Archive for the ‘Habitat Campaigns’ Category

Council’s ‘planetary health’ is a misnomer

Sunday, June 2nd, 2024

Blue Mountains {city} Council’s latest greenwashing promotion of itself, it terms its ‘Planetary Health Initiative‘.

But what on Earth is this construct syntax ‘planetary health‘?

Some quick online research reveals it’s all about human health, not that of planet Earth. It is another anthropocentric ideology, so those guilty of damaging native habitat can feel warm and fuzzy by token eco-gesturing.

We found on a quick Internet search, this cone-shaped model image of how individual human health is the pinnacle and ‘Planetary Health’ being the fifth tier below? It’s globalist and anthropocentric, that is centred on humans above all else. So humans first and other species and Ecology may then benefit?

The Habitat Advocate disagrees strongly with any anthropocentric philosophies. In stark contrast and transparently, we advocate the ‘Deep Ecology‘ philosophy – meaning:

“Deep ecology, environmental philosophy and social movement based in the belief that humans must radically change their relationship to Nature from one that values nature solely for its usefulness to human beings to one that recognizes that Nature has an inherent value.”

This is a recommended read: ^https://www.britannica.com/topic/deep-ecology

In our view, ‘Planetary Health’ comes under the realm of ‘Greenwashing‘ – typically a public relations ploy used by both governments and corporations that are way short of best practice to protect the natural environment under their custodial stewardship, so they resort to token public relations campaigns using expert consultants and publicly trusted ‘celebrities’ to message ‘ecological care’ when it isn’t. Blue Mountains {city} Council is a serial offender of greenwashing – we think the worst in Australia given the council’s location (surrounded by and upstream of natural World Heritage), its record of environmental neglect and harm, and its hubris about is continual self back-patting claims of its ecological stewardship.

Greenwashing?

“‘Greenwashing’ is a term used to describe false or misleading environmental claims. Greenwashing makes business appear more environmentally beneficial than they really are. Omitting information can amount to a false or misleading representation or misleading or deceptive conduct, depending upon the circumstances and the overall impression created. We consider a business to be engaging in greenwashing where they use any claim that makes a product or service seem better or less harmful for the environment than it really is. Sometimes businesses accidentally mislead consumers. By following the ACCC’s guidance, businesses that make environment or sustainability claims are less likely to mislead consumers and break the law.”

[SOURCE: ‘Greenwashing defined’, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, ^https://www.accc.gov.au/business/advertising-and-promotions/environmental-and-sustainability-claims]

A reality check:

Planetary health? Not for the planet, yet this is what Blue Mountains {city} Council approved – ugly mass over-development for many more humans on old Katoomba Golf Course into what was bushland within The Gully Catchment.

Where is this current high density townhouse development taking place?

It’s more than 3 km from Katoomba’s retail precinct, isolated on the defunct golf course site (was fairway #3) within just 100 meters of the World Heritage Jamison Valley escarpment across Narrowneck Road. Here’s the location map with the black star showing the site location of the above photo image.

The black star is the location of this current massive over-development’ of 24 additional townhouses. Transport access is only by private car. It’s isolated just like the ‘The Escarpments’ totalling 21 townhouses adjoining. [SOURCE: Google Maps plan view, 2024 with the black star superimposed]

In our view, hardly close to amenities, and these properties aren’t cheap…

Source: ^https://www.realestate.com.au/project/yarrabee-katoomba-600040364 , accessed 2024-06-01]

The defunct Katoomba Golf Course Clubhouse?

At Council’s public meeting of 29th September 2020, councillors endorsed purchase of the defunct Katoomba Golf Course Clubhouse site (1 Acacia Street, Katoomba) for $3.3 million using ratepayers’ money of course, not theirs. So, an easy low-risk decision by said councillors who voted ‘YES’.

That old defunct clubhouse sits alongside the similarly defunct Katoomba 18-hole golf course – long owned by council. This combined site has become council’s largest operational land holding, at 29.66 hectares (so pretty much 30 hectares). It’s bigger than Ben Hur. It exceeds Council budget and Council doesn’t know what to do with it.

An old PR aerial photo of the defunct Katoomba Golf Course and Clubhouse pre-2013. Plus note the separate portion of designated golf course land that Council subdivided, re-zoned ‘Operation’ and flogged off for profit to a townhouse developer [the housing row deliberately centre focus of the photo].

A key Blue Mountains community question here is that given the Katoomba Golf Club and its predominant owner at the time, golfer Geoff Reed of Reed Constructions had in 2012 gone into liquidation, and the Club then followed suit being liquidated in 2013; so to whom did Council pay the $3.3 million out of Blue Mountains ratepayers’ funds?

Presumably, the money was paid to the Katoomba Golf Club’s liquidator so as to pay off the Club’s owed creditors and owed staff salary entitlements. This means that local ratepayers ultimately bailed out this failed golf club, not Council. This sham had all the while for well over a decade, seen Council senior management and ratepayer-elected councillors stage numerous closed-door secret meetings at Council chambers with the Club and developers (denying access to ratepayers) – yet those developers ultimately all went bloody broke, and ratepayers took the can.

All the while for decades, fewer were interested in playing golf. The writing had been on the wall for decades.

[Source: ‘Is Economy Or Lack Of Interest Hurting Golf?’, 2011-05-23, by Ian Hutchinson , ^http://www.golfnewsnow.ca/2011/05/23/is-economy-or-lack-of-interest-hurting-golf/]

Quite separately, a third adjoining site to the direct east of the Clubhouse used to also be part of the community land that Council undertook in 1920 to be for explicit sole use for the old Katoomba Golf Club. But multiple dodgy closed door meetings by Council re-zoned numerous fairways into ‘operational land’ (so deeming the land saleable) so that Council could flog them off for profiteering of community land to a developer for dense housing development, which it did during in the 1990’s for its own coffers.

That’s just a brief background to this multi-decade saga.

So why did Council buy it?
What was the hard sell to councillors who voted to approve the purchase?
Who benefits?
What is the return on investment for Blue Mountains ratepayers?
How is this part of Council’s remit?
Surely there were opportunity costs for a lazy $3.3 million – like potholes fixed, rates reduced, landslips properly repaired and vital access roads re-opened?
Did this $3.3 million purchase of a tired building (hardly an “asset”) ever appear on Council’s strategy plans, like on its 2017 ‘Blue Mountains Community Strategic Plan 2035’?

Council since its 2020 purchase of the Clubhouse, has for the past four years been trumpeting its planned re-purposing of this 30 hectare defunct recreational site, including options for re-use of the old clubhouse. Before, that purchase and before any local community consultation. Council’s consultation with the local community didn’t start until 14th March 2022.

“You’re invited to imagine the future of the former Katoomba Golf Course Precinct” [SOURCE: ^https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/katoomba-golfcourse-precinct-plan (Yeah but Council has since made this page private – ratepayer funds at work).

Council at least two years prior had already (secretly again) seconded external consultants for ideas about the site’s possible uses (another Greenwashing public relations campaign to justify Council’s $3.3 million expense of ratepayer’s funds and its proposed ‘noble’ initiative).

Yet, The Habitat Advocate previously accessed Council’s webpage. We also made a written submission which we shall soon share publicly in a subsequent article on this website.

We discovered the following fine print, which reveals Council had already pre-decided that any community ideas would have to conform within its notion of restoring planetary health – whatever Council decided to have that mean…

Quote:

“Former Katoomba Golf Course Precinct Plan

You’re invited to imagine the future of the former Katoomba Golf Course Precinct

At this extraordinary time, at an extraordinary site in our City within a World Heritage Area, we have an amazing opportunity to do something special.

We urgently need to take better care of nature to protect our own health. Our City is perfectly positioned to explore ways to care for our planet’s natural systems and share these solutions globally.

With Traditional Custodians, our community, educators and researchers from a number of universities, Blue Mountains City Council is exploring opportunities related to planetary health initiatives at the former Katoomba Golf Course precinct (clubhouse and adjoining 30 hectares of public land). We are doing this for the long-term benefit of our City and our community and to create new job opportunities.

We want to know – what opportunities you see for the former Katoomba Golf Course site? How do you think this site could be transformed to help restore planetary health?”

That is why in Council’s media release about the purchase, Council was already on the front foot flagging its pre-arranged re-purposing plans for the large site under its newly conceived ‘Blue Mountains Planetary Health Initiative‘. Read the two media releases we reproduce below – one by Council dated 5th October 2020, the other by Western Sydney University dated 10th December 2020. Recall councillors approved the purchase of the clubhouse on Tuesday 29th September 2020, just a week before Council’s media release, as stated in this article.

Council’s promotional poster inside its Planetary Health Centre. “The highest attainable standard of health , wellbeing and equity worldwide for all species”. [Photo by Editor 2024-05-26]

A few fact checks here…

Katoomba Golf Course bushland verge along Narrowneck Road [Photo by Editor 2024-05-26]

The same verge 50 metres south along Narrowneck Road…

Ye olde turnstiles that provided public access to the Katoomba Golf Course through what had been a fence behind the bushland verge. [Photo by Editor 2024-05-26]

And the forthcoming beneficiaries of Council’s so-called planetary health initiative? …

BENEFICIARIES: Council’s coffers for selling off what was Community bushland, soon the Developer’s coffers with commission to McGrath real estate agent’s coffers. Oh, and ‘Yarrabee’ means ‘place of many gums‘ in Aboriginal. We’ll, there used to be. [Photo by Editor 2024-05-26]

Council has set up a webpage that defines its understanding of this rather academic globalist concept of ‘Planetary Health‘, stating: “Its aim is to provide a framework for us to reassess and adapt human practices to better support a healthy planet for current and future generations.”

Council webpage on this rattles on… GoTo: ^https://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/what-planetary-health

Council: …”adapting human practices to better support a healthy planet “…on Council’s defunct Katoomba Golf Course site (this was the 3rd hole). This location is just 300 metres from Lis Bastian’s Planetary Health Centre on the lower ground floor of the old clubhouse. [Photo by Editor 2021-04-11]

Council’s initiative programme is being delegated to Blue Mountains local Lis Bastian, now Council’s Senior Programme Lead for the Planetary Health Local Action Programme. Now there’s a bureaucratic mouthful. Ms Bastian is an experienced art teacher, grassroots environmentalists of sorts with a passion for The Arts and Permaculture amongst other interests and public leadership roles. An eco-celebrity being used by Council to garner trust with the local community. A brave person to take on this role.

But Council didn’t initiate this “Planetary Health” nonsense.

Prior to Council effectively buying back a building asset on the community land of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley it had long already owned, Council had consulted with Western Sydney University to try to attract university interest and ongoing funding for this otherwise very large defunct recreational site on the edge of Katoomba.

This is the Western Sydney University’s media release timed around the same time of Council’s purchase of the Golf Clubhouse (actually, less than two weeks later from 29th September 2020, thus:

‘Western Sydney University to explore Planetary Health excellence in local area’

2020-12-10, by Emma Sandham, Senior Media Office, Western Sydney University, ^SOURCE

“Western Sydney University has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) and the Monash Sustainable Development Institute to explore the establishment of a Planetary Health Leadership Centre in Katoomba.

The Centre – to focus on the emerging science of Planetary Health, which links our activities with the health of people and the planet – is set to be based at the former Katoomba Golf Clubhouse recently purchased by BMCC.

Western Sydney University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice President (Research, Enterprise and International) Professor Deborah Sweeney commended the signing, which will place Western at the forefront of this emerging interdisciplinary research field.

“This MOU underpins the University’s mission of striving for innovation and excellence in its pursuit of impactful research that solves some of our most pressing local, regional, national and international challenges,” said Professor Sweeney.

The Planetary Health Leadership Centre’s (PHLC) proposed aims include:

The research and promotion of sustainable living, environmental science and other initiatives relating to how human practices can better support a healthy planet for current and future generations;

Research into climate change and bushfire management, and their impact on the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and its unique biodiversity;

A reinvigorated sustainability model for the region based on the principles of planetary health;

A substantive forum for BMCC, academics, local stakeholders, and global theorists and practitioners to be in meaningful dialogue about:

the practicalities of enacting transitions to cultures of planetary health;

the undertaking of research and promoting the development of strategies to improve the environmental health of the planet and to respond to the challenges of climate change, natural disaster, bushfire, and other processes which threaten sustainable living;

emulating the persona of the Blue Mountains as a unique place that fosters a culture of diverse and high quality creative endeavour as a City of the Arts.

