Educational campaign makes the front page of The Age

The Kennett Community Action Group made front page news of The Age on Saturday, December 14th as they take the lead on a responsible tourism education program on the Great Ocean Road.

“On some days, tourists in their thousands – up to 2,400 a day, in peak season – stop in Kennett River to catch a glimpse and a quick photo of a sleeping koala, or to feed native birds with seed still provided by tour operators”.

“These numbers are disproportionate for a hamlet. While many are respectful, there are increasing reports of poor visitor behaviour - as this goes up, the number of wildlife here is sadly going down.

“If we are encouraging tourism in Australia and wildlife is a major draw card, we must help educate visitors on how to behave. This should be on every inbound local flight and every international flight – with messaging as strong as that of our bio-security measures.” Co-founder Jules Lin said.

The artwork deliberately uses animated animals over photographs, in an attempt to counteract some of the detrimental effects of today’s photographic and social media culture.

“This campaign is not a silver bullet. There is no one thing that is going to fix this, but it is a positive start, and one that the Kennett Community Action Group is proud to be driving,” President Elenore Lannigan said.