We herein enclose a complete copy of Blue Mountains {city} Council’s 2004Plan of Management for Upper Kedumba River Valley, which we term The Gully Water Catchment. It was formerly gazetted by Council as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley for decades prior to its unilateral renaming by Council in 1995.
[Editor’s note: We reject the urban assertion by Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) councillors that the Blue Mountains could or should be in any way labelled as a “city” as if comparable with Sydney. So we choose to place the word {city} in BMCC’s title in brackets.]
The Gully Water Catchment lies on the western edge of the regional township of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains region, located 100km due west of Sydney’s CBD.
The Valley takes that shape of an elongated valley from a natural amphitheatre in the north southward and features various natural riparian zones around watercourses that confluence into a central creek across this section of the Blue Mountains plateau to Katoomba Falls.
Katoomba Falls tumbling down into the Jamison Valley
The Gully Water Catchment is situated on the Blue Mountains central plateau and covers (290 hectares/2.9 km2) and lies wholly within the watershed ridgeline of Bathurst Road to the north, meandering along the watershed through central Katoomba to the east, the ridgeline along Valley Road to the Jamison clifftop escarpment to the west, and to Katoomba Falls to the south.
The water plunges into the Kedumba River into the Jamison Valley 300m below the Blue Mountains plateau which then flows downstream for about 50km to the artificial Lake Burragorang above Warragamba Dam.
This dam was built in post-WWII from 1948-1960 to provided a fresh water reservoir for an ever-growing Greater Sydney for it’s primary drinking water. Before the construction of the dam, Burragorang Valley had been inhabited by white settlers since the 19th century, and for thousands of years before, the Burragorang valley was part of the tribal lands of the Gundungurra Aboriginal people, who became displaced local Aboriginal refugees in their own country.
In 1948 some fled to squat in the small valley they were familiar and had family connections with, situated about 40 km to the north they nicknamed The Gully on the edge of Katoomba.
The natural sedge swamp within the northern part of The Valley (The Gully), previously referred to as ‘Frank Walford Park’. The sky blue sign with white lettering by the lake across from the derelect Madge Walford Fountain was secretly removed a few years ago (2019?) presumably by Blue Mountains {city} Council.
Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was unilaterally renamed by Blue Mountains {city} Council in its wisdom around 1995 to being renamed ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘.
Why the name change? Well, from experience in dealing with Blue Mountains {city} Council in relation to this valley (2002-2007) one suspects that it was part of Council’s relentless ‘divide and conquer strategy’ to undermine then in 1996, what had been a decade long struggle by local resident group Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (The Friends) to save and protect The Valley from ongoing threats of destructive harm and neglect and to seek a joint co-operative land management between the interested local community and Blue Mountains {city} Council.
The Valley includes the Aboriginal Place (AP) affectionately known by former residents as ‘The Gully’. They were a mix of poor folk, a few dozen or so, who subsisted on the edge of town either renting or squatting in very basic shack-style homes. That is until Blue Mountains {city} Council back in 1957 decided to forcibly evict them all and bulldoze their dwellings to build a motor racing track for an elitist wealthy motor racing fraternity. For many years this northern part of The Valley used to be called Frank Walford Park, after a previous Council mayor.
Subsequently over the years since, Blue Mountains {city} Council has incrementally sold off numerous land parcels to private housing development so as to boost its revenue base. The remnant bushland sections are gazetted as ‘Community Land’ under the New South Wales Local Government Act 1993.
Despite The Valley naturally being a riparian zone (mostly wetland) of the creek and its various headwater streams, the community land have become quite separated as Council has unilaterally re-zoned various land parcels on paper from being ‘Community Land‘ to ‘Operational Land‘, invariably in preparation to be flogged off for housing. History records many land sales by Blue Mountains {city} Council throughout The Valley sold by either for private housing, Katoomba Sports and Aquatic Centre and for what is called South Katoomba Rural Fire Service Station.
Beneath the surface, Council dug up the wetland and installed a massive sewer network.
Council’s 2004Plan of Management (POM) for The Gully
Council had this 2004 POM document initially compiled in draft form in October 2002 by external consultancy, Environmental Partnership, which is off-Mountains based in distant Ultimo in central Sydney. These dudes do urban landscapes, not natural landscapes – so were they an appropriate choice by council? Well, it depends upon the outcomes council wanted to The Gully plan of management back then. Council filed it anyway.
The POM draft was subsequently revised over a two year period and the final document has the rather lengthy bureaucratic title thus: ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within “The Gully” Aboriginal Place’ (Revised Edition 2004).
Ok, so the names were evolving and former council mayor Frank Walford, who supported the racetrack usurpation of 1957, and by 2004 was getting out of favour with council due to expressed criticism of his namesake in The Gully by the former residents of The Gully. We note that council’s sky blue coloured ‘The Frank Walford Park’ sign also suddenly disappeared in recent years.
So the ‘subject lands’ exclusively described as ‘“The Gully” Aboriginal Place’ are shown in this map on page 6.
The total area of The Gully Aboriginal Place (defined as being of “cultural significance”) are 44 hectares (43.92ha on page 44 to be precise) for Frank Walford Park, plus 14 hectares (13.74 ha on page 58 to be precise) for McRaes Paddock, plus 8 hectares (7.86 ha on page 63 to be precise) for Katoomba Falls Reserve Cascades Section (Selby Street Reserve). So Council’s 2004 definition for the entire area of The Gully Aboriginal Place was 65.52 hectares, to be precise.
This 2004 iteration stipulates three separate plans of management, one for each of the geographic public land sections of The Valley. It excludes the sizeable western side of The Valley referred to as Katoomba Golf Course – which was and still is public land owned by Blue Mountains {city} Council. It also excludes the watercourse and riparian zone to the west between Wellington Street and Stuarts Road in Katoomba, which is at the time was private pastoral land addressed as 21 Stuarts Road.
The public (Community Land) sections of The Valley included in the document, form a natural riparian corridor along Katoomba Falls Creek, they being:
Frank Walford Park (comprising the northern headwaters of Katoomba Falls Creek)
McRae’s Paddock (comprising the main centre section of Katoomba Falls Creek)
Selby Street Reserve (comprising a eastern side tributary to Katoomba Falls Creek which confluences with Katoomba Falls Creek at Maple Grove Park, as well as the sports ovals and the escarpment top riparian zone to the top of Katoomba Falls)
In addition on page 39 of the 2004 Plan of Management there is a 35-point Stormwater Plan for The (entire) Valley.
Council’s Legacy of Planned Inaction for The Valley
These 2004 plans of management (x3) along with the Stormwater Plan were never acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council. This is despite the considerable cost of all the research and compilation of preparing the 2004 plans over more than two years, which likely exceeding $100,000.
These plans follow a series of similar plans compiled for this creek valley, which we have on file are:
(no date) Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study A & B
(no date) Frank Walford Park – Bushland Management and Report
1955: Frank Walford Park Master Plan for Development, 1955 (car racetrack), by Katoomba Municipal Council (Ed: better name)
c.1980: Draft Assessment of Frank Walford Park, Katoomba – Land Suitability, Environmental Constraints
1981: Frank Walford Park Management Plan, by BMCC, 54 pages
June 1993: Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study – Part 1 Draft Report and Management Plan by F.& J. Bell & Associates, for BMCC, 85 pages
June 1993: Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study – Part 2 Technical Reporrts, Data and Analysis by F.& J. Bell & Associates, for BMCC, 55 pages
April 1996: Katoomba Falls Creek Valley – Draft Pan of Management and Report, by Connell Wagner Pty Ltd (consultancy), (for BMCC) approx. 200 pages (inconsistently numbered)
3rd July 2000: Upper Kedumba Valley, Katoomba – Report on Cultural Significance…, (for NPWS) by Dianne Johnson with Dawn Colless, 162 pages
2001: Area 2 Community Plan (including Katoomba) by Area Community Planning, BMCC, 102 pages
2001: Area 2 Sport and Recreation Plan (including Katoomba) by Area Community Planning, BMCC, 107 pages
2004: Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within “The Gully” Aboriginal Place (Revised Edition 2004), by Environment Partnership (consultancy) for BMCC, 105 pages
August 2005: A Heritage Study of the Gully Aboriginal Place, Katoomba, New South Wales by Allan Lance of heritage Consulting Australia Pty Ltd & NSW Dept Environment and Heritage (for BMCC), 113 pages
March 2005: Catchment 7 Improvement Grant No.44 Upper Kedumba River Valley, by members of Kedumba Creek Bushcare & BMCC – Final Report for Sydney Catchment Authority, 27 pages
June 2006: Hawkesbury Nepean River Health Strategy Volume 1, by Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority, 78 pages
June 2006: Hawkesbury Nepean River Health Strategy Volume 2, by Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority, 144 pages
June 2019: The Gully – Stakeholder Engagement Report (June 2019), 44 pages
29th September 2021: Proposed Recategorisation of Parts of the Gully Aboriginal Place, Katoomba – Public Hearing and Submissions Final Report, by Parkland Planners for BMCC, 56 pages
4th October 2021: The Gully Aboriginal Place Plan of Management, by BMCC, 145 pages.
Not one of the plans above for The Valley has been acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council to date since that of 1981. This is disingenous and shameful. It is no wonder that The Friends [1989-2016] became exasperated with Blue Mountains {city} Council and it’s ‘all-talk-no-action‘ recalcitrance on The Valley over the years.
It noteworthy that the chambers of Blue Mountains {city} Council is situated just 200 metres from the eastern ridge top of The Valley’s northern amphitheatre as the crow flies – so close geographically, yet shunned. It seems that since time immemorial nothing’s changed from the time The Valley (Gully) community of struggling ‘have nots’ (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike) on this edge of town were shunned by the ‘haves’ uphill of Katoomba and nearby villages.
