Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Australia (Thompson 1985:26), and doubtless helped create the basis for the way in
which the bushwalking movement and the NPPAC lobbied for the establishment of parks
and natural walking areas.
Upon its creation the NPPAC focused upon the preservation of two primitive areas—
the Blue Mountains and the Snowy-Indi area—both regions being of major personal
concern to Myles Dunphy. Dunphy had first put forward the idea of a national park to
protect the Blue Mountains' wilderness areas as early as 1922 when a park proposal was
discussed and adopted by the Mountain Trails Club (Prineas 1976-7; Dunphy 1979b).
However, even at this stage Dunphy (quoted in Colley 1984:29) recalled it had taken '10
years or so to appreciate all the damaging forces at work in this country and to become
aware of the need to protect it'. In 1927 the proposal was adopted by the Sydney Bush
Walkers (Dunphy 1979b), yet it was not until the 1930s that a major campaign for a Blue
Mountains park got underway.
In 1931 the Mountain Trails Club, the Sydney Bush Walkers and the Wildlife
Preservation Society joined forces to prevent the ringbarking of a Blue Gum forest on the
Grose River. However, the 40-acre lease was not initially protected through state
government reservation but through the buying of the lease by the conservation
organisations (Dunphy 1979a). The romantic nature of the bushwalkers who helped save
the Blue Gums is indicated in the reflections of the poet Roland Robinson (1973) on the
Grose River area:
No Greek temple, no Gothic cathedral could have been so bountiful. Here
we set up our tents, and here the possums came down out of the trees with
their babies on their backs to be fed by us. Because today the vulgar and
ignorant 'Yankee Australians' will destroy anything in order to make a
fast buck, this is one place that, thanks to the bushwalkers, is preserved in
its primal Aboriginal state.
(Robinson 1973:163)
The preservation of the Grose River Blue Gums served as an example of the ability of
conservation
groups to get land reserved in its natural state and provided a basis for the NPPAC on
which to campaign for further reservations in the Blue Mountains. The NPPAC's Greater
Blue Mountains National Park Scheme probably represented the first major attempt of an
Australian conservation group to mobilise mass support for the preservation of
wilderness. On 24 August 1934, the NPPAC paid for a four-page supplement, complete
with maps and photographs, to be included in the
Katoomba Daily
. The supplement was
highlighted by Myles Dunphy's map of a proposed Blue Mountains National Park with
'primitive areas':
The Blue Mountains of Australia are justly famous for their grand scenery of
stupendous canyons and gorges, mountain parks and plateaux up to 4400 feet altitude,
uncounted thousands of ferny, forested dells and gauzy waterfalls, diversified forest and
river beauty, much aloof wilderness—and towns and tourist resorts replete with every
convenience for the comfort and entertainment of both Australian and overseas visitors.
