Science research program report highlights Cockburn Sound’s huge recreational value

The huge recreational value of Cockburn Sound has been highlighted by a survey revealing people engage in 32 different recreational activities in the Sound with 75 per cent of the survey respondents being a member of one of the local recreational clubs.

Save Cockburn Sound (SCS) believes the survey’s results further highlight why it’s so important to protect Cockburn Sound from future development to ensure the community can continue to enjoy maximum social and wellbeing benefits from this jewel on the City’s doorstep.

Conducted by the West Australian Marine Science Institution as part of the three-year WAMSI-Westport Marine Science Program, the survey was a component of a social study of the many ways the WA community uses Cockburn Sound for recreation, other than fishing, and attribute economic values to those activities.

Using an online questionnaire targeting communities and recreational groups that use the Sound, the survey asked respondents to identify all the different recreational activities they undertake in the Sound, along with the specific locations, frequency, and demographics. 

As the map below demonstrates water-based activities take place all around the Sound.

The study mapped 15 water-based activities in addition to fishing including kayaking, kiteboarding, sailing, scuba diving and swimming and 16 land-based activities including dog walking, horse beach riding, birdwatching, running and walking.

“Taking both beach and water-based activities together, the survey demonstrates that there are very few areas which are not utilised for recreational purposes around the study areas,” it is observed in the study report.

Cockburn Sound users were also surveyed on what they derived from the recreational activities in which they participated in the Sound.

“…it is apparent that socialising, improving one’s health and relaxing in a pleasant and safe physical environment, whether in an individual or group context, are most valued by coast users,” reads the report. “As would be expected these values are present throughout the study area.”

SCS says it’s critical that none of the benefits of all of these activities, as well as those from fishing, are not lost or compromised as the result of further development of the Sound. Developers like Westport and all developers in the Sound must ensure proposed developments’ impacts on these recreational activities is minimised, mitigated or preferably eliminated.