Summary

This large archive concerning the environmental organisation known as Alliance to Save Hinchinbrook (ASH), was donated to JCU by Margaret Moorhouse. It has been organised in terms of: firstly, themes; and secondly, chronology. Many of the documents in this collection deal with what became a legal battle over the development at Oyster Point having a detrimental and irrevocable impact on the ecological and aesthetic values of the region. Removal of mangroves along the foreshore and dredging the Hinchinbrook Channel was believed to pose a significant threat to the survival of wildlife in the area, particularly the already endangered dugong communities.

The correspondence also notes the debate concerning build-ups of acid sulphate soil as having the potential to wreak great ecological damage on the area. Non-government organisations involved in the movement against developing Port Hinchinbrook (and represented in the archive here) included the Friends of Hinchinbrook, the Wilderness Society, Wildlife Preservation Society, North Queensland Conservation Council, etc. Throughout all proceedings, the development companies firmly held that there would be no detrimental environmental impacts, that adequate environmental controls would be strictly adhered to and that any small impacts would be overridden by the potential for social and economic gains generated from a strong tourism industry in the area.