We Love Moreton Bay!
The calm blue water of Moreton Bay is South East Queensland’s marine playground. Its glorious subtropical islands and sheltered bays are the perfect place for swimming, sailing, windsurfing, fishing or quietly enjoying the beauty.
It’s the life in and around these azure waters that make this place much more than just a playground. Whales visit on their long migrations, dugongs and turtles graze the seagrass meadows while eagles soar overhead.
The turquoise waters of the bay are fringed by mangroves and wetlands that are vital nurseries for fish below the surface and above make temporary homes for tens of thousands of migratory birds each year.
Moreton Bay is arguably South East Queensland’s single most valuable environmental and economic asset.
Queenslanders are passionate about the Bay
Survey after survey has told us what we already know - that we love our Bay. Most of us think that it, along with our bushland, beaches and National Parks, makes our lives here very special. The Bay - and the waterways that flow into it - underpin most of our lifestyle and economy in South East Queensland. Our towns and cities use waterways for drinking water and our tourism, fisheries and recreational industries depend almost entirely on healthy waterways, our coastal beaches and Moreton Bay.
Keeping the Bay Special
Mostly due to the work of Healthy Waterways we know how important our waterways are to the health of communities and the Bay itself. A huge community and government effort has gone into researching everything that makes Moreton Bay unique.
The great news is that we can continue enjoying our Bay forever - if we take a little care now.
We Really Love Our Bay...
Recent surveys show that residents of SEQ want to maintain waterways and marine health.
- Population growth is hurting waterways
- Take a regional approach - even if money raised here is spent elsewhere in the region
- Urban areas should assist farmers to improve land practices
- Take preventive action where it costs less now that remediation later
- Offset environmental damage from development
Sources: Managing what matters: the cost of environmental decline in SEQ (MJA, 2010); Queensland Growth Management Summit 2010 Social Research on Population Growth and Liveability in South East Queensland (TNS Social Research, 2010); and Integrated Water Management Framework (MJA, 2009).
...but our Bay is suffering
Despite more than a decade of effort by the public, community organisations and governments, the health of South East Queensland’s waterways and Moreton Bay has been steadily getting worse. The continuing decline is caused by pollutants entering our waterways, and eventually Moreton Bay, from urban and rural areas throughout South East Queensland. Most of this pollution currently comes from rural sources but studies show that more pollution will come from new urban areas being developed to meet population growth, which is expected to exceed over 4 million people by 2026.
Vital habitat is already being lost. The systems that keep our waterways healthy are being overwhelmed causing more frequent, severe and longer lasting algal bloom outbreaks in the Bay.
Love Moreton Bay? Take Action
