Nature NSW Autumn 2024

Gary Dunnett, CEO

NPA’s work really does span the full spectrum of conservation advocacy.  It might be a stall at the local market, calling your MP to ask for help in protecting a local site, rallying against inappropriate development, reviewing plans of management or even appearing before a parliamentary inquiry.  

Right at the edge of our advocacy is an action of last recourse, taken only when our parks are under the most dire of threats.  The legal pathway where we head to court and ask the judicial system to overturn poor decisions by government.  

We’ve just completed this most rare of conservation actions, one where we took the NSW Government to court.  The action was a judicial review of the Minister for Environment’s approval of an amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park.  The practical effect of that amendment was to overturn a long-standing requirement that any new electrical connections through Kosciuszko National Park must be constructed underground.  This allows TransGrid and Snowy Hydro to default to last century’s technology, overhead transmission lines.  These were banned in Kosciuszko because of the excessive clearing and other environmental damage they caused.  Our case was designed to force the NSW Government to reinstate the requirement that the Snowy 2.0 connection be constructed underground.  

Unfortunately, we lost the case and TransGrid and Snowy Hydro will be allowed to inflict further, totally unnecessary damage on Kosciuszko National Park.  This edition of Nature NSW details the circumstances that forced NPA down the legal route, explains why our case failed and touches upon the implications for the broader roll out of transmission connections across NSW.  The future edition will feature an article that goes deeper into the legal technicalities of the case.  

The outcome has disturbing implications about our options for contesting poor decisions about National Parks and other Protected Areas.  However, it also provides some clear directions for much needed work on improving the way that reserve management planning and development control are regulated in NSW, matters we’re already taking up with the State Government.   

It is important to reflect on such a sobering outcome and the work ahead.  However, it is also important to note the significant successes our members and supporters have been having across NSW.  The Great Koala National Park is fast becoming a reality, and NPA has been instrumental in shaping the best possible outcome for the park.  Likewise, we are working hard at ensuring that the southern cousin, the Upper Georges River Koala National Park, also fully meets its potential.  

The lessons learnt, and technical capabilities developed during the preparation of these two NPA proposals, are now being applied to further ambitious new park proposals in the Pilliga, Jervis Bay and Southern Forests.  We may have suffered a setback in protecting Kosciuszko, but that in no way takes away from the urgency of creating new parks.  They’re happening, and we have more excellent proposals on the way. 

One of the truly joyful characteristics of NPA is the balance between conservation advocacy and the way our members support one another through the activities program.  This edition features a number of trip reports to provide insight into that shared pleasure of experiences in nature.

In This Edition