Dear Minister (of Environment) The "Guidelines for Developing Management Plans for Declared Aboriginal Places" developed by your department (attached) list the following recreational activities as damaging to an Aboriginal Place (P10-11): • bushwalking • motorbike riding • rock climbing • four-wheel driving. In providing management options for Mt Warning National Park, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) are proposing to ban bushwalkers access to the summit, and indeed the public from the entirety of the park on the grounds that bushwalking will damage the Aboriginal place declared at Mt Warning. This is abject nonsense, as on existing tracks and trails no damage is possible, especially if these tracks and trails are properly maintained. If these activities are banned at Mount Warning it will result in similar bans being imposed on other walking trails, and tracks in the state. The Minister should know the followin...
Our mountains belong to all of us. The Right to Climb them and bask in their views that inspire awe and wonder is as old as the human genome. This long-established cultural tradition is under threat by a small group of bureaucrats determined to impose their way on the rest of the world. It is right to Climb because we have the Right to climb. If you don’t exercise your rights you lose them. Don't let petty nanny state bureaucrats take them away.