North Stradbroke Island

North Stradbroke Island

Nickname: Straddie
NASA World Wind Landsat montage
Geography
Location	Coral Sea
Length	38 km (23.6 mi)
Width	11 km (6.8 mi)
Country
Australia
State	Queensland
Local Government Area	Redland City
Demographics
Population	2000

Eastern wall of the North Gorge, as seen from the Gorge Walk at Point Lookout.

North Stradbroke Island is an Australian island in the state of Queensland, 30 km southeast of the capital Brisbane. Before 1896 the island was part of the Stradbroke Island. In that year a storm separated it from South Stradbroke Island, forming the Jumpinpin Channel. It is known colloquially as Straddie.

Geography

The island is about 38 km long and 11 km wide. North Stradbroke Island is the second largest sand island in the world.^[1] North Stradbroke, South Stradbroke and Moreton Island act as a barrier to Moreton Bay.

The permanent population the island is quite small, at 2000, but the number of people on the island swells significantly during the holiday season. There is no bridge to the island and the only access is by vehicular or passenger ferries leaving from Cleveland.

There are three townships on the island. Dunwich is the largest and has most of the island's services including a school, medical centre, local museum and university marine research station. Point Lookout (referred to locally as 'the point') is on the surf side of the island and is the major tourist destination in the holiday season. The third is Amity Point which is much smaller and a popular fishing spot on the island. Flinders Beach is a small settlement of mostly holiday houses located on the main beach between Amity and Point Lookout.

The remainder of the island is a locality (North Stradbroke Island) of the Redland City local government area, as are the three townships.

The two largest lakes on the island are Brown Lake and Blue Lake.

Beaches

5 main Beaches provide great fishing, surfing and water activities on North Stradbroke Island. These are Main Beach (32km long, good for surfing), Cylinder Beach (protected swimming beach with smaller swell), Home Beach (a popular swimming beach), Frenchman's Beach/Deadman's Beach (rock pools but no lifesaving service) and Flinders Beach (on the western non-surf side of the Island, offers good swimming and popular with campers).

History

The native name for the island is Minjerribah but in 1827 Captain Henry John Rous, who had the title of Viscount Dunwich, commander of Moreton Bay, named the island after his father the Earl of Stradbroke,^[2] the town after his title, the entrance channel after himself and even gave his boat a guernsey with the naming of Rainbow Beach. However three shipwrecked sailors, Thomas Pamphlett, John Finnegan and Richard Parsons, spent time on Stradbroke Island after they were washed ashore in 1823. The local Aboriginal people supplied them with food and shelter and even gave them a canoe to help them on their way. Before these three, Matthew Flinders called in at Stradbroke Island for fresh water^[2] and also mapped a large section of Moreton Bay. Flinders was impressed by the Stradbroke Aborigines' health and hospitality. Well known local historian, Thomas Welsby, records an Aboriginal oral tradition that there was an even earlier contact with European shipwreck survivors who walked into one of the Aboriginal camps after their ship was wrecked on the ocean side of Stradbroke Island. This tradition states that one of the men's name was Juan and the other's was Woonunga. In 1890 a member of the Campbell family, one of Stradbroke's oldest mixed blood families, told Welsby that the remains of the ship were still visible in the 18 Mile Swamp and that the remains were of English oak.^[3] This story gives rise to a local legend that the remains of a Spanish or Portuguese shipwreck known as the Stradbroke Island Galleon exist somewhere in the 18 Mile Swamp.

North Stradbroke Island's most famous local was Oodgeroo Noonuccal, formerly known as Kath Walker, the Aboriginal poet and native-rights campaigner. She was one of the prime-movers of the movement that lead to the 1997 landmark agreement between the local government council and the aboriginal people of the area claiming rights over the island and parts of Moreton Bay.

In 2000, Matthew Hayden's boat capsized whilst sailing near North Stradbroke Island. He and his two companions which included Andrew Symonds, were forced to swim a kilometre to safety. Hayden subsequently appeared in a campaign promoting marine safety.

Mining

During the 1960s sand mining operations began mining the islands frontal dunes.^{[citation needed]} Mining moved into the interior of the island in the late 1960s and increased in scale and size. As an alternative, development of the island for seaside residential use was mooted and in 1970 a bridge from the mainland via Russell Island was under serious consideration by the Queensland government. The Queensland government also proposed a large scale redevelopment of the island in the mid 1980's which would have seen the population of the island increase 10 fold. This proposal was never followed through when the incumbent government lost office. From the 1960s to the 1980s sand miners mined the frontal dunes of the ocean beach from Jumpinpin to Point Lookout. This mining activity destroyed numerous ancient Aboriginal middens and campsites in the sheltered areas behind the frontal dunes.^{[citation needed]} Unique ecosystems which lay between the 18 Mile Swamp and the ocean were also destroyed. Generally there was little more than a token effort to re-vegetate mined areas so that 30 years after the area was mined the dunal areas are still ecologically devastated.^{[citation needed]} There is also strong anecdotal evidence that in the 1960s one of the early mining companies destroyed a shipwreck located in the sand dunes near Jumpinpin which may have been the reputed Stradbroke Galleon.^[4] There are several accounts from sand mining employees of unusual artifacts being found during dredging operations.