Blue Mountains Mayor Mark Greenhill said: “The signing of this MOU to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Blue Mountain’s World Heritage status announcement, is fitting.

Planetary Health is a global imperative. It resonates with the people of the Blue Mountains, but it is a matter for all people globally.”

For further information about plans for the PHLC, please contact Professor Nicky Morrison nicky.morrison@westernsydney.edu.au.

Yet, before 2020, we find this online academic article on Planetary Health dated September 2018…

‘Planetary Health: From the Wellspring of Holistic Medicine to Personal and Public Health Imperative’

by Susan L Prescott 1, and Alan C Logan 2, PMID: 30316687 DOI: 10.1016/j.explore.2018.09.002, National Library of Medicine (an official website of the United States government), ^SOURCE.

Abstract

“The term planetary health – denoting the interconnections between the health of person and place at all scales – emerged from the environmental and holistic health movements of the 1970-80s; in 1980, Friends of the Earth expanded the World Health Organization definition of health, stating: “health is a state of complete physical, mental, social and ecological well-being and not merely the absence of disease – personal health involves planetary health”.

By the 1990s, the concept of planetary health was part of the fabric of integrative medicine; more recently, after the 2015 Lancet Commission on Planetary Health report, the concept has penetrated mainstream academic and medical discourse.

Here, we explore this history and describe its relevance to contemporary healthcare; integrative medicine is uniquely positioned to educate and advocate on behalf of patients and communities (current and future generations), helping to safeguard health of person, place and planet.

We use the emerging microbiome science as a way to illustrate the interconnectivity and health implications of ecosystems (including social/political/economic systems) at all scales. As highlighted in the Canmore Declaration, mainstream planetary health discourse will be strengthened by inter-professional healthcare perspectives, and a more sophisticated understanding of the ways in which social dominance orientation and medical authoritarianism compromise the World Health Organization’s broad vision of global health.

Planetary health isn’t a “new discipline”; it is merely an extension of a concept that was understood by our ancestors, and remains the vocation of all healthcare providers. Discourse on the topic requires cultural competency, critical consciousness and a greater appreciation of marginalized voices.”

Ok, so this term ‘Planetary Health’ pre-existed as a human holistic health concept back in the 1960’s. So, it was definitely NOT Blue Mountains {city} Council’s original initiative. Yet, admittedly borrowed from some external consultant – a university or one more local?

Notably, the term ‘planetary health‘ from this definition from 2018 is clearly NOT about the health of the planet, but rather the health of person and place. The notion is purely anthropocentric – meaning “regarding humankind as the central or most important element of existence, especially as opposed to God or animals“. [Oxford Dictionary]

It states that by the 1990s, the concept of planetary health was part of the fabric of integrative medicine. So NOT ecology.

Council has made up it’s own different definition, akin to somehow saving the planet. But clearly not by what it does itself, but by what it expects others to do.

Out of the blue then in 2020, Blue Mountains {city} Council issued a press release to the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper

‘University push for Katoomba as council buys old golf clubhouse site’

2020-10-05, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/6954634/university-push-for-katoomba-as-council-buys-old-golf-clubhouse-site/

“Two universities are planning to establish a centre in Katoomba under a major proposal unveiled by Blue Mountains City Council. Monash University and Western Sydney University are currently finalising a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with council after it purchased the old Katoomba Golf Clubhouse site for about $3.3 million. The MoU sets out a commitment to establish a leadership centre of international significance in the field of planetary health at the clubhouse site.

Monash University’s Sustainable Development Institute director, Professor Tony Capon, described the plan as “a visionary way to mark the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO world heritage listing of the Greater Blue Mountains Area next month. We are very much looking forward to pressing forward with our shared vision for planetary health in the Blue Mountains,” he said.

Councillors endorsed the purchase of the clubhouse site that sits alongside the former Katoomba golf course – already owned by council – at their September 29 meeting. The purchase makes the site council’s largest operational land holding, at 29.66 hectares.

Blue Mountains Mayor Mark Greenhill: “The site is a strategic investment opportunity with significant potential benefits for the city in the short, medium and long term,”
“Council will explore, with the community, the best strategic options for future uses of the precinct through the upcoming master plan process for Katoomba. What’s exciting is that this opportunity gives us our first real chance to work with universities to establish a leadership centre in the Blue Mountains that would provide jobs, as well as income that comes from sources other than rates.”

Establishing a planetary health leadership centre with universities was part of a local strategic planning statement endorsed by council this March.

Discussions with the universities have canvassed linking the centre with a hub in Katoomba’s town centre.

A UNESCO Chair in Planetary Health, funded by an external donor, could also be attached to the learning centre.

Professor Capon said the emerging field of planetary health “acknowledges that human health entirely depends on the health of natural systems. The COVID-19 pandemic, and last year’s unprecedented bushfire season, are signs that our current lifestyles are out of balance with nature”.

“In the interest of the well-being of all people, we should re-think the way we feed, move, house, clothe and power the world,” he said. “The Planetary Health Leadership Centre will advance practical solutions to everyday challenges, and strive for planetary conscious in the way we live.”

Blue Mountains mayor Mark Greenhill and Blue Mountains City Council CEO Dr Rosemary Dillon at the former Katoomba Golf Clubhouse (below).

Blue Mountains City Council CEO Dr Rosemary Dillon said the former clubhouse site has “significant potential to support appropriate development of this precinct that enables sustainable economic and social development, as well as job creation. By purchasing the clubhouse site, it remains in council’s ownership and leverages opportunities for the future.” She said “it is a fitting gift to the city – and the world – that we look to establish such a significant centre” as the Blue Mountains prepares to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its world heritage listing.

The purchase has been funded by council’s property investment fund and internal sources to avoid the long-term cost of borrowing.

While the establishment of any university-linked centre is likely years away, council believes income generated from the site in the short term will help cover the costs associated with the facility and maintenance of the former golf course site.”

Council’s corporate culture still blindly considers it’s a “city”. It’s management and staff need to get outside that ivory tower more.

No city here – not yet anyway.

Our Blue Mountains region is the antithesis of being a city. It remains one of the last natural tracts of contiguous forested land in New South Wales and indeed Australia. That is why many local folk campaigned from the 1920s to protect it to achieve its World Heritage status. So why celebrate an ugly ‘city’ status for this beautiful and rare natural place in which we live?

According to Council’s ‘Blue Mountains Planetary Health Initiative’ webpage, it wants us to recognise as humans #WeAreNature. Yet, the reality is that with the planet’s human population plague at 8.1 billion and forecast to reach a “milestone” of 10 Billion by 2058 according to the United Nations, humans are not Nature but a virulent destructive, self-serving plague; hardly a Natural phenomenon.

… “you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone?” – Joni Mitchell, 1970 . [Google Maps satellite view 2024 showing a dark green island within a mostly otherwise deforested landscape].

Council: #WeAreNature

Council’s ‘city’ mindset emanated from councillors proclaiming the string of villages along the Cox’s Watershed to be a ‘City’ back in post-war 1946. That’s where the bureaucrats mindset is stuck, still boasting in its media releases of “celebrating the unique privilege of managing a City within a World Heritage Area“. A city is not a privilege. It is an oxymoron. The mindset poses a threat to World Heritage – mostly juxtaposed downstream of Council’s encouraged urban development.

If council management, staff and councillors want to live in a city they should go back to the Sydney megalopolis which permeates on our Nepean River boundary – and crossing it recently by gerrymandering the NSW Penrith electoral boundary into Glenbrook. The Blue Mountains is not ‘Greater’ Sydney. When a NSW Government declaration, like a lockdown, is imposed for Greater Sydney, it does NOT affect the Blue Mountains.

References:

[1] ‘What is Planetary Health?‘, Blue Mountains {city} Council, ^https://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/what-planetary-health

[2] ‘University push for Katoomba as council buys old golf clubhouse site‘, 2020-10-05, by Damien Madigan, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/6954634/university-push-for-katoomba-as-council-buys-old-golf-clubhouse-site/

[3] ‘Western Sydney University to explore Planetary Health excellence in local area‘, 10 December 2020, by Emma Sandham, Senior Media Office
^https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/newscentre/news_centre/story_archive/2020/western_sydney_university_to_explore_planetary_health_excellence_in_local_area

[4] ‘Yarrabee is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘lot of gums‘, “Aboriginal Words and Their Meanings” by JH Sugden), Yarrabee is a place in Queensland. Yarrabee Close was built in 1975, ^https://history.lakemac.com.au/page-local-history.aspx?pid=1085&vid=20&tmpt=narrative&narid=3023.

[5] ‘Deep Ecology‘ defined, Encyclopaedia Brittannica ^https://www.britannica.com/topic/deep-ecology

[6] ‘Centre for Planetary Health hypocrisy‘, 2024-05-28, by The Habitat Advocate, ^https://habitatadvocate.com.au/centre-for-planetary-health-hypocrisy/

[7] ‘Greenwashing‘ defined, by Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, ^https://www.accc.gov.au/business/advertising-and-promotions/environmental-and-sustainability-claims]

[8] ‘Katoomba Golf Club’s escarpment vandalism‘, 2013-07-05, by The Habitat Advocate, ^https://habitatadvocate.com.au/katoomba-golf-clubs-escarpment-vandalism/

[9] ‘Wollumboola threatened by selfish 20thC ‘golf’‘, 2011-09-02, by The Habitat Advocate, ^https://habitatadvocate.com.au/wollumboola-threatened-by-selfish-20thc-golf/

[10] ‘Yarrabee Katoomba‘, by Real Estate.com, ^https://www.realestate.com.au/project/yarrabee-katoomba-600040364 , accessed 2024-06-01

[11] ‘Yarrabee Katoomba‘ , by McGrath Real Estate, ^https://yarrabeekatoomba.com.au/

[12] ‘Is Economy Or Lack Of Interest Hurting Golf?‘, 2011-05-23, by Ian Hutchinson , ^http://www.golfnewsnow.ca/2011/05/23/is-economy-or-lack-of-interest-hurting-golf/]

Tags: Blue Mountains City Council, Deep Ecology, greenwashing, Katoomba Golf Club, Katoomba Golf Course Clubhouse, Planetary Health Initiative, Professor Tony Capon, Western Sydney University
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Centre for Planetary Health hypocrisy

Tuesday, May 28th, 2024

There is a legacy of hoaxes, scams, cons, white elephants, crazy schemes and plans, wacky ideologies and bandwagon movements globally (since before the notorious Dutch Tulip Mania of 1634), and including sadly throughout Australia; also indeed right here in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.

Possibly the worst on the cards currently is Blue Mountains {city} Council’s conjured up ‘Centre for Planetary Health Initiative‘, which is set to re-purpose its disused and ultimately failed Katoomba Golf Course situated on the western edge of Katoomba.

Actually, it seems that this initiative was not Council’s idea, but introduced from Western Sydney University via an intermediary we shall say. Those in Council’s ivory tower chambers, situated aloof from town, appear to have been hoodwinked by some cult-type global noble phenomenon, termed ‘Planetary Health‘.

‘Planetary Health‘ is an interesting construct. Where did this crop up from? Well, our research shall soon reveal the background to this latest fad in subsequent articles.

A decade after Katoomba Golf Course inevitably went broke in 2013, this exotic religious ornament propped up unannounced on Council’s old Katoomba Golf Course site just outside the old club house. Perhaps the timing was just after Blue Mountains [city} Council forking out $3.3 million of ratepayers’ funds to buy back the golf course club house building on the combined site that it had originally owned.

We presume this obelisk is not Aboriginal, but may have arrived from a falling comet from the Cosmos, else some Council notional ‘Kumbaya’ committee thought bubble. Who knows?

A PLANETARY HEALTH CULT OBELISK? But why here? How much did this ugly monstrosity cost? Who ultimately paid for it – local ratepayers?