One would not be surprised if the combined cost of Blue Mountains {city} Council’s compiling of all these plans and reports on The Valley exceeds a million dollars. The funding came from local ratepayers else from grant moneys received from the New South Wales Government. Indeed, one would not be surprised if once each plan was finalised, that Council instantly filed it to gather dust on an archival shelf, such is one’s experience as a former member of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.
Copies of the above plans and reports over time we shall publish in The Gully Collection on this website, available for free download and printing to the general public. Access to the ‘The Gully Collection’ is by clicking on The Gully Collection’ photo image on the front page of this website.
Stipulated Plans of Management for Council Community Lands
Under Section 36, of the New South Wales Local Government Act 1993, each local government (local council) throughout New South Wales is legally required to prepare a plan of management for a Community Land area under Council ownership. This means that in the case of the Blue Mountains {city} Council, it is compelled to draft plans of management for each community land area and update these plans from time to time, including the community land within Upper Kedumba River Valley.
Under Section 36 of the Act:
“A council must prepare a draft plan of management for community land.
A draft plan of management may apply to one or more areas of community land, except as provided by this Division.
A plan of management for community land must identify the following: (a) the category of the land, (b) the objectives and performance targets of the plan with respect to the land, (c) the means by which the council proposes to achieve the plan’s objectives and performance targets, (d) the manner in which the council proposes to assess its performance with respect to the plan’s objectives and performance targets, and may require the prior approval of the council to the carrying out of any specified activity on the land.”
The New South Wales Local Government Act 1993 in fact superseded previous local government Acts that date back to 1919. So the above list where it refers to a plan of management, likely similarly was a required document under the NSW legislation. So the plans of management prepared for Blue Mountains {city} Council have always been mandatory, rather than being some noble gesture by Blue Mountains {city} Council seen to be doing the right civil thing for the local community.
In addition, in the case of selected surviving remnant bushland sections of community land connected with local Aboriginal cultural heritage within the Upper Kedumba River Valley, since 18th May 2002, ‘The Gully’ was declared an Aboriginal Place (AP) by Blue Mountains {city} Council and the NSW Parks Service under Section 84 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW) No 80.
Under Section 72 of National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 No 80 ’72 Preparation of plans of management’ “The Secretary.. (d) may from time to time cause a plan of management to be prepared for any Aboriginal area or wildlife refuge.”
2004 Action Plans not acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council
The stipulated Action Plans of the Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management of 2004 were not acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council in the intervening seventeen years between 2004 and the current 2021 Plan.
Refer to the supplied copy of the document below – both the Action Table (pages 69-74) and Appendix B (pages 83-94). Council senior management will respond excusing lack of external grant funding (usually from the New South Wales Government), but then they won’t be able to provide any evidence of applying for such funding.
Council simply doesn’t care. It only prepares plans of management because it is legally required to do so under Section 36, of the New South Wales Local Government Act 1993 and also under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 No 80.
Under the latter, Section 79A ‘Lapsing of plans of management‘ stipulates:
“(1) A plan of management for lands reserved under Part 4A expires on the tenth anniversary of the date on which it was adopted unless it is sooner cancelled under this Part.
(2) Not less than 6 months before a plan of management expires, the board of management for the lands concerned must prepare a new plan of management to replace it.
(3) The board of management is to have regard to a plan of management that has expired until the new plan of management comes into effect.”
Blue Mountains {city} Council delayed its review of its 2004 Plan some seventeen years. Not including the NSW bushfire emergency declarations of 2019 and the Coronavirus Pandemic 2020-2021, council’s review process was still an inexcusable five-year delay between the due scheduled review in 2014 and when council initiated community engagement from 4th September 2018.
This is evidencial from Blue Mountains {city} Council’s Stakeholder Engagement Report concerning The Gully dated June 2019, page 7 extract as follows:
Extract of Page 7 ‘Methodology’ of Blue Mountains Council’s Stakeholder Engagement Report, June 2019, pre-empting its POM for The Gully 4th October 2021
The image below is the Stormwater Plan for The Valley as part of the 2004 Plan of Management for The Valley on page 39. There are some 35 specific actions identified, explained and specifically geo-located on the map. The clarity of the image is regrettably poor and almost impossible to read. It has been sourced from the 2004 Plan of Management on Blue Mountains {city} Council’s website concerning the 2021 POM; perhaps the poor clarify of the image was intentional?
Council failed to act on any of the 35 recommended actions of the Stormwater Plan.
Council failed to act on any of the recommended actions of the Bush Regeneration Plan. The only work carried out in The Valley was the ongoing weeding by local residents associated with the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley bushcare groups. One group focused on the Frank Walford Park area, another along Selby Street Reserve and a third in MacRae’s Paddock.
There was supposed to be stream restoration works, a Heritage Management Plan, native re-vegetation, macrophytle planting around Horace Gates’ artificial lake, removal of the derelict toilet blocks, contruction of a heritage centre and installation of picnic shelters. There was to be a paid re-vegetation coordinator supported by some 20 trainee staff. None of that happened. These are all listed in a Action Plan Table in Section 8.2 of the 2004 Plan of Management from page 71 to 74.
Unbelievably, the total budgeted cost of Blue Mountains {city} Council’s wish list for the entire ‘Masterplan‘ for The Valley came in at a staggering pie-in- the-sky $4,682,000!
The funding for all this was supposed to be gleamed from grants from various departments of the New South Wales Government such as the NSW Department of Conservations and Land Management, the NSW Heritage Office and somehow from from State Treasury, in theory.
That didn’t happen because Council didn’t actually apply for any grant funding for these listed projects.
So what did Council actually manage to do for The Valley over these 17 years (2004-2021) ?
Funding that was secured between the 2004 Plan and the 2021 Plan was from a joint Aboriginal grant between The Gully Traditional Owners (Gundungurra) and the Widjabul traditional custodians the Wilson River region near Lismore in the northern rivers region of New South Wales. A grant of $600,000 was obtained through partnership with Rous Water and Sustainable Futures Australia as part of the Aboriginal ‘Reconnecting to Country‘ project. The funding was used to construct a boardwalk and interpretative Aboriginal signage in the northern (formerly Frank Walford Park) section of The Gully.
A local Aboriginal interpretative pathway design was initiated by the local Aboriginal people in The Gully, not by Council. The entire $600,000 went into funding a cultural focus about the stories of previous residents forciblly evicted for Council’s motor tracing circuit. The funding was not about environmental rehabilitation of The Valley.
Also, a small section of the Catalina Racetrack sleeper fencing was removed near Catalina Lake as a symbolic gesture of finally ending the motor racing usurpation of The Valley since 1957.
Since The Gully was declared an Aboriginal Place on 18th May 2002, motorised use of the track was prohibited by Blue Mountains Council. This ending of the racing era in The Valley came about mainly through the conserted campaigning by local resident activist group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley from 1989 to end the racing and the noise. Others wish to claim the credit.
However, occasional mischievous motorised access persisted from time to time for a few years. The steel gate was illegally towed out of its concrete base near the South Katoomba Rural Fire Station in order for someone to gain vehicle access to the old race track. A second steel gate was also illegally removed nearby the Aquatic Centre to gain vehicular access to the track. The odd trail bike and mini bikes were observed by this author illegally racing as recently as December 2005.
During this period , a coppice of willow trees were professionally removed from inside the racetrack, near the disused toilet block. An Aboriginal Liaison Officer, Reg Yates, was employed by Blue Mountains {city} Council for a short time in around 2006. The Council-owned cottage at 23 Gates Avenue was donated to newly formed Gully Traditional Owners, after the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institiute (BMWHI) relocated. The building is occasionally used currently as an office, and meeting place for Gundungurra use. A small art gallery was constructed adjacent. As a local resident, this author usually observes that most of the time the premises are closed and all the window blinds are pulled down.
The Gully Cottage at 23 Gates Avenue in Katoomba. For decades through the 1980s up until 2004 the cottage lay empty after the prevous caretaker had relocated. Council leased the cottage in 2004 to the BMWHI for a penny rent of $1 per year. Then Council gifted it to the Gully Traditional owners and spend tens of thousands renovating it.
At the end of 2011, Blue Mountains {city} Council in partnership with NSW Landcare established a volunteer-based Garguree Swampcare group tasked to rehabilitate the riparian swamp/wetland areas from weed infestations inside The Gully, as well as re-landscaping and planting out locally native vegetation. The name ‘Garguree’ means ‘gully’ in Gundungurra language, apparently according to local historian Jim Smith Ph.D.
We enclose below a complete copy of the final revised Plan of Management of 2004 in Adobe Acrobat .PDF format below. Being a publicly funded community document wholly concerning community land, this document below is freely available to the public for download and printing.
The Blue Mountains conservation grapevine has alerted Leura locals to a new development threat atop the Jamison Escarpment. It’s seems to be all about facilitating mass tourism and its coming from the custodial land holder itself, the so-called National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
Trust NPWS?
Apparently, local residents were letterbox dropped on 22nd April 2020 by NPWS. Its Community Information Letter on official NPWS letterhead outlined a project proposal described as the “Gordon Falls Lookout accessibility upgrade“. Accessibility upgrade for whom? Busloads overflowing from nearby congested Echo Point?
It is flagged to be part of some grander “Grand Cliff Top Walk“, and it seems NPWS has already selected a construction contractor, NewScape Designs from inner Sydney.
The colourful ‘artist’s impression’ of this proposal: it’s not what you know, but who you know in the NSW Government.
So why is Gordon Falls Lookout targeted for tourism development?
