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Clean Ocean Foundation methods - Case Study 

In Australia managing scarce water resources has become a national priority due to its depletion as a result of a long term drought. Clean Ocean Foundation, a non-profit environmental community organisation, which has as its prime objective the attainment of full recycling of wastewater from Australia’s 144 ocean outfalls, has argued that closing the outfalls will only be realistic through the adoption of cost-recovery recycling technology and processes that fit within government objectives of protecting revenue from water. Since its inception, the Foundation's primary focus has been to conduct a concerted community and media-based campaign in relation to closing the Boags Rocks outfall at Gunnamatta Beach, Victoria, the largest by volume shoreline outfall in Australia. On October 18th 2006, a significant campaign victory was achieved when the Victorian state government announced a new water recycling policy which would provide for a $300 million upgrade to the standard of wastewater treatment at Melbourne’s Eastern Treatment Plant. The project will allow safe reuse of the recycled wastewater for agriculture and industry leading to a forecasted 80% reduction of discharge into the ocean at Gunnamatta Beach by 2012. This paper analyses the 2006 Gunnamatta campaign which has been waged using electronic methods for delivery of information via websites, individual email, syndicated press releases, electronic newsletters, databases, text messaging, online polls, digital imagery, video download and secure online ordering systems for donation and fundraising purposes. Clean Ocean’s strategy provides some useful lessons for other community organisations intent on effecting policy change using information and communication technologies (ICTs).

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