So who on Council arranged this ugly cult thing at Council’s defunct Katoomba Golf Course?

Back on 8th October 2019, nearby Radiata Plateau outside Katoomba was sold by the Indian religious cult, the Transcendental Meditation Organization (TMO), to the NSW Government Minister for the Environment (NPWS), Matt Kean for $2.8 million. So is this where the TMO ended up, quid pro quo?

A zoom-in of this ‘cult-thing’ to some maharishi yogi…

IMPOST ON LOCALS: Katoomba Golf Course now some cult site? By Blue Mountains Council?, NPWS Parks Service?, TMO? What is going on here?

Clearly something odd is going down in Council’s ivory tower over in North Katoomba. Katoomba residents around the old golf course are not impressed, especially local dog walkers being denied by Council off-leash access on the 30-hectare golf course.

‘Planetary Health‘ seems to be some motherhood construct. It conveys a sense of ‘warm and fuzzy’ do-gooding. The choice combined wording is a syntax slogan morally is difficult to criticise. This ‘initiative’ sounds wonderful in concept and hard to morally criticise, so IT MUST BE GOOD? Good for the planet and good for health? Such is what propaganda is about. We suspect this is a deliberate propaganda ploy by another organised social movement. We shall explore this background.

The Habitat Advocate has been in The Mountains since 2001. We didn’t come down in the last shower. We have experienced dealing with Blue Mountains {city} Council especially on matters negatively impacting Katoomba Falls Creek Valley as a member (2002-2008) of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Incorporated. This includes protesting against the now defunct 30 hectare Katoomba Golf Course and its expansionism and residential developments.

Local residents, again, are concerned with Blue Mountains Council’s motives and undisclosed plans and ends for this public land site that has a record of dodgy ‘Confidential Business Papers, secret closed-door council meetings and deals dubbed ‘commercial-in-confidence’, all the while council has repeatedly wasted ratepayers’ funds for decades in order to bail out its hair-brained golfing mates’ developments and expansions.

A bit of relevant history:

Back in 1920, a group of local Katoomba businessmen (golfers) initially set up ‘The South Katoomba Land Company Limited‘ having the idea of leasing bushland on the edge of Katoomba near the Jamison Valley escarpment from then custodial owners ‘The Council of the Municipality of Katoomba‘ (now Blue Mountains {city} Council) – to deforest the bushland and watercourse in order to convert the land use into a convenient local golf links for their golfing leisure. This was the heyday of golf, popular up to the 1960s.

Council was very obliging, probably because many of the then male councillors enjoyed playing few rounds. ‘The South Katoomba Land Company Limited‘ morphed into becoming Katoomba Golf Club Ltd and so had the golf links constructed – we suspect with generous financial support from Council’s ratepayers’ funds. This will become evident by reading further.

By 1923, it was a 9-hole golf course replete with a moderate club house. It was popular and became crowded, so by 1927, double the bushland was deforested eastward and northward to expand it into an 18-hole golf course.

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Over the decades, Council then acquired adjoining bushland sites to expand the size of the golf course out to about 74 acres (30 hectares). That’s 300,000 m², or the equivalent area of 550m x 550m – a big chunk of bushland, which included a watercourse and series of natural swamps – all graded and swallowed up – bugger the ecology! Golf being more important, like Council’s bulldozed Catalina car racing track nearby in The Gully in 1957! This was all in the same Katoomba Falls Creek Valley natural water catchment above Katoomba Falls.

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Later in May 1991, it was Council itself that proposed funding the tenants of the golf course, Katoomba Golf Club Ltd, a massive residential expansion development proposal.

Council labelled its own initiated development ‘Katoomba Golf Resort and Spa‘. It was an A3-sized spiral-bound booklet of 30 pages including promotional ‘artist impression’ watercolour drawings that included a proposed large 2-storey club house including a licensed hotel, multiple function facilities and 48-room ‘lodge’ accommodation in two adjoining side wings either side of the club house/hotel.

So, a conflict of interest by Council as custodial landlord of this public land to fund a commercial tenant’s recreational interests, or what?

Here are a few extracts of that proposal commission by Blue Mountains {city} Council via its outsourced developer Leisure Lea Corporation to St Leonard’s based architects John Bruce and Partners:

Council’s May 1991 Development Application residential expansion for its tenant on community land, Katoomba Golf Club. Note the lower map portion off Narrowneck Road to be replete with a residential golfing village.

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Note that multiple golf fairways/holes were to be re-purposed so driving the need to maintain the golf club’s 18-hole golf course offering by Council’s acquisition and re-zoning of surrounding community bushland. This was an ongoing programme of destructive environmental expansionism for the pursuit of a dying pastime – Golf. The architectural costs of this plan would have been considerable – all paid by local ratepayers.

Just one of many examples of Blue Mountains [city} Council’s secret deals concerning its dodgy secrecy with their golfing mates, whilst exploiting ratepayers’ funds behind closed doors:

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Council had sold off a number of fairways to housing developer, Mr Tracey Lake of Noroton Holdings Pty Limited, to use the land to build a hotel and ab0ut 20-odd townhouses.

For over a decade the various developments schemes for the mixed use site were negotiated with Council in secret behind closed doors for more than a decade – suspiciously, the proceeds of Council’s partial land sell-off of what was ordiginall community land (rezoned operational by Council to enable it to be sold for housing, was used to prop the failing Katoomba Golf Club multiple times.

Mr Lake’s business went broke and re-emerged as Numarra Pty Limited in 2004 and as Katoomba Escarpment Estates Pty Ltd (KEE). In 2010, Council approved a 99-year lease of the Golf Course to Reed Constructions, which had controlling ownership in the club. Then the golf course expanded into surround bush to recreate its 18-hole course status. In 2012, Reed Constructions went into liquidation. Then Katoomba Golf Club went into liquidation on Monday 1 July 2013.

In 2020 Council bough the club house using $3.3 million of ratepayers’ funds. The adjoining townhouse development persists to this day.

Photo of the Escarpments site in taken 2007-11-10 [Photo ‘PB102385’ by Editor on behalf of local resident activist group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.]

This is Blue Mountains {city} Council hypocrisy in spades. Since when has Blue Mountains {city} Council been trusted?

Katoomba Golf Course ultimately went broke, first during Council’s re-zoned residential development and sale to Noroton Holdings Pty Limited, then by Reed Constructions in 2013. Council all the while schemed with the lessee and successive developers behind closed-door backroom deals, misappropriating Blue Mountains ratepayers’ funds to prop up this dated golfing failed venture.

Outcome? A dog’s breakfast.

Local dog walkers: What’s all this planetary bandwagon thing? We just wanna go for a walk across the defunct golf course.

The Katoomba Golf Course had gone broke in 2013 basically due to the lack of local general interest in playing golf. The similar demise has afflicted the antiquated courses at Lawson, Wentworth Falls, and Leura, and decades ago the one at Mount Victoria once attached to the Victoria and Albert Hotel harking from before The Great War.

So over time, disused golf clubs incrementally have sold off their land for housing development. Notably, this includes the golf clubs at Leura, Wentworth Falls and Katoomba. The defunct Lawson golf course remained in Council ownership, and being so remote, Council proposed no housing development to be viable.

Back to Katoomba Golf Course…

PLANETARY DESTRUCTION: Blue Mountains Council’s flogging off acreage from Katoomba Golf Course to residential property developers for high-density urban housing resembling inner Sydney. This was the third fairway from the original 9-hole course opened in May 1923. Now this 6-metre-high cut-and-fill slag heap (March 2023) resembles the Sphinx at Gallipoli.

‘The Sphinx’ was really a remnant outcrop of the Sari Bair range above ANZAC Cove 25th April 1915 following British and French naval bombardment of the sandstone escarpment.

Our Blue Mountains (‘The Mountains’) have a destructive bombardment record of deforestation of this valley to suit its own ends backing selfish indulgences of wealthy business people wishing to indulge in their sporting pastimes – like playing golf, and watching car racing, and profiting from amusements parks (like Catalina and Scenic World). Cultural spots don’t change.

Council’s old business paper records reveal that near Blackheath some enterprising nutter once proposed Australian prime ministers’ equivalent gouging like Mount Rushmore be carved into the west facing escarpment of Fortress Ridge, so viewable to tourists from Govetts Leap Lookout on the western side of the Gross Gorge, plus a glass elevator shaft up and down Bridal Veil Falls nearby. There used to be cattle grazing in the Blue Gum Forest and Kanangra and previously in the mid 19th Century, the colonial government of NSW proposed building a railway line up the Grose River Gorge from Windsor to Lithgow.

Exploitative damage to The Mountains natural landscape, along with the permanent destruction of native habitat, has been encouraged by successive governments since 19th Century English immigrant ‘robber baron’ John Britty North’s deforestation and mining exploits of Katoomba in the 1870s.

Now a decade after Katoomba Golf Course went into liquidation in 2013 and lay abandoned for a decade, Council since 2020 indulged $3.3 million of Blue Mountains ratepayers’ funds to buy back the golf course and club house.

Government’s latest hair-brained scheme like this failed Katoomba Golf Course site smells surely of more Blue Mountains {city} Council’s PR greenwashing again. ‘Blue Mountains Centre for Planetary Health’. Seriously?

Research the history of this 30-hectare site to begin to understand our cynicism. Where to start? Start with our thirty-year knowledge and environmental protest legacy perhaps.

The site was Community land. The original Katoomba Golf Club leased the lands from the land holder Blue Mountain Council in 1920.

Check this document. A Declaration of Trust with Council that the land only be used for recreation…

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Embarrassingly so, Blue Mountains {city} Council re-imagined a re-purposing of its failed golf club from a century since 1920. Bureaucrats are slow learners. Actually, they most never learn from their mistakes because they are granted impunity from any accountability. The head honcho fat cat bureaucrats in BMCC senior management are still there, raking it in for themselves and wrecking the joint.

This is our previous article on this matter from 2013:

Katoomba Golf Club’s escarpment vandalism

References:

[1] ‘Declaration of Trust‘, between The South Katoomba Land Company Limited to The Council of the Municipality of Katoomba, 28th January 1920, declaring said specified council land in Katoomba for the sole purpose of lessee use for golf links, as witnessed by Hughes & Hughes solicitors of 26 Hunter Street Sydney, (3 pages), resourced from The Neil Lewis Stuart Archive – Topic Group ‘F2: Valley Threats Katoomba Golf Course’;

[2] ‘Katoomba Golf and Resort Spa Resort‘ land-use development proposal, Development Agreement Documents, May 1991, by John Bruce + Partners (architects) for Ted Stirling PGA of Golf Development Resources, resourced from The Neil Lewis Stuart Archive – Topic Group ‘F2: Valley Threats Katoomba Golf Course’, A3-size, 30 pages;

[3] ‘Katoomba Golf Club membership brochure‘, circa 1999, 2 pages, resourced from The Neil Lewis Stuart Archive – Topic Group ‘F2: Valley Threats Katoomba Golf Course’;

[4] ‘Item C3 in Confidential Business Paper – Katoomba Golf Course Development‘, 12 Nov 2002, ‘Quality Local Government’, Ordinary Meeting business paper Page 17, Blue Mountains {city} Council , File No: H00003, 1 page, resourced from The Neil Lewis Stuart Archive – Topic Group ‘F2: Valley Threats Katoomba Golf Course’;

[5] ‘Tulip Mania‘ speculative frenzy, Holland [17th-century], by Doug Ashburn, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024-05-07, ^https://www.britannica.com/money/Tulip-Mania

Tags: Blue Mountains City Council, Blue Mountains Council, BMCC, Centre for Planetary Health, Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Incorporated, Katoomba Golf Course, Katoomba Golf Glub Ltd, Leisure Lea Corporation, Planetary Health Cult, The Council of the Municipality of Katoomba, The South Katoomba Land Company Limited, Transcendental Meditation Organization
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The Gully fox ignored by Council

Friday, May 3rd, 2024

On Friday 26th April 2024, at 1:10 am I saw a fox again on Murri Street Katoomba that scurried out of The Gully across the road into a nearby property.

