We have decided to publish on this website the short series of ‘The Pulpit Post‘ newsletters that we authored, published, printed and hand-distributed to residents of Pulpit Hill from nearly two decades ago.
Pulpit Hill is geographical feature with an historical 19th Century naming.
This hill is situated 2.4 km westward of the Australian regional township of Katoomba along the Great Western Highway in the Blue Mountains. It was once clearly identifiable from miles around by having a geologically tall sandstone pagoda atop its summit.
So its eponym was applied by then New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie [1810-1821] in 1815 as he then journeyed to inspect the continent’s first ever inland route over the otherwise impenetrable Blue Mountains barrier then via Mount York and further westward to his to be thence named ‘Macquarie River’ and its rich and fertile river valley’s hope of the future vital agricultural lands as promise survival of the fledgling colony back at Sydney Cove.
The Pulpit Post newsletter was established by The Habitat Advocate in 2006, borrowing the concept from observing a pre-existing physical metal post hand-painted ‘Pulpit Post’ by a local resident for the benefit of immediately relevant news updates for local residents of this small rural community, outlying of Katoomba. We have photos of this.
From a first Winter 2006 edition, we managed at the time to sustain just six issues all up on what we had hoped would be issued on a seasonal basis of sorts.
These herewith are those six issues of The Pulpit Post. They were originally intended for the few dozen of so local residents of this small rural community around Pulpit Hill, but now in 2025 one considers that their content and concept deserves sharing with all, always free of charge, as is our principle.
The Explorer’s (marked) Tree. It had been marked (‘blazoned’ by tomahawk) to be a navigation support to Governor Macquarie’s subsequent road builders. Real then, but ‘folkloric‘ since, because few bothered to keep written records at the time… So we posit: Australia’s ‘colonial dream-time’.
‘Cancel Culture’ is leftist Greens globalist fantasy of there being no homeland. It’s just hateful humbug!In Australia’s native English, “humbug” is used to describe something or someone that is dishonest, misleading, or nonsensical.
The Habitat Advocate, after half a year ‘ground-truthing’ Pulpit Hill’s heritage, then intensive researching, and authoring; back on Friday 1st August 2011 submitted the following nomination to the New South Wales Government’s Office of Environment and Heritage in Parramatta.
It’s 245 pages. It’s not copyright protected, because it’s a compilation of work by others who’ve valuing this place over years. It’s of public land and of significant very early Australian heritage value from 1813. We made the effort to research, document and try to protect this heritage precinct; yet one had nor sought any financial, personal gain nor has any ancestral connection to this particular place. We just learned and recognise the heritage value from association with older wiser historians and from our dedicated historical research.
This document report we offer up freely public and freely downloadable to all Australians and anyone in the World in perpetuity. What happened in the past, happened in an older time in human evolution.
The timing of our submission happened to be two years prior to the then forthcoming celebratory bi-centennial of 2013 of the first successful was the first successful crossing of the Blue Mountains (previously named the “Carmarthen Hills”) in New South Wales by European settlers. The expedition was led by Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth in 1813.
Ahead of our formal submission, The Habitat Advocate sought support from government, local leaders, political parties and historical societies, thus:
Blue Mountains {city} Council Major and councillors
Premier of New South Wales
Liberal Party
National Party
Australia Labor Party
The Australian Greens
Blue Mountains Historical Society
Royal Australian Historical Society
Colong Foundation for Wilderness
However to our disappointment, none of the above was supportive nor interested.
We subsequently approached the fringe nationalist/patriotic Australia First Party, and its President Dr Jim Saleam expressed his keen enthusiasm and support for this Australian heritage recognition cause; such that he even accepted our invitation to visit this nominated site at Pulpit Hill in person on Saturday 27th November 2010.
However, sadly a decade hence, on 21st February 2021, Blue Mountains [city} Council Mayor (a Labor Party man) Mark Greenhill authorised the total removal of the iconic and symbolic Explorers Marked Tree at Pulpit Hill – an unnecessary politically motivated act of heritage hate. Party politics?
