Janine Kitson, NPA Member
What happens when Aboriginal land rights conflicts with the rights of nature?
Today significant areas of high conservation land in NSW are in Aboriginal land council ownership. The proposal to rezone 71 hectares of bushland, known as the Patyegarang or Lizard Rock planning proposal at Morgan Road, Belrose, on Sydney’s northern beaches, is one such example.
The Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council is fighting to rezone their land, to build 450 homes, as is their right to do so, under the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1983). Conservationists are fighting to stop the planning proposal, as is their right to do, under the Environment Planning Assessment Act (1979). For decades environment groups, including the National Parks Association of NSW (NPA) Sydney Branch, have opposed the rezoning of high conservation bushland in the Northern Beaches due to its high habitat value, threatened species and because it is vulnerable to extreme wildfires that threaten human life.
If approved, the Lizard Rock rezoning proposal sets a precedent to rezone other high conservation and bushfire prone land, not only in the Northern Beaches but across NSW. On the 9th December 2024, over 160 people attended the online Northern Planning Panel meeting to decide the fate of the Lizard Rock rezoning proposal. Around eighty individuals, including First Nations Peoples, twenty conservation groups, and five Northern Beaches MPs, opposed it. As did the Northern Beaches Council. Prior to this a 12,000 signed petition was presented to the NSW Parliament calling on the NSW Government to reject the rezoning proposal. The majority decision of the Strategic Planning Panel of the Sydney North Planning Panel decided to “continue to liaise with the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) in order to ascertain what changes might be required in order to gain the support of the RFS to the Planning Proposal”. If the support of the RFS is forthcoming, the Panel would recommend approval, “subject to revisions”. A final decision is expected in mid-2025 or earlier.
Initially the RFS raised significant concerns about the rezoning stating that there was an ‘almost certain’ risk the area would be impacted by bushfire as well as posing evacuation challenges. In light of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, it now seems an even more dangerous proposal. Regardless of the outcome of the Lizard Rock rezoning proposal, more disputes over high conservation and bushfire prone land are inevitable. Since it was first introduced in 1983, the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act has been an important step for restorative justice for First Nations Peoples. However, since 1983, neoliberal economic policies have become entrenched into NSW governments’ policies that have failed to protect high conservation land. Instead, they have promoted the commodification and privatisation of bushland and discounted their natural and cultural heritage values.
Bushfires have intensified because of Aboriginal dispossession and the pursuit of the economic exploitation of the land. Unless regulated for environmental and cultural values, this will continue to drive climate change. It is timely to remember the 1983 ‘Ash Wednesday’ bushfires killed 75 people across Victoria and Australia, followed by Canberra’s bushfires (2003), Victoria’s ‘Black Saturday’ (2009), and eastern Australia’s Black Summer bushfires (2019/2020) that killed nearly three billion animals. 2024 was the hottest year on record with temperatures about 1.55 degrees above pre-industrialisation levels.
With the NSW environment movement’s hands full fighting to stop climate change as well as habitat destruction from land clearing, forestry and mining in regional areas, it can easily lose sight of the urgency to protect urban bushland. At heart is the injustice of a hyper economic system that exploits land as ‘property’ rather than protecting it as custodial responsibility for future generations.
Lindy Nolan’s book Driving Disunity: The Business Council against Aboriginal Community (Spirit of Eureka, 2017) forensically examines how members of the Business Council of Australia have assisted land councils to develop business cases that promote the economic development of environmentally sensitive lands. Australian history has been described as a war against First Nations Peoples as well as a war against the environment. We need to heal this historic dispossession and cumulative environmental catastrophe. We need to learn from First Nations Peoples on how to care for Country and say “No” to the extinguishment of nature.
Many First Nations Peoples are deeply distressed over the proposals to rezone high conservation urban bushland. Many retain strong spiritual connections to the land and see Country and their totems embedded in the landscape. With the environmental crisis there is an urgent need to review all legislation affecting private land in environmentally sensitive areas, including the NSW Aboriginal Lands Right Act 1983.
We need to come together to find new ways to protect high conservation bushland in Aboriginal land council ownership to achieve both economic and environmental justice. With climate change and biodiversity existential crisis we desperately need 60,000 years of culture to help us.
What you can do to help
Given that the Planning Panel decision for Lizard Rock hinges on the position of the RFS, the Northern Beaches Envirolink is seeking the support of NPA members to write to the Minister responsible for emergency services, Jihad Dib MP, and ask him to:
- Urge the RFS to continue to oppose this project and avoid building homes where we know future residents will be at risk of bushfire with limited evacuation options.
- Consider his duty of care to the employees and volunteers with RFS and NSW Fire+Rescue whose lives will be put at risk defending this site from bushfires.
For more information visit Northern Beaches Envirolink website: https://www.envirolink.net.au/