I reported this to Blue Mountains Council as the land owner of The Gully, but only to be given a run around by Council’s call centre staff, claiming that protocol is that such pests are not Council’s responsibility. I was told to instead phone some Local Land Service on 1300 795 299, so I did. The person there said I then had to phone Biosecurity Officer ‘Jacob’ on 0438 073 749. So I did, but I had to leave a message.

What a cop out by Blue Mountains Council!

So then I phoned back Council again and spoke to a different person in customer service and reported the same problem of the fox sighting in Murri Street.

This time I was given a CSR 529097, whatever that may come to.

Council is all care, greenwashing and no responsibility.

Posted in Blue Mountains (AU), COUNCIL GREENWASHING, THE GULLY COLLECTION, Threats from Greenwashing, Threats from predation | No Comments »

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Large Gully Tree Killed

Tuesday, April 9th, 2024

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.

SAVE ATLAS Campaign – Part 1

It’s a sad loss.

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.

Posted in 28 Heritage Listing Compliance!, 31 Old Growth Conservation!, Blue Mountains (AU), SAVE ATLAS Campaign, THE GULLY COLLECTION, Threats from Deforestation | No Comments »

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SAVE ATLAS Campaign – Part 1

Friday, June 2nd, 2023

‘ATLAS’? This is the worthy name our campaign branded this magnificent and extremely rare 250+ year-old Eucalyptus oreades that came under greedy developer threat. It is an endemic native tree estimated to predate Katoomba and indeed pre-date Captain Cook (that is pre-1770!)

About ‘Friends of ATLAS’

Back in 2014 at the start of spring in the Blue Mountains (Australia), Katoomba residents Maureen and Peter Toy from their home at 57 Megalong Street observed a man inspecting this magnificent tree on the verge out front. They approached the man, who then told them that he reckoned the tree was “diseased” and so had to be “removed” (aka killed).

The Toy’s campaign to save this magnificent tree was on in earnest!

ATLAS survives in good health, not diseased, as a 250 year old (in 2014) native Blue Mountains Ash (Eucalyptus oreades), with a still-growing canopy of 40+ metres high.

ATLAS pre-dates the settlement of Katoomba. Indeed, ATLAS predates colonial settlement of Australian in 1788. According to a learned Grade 5 arborist with long experience in these species, ATLAS probably started growing as a sapling from the 1760s – before the French Revolution, before the American War of Independence, before James Cook first set sail from Britain to explore the Pacific and find the rumoured great southern continent in 1768.

This tree is an icon like the Three Sisters, yet hidden in Blue Mountains {city} Council’s assigned industrial area of Katoomba near the headwaters of Leura Creek and upstream of the popular tourist attraction of Leura Cascades and Leura Falls which tumbles into the Jamison Valley within the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.

According to advice the Toys received from local conservation consultancy The Habitat Advocate, this large Blue Mountains Ash (Eucalyptus oreades) is a native tree only found in the Upper Blue Mountains. Thousands of oreades were incinerated by the 2003 Centennial Glen bushfire, making the species now threatened in the upper Blue Mountains.

Maureen says:

“It is a beautiful and rare specimen and Blue Mountains folk are fortunate that we have such a significant tree still growing right by Megalong Street in industrial Katoomba. Over the many decades, this tree has withstood fierce windstorms, bushfires, (dodgy) road-widening and even industrial development all around it.”

A new industrial development in 2014 was constructed behind ATLAS, replacing a old motor garage.

With a canopy about 40 metres high and a trunk girth of over 5 metres (measured at 1.4m above the ground ^SOURCE), the tree has become a recognised icon and reference point in the area. It is home to a large flock of Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos that roosts in the tree daily.

Campaign Background

Some years prior in 2012, The Habitat Advocate’s Conservation Consultant Steven, had had his own concerns about the new development taking place behind the tree at 59 Megalong Street Katoomba, and decided to take some before-shot photos; the following three taken on 11th January 2012.

Our editor by ATLAS in 2012

So two years hence, with the new ‘mega industrial park’ constructed adjacent to the tree, the consulting arborist David Ford, whom Maureen and Peter had talked to, became the arch enemy to the preservation of the tree.

Peter couldn’t understand why the tree was NOT already listed on Council’s Blue Mountains Significant Tree Register or why anyone would want to harm it. The tree is situated on a community verge (Council-community land) and for the prior few years there had been an industrial development constructed behind it.

Peter and Maureen were vehemently opposed to any further harm being inflicted upon the tree and they have lodged a protest with council. Several others in the local community sided with the Toys and together formed an informal local community activist group ‘Friends of ATLAS’ – determined to save and protect this magnificent native tree. Their daughter Angelique started up an online petition to garner local community recognition and support to protect the tree.

Peter reckoned at the time:

“It’s early days but he is ready for a sustained fight.”

A fellow local supported commented:

“Dear Friends,

There is an emergency right now, to save one of the oldest Blue Mountain Ash trees that we have left.. The tree is now known as ‘Atlas’. You may well know this magnificent tree located at 59 Megalong Street, Katoomba. It has a girth of 5 metres and a growing canopy of 40 metres high. The tree has been estimated to be between 200 and 300 years old, I love this tree and hope you will help us save it 🙂

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT

Peter H. Marshall”

A spokesperson from Blue Mountains {city} Council confirmed that the tree is situated on council verge land and not on the industrial development site behind. Research into the planning approval for the industrial development behind revealed that Council had stipulated in its development consent conditions that the tree must not be harmed by the development activity.

Though Peter disagrees. He says “guttering has been dug right into the tree roots system, then just a month ago the developer (behind) had a bobcat grade the topsoil and roots around the tree for an entire day!.”

Council’s spokesperson at the time clarified that council had not received any request for the tree to be destroyed. The community battle to save this tree from Council neglect and indifference was set to ensue.

Save ATLAS Campaign

The Habitat Advocate took a particular interest in saving this tree shortly after noticing the sign on it ‘SAVE OUR TREE‘, placed there by Peter and Maureen in September 2014.

Our Conservation Consultant, Steven, had first observed the sign on the tree whilst a driver for Blue Mountains Bus Company as he sat in a bus in the depot one morning doing his bus pre-checks.

After his shift, Steven took a chance that the sign’s maker lived nearby and so knocked on the door of the house adjacent at 57. Peter and Maureen opened the door and the contact was established. [Editor’s Note: Peter and Maureen have long since relocated back to their home town in Western Australia].

Steven suggested the tree deserved a name, as a brand for a public campaign to save it from being killed. Maureen affectionately called it the ‘Atlas’, after the Greek God, appropriately for its towering size and for be so enduring. In Greek mythology, Atlas was one of the most famous Titans, the son of Iapetus and the Oceanid Asia (or, possibly, Clymene). He was the leader of the Titan rebellion against Zeus, and he got a fitting punishment after the end of the Titanomachy: he was condemned to eternally hold up the sky. The etymology of the name ‘Atlas’ is from the ancient Greek word τλῆναι “to endure”.

This is a Roman statue of Atlas at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples in Italy. It is believed to be the oldest, dating from 2nd century AD.

Steven suggested a change of sign to generate more passerby interest, given that adjoining Megalong Street is a busy thoroughfare between the industrial precinct of Katoomba and Leura.

This new sign proved very effective. It reads: “THIS TREE IS THREATENED, Contact Council“. Many concerned locals indeed did contact Blue Mountains {city} Council to protest and demand what was going on. [Photo by Editor: Katoomba locals Maureen and Peter Toy, with Glenn Humphreys on the right, spring 2014]

“Threatened” was a play on words, since it had three meanings, intentionally.

Firstly, this flora species, a ‘Eucalyptus oreades’, is locally endemic to this small area of the Central Upper Blue Mountains, that is it is wildly found nowhere else on the planet and the species natural habitat and number of trees have been decimated by human deforestation since British colonisation of the area from the 1870s such that the remnant number of trees can almost be counted. This species and its ecological community is likely botanically deemed “threatened”, that is, it is likely to become extinct in the foreseeable future.

Secondly, this extremely large and mature, yet healthy specimen, could be more than 250 years old and so an even rarer example of the species. The number of such specimens growing in what once was their wild habitat may well be currently counted on one’s hands.

Thirdly, more imminent a threat is that the industrial developer who owns the site immediately behind this tree has intention of having it killed the tree in order to make way for some greedy notion of providing an overflow of customer parking on the verge outside his site.

Peter Toy quickly set up a dedicated Facebook Page (now defunct) in September 2014, calling it ‘Friends of ATLAS’. Maureen and Peter’s daughter Angelique established an online petition on the Change.org website.

Garnering a community support base of nearly 300 individuals on a petition to save one important tree was one campaign success outcome

Fact Finding

As the publicity campaign to save the tree got under way, The Habitat Advocate considered some fact finding needed be done about the compliance of this development with Council’s conditions of consent, and in order to clarify the justification posed by the consulting arborist for killing this magnificent and otherwise healthy native tree.

Suspicions were that the arborist had assessed the tree on behalf of his client the property developer and had concluded what the developer wanted – the tree’s removal to make way for concrete paving of the Council verge to facilitate increased vehicle parking for the new industrial site.

Enquiries to Blue Mountains {city} Council confirmed that the development at 59 Megalong Street Katoomba was recorded by Council as ‘Industrial Development DA X/435/2010‘. A number of publicly available documents were obtained by The Habitat Advocate in relation to this development threat.

[Editor’s Note:

This habitat story is to be continued sometime in spring 2023, due to other pressing commitments that we currently have. The story shall be told in a number of parts discussing the SAVE ATLAS Campaign, its goals, strategy, opponents, supporters, relevant framework (planning and legal), research, publicity and ongoing updates. Unlike other attempts by Blue Mountains conservationists to save valued trees, especially endemic natives like this one, this conservation campaign succeeded and the campaign story shall provide not just a wonderful Blue Mountains story about a community coming together to protect natural heritage but also shall be instructive to others facing similar challenges of how to win against often overwhelming odds. Future parts to this story shall be posted in turn as a lead article on the front page of this website, The Habitat Advocate, which continues to be based in The Gully Catchment in the town of Katoomba since 2001. We thank our readers for their interest, support and patience].

ATLAS Warriors

Wollemi Wilderness Champion

Haydn Washington dedicated most of his adult life to selected environmental campaigns that affected him in eastern Australia about protecting wilderness areas from human harm, most notably the Wollemi wilderness in the northern part of the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales. Haydn at the time lived nearby, so was this noble planetary Nymyism beyond his backyard?

What is wrong with that? It’s such a selfless cause.

Haydn became the lead campaigner for this vast Wollemi wilderness region of 5,000 km². He successfully saw it legally protected in 1979 as the Wollemi National Park.

The Wollemi National Park was then in 2000 officially incorporated into the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, respected as one of eight contiguous national park protected areas along with the Blue Mountains, Yengo, Nattai, Kanangra-Boyd, Gardens of Stone and Thirlmere Lakes National Parks, and the Jenolan Karst Conservation Reserve.

Tragically, two decades later from Saturday 26th October 2019 into January 2020 the custodial authority (NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service of NSW (a misnomer) in cahoots with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service) stood back and allowed a private pile-burn off Army Road near Gospers Mountain inside the Wollomi wilderness get out of control and spread over days, weeks and months.

That single ignition was allowed to blanketly incinerate the pristine Wollemi wilderness in its entirety – all 5,000 km², endangered Koala communities and all! It was wantonly despicable neglectful act by the Wollemi NP’s and Blue Mountains World Heritage Area’s governmental custodian, NPWS.

Indeed this is why we refer to the NPWS organisation as merely the NSW Parks Service; that’s all it is useful for, just servicing parks, as in urban parks and gardens.

NPWS employs no ecologists, no botanists, no zoologists, no ornithologists, no geologists, and no environmental scientists like Haydn Washington; but only public servants.

This is despite NPWS as a state government agency being delegated with supreme responsibility for the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and all other national parks within the Australian state of New South Wales and their threatened and endangered ecosystems within.

Indeed defacto bush arson on a calamitous scale never before in Australia’s history by a anthropocentric governmental culture, having a total disregard and contempt toward Wilderness values.

Haydn would have been utterly devastated.