Well, NPWS’s distributed Community Information Letter to nearby Leura residents reads as follows:
So NPWS is calling this tourism development its ‘Gordon Falls Lookout Accessibility Upgrade‘. So it is all about providing disabled access is it?
According to the 2020 sales pitch of NPWS for this tourism infrastructure proposal, it’s apparently just an “upgrade” for Gordon Falls Lookout, not a new development, but this smells of legislative avoidance speak. The entire project is wholly within the Greater Blue Mountains Area, and Sydney Water Catchment, so with such a proposal clearly NPWS are keen to not trigger any sense of ‘development’ (which it obviously is).
The authority behind this Community Information Letter is…
These public servants are invariable in ‘Acting’ responsibilities akin to casuals. Should they stuff up, then their acting days are immediately over.
The overarching policy and funding is coming out of NSW Premier Gladys Berijiklian‘s tourism infrastructure programme dubbed ‘The Improving Access to National Parks Programme‘. Publicly announced on 9th February 2019, the programme funding is almost $150 million in capital expenditure budgeted to span four years (2019-2023).
“This includes major upgrade works in places like Sydney’s Royal National Park and in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, making it easier for people to enjoy our wonderful natural beauty,” Ms Berejiklian said. The funding is to “upgrade” walking tracks, better visitor infrastructure and facilities, etc. Specifically the Gordon Falls Lookout Accessibility Upgrade is part of a masterplan to “upgrade” a 13.6 kilometre Grand Cliff Top Walk from Wentworth Falls to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area costing $10 million, and “upgrading” access to iconic lookout points to a mobility impaired access standard (another $10 million).
The problem is that the 13.6 kilometre Grand Cliff Top Walk from Wentworth Falls to Katoomba does not exist. Prince Henry Cliff Walk extends from Scenic World to Gordon Falls. But there is no track east of Gordon Falls, not yet anyway, just untouched bushland to Sublime Point to the back of the Fairmont Resort in Leura. So this masterplan is not an upgrade but a new tourism infrastructure development.
Is NPWS Cameron Chaffey tasked with finding a lookout overflow for mass tourism saturated Echo Point? Isn’t Echo Point on local council land? Isn’t the access to Gordon Falls Lookout on local council land as well?
Three Sisters lookout on a quiet day
So this is the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the delegated official governmental custodians of the Greater Blue Mountains Area?
Has NPWS turned corporate exploitative for the mass tourism visitation buck?
This is test wedge tourism development to broaden the overburdened mass tourism of over-crowded iconic Echo Point to spread the day tripper visitation to multiple eye candy lookouts to suit bus loads of international tourists.
Whose Grandiose Idea is it to rename Prince Henry Cliff Walk?
And why delete the heritage named track Prince Henry Cliff Walk constructed by hand by unemployed men during The Great Depression in 1934? The famous hiking track is seven kilometers long and skirts the northern Jamison Escarpment clifftop track extending from what is now Scenic World on the southern edge of Katoomba to Gordon Falls Reserve on the southern edge of Leura.
The track is undulating and in many sections quite poor, eroded and neglected by the custodial land manager, Blue Mountains Council, to the point of being quite dangerous.
Since the deluge from an East Coasts Low weather event in mid February 2020, the track has been closed due to a number of unrepaired landslips. The entire Leura Cascades area, popular for picnickers and families has been completely off limits to the public for the past four months.
Prince Henry Cliff Walk heritage walk since 1934
Prince Henry Cliff Walk is named in honour of Prince Henry William Frederick Albert, Duke of Gloucester, a son of King George V and Queen Mary. Prince Henry visited Australia and Katoomba by train in 1934. The New South Wales government of the day engaged hundreds of unemployed young men between 1934 and 1936 to construct the track by hand as a means of keeping them gainfully employed and to create a healthy tourist visitation experience for the Blue Mountains. [Source: ^https://sydneyuncovered.com/prince-henry-cliff-walk/]
Prince Henry Cliff Walks is listed on the State Heritage Register as a walking track of historical and aesthetic significance (Item K014).
Then Katoomba local council funded the track, suitable for “comfortable walking for pedestrians of all ages and conditions, linking many of the cardinal attractions of the Jamison Valley escarpment at Leura and Katoomba, is a significant historic token of the efforts to repair the Mountains economy and to serve a public need after the worst of the Depression of the early 1930s. The long track has considerable historic significance at the local level”..and has aesthetic significance at the local level.” [Source: ^https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=1170735].
Realise the Political Background…
Feb 2019: ‘Wentworth Falls to Katoomba – all along the cliff tops’
Blue Mountains (Labor) MP Trish Doyle, with Leura Bushcare worker and cliff top walk advocate, Norm Harris, near Olympian Rock at Leura.
In 1982, then chief engineer at Blue Mountains Council, John Metcalfe, had a vision of a walk from Wentworth Falls to the marked tree at Katoomba – all along the cliff tops.
Map of existing tracks and the missing links for a Wentworth Falls-Katoomba cliff top walk.
Some 20-odd years later, Leura Bushcare worker Norm Harris and his wife, Laurel, took up the cause, convincing the Conservation Society that it would be a “great tourist attraction”. And last week, the NSW Government announced a $10 million grant for an “significant upgrade to the 13.6 kilometre grand cliff top walk”.
Mr Harris was “ecstatic” at the news. “I’m so delighted. I just want them to do it,” he said. The crucial missing links are from the Fairmont Resort around to Sublime Point. But Mr Harris believes a path could be built 60 metres from the rear of properties on Sublime Point Road, which would be invisible to, and not interfere with, the private land owners who live there.
Some years ago he wrote to Waverley Council, asking how it had managed to secure land to complete the Federation Cliff Walk from Watsons Bay to Bondi.
Council replied it had unsuccessfully negotiated with a private land owner but later was able to compulsorily acquire an easement because the land was zoned “regional open space”.
Mr Harris is hoping such an approach may work around Sublime Point Road. He praised the efforts of Blue Mountains MP, Trish Doyle, for raising the issue with then premier, Mike Baird, in 2015, which included sending him detailed maps and concept plans.
“I’ve contacted all the state MPs – Bob Debus, Phil Koperberg, Roza Sage and Trish and Trish is the only one that’s done anything,” Mr Harris said.
Ms Doyle said: “Mr Harris has been plugging away quietly at this proposal for many years, and the announcement of $10 million for stage one of the grand cliff top walk is a testament to his methodical, thorough and expert analysis of the project.
“I am thrilled to have been able to help Mr Harris put forward this proposal and see it come to fruition after four years of making representations to the government on his behalf,” she said.
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, also announced funding of $9.9 million to upgrade access to iconic lookout points in the Mountains so they comply with mobility impaired access standards.’
July 2019: ‘Work begins on $10M grand cliff top walk upgrade’
Work is underway on a major upgrade of national park walking tracks along the cliff tops between Wentworth Falls and Katoomba.
NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean was in the Blue Mountains on Friday to talk with National Parks and Wildlife Service walking track teams carrying out the work, and to visit some of the areas to be upgraded.
Blue Mountains Councillor Kevin Schreiber (disguised in sunglasses), MLC Shayne Mallard, Environment Minister Matt Kean and the Blue Mountains director of NPWS David Crust, at Govetts Leap Lookout at Blackheath. The carpark at the iconic lookout will be improved, accessible paths added, and the toilets will include disabled access.
Work has begun in the national park at Wentworth Falls, with the full upgrade expected to take four years to complete.
David Crust, the Blue Mountains director of the NPWS, said they would be adding in a few missing links to walking paths between Wentworth Falls and Katoomba, but mostly they would be improving the quality of existing tracks.
In February the state government announced it would spend $10 million on a “significant upgrade to the 13.6 kilometre grand cliff top walk”. “The changes will include improved walking tracks, better visitor infrastructure and facilities, and upgrading of access to iconic lookout points including mobility impaired access standards,” Mr Kean said.
The grand cliff top walk links a series of existing tracks and is accessible from multiple locations, providing the opportunity for visitors to tailor the length of walk and to create a multi-day itinerary. The walk also provides access to many sidetracks, which offer a variety of experiences and opportunities for all park visitors. Govetts Leap at Blackheath is one of the iconic lookouts in the Mountains set to be upgraded with accessible paths, toilets with disabled access, and improvements to the carpark.
“The investment recognises the importance of the tourism economy in the Blue Mountains and will provide for better and safer visitor experiences across the Blue Mountains National Park,” Mr Kean said.
Work is underway on a major upgrade of national park walking tracks along the cliff tops between Wentworth Falls and Katoomba. NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean was in the Blue Mountains on Friday to talk with National Parks and Wildlife Service walking track teams carrying out the work, and to visit some of the areas to be upgraded.
Councillor Kevin Schreiber, MLC Shayne Mallard, Environment Minister Matt Kean and the Blue Mountains director of NPWS David Crust, at Govetts Leap Lookout at Blackheath. The carpark at the iconic lookout will be improved, accessible paths added, and the toilets will include disabled access.
Work has begun in the national park at Wentworth Falls, with the full upgrade expected to take four years to complete.
David Crust, the Blue Mountains director of the NPWS, said they would be adding in a few missing links to walking paths between Wentworth Falls and Katoomba, but mostly they would be improving the quality of existing tracks.
In February the state government announced it would spend $10 million on a “significant upgrade to the 13.6 kilometre grand cliff top walk”.
“The changes will include improved walking tracks, better visitor infrastructure and facilities, and upgrading of access to iconic lookout points including mobility impaired access standards,” Mr Kean said.
Young Matt Kean – Gladys patsy to “Kick Start NSW Tourism” by the cruise ship load?
