EPA urges halt to Kenwick wetland rezoning

The state’s environmental watchdog has recommended against a City of Gosnells plan to further box in one of the most biodiverse patches of remnant bushland in Perth.

Plans submitted by the City of Gosnells to the Environmental Protection Authority last year would see 257 hectares of rural lots on either side of a remnant Kenwick wetlands block rezoned for commercial use.

Parts of the wetlands, particularly the nearby Greater Brixton Street Wetlands, have long been the focus of campaigning from scientists for greater protections.

In one of his last acts at the helm of the EPA, chairman Matthew Tonts said the risks to water, flora, vegetation, fauna and the principles of the Environmental Protection Act 1986 were likely too great to progress the project.

“The extraordinarily biodiverse, internationally significant Greater Brixton Street Wetlands are located within and adjacent to the amendment areas,” he said.

“Other environmental values impacted include conservation category wetlands, threatened ecological communities, threatened flora, threatened fauna habitat and poorly represented vegetation complexes.”

In handing down his recommendation, Professor Tonts provided advice on conditions should the relevant state government ministers opt to ignore the EPA’s guidance.

Those conditions would include guaranteeing no adverse impact to the Greater Brixton Street Wetlands, Yule Brooke or future conservation areas, and creation of offset for the black cockatoo and endemic flora.

Achieving this would also require input from the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions to determine buffer zones.

Professor Tonts has previously described biodiversity in the wetlands as “akin to the Fitzgerald Biosphere”, a globally significant nature area around Ravensthorpe on the state’s south coast.

Bound by three major transport routes and increasingly hemmed in by residential, commercial and industrial development, the Kenwick wetlands has been subject to years of fierce debate due to its significance as one of few remaining black cockatoo roosting sites in Perth’s urban area.

In 2018 Linc Property, now Hesperia, felled 51 trees on rezoned land around the wetlands with the federal government’s blessing.

At the time Linc promised to plant more than 500 trees on a nearby site, conserve large parts of the development parcel, and fund cockatoo research.

The development site previously raised concern in 2016 when the EPA decided against formally assessing rezoning of the land due to lack of cockatoo roost sightings.

Soon after that decision large numbers of cockatoos were observed roosting in the area by volunteers.

A group of university professors named The Beeliar Group have called for a 100-metre buffer zone to protect the wetlands and creation of a four-kilometre park running from the wetland to Lesmurdie Falls.

Among significant developers of the land over the years are Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s Fiveight, and Adrian Fini and Ben Lisle’s Hesperia.