The NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) is asking communities to have their say on how they value their local waterways in a survey of NSW Water Quality Objectives.
In 2017, the DPIE consulted with stakeholders and community groups as part of developing the Marine Estate Management Strategy 2018-28, and one of the key actions was to ensure that NSW Water Quality Objectives reflected community environmental values and uses.
This survey, with a specific Central Coast section, aims to discover how people use local waterways and why they are valuable for their quality of life.
These uses could include swimming, kayaking, boating, fishing walking on the foreshores or protecting the habitat for plants and animals.
The survey includes questions such as: which local waterways are important to you, in what ways do you currently enjoy using local waterways, how healthy are they, how often do you visit, are there any conflicting uses of waterways in the local area.
Feedback will help deliver NSW Water Quality Objectives to continue protecting and maintaining waterways in line with the way people want to use them.
It will also go towards development of a guideline to help local councils or NSW Government agencies update their community’s environmental values and uses for waterways.
Sue Murray