A personal attack on Steven Ridd’s campaign to respect Pulpit Hill’s precinct’s Explorers’ Marked Tree’s heritage. Please explain Kerry Brown (Blue Mountains Greens Party councillor) and Mark Greenhill (Blue Mountains Labor Party Mayor)
Previously, The Habitat Advocate from 2005 as part of our SAVE ELPHINSTONE PLATEAU CONSERVATION CAMPAIGN sought nomination for the official inclusion of the nearby large plateau of bushland atop the Blue Mountains Western Escarpment long called ‘Radiata Plateau’ (also ‘Elphinstone Plateau’) , to be incorporated into the contiguous Blue Mountains National Park (since 2004).
However, similarly that was rejected by the then so-called NSW Minister for Environment (1999-2007) and NSW Member for Blue Mountains Bob Debus (1981-1988, 1995-2007) (another Labor Party man) on the spurious basis that it was somehow not contiguous.
Yet, same plateau was in 2019 out-of-the-blue acquired by a subsequent NSW Liberal-Coalition Government for $2.8 million and added to the NSW national park estate, and in 2020 renamed and unpronounceable newly made up name ‘Ngula Bulgarabang‘?? Another Jim Smith PhD. construct? The name translates to ‘very large forest‘ in the Gundungurra language. Yet this is not traditional local Aboriginal heritage. The plateau has no very large forest. It is dominated by escarpment low heath and woodland. The plateau certainly does not have any very large forest. Whereas such forests are indeed naturally found in the valleys below like Nellies Glen, the Jamison Valley and the Gross Valley.
Let the truth be known. Radiata Plateau is the eponym of a small ‘Radiata Pine‘ plantation that planted a portion of the plateau back in the 1950s. That plantation subsequently failed. The tree plantation was stunted due to being planted on the rocky thin soil. One of the plantation workers was Ron Fletcher, a local of local Aboriginal ancestry (left below chatting with the then nearby residents). We interviewed Ron back in 2007 at Pulpit Hill at the historic piggery (shown behind). Ron explained that he recalls as a young man working to plan the Radiata pine plantation.
Truth telling
This is all spiteful Aboriginal separatist politics again, like cancel culture renaming of Ayers Rock and Fraser Island.
The Habitat Advocate has acquired the full campaign archive of the campaign to Save Elphinstone Plateau from local legendary campaign Glen Humphreys. This archive will be eventually sorted and digitised and is provided publicly freely available on this website.
References:
[1] ‘The Marked Tree – Fact or Tradition?‘, 1933-05-27, by G.A. King, article in the Sydney Morning Herald, archived on TROVE (Internet digital archive website), by the National Library of Australia, Canberra, ^https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/16985384
[8] ‘The Pulpit Post‘, by Steven Ridd, Conservation Consultant, The Habitat Advocate, six local newsletters compiled and published by The Habitat Advocate between 2006 and 2008 as part of a heritage conservation campaign combining Pulpit Hill’s historical colonial heritage, Pulpit Hill’s historical stories, and the Save Elphinstone (aka Radiata) Plateau Campaign led by Glenn Humphreys for 20 years, ^https://habitatadvocate.com.au/the-pulpit-post-a-pulpit-hill-local-resident-free-newsletter-series-since-2006/
We live and work from home in a quiet leafy area on the edge of The Gully on the edge of Katoomba.
Yet on a semi-regular basis different neighbours, unannounced, choose at times to suddenly start up loud machinery to break that peace and quiet.
Due common courtesy would be for a neighbour to inform nearby neighbours of pending machinery racket, but instead they couldn’t give a rats about imposing their noise pollution on neighbours.
Here are a few example snippets:
Monday · 24 Feb 2025 · 08:20…
Thursday · 20 Mar 2025 · 13:22…
Tuesday · 22 Apr 2025 · 08:36…
And, all this unwelcome noise culture is not just from selfish discourteous neighbours and their contractors.
Also, we cop similar machinery noise outside our window from:
Blue Mountains Council – roadworks, footpath works
NBN Internet concrete sawing for trenching optical fibre
Sydney Water
Electricians and other trades
Endeavour Energy’s – vegetation contractor Asplundh or Active Tree Services
Even RAAF low-flying its Hercules and Globemaster transport aircraft from Richmond Airbase at a close 500 feet directly over our home
And other private aircraft thinking they can flout the 1000 foot minimum altitude over built-up areas like ours (we know the low altitudes since we hold a commercial helicopter license)
All unannounced.