However, the understanding of the island's environmental and native heritage value was on the rise. In 1991 the Australian Government and sand mining companies ACI and Consolidated Rutile Pty Ltd attempted to reach an agreement on surrender of some or parts of mining lease tenements to form a national park. Half of North Stradbroke Island was to become a national park in return for a guarantee that mining could continue for the life of several mines in high grade areas ¹. The agreement was never signed by either of the mining companies nor the government and has not been progressed to this day. Mineral sands and silica sands at Myora Mine, near Dunwich, are currently being mined from the surface. Rutile, zircon and ilmenite are dredged from the Yarraman Mine on the north of the island and the Enterprise Mine on the south of the island by Consolidated Rutile Limited (CRL). In 2009, 500,000 tonnes of minerals were being produced by mining about 50 million tonnes of sand.^[5] Enterprise is the largest mine on the island and accounted for 60% of the island's production in 2011.^[6]

According to the Stradbroke Island Management Organisation (an environmental watch-dog organisation) two-thirds of the island is covered by mining leases.^[5] In late 2009, CSR, which became a subsidiary of Unimin Australia, itself a subsidiary of Sibelco, after being purchased from Iluka Resources, was charged with illegal sand mining after it sold sand extracted from the island, to the building industry for the production of glass.^[7]

In 2010, the State government announced that sand mining on the island would be phased out by 2027.^[8] According to an article published by one of the sand mining companies, the announcement caused concern amongst residents as half of the island's economy is supported by that mine operator Unimin.^[9] Plans to decommission mining were changed once again, when on 22 March 2011 the Queensland Premier Anna Bligh announced that the Enterprise Mine will now be forced to shut in 2019, eight years earlier than previously agreed. Yarraman will close in 2015 and Vance in 2025.^[6] The decision increased concerns for the local economy.^[10]

Eventually 80% of the island will become national park. The state government is planning to develop tourism opportunities by creating new walking tracks, camping grounds and recreational facilities.^[6]

See also

Queensland portal

• Bribie Island
• North Stradbroke Island Historical Museum
• Point Lookout Lighthouse, Australia

References

1. ^ "About North Stradbroke Island". Centre for Marine Studies. University of Queensland. http://www.cms.uq.edu.au/about-north-stradbroke-island. Retrieved 18 August 2010. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Horton, Helen (1983). Islands of Moreton Bay. Spring Hill, Queensland: Boolarong Publications. pp. 28—30. ISBN 0908175671. 
3. ^ Early Moreton Bay, Thomas Welsby, Outridge (1907)
4. ^ The Stradbroke Island Galleon Greg Jefferys 2007
5. ^ ^{a b} Greg Stolz (15 August 2009). "North Stradbroke Island eaten away by sand mining". The Courier Mail. Queensland Newspapers. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25929953-3102,00.html. Retrieved 27 August 2009. 
6. ^ ^{a b c} Kym Agius (23 March 2011). "Sandmining to end earlier on Straddie". Brisbane Times (Fairfax Media). http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/sandmining-to-end-earlier-on-straddie-20110322-1c58v.html. Retrieved 24 March 2011. 
7. ^ Greg Stolz (4 December 2009). "Unimin charged with illegal sand mining on North Stradbroke". The Courier-Mail (Queensland Newspapers). http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/unimin-charged-with-illegal-sand-mining-on-north-stradbroke/story-e6freoof-1225807119186. Retrieved 18 August 2010. 
8. ^ "National park to cover 80pc of Stradbroke". ABC News Online (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). 20 June 2010. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/20/2931780.htm. Retrieved 11 July 2010. 
9. ^ Paul Smith (17 August 2010). "Sand mining industry slams island park plan". Sydney Morning Herald (Fairfax Media). http://www.smh.com.au/environment/sand-mining-industry-slams-island-park-plan-20100817-127xp.html. Retrieved 18 August 2010. 
10. ^ Sandmining on Stradbroke to stop in 2025, Australian Geographic, 25 March 2011.

External links

• North Stradbroke Island's Official Website
• North Stradbroke Island, Moreton Bay, Australia. Shore and Beach, 2006, 74:2 38-39
• The Stradbroke Island Galleon
• Commonwealth of Australia Senate Committee Hansard Report 1998 Further statements on the environmental issues by the people of North Stradbroke

Coordinates: 27°35′S 153°28′E / 27.583°S 153.467°E / -27.583; 153.467