A Personal Intro to the Emerald Fringe
By Angela Hoskins
Most people first set eyes on Coochiemudlo Island from the mainland. I was at Point Halloran after a long drive from cold country, the New England Tablelands in NSW. The calm-watered, sub-tropical environment that is southern Moreton Bay looked and felt marvellous. A magical-looking island, not far off the coast from where I stood, set the scene in the late afternoon light. Mysteriously, it looked a world away. It must be uninhabited, I thought. It could have been Treasure Island for all I knew.
The island was certainly alluring. The next day my partner took me for a sail on his small 30-foot monohull to idyl past the mangroves on the island’s northwest. A fringe of short and tall vegetation, a canopy of green, hugged the coastline.
We headed due east, gazed at a sandy beach on the island’s north, before swinging south to sail by another stunning beach spanning the island’s east. A jetty on the island’s southern shore surprised and appealed to us to set shore and explore the island on foot. We anchored amongst other boats and rowed our tender to the island.
The veil of mystery had been lifted but the magic remained. People do live on Coochiemudlo Island. A poster at the end of the jetty welcomed, informed, and invited us to walk around her gem-of-a-coastline called the Emerald Fringe. Back in the 1800s, when Coochiemudlo Island was first surveyed for land sales, it was ruled to leave a green corridor of 100-feet wide around her shoreline.
As day-trippers back in 2017 we walked around the island’s shoreline without obstruction: no private property; no fences; no signs saying ‘keep out’. Today Coochiemudlo is the only island in Queensland, with permanent residents, to have this attribute: its green shoreline corridor.
We live in cities and regional towns where national treasures are protected in museums and galleries. No matter where we live, our environmental riches need to be looked after in their original situation. We know this as we remember lyrics from the 70s, ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’. Sometimes we have to keep singing them louder and louder.
The Emerald Fringe as part of our island home’s identity. It defines Coochiemudlo Island’s sense of place. That the Emerald Fringe is intact today is testament to how local people design solutions to maintain a place’s heritage.