Perhaps Richmond Air Traffic Control Tower wouldn’t mind if one was to buzz the tower unannounced?
Within just a minute’s walk from The Habitat Advocate base we happened upon some wonderful local wildlife.
It was a native Blotched Blue Tongue Lizard in this case (scientific species name Tiliquanigrolutea). It was 10th February 2025 (summer) in the late hot afternoon around 6:30pm AEDT, so the sun was still up in the western sky; this given sunsets in late summer at this time of year are as late as 8 pm, some two hours hence. So, this happenstance timing made sense, but a rare sighting these days.
This particular lizard was not easy to then photograph due to it subsequently retreating from the footpath (after we went back for our camera) and retreating into the camouflage cover of the grassy verge behind for safety.
Upon our initial sighting, this lizard had been laying in the middle of the footpath sunning itself – being a cold-blooded lizard (‘ectothermically’ that is; not the human malice variety).
This one we think is female – telling from the comparatively small head size and its thicker tail root. It was not a native Shingleback Lizard (scientific species name Tiliqua rugosa) since such species has a stubbed tail land prefers the habitat plains inland from the Great Dividing Range, and are not found in the Blue Mountains region, whereas Blue Tongues are.
The location was on The Gully’s urban periphery, yet wholly environmentally within the broader Gully Water Subcatchment, where The Habitat Advocate is based. So nice to see wildlife in one’s neighbourhood – we share local wildlife’s neighbourhood.
We provide hyperlinks below to further information and clearer images about this lizard species.
Anyway, it was a pleasurably welcomed and encouraging sighting.
Such sightings however are increasingly rare around these parts these days due to Council’s habitat destruction – pretty much since Council has existed since its origins in Katoomba in 1890, then in 1947 re-branding itself Blue Mountains City Council from being a two adjacent regional municipality/shire councils. Then from November 2000 after the Blue Mountains region was declared an international World Heritage Area, this local Blue Mountains Council has bizarrely extolled its contradictory perceived virtues of being a city within a World Heritage Area – what espousing urban sprawl development and high-rises amongst Eucalyptus habitat?
We bought our house in 2000, which had there since the 1920’s. So, we did not build into bush, but rather it was long existing ‘in-town’, and so technically we just recycled and renovated it. It had had only lawn back and front, but since 2001 we have created an onsite forest and restored much local habitat on site, So, no more grass and we then gave away our lawn mower!
One also recalls that on 13th February back in 2017 around 5:30 pm during a 47o Celsius unseasonal heatwave weather event across New South Wales, observing a large native Eastern Brown Snake (scientific species Pseudonaja textilis) of almost 2 metres in length scurrying across the scorching road surface of our street into the cooler shade of our forested front garden. Well, we chose not to garden or water there for a week afterwards and warned our neighbours. However, we immediately reported this snake sighting to the volunteer-based Wildlife Rescue Service (WIRES) for safety guidance and we spoke to one of their trained snake catchers who gave us helpful and reassuring advice over the phone.
Also, when we first moved in where we are, one had to contend with a native Blue Mountains Funnel Web Spider (scientific name Hadronyche versuta) ground nest in our then unkempt backyard, also unfortunately the native Brown Broadfooted Marsupial Mouse (scientific name is Antechinus stuartii) family over the back fence that we observed, eventually sadly perished.
But it beats living in increasing sprawling concreted, treeless sterile Sydney human megalopolis.
[7] ‘Fauna Watch –Winter is not the time for hunkering down for Antechinus!, 2019-08-19, by Anne Carey, Bushcare Blue Mountains (Fauna, Natives), ^https://bushcarebluemountains.org.au/fauna-watch/
When we bought our 1920’s cottage bungalow in The Gully Catchment (Katoomba Falls Creek Valley) back in 2000, it was run down and surrounded by lawns front and back.
