Wetland Danger Warning

Newcastle Herald

Friday September 6, 2002

THE endangered Hexham swamp area was one of the three most important wetlands in NSW, Newcastle City Council heard this week.

Maryland environmentalist Brian Purdue made the statement while addressing councillors in public voice session on Tuesday night.

Mr Purdue said man did not have to build on top of a wetland to destroy it. It only had to build around the edges to suffocate and reduce it to an ecological wasteland.

He said there was once so much bird life in the Hexham wetlands that it was referred to as `Kakadu in our backyard'.

Urging retention of the remaining undeveloped Hexham catchment land, he said it was a matter of ensuring simple survival for many species.

`If all the Hexhams of this world are destroyed, we also won't have a long-term future,' Mr Purdue said.

`Some may scoff at this, but remember about 80% of marine life in the oceans spawn in rivers and wetlands.'

Mr Purdue said official warnings about the destruction of NSW coastline habitat had been sounded as long as 30 years ago.

`NSW Premier Bob Carr, when he was environment minister, said the Hexham floodgates must be re-opened. That was in 1988: 14 years ago. They are still closed,' he said.

Mr Purdue said the original number of migratory wading birds in the Hexham estuary was probably in the hundreds of thousands annually. That had since dropped to 25,000 and now, at last count, 3500.

And the 180ha of mangroves recorded at Hexham in 1996 had now dropped to 20ha.

`This remaining stand is on its last legs and desperately in need of salt water,' he said.

Mr Purdue said that of 135 recorded bird species, the figure was down to 60 in 1996 with breeding species down from 37 to 17.

Mr Purdue said he feared that without a halt to `over-urbanisation' around Minmi it would be a case of `going-going-gone' for the catchment's biodiversity.

Without proper controls, all the freshwater supply to Hexham wetlands would come from sediment-laden and polluted water from urban run-off, he said.