ANNUAL REPORT FOR
THE BYRON ENVIRONMENT CENTRE (BEC)
OCTOBER 2004 - 2005

BEC HUBS
Mullumbimby.
Office co-ordinator: Renee Engl.
The Mullum office continues to be the BEC’s administrative centre. Staffed by volunteers we aim to keep it open Monday to Fridays. Over the past year we have seen 12 volunteers working there, offering an information service to the community, coordinating BEC memberships and research, organising petitions, submissions and letter writing campaigns and maintaining a notice board outside Santos. Andrew compiles a weekly electronic newsmail-‘Newsy Bits’ sent to members. The office has a variety of facilities such as phone/fax, computer/internet and a photocopier and holds the extensive BEC archives and a small library including videos.
Alice organised a volunteers picnic in Palm Park, Mullumbimby.

Byron Bay.
The Enviro-Information Kiosk ( Rotunda)
Co-ordinator: Marie Hayes.
Situated in Railway park, it is also run by volunteers (12 this year) and provides an active social interface and focal point for raising community awareness on local and global environmental issues. Other community groups are encouraged to use the facility and this year has seen YAC with its street cruise program, Free Healing and The Krishnas all active at different times of the year.
Council has been developing a draft Management Plan for Railway park and it was feared that there might be calls to remove the Rotunda. The BEC is committed to maintaining its presence in the heart of Byron. The Rotunda with its frescoed external walls also has the distinction of being the only public work of indigenous art on display in the Byron CBD.
(It appears that for the meanwhile the draft plan of management for Railway park has been put on hold in favour of developing a new management plan looking at the wider precinct which will further delay any decisions on the future of the rotunda.)

MARKET STALL
Co-ordinator-Edie.
The BEC has a regular market stall at the monthly Byron community markets.
Tsunami appeal.
As charity of the day at the market we raised $6000. Money was sent to fund various environmental projects in Sri Lanka.

FESTIVALS.
The Brunswick Valley Landcare ‘Nature Festival’ The BEC was one of the sponsors of the festival held at Shearwater and we helped co-ordinate their photographic competition. We also had a stall at the festival.
Australia Day. John Lazarus and Marie Hayes helped to organize ‘The survival of Indigenous Culture’ an event held at Main Beach Byron Bay as part of Australia day festivities.
East Coast Blues Festival. Binyabutts distributed an estimated 8000 portable ashtrays, as part of the Binyabutt program.
World Environment Day. In conjunction with Byron Shire Council, the BEC held an open day at the Cumbebin Wetland Sanctuary.
Peace Carnival. The BEC had a stall at the carnival.

EVENTS.
The BEC organized a canoe trip (5 canoes) from Brunswick to Billinudgel along Marshall’s creek. Fun was had by all- except for the unlucky canoeists whose boat was swamped forcing them to turn back.
Tassie Film Night. An evening of Videos on the plight of Tasmanian forests, music and food was held at Mullum. In conjunction with the Widerness Society.

CAMPAIGNS
Becton. The BEC has acted as a focal point for the letter writing and submission campaign and was represented in the community negotiations with Becton by Dave Saunders. The community campaign has notably curtailed the extent of Becton’s ambitions and gained some significant environmental outcomes for the site at North Beach Sunrise, although nothing has been definitively agreed on yet, as Becton stumbles its way through the development consent process. As it stands Frank Sartor, State minister of planning has hinted that Becton must deal with council over its development application. The option preferred by The BEC and other environmental groups is for 150 beds. Becton want to develop around a 250 bed capacity in the current proposal- others could be forthcoming further down the track. When Club Med were the owners of the site they wanted to develop a 450 bed tourist facility.

Marine Park. The BEC continued to oppose the fishing lobby group and campaigned actively for the extension of conservation zones within the Marine Park reserve. Mark Parrat co-ordinated our campaign and was active in negotiations with Marine Parks Authority.

Whales. Dave Saunders made a hundred whale tail wood pendants for kids to sand paper and wear while their parents filled out form letters opposing whaling, with Paul Brecht and Katrina Kelsey at the Byron lighthouse for the start of the whale season gathering.

Holiday Letting. The BEC is opposed to holiday letting in residential 2a zones and to any attempts in the future to change the local Byron Bay, Ewingsdale and Suffolk park Local Environment Plan in order to accommodate it.

Railway. The Northern Rivers trains for the future group has been campaigning to get the train back on our rails. Paul Brecht is attending NRTF meetings.