Since then over the past nearly 25 years, we removed all the lawn, renewed the dilapidated fences, annexed the verge with a fern rockery, terraced the front and planted many trees (including a Mountains Blue Gum), hedging and what has now become a micro temperate rainforest with now 17 tree ferns under an established canopy. The image above is one of a number we planted in Spring.
The birds have come back – crimson roselas, king parrots, magpies, currawongs, a few sulphur crested white cockatoos, bower birds, wattle birds, seasonal koels, New Holland honey eaters, thornbills.
Whilst we have not sought to re-establish the local forest ecology, our small plot is contributing to the ecology fringe buffer between The Gully and the surrounding township of Katoomba.
Welcome to Australia.
We are not about inculcating divisiveness of this local, national and global conservation cause. That’s for nasty politics with ulterior motives – we stand well clear of such lot.
We have just been notified by IP Australia, the Australian Government’s official registry of intellectual property (that is, governing Australian trademarks, patents and designs, etc. by home grown Australians) that The Habitat Advocate branded logo (image above) has just been legally registered in Australia.
So, we’re pretty happy with this, just quietly. That’s why we’re happily informing the whole Planet! 🙂
A moment of indulgent reflection, if one may…
Well, it’s been a while for us.
Steven John Ridd is the founder of The Habitat Advocate, an environmental conservation advocacy website, championing the cause of the rights of native habitat.
Born in Melbourne, then having travelled on sabbatical, and then having relocated from renting in expensive eastern Sydney’s Randwick out to regional Katoomba in the natural Blue Mountains in 2001, I first registered the business name ‘The Habitat Advocate‘ with the then NSW Department of Fair Trading at Parramatta and the domain habitatadvocate.com.au together back on 10th May 2006. A date close to my heart – my 42nth birthday.
I have used the motto for The Habitat Advocate (A voice for native habitat) publicly since 2001, and the logo (image above) since 2006.
I felt I needed to protect both; this is especially since recently on Google, the use of the word ‘habitat’ and the term ‘habitat advocate’ have become popularised terms used by unrelated others for other purposes. May be they just liked the concept. I did back in 2001 before the trend, because of its genuine natural meaning that was understandable to many, rather than use more highfalutin scientific terms like ‘ecology‘.
So, I commissioned this particular image to be painted by professional wildlife artist, Lyn Naismith, back in 2006 and I invaluably hold her original artwork.
I conceived and designed the logo to be of Australia’s most threatened endemic top order predator in the ecological food chain, the Tigerquoll. I wanted to convey the message of the ongoing threats to native habitat. So, I felt it necessary that the logo image convey reality of being threatened, rearing up on a dead tree branch with nowhere to retreat in its native habitat.
Ecologically, if top order predator communities subsist healthily, then that is a positive signal that the broader localised ecology is healthy as well. That is why we chose the Tigerquoll symbolically.
And we prefer the name Tigerquoll rather than the more lame academic descriptive term of ‘Spotted Tailed Quoll’. That is, we wouldn’t suggest anyone try to pick up and cuddle a Tigerquoll without being ripped to shreds. It’s just like we wouldn’t suggest anyone try to pick up and cuddle an Australian native Brush-tailed Possum with is strong sharp claws and territorialness. Tigerquolls eat Brush-tailed Possums for breakfast, if you know what I mean.
A captured Tigerquoll from Radiata Plateau in 2008. Photo: Courtesy of local identity Glenn Humphreys, who caught it after losing some of his chickens from his rural backyard coop. Glenn handed this caged quoll over to the local National Parks and Wildlife Service of NSW to relocate it into the Blue Mountains National Park nearby.
So, I sincerely thank Lyn for reading my sentiments in this respect exactly, to her credit.
Bureaucratic wheels turn slowly, but now I own the image as a registered logo. This logo is emblematic to promote the habitat threat and our conservation advocacy for native habitat, and this top order predator the Tigerquoll is ecologically apt.