The entire loss of his favoured wilderness by preventable fire would have sapped him of energy and hope. He lived next to it, knew it intimately by exploration on foot and down the length of the dominant wild Colo River by paddle. One presumes the 2019 bushfire disaster of the Wollemi wilderness caused him immense grief and impacted upon his mental health.

Did wiping out the Wollemi trigger Haydn’s heath demise?

We think so. The physical cause of cancer can emerge from psychological stress.

‘Psychological stress‘ describes what individuals experience when they are under mental, physical, or emotional pressure.

‘Stressors‘ are factors that can cause stress such as negative external factors that arise outside one’s control or influence, such as the total loss of one’s life work to protect a wilderness area and its ecology as an environmental scientist with a deep passion for its ecology. Perhaps his psychological stress had become enduring and chronic, causing translating into physical harm.

Research has shown that people who experience chronic stress can have digestive problems, heart disease, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system. People who experience chronic stress are also more prone to having headaches, sleep trouble, difficulty concentrating, depression, and anxiety and to getting viral infections. The medical science is out (unschooled) on the causation of cancer from chronic psychological stress.

But what is established is that chronic psychological stress can lead to many health problems. A 2019 meta-analysis of nine observational studies in Europe and North America also found an association between work stress and risk of lung, colorectal, and esophageal cancers. Even when stress appears to be linked to cancer risk, the relationship could be indirect. For example, people under chronic stress may develop certain unhealthy behaviours, such as smoking, overeating, becoming less active, or drinking alcohol, that are themselves associated with increased risks of some cancers. The condition may also prevent the body’s immune system from recognizing and fighting cancer cells.

Three years hence in late 2022, Haydn died of cancer, a chronic disease, at aged just 67, before his time. It is in this editor’s view that the government’s apathetic destruction of the precious Wollemi wilderness by bush arson that Haydn loved so dearly, contributed to the premature demise of his health.

NPWS Blue Mountains Branch Director David Crust had the temerity to present himself at Haydn’s funeral, appropriately donned in a full blackened suit and said nothing. The past Commissioner of the NSW Rural Fire Service, Shane Fitzsimmons who was in charge of the NSW 2019 Bushfire emergencies, including the Wollemi bushfire, did not attend.

Vale Haydn, we’re on to your noble legacy. Your passionate championing of native habitat values and your tireless campaigning fights for the preservation of Wilderness will not have been in vane on this website!

The Gully Water Catchment

One of the headwaters of Katoomba Falls Creek. One of three StreamWatch water quality testing sites selected by The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Bushcare Group [2003-2007]. (Photo by Editor 2011-04-01)

Given the field focus of The Habitat Advocate is ecology, for ecological clarity we shall herein refer to the entire valley catchment area with a hybrid title of ‘The Gully Water Catchment‘. We include the term ‘gully’ as a conciliatory recognition and respect to the former residents who used this term affectionately when they lived here before the racetrack land usurpation* of The Gully.

[Ed: *Usurpation is the act of taking somebody’s position and/or power without having the right to do this. Land Usurpation is the appropriation of land from the previous or lawful owner].

Ecologically, this creek valley is most importantly fundamentally a hydrological environmental system. The natural geography of this creek valley is characterised as an upper course riverscape, which takes the form of a south-facing naturally steep bushland amphitheatre shape in the northern portion of this valley. The valley lies about a thousands metres above sea level.

This area is defined as the entire water catchment area of 290 hectares/2.9 km². The water catchment’s geographical boundaries comprise the Cox’s Watershed (Bathurst Road) to the north, Valley Road to the Jamison clifftop escarpment to the west, a meandering watershed though central Katoomba to the east and Katoomba Falls to the south.

‘The Gully Water Catchment‘ [SOURCE: Dr Val Attenbrow’s Map of 1993 as ‘The Study Area’, in Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study | Draft Report and Management Plan prepared for Blue Mountains [city] Council | by F.&J. Bell & Associates | June 1993 | page 3 of 87]

Rainwater that becomes surface water and ground water, flows from a small perennial waterfall and a number of springs which flow into several watercourses that confluence into the central creek with a native sedge swampland riparian zone leading to and surrounding the creek. The creek flows downstream southward over Katoomba Cascades and plunges over Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River about 300 metres below in the magnificent Jamison Valley of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. Kedumba River then flows and meanders southward confluencing into the flooded Cox’s River and the artificial Lake Burragorang (constructed 1948-1960) which has since been Sydney’s primary drinking water supply.

Lake Burragorang (reservoir) is situated about 40km downstream south of The Gully Water Catchment [Photo on Wikipedia by Goran Has taken in January 2014, https://www.flickr.com/photos/goranhas/11897893604/ ]

This all means that indeed the relatively small creek valley on the western fringe of Katoomba forms part of an official drinking water catchment. But it is not just for the benefit of a distant growing urban Greater Sydney metropolis.

The Gully Water Catchment in its own right serves as a vital small natural ecosystem to sustain remnant locally native flora and fauna including aquatic macroinvertebrates throughout its creek riparian zone. This was despite the catchment’s history of land management abuse and neglect by local council and self-interested outsiders.

This author for five years between 2003 and 2007, as a former volunteer member of local community group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Bushcare Group (‘The Friends’ for short) undertook regular water quality monitoring and testing of three test sites of this creek under the instruction and resourcing the then Sydney Catchment Authority’s Streamwatch Programme.

‘Citizen science’ indeed!

Our group proudly won five awards over this time for our efforts including this one below in 2005. Our winning award was a recognition by the Sydney Catchment Authority for our specific work in monitoring, testing, investigating and reporting incidents of sewer overflow pollution of the creek from Sydney Water’s sewer network in the valley.

As part of our win, Sydney Catchment Authority rewarded our StreamWatch group with a $2000 cheque thank you.

Fresh flowing water has always been an integral value of this small creek valley. It is not just that it is part of the Kedumba River Water Catchment that supplies drinking water to Sydney, but vital to restoring the local riparian ecology.

At the time our volunteer charity group The Friends subsequently invested this $2000 into a fixed interest account, since its operational expenses continued to be funded by our street stalls in Katoomba Street. Ultimately, upon the sad passing of the founder and chairperson of The Friends on 26th May 2016, The Friends elected to formally wind up the incorporated organisation. These funds along with the balance of the operational bank account were then gifted to the Blue Mountains Historical Society as part of a successful handover of The Friends archival records spanning 27 years.

Over two centuries, government in NSW (both state and local) continually re-zoned and divided up The Gully Water Catchment from being a pristine natural water catchment into various ‘sold out’ portions, thus.

The New South Wales colonial government’s land usurpation of Aboriginal country west of Sydney for colonial settlement since the British colonial explorers’ crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813
Government sales of the Blue Mountains plateau lands around what is now Katoomba and Leura (including this creek valley) to various colonial settlers who subsequently deforested the land for timber, cattle and horse grazing and for town building and associated housing subdivision
The acquisition of this creek valley and surrounding land by one John Britty North [1831-1917] in the 1870s for subsequent deforestation, housing subdivision and then for coal mining exploitation to the south
John Britty North’s Katoomba Coal Mine’s coal shale tramway corridor (3 metres wide along the western ridge of the valley since the 1870s from the Jamison Valley escarpment (where Scenic World is located) to a rail loading platform called North’s Siding near the corner of Valley Road and Bathurst Road (next to what locals call ‘Shell Corner’ – where the Shell servicestation used to be situated, currently Bohman Automotive repairs.)
Incremental sales of bushland by Council for housing subdivisions along with urban streets over many years since the 1880s
Catalina Park amusement park and lake [1946-1951]
Council’s subsequent purchase of the land of Catalina Park in 1952
Catalina Park motor racing circuit leased by Council to the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers Club Ltd [1957-1971]
Council’s aquatic centre constructed in Katoomba Falls Creek valley in the 1980s
Two Council cricket ovals at Katoomba Reserve
Katoomba Golf Course [1911-2013]
Council’s rezoning and subdivision approval of ‘The Escarpments’ townhouses on a portion of the Katoomba Golf Course site (2000 – current)
Council’s caravan park (currently called ‘Katoomba Falls Tourist Park’)
The NSW Government’s Rural Fire Service’s South Katoomba RFB Station with subsequent access roads
The NSW Government’s Rural Fire Service’s Bushfire Control Centre built near the aquatic centre below Mission Street
As a secret waste dump for hundreds of tonnes of sand and rock on top of the swamp extracted from the RTA’s Great Western Highway cutting between Blackheath and Mount Victoria
The areas previously gazetted by Council as Frank Walford Park, Mc Rae’s Paddock, Selby Street Reserve and Katoomba Falls Reserve have in piecemeal been handed over to Gundungurra (Aboriginal)-only custodianship as ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ in 2002
Council’s proposed ‘Centre for Planetary Health’ to occupy the defunct golf course clubhouse from 2022

This list is not complete.

The remnant natural bushland portions of The Gully Water Catchment continue to be steadily sold off periodically by Council (along with many other bushland blocks owned by Council in order it seems to bankroll Council’s annual operations and councillors’ capital works indulgences – external consultants, legal fees, media public relations, over-paid executive management, and unnecessary capital works projects.

The Gully

‘The Gully’ is the old affectionate name given to this creek valley above Katoomba Falls and in particular to the northern portion by its former residents (numbering two or three dozen or so) who lived there for decades from the early 19th Century first contact with British colonial settlers. This was until the last residents were forcibly removed from the gully 1957-1959 by Council and their homes demolished by contracted bulldozer.

“By May 1959, the shacks of the last Gully residents had been all demolished to make way for the Catalina Racing Circuit which officially opened in 1961. “

– John Merriman, Blue Mountains historian.

Aboriginal interpretative sign of 2008 positioned at the entrance to The Gully. It briefly outlines the record of former residents who lived there before the racetrack land usurpation of The Gully.

Those residents comprised both locally Aboriginal clan families, comprising predominantly people of Gundungurra and Darug ancestry as well as non-Aboriginal, many of whom had inter-married. It had been a tight-knit self-sufficient yet quite poor community refuge of displaced persons, subsisting in bushland typically in meagre dirt-floor shacks with no utilities (i.e. no connected running water, electricity, gas, plumbing, phonelines or streets).

It had been simple bush living refuge of poor folk subsisting on the fringe of Katoomba of both regional Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal and a intermarried mix of both. Many had been previously displaced in 1948 from their Burragorang Valley bush homes when the NSW government evicted them to flood the valley to create a Sydney’s Warragamba Dam reservoir. The Gully was a close-knit community.

It holds archaeological evidence thanks to field research separately by Dianne Johnson, Ph.D (2001) and Alan Lance (2005) which confirm ancient Aboriginal archaeological sites within the gully extending to ancient origins, extending back as far as 12000 years.

The Gully in the old days (early 1800s to the 1957-59 forced eviction by Blue Mountains {city} Council.

But The Gully people must have had sewage since around 1907 when then Katoomba Municipal Council had trenched up the valley for sewage to flow to the ‘Leura Filter Beds’ via the escarpment around Katoomba Falls and situated down in the Jamison Valley. Remnants of the long disused iron sewer pipe infrastructure may still be seen along on the hiking track between Katoomba Kiosk and the Furber Steps access down into the Jamison Valley.

Before colonial settlement, The Gully had been a traditional ‘summer camp’ location used by regional Aboriginal peoples for meeting and ceremonial place of traditional Aboriginal peoples of the Gundungurra, Darug, Wonnarua, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal of the greater Blue Mountains region and adjoining lands. This was usually is the warmer times of year and this connection to country. Particularly appealing to these traditional people was the constant and reliable supply of fresh flowing spring water and the abundance of bush tacker and wildlife to sustain a small community.

‘The Gully Bringing Back the Sweetwater’, by former residents of The Gully and descendants.

[Source: Blue Mountains {city} Council]

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was long the gazetted name of this creek valley by local council for decades throughout the 20th Century. The following map shows some identified sub-portions of the creek valley juxtaposed within the black dotted line of the overall water catchment, flowing to Katoomba Falls to the south.

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley – Study Area and Land Status, Draft Plan of Management, (renamed by Council as Upper Kedumba River Plan of Management), by Connell Wagner April 1996.

