NP&WS takeover of the Common at Hill End

[Radz]

To advise members whom visit Hill End in N.S.W that there is a proposal for the NP&WS to take over the common land.

Currently the NP&WS manage the old historic gold mining town but now are attempting to take over all of the current common land. Hill End common is popular with gold fossickers, fishing, 4WD camping and horse riders. As is usual with NP&WS policy these activities will be banned or else so restricted as to be useless.

There are even proposals to permit lifestyle developments in historic gold mining areas.

There is much discussion on the Gold detecting and prospecting forum.

A public meeting is to be held on Saturday 14th April 2 to 5pm at the Royal Hall, Hill End.

Suggest that anyone whom values their freedom of going to Hill End for say gold detecting or other activity that attending this meeting may be your only chance of putting your view forward.

[Tikirocker]

Radz,

Thanks for the heads up, are you local to the area? I'm in the central west and have enjoyed many trips to Hill End over the years and it would be a great shame to have the open access cut off but not sure I can make it out there due to commitments. Is there any information on who to contact to voice dissent outside of this meeting?

Cheers, Simon.

[KarlB]

This was canvased in the Hill End Historic Site Master Plan more than 8 years ago (see http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/parks/masterplanHillEndHS.pdf ). Hardly a surreptitious take over by the NPWS! I think people should have a read of the plan before they get too excited.

Cheers
KarlB
:)

[THE BOOGER]

The date for the report is 2004 so its been around for a while. I camp at hill end and have been happy with NPWS so far just wish the council would reopen the bridle track:( I can see where the report is heading though more housing at Tamboora which probably wont hurt Hill end may even keep the general store open and contracting out things like rubbish collection and water supply which are now done by NPSW people:) The part which says Hill end and NPSW should be run as a bussiness probably means rents and camping fees will go up thought:(

[Radz]

The Hill End master plan has certainly been around since 2004.

Having seen restrictions on access and activities such as gold fossicking and 4WD'ing/camping I wish I could be so confident in these activities being allowed to continue.

[Redback]

As far as I know or remember, you have never been able to pan for gold in the Historic area of Hill End, which is where the Common is, Tambarooral creek at Tambaroora is the only place you can pan for gold without permission.

EDIT

PS, NPWS only manage Hill End for the Historical Sociaty, they determin what happens there.

Baz.

[Drover]

Not to familiar with the Hill End storey, although we did own an acreage between Illford and Hillend, back in the day.

But a General comment on NPWS.

They really need to take a good look at them selves, they are a Government Dept and as such should be acting to the benefit of us.

I have watched them close tracks, bollard off areas, ban fires, dogs, horses, 4x4 and dirt bikes. Charge fees for camping for areas that have been available for the use of the public for many years without any problems.

They continue to put in place claims for many areas of State Forrest and many other area’s that are unfortunately, in most cases are successful, leaving the areas useless for many recreational activities.

It is pure empire building and they (NPWS) need to be reined in before it is too late.

[Redback]

Not to familiar with the Hill End storey, although we did own an acreage between Illford and Hillend, back in the day.

But a General comment on NPWS.

They really need to take a good look at them selves, they are a Government Dept and as such should be acting to the benefit of us.

I have watched them close tracks, bollard off areas, ban fires, dogs, horses, 4x4 and dirt bikes. Charge fees for camping for areas that have been available for the use of the public for many years without any problems.

They continue to put in place claims for many areas of State Forrest and many other area’s that are unfortunately, in most cases are successful, leaving the areas useless for many recreational activities.

It is pure empire building and they (NPWS) need to be reined in before it is too late.

One point is wrong, they don't ask for areas, they are handed over or donated too them, NSW Forestry are the ones that hand over land to NPWS the most.

The onnly areas that are asked for is when an area is nominated for wilderness status, this is usually where certain species of flora or fauna are in danger.

Baz.

[Lucy]

But a General comment on NPWS.

They really need to take a good look at them selves, they are a Government Dept and as such should be acting to the benefit of us.

I have watched them close tracks, bollard off areas, ban fires, dogs, horses, 4x4 and dirt bikes. Charge fees for camping for areas that have been available for the use of the public for many years without any problems.