There is one held in captivity in Healesville Sanctuary, but since it is nocturnal, no visitors get to see it in its enclosure by day, and the sanctuary is closed by night. Crazy idea that, and its tiny prison cell-sized enclosure is cruel. They should instead release it into its native habitat and provide visitors with a video presentation to visitors, akin to the Sanctuary’s enclosed darkened platypus auditorium…
It’s about responsible governmental legislative respect for the value of wildlife and proactively decent funding and ecological preservation, restoration and perpetual heritage management of their precious disappearing habitat to sustain their very survival.
This is yet another example of neglected stormwater runoff maintenance by Blue Mountains {city} Council. Its in-creek water pollution trap (vane style) device is situated just above Katoomba Falls (left of photo).
Our editor standing in front of large piles of sand pollution re-directed out of Katoomba Falls Creek by an in-creek pollution control device (left). [Photo by The Habitat Advocate, taken Thursday 30th May-2024.]
This pollution detritus trap has, from our very local experience over two decades, been typically full of destroyed native vegetation debris caused by (a) torrential rain events, and (b) bushland clearing (deforestation). It has also been observed typically full of siltation from (a) upstream creek bank erosion through Maple Grove, (b) from housing construction sand and graded topsoil, and (c) from unfiltered urban stormwater waste ignored by Council since it was established first as the Municipality of Katoomba in 1889.
We have lived in The Gully Water Catchment since 2001. The Gully Water Catchment includes all land with watercourses and natural drainage flowing to Katoomba Falls, and we have taken a keen interest in this natural place.
Katoomba Falls Creek Catchment as it was then called in 1993. [SOURCE: The Bell Report]
From our observed experience as local environmental activists, Council’s ongoing management culture is such that it focuses on the capital works projects, obtains external grant funding (usually from the NSW Government) but then fails to budget and resource the ongoing maintenance of such capital works projects. This Baramy Trap is another case in point.
We repeatedly observe this pollution trap full and overflowing for months at a time, so the trap overflows and the continuing detritus flows downstream into the downstream Kedumba River to supply Greater Sydney’s drinking water to Sydney’s artificial Lake Burragorang for Sydney and a Greater Sydney so scarily morphing beyond. Currently this pollution trap has been full of sand sediment for many months.
The above photo shows the concrete ramp down to the pollution trap for access by a small front-end mechanical loader designed to remove the sand and debris pollution into a waiting tip-truck.
A Bobcat more suited to a construction site or at a beach as in this example photo. But at Blue Mountains {city} Council it’s Missing-In-Action.
Council is supposed to maintain it and clean it out on an ‘as-needed‘ basis periodically, but it doesn’t. The following is an extract of Baramy’s terms and conditions for this pollution device once installed.
We obtained a copy of these terms and conditions back in 2004 when The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (the Friends) sought a quote for a similar but smaller pollution device (4 m long x 2.1 m wide) previously to be constructed in the same creek further upstream. Baramy’s quote came in at $26,000 and we referred this initiative for action/grant funding to Council – it being the custodian of this community land and the creek water catchment. But Council ignored it.
In this case Council is the “customer” having paid to have this much larger device constructed by Baramy Engineering in this different location much further downstream. It would have cost Council double, constructed probably around 2005 from one’s memory.
Council’s culture
Council has form of having its other non-environmental priorities, such as its latest newfangled ‘Planetary Health Initiative’ to showcase its environmental stewardship, when it is just more greenwashing.
Previously, all such debris, sediment and stormwater pollution into the creek used to just flow over Katoomba Cascades and further downstream over Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River below and southward through the Jamison Valley.
Katoomba Cascades during full flood, situated about 100 metres downstream of the pollution trap. [SOURCE: Photo by Brigitte Grant, in article ‘Flood photos: Three-day drenching’ 22nd March 2021, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper]
Katoomba Falls in full flood after days of heavy rain. The falls are situated about 300 metres downstream of the pollution trap. [SOURCE: Photographer unknown, in article ‘Police to co-ordinate evacuation of visitors trapped in Megalong Valley following landslip’ 4th April 2024, by Damien Madigan in Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper]
By the way, Upper Mountains sewage design (Katoomba, Leura, Wentworth Falls) back between 1907 and the 1990’s also flowed by iron piping down into the Jamison Valley to the former Leura Sewage Treatment Plant (historic image below) situated just by Leura Falls Creek between Echo Point and Sublime Point. The iron piping still can be seen along hiking tracks down the escarpment – the reason for the hiking tracks actually being first constructed.
