Page 3415 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
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Walter Burley Griffin recognised the importance of the natural landscape in providing a basis for the design of Canberra, and envisaged the hills and the ridges rising out of the city to dominate the urban landscape. Today the hills within and adjacent to the city have retained their visual importance and become both natural limits to the urban edge and attractive backdrops to developed areas. Those who are lucky enough to have homes backing onto one of these areas very rarely want to sell their house. You hear them say that the most beautiful part about living in that area is the fact that you can walk out to the hills at the back.
The National Capital Plan states that hills, ridges and buffer spaces are to remain substantially undeveloped in order to protect the symbolic role and Australian landscape character of the hills and ridges as a scenic backdrop, to maintain the visual definition and physical containment of the surrounding towns, and to ensure that their landscape, environmental and recreation values become an integral part of the national capital. I remember that, when I first came to live in Aranda, from two houses up from us the kangaroos used to come down to be fed. My daughter used to think this was the most wonderful thing out - that she could have breakfast and then wander up to the end of the road and feed the kangaroos with what she did not eat herself; unbeknown to me, of course.
Mr De Domenico: Do kangaroos eat Weet-Bix?
MRS GRASSBY: Yes, they will eat anything you give them; I can tell you.
Mr De Domenico: They do? Coco Pops?
MRS GRASSBY: Anything you give them.
Ms Ellis: At the moment they will eat anything.
MRS GRASSBY: Yes. The undeveloped hills and ridges throughout urban Canberra provide high-quality habitat and corridors for wildlife, as well as opportunities for appreciation, recreation, education and research while protecting natural, cultural and landscape resources. The hills and ridges of Canberra have long had recognised value. People think of the hills as places that are different from the surrounding suburbs, as places of interest.
The cultural history of the Canberra region includes sites that date back at least 20,000 years. There is evidence that the Aboriginals utilised the plains and the mountainous areas of the ACT. We now know that Aboriginal tribes from surrounding lowlands visited the high peaks of Namadgi for corroborees, feasts and ceremonies. Namadgi includes sites of rock art that are the most striking and best preserved in the region. Together, these sites are of international significance as evidence of occupation over a long period. Namadgi National Park also contains examples of early European occupation in the Canberra area that reflects the rural character that is part of Australia's heritage. There are old homesteads associated with pastoral settlements, stockmen's huts
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