Ecotourism is not a marketing category. It is a defined model of visitor experience with specific characteristics: low impact, conservation-linked, educational in intent, and subordinate to the natural values of the place it occupies. The Blackall Range has genuine eco-tourism. It has had it for decades. And what is happening at Coochin Creek, the deliberate application of that label to developments that do not meet its definition, threatens something the hinterland has a direct economic and environmental interest in protecting.
The Range’s visitor economy is built on exactly what ecotourism is supposed to describe. The Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk draws walkers into 58 kilometres of subtropical rainforest through Kondalilla, Mapleton Falls and Mapleton national parks, where at least 107 bird species have been recorded and bunya pines tower above rainforest that has been protected since 1906. Kondalilla Eco Resort in Flaxton sits on 8.5 hectares beside one of the Range’s most spectacular waterfalls, offering accommodation genuinely oriented around its natural setting. QCCC Mapleton has operated conservation-focused outdoor education on the Range since 1983, drawing school groups and families who engage directly with the region’s biodiversity, stay in the area, and spend in local villages. Montville and Maleny regularly rank among the top boutique destinations in Australia, drawing visitors whose primary motivation is the landscape itself.
This is what ecotourism actually looks like: visitors who come because of the environment, who spend locally, who leave the place intact, and whose presence provides a financial argument for conservation rather than against it. The global ecotourism market is growing at nearly three times the rate of mainstream tourism. The Range is well positioned to benefit from that growth, provided the term retains its meaning.
The trajectory the region is on makes the Coochin Creek approvals look not just environmentally damaging but strategically incoherent. Lindsay Holt, Vice President of the Blackall Range Land Use and Planning Association, puts it directly. “Sunshine Coast Regional Council’s declaration of the region as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and progress towards declaring a Dark Sky Reserve on the Range and in the Mary Valley, will both cement our region as one where the preservation of conservation and other natural values is recognised as the essential underpinning of a valuable and sustainable eco-tourism industry,” he said. “The recent state approvals at Coochin Creek, adjoining Pumicestone Passage, are inconsistent with the long-term strategic sustainability directions being pursued by our regional community and its Council.”
What Coochin Creek Is, and What It Is Not
Narelle McCarthy of the Sunshine Coast Environment Council has engaged directly with both Coochin Creek development processes. Her assessment is precise. “The original 2022 approval for the tourist park, a relatively small-scale, low-impact 100-site campground proposal, could reasonably have been described as ecotourism,” she said. “But that is no longer what has been approved.”
What has been approved, as Range Community News reported in February, is a 150-site tourist park with a water park, pool, jumping pillow, mini golf and tennis courts on 43 hectares beside a Ramsar-listed wetland, and immediately adjacent to it a 155-hectare festival precinct approved to host 35,000 people per event, both approved by Deputy Premier Bleijie through ministerial call-in powers after his own government’s planning assessment agency recommended refusal on each. “The proposed festival and conference venue is not ecotourism in any sense,” she said. “It is a large-scale, high-intensity events facility. To describe these developments as ecotourism is not simply a generous interpretation of the term. It reflects a disregard for the integrity of the concept and a gross distortion of this type of tourism development.”
Professor Stephen Turton, who has researched climate and environmental policy in Queensland, reaches the same conclusion. “The developments approved at Coochin are not ecotourism. It’s a classic example of greenwash.”
The gap between the label and the reality is not subtle. Queensland’s own Destination 2045 strategy defines ecotourism as environmentally sustainable tourism fostering understanding, appreciation and conservation of natural areas, with “light footprint accommodation” as a guiding characteristic and “natural assets are conserved” as a success measure. The International Ecotourism Society’s widely accepted standard requires responsible travel that conserves the environment, sustains the wellbeing of local people, and involves interpretation and education. Narelle notes that as far as the Coochin Creek Community Coalition is aware, the Coochin projects are not formally included among the 45 ecotourism projects referenced in Destination 2045. “Formally categorising them as ecotourism would raise obvious questions about how far the concept has been stretched,” she said, “and risk undermining any credibility of the strategy itself.”
The operator’s own identity sharpens the point. The Comiskey Group is the owner of Sandstone Point Holiday Resort, which they describe as Australia’s most popular BIG4 Holiday Park. BIG4 markets its parks explicitly to families seeking in-park entertainment, with jumping pillows, water parks, games rooms and mini golf as standard features. That is a legitimate product. It is not an ecotourism product, and the visitors it attracts are not coming to observe migratory shorebirds or participate in wetland conservation. “The reality is that these are high-impact developments proposed within sensitive environments,” Narelle said, “and the priority appears to be on facilitating them rather than upholding the legitimacy of what genuine ecotourism is or should be.”
What “Cutting Red and Green Tape” Actually Means
Professor Turton identifies the specific environmental threats both developments pose: wastewater and effluent run-off risking the hydrological health of the Pumicestone Passage’s Ramsar wetlands; disturbance to critical migratory shorebird habitat through amplified noise, light pollution and foot traffic; flood and coastal hazard exposure on a low-lying site; and greenbelt encroachment at a scale the Northern Inter-Urban Break guidelines were specifically designed to prevent. He also notes that Australia’s Ramsar obligations should trigger the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, bringing federal jurisdiction to bear, a referral the Coochin Creek Community Coalition is actively pursuing with Federal Environment Minister Senator Murray Watt.
