Blog Posts

Some have heard the call

25/3/2021

Neil Daly is delighted to report that his plan for Western Port has
actually made it inside the Victorian Parliament, courtesy of the
Sustainable Australia Party.

By Neil Daly

WHEN a political party or independent members of a parliament bother to reply or take up a cause just under two years out from an election, one could say they are genuinely interested in the matter or politically astute.

In my article Hello Spring Street, are you listening?, I said the time had come for our politicians to prepare a Western Port Strategic Management Plan and present it to the electorate before the next Victorian state election.

I sent the article to my local state members of parliament and other parliamentarians to gauge their potential support for a Western Port Strategic Management Plan.

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On centre stage

25/2/2021

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Western Port is a World Heritage Site waiting in the wings. Photo: Greg Brave

By Neil Daly

Returning to the 6,058 submissions to the Crib Point Gas Import and Gas Pipeline Project and the underlying theme that the people want to retain Western Port’s unique environment in a world where such places are being destroyed by inappropriate industrialisation, perhaps ultimately, there may be only one solution: Western Port be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Am I reaching for the stars, maybe?

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Megabits empower the people

28/1/2021

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All the knobs and dials ... Tony Hancock
in 'The Radio Ham'

By Neil Daly

IN 1984, a date synonymous with a novel about totalitarianism and technological surveillance, I ventured into the world of contemporary technology. The time had come to move on from aerogrammes and send a fax instead.

Back then I also had a friend who was a licensed ham radio operator. He introduced me to his “CQ friends” across the world. We freely discussed a range of topics and swapped ideas about the interests we shared.

It was not an easy or a cheap way of communicating, for you needed lots of equipment (much of it dependent on valves and transistors) and a rather large aerial in the backyard for transmission and reception. But it was fun and if you’d like to step back in time, you can find out if it’s “still raining in Tokyo”.

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Hello Spring Street, are you listening?

10/12/2020

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Without a long-term management plan, Western Port will continue to be a battleground for industrialists and residents

By Neil Daly

THE 75 likes for my article Thank you, AGL indicates there is interest in the proposal for a Western Port Strategic Management Plan (WPSMP).

Over time, I have put this proposition to the pub test; I can assure you the "real world people" say yes.

They reason, in many cases, there are too many levels of government, statutory authorities and others all jockeying to manage Western Port, not to mention the endless sums of money spent on feasibility studies and academic research projects.

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Thank you, AGL

29/10/2020

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Everyone has a stake in the result of the inquiry into the
proposed Crib Point gas import jetty.

By Neil Daly

THANK you, AGL and APA, for galvanising the people to send 6058 submissions to the inquiry into the proposed Crib Point gas import jetty and the gas pipeline to Pakenham.

The submissions came from community organisations, environmental groups, local councils and thousands of individual citizens associated with Western Port, its islands and surrounding lands.

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A watery makeover …

14/8/2020

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Three shapes knee-deep in mud spark Neil Daly’s curiosity.

By Neil Daly

WE'RE lucky here, for along parts of the eastern arm of the Western Port foreshore, you can have the world to yourself – or so you think!

It was a warm summer’s morning in January 2020. The tide was out; the Queensferry foreshore was mine.

Suddenly, there they were some 50 metres or so offshore, ‘three shapes’ knee-deep in mud dragging a sled.

Momentarily I thought of Scott and his party in the Antarctica struggling to get back to the Base Camp, but I came to my senses and waited for reality to arrive.

Fifteen minutes later, the ‘shapes’, dressed in wet suits and a little exhausted, made dry land.

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The Cyan Way

27/5/2020

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The beginnings of an ‘old carbon sink’ in a Lang Lang cove

By Neil Daly

IN MY article “You too can be a carbon farmer” (The Waterline News, February 2020), I proposed that blue and green carbon farming be approached holistically rather than as competing entities and thus become the Cyan Way.

To some, this may be a pipe dream.

Then again, at Queensferry, the Bass Coast Landcare Network (BCLN) is undertaking a project to plant mangroves along the foreshore and trees on an adjoining property. This now ties in with another BCLN project to “Offset your car emissions in local planting projects” by planting “indigenous plants”.

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A bolt from the blue

5/4/2019

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Could Western Port’s mangroves help to tackle climate change? The answer, writes Neil Daly, is in the tea leaves, if only the politicians would take notice.

By Neil Daly

OUR community is fortunate to have a dedicated and expert team of environmental scientists and researchers studying Western Port’s environment and producing world-class research papers – but how much longer must this research go on before our federal politicians take notice?

At least two local councils were represented at last month’s Western Port Environment Research Forum, perhaps indicating that at least at a grass roots level somebody is listening. If the response to one questioner is anything to go by, the community is now looking for somebody to come up with a Western Port management plan based on a practical application of the research now in place, and move on from the current haphazard management of possibly Victoria’s most important “blue wedge”.

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