NEW SPACES FOR OCEAN LIFE

In an alliance between Australian marine ecologists and industrial designers, science and art meet to restore ecological function at some of the world's most altered coastal landscapes.

- KAREN MCGHEE

MOST OF THE bathers sprawled during sunny weekends along the seawall at the Fairy Bower ocean pool, in the coastal Sydney suburb of Manly, wouldn’t be aware of the life surviving below their dangling feet…or how it’s impacted by this concrete structure. The wall, built in the early 20th century, is a small example of the mostly cement edifices that have been built along, and out from, the world’s coastlines. Globally, an estimated 32,000sq.km of seawalls, pontoons, pilings and marinas now stretch into the ocean from various locations. In Australia, where 85 per cent of the population famously lives within 50km of the sea and properties with water views are among the highest-priced real estate in the world, the impact is thought to be huge.

“More than 50 per cent of the Sydney Harbour shoreline has been modified by coastal ‘hardening’ through the building of constructions like seawalls and jetties,” Macquarie University coastal ecologist Professor Melanie Bishop says, offering one local example. “And that’s increasingly being driven by the need for stabilisation and protection of the coast. It’s a common occurrence around the world.”