VNPA joins farmers to oppose unlimited riverside camping

Farmers and environmentalists are joining forces, pressuring the Victorian Government to limit camping on crown land water frontages.

Mitta Valley farmers warn their river’s green corridor is under threat from camping.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS have joined Victorian farmers in calling for a targeted approach to opening up crown land water frontages to camping, rather than accepting the Andrews Government’s rushed bid to maximise public access to 17,000km of the state’s river banks by September.

Farmers, who hold 8287 crown land agricultural or grazing licences over much of the state’s crown land water frontages, fear native vegetation will be damaged as campers strip river banks of firewood and leave human waste and rubbish behind.

A meeting of 120 Mitta Valley landholders in Eskdale last week voted to lobby the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning to work with them to identify the most accessible and suitable sites for camping, rather than handing the public the right to pitch a tent and build a campfires along vast stretches of river banks and flood plains.

The Victorian National Parks Association has backed the Mitta Valley Landcare Group’s and local farmers’ calls, arguing must Government undertake a strategic review of appropriate camping sites.

VNPA chief executive Matt Ruchel said the Government seemed to be adopting “a pretty blunt instrument” when it came to opening up water frontages to campers.

“Riparian land is incredibly important for conservation, because often it’s all that’s left in connecting corridors,” Mr Ruchel said. “It’s the interface between west and dry, containing biodiversity hot spots.”

He said the Government should consider undertaking a statewide review of waterways to identify the ecological values along each waterway, its status and neighbouring land uses, before any was opened up to camping.

Mitta Valley beef producer John Scales said he and other landholders had already identified 433 caravan and camping sites that could be cleaned up and fully developed “without interfering with the licenced grazing frontages that farmers have been nurturing for generations”.

He said a similar approach could be applied to other valleys, where local knowledge was used to identify suitable sites.

Mitta Valley Landcare Group president Judy Cardwell, who organised the Eskdale meeting, said draft regulations on which the public has just six weeks to comment, allowed campers to collect 0.5 cubic metres of firewood per person a day along riversides, which could have a devastating impact on the local ecology.

“There’s not even mention (in the regulations) on the number of campers who can settle in.”