Ocean beach ecology and threats: a stakeholder perspective
​Project Lead: Craig Styan (University of South Australia)
Project Team: Brianna Le Busque, Laura Falkenberg, Stefan Peters, Delene Weber, Andrew Persian (University of South Australia)
Project overview
Ocean beaches are dynamic ecosystems that provide critical habitat for biodiversity, including shorebirds and bivalves. They are subject to varying natural influences, but also a range of direct and indirect threatening processes from humans.
The CLLMM region includes the 190-km Younghusband Peninsula and 20-km Goolwa Beach beaches on either side of the Murray Mouth. The nature and degree of threats vary along these beaches, and include vehicle disturbance, recreational and commercial bivalve harvest, pest animals and plants, pollution, erosion and habitat degradation, and climate change and its impacts such as sea level rise.
Although there have been previous (expert) assessments of coastal threats along the lower south-east of SA, including the CLLMM region, key to managing human threats is understanding people’s motivation for their use of beaches and their (sometimes mis) perceptions about the impacts they are actually having. This project aims to fill that gap by assessing people’s understanding of, and their motivations (or not) for protecting beaches and their ecology.
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​This project will focus on understanding ecosystem services provided by ocean beaches in the CLLMM region, and how distinct stakeholder groups perceive potential conflicts and threats to those services from current human activities, as well as future threats which may come from climate change.
Key stakeholders targeted for the PPGIS will include First Nations, community, researchers (e.g. Flinders Uni; Uni Adelaide; CSIRO), natural resource managers (NPWSA; DEW; EPA(SA); Coastal Protection Board Kingston, Coorong and Alexandrina District Councils; Hills and Fleurieu, Murraylands and Riverland, Limestone Coast Landscape Boards), eNGOS (e.g. BioR; Birdlife Australia; Nature Glenelg Trust; SA Shorebirds Foundation; Coastcare), recreational groups like fishers (e.g. OzFish, Kingston SE Fishing Competition), 4WD enthusiasts (4WD SA), surfers (e.g. Surfing SA; Surfrider Foundation), and other recreational groups (e.g. SLSSA), as well as people who might not access or use the beaches frequently but still value them.
We will use a variety of approaches to contact stakeholders, including directly in the field, encouraging use of the PPGIS tool and recruiting for subsequent interviews. Importantly, we hope to also recruit stakeholders using links from other CLLMM Research Centre projects and from the RCAF membership.
By providing insight to stakeholder understanding of the value of and conflicts between beach uses and ecology, management may be able to prioritise future monitoring needs, target education strategies, and assess the feasibility of options including area or seasonal closures.
First Nations culture and traditions are rooted within an ancient historical connection with country and countless generations of studying their local environment as a way of life. First Nations traditional ways of life, including land and water management, sustainable harvesting, and the conservation of local species can provide vital perspectives into the ways we manage the lands and waters into the future.
This cultural significance of this project concerns the impact reduction on, and adaptation of cultural practices, traditions and heritage sites associated with ocean beaches. The traditions and practices may include cockle (kuti) harvesting, or the protection of Nga:tjar (totem species) such as varying waterbirds that nest or feed on the ocean beaches. First Nations people of the CLLMM region continue to undertake these traditional practices and obligations today.
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Understanding the coming changes to ocean beaches will hold significance in preparing First Nations people, culture and businesses to such changes, providing opportunity for adaptation or mitigations to be implements in the future.
Cultural significance
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First Nations culture and traditions are rooted within an ancient historical connection with country and countless generations of studying their local environment as a way of life. First Nations traditional ways of life, including land and water management, sustainable harvesting, and the conservation of local species can provide vital perspectives into the ways we manage the lands and waters into the future.
The cultural significance of theis proejct concerns the impact reduction on, and adptation of cultural practices, traditions and heritage sites associated with ocean beaches. The traditions and practices may include cockle (kuti) harvesting, or the protection of Nga:tar (totem species) such as varying waterbirds that nest or feed on the ocean beaches. First Nations people of the CLLMM region continue to undertake these tradtional practices
Cultural significance