Dear Editor,

The Ludmilla Creek Citizen Science Bio Blitz was held on April 11-12 at Ludmilla Primary School.

The event, part of the Creek Connections program funded through the Australian government’s Urban Rivers and Catchments Program, brought together scientists and community members to survey birds, reptiles, insects and plants across the Ludmilla Creek catchment.

That program reflects a clear federal policy direction, to restore the health of urban waterways, to treat them as connected systems, and to address impacts across whole catchments rather than in isolated parts. The Bio Blitz was a practical exercise in doing exactly that.

Yet planning decisions affecting the unique Ludmilla Creek catchment, the last non-channelised tidal creek system in Darwin’s mid-suburbs and part of a connected habitat corridor, continue to be made in a fragmented way that does not reflect that approach.

Two large-scale proposals are affecting the Ludmilla Creek catchment. One is the approved stage one commercial development on the Ludmilla bush block between Fitzer Road and Totem Road. The other is a proposal to rezone land within the Bagot community for commercial use. Both will alter hydrology and stormwater flows and increase risks associated with contamination entering Ludmilla Creek.

These developments have been progressed separately, through different processes, without an integrated assessment of their combined impact on the Ludmilla Creek catchment.

This raises a broader question about how planning decisions are being scrutinised.

Many environmental organisations in the Northern Territory receive government funding. That can create a constraint on how far they are willing to publicly challenge government-supported development. The result is less public scrutiny.

In practice, this leaves groups like the Planning Action Network (Plan) doing the detailed scrutiny that would normally be shared more broadly.

Planning decisions shape the long-term health of our environment, our community and our city. They require open and confident public scrutiny.

If we are serious about protecting Ludmilla Creek as a connected system, then our planning processes need to reflect that, with proper public scrutiny that is not constrained or sidelined.

Sonja Pastor, Fannie Bay, Plan volunteer, Fannie Bay

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