Island Refuge - by Gerard Proust (a digital story from the Lake Illawarra MAP Project)

MENTOR FILM MAKER: Tyler Freeman-Smith
SYNOPSIS: What is special about Gooseberry Island and why it should be protected.
SCRIPT: These islands came into history, so to speak, 200 years ago when Westerners first arrived here. But before that the Aboriginals were in the area for many, many, many thousands of years. But once the Europeans did get here they did start moving out from Sydney and started to settle the Illawarra area. And the people of those times had a different perspective than what we do today on the value or the desire of what to use the land for. So they saw the islands as a food growing area or a recreational area. What we have out on the islands is what I consider to be a refugee arc. They are islands so they are separated from the rest of the area by a body of water so they can be protected a lot better than a lot of the other reserves weve got. And on these islands weve got remnants of what was originally in a wider area of the Illawarra.

So weve lost most of our rainforest, lots of our swamp oak forests and lots of our salt marshes which are represented on both Gooseberry Island and Hooka Island. And these are endangered ecological communities that are extremely important that we protect and conserve for future generations.

Were gradually clearing the weeds, working from the better areas. Were bringing the so called good bush, the good rainforest out with us and gradually pushing the weeds back and this is encouraging all of the native plants to germinate from seed in the soil or from seed thats been bought in. And weve had rare and endangered species germinate that would have been sitting in the soil for many years and have only germinated since weve got rid of the weeds. And one particular plant thats just called Halloragus isnt found anywhere else on the planet at the moment so its only found out on these islands.

We have to have certain areas on this fragile diminishing planet that are protected and if humans could tread lightly and not have a destructive impact on these environments then fine, but it is such a small area and such a delicate environment thats at a crucial time as were doing the regeneration that its going to take years, decades before we see the results of our work there. So I hope that people can just come to the understanding that just knowing these areas is good enough. You can see it. You can see it from Berkeley, see it from your boat and you can appreciate it. Youll still be able to see a lot of the birds, the sea eagles and those kinds of things and you dont necessarily have to set foot on the island, and wilderness areas for that matter to fully appreciate it. Theres some areas that, just knowing they are there, and theyre being protected and restored, hopefully is good enough.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lake Illawarra
• Gooseberry Island
• Haloragis
• digital story
• national parks
• endangered species
• bush regeneration