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Letters to the Editor
World Heritage Super Highway

Nadgee Wilderness

Editor :
Glyn Mather

Readers are welcome to respond by letter or e-mail to other letters or articles in the National Parks Journal, or to write in about whatever you like. Preference will be given to short, concise letters. Other letters may be edited or not included, depending on space limits. 
Please be aware of libel and defamation laws! All views expressed are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by NPA

World Heritage super highway 

Congratulations to all those whose efforts have resulted in the Blue Mountains being listed as a World Heritage area. Hopefully local, State and Federal governments will work together to ensure the Blue Mountains are properly protected for the future.

However, the battle to protect the Blue Mountains is far from over. A delegation of National, Liberal and Labor MPs led by the State member for Lachlan is lobbying the Federal Minister for Transport to fund a six-lane highway through the Blue Mountains. The highway corridor will include conduits to carry fuel, gas and liquid fertiliser.

Just imagine your favourite walk or canyon with a massive concrete bridge built across it, carrying huge overloaded trucks and pipes carrying fuel and fertiliser. Your favourite creek will be littered with roadside rubbish. The earthworks required to construct such a road will create a massive scar across the landscape. And the constant roar from trucks will destroy any peace and quiet you may be seeking.

The proposed route of the highway is yet to be decided, but the Bell Road was suggested. Whatever the route, to avoid urban and rural areas around Bilpin the highway will have to infringe on the national parkland on either side of the ridge. It may avoid existing roads completely and cut across wilderness areas. Any route will destroy the very values that the World Heritage nomination was supposed to protect.

I urge all NPA members to write to the Premier, the Minister for the Environment (whose electorate includes the Blue Mountains) and the NSW Minister for Roads and Transport, expressing your concerns over the proposed highway. Request that alternatives be found, such as upgrading the railway between Sydney and Orange and the completion of the Wellington to Gulgong Railway, so as to provide a faster rail link between the central west and the port of Newcastle.

Even a new rail link between Lithgow and Richmond would be less damaging to the environment than a six-lane highway. Such a railway could be electrified using 25kV AC, and thus make greater use of long tunnels to avoid damage to sensitive areas.

The time has come to abandon the idea of super highways and promote rail as a more efficient land transport option. Sensible, environmentally friendly transport is essential to the future of this country, and the Blue Mountains World Heritage area is the ideal place to start.

Paul McCann,
Armidale
16 May 2001

Nadgee wilderness 

Having been involved in easing the way for the introduction of the Wilderness Act in 1987 by bringing onside the then hostile local councils of the Hunter region, using consultation under the auspices of the Hunter Regional Planning Advisory Committee, I was dismayed to find the conservation movement had secured the dedication of Nadgee Nature Reserve as wilderness. By the time I became aware of it, it was too late to have a say. The current draft POM for Nadgee opens the issue and the submission by Allan Fox (June NPJ) provides some cogent arguments against wilderness management of the area.

The difficulties and ambiguities that wilderness dedication imposes on the proper administration of nature reserves and of Nadgee in particular are highlighted (Allan’s full submission deals with the concerns in greater depth and scope). The issues reflect the severe erosion of understanding of the purpose of nature reserves by many in the conservation movement and, perhaps more importantly, by the NPWS. Nature reserves have become the poor cousins of national parks and conservation of nature is the loser.

If Nadgee loses the capacity to host research of the calibre of that cited by Allan, this should be of serious concern to us because of the loss of benefit to both humanity and to the cause of nature itself.

The role of nature reserves must not be lost, nor subsumed by ‘Wilderness’. Though there is an overlap and some aspects of each can be embraced by the other, they can, in other respects, be mutually exclusive. Nature reserves can more readily in whole or part be managed as wilderness whilst wilderness can, by legislative definition, only embrace some aspects of nature reserves management.

The POM for Nadgee is currently under review. It is time we gave these matters our earnest attention.

John Dorman,
Bundanoon
4 June 2001


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