The Minister has received a preliminary discussion paper and recommendations from the Director-General of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) for an overhaul. This paper has led to somewhat misleading newspaper headlines about mining in national parks, but there are some very important initiatives which are welcomed by NPA. These include a provision for the NPWS to conduct regional conservation assessments. There are also some elements of considerable concern to NPA, including the very real possibility of commercialisation by stealth despite the best intentions of the Minister.

The proposed regional conservation assessments would need to be formally considered by other government agencies and their Ministers in regional planning and resource allocations. This would mean that at least the Government would have the best available conservation information before deciding on large-scale plans for mining, water for irrigators, dams, clearing for agriculture, new urban areas and conservation reserves.

The review of the Act also has the potential to deliver clear definitions and management objectives for the various categories of reserves within the national parks system, such as national parks, nature reserves and regional parks. Obsolete categories, such as game reserves for hunting and cave reserves, will be abolished. This should be a major improvement over the present situation where there is no clear definition of a national park, and the role of a particular national park has to be implied from the specified objectives for each plan of management.

One category of reserve has been particularly contentious over the years, the State Recreation Area (SRA). This category essentially permits high conservation value lands to be managed by the NPWS for conservation and appropriate recreation even where they are subject to existing, long-term mining leases (mostly for underground coal mining). Without the provision for conservation management, many of the wild places and key water catchments around the Sydney Basin could not have been protected from piecemeal urban development, major new roads, powerlines and pipelines, logging and quarrying. However, designating a site as a State recreation area has often encouraged inappropriate expectations of access for high-impact recreation uses – such as horseriding, 4 wheel driving and trail-bike riding – in highly sensitive areas. In some sections of SRAs, even regular bushwalking can be unsuitable because of the potential for pollution of catchments providing Sydney’s drinking water.

The Minister is now considering replacing SRAs with a new classification of State Conservation Reserve. The primary objective of the new category would be nature conservation, while still allowing for mineral exploration and mining leases at the discretion of the Minister for the Environment. This would also allow for a number of major areas owned or managed by the NPWS, but not officially part of the national parks estate, to be incorporated in the parks system. These have been in limbo pending resolution of longstanding objections by the Department of Mineral Resources about high mineral potential in these lands.

NPA sees the creation of State conservation reserves as a generally constructive change. However, NPA is concerned about the possibility of a double jeopardy being created over existing SRAs; we are seeking safeguards to ensure that no new mineral exploration or leases will be created. We also believe that the new category will need legislative safeguards to ensure that it is not abused by some future government in contradiction to the overarching ideal that mining be excluded from national parks – no mining in national parks is a concept strongly supported by the people of NSW.

A strong, well-organised NPWS which is an advocate for nature conservation is crucial to the best interpretation and implementaion of the Act. However, in the end the community and the NPA must remain vigilant.

There are real question marks over the current leadership of the NPWS. There have recently been highly controversial decisions, such as to lease out the historic North Head Quarantine station; and to support a minimal conservation reserve at the St Marys ADI site while accepting developer funding to manage the reserve. Furthermore, a decision has been made to reorganise the NPWS in a direction which appears to undermine its growing land management responsibilities and rural support.

This is brought into strong focus by the NPWS’s recommendations to the Minister to restructure the National Parks Advisory Council, the peak advisory body on national parks. The NPWS has been advocating the removal of NPA’s direct nominee to the Council as well as nominees of other bodies with conservation expertise and commitment, such as the Australian Museum and the CSIRO. We know that the current NPWS leadership is also promoting the addition of advocates from high-impact recreation groups, the tourism industry and local government. Cumulatively, the changes would make it easy for some future government to stack the Advisory Council with hostile vested interest groups, general mates and public servants from resource development agencies.

The NPWS strays into another conservation mine- field by recommending that the Minister and the Director-General be given the power to create legal access to the hundreds of inholdings in national parks. These are areas of freehold or leasehold ownership surrounded by national park but with limited access. This would avoid the restrictions placed on access by several landmark court decisions and fuel a wave of development pressure on the parks.

Many of these inholdings are deep within national parks and declared wilderness areas of great sensitivity and beauty. Owners and developers would immediately see the tourism resort or rural subdivision potential of many sites if permission could be obtained to construct new roads. Other areas are in highly desirable coastal locations, such as the western shores of Pittwater. The NPWS has been resisting pressure for road access for years from landholders in some small enclaves in this area such as Lovetts Bay, Towlers Bay and Mackerel Beach. Given legal road access these villages would soon expand, bringing all the associated urban ills. A network of bitumen roads would soon scar the West Head Peninsula.

Many of these inholdings are desirable additions to the parks system, and currently have low property values because of restricted access rights. This would change dramatically if owners saw an opportunity to obtain legal road access. The NPWS already has a totally inadequate budget to buy land. This proposal would no doubt see the abandonment of acquisition of many sites which are essential for conservation, the protection of wilderness and the cost-effective management of parks.

The recommendation is ill-judged and ill-advised, and we hope that the Minister will reject it.

The most serious area of concern though is the potential commercialisation of much of the parks system through proposals to create a wider range of allowable uses for heritage buildings, modified natural areas and existing non-heritage structures. The Minister is to be allowed to create new historic sites in any national park, nature reserve or declared wilderness area without the present need to get approval from Parliament. Each of these sites would have an extended range of allowable uses which may bear no relationship to the primary conservation or cultural heritage purposes of the reserve. This reflects the mistaken concept that the Government can or should only invest in built heritage conservation if it can use the buildings or sites to generate revenue. It would also lead to an over-emphasis on the restoration and management of delapidated rural buildings to generate local park revenue.

Existing buildings and modified areas are simply to be allowed a wider range of uses, again not necessarily related to the conservation or quiet enjoyment purposes of a park. If such structures or modified areas are not needed for the operational management of the park, nor related to its primary objectives, then they should clearly be demolished or rehabilitated. Under these proposals, landmark court decisions restricting inappropriate use of national parks would again be evaded in favour of commercial proposals. Such schemes could include private universities, dance halls, rock concerts, rave parties, restaurants, theatres, conference centres, wedding reception centres, art galleries and clubhouses.

The NPWS is also recommending licenses for commercial tour operators to have access to wilderness areas. This is the thin end of the wedge on commercial exploitation of wilderness and should be ruled out immediately by the Minister.

NPA believes that Minister Debus is genuine in not wanting to commercialise national parks. We are not so confident about the current leadership of the NPWS or future Ministers. Based on these considerations, changes to the legislation have to be made only on a minimalist basis, and only if existing powers for leasing and licensing are truly inadequate to allow effective administration of appropriate concessions. Most importantly, the Act requires amendment to incorporate the limitations on leasing set out by the Government’s own high-level community review team in the 1999 Visions Conference Report.

The Government is to shortly release a public discussion paper on proposed changes to the Act and to then introduce the amendments to Parliament in early 2001. The most critical test will occur when we see the proposed final amendments. The Government should ensure at least 3 months for public debate and consideration by Parliament of the proposed final amendments before it moves to enact any changes in an area of great public sensitivity.

* Noel Plumb is the NPA Executive Officer.

NATIONAL PARKS LAWS