Page 1530 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2011
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the outcomes we want if we are not carrying out a regular and thorough reporting process? I understand some new work undertaken by Graeme Worboys and Roger Good on assessing the health of catchments in Namadgi and costs associated with good management of the park has been put out recently. To date I have not been able to get a copy of that report, but I hope I can do so shortly as I am sure it will contribute greatly to the thinking about how we might implement state of the park reporting.
Regarding the management board, I feel I am repeating myself here but we know that one of the difficulties for Namadgi over the past few years has been the lack of a functioning board of management. The Interim Namadgi Advisory Board concluded in August 2007. In spite of being told there were negotiations underway to establish a new board, from my understanding there still has not been any board of management established and there continues to be no involvement from our indigenous community in overseeing the park. We would really appreciate an update from the government on how this is progressing because time is slipping away. It has now been nearly four years since the interim board of management was concluded. Today’s debate provides the Chief Minister with an ideal opportunity to update us on exactly what is going on here. That really is an unsatisfactory situation—four years since the interim board of management was wound up.
I have already touched on recreational activities in the park and how they should be properly managed in order to protect the ecological values of the park. But I would like to touch on this further because to date, as far as I am aware, we have not seen anything much done on an outdoor recreation strategy by the government—though I understand there has been some work done in some of the nature parks in Canberra, for example the work that is currently being undertaken on Bruce Ridge to deal with the impact of mountain biking in that nature reserve and the consequences that has for other areas.
I have said before that where there is potential for conflict we need to bring groups together and get some clear guidelines on how we will proceed. There is no benefit to the park in groups being at odds with each other and there is much to be gained by groups that collectively value the park understanding where each other is coming from. That is an important point because I know many in the mountain biking community, using this as a particular example, who value the nature parks very highly and would be distraught at the idea of their doing any sort of permanent damage, and I think that there are many in what you might call the conservation movement who are quite open to having recreational activities undertaken in the parks but want to ensure there is no permanent damage. So there is a lot of common ground to be explored.
In this context I think there would be merit in developing an ACT-wide strategy on recreation, although I understand those who have reservations about this approach say that, with such limited resources, perhaps we should not be so ambitious and should simply focus our efforts on the on-ground delivery of services. But a piecemeal approach is also frustrating for the many user groups, and those groups are quite diverse—the horse riders, motorbikers, mountain bikers, runners; recreational users of all persuasions. Resolving this issue can only improve the way those pressures are managed when it comes to our natural areas, and particularly an area such as Namadgi, which is so important.
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