The Swan River Estuary is much-loved and provides a sense of place to the Perth community. 

Once home to a magnificent diversity of native flora and fauna, very little remains of the natural beauty that once graced the River’s shores.

Nevertheless, the River retains its ancient cultural heritage values, and small pockets of native flora and fauna have survived in a few cherished locations. Alfred Cove is one such place.

A Marine Park bordered by a narrow margin of A-Class Nature Reserve, and forming part of Bush Forever Site 331, this rare jewel has received international recognition for its ecological importance:

• It provides protected sanctuary to a rich diversity of native fauna, including river dolphins and over 130 species of birdlife - and is considered by the EPA to be one of the most important waterbird habitats in the south-west
• It is a staging area for threatened species of migratory wading birds – whose numbers have plummeted by up to 80% - offering refuge to rest and ‘re-fuel’, enabling their yearly flights to and from Arctic summers.
• It is a last-remaining area of the threatened ecological community of coastal saltmarsh - inhabited by a wide range of benthic organisms supporting numerous resident and visiting crustaceans, insects, fish, birds and mammals. There is barely 1% of this vegetation type remaining in the Region.

This exquisite place of natural heritage is worth preserving for present and future generations to enjoy, but instead, there are plans to construct a massive and privately operated artificial wave park on its shores.

Please view: https://youtu.be/I29r0fNRdFo.

The impacts of such a development on this quiet, fragile and almost pristine environment will be enormous. It will:

• Extend over approximately 4 hectares of rare public open space along the River foreshore.
• Cover an area of Crown Land specifically identified for decades and by whole-of-government as vital for inclusion into the Conservation Estate as a wildlife corridor and vegetation ‘buffer’ to protect the sensitive ecological values of the Swan Estuary Marine Park.
• Add noise, light and other polluting factors - from early morning to late at night - disturbing wildlife communities already experiencing significant urban pressures.
• Shatter the visual and aural landscape values and passive recreational amenity of Alfred Cove from all points around the Cove’s margin.
• Jeopardize the Cove’s ecological resilience and capacity to adjust to the anticipated threats of climate change - particularly erosion associated with an increased intensity of storm surges and sea-level rise.

If the development is given approval we will lose yet another beautiful estuarine landscape forever, and our wildlife will lose yet another important habitat.

Please ask the WA Government to protect our wildlife and natural places, and to reject the artificial wave park at Alfred Cove!