WATTLE Range Council has been awarded the top prize at the SA Climate Leaders Awards with Environment Minister David Spiers heralding its community engagement as a potential template to be used across the state.
Council was recognised for its strong partnerships with the community through the development of the Southend Coastal Adaptation Strategy, which saw an extensive period of consultation.
Mr Spiers and Premier’s Climate Change Council chair Bruce Carter presented the award and a $10,000 prize to council’s environmental services manager Lauren Oxlade at a ceremony held in the South Australian Museum.
The $10,000 will be put back into council’s coastal strategy.
In response to the risk of erosion along the Southend coastline, council worked with the community to develop a coastal adaptation strategy for the town.
Through community workshops and meetings, council, members of the community and consultants were involved in reviewing the likely impacts of a range of scenarios.
Community members were provided opportunities to nominate the changes they could live with and the values they wanted to protect.
Council chief executive Ben Gower said community participation allowed for a greater level of understanding and acceptance that some difficult decisions would need to be made in the future.
“We got the community together and presented them with as much scientific information as we could, including sea rise modelling and potential impacts on the coastline if we had a one in 50 or a one in 100 year storm event,” he said.
“What it showed was the caravan park and the sailing club were at significant risk.
“We worked with the community, undertook a lot of brainstorming sessions with scientists and the community and all came to the conclusion we need to retreat from certain areas.
“After sitting and working with the community, it really helped build a bridge.
“It is really important people know what is going on, because if people do not know why things are changing, they push back.”
Mr Gower said the successful engagement project provided council with a template demonstrating best practice for future endeavours.
He said a similar process would be undertaken in Beachport to address coastal protection issues at Salmon Hole and Post Office Rock.
In an address to parliament, Mr Spiers told the chamber of council’s good work around coastal protection and coastal climate adaptation.
“The Wattle Range Council has put together a very thorough climate adaptation plan that has the potential to be a role model template for other coastal councils around the state,” Mr Spiers said.
“It is a beach that has been particularly affected by storm events, erosion problems and sand drift, which obviously leads to a whole range of other problems, with productive farmland being impacted, potentially properties and households being impacted and economic investment being at risk as well.
“I really look forward to seeing their work rolled out across South Australia because there is much that we can learn from that small but very hardworking council in our state’s South East.”
South East Natural Resources Management Board presiding member Fiona Rasheed extended her congratulations to the local council.
“Wattle Range Council’s Southend Adaptation Strategy is an excellent example of planning with the community to identify options to adapt to climate change,” she said.
The community and the council have bravely tackled the issue and resolved to have a “managed retreat” in some areas, rather than pursuing further engineering solutions.
