Councillors and interested parties

I applaud the decision making process last week in supporting a rethink of the KI Surf Pro and music event planned for Vivonne Bay. Whilst steamrolled onto the Island by state government and Sealink and backed with major financial supporters, I believe NOT supporting the surf event will hugely benefit the Island community and culture for years to come. I also think that the music festival should be relocated from Vivonne Bay to an area such as the KI Racecourse, which is more safe for people and environment.

Firstly I will try to clarify the real cause of my disappointment of having a world surf pro on my back doorstep. Having signed the contract on a block of land at Vivonne days before the announcement of the event, I have rapidly begun to regret my decision ever since. Reason? Vivonne over the last two years has grown on us, not only for its natural beauty, but is people and way of life. It is relaxed here for us, with the beach and mighty Southern ocean governing our lives. From the early morning walk through fog and beautiful colours of the sunrise, to the fish we catch, the waves we are lucky  enough to ride, and the peacefulness we feel watching the sun set over the wilderness of bush to the west, its fiery colours lighting the cliffs to the east down to Knobby’s Island.

With the announcement of the surf and music event this relaxed culture within the community has changed, grown divisive, petty and stressed. Be it that we are against the surf event or if we are for it, we all have our reasons for it changing our lives very quickly.

For those of us against the surf comp (again, for our own different reasons) the last three months has been a stressful battle in trying to comprehend the absurdity of the situation. It is horrifying to think our government are pushing for this event to occur, and that a monopolising ferry company is backing it in their eagerness to profit from the situation, and that the environment and community culture of this beautiful beach will suffer as a result. Trying to find information about the event and gauging its impacts has equally being stressful and frustrating.

It is easy for me to see how this event will irreversibly change the natural and cultural environment as I live and breathe Vivonne but it’s hard for most people around me to see it like this. Surfing SA has done little to ease my fears, and reading their statements and others in the media, it has grown clear to me that there is much deceit around the real issues.

Some would say this event and continued development is for the better, hence the divisiveness within the community. Personally my partner and I bought a block in the estate for its solitude, peacefulness, proximity to the beach, beauty, and lack of development (funnily enough why Vivonne was voted Australia’s Best Beach in the first place). With a corporate surfing competition and music event bringing a large amount of people for a short time in a small place, I fear all this will change.

I feel that $ealink are making moves to grip the Bay by the throat, ignoring the conservation status of the land they DO own, and developing the Bay for their own profit. I met Judy Rees yesterday very randomly in a shop in Port Adelaide (previous owner of the Vivonne Bay Outdoor Education Centre) and she was almost shaking with rage, frustration and sadness about this event occurring in her old home. It shames me that Sealink have turned their backs on an area that was a place of education and conservation and the previous owners vision of the land and its significance, and are now taking steps to develop into another cash cow. At what price? If we wanted to live in a concrete jungle we would go to Adelaide, or elsewhere … places like Vivonne are exceedingly rare in this built up world of ours. How we can let this type of development happen when we regard this Island for its community, wildlife and environment? If this surf and music event goes through my partner and I will be selling our land and jumping ship so to speak; it has become clear that Kangaroo Island is going towards a type of tourism that is concerned with making a buck now and dealing with the impacts later … and this is a terrible thing for me to comprehend.

Let’s face it, KI is the cash cow of the State. I therefore think its doubly important to look after this asset and supposed jewel in the crown of the State. However with unruly development like inviting 5000 people to the surf and music event immediately doubles the population of the Island (with the epicentre in a wilderness area in the middle of nowhere). I fear the way this Island is developing and rapidly escalating up the tourism life cycle. I personally like the Island as it is, and I think most Islanders would agree with me, for their own reasons. Yes, there are many aspects that could be improved, like the condition of the roads, schools, food, freight, ferry costs, etc. I think the aspect that could be improved in most however, is sustainable tourism versus rapid development tourism.

To rapidly develop a place or thing that is focused on the now, on making a quick buck, is to rapidly approach the peak in any tourism life cycle and then decline (see Butler’s 1980 Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model). One would say, to then lose the very thing the tourists come for. Escalating development decisions out of line with environment and community like the proposed surf and music event will only increase this process.

Sustainable tourism on the other hand carefully looks at what the draw card to this Island REALLY is. The TOMM model was designed specifically to gather data that gives the reader information about tourism to the Island, and there are many statistics that show that tourists come to KI for its pristine environment and wildlife.

My vision for Kangaroo Island and sustainable tourism would be for a forward thinking council and associated organisations to come together to form a community based KI Futures Committee, who are residents and people who live and breath island life, and who focus on the Islands best interests at heart.

I therefore think an alternative needs to be planned for the KI Surf Pro. No mitigation is acceptable. We can’t just let this happen to “see how it goes” – we do it once and we will destroy what we love about the area.

The surf event must be moved off the Island. There are few world class waves here worthy of the type of competition Surfing SA want for this event and the “good” waves are in remote, inaccessible and pristine environment locations … lets leave them be, rather than succumbing to making money off them. It is ludicrous more so, that the current event is planned for Vivonne, a standard wave that is often flat or closing out. Unsurfable for over 80% of the year. Most waves are in remote and beautiful locations and beautiful as they are.  KI Council should be protecting these wave locations, and listening to the surfing community here and in wider South Australia (not corporate companies in Adelaide whose idea of surfing is pushing brands and making money off competitions). Maybe we need to celebrate KI as a surfing reserve, similar to that of Bells Beach, where we protect and conserve the coastal conservation area around the waves rather than building unruly development on the top of the foredune. Competition surfing brings impacts to a coastline that is out of line with the true ethos of surfing, and should be left on the mainland where the impacts have already occurred years ago.

I believe the music event should not be at Vivonne for a number of reasons. Main ones are: bushfire risk, lack of infrastructure, conservation status of area around the event, high numbers of rare, endemic and threatened flora and fauna, lack of water, distance from emergency services, illumination at night as well as noise from generators impacting upon nocturnal animals and nearby residents at Vivonne Bay, road risk and distance from main centres and majority of Kangaroo Island population. I believe the music event should be held in a location like the KI racecourse. This would immediately solve all of the above concerns, and make this more of a community event, rather than an event imposed on a small community with no wish for mass tourism and its infrastructure, and a cash cow for a monopolising ferry company.

A bit of rant, but I urge you to think about it.

Regards,

Lil
Vivonne Bay

*******

Very nice take Ms Walsh – agree with it all. Will do what we can but this thing has a fair head of steam already.

Cr Graham Walkom