Wetland Conservation

Of all the ecosytems of the Swan Coastal Plain, the rivers, estuaries, lakes and swamps have been most affected by European occupation. Swamps are also the most biologically diverse and productive areas on the Swan Coastal Plain and directly or indirectly support most of its wildlife. In 1972 George Seddon estimated that more than half a million acres (202342ha) of wetlands had been drained, filled in and built upon (Seddon 1972).

Philip Jennings, Professor of Physics and Energy Studies at Murdoch University, wrote in 1988 that 80% of wetlands had been lost or ‘disappeared’. Rod Giblett, an academic who has been living on, and writing about Perth’s wetlands for many decades, comments that, “there has been a massive loss of wetlands on the Swan Coastal plain and the process is continuing” (Giblett and Webb 1996). Wetlands are still being lost underneath the growth and spread of the Perth metropolitan area with an estimated 10% of original wetlands areas remaining.

In the 1960s conservation groups such as the Naturalist Club and the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union began to argue the case to wetland conservation. Over the decade of the 1970s a system of nature reserves with representative wetlands types was developed but this focused upon outstanding examples rather than whole systems (Jennings 1996).

One of the first environmental campaigns occurred in 1961 when Bessie Rischbieth from the Swan River Protection Society tried to prevent the infilling of Mounts Bay for the Narrows Bridge interchange. In 1967 the Conservation Council Council of Western Australia was formed as an alliance of conservation groups.

The Environmental Protection Authority set up a Wetlands Advisory Committee in the late 1970s and their work contributed to the “System Six Red Book” which named important wetlands that were recommended for conservation. By 1996 less than 75% of their recommendations had been implemented.

The Wetland Conservation Society (WCS) was formed in 1985. The WCS grew out of the Farrington Road Blockade of 1984. At Farrington Road a group of Kardinya locals and Murdoch University professors and students put their bodies in front of bulldozers in an attempt to halt the destruction of the northern end of the North Lake reserve including significant Aboriginal cultural sites. Farrington Road was pushed through without prior environmental or heritage approvals. For ten days citizens disrupted the work of bulldozers and graders, and then watched while bushland was razed and birds and animals killed.

Whilst the action to stop Farrington Road was unsuccessful, this event was the beginning of the wetlands conservation movement in Western Australia; including the establishment of more rigorous environmental approval processes, the establishment of the Cockburn Wetlands Education Centre, the Wetlands Conservation Society, and substantial wetland care activities at North and Bibra Lakes including extensive revegetation and the transformation of cow paddocks back into functioning wetlands.

Many important wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain still lack protection from degradation and destruction. Today the Wetlands Conservation Society, the Urban Bushland Council, Cockburn Wetland Education Centre, Herdsman Lake Wildlife Centre, Rockingham Regional Environment Centre, and a plethora of local Friends groups continue to work for wetland conservation in WA.

Colour photograph of lake with sunset reflecting on it — **North Lake (Coolbellup), Winter 2009**
Image copyright Nandi Chinna

Sepia photo of people and police in lake — **Farrington Road 1984**
Image copyright Jan Rodda