Binyabutt Program. Co-ordinators- Darshi, Robin Harrison.
The program was thrown into crisis this year when it became increasingly difficult to source the film canisters used as portable ashtrays- due to the digital revolution in photography. Luckily they were able to source 200000 canisters from Kodak in Melbourne and with sponsorship from Byron Council and The Arts Factory in Byron Bay, we were able to pay for the cost of transporting the canisters to Byron and securing the program’s viability into the foreseeable future.

White’s Cottage. The BEC is supporting moves to refurbish White’s cottage (heritage building) at Clarkes beach and wants to see it re-open as an office for The Arakwal people and also as a community space. In a motion put up by John Lazarus, Council has approved the setting up of a new 355 committee to oversee White’s cottage.

Water Grant. The BEC wrote a letter of support for Byron Council’s application to improve 13 beach showers and make them more water efficient.

Round up. Paul Brecht is researching alternatives to chemical spraying of weeds and looking at ways to alert the community to the potential health hazards.

The BEC wrote submissions in response to the following issues:
Railway Park plan of management, Arakwal National Park draft plan of management, Marine Park Reserve, Yelgun rest stop. Byron recreational grounds plan of management.

REPRESENTATION.
Indigenous Land Use Agreement, part 1 &2. The BEC is a party in the negotiations for the Arakwal native title claim.

Ewingsdale-Tintenbar Pacific highway upgrade. The BEC is represented by Mathew Jamieson on the Community Liason Group.

Becton. The BEC is represented by Dave Saunders at all planning negotiation meetings with Becton, Council, environmental groups and govt agencies.

Bird Buddies. The BEC is represented on the committee by Dave Saunders. Bird Buddies are slowly making headway in restoring shorebird breeding sites at the belongil estuary, including the endangered Little Terns and Pied Oystercatchers and educating the public on such issues as dogs, human disturbance. Agencies, such as council, national parks have come on board to help.

Blues festival relocation to Tyagarah. Dave Saunders attended a meeting of the Tyagarah progress association re: blues festival relocation and has conducted an inspection of the proposed site. The BEC is opposed to the relocation on environmental grounds- flooding, Koala habitat etc.

Arakwal National Park. Dave Saunders liased with National Parks as BEC rep re:methods of weeding Arakwal National Park, including protecting rare flora

The state of the environment report committee. The report was completed last year with a new council elected and will be updated annually.

Byron Shire Council Waste Management Committee. The BEC is represented by Sharon Curry.
Holiday Letting. The BEC was represented by Sandra Heilpern at the forum on Holiday letting organized by Council.

Co-ordinator: Sharon Curry.

More and more people are visiting the wetland sanctuary each year.  Further sightings of the endangered  Mitchells rainforest snail has been recorded.  Small Insectivorous bats that have nested in our bat nest boxes now have a presence and are helping to reduce the mosquitoe population.

Monthly bush regen days continue with the help of Envite crews and other dedicated volunteers. 

The BEC participated on World Environment day with a guided Wetland Tour along the boardwalk by Marty Wade, a guided tour of the chemical free bush regeneration work by Geoff Dawe and the plantings of trees toward the protection of the wetland by many volunteers.  A wonderful day was had by all.

At the Peace Carnival a stall was set up with our wetland  display board on show.  We were delighted during our tree planting activity at the wetland to have been helped by four 7 and 8 year old nature lovers.

A grant from  will allow us to build 2 new seats for the boardwalk.

‘THE BEC’.
Editor: Nino MacDonald. Fundraising: Alice Moffatt
Our Environmental journal has continued to flourish, the format has been expanded and 3 editions were published this year on the theme of ‘Byron Shire Issues’, ‘Forests’ and ‘Water’. The journal is funded entirely by the community. It has a print run of 1200 and is distributed free throughout the shire.

WEBSITE.
The Byron Environment Centre’s website is still running but is no longer being updated due to the new work commitments of our webmaster-Darshi. We urgently need to find a new webmaster and thank Darshi for his excellent work. 

MEMBERSHIP. 66

STEPPING DOWN THIS YEAR.
Alloy Tromp. The BEC volunteer auditor for the past 5 years  has retired.
Peggy Balfour. Committee member- Mullum office co-ordinator and responsible for memberships.
Peter Dupen- Convenor of The BEC and long time active member has taken up a new life in the UK and will be sorely missed by all.
Many thanks to them for their service.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Convenor: Nino MacDonald. Secretary: Dave Saunders. Treasurer: Sharon Curry.
Public Officer: Marty Wade ( Naval Pols assisting.)
Committee members: John Lazarus, Terry Page, Robin Buckley, Naval Pols, Paul Brecht, Mark Parratt.