When you go down the rabbit hole of plans that relate to the different aspects of Sustainable Tourism, you may never come out again. Have we reached a planning paralysis? How do we move from planning into action?
Let’s take a closer look at the plans Noosa Council has on board right now and see what more is on the horizon.
Considering issues that relate to a sustainable tourism industry, valuable information can be drawn from the following Council guidelines and plans:
Sustainability Principles
The first of Noosa’s six sustainability principles revolves around sustainable management of resources to ensure the community can meet its own needs and preserve its resources for future generations. We need to consider the impact of an ever-growing tourism sector along with high population growth in the South East Queensland region in general which will add to the pressures on Noosa’s infrastructure.
Another principle is to maintain a prosperous economy that is diverse and protective of Noosa’s unique environment. There needs to be care not to put all eggs in the tourism basket, as this industry is vulnerable to hiccups in the global economy. But when things are running hot, strong tourism puts a strain on housing affordability and the rise in AirBnB bookings is also making it harder to find property to rent.
We heard a lot about the impacts of the pressurised short-term rental market at a community meeting to discuss AirBnB organised by the Cooroy and Noosa ratepayers’ associations recently. The sustainability of our community’s lifestyles depends first and foremost on decisions made in the interest of the community.
The (New) Noosa Plan
At that AirBnB meeting, Mayor Tony Wellington made it clear he thought the issue revolved around planning and that the new Noosa Plan, earmarked for release for community input towards the end of the year, would endeavour to find an equitable outcome for all. In the meantime, residents living near party houses have no respite from the noise, parking issues and bad behaviour imposed on them in their once quiet neighbourhood. On the other hand, some people have to put up with bad neighbours all the time, so we can’t lay the blame squarely on short-term rentals either.
Through the planning scheme, the Council will try to distinguish between ‘Principle Place of Residence’ and ‘Non-Principle Place of Residence’ rentals in order to impose a fairer levy. People who rent out a room to help pay some bills shouldn’t be slugged with the same levy as owners who lease out complete properties. These discussions are complex and we’ll dedicate another blog about the rise of AirBnB and its effect on local communities. In the meantime, here’s an interesting article from the Byron shire who seems to be struggling with the same problem.
The Noosa Foreshore Plan
Gympie Terrace is a great place to be and as more people come to love it, the more we’ll need to balance the needs of small businesses trying to get a slice of the tourism pie, the tourists vying for their slice of paradise and the locals who want to have their slice and eat it too.
I don’t envy Council the task of dealing with the widely divergent views of our community and there is no way that they can ever please everyone. This week a group of residents raised their concerns with Cr Brian Stockwell at the Waterfront Restaurant – Bettina has written a short piece on the community context of that meeting and the foreshore situation in general.
The Noosa Social Strategy
Without going into too much detail, the social strategy looks at things like affordable housing, aspiring to be a cohesive and resilient community. The AirBnB community meeting also touched on this with our Member for Parliament, Sandy Bolton, talking about homelessness in our region.
While Noosa appears to be a well-off community, we fall short in many ways. The jobs created by the tourism industry are mostly casual and not well paid, so we have many vulnerable families who are pushed out of the market and struggling to make ends meet. Last year we had 1,200 kids living under the poverty level, a few years ago it was around 65. These are shocking statistics and, like Sandy said, we need to start looking after our own.
The Noosa Transport Strategy / Zero Emissions Noosa
This one also deserves a post of its own as our traffic woes are complex. We’ll follow up with the Zero Emissions Noosa group and with locals who have been throwing interesting ideas around on Facebook, in letters to the editor and in other forums. There are solutions, we just need visionary leadership to bring bright ideas to fruition.
Local Economic Plan
The objective of this plan is to diversify our economy, but we’re not there yet. I was actually in a Project Focus Group for the LEP in 2015 which was my first foray into community meetings here in Noosa. At the time I thought it would be a good avenue to address what I believed to be the jobs of the future – recycling industries, batteries to support renewable energy projects and more, but my ideas were frowned upon.
The group did, however, comment on the lack of progress in executing the prior local economic plan. I’m no economist, but I have seen the result of economic downturns on tourist towns and I believe we need to do better.
Waste Reduction and Recycling Plan
Tourists inadvertently generate a lot of waste. When travelling, you don’t take your reusable bags and your own picnic basket along. You grab food on the go. International tourists may not be aware that our tap water is treated to food grade quality and safe to drink, spending up on bottled water.
When we introduced Boomerang Bags at Coco Bay Resort, the owners told us that most people order their food to be delivered, and the boxes would arrive chockers full of plastic bags.
While it’s great the plastic bag ban will be introduced from 1 July, we are nowhere near solving this problem. This issue deserves its own post, so watch this space.
I’m sure there are more plans to note, but you get the point. There are a lot of plans. And finally, there is an Operational Plan that details significant initiatives to achieve the strategic goals and key priorities set out in the Corporate Plan. Easy, right?
Now there is also a plan to work with Tourism Noosa and other community organisations to develop a Sustainable Tourism Plan.
Tourism Noosa Sustainability Plan
Tourism Noosa’s Sustainability plan includes a range of goals including a transport plan to help ease congestion during peak times, advocating for a balance between conservation and industry, evolving their Eco Check program and to establish benchmarked sustainable tourism criteria aligned with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) criteria, which they plan to measure annually.
Global Sustainable Tourism Council
The GSTC is an international organisation that sets global baseline standards for sustainability in travel and tourism.
For Tourism Noosa to adhere to the GSTC guidelines, they need to achieve certain milestones:
- Waste reduction – having a system to encourage enterprises to reduce, reuse, and recycle solid waste and that any residual solid waste that is not reused or recycled is disposed of safely and sustainably.
- A waste collection system that maintains public records on the amount of waste generated
- Solid waste management plan that is implemented, and has quantitative goals to minimize, and ensure safe sustainable disposal of waste that is not reused or recycled
- Program to assist enterprises to reduce, reuse, and recycle waste
- Program to reduce the use of bottled water by enterprises and visitors
GSTC Criteria are arranged around four pillars:
- Sustainable management
- Socioeconomic impacts
- Cultural impacts
- Environmental impacts (including consumption of resources, reducing pollution, and conserving biodiversity and landscapes)
In future posts, I will investigate each of these pillars to see how we are faring at the moment and what we need to do to in order to leave a lasting legacy for generations to come. We want to crunch the numbers, pick some brains and hopefully provide a different perspective on possibilities in our region.