We estimate that the current sand quantity filling this particular Creek Pollution Trap would be twenty cubic metres at least. We reported the problem to Council the day we took the first photo above – receiving Council’s Customer Service Request reference #533082.
We’re not the only locals having noticed this particular in-creek pollution trap full. Here’s another documented event of the very same pollution trap in February 2020. It was during the start of Australia’s East Coast Low events associated with the La Niña oscillating weather pattern:
Local Blue Mountains Aboriginal Gundungurra Elder, Mr David King, posting his video on Google YouTube protesting this exact same problem back in 2020. He even likened it Bondi Beach! [SOURCE]
This pollution trap’s exact location is situated beside Cliff Drive in Katoomba on the southern (downstream) side of the road at the road culvert over Katoomba Falls Creek. See the aerial photographic map below showing the yellow star.
An aerial photo of the 100 ha extent of The Gully Water Catchment juxtaposed upstream of this pollution trap. (NB. The “Katoomba Falls” photo label is incorrectly shown on this image, being rather just a Google nominal reference on the roadside. [SOURCE: Google Maps aerial photo, 2024]
This in-creek pollution trap was constructed by Baramy Engineering Pty Ltd of Katoomba for Council.
The Baramy Vane Trap showing the two rows of vertical galvanised steel vanes in the creek line that divert debris to the concrete trap device on the right.
The construction timing was a few years or so following The Greater Blue Mountains Area (1 million km2) being inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list on 29th November 2000. Katoomba Falls flows into the Jamison Valley within this World Heritage area. The Jamison Valley, below these falls (and others) is also part of the drinking water catchment leading to Warragamba Dam supplying an ever-expanding Greater Sydney (current population approaching 5.5 million) adjoining the Blue Mountains region.
It is the researched opinion of The Habitat Advocate that this World Heritage listing was more about the human utility of protecting the value of Sydney’s drinking water in perpetuity, than it was about protecting the Eucalyptus forests of the Blue Mountains.
Katoomba Falls in the centre of this photo. The Gully Water Catchment upstream feeds natural and stormwater to these falls. The area covers an estimated 100 hectares a passes through a small valley up on the Blue Mountains plateau. This valley includes bushland and increasingly more and more housing development.
Notably, the sand type in this pollution trap appears to be not the naturally river sand, but consistently all the same light colour of Concrete Sand type used commercially in construction.
Concrete Sand
Concrete Sand is a coarser sand variety, pivotal in construction use to create strong and durable concrete structures. It’s typically made from crushed quartz, which gives it a rougher texture, enhancing the binding properties in concrete mixtures. This sand type is indispensable for laying robust foundations, constructing driveways, and forming sidewalks. This is exactly what is going on in The Gully Catchment upstream of this creek pollution trap.
Whereas the natural creek-bed of Katoomba Falls Creek is comprised of small pebbles. This editor knows this from being local to Katoomba Falls Creek Valley and having voluntarily performed Streamwatch quality monitoring of Katoomba Falls Creek for five years (2004-2008) on behalf of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, Inc. reporting to the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA) within the New South Wales Governments Sydney Water department.
An example of the characteristics of creek-bed pebbles typically found naturally on the creek bed of Katoomba Falls Creek and other nearby watercourses – yet sadly beneath the years of construction sand sedimentation pollution from various identified housing construction sites throughout this plateaued catchment.
Council doesn’t analyse the sand to determine its source. Council doesn’t fine the polluters and issue a stop work court order. Council doesn’t employ a hydrologist or geotechnical engineer on its books. Yet where is all the housing constrution taking place in the Blue Mountains? Upstream of the World Heritage area.
In our view, Council is unfit in delegated stewardship as custodian of the geographic plateau of the Blue Mountains Local Government Area (LGA) atop the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area from its atrocious record of failings. So long as this pollution control device is full and overflowing, sand and debris is flowing downstream over Katoomba Cascades and Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River. Parks Service (‘NPWS’) doesn’t monitor pollution levels or water quality in Kedumba River down in the Jamison Valley.
