Proposed Splendour Site An Environmental Insult?
Posted by Daniel Clarke on 27th July, 2009
Well, Splendour is over for another year and with the wrap-up comes the news that organisers are once again pushing for a new site to be used for the festival. The proposed site, in the North Byron shire parklands at a place called Yelgun, is of significant ecological importance, and some say the use of the site will have far-reaching consequences for endangered wildlife species in the area.
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The proposed Yelgun site contains the Marshall’s Ridge wildlife corridor. This is a strip of habitat that connects several nature reserves in the area and provides a passage for endangered wildlife populations. It serves to moderate the effects of habitat fragmentation already brought about by rural development in the area, with approximately 26 threatened species that use the corridor.
The site also includes areas regarded as the highest quality habitats for koalas. It is estimated that there are only 100 000 koalas left in the wild, with local extinctions regularly occurring in areas where habitats are destroyed.
The Byron council had agreed on a one-off trial of the venue this year but that decision was later overturned on a technicality by the Land and Environment Court. The state government has stated that the scope of the proposal is outside that of local government. Splendour organisers are now pushing for a permanent move to the new site and are confident that government will approve the plan. The infrastructure proposed to facilitate such a large event will leave a lasting impact on the area including road upgrades, tree removal and a resource centre.
That the State government would be so willing to approve a site like Yelgun for music festivals doesn’t necessarily surprise me. I don’t particularly trust any politicians. What concerns me is that the Splendour organisers would be prepared to risk long-term damage to an area that is obviously of environmental importance. It’s more than a little hypocritical when they’ve been offering ‘green’ tickets to those who wanted to neutralise their carbon emissions for the weekend, and pushed to achieve 100% recycling of bottles and cans.
Given the number of festivals that grace Byron each year, this development might encourage year round use, and further environmental destruction. If successful in their bid, in order to prepare the site for next year, construction will soon be underway. That means at least a year of loud construction, machinery and human intervention.
With the looming spectre of climate change constantly on everyone’s minds, there has been a significant push in the music world for more ecologically sound ventures over the past few years. Many big name acts like Coldplay and The Rolling Stones have begun striving to make their concert tours carbon neutral, as have most of the big Australian festivals.
I doubt that many potential acts for next year’s festival would be too impressed if they knew of the conservation concerns related to the new site at Yelgun. Some music fans might not be too concerned either way, but the festival organisers have presented the event as an environmentally sensitive venture, so to embrace such a move without providing the public with assurances that the area will remain viable for the populations of native wildlife that live there would be terribly destructive to the reputation of the event. Environmental action against climate change involves both reducing emissions and promoting sustainable living as well as protecting in perpetuity the natural world that still remains.
For more information on the backlash to the new proposed site, check out the Byron Environment Website. We’ll have to wait and see whether there will be a response from organisers to these concerns.
Hi Daniel and musicfeeds readers.
I have managed the Tipi zone at splendour since 2005 (Tipi Forest since 2006) as an independent contractor so this is NOT an official response from Splendour management. I have stood in front of bull dozers, marched, rallied and supported many environmental causes over 23 years of activity. Several years ago, with due concern, I went to Yelgun for one of the tours and info days and determined for myself that planned environmental works and the proposed land use will benefit native fauna and flora. At the time, the existing wild life corridor was almost nonexistent on the planned festival site, its pre existing use was as a cow paddock – including though out the existing vegetation in the wild life corridor.
The parklands management have already planted thousands of trees to link the existing vegetation and surround the path that festival punters will walk on, when they walk through the designated wild life corridor. The festival itself does not occur on in this ‘corridor’, but on already cleared farmland to the north east. The old highway has a tunnel about 2.4m x 1.8m wide under it from that old cow paddock in the east, to a fenced in island (filled with dog paw prints and bones) and I wish CONOS and BEC, the mysterious Byron Ratepayers Association and other parties had done something about that years ago – thankfully the new highway has a land bridge over it for wildlife from that land island, so hopefully some survive the journey to and from the forest on the west of the highway, to the new vegetation being planted in the east and beyond to existing vegetation and the coast. Yes several trees will go when a pedestrian tunnel goes under Jones Road, thousands will be planted in their place. Anyone with true environmental concerns should visit the site, make up their own minds and maybe help with the tree planting?
Been a long time since anyone saw a kolala there, but I have seen koalas at festivals at Belongil. When Esha Fae, daughter of our Production Manager found two koalas on site the day after the 2007 festival, Jessica Ducrou, the festival director responded immediately, directing post festival traffic away from the area and coordinating appropriate protection with the festivals environmental consultant. Locals say at least 5 males live there and for years, festivals and the main road into Byron have been part of their life – it would be great to see Belongil Fields saved as a koala and human celebration sanctuary, but one can only dream.
There are a few local provocateurs on his issue who are alarmingly against young people’s festivals, particularly near their homes. Many have children who participate and even help create the festivals their parents are opposed too. Many are old activists and all are no doubt good people, however they are out of touch with the origins of their own freedom of expression and reactive and irrational about imagined threats to their way of life. They are very connected to local media, whom happily transcribe their press releases and yet often fail to sign a journalist name to these divisive articles. I went to the first local meeting called by opponents and despite many locals fleeing in horror and fright and many sitting mutely or courageously standing up to some very strong social intimidation, the local media lied about the meeting, alleging unanimous support in opposition and doubling the numbers of people there in their initial reports. This meeting was the first to initiate a long campaign of misinformation about the Yelgun proposal and the whole campaign itself seemed neatly timed to drive a wedge into Local Government elections and Green alliances.
I have seen strong opponents of this ilk visit Yelgun to check its environmental credentials and immediately become silent on the issue, for fear of speaking in favour amongst the social ungraciousness of their old friend and allies. I live in Ocean Shores, south of the Yelgun site and have had one opponent raise his fists at me for my opinion, and am aware that many are afraid to speak out in favour of the idea or the festival itself. I have been approached by Yelgun locals who strongly support the festival but feel they must remain silent. I guess this is how Elvis, Beatles or Hendrix fans felt at first?
Checked out the BEC website myself today and was horrified to find another pr beat up on this issue. For starters, the map they use incorrectly marks the west hand side of the highway as some kind of festival use? I am a supporter of wildlife corridors and would like to see the entire country, public and private land included (which implies intelligent partnerships between humans and natures needs), link the entire coastline, every ridge and every creek or river with vegetation and few fences or feral animals and hopefully managed by conscious humans, but this is just a dream.
Splendours green credentials are very good. I have worked in events and production for 19 years and have never worked for a better production team. They do care about the environment and do care about the community they live, play and work in. They do not seem inclined to tout their capacities their credentials, perhaps believing that intelligent concerns would be alleviated with due investigation, but ironically opposition is expressed as irrationally as an infants first use of the word, “no”. The first proposal to council was for a trial event, purely because the managers of Splendour wanted to genuinely see if the event would work there and were open to improve on its operations. With the state government there will be no trial, but I for one believe that if the site is approved it will be in good hands and greatly benefit the local environment, economy and most importantly, culture.
And yes, young people will be able to dance…