NSW: Greater fame and protection for Blue Mountains: Carr
Copyright 2000 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd
November 29, 2000
SYDNEY, Nov 29 AAP - The world heritage listing of the Blue Mountains would bring greater international recognition to the area while increasing its protection, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr said tonight.
Responding moments after the declaration was made, Mr Carr said the listing was a tribute to the hundreds of conservationists who battled to save the bush from development from as early as the 1800s.
"It is a vindication of all those battles of conservation that have been fought by the community of the Blue Mountains and by some marvellous conservationists," he told reporters.
"It's a wonderful area of sandstone, eucalypt forest, the great gorges - it is very special.
"(The listing) means international recognition and it means, where it is needed, that someone could go to court and envoke this status to win a conservation battle in the area that's been proclaimed."
The World Heritage Committee meeting in Cairns today voted to add one million hectares of the famous NSW region to the World Heritage List, despite the committee's executive bureau twice rejecting the nomination.
The Greater Blue Mountains area, which includes seven national parks and the Jenolan Caves Karst Conservation Reserves, now shares world heritage status with natural icons including the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru and Kakadu National Park.
Mr Carr said it was the fourth World Heritage site in the state, joining Lake Mungo, Lord Howe Island and the rainforests of northern NSW on the list.
He said the declaration would not result in restrictions being placed on recreational activities in the region.
State Environment Minister and Blue Mountains MP Bob Debus said the heritage listing covered an area stretching from the Hunter Valley to the southern highlands and Lithgow to the Hawkesbury River.
Mr Debus, who had flown to Cairns last Sunday to personally lobby the committee's botanists, said the area contained 10 per cent of Australia's different flora species.
"The Blue Mountains is a unique area and that's what we argued in the submission," he told reporters.
"It contains those extraordinary relic forms of vegetation, exemplified by the Wollemi Pine, which has been in existence for 165 million years.
"It has the most extraordinary level of natural beauty."