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Glenda Pickersgill
Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 367
Location: Kandanga
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 Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 5:57 am Post subject: SMH 11-11-2010 Mary Valley looks ahead- the Kandanga expt |
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http://www.smh.com.au/environment/mary-valley-looks-ahead--the-kandanga-experiment-20101110-17nms.html
| Quote: | Mary Valley looks ahead - the Kandanga experiment
Tony Moore
November 11, 2010
Kayakers drift along the Mary River.
Kayakers drift along the Mary River. Photo: www.imbilkayakandbike.com
Mary Valley's little town of Kandanga would have drowned if the Traveston Dam got the go-ahead.
Dam water would have come up to the main street; the bowls club, its main oval, its swimming pool and half of its shops would be under water.
The pub would have dam water at its back door and the rail line that brings the Gympie Rattler into town would have been submerged.
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Save the Mary River Co-ordinating Group president Glenda Pickersgill, right, with Jenny Mengel at the group's education centre at Kandanga. Click for more photos
Mary Valley sans dam
Save the Mary River Co-ordinating Group president Glenda Pickersgill, right, with Jenny Mengel at the group's education centre at Kandanga. Photo: Tony Moore
* Save the Mary River Co-ordinating Group president Glenda Pickersgill, right, with Jenny Mengel at the group's education centre at Kandanga.
* A reminder of the fight against the Traveston Crossing Dam.
* A sign of the times in the Mary Valley.
* Victorians Caren Sawyer and her daughter Meg set up camp at Kandanga.
* The tracks used by the famous Mary Valley Rattler steam train.
* Gympie Cooloola Tourism Board general manager Julie Worth at the Kandanga Bowls Club.
* Jacarandas in bloom at Imbil.
* The Kandanga Hotel at the heart of town.
Mary Valley's Economic Action Plan
Land sales
The impact on local schools
New eco-tourism businesses
The famous Save the Mary River Information Centre - the nerve centre for a three-year fight against the dam - would also be coughing up bubbles.
Instead, one of Queensland's largest community opposition movements pushed a serious environmental counter-argument and the Traveston Dam became a footnote in modern history.
That was all 12 months ago.
Today, on the anniversary of then-Environment Minister Peter Garrett's decision to disallow the dam's construction, a Mary Valley Community and Economic Action Plan is in place, partly because of a $200,000 grant from the Department of Infrastructure and Planning.
And in June 2010, Infrastructure Minister Stirling Hinchliffe tipped in a further $300,000 to get the first projects operating.
Gympie Regional Council is about to announce the next step of several projects.
The Mary Valley Economic Action Plan identifies projects that have come from the grassroots - from residents being given biros and notebooks and encouraged to think of their future.
It identifies projects it believes can attract day trippers, kayakers, campers and organic farmers back to a community that wants to put the dam debate to rest.
Mary Valley's Economic Action Plan
A Mary Valley country tourism package, offering a "Mary Valley Experience" with identities given to the towns of Kandanga, Amamoor, Dagun and Brooloo, has been developed with Queensland Tourism.
It has Brooloo as the "Gateway to the Mary Valley"; Kandanga as the "River Life Centre" with a network of creek walks; Dagun with its "timber" theme with walks through an operating sawmill, and Imbil with its "rail history" and kayak tours.
Julie Worth, who is on the Gympie Cooloola Tourism Board, as well as the Kandanga Bowls Club, said the Mary Valley must differentiate itself from places like Buderim and Montville and encourage visitors to try activities.
"We must encourage people to come out and play," she said.
"When they identified 'Mary Valley Country: Come Out and Play', Queensland Tourism identified we didn't have the coffee shops and the antiques and that sort of thing.
"Instead, we have the activities that people can do. The canoeing, the bike-riding, the fishing and the camping."
Other initiatives include:
* A re-orientation of the Mary Valley Rattler heritage railway. The management committee has offered to re-work their timetable to suit tourism activities;
* Developing a new overnight caravan park at Kandanga;
* Turning the existing Garapine outdoor facility - just above the Mary River - into an outdoor training and accommodation centre. It has been bought by the state government;
* Developing a Kandanga Creek walk, allowing people to view turtles and platypus. This plan is with the Gympie Regional Council;
* Build a local focus towards "slow foods" and organic markets; and
* Find a new use for the now mothballed Kandanga Creek State School.
Glenda Pickersgill, as well as being the president of the Save the Mary River Foundation, is on the Mary River Renewal team.
"We need to help the businesses that are here in Kandanga to survive," she said.
"Because a lot of the properties have been bought by the department. The Department of Infrastructure and Planning now own them."
She said the government was moving too slowly in returning the properties to residents and questioned why land was not being sold back until 2012.
"We are urging them to reconsider that aspect because the town needs to have more permanent residents here," Ms Pickersgill said.
Land sales
The Queensland government bought 494 properties as part of its plan to build the Traveston Dam.
Since Mr Garrett's decision a year ago, they have received 99 expressions of interest from people wanting to buy back into the area.
However only three blocks have been settled, three others are under contract and another four are "under consideration".
Of the other blocks of land, 90 per cent were leased under a range of conditions, many of them to their original owners.
The department has disputed suggestions that further land will not be sold until 2012.
The impact on local schools
One school has closed at Kandanga, while a second school at the sawmill town of Dagun has shrunk from 16 students to 12.
Kandanga Creek State School had 29 students in 2006, but was mothballed in 2009 after the number of students dropped to eight.
Kandanga State School is slowly growing from 39 in 2006 to 56 in 2010. Some residents said the school had 130 students 20 years ago.
Amamoor State School numbers are also growing, from 55 in 2006, to 74 in 2010, while at Imbil, the Mary Valley State College has grown from 189 (2006) to 215.
New eco-tourism businesses
Until 14 months ago Ian Harling ran a plumbing business in Imbil and Kandanga, watching it decline while the debate over the Traveston Dam raged.
He got out and set up a kayaking business, called "Ride on Mary", matching his private passion with what he saw as the new future of the Mary Valley.
"I have paddled the river and Yabba Creek and I wanted to do a job that I actually liked," he said.
"There was an opening in the market and I thought 'let's go for it and see where we go with it."
Mr Harling's business, which includes twilight platypus canoe rides and overnight stays in a private cottage, draws customers from Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast.
"More recently we have had some international visitors as well," he said.
"That has come from some word-of-mouth promotion from the UK."
Fruit pickers Caren Sawyer, daughter Meg and son Guy, arrived at Kandanga from Victoria looking for somewhere to camp.
"We went to the Information Centre and that was closed," she said while the family pitched their tent.
"We went to the Post Office and the Post Office lady said this was it, 'opposite the pool'."
After a quick look, they decided to stay, with their van and their tent.
"It's free, so we thought, 'Beauty'. We're here. We're here by accident, but this horsebreaker guy we met at Pomona told us of these free camps."
There are toilets across the road, a BBQ, a pool and a bowls club for cooked meals and drinks.
The final landscaping is yet to be finished, but it is one project that is already underway.
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