Council doesn’t enforce sediment controls are housing development sites upstream in The Gully Water Catchment (Katoomba Falls Creek Valley).
There are current two large housing subdivision sites contribution to sedimentation of the creek.
Some 13 odd hectares of fragile native bush surrounding an upland brook between Stuarts & Wellington Roads is to be bulldozed into a 53 cluster housing subdivision.
Bulldozing all the top soil throughout this side creek valley to Katoomba Falls Creek (Kedumba River). [Photo by Editor, Sunday 26th May 2024]
[5] ‘Pollution Control Device‘ quote prepared for ‘Frank Walford Park Bushcare’ (Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc), 2004-09-27, by Baramy Engineering Pty Ltd, 7 pages.
This large healthy mature native Eucalypt has just been chainsawed to death today. We could hear the noise of multiple chainsaws ripping reverberated around the neighbourhood from early this morning.
This tree grew on private residential land within The Gully Catchment on a large double block on the top of a prominent natural spur overlooking the northern part of The Gully not far from Horrie Gates’ old Catalina Dam.
The Gully is a valued small natural valley situated on the western edge of the township of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.
The particular site is zoned by local Blue Mountains Council as ‘Heritage’ and ‘Environmental Land’ under current Local Environmental Plan 2015. It is also a very old settlement area of the Blue Mountains dating back to 1876. In fact, it forms part of the oldest housing area of the Blue Mountains Local Government Area (LGA) and traditionally known as ‘North’s Estate’.
Land sale auctions advertisement from 1883
It was named after the first land Torrens Title owner John Britty North (1831-1917), an English immigrant during British colonial times who owned most of the immediate area and became a coal shale miner and then property developer there.
Close Up of the above map, the particular site is situated within ‘Sect IX’.
Recognition of this colonial heritage is such that this North Estate precinct has been especially zoned by council as ‘K171 – Norths Estate Conservation Area‘ under council’s LEP 2015.
Was Council permission sought? It appears from a call to Council, that it knew nothing about the owner’s plan to kill this significant native tree in this heritage and conservation precinct, as confirmed by CSR525105. Council used to have a Significant Tree Register to protect identified significant trees within its LGA. It no longer does.
So why kill it? It was a slight 5 degree lean but in the direction of the prevailing wind. Was it some perceived fear that in many years to come it might fall on the house? Was it a prejudiced fear of gum trees? For fire wood?
This native tree was probably over 100 years old, perhaps dating back to the 19th Century and was the most prominent specimen in the immediate area.
What was left of the tree this afternoon before the rain came again.
Yet this majestic native tree was in good health and vigour, and showed no signs of decay.
Close up: This tree was structurally sound. No dead wood from the tree can be seen in these chainsawed sections (‘body parts’)
Was any prior assessment by professionally qualified arborist conducted on the tree?
We recall back in 2014 with regards to saving the 300+ year old Eucalyptus oreades tree that local conservationists had dubbed ‘ATLAS’, that The Habitat Advocate contracted renown expert arborist (the late) Mr Fred Janes, to conduct a professional arborist appraisal and report on the relative health of ATLAS. This was sought because a property developer of the adjoining land wanted the tree killed by chainsaw so that he could selfishly have an overflow car park for the benefit clients of his proposed industrial estate complex. So he had secured a dodgy arborist, only licensed to use a chainsaw. Where as Mr Jane’s report found the tree to be in good health and vigour, and Council agreed.
We have observed over time since our own arrival in this special place in 2001, that whilst in The Gully’s ‘Aboriginal Place’ dissociated land parcels of native bush, the native trees within are culturally sacrosanct, as they should be; yet around the immediately periphery of adjoining private lands, housing development and deforestation continues incrementally. It is death by a thousand cuts transforming the natural valley into an artificial urban landscape.
This is why council insists on being called Blue Mountains City Council in its urbane dreams within a world heritage area.
"We're coming to you from the custodial lands of the Hairygowogulator and Tarantulawollygong, and pay respects to uncle and grandaddy elders past, present and emerging from their burrows. So wise to keep a distance out bush."
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