Riverside camping Victoria: VFF, VRFish not consulted on pilot sites

The Victorian Government has confirmed pilot sites for riverside camping, but two major groups are fighting to have their say.

Farmers and fishers want to be part of a stakeholder group that identifies the safest and most accessible sites for campers to a pitch tent on waterways.

Victorian farmers and recreational anglers have called on the Andrews government to bring them inside the tent to help identify safe and accessible camping sites for the public along the state’s waterways.

Last Friday the Government finally abandoned letting campers spill onto 17,000km of the state’s waterways from September, opting instead to first open up 27 pilot sites to assess their impacts.

But neither the Victorian Farmers Federation nor the state’s recreational fishing lobby VRFish have been consulted on the sites, with representatives from both calling for a stakeholder group to be formed to bring an end to recent conflict.

VRFish executive officer Ben Scullin said a stakeholder group made sense, given the group was already working with the VFF on a code of conduct for campers.

“A stakeholder group would be a good coming together to rebuild a bit of trust,” Mr Scullin said.

But the government has instead left the decision on identifying camping sites in the hands of its own bureaucrats in the Victorian Fisheries Authority, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning in consultation with Traditional Owners and Agriculture Victoria.

The VFF has been angered at being left out of the process, given its members and other landholders hold grazing licences over most of the crown land water frontages on which camp sites will be selected.

“The Government has failed to commit to form a stakeholder reference group, shutting out all impacted groups, except traditional owners,” VFF president Emma Germano said.

“Failure to directly consult with impacted licence holders would be a gross failure of process and simply disrespectful.”

As first reported in The Weekly Times last month camping will only take place on sites that the Andrews Government deems safe for campers, following what it called a “rigorous assessment process” of potential environmental, agricultural and Aboriginal cultural heritage impacts.

Up to 27 sites along the Goulburn, Broken, Ovens, Campaspe, Loddon and Murray Rivers are currently being assessed by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and are due to be opened up by September.

The government also stated there would be “hundreds” of sites to follow, but gave no detail on how and where those sites might be established.

“We’re reviewing potential sites to ensure environmental and agricultural concerns are considered and we’re partnering with Traditional Owners to ensure Aboriginal cultural heritage is protected,” Environment Minister Lily D’Ambroisio said.

The Victorian Farmers Federation, environmental groups and traditional owners have argued against simply opening up waterways to campers, who under the government’s draft regulations would have been allowed to collect a cubic metre of timber per person each day for their campfires, defecate in the bush adjoining unfenced farms and stay on one site for up to 28 days within 20m of waterways.