HASTINGS Point is identified by its core ecological and cultural icon - the Headland and its unique rocky shore ecosystem.

Today it appears to be as a rapidly evolving figment of Whyalla. A recognised, revered and unique natural habitat, with critical ecological and cultural significance, is fast morphing into the ambience of an industrial construction site.

It is much more than just the immediate environmental impact that is the issue, it is the closed-minded ignorance and arrogant disrespect for the ecology and the culture that this exploitation reflects.

My chief concern about the exploitation of such a cultural and ecologically unique and vulnerable site, used for a mere movie production (the second in recent times), is the precedent it sets for repeated future abuse and the acceptance that such exploitation will become the norm.

It's not just the film company that is to blame for this travesty, but the council and state authorities that accepted it on behalf of a local community with whom little to no effective prior consultation was made.

This is not the first, but the second betrayal of this one-off, unique, highly-vulnerable Eden by knowing authorities, in giving the green light to its exploitation by film companies.

The headland and its ecology is a critical bio-geological punctuation of the coastline that gives this region the significance and natural attraction the Gold Coast lost years ago.

It is a value that locals want to sustain, not to have forfeited to the artifice, glitz and fakery into which so many other regions have become absorbed.

Why is this Headland ecology so valuable and vulnerable?

The entire littoral ecology and habitat types this Headland supports effectively function as a complete and critical food web, a huge ecological kidney and a complex natural waste disposal unit.

It is a habitat that is instrumental in sustaining both short- and long-term health and ecological integrity of this unique and sacred Wollumbin-created coastline. The only legacy that both council and state authorities should be obliged to leave in the wake of what is, in effect, an insult to this local icon and national heritage, is the insurance that such exploitation as this, should never happen again.

Ted Brambleby,

Director, Hastings Pt Museum of Natural History