They continue to put in place claims for many areas of State Forrest and many other area’s that are unfortunately, in most cases are successful, leaving the areas useless for many recreational activities.

It is pure empire building and they (NPWS) need to be reined in before it is too late.

Parks and Wildlife act for the benefit of the environment, and if not for us, for future generations. There are many good reasons for the decisions they make. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that it is not necessary. The damage that fires, dogs, horses 4x4 and dirt bikes do to sometimes very fragile and rare environments has to be seen to be believed, BUT, to really understand, you need to see the places that have recovered from these impacts - it is often absoutly astounding that what you may have thought was successful wasn't even close!

Also, parks have many of these activities freely available in many more locations than you would think (except for the dogs bit), they just don't advertise the fact and you need to take a look yourself.

Parks often has land formerly managed as State Forest and Crown Lands thrust upon them with NO extra budget to manage it, they certainly don't go looking for it. These lands have often been logged or otherwise seriously degraded, NPWS' track record with respect to rehabilitation of these lands is actually quite good.

[Beckford]

just wish the council would reopen the bridle track

You can still drive in from both ends to where the rock fall is, and drive around the long way to Hill End or back to Bathurst. I agree to fix the rock fall using today's methods would not be cheap, but preserving history is priceless.

The campsites along the Turon look really good and have new drop toilets.

The campground at Hill end run by NPWS is one of the best I have stayed at. I do not mind paying NPWS camp fees when hot showers are available.

[Xtreme]

You can still drive in from both ends to where the rock fall is, and drive around the long way to Hill End or back to Bathurst. I agree to fix the rock fall using today's methods would not be cheap, but preserving history is priceless.

The campsites along the Turon look really good and have new drop toilets.

The campground at Hill end run by NPWS is one of the best I have stayed at. I do not mind paying NPWS camp fees when hot showers are available.

Or travel from Bathurst via the Roothog Trail (western side of the Macquarie R) which crosses the River just north of the rock slide and you can then continue north to Hill End.

However, I agree with Beckford in that it would be nice to see the Bridle Trail restored and history preserved.

[JDNSW]

Parks and Wildlife act for the benefit of the environment, and if not for us, for future generations. There are many good reasons for the decisions they make. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that it is not necessary. The damage that fires, dogs, horses 4x4 and dirt bikes do to sometimes very fragile and rare environments has to be seen to be believed, BUT, to really understand, you need to see the places that have recovered from these impacts - it is often absoutly astounding that what you may have thought was successful wasn't even close!

Also, parks have many of these activities freely available in many more locations than you would think (except for the dogs bit), they just don't advertise the fact and you need to take a look yourself.

Parks often has land formerly managed as State Forest and Crown Lands thrust upon them with NO extra budget to manage it, they certainly don't go looking for it. These lands have often been logged or otherwise seriously degraded, NPWS' track record with respect to rehabilitation of these lands is actually quite good.

If you lived next to one of these, and your access was through it, you would not be so sympathetic to them. They take years to carry out even the most trivial maintenance, even where required for safety reasons (they told me they have good insurance so dangerous road conditions are not a problem), and threaten prosecution if road users even move a fallen tree. After the fire here I advised them to restore drainage on the creek crossing into my place or there would be major damage. It took them three years to do anything, turning what would have been a couple of hours with a dozer or a grader into two weeks work with major machinery.

They have failed to maintain firefighting access in accordance with the plan negotiated with RFS, and while I was lucky in the last fire, there is no reason to suppose this will always be the case - and they are upwind from me. I should point out that this forest was managed by Forestry for a hundred years, and has only been forest since European settlement - before that it was open 'parkland', the result of frequent fires.

John

[Tikirocker]

Yup, I'm with JD on this ... they are not all bad but they're not much good for anything much either most of the time. Over many years of back and forth, dating from the early 1900's - by the 60's it was decided that most of the High country through the Snowys bordering NSW/VIC would finally be off limits to grazing and droving.