The grand cliff top walk is a head office branded construct stealing Tasmanian ideas. This late night thought bubble amongst marketing types fueled by taxpayer happy juice, was to link a series of existing tracks and is accessible from multiple locations, providing the opportunity for visitors to tailor the length of walk and to create a multi-day itinerary. The walk also provides access to many sidetracks, which offer a variety of experiences and opportunities for all park visitors. Govetts Leap at Blackheath is one of the iconic lookouts in the Mountains set to be upgraded with accessible paths, toilets with disabled access, and improvements to the carpark.
“The investment recognises the importance of the tourism economy in the Blue Mountains and will provide for better and safer visitor experiences across the Blue Mountains National Park,” Mr Kean said.
Rockclimber Michael Connard on his Facebook page ‘Rock Climbing in the Blue Mountains‘ views this project as a “New threat to the Blue Mountains.”
He comments:
“National Parks have just announced the development of a new Grand Clifftop Walk Project – an upgraded walking track stretching from Echo Point to Wentworth Falls. So far National Parks have provided minimal details, but it seems that they are planning to replace at least sections of the existing tracks with raised boardwalks and paving. Part of this redevelopment will be a series of new lookouts including an Echo Point style lookout at Gordon Falls, Leura.
This redevelopment will exacerbate the problems already associated with Echo Point and Wentworth Falls, ie increased visitor numbers, traffic, parking, litter. It will create a new monstrosity at the base of Leura Mall.
Echo Point and Wentworth Falls represent a catastrophic failure of different levels of government to coordinate. The sites are owned by Parks, but council are responsible for parking, traffic management, sewerage & rubbish. Leura simply does not have the capacity to absorb another Echo Point.
This project will cause irreparable harm to Leura and possibly to the clifftop environment. Parks have not released a detailed proposal. They have not released estimates of visitors. There is currently no plan for accommodating tourist buses, toilets, parking or traffic. We would never allow a private developer to undertake such a major project in a national park without releasing detailed plans for public consultation. We shouldn’t allow Parks to do it either.
National Parks are requesting comments regarding this proposal but are proposing to commence construction in June 2020. This is not a genuine public consultation process. If anyone can put me in touch with Wentworth Falls and Katoomba people who are grappling with the impacts of the Echo Point and Wentworth Falls lookouts I would greatly appreciate it.”
Now for starters, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is not national. It’s a misnomer. The NPWS is a New South Wales Government department; actually it is not even that. It has been reduced to being a sub-department within a department, having had years of funding cuts and staff mass sackings. Since 2009, restructure after restructure has meant 50% fewer rangers since 2009, deliberate dumbing down of rangers to non-graduate classifications and junior roles, with dozens of scientists, ecologists and specialists having been made redundant. In 2016 and 2017, 27% ($121 million) was pulled out of the NPWS budget according to Labor’s opposition then environment spokesperson Penny Sharpe with 500 full time positions lost since 2011.
NPWS is just like Parks Victoria across the southern border. It is a state agency headquartered in Hurstville in southern Sydney, not in Canberra. Even the headquarters is a shell..
It has been swallowed up under what is currently called The Environment, Energy and Science (EES) Group, a corporatised body within the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (NSW).
It is a shadow of its former self from the halcyon optimistic days under conservationist Premier Bob Carr between 1995 to 2005, when 100 national parks were rolled out between Nowra and the Bega Valley, and when the Greater Blue Mountains Area received world heritage recognition by UNESCO in Geneva. In New South Wales, there is no Department of Environment, and the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) is gone.
And NPWS is not a service for wildlife. The recent Summer 2019-20 bushfire emergency that engulfed the Greater Blue Mountains Area is a testament to that. Three small remote ignitions were allowed to burn away – one in the Wollemi National Park, one in the Kanangra Boyd National Park and one in the Blue Mountains National Park. They were dubbed respectively the Gospers Mountain Fire, the Green Wattle Creek Fire and the Ruined Castle Fire. NPWS allowed some 80% of the Greater Blue Mountains Area wilderness and native habitat to be incinerated causing wildlife extinctions throughout the region. Across the state, more than five million hectares of mainly natural bushland was allowed to go up in smoke, most of it under the custodial responsibility of the NPWS.
According to ecologist Professor Chris Dickman from the University of Sydney, over a billion fauna and “hundreds of billions” of insects have been killed in bushfires throughout New South Wales over the summer season.
“For some species we’re looking at imminent extinction. There will almost certainly be species of all geographical ranges and populations that are cooked before we’ve even had the chance to discover that they exist.”
Professor Dickman said the aftermath may mean “species that are rendered extinct, ecosystems that have been eroded to the point where they are completely changed, and habitat in a state of widespread impoverishment. The loss of life we’ve estimated for NSW is 800 million terrestrial animals, including birds and reptiles. But that figure doesn’t include frogs, fish, bats and invertebrates,” he said. “Combining these figures [it] is likely well over a billion animals lost.”
‘Premier Gladys Berejiklian has today announced a new national park for NSW – providing another significant boost for the State’s koala population – along with a major new package that will improve access to existing national parks.
The State’s newest national park will cover around 3680 hectares in the north of Goulburn electorate, bordering Wollondilly. The new park is centered around Tugalong Station – about 25 kilometres northwest of Bowral.
“The NSW Liberals & Nationals have been careful custodians of the State’s national parks and I am thrilled to be able to unveil a new one today,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“This new national park will ensure that a vital koala wilderness area south of Sydney is preserved. Like all national parks, it will be open to the public so they can explore the wilderness country.”
Ms Berejiklian also announced a $150 million investment to improve access to national parks across NSW – funding made possible due to the strong economic management of the NSW Liberals & Nationals.
“This includes major upgrade works in places like Sydney’s Royal National Park and in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, making it easier for people to enjoy our wonderful natural beauty,” Ms Berejiklian said.
Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton said the new national park contains some of the Southern Highlands’ best koala habitat.
“Koalas are an iconic species and we are acting to ensure their survival,” Ms Upton said.
“The new national park will not only add to the State’s conservation lands, it is yet another example of how the NSW Government is moving to protect and preserve the koala population.”
The Government’s $150 million investment to improve access to existing national parks includes upgraded walking tracks, better visitor infrastructure and facilities and new digital tools such as virtual tours and livestreaming cameras.
This will include:
More access – significant upgrade to the 13.6 kilometre Grand Cliff Top Walk from Wentworth Falls to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area ($10 million). Also, upgrading access to iconic lookout points to a mobility impaired access standard ($9.9 million);
Improved park visitor infrastructure and facilities – expansion of picnic areas, BBQs, water provision, facilities ($38.7 million) and increased support for families and people with restricted mobility ($45 million). This will include upgraded picnic facilities and the walking tracks at Audley Weir, in the Royal National Park.
Safe access – Investment in making our extensive network of walking tracks and trails safer and more accessible ($36.4 million); expansion of the ‘Think before you Trek’ safety program for bushwalkers and work with other agencies to deliver other priority safety programs like rock fishing and enhanced mobile connectivity in the parks ($1 million).
“NSW boasts some of the most majestic and picturesque coastal lookouts, outback walking tracks, camping grounds and beaches in the world and we want more visitors to experience the natural beauty and wonder of our national parks,” Ms Berejiklian said.
Ms Upton added:“As well as international and interstate tourists, we want to make it easier for families to get out there and discover the natural beauty our State.”
Pre-2006: The Grose Valley’s 500m+ deep upper Grose Gorge displayed a Blue Mountains profile of sandstone cliffs above talus thickly carpeted by Eucalypt forest supporting rich diversity in plantlife, wildlife, birdlife, creeklife and buglife – just an eco-happy cradle of conservation.
(NB: This photo shows Eucy-mist, not Eucy-smoke. – Ed.)
In 1926, developer Ernest Williamson famously described the Blue Gum Forest in the heart of Grose Valley in the Blue Mountains thus:
“… a flat, unsurpassed on the mountains for the beauty and grandeur of its trees! Magnificent blue gums, straight and towering skyward in great heights … they appear like the huge pillars of a mountain temple.”
Ernest went on to more infamously propose:
“the Valley of the Grose could, in a few years, be transformed from a riot of scrubland to a hive of industry conveniently situated at what has been aptly described ‘the back door of Sydney’”.
According to Blue Mountains historian and author, Andy Macqueen, Williamson’s property development outfit calling itself The Grose Valley Development Syndicate, proposed in the 1920s or the Grose Valley’s forests to be deforested for timber exploitation and that a shale coal mine and coal-fired power station be built there. It would be an industrialised Lithgow Mark II. Other threats to the Blue Gum Forest included a proposed railway line and a dam. So why not a tannery and nuclear waste dump to boot?
Grose Valley Vision Splendid? – a gross Lithgow industrial vision…note the few remnant token gums retained for ambience, or was it just slack ‘clearing’.
Blue Gum Forest – Australia’s Cradle of Conservation
For generations since the 1920s, conservationists have posited somewhat a more respectful plan for the Grose Valley than by Ernest Williamson and his robber-barons. The plan being to respect and conserve the ecological values and the anthropocentric aesthetic ‘eye-candy’ tourist benefits of the Grose Valley.
Since 1875, the Blue Gum Forest was the scene of an artists’ camp established by Frederick Eccleston Du Faur of the Academy of Art. Since then, conservationists have lobbied to protect the Grose Valley from “alienation” – read ruination.
In 1931, during an Easter hiking trip, a group of bushwalkers from the Mountain Trails Club and the Sydney Bush Walkers club, led by Alan Rigby, camped in the Blue Gum Forest.
Since 1931 the Blue Gum Forest has been ecologically recognised and presumed protected.
[Source: Myles Dunphy Collection, Mitchell Library in the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney.]
While the bushwalkers camped, an orchard farmer of Bilpin, Clarence Hungerford, rode in on his horse to confront the bushwalkers ‘squatting’ on his property. Hungerford had secured a lease of the forest to graze his cattle. Hungerford told to the hikers that he intended to deforest all the blue gums and to sell the timber in order to finance a walnut orchard.
