“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
It’s a Socrates line that resonates deeply across the timber industry regions of Eastern Victoria, especially Far East Gippsland, which is currently undergoing a metamorphous as native forest harvesting industry – and the livelihoods it supported – ebbs off the back of new regulations and the changing face of the timber industry overall.
Located east of popular summer holiday destination, Lakes Entrance, Nowa Nowa is a prime example of a milling and timber town facing the steady tide of change, its mills shuttered and its community looking to new horizons as figures out how to survive and hopefully once again thrive with new drivers of economic activity.
For Nowa Nowa and many like it – such as nearby Swifts Creek – nature based tourism may provide a strong glimmer of opportunity with the outdoor active and nature tourism marketing still growing and activated by reinvigorated trail networks hosted in stunning rural and wilderness landscapes.
This is one of the potential outcomes of Victoria’s Forestry Transition Program which aims to support workers, businesses, and communities affected by the end of native timber harvesting in state forests (Jan 2024) through funds and grants like the Community Development Fund, Timber Innovation Grants and Forestry Transition Fund.
The end game is to help workers find new jobs, and diversify industries that can succeed in smaller, more remote places like Nowa Nowa.
The Forestry Transition Program has seeded several nature and trail-based studies, including a Trail Audit of Nowa Nowa, undertaken recently by TRC Consultants, Chris Rose and Chris Ord for Nowa Nowa Futures, a community working group. The pair recently travelled to Nowa Nowa to work with community to review the existing trail network and assess opportunities for growth in trail based tourism supported by an improved trail network and infrastructure.
“The strength of Nowa Nowa is that it’s an undiscovered gem with a good foundation of activities – the East Gippsland Rail Trail aligns through it, the safe waters of the Nowa Nowa arm of Lake Tyres laps at its doorstep, there’s a mountain peak with astonishing views at its back door and the gorge itself, which is literally in town, is such a stunning place,” says TRC’s Chris Ord.
“There are some very strong opportunities – especially with the regional holiday market of Lakes Entrance just down the road, and a healthy passing traffic market to try to hold in town . But at present the trail offer is disconnected, lacking in identified features of interest and not communicated strongly enough,” say Chris. “But with some tweaks to connectivity, signage, basic infrastructure, and plugging in of a stronger storytelling element, Nowa Nowa could start its journey towards being a thriving hub of trail based activity.
“The core strength in future lies in its multifaceted trail offer: there’s walking, rail trail cycling, technical mountain biking, back country gravel riding, family friendly paddling, and a rich vein of historical narrative in the railway and timber industry.
Overlaying all of that is a powerful Traditional Owner GunaiKurnai cultural heritage, plus a more modern-day overlay of the arts and creative community being drawn to the location.
There’s so much actually on offer all linked to the village - however it hasn’t been master planned as an overall vision of being a ‘Trail Town’. There are some big concepts that the community have developed that could with sufficient planning, investment and support, go a long way to building Nowa Nowa as a regional destination for nature lovers,” says Chris
“TRC’s role was to assess the opportunity – what blue sky thinking is needed to join the dots and create a vision for a future in Nowa Nowa where tourism makes up an important and sustainable mix of the economic activity.
To find out, we consulted with community and stakeholders, and sifted findings into a Trail Audit that is like a shopping list of potential. The next phase will be for community to identify their priorities – against the context of potential visitation markets they want to attract and that will add value to the local economy – and then work through the steps to activation, predominantly working with land managers to assess more detailed feasibility for the recommendations made.”
TRC Tourism’s report is currently with the community working group for comment and will be finalised in the new year.
