake Burley Griffin (ACT) which is preventing locals from swimming (Canberra Times, 7 January, 2012). Algal blooms (or cyanobacteria) are caused
by too many nutrients and contaminants entering our waterways from both
agricultural land and private land.
Elements contributing to these algae consist of phosphorus, nitrogen,
animal and human effluent and other pathogens.
Nutrients sound generally nourishing and positive (!), but as with anything an over-dose of any nutrient can
make humans, wild-life and our land extremely ill. Algicides can’t be used to eradicate the
algal blooms, because they are also harmful to other (beneficial) organisms and
animals in the water-ways.
Right now these blue-green algal
blooms are multiplying in the Gippsland Lakes (Vic), Goulburn Murray region,
and are found at different times in much of Australian waterways.
Many of us don’t realise that building
up our gardens (commonly referred to as ‘the outdoor
room’) and urban landscapes do mean more stormwater run off to creeks. Our activities in our backyards have huge
consequences as nutrients, animal matter, sewerage over-flows, hydrocarbons
enter our creeks and make their way to the sea. It may not be surprising that
Melbourne beaches got a ‘fair’ rating recently, which isn’t wonderful news for
local tourism or for marine life.
Most people don’t take an
interest in the contents of our drains.
But, most of us do like gardens, wildlife, and dangling our feet in the sea!
These are some steps we can take to reduce the detriment to our wildlife and
marine life, and they really aren’t that difficult. As a minimum, we should:
Allow
for more porous surfaces in our gardens so that more stormwater is absorbed and less water gets flushed away down drains.
Outdoor rooms should be downsized, as these tend to involve hard, non-permeable
areas with increased urban run-off to drains.
·
Avoid
using chemical fertilisers on our gardens and lawns (look for organic, seaweed
solutions). Pesticides may be avoided if we practice companion planting, and
mix up the species a bit more, and increase bio-diversity.
·
Pick
up pets’ droppings
If
we are real devotees, we can :
·
Chose
landscapers that practice or are certified as sustainable landscape designers
(who practice erosion, contamination and sedimentary control). (Eg SGA's ECLIPS programme).
·
Chose
organic food or grow our own, as chemicals in farming are leaching out and affecting
our eco-systems and ground-water.
·
Buy
food from community markets selling locally produced food, where broad-acre
farming is less likely to be practiced.
·
If
possible, incorporate a rain-garden (inground or above ground) and plant plants
with bio-filtration functions (cleaning out hydrocarbons, nutrients, sediment).
Many farmers and land-managers
are already setting up the necessary safeguards. These are just some of the
things farmers can do to protect our waterways:
· Ensure
buffer zones are placed (10m wide) each side of farming land to reduce run-off
to local waterways.
·
Ensure
these buffer zones (natural vegetation) are preserved and managed to avoid
erosion and loss of vegetation in times of drought.
·
Restrict
farming stock from grazing near creeks and tributaries as grazing can cause
erosion to river banks and mean contamination of waterway
Control the use of agricultural
chemicals and restrict their use well away from waterways and buffer zones.
Well-considered approaches in
relation to our urban backyard management and farm-land are needed.
This means
a multi-disciplinary team of government personnel, town-planners, WSUD experts,
horticulturalists, land-managers coming together to address common problems
like top-soil disturbance, contamination and bio-diversity threats which affect
us what-ever type of land we inhabit.
Nicolle Kuna is a Melbourne blogger, web-site writer and
project worker and someone who likes to drone on about drains and be loquacious
about landscapes (since completing her qualification in Sustainable Landscape
Design). She has a blogspot:
BloomingandBold.Blogspot.com. In her
previous life, she campaigned with the Australian Democrats (House of Reps) on
environmental issues, was a lawyer, and author of Common-Sense Law, Hybrid
Publishers.