Blue Gum Forest – flagged for deforestation in 1931 for Hungerford’s walnut orchard ‘vision splendid‘
The bushwalkers’ Hungerford experience didn’t go down well. Incensed and horrified, the bushwalkers immediately started a campaign to stop Hungerford’s decimation of the Blue Gum sanctuary. Their impassioned rallying ultimately raised £130; quite a substantial sum in the depth of the Great Depression. They then paid all the funds to Hungerford in exchange for his undertaking to relinquish his pastoral lease of the Blue Gum Forest.
The bushwalkers met with Hungerford at the Blue Gum Forest on 15 November 1931 in pouring rain, and he agreed with their suggestion. Most of the funding had been donated by James Cleary, then head of the NSW railways, a keen bushwalker and conservationist. One of the key activists in the campaign was Myles Dunphy, who at the time was developing his plans for the Blue Mountains National Park.
“We hold our land in trust for our successors.” (1934) – Myles Joseph Dunphy (1891-1985), architect, legendary long distance wilderness trekker, map maker, and conservationist before his time. Dunphy always took his Lee Enfield .303 with him for hunting for food when trekking, like on this occasion – it’s under wraps under the tent fly. A daily twilight roo kill for protein was the secret behind him managing to trek his incredible distances. Born on 19 October 1891 in South Melbourne, eldest of seven children… [Read More]
Hungerford’s horse track became a developer tribute to Hungerford. The contour-following bush track starts about 300m south of Evans Lookout and descends zig-zagging down the escarpment to the flats of the Grose Valley at Govetts Creek. In its ignorance, the NPWS or more aptly, the Tourist Parks Service, named this track ‘The Horse Walking Track’ – for visitors to walk their horses?
The Blue Gum Forest has since been referred to in the conservation movement as the Cradle of Conservation for it was the focus of Australia’s original ecological protection by a small group of “thoughtful, committed citizens” (Margaret Mead quote extract) and which seeded generations later, the international listing of The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area in 2000. What legends!
David Noble is the parks ranger who discovered Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) in 1994. In September 2012, Noble revisited the Blue Gum Forest leading a hike to celebrate eighty years since the Blue Gum Forest was saved on 2nd September 1932.
Dave wrote at the time:
“This majestic forest lies at the intersection of the Grose River and Govetts Creek near Blackheath. Back in 1932, a large portion of the forest (it was then private land) was going to be felled and replaced by walnut trees. Visiting bushwalkers were alarmed, and rallied together and ended up raising money to purchase the block in question and saving it for conservation. Many regard this as the start of the conservation movement in NSW.”
But conservationist idealism ignored the arsonist culture. Government baby boomer arsonists have had a view of native Eucalypt forests like the Blue Gum not as cherished ecology but as a valueless hazard, just like Williamson, generations before. The New South Wales Government ‘autorities’ have been chafing at the bit for years to hazard reduce Blue Mountains World Heritage “fuel“.
History of Neglectful Arson
In December 1957, a bushfire that was left to burn in bushland east of the Grose Valley, once the wind picked up, ultimately ripped through the timber clad villages of Leura and Wentworth Falls destroying 170 homes.
In December 1976, 65,000 hectares of Blue Mountains native bushland was burnt. A year later, a bushfire burnt out 49 buildings and another 54,000 hectares of Blue Mountains native bushland.
In summer 1982 a bushfire burnt right through the Grose Valley incinerating 35,000 hectares of tall native forest, and wildlife.
Again in 1994 the Grose Valley was let burnt by bushfire.
Grose Valley Arson in November 2006
Again in November 2006 the RFS backburned into the Grose Valley from Hartley Vale. Ignited by Rural Fire Service along the north side of Hartley Vale Road on a day of Total Fire Ban, bush arson incinerated native forest ecology up the length of Hartley Valley Road and then was allowed to spot over the Darling Causeway let descend into the Grose Valley. It was deliberate bush arson sanctioned by the NSW Government under then RFS Commissioner Mal Cronstedt at the time.
The fire was fanned by westerly winds over days, allowed to cross over the Darling Causeway, merge with the Burra Korain wildfire and descend down Perrys Lookdown hiking track in and through the Blue Gum Forest. Many Blue Mountains residents will be well familiar with this infamous photo of the Grose Pyrocumulus (flammagenitus) cloud rising from the Grose Valley on Thursday afternoon 23rd November 2006.
At the time there was local community outrage about how the precious Blue Gum Forest was not defended by authorities and allowed to be incinerated. Blue Mountains resident meetings were staged and a full page article was published in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper entitled >’Burning Issues – Fire in the Grose Valley (a statement funded and supported by concerned residents‘. It would have cost at least $2000. Community meetings were held, arranged by former parks ranger Ian Brown. But then it got political and the campaign was strangely suddenly aborted.
Blue Gum Forest burnt in 2006 by an RFS hazard reduction. [Source: Photo by Nick Moir of Blue Mountains Botanist Dr Wyn Jones inspecting the fire damage to the Blue Gums, dated 2006122 in the Sydney Morning Herald, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/2006-grose-valley-fire-a-cover-up/]
Grose Valley Arson of December 2019
Then Last month in December 2019 the government Baby Boomer arsonists ultimately had their way. On 16th December, the Gospers Mountain Fire crossed the Bells Line of Road and spotted into the Grose Valley. By 21st December the Blue Gum Forest was gone.
Media warped termed ‘lava waterfall‘ up the Blackheath escarpment in the Grose Valley.
Months prior, a remote rural pastoral property near Gospers Mountain somehow within the Wollemi Wilderness, created an ignition on Saturday 26th October 2019.
Gospers Mountain showing remote historic rural cattle paddocks deep within the Wollemi Wilderness. The Australian Government calls it a national park but takes no accountability by delegating custodial protection but no funding to the state government of New South Wales.
Gospers Mountain is 50km NE of the locality of Bell as the crow flies or fire spreads. Officially declared started by dry lighting in the ‘national park’ on a hot Saturday, this crime of arson and subsequent government firefighting neglect remains secretive. So NSW Police Bush Arson Squad ‘Strike Force Toronto‘ where are you on this – honest or corrupted by the Premier and RFS?
The RFS Gospers Mountain Fire has been the largest bushfire in New South Wales state history. The total number of days between Saturday, October 26th, 2019 and Monday, December 16th, 2019 was 51 days; or one month and 20 days. Over 51 days the fire was allowed to become a ‘megafire’ (likely a new Macquarie Dictionary term for 2020) and ultimately the largest single bushfire in Australia’s history – incineratingmore than 500,000 hectares of bush wilderness…
Of course the Gospers Mountains Fire was left to spread into a mega-fire and to cross over the Bells Line of Road some 50km south-west.
So what did the RFS do for PR but rebrand the Gospers Mountains Fire southerly spread as a new Grose Valley Fire, and to so to be allowed to incinerate down the escarpment into the Grose Valley and to incinerate the Cradle of Conservation – the Blue Gum Forest.
As if RFS arsonists care a damn?
Now government paid white collar fire chiefs have had their way. Forest incineration complete. Easy-peasy till retirement.
Yes RFS let an ignition with a small plume of smoke rising in remote National Park inaccessible to fire trucks burn neglected for days and weeks, negligent of the consequences. What hazard predictably eventuates when ignored for weeks? From the RFS ignition detected at Gospers Mountain on Saturday 26th October 2019 bordering the World Heritage Wollemi National Park …to 16th December 2019 – what response and when was undertaken by the RFS as a supposed fire fighting service?
Truthful answer: Defacto hazard reduction because the bushfire was atthe time not immediately threatening human properties.
Then as normal, the wind picked up, and the wee plume of remote rising smoke morphed into a fire front, then inferno and then into Australia’s worst megafire on record.
Rural Fire Service (NSW) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons (aged 50) is ultimately responsible for the bushfire prevention, planning, resourcing, response for New South Wales outside metropolitan areas services by NSW Fire and Rescue. In our view the he has failed to protect rural NSW to the standards of urban NSW by failing to oversee a government entrusted fire-fighting authority to promptly detect, respond to and extinguish bushfires in a timely manner.
His predecessor also repeatedly failed in his bushfire plan and following the 2006 Grose Valley Pyrocumulus of 2006 promptly skedaddled back to Perth to WA’s chagrin and cost (on record).
If only the ‘000’ Fire Brigade extinguisher standard applied outside metropolitan Australia?
No longer enjoying the benefits of the tourism economy. The Grand Canyon Track closed since 30 November 2019 and still closed on 21 January 2020 -peak tourist season.
What had started as a small plume of smoke off Army Road on Saturday 26th October on a rural property near Gospers Mountain some sixty kilometres to the north, had been allowed to burn away into the World Heritage of the Wollemi National Park wilderness for weeks. It was allowed to destroy all the magnificent Wollemi wilderness from end to end.
By the time the bushfire had crossed to the southern side of the Bells Line of Road 50km south, the RFS changed their pet name of the ‘Gospers Mountain Fire’ to being dubbed the ‘Grose Valley Fir’e. Why not? That was the goal – defacto hazard reduction.
The iconic Blue Gum Forest in the Grose Valley of the Blue Mountains was left to incinerate by the New South Wales Government in December 2019. They did what Williamson in the 1920s failed to achieve. [Source: Editor, The Habitat Advocate, photo taken from Valley View Lookout 100m north of Evans Lookout, 20200121]
Once World Heritage values of the Grose Valley have now gone up in smoke. The icon Blue Gum Forest has been incinerated yet again since the previous RFS successful attempt in November 2006. No wonder the place is very very quiet. All the wildlife is dead and the native birds have flow away.
