River camping rules risk Joan Kirner’s Landcare legacy

Landcare Victoria is concerned they will be “disempowered” by new public camping laws brought in by the government.

The late Joan Kirner helped found Landcare in 1986, but the state’s 17,000 volunteers say the Andrews Government has put that legacy at risk.

The Andrews Government’s proposal to allow public camping along 17,000km of river frontages will “disempower the Landcare community” founded by former Labor Premier Joan Kirner in 1986.

That’s the warning from Victoria’s 600 Landcare groups, who have joined environment groups in condemning regulations drafted by the Government and its fishing agency that allow the public to crowd on to narrow crown land river frontages to pitch tents, collect wood, build campfires and dig holes to defecate.

Landcare’s 17,000 volunteers, many of who hold licences over crown land water frontages adjoining their land, have spent more than three decades revegetating ecologically sensitive river frontages, controlling pests and remediating erosion.

“Landcarers, who have sought over many years to manage and protect their riparian frontages, will react with dismay if they find adjacent crown frontages used by campers following a decision made by an uncaring government far away from the site,” Landcare Victoria Incorporated’s submission on the draft regulations states.

“This can only disempower the Landcare community and risks diminishing their sense of stewardship that has created such important public value.”

LVI warned the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning did not have the resources to manage thousands of campers flooding on to the banks of the state’s waterways and lashed out at the Victorian Fisheries Authority, which is leading the Government’s river camping push.

“The proposed regulations are an irresponsible proposal by agencies that have neither the capacity nor commitment to effectively enforce them,” LVI’s submission states.

“LVI understands that the VFA has undertaken to allocate fisheries officers to enforce compliance.

“This is a dishonest proposition that seeks to mislead concerned stakeholders. The VFA has no corporate role in relation to management of the environmental values of crown frontages or the behaviour of campers – whether they are fishers or not.”

“It (VFA) exists only to expand recreational fishing activity, and as is clear in its advocacy for expansion of camping activities, will endeavour to achieve this at the expense of other stakeholders, including the Landcare community.”

“Further, the notion that fisheries officers will give priority to managing the negative environmental and social impacts of crown (water) frontage camping ahead of their core concerns and interests about managing fisheries is laughable.”

LVI has warned decades of revegetation and rehabilitation work is at risk of being damaged by campers trying to gain vehicle access to river frontages, trampling bush, pitching tents and gathering firewood.

Mitta Valley Landcare Group president Judy Cardwell said rivers held some of the last remaining corridors of vegetation that needed to be preserved for the environment.

“If this (river camping) goes ahead the whole of the Mitta River will become one long camping park,” Ms Cardwell said.

The Landcare movement was launched by Ms Kirner, as Conservation, Forests and Lands Minister in partnership with then VFF president Heather Mitchell in 1986. The movement now has 6000 Landcare groups nationally and more than 100,000 volunteers, as well as being adopted in 20 nations.

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