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The group of Crescent Head residents are angry about a National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) draft management plan they say prevents them from accessing and using local beaches for dog walking.

Source : PortMac.News | Citizen :

Source : PortMac.News | Citizen | News Story:

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Crescent Head : Dog walkers rally over beach restrictions
The group of Crescent Head residents are angry about a National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) draft management plan they say prevents them from accessing and using local beaches for dog walking.

News Story Summary:

Disgruntled dog walkers on New South Wales' mid north coast have launched a community action group against "draconian" draft management plans to restrict beach access. 

A new NPWS plan of management, which has recently been on review, would see dogs prohibited from certain beach access routes and banned from previously off-leash dog walking areas.

In response, former school principal Jann Eason has started the Crescent Head Dog and Walkers Group (CHDaWG).

So far, the group's petition has gained 1,300 signatures, about 92 per cent of the town's population.

Ms Eason, who came out of retirement to advocate for her fellow dog walkers, said the community could face fines for non-compliance.

"People aren't allowed to ride horses on the beach, the beekeepers are concerned, the commercial fishers could be affected," she said.

"We started off with the simple desire to be able to walk your dog on the beach and found out the entire community is affected."

Ms Eason said an interim agreement with NPWS has been in place that allows residents to take their dogs in a car and walk them on a leash to get onto the beach. 

"We only want what we already had for over 40 years," she said.

"Those rules were meant to stay in place until a suitable alternative had been negotiated, but NPWS aren't negotiating with us."

CHDaWG member Chris Dockrill, who was an original member of the now dissolved Goolawah Consultative Committee, said he joined the cause out of "frustration with the apparent authoritarian and unilateral approach to dog walking".

"We’re now seeing the implementation of a management plan that will see dogs banned from using the access roads to the beaches, and NPWS simply won’t listen to the community," he said.

"If it happens here, it can happen anywhere."

Local resident Craig said he felt the NPWS management plan review was "underhanded".

"So many people walk their dogs here and they want to stop locals accessing it? It's just madness," he said.

Conservation concerns:

NPWS Hastings Macleay area manager Shane Robinson said the team was "doing its best to get the balance right" between community concerns and NPWS' legal obligations to "protect conservation values".

"We don't have any issues with people walking their dogs, but we don't want domestic dogs to have an impact on conservation," Mr Robinson said.

"It was flagged [the issue] was contentious but needed to be resolved to be able to protect the threatened shorebirds and turtles that nest from time to time on those beaches."

But Ms Eason asserts the evidence supplied by NPWS on threatened species is misleading.

The group believes the area should be classified as a regional park rather than a national park as the natural environment was modified after intensive sand mining from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Local member appeals to Minister

Local state MP Melinda Pavey said she was "Appalled" by the NPWS’s lack of consultation.

Ms Pavey arranged for Ms Eason and Mr Dockrill to meet with the NSW environment Minister James Griffin last month to discuss their concerns.

"The access the draft plan of management is proposing is unsafe and unsuitable," Ms Pavey said.

"When you have all levels of the community coming together, even those you wouldn't see standing together in a fight, you know the consultation hasn't worked.

"We do not want people fined for having their dogs go across an area to a beach that has been mined to within an inch of its life, where there is no evidence of endangered shorebirds."

The Kempsey Shire Council said in a statement that council "Has advocated to the Minister to preserve the existing level or expand dog-walking access on beaches", but that the final decision on the issue remained with the NPWS.

Story By | Alexandra Jones


This News Story's Author : Staff-Editor-02

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