Bernie Clarke’s first public show of passion for his local environment came in the 1950s when he was hauled into a police paddy waggon after he set up a roadblock to try and stop the Kurnell oil refinery being built.
There would be many more occasions over the next 60 years when the mild-mannered but determined conservationist would challenge officialdom as he fought to protect the natural environment of Botany Bay and its surrounds.
Bernie Clarke, OAM, died on October 26 last year at 97.
His ashes, along with those of his wife Belle, who died on December 30, 2017 at 92, were scattered across the waters of Botany Bay in a private ceremony this month.
The family placed a plaque at Doughboy Point, Kurnell, next to one remembering Mr Clarke’s friend Kenneth Barker, who was washed off the rocks and lost at sea while the pair was fishing there in 1942.
Mr Clarke grew up next to Botany Bay and, as a commercial fisherman, learnt its moods and what affected it.
His campaigns to preserve the bay’s natural environment and beauty were many.
He took part in the 1960s battle to stop an airport being built at Towra Point and, four decades later, was instrumental in securing vital government funding to help restore the RAMSAR site for the use of migratory wading birds.
He fought a proposed coal loader as Port Botany developed in the 1970s and warned of the beach erosion that would follow dredging of the bay for airport runways from the 1960s to 1990s.
Mr Clarke also spoke out against further dredging for a massive expansion of the port, which was announced in 2001, and the later laying of a pipeline across the floor of the bay from the Kurnell desalination plant to Kyeemagh.
Another of his great concerns was the devastation of the Kurnell Peninsula through sand mining.
He also challenged the state government over unchecked sewage overflows into Botany Bay via Cooks River and Georges River.
Mr Clarke was for many years president of the Botany Bay Planning and Protection Council, which he helped form in the 1970s to combat increasing pollution and development.
He continued to represent the group’s concerns after he and his wife Belle retired to Sussex Inlet from Oyster Bay in 2000.
Daniel Clarke said his grandfather’s “legacy will live on in the natural beauty of the local area, and especially the Towra Point Nature Reserve”.
Chief executive and honourary secretary of the Australian Wildlife Society, Patrick Medway, said Mr Clarke was “an outstanding conservationist dedicated to the preservation of the natural beauty of Botany Bay, and will be sadly missed by all who knew him”.
“Bernie was a vocal critic of local agencies who failed to honour their commitment to preserve the fish and crustaceans around the bay,” he said.
“After years of experience of living and studying the bay, he was an expert on all things to do with the bay.”
Mr Medway said much of Mr Clarke’s work was recorded in the History of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia, published in 2009.
John Veage, the Leader’s chief photographer and surfing identity, recorded many of Mr Clarke’s initiatives and was a personal friend.
“Bernie spent a lifetime trying to make the place better for other people,” Veage said.
“He wasn’t a card-carrying greenie, but he acted on what he saw, and he had enormous knowledge from his personal observations.”
Mr Clarke was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to conservation in 1989.
The following year, he became the second recipient of the Serventy Conservation Medal, which was established in memory of renowned conservationist Vin Serventy.
Mr Clarke was recognised for “lifetime devotion as a local environmentalist and long-time Towra / Botany Bay campaigner”.
His role as patron of the Georges River Riverkeeper program and his advocacy for the Kurnell Peninsula were also highlighted.
Mr Clarke recalled at the time, “My first time in a police paddy wagon was after I set up a roadblock in the 1950s to try and stop the oil refinery being built”.
In a 2010 interview, Mr Clarke said he had always been fascinated with nature.
“From when I was a little boy I would watch animals to see how they survived ... I was always on the hunt for a new species,” he said.
“I think my passion for Botany Bay started there.
“It was amazing to me that I was seeing the same flora and fauna that Banks did on Captain Cook’s famous voyage to Australia.”
Mr Clarke was appalled at the degradation of the bay.
“Each week I found fairy penguins dead on the beach covered in oil from spills during the 1970s and 80s,” he said.
“Yet the oil companies said they were doing no damage and so did the governments.”
Mr Clarke said, over the years, he had seen the number of migratory shorebirds feeding in the bay drop from 34 species to three.
He had also seen the mangroves crumble into the water and the fresh water lakes turn saline.
In another interview, referring to sand erosion caused by dredging, Mr Clarke said, “It’s about time governments put a price tag on our beaches”.
Mr Clarke mixed with politicians and academics and was never afraid to do battle with big business.
“I’ve never taken political sides. It’s deadly. When you’re fighting for the environment you need to represent all people no matter what they believe,” he said.
Mr Clarke served served in Papua New Guinea as an army corporal during WWII, and later returned to work there as a professional fisherman.
The first two of the couple's seven children were born in Papua New Guinea.
BERNIE’S BATTLES
Mr Clarke’s stand on on issues included:
1976: After Premier Neville Wran scrapped the proposed coal loader at Port Botany, Mr Clarke said coal dust would have had ‘‘disastrous’’ effects on the health of residents, and would also have greatly impacted on marine life.
‘‘Everyone who lives around Botany Bay owes a debt of gratitude to Neville Wran,’’ he said.
1981: Mr Clarke said a proposed $11.5 million oil tanker berth would turn Botany Bay “into a powder keg”.
1990s: When groynes (rock walls) were proposed to stop foreshore erosion (and built in 1997 and 2005), Mr Clarke forecast they would “create more problems because [this system] transfers the energy to different areas. It will deflect the energy to somewhere else’’.
2001: Mr Clarke said the announcement of a a massive dredging operation to expand Port Botany was ‘‘the death-knell’’ for Botany Bay.
‘‘You can’t dredge a sea bed that has been there for 9000 years without causing major changes,” he said. .
‘‘The bay will never have a stable foreshore again.
‘‘Prior to 1974, it was the safest beach in Australia for kids to swim in, but now there are big holes just off shore.
‘‘The habitat of seabed organisms has been destroyed, the numbers of migratory birds have been greatly reduced and toxic substances have been disturbed.’’
2002: Mr Clarke opposed the government’s move to close Botany Bay to commercial fisherman, other than to ban prawn trawling because heavy chains strip-mined the seabed.
He said pollution, not fishing, was the main reason for the decrease in fish numbers in the bay.
“If commercial fishing is the problem in Botany Bay, why isn't the neighbouring estuary of Port Hacking more productive of fish?” he said.
“Commercial fishing has been banned in Port Hacking for more than 90 years.”
2007: Mr Clarke condemned the proposed desalination plan pipeline at a meeting of the Kurnell Progress Association.
”They will be digging a trench that is four metres deep at its base, with battered slopes covering an area 48 metres wide.
“This will be a huge hole and the turbidity will be enormous, creating a huge amount of mobile sediment. bottom of the bay after being carried in from the Georges and Cooks Rivers, will be disturbed.
“When they were dredging for the third runway, the people involved told me they were extremely concerned about the high levels of zinc.”
