Keeping the pressure on…
Kennett River’s ongoing challenge of unsustainable tourism, impacting public safety and local wildlife, has again featured in The Age as we keep the pressure on to exclude large tour buses entering our small precinct. This is a direct result of long-term community advocacy, now supported jointly by the Colac Otway Shire and (GORCAPA) the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority.
Following The Age article, KCAG was inundated with requests to talk more about pedestrian safety and wildlife welfare at Kennett River.
We were interviewed on Melbourne radio ABC Melbourne Mornings with Raf Epstein, 3AW, ABC Ballarat and South West Victoria Breakfast: an extended interview with Steve Martin and KCAG Vice President, Gordon Lefevre, later Mayor Jason Schram spoke to the challenges.
The Surf Coast Times who first broke our story in 2024, covering the encouraging development wrote:
We have community, council and land managers (GORCAPA) all on the same page.
Now we need the support from the state government through the Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) to make the decision to exclude large tour buses due to known risk.
We can confirm Council’s request has been sent and received by the DTP.
This is incredible community and agency advocacy work and just at the right time, when safety at Kennett River is top-of-mind with the GORCAPA Geelong City Deal infrastructure plans out for wider community consultation and comment.
Those draft plans were made available for community review on April 16th, 2025.
The ongoing issues of tourists spotlighting wildlife, approaching kangaroos, disrupting foraging, disturbing habitat and trespassing onto private land looking for wildlife (within a residential community) were presented to GORCAPA’s CEO in a face-to-face meeting on February 5th 2025, through photo and video evidence.
This landmark meeting resulted in an independent organisation being engaged (by GORCAPA) to conduct a wildlife risk assessment. Public safety and declining wildlife populations the main focus of the report.
Our meeting included the lead the Kennett Community Action Group took to launch the Keep The Wildlife Wild campaign - a multilingual, responsible tourism education program aimed to engage and help educate visitors on how to act appropriately around Australian wildlife.
These were timely talks, as GORCAPA counters installed along the riverbank (following a significant wildlife event on June 8th 2024) have recorded 54,678 visitors in ten months - supporting the need to better manage the mass, uncontrolled visitation we are seeing in Kennett River.
Climate change, an aging koala population, limited breeding and of course, high visitation who have access to all areas, morning to nightfall, pose significant biodiversity concerns. These environmental concerns needing thoughtful, expert consideration.
Melbourne University Native Mammal Behaviour Expert Graeme Coulson says
‘Government agencies needed to control access and visitor numbers at places popular with tourists for the wildlife, including Kennett River.’
Kennett River is no longer the place to see abundant koalas in the wild. Our community has been given the opportunity to change the narrative and shine a spotlight on our advocacy work to preserve and protect the remaining few koalas, who are visited by thousands every week, all-year-round, because it is FREE.
The change we are seeing, is agencies are listening, due to evidence based data, media interest, and both national and global experts weighing in on conservation concerns.
If we are truly serious about sustainable and responsible tourism for generations still to come, the actions and findings of this independent report will be key to how we jointly address the next steps.