It was affectionately referred to simply as ‘The Valley’ by surrounding residents’ grassroots environmental group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (The Friends) which functioned to respect and rehabilitate its natural values and ecology as informal ecological custodians and to challenge the many damaging threats to it by various vested outside interests between the years 1989 and 2016; some 27 years.

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was the historical name of the full length of this creek valley water catchment up until 1995.

The following recent YouTube video shows the downstream water emanating from this creek valley flowing over Katoomba Cascades and then down Katoomba Falls.

Upper Kedumba River Valley

In 1995 Blue Mountains {city} Council unilaterally decided to rename Katoomba Falls Creek Valley as ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘ without local community consultation. One presumes that Council’s renaming logic was because this the central creek flows of this upland valley flows to Katoomba Cascades and over to Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River more than 300 metres down in the Jamison Valley below, so it seems that some bureaucrat in Council wanted to continue the name to the small creek above the falls.

The renaming suggests Council’s recognition of this upland creek valley as being part of the water catchment area of the Kedumba River below Katoomba Falls and through the lower Jamison Valley. One suspects that given Council’s decades of fighting against the wises of local community environmental activist group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Inc. and that the renaming of the creek valley was a snide attempt by Council to undermine the validity of this group.

Compare the following two documents below. The second shows the original name crossed out by Council.

This study and report by Fred Bell and his environmental consulting team was commissioned by The Friends at a cost of $10,000. It was formerly submitted by The Friends to Council, but was wholly ignored by Council bureaucracy and the councillors at the time. A full transcript copy is made availabe on this website at: https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/gully-report-1-the-bell-report-of-1993/

This subsequent report was commissioned by Council at ratepayer expense and prepared by Sydney based consulting firm (in Neutral Bay) Connell Wagner and probably at considerably higher cost – not their money.

Council’s 1996 plan of management was pretty much a copy of Fred Bell’s 1993 plan of management for The Friends. Both plans considered the entire water catchment and recommended similar environmental restorative actions be undertaken. It didn’t happen.

As a former member of The Friends, this author recalls that when the group learned of the renaming on Council’s 1996 plan of management title, the group chose not to change their name. Affectionately the members just referred to the entire water catchment simply as ‘The Valley’ for short anyway.

What is so hypocritical of Council’s recognition of this upland creek valley as forming the upper reaches of the water catchment area of the Kedumba River, is that over the decades both state and local government have repeatedly divided up the contiguous water flowing nature of this creek valley in various ways. This includes rezoning various portions of the land from being gazetted as ‘community land’ to being ‘operational land’ so it could be re-purposed and exploited. This dates from the colonial 1870s and continues with Council’s most recent culturally exclusive plan of management of 2021.

Land use development examples include:

James Henry Neale’s subdivision and lobbying from the 1870s to build what has become Katoomba township
John Britty North’s adjoining subdivision and joint lobbying for housing and coal shale mining access from 1883
Various housing subdivision approvals by Council since
Horace Gates Catalina (amusement) Park and dam construction 1946-1951
Council’s sewer network trenching throughout The Gully to facilitate further housing subdivision
Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Motor Racing Club Limited’s motor racing circuit [1957-1971]
Two Council cricket ovals
Council’s aquatic centre – which keeps getting bigger
A bushfire brigade building, hardstand and two access roads
Hundreds of tonnes of sand and rock dumped from a highway development (at Soldiers Pinch) on The Gully’s swampland by the RTA in 2001 (with Council approval)
Sydney Water’s dumping of hundreds of tonnes of sewer fill in The Gully in 2005
Scenic World’s Skyway development in a secret land swap deal between the Parks Service and Council [2006]
Sydney Water’s sewer amplification trenching [2007-2008] to facilitate further housing subdivision

About a hectare of sand and rock fill (1 metre thick) was dumped on top of The Gully swampland by the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) in 2001. The RTA has since been rebranded RMS and current TfNSW, probably to avoid its bad reputation.

This is just to name a few, and this doesn’t include the many hair-brained proposals for The Gully over the years, like an ice-rink, basketball courts, Scenic World’s cable hang-gliding and flying fox, a complete housing subdivision to be called ‘Highmark’, low-rent accommodation, a museum, and even Katoomba’s own mono-rail! Study Council’s 1981 Plan of Management map below.

The Gully’s legacy of exploitation exemplified in Blue Mountains {city} Council’s 1981 proposed development Plan of (mis)Management, page 38.

The word ‘Kedumba’ is has Aboriginal origins and is just a variation of the word ‘Katoomba’ depending on how it is pronounced. The original meaning was supposedly “tumbling waters” in reference to Katoomba Cascades and Katoomba Falls below.

Katoomba Falls

Another theory espoused by local Blue Mountains historian Jim Smith Ph.D. is that ‘Katoom-ba‘ could have been a local aboriginal Gundungurra phrase relating to the pointing to a certain edible ‘fern: ‘Katoom’ (the fern plant) and ‘ba’ (over there) down in the Jamison Valley. We like the tumbling waters version.

Blue Mountains {city} Council has since renamed Upper Kedumba River as Kedumba River on Google Maps:

Council renamed Katoomba Falls Creek as Kedumba River. Seriously, has Blue Mountains {city} Council bureaucracy got nothing better to do than indulge in ‘cancel culture’ renaming of local geography?

McRae’s Horse Paddock

This middle portion of the creek valley used to be colloquially called by locals as McRae’s Horse Paddock possibly in the post-WWII days of nearby Catalina Park.

This portion comprises the riparian zone and bushland either side of Katoomba Falls Creek extending southward downstream situated south of Gates Avenue in the north, to Neale Street in the south and east of Peckmans Road in the west as the following map shows. It excluse the lands already sold off by Councik for residential housing in the east along Loftus Street.

McRae’s Paddock map, in McRae’s Paddock Action Plan (1996-1999) in Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Draft Plan of Managamnt Main Report, prepared for Blue Mountains {city} Council by Connell Wagner, April 1996. (no page number)

McRaes Paddock (as it has become abbreviated by Council) is characterised as a narrrow riparian swampland corridor midway along the valley creek that extends from being channeled as a drain culvert underneath Gates Avenue and then south for about 800 metres to being similarly channeled as a drain culvert underneath Neale Street.

The creek corridor at this creek valley portion narrows from about 200 metres wide to 100 metres at Neale Street, and the approximate remnant swamp/bushland area not yet been encroached upon by housing, covers about 70 hectares (or 0.7 km²).

Anecdotal local oral history records that the land owner was a grazier by the name of McRae (Scottish heritage spelt ‘Macrae’) who grazed his horses in this ploughed up swampland and the surrounding natural grassland either side of the comparatively narrower section of this creek valley.

Prior to the use of this area as a horse paddock, it had been utilised for market gardening as old photos reveal.

Jimmy War Sing, a Chinese market gardener (circa 1903) of this creek valley area from which the swamp has been ploughed up and soil brought in.

Over the decades post-WWI, Gully locals shortened the name to just ‘McRae’s Paddock’ and the name stuck. The surname has Scottish ancestral origins, the ‘Clan Macrae’ being a traditional Scottish highland clan, however the origins of McRae’s Horse Paddock are not know to us, yet, but give us time with our ongoing research for this website.

Catalina (amusement) Park

Post World War II, between 1946 and 1951 local Katoomba tourism entrepreneurial businessman, Horace Gates, established an amusement park in the valley (The Gully) that, with support from local council aldermen, he named Catalina Park.

Catalina Park circa 1949. [SOURCE: ‘Catalina Park’ blog article by John Merriman, Blue Mountains Local Studies, 2010-06-18, ^https://bmlocalstudies.blogspot.com/2010/06/catalina-park-katoomba.html ]

However not long after, by 1951 Horace Gates had lost patronage for his amusement attraction and the venue fell into disrepair. In 1952 local council acquired his land in the valley.

Catalina Park Raceway

At this time, Council had hiked up the land rates of properties across the Blue Mountains including those in this creek valley. It was in order to fund Council’s then utility obligations in a growing need for sewage, electricity and road making. Over more than a decade post-war, Council had forcibly acquired many bushland properties that had been investment block of private land holders due to the repeated non-payment of Council’s increasing rate hikes, outsourcing the legalities to the Katoomba legal firm Soper Brothers. By 1957, Council owned most of The Gully.

During the 1950s motorcar racing had become very popular in Australia and particularly with local businessmen in the Upper Blue Mountains who had bought racing cars and wanted to test them out and to compete with one another. Numerous small motorcar garages established and there became a growing motorcar racing fraternity. They registered as as company as the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Limited.

Their short uphill car races became popular, usurping various steep local streets of Katoomba and their power and influence evolved into them lobbying Council for a dedicated local car racing circuit to be established in the Upper Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains Councillors obliged on Tuesday 2nd April 1957 by passing the following motions thus:

SOURCE: Council of The [city} of Blue Mountains councillor special meeting minute 447 (c), page 216, dated Tuesday 2nd April 1957.

And then on the same day:

SOURCE: Council of The [city} of Blue Mountains councillor special meeting minute 450, page 216, dated Tuesday 2nd April 1957.

So between 1957 and 1959, Blue Mountains [city] Council proceeded to forcible evict the residents of The Gully and demolish their homes in order to appease these influential businessmen and to construct a motor-racing racetrack circuit in the northern amphitheatre portion of this creek valley. Council funded the racetrack construction by way of a loan to the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Limited, using ratepayer moneys. That loan was never repaid.

The usurping motor racing fraternity then called the place ‘Catalina Park‘, named after the float plane that had decades earlier been positioned in an artificial dam alongside the creek as an amusement attraction.

The Catalina Park Raceway motor racing circuit launched in 1961 – with track sections; and the start grid so labelled shown in standard chequered black and white lineage. [Source: ^https://www.racingcircuits.info/australasia/australia/catalina-park.html]

Frank Walford Park

This is the name that Blue Mountains {city} Council gave to the northern portion of the creek valley which forms a natural amphitheatre shape and covers about 80 hectares. In the 1990’s, following the demise of Catalina Park racetrack, the government landowner of The Gully, councillors on the Blue Mountains {city} Council unilaterally named this northern portion of the creek valley after one of their own, former alderman Frank Walford [1882-1969] who was also the local mayor on three occasions.

Frank Walford was from Sydney and settled in Katoomba from 1919 just after The Great War where he worked as a journalist with the local newspaper The Blue Mountains Echo and became its editor. He was a keen and experienced bushwalker, bushman, mountaineer a variable adventurer. He became an accomplished author of novels and poetry.

As alderman and mayor he was largely credited (accused by former residents of ‘The Gully’) as being largely responsible for approving the motor racing circuit in 1957 in this portion of the creek valley. However, while he supported the race track construction, Council records show that he was not mayor at the time in 1957, but an alderman.

The park sign off Madge Walford Fountain car park just by Lake Catalina. It was moved likely by Council sometime around 2014. Madge was Frank’s wife. [Photo by Editor 2007-10-27]

Frank Walford Park is bounded by a steep bushland amphitheatre up to the surrounding ridgeline along where Lower Wells Street borders to the north, where Valley Road and Mission Street borders to the west, where Cascade Street borders to the east; and to the south where Gates Avenue, Catalina Avenue and Farnells Road. There is also a spur-line that juts into the valley from the east which includes the residential streets of Murri Street, Waimea Street and Warriga Street.

The surrounding street map around Frank Walford Park. [Google Maps, 2022]

It was the broader gazetted land area of the creek valley around which the 1940s amusement park ‘Catalina Park’ centred around the artificial lake was constructed by Horace Gates and later from 1957 where the 2.1 km ‘Catalina Park’ motor racing circuit was constructed by the former Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Limited.

Probably a key justification for Council’s naming of Frank Walford Park after Frank’s passing in 1969 was because his home with his wife Madge was situated close by in an 1880s stone house up on the eastern spur-line overlooking Dunlop Corner at 6 Kundibar Street in Katoomba. Frank and his wife became a fan of the motor racing so much so that during the circuit’s peak operation in the 1960’s Frank had a second storey added to their the stone house as well as a small balcony so they could better watch the car racing especially from the starting grid up Lockheed Straight and left around the sharp Dunlop Corner.