The Parks people were warned that by removing these century old traditions, whereby the farmers, drovers and graziers, would keep grass down and fuel for fires by regular burning off ( Something taught to them by the Aboriginals in the 1800's ) - this would allow fuel to build up over time and create a potential disaster, the likes of which had never been seen before. And so it was ... after 10 years of the Parks services doing absolutely nothing with the lands they sought to protect ... after 10 years of the fuel and grasses building up to tinder box proportions - there were the worst bush fires the region had ever suffered!

So bad were the fires that parts of the High County that had never seen fires were burn't to a crisp ( some areas the ground had become so petrified that nothing would regenerate at all! ) ... wildlife perished in incalculable numbers ... so much for protecting nature from the destruction of man! After this they allowed the drovers and graziers to come back in again ...

I have little use for the NPWS ( Some of which are one step off Nimbin Ferals ) or any of these Nanny State institutions ...

Tiki.

[KarlB]

Much of the present Kosciuszko National Park came into existence as the National Chase Snowy Mountains in 1906. In 1944 this became the Kosciusko State Park, and then the Kosciusko National Park in 1967. Proposals to move the cattle out started to build momentum in 1949 with the establishment of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme. The cattle were finally moved out under provisions of the NSW Soil Conservation Act in the 1950s. While there is no doubt that the national parks service were keen on ending the high country grazing, they most certainly should not be held responsible.

As for fire, and in particular relation to the Victorian Alpine NP:

In the great fire of 1939, when grazing was quite intense, fire raged out of control right through the alps (indeed the Royal Commission into the 1939 fire held the cattlemen, and their burning-off practices, partly responsible).

In the 1997 Caledonia fire (in the southern section of the park) the fire burnt through national park ungrazed areas, national park grazed areas and state forest more-or-less equally. Indeed the fire intensity mapping (available from Parks Victoria) shows no correlation between grazed areas and fire resistance. Not one grazing licence area in the path of the fire remained unburnt.

In the fire of 2003, around 1.5 million hectares of north-eastern Victoria went up in flames. Less than half of this was in the Alpine National Park, and about half was in State Forest. There were active grazing licences throughout the area, both in state forest and national park. Most of the licences within the path of the fire were 100% burnt. (20 national park grazing licences were 100% burnt, 13 were over 95% burnt, and the average was 94%, based on aerial mapping.)

Cheers
KarlB
:)

[Tikirocker]

Karl,

We may be at cross purposes since we are discussing changes that occurred over about 60 some odd years, which also impacted huge area's of land, so I will clarify my own statements.

I come from a long line of farmers, miners and orchardists - some of my ancestors were the first settlers in the Tenterfield region of NSW - others pioneers of the Launceston region of Tasmania. I can tell you now that there are many farmers, drovers and graziers who do in fact blame government bodies - (in whatever guise or name they held at various times) - like NPWS, for mismanagement of what was once publicly accessed lands.

Respected author Evan McHugh, writer of best selling works like 'Outback Heroes', 'Red Centre, Dark, Heart', and 'Outback Pioneers' addresses this very issue in his recent book The Drovers. Much of the research material for this work comes from the horses mouth - ie the farmers, ringers and drovers who were once regulars living in those areas. Here's a little of what McHugh has to say on the subject of the High Country, droving and fires ...

I had to type this out by hand from the book, so forgive any grammatical error ...


"By the 1930's concerns were growing that the amount of grazing and burning on the summer pastures was damaging the fragile environment unique to Australia. In 1931-1932 the Commonwealth Forestry Bureau commissioned forestry scientist Baldur Unwin Byles to conduct a study of the upper Murray catchment. In regards to soil erosion, he reported "The efficiency of the catchment as it existed in 1928 has not been maintained, and, moreover, that it is decreasing slowly but surely".

Byles believed the culprit was fire and that 99% were lit by Stockmen. He recommended that stock be kept off the steeper slopes but stopped short of suggesting that grazing in the High Country be eradicated altogether. He believed such a measure wouldn't stop fires altogether, as they would still occur naturally and would probably be much harder to control, in part because without High Country grazing, access roads would be closed or neglected.