Close up of the Blue Gum Forest from near Evans Lookout (top of photo) showing the canopy of Eucalyptus deanei incinerated; not much left of the forest in the foreground either. [Source: Editor, The Habitat Advocate, photo taken from Valley View Lookout 100m north of Evans Lookout, 20200121]
This time they have succeeded in total incineration – their goal of converting hazardous forest ecology into anthropocentric manageable parkland has long been misunderstood by ideologically hopeful environmentalists. The misnomer National Parks and Wildlife Service (NSW) ethically should now do the right thing and re-brand itself State Parks Administration Service it commercially is.
More than 80% of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and more than 50% of the Gondwana world heritage rainforests of northern New South Wales and southern Queensland have been burnt in Australia’s worst bushfire disaster in history. The scale of the disaster is such that it could affect the diversity of eucalypts for which the Blue Mountains world heritage area is recognised, said John Merson, the executive director of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute.
The Habitat Advocate has written to UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre expressing shock, outrage and anger over government mismanagement and contempt for Blue Mountains ecology through abject neglect in bushfire response. With most of the world heritage incinerated, we have questioning the status of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area as these values apply to Eucalypt diversity, since 80% has been incinerated.
UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre has expressed concern about the scale and intensity of bushfire damage to the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and to the Gondwana Rainforests and has asked the Australian government whether it should de-list their world heritage status. In a statement on its website, UNESCO said members of the media and civil society had asked about the bushfires affecting the areas inscribed on the world heritage list as the “Gondwana rainforests of Australia”. The forests are considered a living link to the vegetation that covered the southern super-continent Gondwana before it broke up about 180m years ago.
According to UNESCO:
“The World Heritage Centre is currently verifying the information with the Australian authorities, in particular regarding the potential impact of the fires on the outstanding universal value of the property. The Centre has been closely following-up on this matter and stands ready to provide any technical assistance at the request of Australian authorities.”
Blue Mountains World Heritage is a misnomer and a sick joke. This RFS blackened moonscape now blankets 80% of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. Incinerated, quite dead, quiet, subsequently oven baked in the scorching sun and now sterilised. The tamed moonscape is far easier to manage for the Parks Service, like Centennial Park. [Source: Editor, The Habitat Advocate, photo taken 20200121 of escarpment track near Evans Lookout.]
[2] ‘Wild About Wilderness‘ in ‘The Ways of the Bushwalker’, 2007, a book by Melissa Harper, published by University of New South Wales Press Ltd, pp.258-259.
[6] ‘Bushwalking and the Conservation Movement‘, in printed book ‘Blue Mountains – Pictorial Memories, 1998, by John Low AO, pp. 96-97, published by Kingsclear Books
Right now, Australia is being ravaged by one of the most devastating bushfire programmes the country has ever seen.
So far, more than 10 million hectares of Australian land has been burned to the ground. At least one billion native animals have lost their lives so far, including thousands of koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, birds and other iconic wildlife. Koalas were already on the brink extinction as local governments have approved deforestation of their shrinking native habitat to facilitate housing development. It’s otherwise a culture of anthropocentric greed.
This casualty estimate does not include farm animals, otherwise statistically listed as ‘livestock’. ‘Pets’ neither feature as an identifiable statistic by the authorities. Just humans, whose funerals the Prime Minister and relevant Premier attend for relevant PR.
It’s estimated that as many as 8,400 koalas have perished in fires (read “burned to death”) on the mid-north coast of NSW and Kangaroo Island in South Australia has lost over 50% of their koala population (so far). This is a devastating regional extinction event for an unique iconic species already in serious decline.
But that is where we end the WWF quote, because as eternal optimists they go on to suggest a “wildlife response”, “habitat restoration” and “future proofing Australia”. This is a naive false hope.
It’s too bloody late you environmentalist hypocrites, distracted by notional climate theories while conspicuously silent on palpable government forest arson.
The Braemar State Forest is a 2000-hectare forest straddling the Summerland Way about 25 km south of the town of Casino in northern New South Wales. On 28th April 2008, the New South Wales government gazetted that appropriately licensed people could hunt game and feral animals in Braemar State Forest. Habitat custodians? There is a second Braemar State Forest 30km west of the town of Dalby in Queensland which is west of Toowoomba and Brisbane.
So much for the empty promise of national parks. There were never national, not nationally managed, but delegated to state and territory governments with no custodial interest, little federal funding and conflicting priorities like accommodating the incessant human plague.
Koalas will now be extinct in the wild in many forested regions of eastern Australia due to the combination of human hate toward them- ongoing excessive deforestation for agricultural and urban development, government sanctioned logging, new resident dog attacks, and state arson or abandoned bushfires.
The 2019 Summer Extinction Watershed
Before the summer of 2019 Eastern Australia had remnant native forests, a few of World Heritage listing protection no less to sustain ecological habitats for precious wildlife.
Then 10 million hectares of these forests, most of Australia’s remnant forest ecology, was incinerated in a mass government sanctioned multi-species extinction programmed event.
Post Summer 2019, Eastern Australia’s forests are dead silent parks made more conducive to anthropocentric use.
Quite simply, original ecological Australia has gone – no ifs or buts, no glass half full restoration PR.
Government rural fire lighting service: “Big time hazard reduction job done, about time.”
CFA: “That’s more like it! Burn it before it burns.”
Australia’s wildfires have now burned more than 6 million hectares across the continent, leaving an estimated 1.25 billion animals dead, according to the World Wildlife Fund, which arrived at this figure based on University of Sydney Professor Chris Dickman’s work.
Organizations like Zoos Victoria have found themselves pressed into de facto emergency relief agencies on the front lines of saving impacted animals. Two Zoos Victoria veterinary staff members were recently given permission to go into fire zones in order to treat koalas and other wildlife.
“We’re all devastated. Devastated, but in the really fortunate position that we’ve got the kind of skilled staff that can go into the field and really make a difference,” said Michelle Lang, general manager at Zoos Victoria, which operates three zoos in the state, as well as a host of other conservation programs.
“Despite their injuries and trauma, the bravery shown by the koalas and wildlife at Mallacoota is inspiring,” Dr. Leanne Wicker, who went into the bush, said in a press release.
According to Lang, Zoos Victoria was “pretty well prepared” to engage in their response role, considering the sheer scale of the fires, because of previous programs they have implemented, such as their Marine Response Unit, which was created 2013 responds to calls for assistance with vulnerable animals on a daily basis. Lang pointed out that many of the most decimated wildlife populations will be, “small, unknown, unglamorous animals that are so vital to our ecosystem and our chain of biodiversity.
“Some species, there were only 2,000 of them before the fires, so we hate of think how many of them will be left after this,” she said. In addition to the iconic koala bears, other impacted animals across the continent include the nabarlek, bilby, northern bettong, gouldian finch, numbat, and wiliji.
Dr. Stuart Blanch, Senior Manager of Land Clearing and Restoration at WWF-Australia, identified the long-footed potoroo, mountain pygmy possum, yellow-bellied glider and brush-tailed rock wallaby, as well as the regent honeyeater and glossy black cockatoo, which are both critically endangered, as being particularly at-risk, due to the destruction of their habitats.
Blanch told the media earlier this week that, “Up to 30% of koalas (as many as 8,400 koalas) may have perished during fires on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. This is a devastating blow for a species already in decline, due to ongoing excessive tree-clearing for agricultural and urban development, and pushes the species closer to becoming an endangered species.
“This has the potential to hasten koalas’ slide towards extinction in the wild in eastern Australia,” he said.
Contextualizing the impact of these fires, WWF-Australia CEO Dermot O’Gorman said many of the country’s forests and animals are facing a decades-long recovery, if the latter are able to bounce back at all.
“… some species may have tipped over the brink of extinction,” O’Gorman said in a written statement.
Zoos Victoria, which launched a $30 million initiative to save 20 species from extinction in 2015, has since grown that number to 27. They also operate conservation programs in six countries and can point to several successes such as their breeding of the critically endangered Baw Baw frog last year, and releasing dozens of critically endangered orange-bellied parrots into the wild. On the strength of this experience, they are anticipating which steps will be required after the fires die down. Lang said that potential scenarios include supplementary feeding programs for animals that survive, but are faced with a lack of food, animals that need to be protected from an over-population of predators, new holding areas, specific food items, habitat restoration, and extra staff.
Though Zoos Victoria is currently responding to alleviate the suffering of animals, and planning for possible eventualities, the full scope of the damage at the moment, to say nothing of what the reality will be after the fires die down, is unknown.
“We don’t actually know what we’re dealing with,” Lang said.
Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby incinerated in ‘protected’ Barrington Tops National Park.
“Dad, everything is dying.” – the heartbreaking words from Matthew Faulkner, 7, as he cradled a dead wallaby whose habitat had been incinerated by bushfires.
Matthew’s dad, is Tim Faulkner, who is president of NSW animal protection organisation Aussie Ark. The organisation started in 2011 with a focus on saving the Tasmanian devil from extinction and has since expanded. Aussie Ark has been setting food and camera traps to feed the animals amid Australia’s devastating bushfire crisis.
“Australia is in crisis,” Tim Faulkner says. “It has the WORST mammal extinction rate of any country in the world. Home to more than one million species of plants and animals, Australia’s wildlife is uniquely ours, found nowhere else in the world. Prior to the current fires, over 90 per cent of koala habitat had already been lost with the remaining 10 per cent being fragmented and vulnerable to intense bushfire.”
Native forests of Eastern Australia are no longer. They are mystical history now. All hope is indeed lost. Wildlife species across vast swathes of forest landscape are not Buddhists and cannot be reincarnated. It may shock many in the conservation movement, who are already in shock, that this has been a mass extinction event, and worse that it has been deliberate defacto hazard reduction on a nationwide (continental) scale across what was remnant forested New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland (not so long a go).