Dunlop Corner of Catalina Park (anti-clockwise) motor racing circuit circa 1965 looking west from up near Katoomba Tyres on Cascade Street. Frank Walford’s family home was located left of the photo, uphill on the spurline above the racetrack. With all the trees cleared by Council, Mayor Walford created an uninterrupted view from his new upstairs balcony. [SOURCE: Blue Mountains Local Studies, ^https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_mountains_library_-_local_studies/33414945591/]

Katoomba Park (and Katoomba Park Extension)

This comprises the southern portion of The Gully Water Catchment between Neale Street and to the Jamison clifftop escarpment around Katoomba Falls. It includes the two sports ovals primarily used for local cricket during the summer months, as well as the caravan park called Katoomba Falls Tourist Park. It also includes the riparian zone along the eastern tributary that has its headwaters at where Hinkler Memorial Park is situated and flows through Selby Street Reserve and alongside Council Maple Grove tourist picnic area. This water course confluences into the main creek just near the road bridge at Cliff Drive.

The confluence of Katoomba Falls Creek (Upper Kedumba River) and the eastern side watercourse (unnamed) which flows through Selby Street Reserve from Hinkler Park. [Photo by editor August 2022].

The names ‘Katoomba Park’ and ‘Katoomba Park Extension’ date from the 1990s and are documented in the Bell Report to Council of 1993 and in the Connell Wagner Plan of Management Report to Council of 1996.

Extract of ‘The Gully Water Catchment’ [SOURCE: Dr Val Attenbrow’s Map of 1993 as ‘The Study Area’, in Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study | Draft Report and Management Plan prepared for Blue Mountains [city] Council | by F.&J. Bell & Associates | June 1993 | page 3 of 87]

Eight years hence, by the time of Council’s Plans of Management of 2004, prepared by consultancy Environmental Partnership, this area was re-labelled ‘Katoomba Falls Reserve – Cascades section (Selby Street)‘. It had become a disjointed collection of land parcels as the following map shows.

Katoomba Falls Reserve Katoomba Cascades land categorisation map in Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management, revised edition 2004, p. 65

Notably, the following land parcels have been excluded from Katoomba Falls Reserve in Council’s 2004 plan:

The two sports ovals
Most of the bushland south of Cliff Drive
The escarpment top bushland that includes Prince Henry Picnic Area
The area bushland around Katoomba Falls Kiosk, including the kiosk
The area of bushland around what is now Scenic World’s Skyway East Station (sold by the Parks Service to Scenic World in 2006)
The riparian area around Katoomba Cacades and atop Katoomba Falls, including Katoomba Cascades
About 4 hectares of intact swamp/bushland including Maple Grove picnic area (Area ‘A’ below)
About a hectare of intact swamp/bushland south along Cliff Drive (Area ‘B’ below)
About a hectare of intact swamp and bushland at the address 14-20 Katoomba Falls Road (Area ‘C’ below)

Edited Google Maps aerial photo, 2022.

Katoomba Falls Reserve

This comprises the southern portion of The Gully Water Catchment and is a mix of Crown Land owned by the NSW Government around the creek to Katoomba Cascades and the top of the Jamison Valley clifftop escarpment at Katoomba Falls.

It includes council owned riparian zone of the creek and surrounding bushland from Neale Street flowing southward, as well as the two sports (cricket) ovals, Katoomba Falls Tourist Park, Maple Grove Park, as well as the side creek riparian zone from Warialda Street and Selby Street, which for years was referred to as Selby Street Reserve.

Selby Street Reserve

This is the above mentioned side creek riparian zone and bushland to the north east direction to Warialda Street and Selby Street. The headwaters of this watercourse begin from a spring originally situated where Hinkler Park lies in a hollow.

The original swamp headwater location of the watercourse in Selby Street Reserve.[Photo by editor August 2022].

Katoomba Golf Course

The Katoomba Golf Course site lies wholly within The Gully Water Catchment situated on the south western portion near the Jamison Escarpment. It covers 30 hectares and the land is owned by Blue Mountains {city} Council, formerly Katoomba Council, and as such it is community land. The Katoomba Golf Club formed in 1911 after the Council approved the native woodland and swamps to be destroyed to make way for fertilised lawn fairways and putting greens.

An historic pursuit by Scottish gentry from 1297AD, Katoomba Golf Course was bulldozed into this creek valley from 1911 as a 9-hole golf course and later bulldozed out to a 18 hole golf course. It went broke in 2013 due to lack of interest in golf, but the ecological damage had been done.

In the 1990s the 9-hole course was expanded to 18 holes by deforesting more adjoining woodland. By 2013 the owner of the club went into liquidation.

At the time of writing, Council has leased the upstairs level of the clubhouse to the Parks Service and is proposing to lease the lower level to a new organisation it terms The Centre for Planetary Health in a joint partnership with two universities. It remains unclear what that organisation will achieve and what the future use of the land will be.

21 Stuarts Road: bushland subdivision for housing

21 Stuarts Road Katoomba is located in the south-west portion of The Gully Water Catchment. It is a single bushland site of covering 12 hectares that is situated between Stuarts and Wellington Roads, west of Burrawang Street in the west of Katoomba. The site comprises remnant bushland, swampland and riparian zone around a watercourse in a easterly-sloped side gully flowing westward confluencing with Kedumba Creek (previously Katoomba Falls Creek) about 200m to the east and downstream.

SOURCE: Google Maps 2022

The following street map identifies ’21’ Stuarts Road in more detail.

SOURCE: Blue Mountains {city} Council, Interactive Maps, ^http://emapping.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/connect/analyst/mobile/?mapcfg=Locality#/main?mapcfg=Locality

Blue Mountains {city} Council records reveal that between 2002 and 2006, the property owner of a rural bushland site, one Ronald Heasman applied for a land use subdivision of the entire site so he could sell off the land for housing development. Heasman’s initial development application to Council proposed a one into 69 lot subdivision [DP 593545, No. 21 STUARTS ROAD, KATOOMBA, FILE NO: (DA) S03/0029]

Essentially, the DA was to bulldoze all the 12 hectares of entire remnant woodland and swampland ecology of the site in order to create and profit from a village-scale dense urbanisation of 69 residential dwellings.

In order to revalue the ecological integrity of this western side gully of The Gully, over time Heasman despatched various bulldozers, excavators, forestry cutters and mulchers and his tractor with a mowing slasher attached to destroy the bushland.

Heasman’s tractor in action on 21 Stuarts Road that The Friends dubbed ‘Hector’. It has been used to steadily deforest this side valley to undermine the ecological integrity. [Photo courtesy of the (former) Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. taken 2005-01-08].

Relevant planning controls at the time included

Local Environmental Plan 4 (LEP 4) zones the site Residential 2(a1), a zone that permits subdivision and detached dwellings. The minimum allotment size is 700m2 for ordinary allotments and 1,100m2 for hatchet shaped allotments. The minimum frontage is 18.5m.
Local Environmental Plan 1991 (LEP 91) zones the site Environmental Protection. LEP 91 identifies land with a slope in excess of 33% as Protected Area – Environmental Constraints Area.
Local Environmental Plan 2005 (LEP 2005) zones the site Living Bushland conservation and Environmental Protection – General Zone. The LEP designates part of the site Protected Area – Slope Constraint Area, Protected Area – Ecological Buffer Area, and Protected Area – Water Supply Catchment.
The Blue Mountains Better Living Development Control Plan (the Better Living DCP).

At the time, local resident conservation group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. actively campaigned to prevent the ecological destruction of this side valley and against the subdivision for mass housing development application, lobbying Council and arguing as follows:

An over development of the site
The building parameters are unclear.
Significant Alteration of Bushland Character
Fails to comply with ‘Lot Layout’
Fails to comply with ‘Cluster Housing’
Proposal Fails to Provide Adequate Environmental Protection Buffer
Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of LEP 1991
Proposal Is Contrary to the Objectives of ‘Residential A1’ Zoning Under LEP4
Proposal is Contrary to The Objectives of ‘Environmental Protection’ Zoning Under LEP4
Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of ‘Environmental Protection’ Zoning under Draft LEP 2002
Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of ‘Living Bushland Conservation’ Zoning under Draft LEP 2002
Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of ‘Protected Areas’ Zoning under Draft LEP 2002
Likely adverse environmental impact on the ‘Slope Constraint’ Areas
Likely adverse environmental impact on the watercourse
Likely adverse environmental impact upon the water supply catchment.
Likely adverse environmental impact upon the indigenous vegetation and native fauna
Likely Adverse Impact on Biodiversity
Failure to undertake adequate surveys for likely Aboriginal heritage
Failure to assess likely impacts upon Aboriginal Place downstream
Consequential Excessive Demand Upon Katoomba’s Existing Infrastructure, Services and Utilities
Lack of Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
Failure to provide an assessment of the likely impact on traffic pressures on nearby streetsnersurvey Increased Traffic Congestion to Adjoining and Nearby Streets
The Proposed Creation of Burrawang Street Will Destroy The Existing Bushland Amenity
The Proposal Fails to Identify Likely Impacts to Carlton Street
The Site Location is Too Distant From Town to Justify the provision of ‘Accessible Housing’
The Proposal Fails to Provide Sufficient Details of Dwelling Locations, Design and Landscaping
The Site is Zoned for Environmental Protection
The Subdivision Boundary Will Encroach Upon The Ecological Buffer Area
Destruction of Indigenous Vegetation Communities & Habitat
Downstream Contamination of Kedumba Falls Creek Valley and the Blue Mountains National Park
Absence of a Conservation Management Plan or EIS
Loss of topsoil & contamination by sediment into the watercourse
Steep Slopes Outside Limits for Building Construction
Kedumba Falls Creek Valley holds historical and cultural significance as an aboriginal place.

On 23rd November 2004 [ITEM NO: 7] Blue Mountains {city} Council rightly refused consent for Heasman’s DA outright at its councillors’ ordinary meeting, and pursuant to Section 80 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.

Council formal refusal of Heasman’s massive subdivision was made on the following grounds:

The proposal is contrary to Clause 33 of Local Environmental Plan No. 4 as the proposed battleaxe allotments are below minimum size requirements and there are numerous allotments that do not have minimum frontages required, resulting in an over development of the site.
The proposal is contrary to Clause 42 of Local Environmental Plan No. 4 as the proposal if carried out would not achieve satisfactory arrangements to reduce the risk of bush fire without significantly impacting on the environmental qualities of the site; and due to the impact on the visual amenity of the locality.
The proposal is contrary to the objectives of the Environmental Protection zone within Local Environmental Plan 1991.
The proposal is contrary to Clause 10.5 of Local Environmental Plan 1991 as the proposal if carried out would have an unsatisfactory impact on the native vegetation contained within the site and would have an adverse impact on the water supply catchment and on development excluded land within the site.
The proposal is contrary to the objectives of the Environmental Protection zone, the Living Bushland Conservation zone and the Protected Areas on the site as proposed and mapped under Draft Local Environmental Plan 2002.
The proposal will, if carried out, constitute an over development of the site due to Draft Local Environmental Plan 2002 as the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the proposal will have no adverse environmental impact:
1. The proposal includes development on the slope constraint areas within Precinct C and Precinct B; and
2. The proposal will impact on the watercourse that traverses the site and on the buffers that contribute to the protection of that watercourse; and
3. The proposal will impact on the water supply catchment (Kedumba Creek Catchment) mapped for this locality; and
4. The proposal will impact on the indigenous vegetation and native fauna present on the site and on significant vegetation communities on the site and downstream of the site; and
5. The requirements for Asset Protection will have significant impacts on the biodiversity of the site; and
6. The proposal does not comply with the considerations for lot layout, nor does it comply with the definition of cluster housing.
The development proposal will if carried out, result in significant alteration of the character of the area from a residential bushland character to an urban character.
The applicant has failed to undertake adequate surveys or assessments of the potential of the development to impact on the potential for Aboriginal heritage significance on the site; nor has there been adequate assessment of the potential for the development to impact on the Aboriginal Place located downstream of the subject site.
Insufficient details have been provided in relation to the management of asset protection zones on the site; and landscaping details for individual allotments and across the public areas of the site; and Aboriginal archaeology and cultural significance.