The post-approval weakening of the tourist park’s conditions gives those concerns additional weight. The occupancy cap was removed. Watercraft access across mangrove and riparian areas to the Pumicestone Passage was approved. Unrestricted private helicopter access replaced a condition limiting helicopters to emergencies. Bushfire management requirements were deleted, including consultation with Queensland Parks and Wildlife and staff firefighting training, on a site the original assessment identified as carrying high bushfire intensity with a single access road.
Narelle’s analysis of how this became possible goes to the heart of the broader issue. “What Coochin demonstrates is what cutting red and green tape means in practice,” she said. “Where the State Government supports a project, the current system allows it to be progressed rapidly, with limited scrutiny and without a clear public explanation or demonstration of how environmental and planning risks are being managed. Under Queensland’s current planning framework, a ministerial call-in can effectively bypass many of the safeguards communities assume exist. That includes local planning controls, expectations around cumulative impact assessment, and meaningful public accountability. If the Minister chooses to exercise that power, there are very few practical constraints on how it is used.”
She is equally direct about what this means for areas that carry conservation designations. “The [Coochin Creek Community] coalition’s position is straightforward: areas that are supposed to be and must be protected require stronger and more durable protections. The Coochin example shows that under current law, a ministerial call-in combined with changes to planning regulations can override protections that communities reasonably expect to matter. The issue is therefore not simply administrative structure or ministerial portfolios. It is whether the system provides genuinely independent oversight and protections that cannot be easily overridden when a project becomes politically favoured. At present, it does not.”
Professor Turton is direct about the government’s conduct: “The Queensland Government is ignoring its own planning and regulatory guidelines and environment department staff, local government and independent environmental experts to rush through these developments under the guise that they will have no adverse impact on the environment because they are all ecotourism.”
He also raises the longer question of what happens when such developments fail. Several Great Barrier Reef island resorts approved during earlier tourism booms with similar conservation language have fallen into severe decay after cyclone damage. Brampton Island has been abandoned since 2011. South Molle Island has been in disrepair since Cyclone Debbie in 2017 and remains listed for sale. “The original developers have long moved on,” he notes, “and the state is expected to pay the costs for their rehabilitation.”
The Question for the Range
The Blackall Range sits at the southern end of the same UNESCO biosphere corridor that encompasses the Pumicestone Passage. Its national parks, Kondalilla, Mapleton Falls, Mapleton, are public assets that underpin the entire hinterland visitor economy. A planning framework that allows the ecotourism label to be attached to high-intensity commercial development adjacent to protected areas, and used to access streamlined approval pathways, does not protect those assets. It makes them available as backdrops for development that has nothing to do with conservation.
Narelle McCarthy’s answer to the direct question of whether the same pathway could be used on the Range is unambiguous. “Yes. If a developer labels a proposal ecotourism, secures ministerial support, and progresses the project through a call-in process, there is nothing in current Queensland law that would prevent a similar pathway from being followed. That is the concern, the mechanism exists and has now been clearly demonstrated and could be repeated.”
When Range Community News sought comment, Minister Powell’s office, whose electorate of Glass House borders this region and who describes himself as passionate about nature-based tourism, referred the inquiry to Deputy Premier Bleijie. The Deputy Premier’s office did not respond.
The Blackall Range has real ecotourism. It has genuine conservation value, a functioning nature-based visitor economy, and communities with a clear stake in keeping both intact. If the ecotourism label can be applied to a water park and a jumping pillow beside a Ramsar wetland, and a 35,000-capacity festival site on the same property, it can mean anything. And if it can mean anything – it protects nothing.
Coochin Creek Developments Approved as Coalition Warns of Precedent for the Range – 24/05/26
Further Information and Contacts
Sunshine Coast Environment Council (SCEC) The peak environmental advocacy body for the Greater Sunshine Coast region. Contact: scec.org.au/contact/contact-scec
Organisation Sunshine Coast Association of Residents (OSCAR) The peak body for community resident associations on the Sunshine Coast, advocating on planning, development and local government accountability. Contact: info@oscar.org.au
Blackall Range Land Use and Planning Association (BRULPA) The community planning and land use advocacy organisation for the Blackall Range and northern hinterland. BRULPA’s objectives document is published via oscar.org.au. Contact via OSCAR at the address above.
Community Petition The coalition’s petition calling for protection of the Pumicestone Passage and the Northern Inter-Urban Break has attracted thousands of signatures and remains active. Petition: change.org – search “Protect Pumicestone Passage and the Greenbelt”
Federal Environment Minister – EPBC Referral The coalition is actively calling on Federal Environment Minister Senator Murray Watt to exercise Commonwealth powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in relation to both Coochin Creek developments. Contact: awe.gov.au or via your federal member of parliament.
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