3. Noosa Project Restoration Plan V12

SECTION 4 - PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS AND ENGAGEMENT
The Noosa community overwhelmingly supports this project and the restoration sites selected.

4.1 Face-to-face meetings

Since February 2020, the project team has met face-to-face with over 70 Noosa stakeholder groups and
including local recreational and active commercial fishers, tourism and recreational groups and Noosa
Council approved indigenous representatives to discuss the project and to present the proposed
restoration sites. The overwhelming feedback from these meetings was supportive.

Traditional owners, senior land claimants from the Kabi Kabi Nation, as identified by Noosa Council,
support the project and are involved in project activities. Kabi Kabi elders also provide technical input
to the historic assessments of oyster presence and uses in the Noosa River. TNC has been given approval
verbally by the traditional owners, and permission to incorporate local indigenous knowledge into the
project and its activities.

Commercial, recreational fishers and indigenous elders have already provided invaluable insights to the
history of the Noosa River, its uses and current extractive and non-extractive practices. Indigenous
engagement actions are planned as part of structured school and community engagement programs
that the project is helping resource.

Feedback from these numerous meetings was incorporated into the design process and reported to
Noosa Shire Council in the project annual report (2019-2020).

4.2 Community engagement workshop

On the 7th of December 2020, the project also facilitated a community engagement workshop in which
18 participants from local Noosa groups gathered and discussed partnership projects. From the
workshop 9 community projects were refined and are being implemented (see Annex 5: Community
Engagement Workshop Report).

4.3 Public consultation sessions

On the 14th of December 2020, the project facilitated 9 widely publicised public consultation sessions
about the project, the restoration projects and the Phase I restoration sites. During these sessions, 38
locals met face-to-face with TNC staff in small groups, and discussed the project purpose, methodology
and restoration sites and opportunities for restoration throughout the estuary (see Annex 6: Public
Consultation Sessions Report).

Most participants expressed overwhelming support for the project. Some 4-6 participants expressed
concerns about the need of the project, the integrity of the project’s local partners and the
transparency in the sources of funding. One concern was expressed about the expected success of the
project given that the past oyster restoration project, led by the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC)
and Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation (NBRF)11 did not deliver oyster reefs at the end of that
project. The project team clearly explained that in that project shell was placed in coir bags but the bags

11
  Gilby, B. et al 2020. Bringing fish life back to Noosa: restoring lost oyster reef habitats in the Noosa Biosphere. Final Project Report.
University of the Sunshine Coast, School of Science and Engineering.


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