Persistent to get his way, Heasman took Council to the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales (in Sydney) multiple times between 2004 and 2006. He amended his DA proposal thus:

“The applicant proposes to subdivide the land under community title into 46 lots (43 residential lots and 3 community lots) and to erect a dwelling on 42 of the residential lots. The development is divided into three sections: Precincts A, B and C. Lot A8 is a residential lot of 5,032m2, which is proposed for a six-lot subdivision but presented as a single lot because of the uncertainty of access from Burrawang Road. The applicant indicated that when that access becomes available, it intends to lodge a development application reinstating the original six-lot subdivision.” [SOURCE: Heasman v Blue Mountains City Council, 11039 of 2004].

Heasman’s appeal to the Land and Environment Court (LEC) in Sydney used a team of solicitors and barristers who seconded five so-called expert witnesses to support his appeal on technical grounds, being:

Mr M Ball, a town planner retained by the applicant;
Ms N Cavanagh, a town planner employed by the council;
Mr P Mehl, a consulting civil engineer retained by the applicant;
Dr P Bacon, a natural resource scientist retained by the council; and
Mr R Morse, an environmental scientist appointed by the Court,

With support from Council’s appointed experts Ms N Cavanagh and Dr P Bacon, The Land and Environment Court subsequently overruled Councillors’ decision to refuse the application. LEC Senior Commissioner, Dr John Roseth, residing, upheld Heasman’s appeal thus:

“As I indicated above, discussions between the experts led to complete agreement between them. The agreement is reflected in the amended drawings as well as in the conditions of consent. The parties appeared before me on 10 March 2006 stating that there were no outstanding issues and that I should make orders in chambers approving the application.

Orders
1. The appeal is upheld.

2. Development application subdivide the land under community title into 46 lots (43 residential lots and 3 community lots) and to erect a dwelling on 42 of the residential lots on lots 1, 2 and 4 DP 593545, known as 21 Stuarts Road, Katoomba is determined by the granting of consent subject to the conditions in Annexure A.

3. The exhibits are returned except Exhibits 28, A, J, K, L and M.”

The ecological destruction of this side valley incrementally persists to this day, as remnant bushland gets bulldozed and the site is converted to a housing estate and Heasman profits.

Built-Up Subdivided Residential Katoomba

Almost a half of The Gully Water Catchment comprises housing and commercial subdivision across the eastern portion. It includes the commercial high street of Katoomba being Katoomba Street. This water catchment extends from Cascade Street in the north to Ada Street in the east to Lurline Street in the south. North’s Estate housing subdivision extends into the creek valley down a spur westward from the Carrington Hotel on top of the hill. The eastern boundary of the housing subdivision runs north-south along Loftus Street.

The exact date of Katoomba’s settlement is unclear, but since 1815 it has been on the south side of the Cox’s Road first colonial crossing of the Blue Mountains high plateau bush country. The railway passed by the site of what would become Katoomba from 1967, but the railway platform was not built until 1874. Katoomba was then just a remote rural locality, referred to as The ‘Crushers’ a sandstone quarry for ballast for train descent down plateau eastward. It was situated adjacent to the rail line opposite the site of what is currently The Edge Cinema) as shown in the late 19th Century land title map below.

In 1967, English emigrant pastoralist and later Australian politician, James Henry Neale [1828 – 1890], acquired perhaps the first private permanent houses within The Gully Water Catchment including his ‘Froma House’ situated on the site of the current TAFE college on what is now Parke Street.

As the map reveals, Neale purchased the then swampland of what is referred to as McRae’s Paddock south of what is now Gates Avenue to Katoomba Park. Neale Street on this land is named after Neale. Contrary to standard compass point street planning of the time, Neale Street formed a convenient direct bee-line diagonal access road from his Froma House home to the coal mine that was owned by English emigrant, John Britty North [1831-1917] from 1880. North was a merchant, stockbroker, mining agent and later mining operator of Katoomba Coal and Shale Co. Ltd.

In the 1870s, North had acquired the rest of the plateau bushland and swampland of The Gully Water Catchment and southward into the Jamison Valley, by taking out a mortgage loan with England-based London Chartered Bank of Australia. See his holdings are shown in the map above. The land labelled on the map as Katoomba Park in green was probably retained as Crown land, as it remains so today. North steadily subdivided his land holdings during the 1880s in order to profit from the residential land sales as a means of financing his shale mining business.

The Gully Water Catchment is show by the dotted black outline on the map below. The eastern portion is dominated by the Katoomba township.

‘The Gully Water Catchment’ [SOURCE: Dr Val Attenbrow’s Map of 1993 as ‘The Study Area’, in Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study | Draft Report and Management Plan prepared for Blue Mountains [city] Council | by F.&J. Bell & Associates | June 1993 | page 3 of 87].

All rainfall runoff and stormwater from these streets, inside the dotted black line, flows to Katoomba Falls and to the Kedumba River below in the Jamison Valley. This has formed part of the water reservoir behind Warragamba Dam for Sydney’s drinking water supply since it was completed and opened on 14 October 1960.

So what goes down these Katoomba drains ends up in Sydney’s drinking water. As a result, WaterNSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales, which controls Warragamba Dam water drinking supply adds disinfectants (typically chloramine (chlorine), ammonia and fluoride) to disinfect and purify the water to help make it safe to drink.

A large 3 metre wide stormwater drain at the riparian block at 233A Katoomba Street opposite Hinkler Park at the base of the hill of Katoomba Street. Stormwater runoff from the street and via a large culvert under the street pipe raw stormwater directly into the side creek behind through Selby Street Reserve. [Photo by editor 2022-08-12].

And this is where the stormwater from this drain flows to via a large pipe into the side creek…

‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ [Council’s Plan of 2004]

The community lands within this creek valley that had long been gazetted by Council as ‘Frank Walford Park’, ‘Mc Rae’s Paddock’, ‘Selby Street Reserve’ and ‘Katoomba Falls Reserve’ were in 2004 collectively incorporated into Council’s Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management of some 105 pages. This 2004 plan followed a series of previously separate plans for this creek valley that extend back to the 1950s and even back to the days of colonial settler ownership and subdivision of from the 1860s. This 2004 plan was the first to recognise regional Aboriginal historical and pre-historical attachment to this creek valley and was the first plan after this creek valley had been formally declared an ‘Aboriginal Place’, named ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW).

The rationale and the emergence of legal Aboriginal custodianship of this creek valley came at a brief period in Australia’s socio-political history (pretty much concentrated from Whitlam’s Labor government coming to power in 1972 through to 2002 in respect to this creek valley. The becoming of ‘The Gully- Aboriginal Place‘ is best described in detail particularly 2001-2002 in the documentary book ‘Sacred Waters – The Story of the Blue Mountains Gully Traditional Owners‘ by anthropologist Dianne Johnson [1947-2012] published in 2007. In her superbly researched book, Johnson explains that the critical mover and shaker was local Gundungurra Elder Dawn Colless who in August 2001 had formally nominated the Upper Katoomba Falls Creek Valley (The Gully) for consideration as an Aboriginal Place. Johnson worked closely with Aunty Dawn and members of the Aboriginal community to prepare the submission for state government. This included two related books ‘Aunty Joan Cooper Through the Front Door – a Darug and Gundungurra Story‘ (February 2003) and ‘Report to the Gundungurra Tribal Council concerning Gundungurra Native Title Claim‘ (2004).

On 18th May 2002, the Hon. Bob Debus as NSW member for Blue Mountains and Minister for the Environment, officially declared The Gully “An Aboriginal Place” – a place of special significance to Aboriginal culture.

A concern at the time, was that the declaration had been closed supported by Council and the Parks Service, which had chosen to emphasise the Gundungurra cultural custodianship of this creek valley over and above other cultural claims by Darug, Wonnarua, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal Aboriginal peoples. Council with the Parks Service also behind closed doors and with selective invitees to the declaration process, had deliberately excluded interested local residents, particularly ostracising the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley (bushcare group), who had since forming in 1989 had continually lobbied Council to end the car racing and to start ecologically rehabilitating this creek valley. The Friends wholly supported respecting Aboriginal cultural claims to The Gully, having over the years learning about their legacy of Aboriginal dispossession. Founder and leader of The Friends, Neil Stuart [1937-2016] initiated a joint community informal partnership between The Friends and former residents of The Gully (aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) and with other caring local residents in 2002, called the informal partnership The Gully Guardians.

But on matters concerning any decisions and management of The Gully – Aboriginal Place, Council has cultural form and policy of refusing to consult with anyone outside their selected few of the Gundungurra. It is an effective socio-political tactic of ‘divide and conquer’ by an organisation hell-bent on process control through ostracising those in the community it does not wish to be accountable to.

As a former member of the Friends, let the truth be told.

Katoomba Falls downstream, politics upstream

The truth about ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ as set aside by Council is that it is only a part of The Gully Water Catchment. Of the remnant bushland within this catchment, ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ comprises selective land portions that are not contiguous, that is, they don’t link up. Yet The Gully historically, before the racetrack land usurpation, which the former residents considered The Gully. It was/is one unified little valley from the northern ridgetop down to Katoomba Falls – two kilometres north to south and one kilometre east to west.

This is what Council bureaucracy has done ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place‘ portions – divided them up piecemeal. Careful observation of this mapping reveals that many boundaries have changed since Council’s 2004 plan of management.

Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management map, revised edition 2004, page 6.

Gargaree

In around 2005, a small group of former residents of The Gully (from the pre-1957 Council evictions) and their descendants who hold Gundungurra aboriginal ancestral heritage, decided to form an organisation they named The Gully Traditional Owners (GTO). Their purpose has been to become the sole managing custodians of ”The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ in a memorandum of understanding partnership agreement with the legal landholder Blue Mountains {city} Council.

Regrettably, this has proven to be a controlling initiative over what management decisions are made concerning the Gully, about the priority works and their funding and funding streams. Local residents around The Gully and The Gully Valley Catchment, the broader interested local community and former members of The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley have been deliberately excluded in the consultation process and so effectively ostracised by Council and this group.

If the 1957 forced eviction of The Gully residents for an elitist motor tracing group’s exclusive usage as a racetrack was land usurpation with racist overtones, then how is the current exclusion by The Gully Traditional Owners comprising a select Gundungurra-only membership that excludes interested local residents around The Gully, not the comparable reverse land usurpation…with this time reciprocal racist overtones?

When locals of one race is favoured for planning and decision making about a land area (place) to the deliberate exclusion of a different race of locals, this suggests a racist agenda and so is illegitimate in a national society. This implies a reciprocal repeat of a sad history. As a society here are we learning? Age and experience does not automatically translate to wisdom. It is not a bad thing to grow past your elders in some things.

A few years later GTO decided to rename The Gully (yet again) as ‘Garguree‘. This word apparently means ‘gully’ or ‘valley’ in the Gundungurra language and was sourced from Blue Mountains historian, researcher and author into the Gundungurra history, Jim Smith Ph.D. This follows a contemporary trend of renaming geographic places in Aboriginal language. Is it sending a socially dividing message of some sort of cultural payback to the descendants of non-Aboriginal Australians, who had no say nor played no role in tragic past events in our social history before they were born, just as do the descendants of Aboriginal people and of mixed marriages thereof?

The Gully used to look all like this, pristine riverine ecology uninterrupted by human harm – all the way to Katoomba Falls, Kedumba River, Cox’s River, Nepean River, Hawkesbury River out to Broken Bay on the coast into the Pacific Ocean.

Remnant upland swamp/wetland of The Gully, lately called ‘Gargaree’ [Photo by Editor]

‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ [Council’s Plan of 2021]

Blue Mountains {city} Council persists with ongoing re-categorisation of land tenor within The Gully Catchment Area with its ulterior motives that are locally divisive.

Council’s latest 2021 Plan is one of many over the years. But this one is perhaps worse than the others in that as a plan of management it not about rehabilitating this creek valley , but a biased Aboriginal cultural document that has excluded locals to the benefit of a select few. It prescribes a racist agenda of Reverse Land Usurpation.