The Cairns and Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC) is coordinating the input from environment groups in Far North Queensland into the recently announced 2025 planning process, which will result in a plan for urban development in the area which will have legislative force, unlike the present advisory plan.

CAFNEC will provide a monthly update of its activities regarding the FNQ 2025 Regional Plan during 2007 to keep the community of concerned individuals informed and up to speed on its activities, what the Regional Division of the Department of Local Government is doing, and how the debate around sustainable land use planning and environmental management in relation to FNQ 2025 is progressing. The last meeting was on the 26th of March. Those who attended were Steve Ryan, John Rainbird, Ellie Bock, Sarah Rizvi, Andrew Simmonds, Marin Haldane, Graham Harrington, John Beasley (representing Kuranda Envirocare) and Sid Walker.

The main topic up for discussion was the draft Terms of Reference (TOR) for the FNQ 2025 Regional Plan, which were released about a month ago. CAFNEC put in their submission on Friday, and this will be available to view on CAFNECs website and on www.fnq2025.com.au.

The draft TOR was disappointing for the following reasons...
-there was no mention of targets, limits, or indicators.
-the document lacked specificity, and appeared to be yet another excercise in "rhetoric over action".
....to name a couple of criticisms.

Discussion followed as to whether the "urban footprint" model is a good approach; it has clear strengths and weaknesses.

There is also general consensus that basing the new plan on the SEQ Plan template is problematic, as the SEQ is a very different region to FNQ, and there were many problems with the SEQ Plan- most significantly that it did not give sustainability it's primacy. There are also problems with building this Plan on FNQ 2010, as there were many oudated assumptions and issues with that document also.

Further information on the planning process will be provided as it unfolds during 2007.