Byles arrived at a somewhat startling conclusion: "Contrary to the idea held by many people that have not lived in the High Country, the mountain pastures are not overstocked; they are actually understocked". Byles believed If there were more cattle grazing the High Country grasses, the Stockmen wouldn't need to light the fires"

Nevertheless, in 1944 the NSW government created the Kosciuszko State Park and excluded grazing from the main range, essentially the area around Kosciuszko. Grazing was permitted elsewhere but burning was discouraged. Conservationists like Miles Dunphy and the National Parks and Primitive Areas Council had been advocating a Snow-Indi Primitive Area since 1933 but, when it came to preserving the High Country, government agendas followed different lines - ie The Snowy River Hydro Electric Scheme.

From 1949 onwards huge areas of the High Country were flooded. In 1957 the Australian Academy of Science reported on the condition of the High Country catchment in NSW. On the recommendation of the Catchment Areas Protection Board, snow leases above 4500 feet were terminated. In 1969, an examination of grazing and other leases in what was now the Kosciuszko National Park, recommended a total ban on all grazing in the park. Finally a practice that had operated under the Snow Leases for 85 years, and on an informal basis for 50 years before that, was over.

The ACT had been following developments in NSW and in 1963 a campaign by conservationists and bushwalkers sought to have the mountainous southern region of the Territory declared a national park. in 1964, Orral Station was closed down by government and turned into a space tracking station. By 1968, 29 Tharwa graziers were given three months to negotiate their removal from the Tharwa Valley. Namadgi Park was declared in 1979.

Of course it took a great deal of self delusion to ignore the large power generating industry that had been erected in the said Wilderness. At the same time NSW Parks and Wildlife Service was also grappling with the fact that it had a responsibility for a park that encompassed 649,000 hectares and was 150 kilometres long. Theoretically, protecting the wilderness areas was just a matter of letting nature take its course - the 'Lock it up and leave it' approach.

Unfortunately, the areas in question had not been wilderness for an extraordinarily long time. Most of the country had been grazed and burned for more than 130 years by Stockmen and Drovers. Before that it had been subjected to the fire regime of the Indigenous People for thousands of years. Whilst most scientists were sure that the droving and burning in the High Country was having a negative effect, few realized that they'd embarked on a 649,000 hectare lab experiment to find out what would happen when it stopped.

It didn't take long to discover that giant parks weren't necessarily good for the environment. In 2002 and 2003, the High Country in Vic and NSW was swept by the most severe fires they'd ever experienced. The Kosciuszko Huts Association referred to it as the Parks 'worst disaster', with 45 bushfires burning across the Park destroying areas that had not been burnt in living memory, and 24 Huts as well.

The Member for Burrinjuck, Katrina Hodgkinson, said in the parliament of NSW: 'I have seen at first hand and photographed areas of the Park where the fire was so fierce that that the ground has been virtually sterilized and no regrowth has occurred. This has happened only because of the heavy fuel loads that the NEW SOUTH WALES NPWS allowed to build up over many years of neglecting hazard reduction'.So yes, I would agree with the Member for Burrinjuck, Katrina Hodgkinson and the many drovers and stockmen who over 150 years kept these regions in good balance and order - who do in fact blame the NPWS for the complete mismanagement which lead to these fire storms. It is all too easy for the powers that be to do what they will with these so-called protected wild sanctuaries, they can stick anything they like in them with impunity, but when they make huge mistakes and get it wrong, the blame is never theirs ... bull****.

Best, Simon.

[Redback]

I have only one reason to be against grazing in the High Country (cow crap)

They crap everywhere, streams campsites, they destroy creek banks atract flies, ticks and they smell.

A once crappy campsite (Buenba Flat) is now almost pristine since the cattle have gone, the creek is clear the banks are good again.

I know I'd rather camp where there is no cow dung, what about you.

Baz.

[KarlB]

For anyone interested in the fire history of the Australian Alps. I recommend they have a look at Fire History of the Australian Alps - Prehistory to 2003 by Philip Zylstra. A link to the Chapters of the report can be found here:
http://www.australianalps.environment.gov.au/publications/research-reports/fire-history.html (http://www.australianalps.environment.gov.au/publications/research-reports/fire-history.html)

Cheers
KarlB
:)