Royal National Park – National Parks Association of NSW

Media Release: Rivers Running Foul in Royal National Park

Posted by NPA NSWon September 12, 2022September 12, 2022in Media ReleasesLeave a comment

Conservation groups are calling on Environment and Heritage Minister James Griffin to take immediate action to stop repeated pollution incidents in Royal National Park.

National Parks Association (NPA) CEO Gary Dunnett said ‘the Hacking River, the water that runs through the heart of Royal National Park, has been impacted by yet another spill of coal waste. Last week we inspected Red Cedar Flat, about a kilometre downstream of where waste from Peabody’s Metropolitan Colliery reaches the Hacking River. The sight was truly unbelievable, the river looked more like flowing tar than the crystal-clear water you’d expect in the deep rainforest of our first national park’.

Royal National Park, Heathcote National Park and Garawarra State Conservation Area Draft Plan of Management and Draft Mountain Biking Plan

Posted by NPA NSWon August 31, 2021August 31, 2021in Spring 2021Leave a comment

Southern Sydney Branch has made a comprehensive submission objecting to both these planning documents. The proposed changes amount to a major shift in the balance between conservation, recreation, and commercial operations. You can read more in the submission.

The NPA submission followed months of deliberations by a dedicated team of members who undertook field surveys, met frequently, and reviewed published papers.

The primary concern was that minimal information of new visitor facility proposals was provided and no detail was given to their likely heritage impacts. The reserves are within easy access of millions of greater Sydney residents yet no attempt at determining sustainable carrying capacities was undertaken. Instead more visitor facilities are proposed including ‘serviced’ camping with car-based sites allowing for campervans in expanded recreation zones.

Of concern was that the draft plans state that proposed new visitor facilities will be subject to future NPWS environmental assessments for which the NPWS has a policy of not making publicly available. Related to this is that comprehensive flora and fauna surveys of the reserves are decades old.

NPA had to seek additional mapping from the NPWS to show that the proposed mountain biking networks crossed over areas of mapped endangered ecological communities, while statements in the plans said that such outcomes would not be allowed.

According to the draft plans, a 2002 trial that allowed mountain biking to occur on 6km of track in addition to the 150km of allowed management trails, has resulted in at least 104km of additional illegal tracks, half of which NPWS now propose to formalise. Recent work by NPA has shown that in some proposed mountain bike areas, the actual length of existing illegal tracks is 50% greater than that listed in the draft plans. This brings into question the ability of the NPWS to apply legislation that clearly make such actions an offence.

NPA proposed that mountain biking in the reserves be restricted to the existing management trail network, and that Government look for opportunities on other lands to meet demand. A number of mountain bike discussion papers have been produced by the NPWS which when accessed show that mountain bike riders represent less that 0.8% of all visitors, however large parts of the reserves are to be zoned for mountain biking, incorporating the grading of tracks to meet international standards and allowance for national, regional and club events.

The NSW Government recently announced a major $80 million funding boost for a visitor facility expansion in the reserves. Therefore there are proposals in the draft plans for new facilities that have no assessment of impacts, the NPWS has not yet considered community input on those draft plans, the Minister has not signed off on a new plan of management, and yet proposed new facilities are already funded.

Full submission is available here

Reprieve for Royal National Park for now as Government reserves commitment on F6 stage 4

Posted by NPA NSWon October 20, 2017October 20, 2017in Media ReleasesLeave a comment

In what appears to be a pragmatic response to community pressure, the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday reported[1] that the NSW Government has not committed to stage 4 of the F6 motorway which would have resulted in 60 ha of Royal National Park being bulldozed.

Which was the World’s First National Park?

Posted by NPA NSWon September 1, 2017in Spring 20172 Comments

^{Bob Crombie, First National Park, October 2014}

When people ask, “Which, of all the world’s national parks, was the first national park?” the obvious approach is to compare dates of establishment. Let’s look at four famous names: Yosemite 1864, Yellowstone 1872, Mackinac 1875, and Royal National Park, 1879. In each, the term ‘national park’ was used to mean a number of different things.

NPA Campaign updates – Spring 2017

Posted by NPA NSWon September 1, 2017in Campaigns and Conservation, Spring 2017Leave a comment

Stand Up For Royal

It has been a hectic time for Royal National Park, our oldest national park and one of our most beloved (let’s face it, 3.6 million visitors every year can’t be wrong). Not only has the State Government set aside money to explore options to extend the F6, including slicing off at least 60 hectares of this wonderful park ($15 million in the 2017-18 budget for planning work on the F6 and a further $20 million to carry out geotechnical testing and other development work in relation to the project – announced in December 2016), it has also blithely attacked the NPA for sticking up for this precious icon.

Despite rapid reassurances from the Government that no route has been determined it would appear that slicing off another section of Royal is well and truly the intent of this government. Why else did the then Minister for the Environment, Mark Speakman, state that “if there was a need to use any part of the Royal National Park it would be compensated for by additions to the park.” And from where?

Southern Sydney Branch will remain vigilant, watching what geotechnical tests are carried out, monitoring what is offered as “compensation” and holding this Government and its representatives to account. This will be a lengthy campaign but Royal is too important for us to lose that campaign. #Standup4Royal

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The Great Koala National Park

In July NPA staff took a trip to the north coast of NSW to build support among the local community for the Great Koala National Park (GKNP). Media coverage was huge which reflects the depth of concern for koalas. Our Senior Ecologist was on local TV, and NPA made the front page of the Bellingen Shire Courier Sun.

Our (now retired) CEO, Kevin Evans, found scats from a mother and joey koala in an area of the GKNP scheduled for logging. This led to widespread calls to stop logging, and all the coverage provoked the Member for Oxley, Melinda Pavey to claim, bizarrely, that a national park would not help koalas! Needless to say we responded, as did others. Local, state and federal Greens have now joined Labor in expressing strong support for the GKNP.

Find out more about the campaign

Forests For All

In June, NPA State Council formally approved our plan for a better future for public native forests. The plan, called Forests For All, had input from many experts within and without NPA and is a document we can be proud of. It seeks to protect all native State forests in a variety of NPWS reserve categories, and increase public access to forests for recreation, education and nature-based tourism.

The Regional Forest Agreements begin to expire from 2019 in NSW. They have failed to protect forests or forest industries, so we should change tack. Forests For All offers the NSW Government an economically and socially viable alternative use of valuable public property. We believe that by implementing Forests For All while simultaneously incentivising plantations and the NPWS, we can generate a net jobs gain and make forests a key part of regional communities.

We are in the process of building partnerships among other groups who have an interest in seeing forests protected, and together we will urge the Government to change the use of our public native forests.

Find out more about the campaign

Labor pledges to protect the Royal National Park

Posted by NPA NSWon June 23, 2017in Media ReleasesLeave a comment

The National Parks Association of NSW, welcomes the statement by Luke Foley (June 22nd 2017) that “Labor, the party that built the finest national park system in the world here in New South Wales, won’t have a bar of a toll road being carved through one of our state’s most popular, most visited national parks, a mecca for our citizens and for tourists, a refuge for hundreds of plant and animal species, and 300 species of birds.”