Surfing brings joy to millions and is the lifeblood of many towns. But around the country, the beaches that make it possible are under threat

There’s a reason surfers like to keep their best breaks a secret.

For decades, wave riders have blazed a trail into little-known coastal towns – and in their wake come the planners and developers.

When Clint Bryan bought his house 40 minutes north of Perth city, one consideration was paramount: it had to be near his favourite surf break.

And sure enough, his Kallaroo home is just five minutes’ walk from the Indian Ocean. The suburb name is a Noongar word meaning “road to the water”.

But by the end of this summer, the waves that Bryan built his life around will disappear as the beach is redeveloped for the $252m Ocean Reef Marina.

The marina is within the Marmion marine park and will transform 1.5km of coastline into shops, restaurants, boat moorings, a protected beach and new homes. The local state MP, Emily Hamilton, says it will create “thousands of jobs” and inject $3bn into the Western Australia economy.

But it will also kill three surf breaks – Mossies, Big Rock and Pylons.

The community group Save Ocean Reef says it will mount a legal challenge to the project because it is damaging the marine park, and a petition to construct an artificial reef has grown to nearly 2,500 signatures.

Ocean Reef has been a surf destination since at least the 1950s, when it was little more than sand dunes and beach shacks, with just a caravan park nearby.

“It’s like we are losing our playing field and the grassroots waves we learned to surf on,” says Bryan, a 43-year-old aviation rescue firefighter.

A wealth of benefits

In 2010, New Zealand became one of only two countries in the world to legally protect surf breaks (Peru is the other).

In Australia, neither state nor federal environment legislation protects waves.

Ana Manero, an environmental economist at the Australian National University who researches surfing economics, says the legal gap is a “massive blind spot”, but legislation is not the only way to defend surf breaks.

“We don’t have environmental laws to protect surfing resources in Australia, but we have an economic argument,” Manero says.

“Surfing brings a wealth of benefits, it makes places more desirable to live in, it is good for the local community, so the question is: when waves are impacted, how is that loss of value going to be accounted for?

There are an estimated 2.5 million recreational surfers in Australia and surf tourism expenditure was estimated to be about $91bn a year globally before the pandemic.

“It’s crucial we understand the real value of surfing before we lose the many benefits it brings, not only for Australia’s surfing community but also for the hundreds of coastal towns where surfing underpins the local economy and lifestyle,” Manero says.

For decades, environmental economics has been applied to quantify the value of recreation activities, such as scuba diving and fishing.

Manero hopes surfing research will help inform better decisions when developments affect waves.

Source
Narelle Towie
The Guardian