It is a sociopathic culture of Baby Boomer native forest hate. It is akin to colonial Australia, when Aborigines were treated as savages and so massacred in a co-ordinated government-sanctioned hunting parties, and when native animals were treated as vermin.
Little has changed since 1788. British colonial aspirations have culturally prevailed in Australia down the generations. The British 19th Century romantic notion of taming the wild (landscape, natives and wildlife) have culturally prevailed indeed in government policy in appropriately named ‘New South Wales’ and ‘Victoria’.
Joseph Lycett’s pastoral landscape interpretation of early colonial Australia.
[Joseph Lycett, b.1774-1828, a convict and artist, born in Staffordshire, England]
Post-colonial Australia is getting there – a tamed British landscape to suit.
In Victoria, the state government from 1st October 2019 authorised mass slaughter of native kangaroo species because graziers on deforested rural landholdings were having problems competing or grass and water with desperate kangaroos during this current drought cycle. The only thing that has changed since colonial times is that the government euphemistically brands the mass slaughter as a Kangaroo Harvesting Programme and the gives it an even more euphemistic acronym, ‘KHP’.
“So whata ya up to today mack? Oh, I’m going out to do a bit of KHP with me pig dogs.”
British cultural feral fox hunting persists generations on, downunder
Australia Post has just issued a Koala postage stamp. Why? Tokenistic public relations to inspire charity post-preventable apocalyse of the species? This is one was pre decimal currency. What has culturally changed?
Government PR is again post-catastrophe upbeat on announcements of military despatch, highway re-openings, re-supplies, generous funding and counselling – playing upon uneducated community ignorance of repeated colonial history.
In urban metros, cities and towns across Australia a call to Triple Zero (000) in the event of a fire emergency, will trigger reliable response quickly by the state government’s professional fire-fighting service – all professionally trained, equipped, resourced and paid.
In Victoria, this professional fire fighting force does not exist outside Melbourne
Outside urban Australia, it’s a different case of locals phoning an unpaid under-resourced Dad’s Army which directs the call to a pager. The Triple 000 emergency response standard is denied. Rural Australians are second class citizens when it comes to government response in emergencies – fire, ambulance, police. This is traditionally and persisted perpetually.
So outside urban Australia, Australians are treated by government differently – like second class citizens.
Locals throughout non-urban Australia often end up joining the local volunteer fire brigade (CFA, RFS, CFS, whatever) because there is no paid fire brigade within coo-ee; more likely to the nearest regional big town.
It’s called ‘Do It Yourself’ emergency response.
State governments require that if any fire fighting service is to be provided to a rural community that the immediate local residents must come forward and do the job of their urban professionals. The professional fire fighting training, equipment, and resourcing is all the same – non existent.
Rural Australia is grossly under-resourced in fire fighting prevention, mitigation, ignition detection and suppression response. Farmers and rural folk wisely advise incoming tree changers that they ought fast abandon their urban ‘000’ response’ expectations upon arrival in rural Australia, and become D.I.Y. rural fire volunteer unpaid members. Else when the state governments’ PR instructions are to abandon your family home and a lifetime’s values, you surrender to refugee status and so beholded to CentreLink discretion as cup-in-hand pensioners.
Non urban Australians may as well dial ’00’ instead of ‘000’. Dialing ’00’ will only deliver the same response as being…’not connected’, “not bothered”, “tell someone in government who cares”. Expect a disconnected phone signal.
One of the decimated native regions of Australia abandoned to fend for themselves in the wake of an impending firefront, known to be imminent for weeks was Victoria’s East Gippsland. In mid December 2019, no attempt was made by the Victorian Government to detect, respond or quell the Snowy River National Park wildfire 20km west of the remote hamlet of Goongerah, 68km north of the town of Orbost in East Gippsland.
By December 30, 2019 rural locals were told to evacuate and abandoned their homes and lives, else D.I.Y. fend for themselves.
Here is one example of isolated rural Australians left in an wildfire emergency to D.I.Y. defend.
A week later, no one in government or media could care a shit about this isolated rural community’s survival or welfare.
Welcome to the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. Won’t you enjoy your stay?
An immense evil has been perpetrated upon the remnant ecology of New South Wales.
Natural forests set aside as national parks and world heritage have been allowed to incinerate on a broad scale not seen before in Australian history. The Blue Mountains World Heritage Area has been destroyed.
An tourist campfire unextinguished at the over-popular Ruined Castle Campsite was allowed to burn for days before any government response from custodian NSW National Parks. So now a third of the precious Jamison Valley has gone along.
In the northern part of the Blue Mountains World Heritage, the massive celebrated expanse of the wild and rugged Wollemi National Park (5000 square km, or in firie terms 500,00 hectares) a fire that started in late October 2019 on a rural property off Army Road near Gospers Mountain was left to burn for weeks without emergency response. It was another negligent burn off. On 9th November, the RFS (Rural Fire Starters) rated it’s risk obscurely as ‘Advice’, whatever that means, and reported that it was “being controlled” – famous last words by this mob.
As at 20th December, the fire has been allowed to effectively wipe out the entire Wollemi National Park east to west, Yengo National Park, and spread south into the adjoining Blue Mountains National Park and now it’s in the Grose Valley. It is blackened, still and utterly dead.
The Jurassic period’s Wollemi Pine discovered by chance in 1994 in a remote patch of the Wollemi by Parks Service officer David Noble was reviewed by the NSW Scientific Committee after the International Union for the Conservation of Nature listed it as critical, with fewer than 100 mature individual trees in the wild. The NSW committee recommended the highest level of endangered status because it is so susceptible to Phytophthera cinnamomi, a pathogen which causes dieback of branches and stems. But that was not it’s obvious threat. It was the RFS.
Endangered Wollemi Pine endemic cluster – now incinerated by NPWS and RFS management negligence.
The total World Heritage Area destroyed by this particular bushfire is 720,000 hectares, more than half the size of greater Sydney (comprising multiple fires that have been allowed to all link up into one massive fire ground – Gospers Mountain fire 445000 ha, Kerry Ridge 93000 ha, Little L Complex 92000 ha, Three Mile 45000, Crumps Complex 6000 ha, Paddock Run 29000 ha, Owendale 4000 ha and Mount Victoria 2ooo ha.
The Mount Victoria fire has since been renamed the Grose Valley Fire with ominous implications of what the RFS intends with that one. Even the Goulburn River National Park has been targeted (Meads Creek West Fire 14000 ha) and that will no doubt combine with the others.
Coupled with The State Mine Fire of 2013 started by Army ordnance outside Lithgow on a Total fire Ban day which ripped through the Wollemi National Park in 2013, this year’s effort means there is nothing left of Wollemi National Park pretty much from Baerami Creek 100km south to the Wollangambe River and beyond.
This fire front is currently threatening to link up with another massive blaze that started in the Kanangra-Boyd National Park in the southern Blue Mountains around 26th November. Left to burn it has destroyed most of the national park and the water catchment.
To the south of New South Wales a bushfire allowed to incinerate 220,000 ha of “protected” habitat and wildlife from outside Nowra to Batemans Bay. The firie command dubbed it the ‘Currowan Fire‘. More slaughter.
To the north of News South Wales, two more massive fire grounds, each of comparable size to the above have wiped out more than 2 million hectares of native habitat that is supposed to be ‘protected’ in national parks.
Regional extinctions will be across multiple species of rare and endangered fauna. Across the New South Wales eastern seaboard an area the size of Tasmania has gone. Thousands of koalas have perished.
This is a mass extinction event, human caused alright. This is a war crime against ecology. No wonder the RFS has initiated a media blackout.
“I love a fire burnt country… bigs me head and pays me wages, see.”
The frequency, ferocity and scale of these bushfire emergencies is well beyond a volunteer Dad’s Army limited by a dated Baby Boomer culture of responsive “protecting life and property” that demonises and antropocentrically dismisses Australia’s remnant and disappearing ecology as ‘vermin’, a ‘hazard’, and ‘fuel’.
The RFS is an abject failure and the government’s use and abuse of its century old volunteer firefighting model has again proven incapable and useless at putting our bushfires in time to save ecology, infrastructure, livestock homes and lives. Volunteer fire-fighting subsists only to save goverment money so that politicians when in power can redirect the savings of not paying firefighters away from local communities.
The Federal delegation of emergency management, not just that concerning bushfires, is beyond state and territory resources to adequately prepare, respond and extinguish with the military precision demanded for such emergencies. Australian rural communities each summer witness government overdependence upon an historic volunteer culture that fails rural Australia time and again every summer. Invariably the emergency overwhelms the Dad’s Army and interstate and overseas crews and resources are brought in – usually too little to late. This national dependency is reciprocated interstate.
PM Scott Morrison’s Boomer regurgitation of perpetuating the “spirit of volunteers” is a time old abuse of ordinary rural Australians trying to do their bit for their local community. It’s callous government paying lip service thanks with no payment or compensation more than a cheap slap on the back for the media, a sausage from the volunteer sizzle and another hollow pet talk.
Crocodile Tears Culture
Australia’s Prime Minister was publicly ressured last week to return from his Christmas holiday in Hawaii to show some degree of leadership in the wake of New South Wales declared bushfire state of emergency. The nation’s Hume Freeway between Melbourne and Sydney was closed because of the mega bushfire that had ignited weeks prior many kilometres deep in the wild Blue Mountains Kanangra-Boyd National Park, and so left by authorities to hazard reduce itself until it arrived uncontrolled to cut the Hume Freeway.
