The coast is unclear

REPORT 2014 |

The Coast is Unclear was commissioned to generate public discussion on improving the conservation of coastal nature and reform of Victoria’s coastal planning, protection and management framework, and to provide input into the new Victorian Coastal Strategy.

Published in 2014, this is the first report of its kind to document coastal planning and management issues along the entire length of Victoria’s coastline.

It finds successive Victorian governments have contributed to the creation of a complex, disintegrated and ineffective coastal planning and management framework that has been unable to stop the squeeze on coastal nature.

Its findings include:

• Of the 95 habitats found within 500m of the shoreline more than 70% are either endangered or vulnerable, including Coast Banksia Woodland and Estuarine Wetland.
  Threatened coastal habitats have become fragmented and vulnerable to pressures such as invasive plants and animals, grazing, intensification of land use in adjacent rural areas and altered coastal processes.
• The report also recommends the establishment of a number of new national parks – a Discovery Bay-Three Capes State Park, Twelve Apostles-Bay of Islands National Park and Geelong and Bellarine Wetlands State Park.

The VNPA commissioned this report to generate public discussion on improving the conservation of coastal nature and reform of Victoria’s coastal planning, protection and management framework, and to provide input into the new Victorian Coastal Strategy.