by Keith Muir - Colong Foundation
Since the Blue Gum Forest campaign of the early 1930s, small groups of dedicated conservationists have fought to protect the Blue Mountains wilderness. Alex Colley, Hon. Secretary of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness perhaps was speaking for all of us when he said, "if we hadn’t fought like tigers, they wouldn’t be worth listing" as World Heritage (SMH 30/11/2000).
World Heritage listing celebrates the vision of the Greater Blue Mountains National Park and the early bushwalking conservationists who supported it. Myles Dunphy and the National Parks and Primitive Areas Council proposed the original scheme in 1934. Subsequent detailed national park proposal by groups like Total Environment Centre, National Parks Association, the Colo Committee and Colong Foundation built on the initial vision.
Through this work the Mountains have been protected from clearing, a gas pipeline through the Wollangambe wilderness, various powerline easements (although a damaging one scars the Jamison and Kedumba Valleys), several coal mines, at least two major dam projects, a power station on Newnes Plateau, urban development at Colo Heights, clay quarries at Culoul Range, native forest logging around all its edges, pine plantations on the Boyd Plateau, serious sewage pollution, the more recent Badgerys Creek Airport, superhighway and countless numbers of smaller madcap schemes.
As Sydney’s population grows, be assured that development proposals in the Mountains will come thick and fast. State conservation laws and even the World Heritage Convention are not the best firewalls to preserve our national parks. These social constructs create process and responsibilities but they are not guarantees. It is people of NSW and their representatives on all sides of politics who ultimately must be counted upon to protect the natural environment into the 21
st century. It is our job to ensure they are true believers in nature conservation and will be ready, when the time comes, to help save the Mountains again and again.World Heritage listing is about recognition of the "outstanding universal values" within the national parks created through eighty years of conservation effort. The genuine community jubilation over listing of the Greater Blue Mountains Area is the best possible recognition of these historic efforts.
Listing elevates the ongoing conservation debate over the Blue Mountains. Development must never compromise the Blue Mountains, turning our world honour into a global shame. It is up to all of us to ensure that wilderness, World Heritage and national parks remain very precious principles relevant to and respected by everyone.
The Blue Mountains should become the benchmark for World Heritage area protection and management. For now, celebrate World Heritage as the fruit of past conservation victories. I hope these past efforts in nature preservation become the inspiration for future generations whose conservation difficulties will be so much greater than those faced in the past.