Too little to late yet again. Government is culpable for the ecological holocaust, the 3000+ Koalas burned alive, the utter destruction of World Heritage and ‘protected‘ national parks, the human lives lost, the family homes gone forever, livestock perished, business revenue lost, regional economic losses, and a massive polluting contribution to worsen global greenhouse gases.
Extinction Rebellion need to redirect their targeting of offenders to NSW RFS Headquarters at 4 Murray Rose Avenue, Sydney Olympic Park and to every petrol despatch unit branch.
Although my painting is set in the Styx Valley of the Giants, it transmits childhood memories of ethereal walks amongst the tallest trees found in the Redwood Forests of California. The Mountain Ash trees of Tasmania may arguably have been their contenders, if not for human intervention having commoditised them in their prime. My painting depicts the narrative of these Giants, whose crevassed valleys I have yet to travel.
The relational theme is exemplified through landscapes suspended in space, conveying our universally intricate ties to the natural world; ‘As above so below’. The Giants are fused together by their roots, representing the recently discovered language of trees. Their wiring is juxtaposed with our own ever-escalating dissemination of information.
The native White Bellied Eagle protects his island, which is pockmarked with the scabs of clear felled, old growth forests. The monumental forest transforms from ‘hardy’ to ‘harvested’ and rests amongst machinery within the living limbs of a peace symbol balanced between its adversaries. The aerial perspective above the nest leaves the onus for the forest’s future, inescapably with the viewer.
The ‘Weld Angel’, perched atop a giant tripod, protests peacefully. She embodies repressed respect for mother earth and strives to regain equilibrium with her political nemeses abseiling from what remains of The Valley of the Giants.
While exercising through Katoomba Falls Creek Valley in the Blue Mountains last October, this author came across this sign.
How would one like to see the future of The Gully..for the next 15 years? Have my say? Internet submissions only?
Local government authority Blue Mountains Council in about 2007 renamed this natural valley west of Katoomba ‘The Gully’ because that is the affectionate name it had from the previous residents of mostly regional Aboriginal heritage extending back many thousands of years.
Since 2001, this author has lived 50 metres from the native bushland valley we know as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, or Sydney Water’s defined Upper Kedumba River, or as Amusement Parlour tourism businessman Horrace Gates’ Catalina Lake, or as Blue Mountains Council’s sponsored car racing enthusiasts (1957-2003) as Catalina Park, or as NSW National Parks call the valley, ‘The Gully’.
Such mixed interpretation of this watercouse valley reflects its history as complex, contested and ongoing culturally problematic. Yet since 1957, here we are in cultural denial in 2019.
In 2002, The Valley was unilaterally declared ‘The Gully’ by Blue Mountains Council – typically again no community consultation.
Ok, so what’s in a name?
‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 by the New South Wales government was justified out of recognition of the Valley’s significance holding pre-contact Aboriginal sites, post-contact settlements, its ongoing occupation by Aboriginal People until forced eviction in 1957 (to make way for bulldozing a racetrack), and by lobbying and evidence from local Aboriginal Gundungurra elder, the late Aunty Dawn Colless.
All good. But ‘Aboriginal Place’ only? Says who? By which Blue Mountains heritage Aboriginal people/clan? The Gundungurra Traditional Owners Inc. only and so denying the rights of all other Gully residents and descendants – Aboriginal (eg: Dharug or otherwise) or of non-Aborigines of The Gully?
This is at best Council prejudice and community divide and conquer; at worst Council prejudice against non-Gundungurra, non-Aborigines.
Aboriginal Place declaration while historially valid, was democratically invalid. The NSW Government declaration of such was selective and secret behind Blue Mountains Council’s closed doors – a frequent setting to get things done without pesky outspoken community awareness.
Trust? Blue Mountains Council?
From 1988 to 2016 local residents action group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc., under the inspiring and consultative leadership of the late Neil Stuart BSc., had championed a local community cause to save the Valley. From grassroots local resident motives, the Friends aims were from the outset consistently to value and respect the remnant environmental values of the Valley, to lobby to remove the invasive racetrack, to restore the Valley’s ecological integrity throughout and to foster a local community management structure to underpin the Valley’s environmental protection and rehabilition.
Basically The Friends set in train a local community management structure to care for country – the Valley as we called it. But Blue Mountains Council hegemony, situated less than 200 metres east of the Valley, corporate-culturally frustrated and ostracised The Friends out of having any say, participantion or rights in caring for the Valley.
As the awareness of the tragic local Aboriginal past was realised, The Friends respected, engaged and partnered with former residents of The Gully and their descendants (irrespective of racial background). The goal was to properly protect, rehabilitate and manage this acknowledged special place collaboratively. It was a noble mission and undertaking. The activism occupied core Friends members half an adult lifetime, proudly.
Yours truly joined The Friends’ fight to save the valley for just five years from 2002 to 2007 until other commitments took family priority.
The nearly three decades of local resident activism well exceeds the capacity of this article. Suffice to say that the resultant ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management Revised 2004’ achieved not just a desired and just termination to the car racing invasion, but signalled an opportunity and hope for local community partnering with Blue Mountains Council and NSW Parks Service to manage and restore the valley as a valued natural place.
So there is this new signage put up by Blue Mountains Council. After fourteen years, Blue Mountains Council deems The Gully Plan of Management is up for renewal, whatever that means.
Blue Mountains Council claims “This Plan of Management (POM) is fourteen years old and does not reflect the contemporary cultural values and perspectives held by the Gully community.” But what are these?
The local Katoomba community in and around The Gully continues to be shut out of secret talks with the parks service and only select Aborigines – The Gundungurra Traditional Owners Inc. – the legal custodians of most of the valley as appointed by closed shop local council with absolute control over the valley since 2007.
Council entered into an exclusive co-management agreement with The Gully’s traditional owners in 2008, recognising the owners’ deep connection to the place. What about the Dharug? What about other community members who share a deep conservation interest in preserving and rehabilitating the Valley’s ecological values?
Council claims: “Funding from the Office of Environment and Heritage, NSW Heritage Grants – Aboriginal Heritage Projects has been made available to review and up the Plan of Management for the Gully.” But what are these?
“Engagement and consultation with former Gully residents, their descendants and other stakeholders”. Who’s a stakeholder? Blue Mountains Council? The NSW Parks Service? This is not made clear. What about the local community, former members of The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. who volunteered years of their lives to save and protect the Gully/Valley from all sorts of harm and development threats?
Council instructs: “The Plan of Management review is being undertaken by Blue Mountains City Council in cooperation with the Gully Traditional Owners Inc.”
Why exclusively this one group of limited Aboriginal representation? Convenience? Simplicity? Becuase the planned outcome has already been decided? What about council consulting with Aboriginal Dharug residents actually born in the Valley/Gully? What about consulting with the immediate local community irrespective of racial background?
Council’s initiated review was made public from about October 2018.
Spell check?
Council instructs that in preparing its revised Plan of Management, its process will include:
Engagement and consultation with former Gully residents, their descendants and other stakeholders
Assessment of relevant information and knowledge to be included in the revised plan
Assessment and determination of current management issues and future opportunities for the Gully
Updating of the management policies and the action plan for the Gully
Prioritisation and costing of actions and works
Except that the entire process is secret. Is it to play into the hands of a few powerful and influential people? Does local council have something to hide from the local community and non-Gundungurra former residents and their decendants until commercial contracts in confidence are signed and its too late to object?
Council instructs: “The existing Plan of Management does not include the Katoomba Falls sports fields or the Tourist Park. The inclusion of these areas into the Gully plan of Management is a significant change from the existing plan.” What is the reason and motive for including more land into the proposed new plan of management?
Council instructs: “The revised Plan will be developed with reference to the Local Government Act 1993, the Crown Lands Management Act 2016, the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, and with the Guideline for Developing Management Plans for declared Aboriginal Places. (OEH 2012) The plan also needs to consider the future implications of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill 2018, which is earmarked to replace functions of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 in relation to the management and protection of Aboriginal places.”
Council acknowledges: ‘The Gully’ was a place where Gundungurra, Darug and other Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people lived as a fringe community from around the 1890’s onward over a number of generations.”
Council’s References Used:
Local Government Act 1993 (NSW)
Crown Lands Management Act 2016 (NSW)
National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW)
Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill 2018 (NSW) – earmarked to replace functions of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 in relation to the management and protection of Aboriginal places.
Guidelines for Developing Management Plans for declared Aboriginal Places, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (2012)
Council has restricted consultative capture of any local community input to some outsourced website based software outfit in Melbourne: Bang The Table’s ‘Have Your Say’: https://www.bluemountainshaveyoursay.com.au/gully-plan Yet Blue Mountains Council’s website now instructs: “Consultation has concluded”.
It’s July 2019 and Blue Mountains Council’s webpage on this process shows the following timeline update:
It would suggest that insufficient resources have been allocated or there are delays in the communications process,or insufficient scheduled time was provided for this project from the outset, or a combination of these.
If local stakeholders missed out on finding out what is going on, should they just await Blue Mountains Council’s press release on its pre-decision making?
Chairperson of the Gully Traditional Owner Inc., Aunty Merle Williams, says: “The Gully is a sacred place to the Aboriginal community who came from the Gully. It was a place for everybody, regardless of who you were or where you came from. It is important that The Gully is managed in a culturally appropriate way using both traditional and contemporary practices.”
The mayor, Mark Greenhill, said council had a strong commitment to working closely with traditional owner groups to care for country. “The revised plan of management for The Gully will guide the future use and management of this significant site over the next 10-15 years.”
Ok so regardless of who you were or where you came from, why are non-members of the Gundungurra Traditional Owners Inc. being excluded from consultation in Blue Mountains Council’s review process?
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Welcome to the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. Won’t you enjoy your stay?
