australia: restoring wetlands
ted floyd,
foe australia
Two hundred years ago, Whites Creek was
a babbling little brook. As the suburb of
Annandale began to grow around it, the
creek was pushed underground and channelled
into concrete pipes. The creek water became
dirty and smelly, and the area barren of
native plants and animals.
In 1994 Friends of the Earth Sydney
started a campaign to restore the natural
water cycles of inner-city creeks and
rivers. The construction of a wetland
alongside Whites Creek is the most
successful achievement of this campaign to
date. What was previously an abandoned,
weedinfested piece of land alongside the
creek is today a living freshwater wetland
replete with frogs, fish, birds and the
occasional child wielding a tadpole
net.
The main source of freshwater is
rainfall runoff, which is widely used to
meet human needs and is an essential part
of the water cycle in healthy ecosystems.
Nonetheless, planning authorities have long
treated rainwater runoff as a major
disposal problem, capturing it in gutters,
drains, pipes and canals.
Numerous obstacles stood in the way of
the restoration of the wetlands —
bureaucratic red tape, a local council that
initially found the idea silly, and a
handful of local residents who preferred
conventional flower gardens to wetlands
full of insects and reptiles.
The restoration of the creek and its
wetlands will help to reduce pollution,
decrease flooding and allow aquatic
biodiversity to thrive. As part of the
project, the local council developed an
education programme that encouraged schools
in the area to use the wetlands for field
studies. In September of 2002, the “Whites
Creek Wetland Environmental Education”
project won an award for urban wildlife
habitat restoration and renewal.
