By TANIA PHILLIPS
FINGAL has dominated this year’s North Coast and Northern Region Keep Australia Beautiful NSW Clean Beaches Awards.
The town will find out tomorrow if they will become the second Tweed Coast Beach in three years to win the overall NSW title when the state awards are announced at South Maroubra Beach. Maggies Beach at Cabarita took out the NSW title in 2011.
Despite damaging erosion earlier in the year that threatened the local surf club, the Fingal Head Beach has bounced back to win the Overall title at the regional awards in Ballina last Friday.
Fingal Head also took out the Young Legends award, for the local schools work to protect the environment, as well as the Evironmental Protection Award and were highly commended in the Cultural and Historical Heritage, Safety and Services, Litter and Waste Management and Community Partnerships Award.
Cabarita Beach was also a big winner at the ceremony winning the Safety and Services, Litter and Waste Management and Community Partnerships Award, and being named Highly Commended in the Young Legends Award.
The Keep Australia Beautiful NSW Clean Beaches – Connecting our Coast Awards encourage and recognise coastal communities, local councils, volunteers and surf lifesaving clubs who protect this state’s beautiful coastline.
The program empowers these groups to actively work for a cleaner, more sustainable environment through the sharing of knowledge, experience and resources. Dune and habitat conservation, environmental education, anti-litter, waste management and visitor friendly initiatives are among some of the projects that are awarded.
The Fingal Public School children have now made the state final two out of the past three years (as well as being highly commended in the 2012 regional awards).
“We have been helping the Fingal Head Coastcare keep the area nice and clean,” school captain Indigo Jorgensen said.
“This year we have been busy planting new plants on the dunes.”
She said the dunes were slowly coming back after the devastation of earlier in the year.
Fingal Head received the Overall Award for the North Coast and Northern Rivers region for their impressive all round work including:
Re-establishing a littoral rainforest environment adjacent to wetlands and dunes degraded since the 1950s and 1960s. Gradually the landscape has been transformed from a wasteland to a balance ecosystem with the help of local community groups, Tweed Shire Council and various organisations.
Rehabilitating dunes, surrounding forests and wetlands as an important habitat for many native animals. The number of bird species recorded in these regenerated forests has increased from 28 in 1960 to 238 species in 2013, these includes endangered, threatened, migratory and sea birds.
Fingal Head Coastcare has a long term commitment of 28 years to re-establish and protect the coastal/dune biodiversity.
Keep Australia Beautiful NSW CEO, David Imrie, commended Fingal Head and each of the award winners for their fantastic environmental achievements.
“Through the Clean Beaches Program we celebrate the achievements of coastal communities who actively make our beaches cleaner and a more sustainable environment,” Mr Imrie said.
“We congratulate Fingal Head and each of the regional winners who have set an impressive benchmark for the rest of the competition.
