Your Western Port environmental legacy is in danger of extinction!

For fifty-three years, successive state governments have ignored the community call to implement a strategic management plan for Western Port and its region.

Prompted by responses to an article in the Bass Coast Post: “Western Port plan in limbo”, I’m asking for your help to urge the State Government of Victoria to legislate a Western Port Strategic Management Plan to ensure the region’s biodiversity and its economic sustainability are preserved for future generations to inherit, nurture and enjoy.

Unfortunately, the Western Port region is constantly being pressured to expand its industrial and urban zones at the expense of its rural and ecotourism environment.  If allowed to continue unfettered, the region will be overwhelmed by Melbourne’s urban sprawl, thus destroying the environmental sanctuary we all need now, and into the future.

If you would like to: 

• protect the internationally recognised Ramsar wetlands and its migratory shorebird population from increasing environmental pollution; 
• guard against expanding the Port of Hastings to facilitate industries detrimental to Western Port and its hinterland;
• ensure its rural landscape and peri-urban areas are not carved up for development or infiltrated by inappropriate secondary industries;
• safeguard the region’s water catchment area and water quality from pollution stemming from urbanisation and destruction of its rural environment; 
• encourage the development of a circular economy for the region;
• stop the Western Port Woodlands being sacrificed for sand mining;
• set aside the former Holden proving ground as a haven for threatened species and a centre for ecology research;
• retain Western Port’s recreational fishing and the region as a country holiday destination;
• deter developers from building mega boating marinas and high-rise holiday apartments around Western Port’s fragile foreshore; and 
• send a message to the state government to stop ignoring the people’s call,

then on behalf of the 3.5 million people who visit the region each year, please sign this petition.

Recently, 75,000 people signed a petition to save Moreton Bay’s irreplaceable ecosystem and its Ramsar wetland.  This roused the Australian Federal Government to support the call and stopped an environmental catastrophe unfolding – you can do the same for Western Port.

Thank you.

To leave a comment, please click the following link: https://www.change.org/p/save-western-port-protect-its-environment-and-biodiversity-from-urban-sprawl/actions

To view comments from other signatories, please click the following link: https://www.change.org/p/save-western-port-protect-its-environment-and-biodiversity-from-urban-sprawl/c