The successful campaign to save Blue Gum Forest sixty five years ago, is rightly regarded as the decisive point from which time onwards, the Bushwalking movement became a voice for the environment and its protection.

For those less than familiar with the event, it goes something like this:

In Easter 1931 a walking party to what we now call the Blue Gum Forest, led by Alan Rigby with members of the Sydney Bushwalkers and Mocrntain Trails Club, encountered the lessee of a 40 acre lot in the forest. The new owner left the group of walkers with the impression that he would be ‘improving’ his land and in doing so would be extensively clearing the giant Blue Gums.

Rigby and other members of the two clubs, including Myles Dunphy swiftly took up the cause of this forest Lobbying to the Lands Department did not yield much in the way of commitments for returning the lease to Crown Land, however it did apparently influence the department to cease granting any further leases in the surrounding Grose Valley (a win of sorts). It was determined by the bushwalkers that they would need to raise money and purchase the lot themselves. So was formed the Blue Gum Forest Committee.

An agreement was reached after some months of negotiating by correspondence between the committee and the owner A meeting at the site finally took place on November 15th 1931, attended by several bushwalkers, the land holder and journalist J. Lockley of the Herald who had supported the cause. The agreement was that for a sum of 130 pounds with =5 pounds up front, the owner would sell his lease rights to the Committee.

With this achieved the committee then urgently set about raising what was a considerable sum of money, especially in the midst of a depression. Two substantial loans were secured and the remainder was raised or contributed by the bush walkers. It was in September of 1932, with the loans repaid and title finally held by the Blue Gum Committee, that the land was transferred back to the Crown for immediate protection as a reserve.

With this victory under their belts and a few lessons learned in how to campaign, raise funds and be an effective watchdog for the bush, it was decided to form a representative body of walking clubs that could carry on the work of speaking up for the protection of bushlands.

The body was of course the Federation of Bushwalking Clubs. At some stage along the way we became Confederation (was the CON short for Conservationists?).

In every decade since the Blue Gum campaign, bushwalkers have been key players in the saga of conservation of our natural heritage. Through the 1930s and 40s we lobbied through Dunphy’s National Parks and Primitive Areas Council for major parks like the Greater Blue Mountains, Kosciuszko, Deua, Clyde/Budawang, Tallowa (Morton) and Garrawarra (south part of Royal).

In the 1950s Federation and the Illawarra’s Caloola Club joined with Newcastle groups to establish the National Parks Association of NSW (40 years old this year). In the 1960s and 70s major campaigns were fought and won such as the Save Colong campaign.

In the last decade or so, a number of those early park proposals have finally been realised. The Greater Blue Mountains concept for example, now exists as a virtually continuous stretch of National Park from the Hunter Valley to the Southern Highlands. We now also have Wilderness Areas protected under an Act of Parliament, although much wilderness and native forest remains still to be protected, not to mention the woodlands and arid lands of the west.

Hopefully a brief reflection like this on the the Blue Gum campaign and ongoing bushwalker involvement since then in saving what’s left, will be of some small use when as walkers we ponder over the current debates like environmental preservation versus natural resource exploitation or protection versus access and development. We certainly need not feel awkward in being part of a united voice for something now when we were a founding voice for it way back when.

Summary of the Blue Gum campaign based on recounts in Back from the Brink - Blue Gum Forest and the Grose Wilderness 1997 by Andy Macqueen