Campaigning guide to stop Pagoda Resort development

Pagoda Resort plans are on exhibition – please make formal objections before 5:00 PM, Thursday 26 February, 2026

Key Point - dangerous national park precedent

We need to stop these glamping proposals in sites of international heritage significance, in this state conservation area—in this national park in waiting—or it’ll soon be “open season” for park developers. Approval of three resorts sets a gold-plated precedent for future damaging private developments located in visually prominent, high-value heritage sites in our national parks. Previously, when these sorts of proposals haven’t been rejected outright (almost always), they were tucked away discretely in forest. But not these in-your-face proposals.

It’s up to you to stop this abuse, by getting on the tools our democracy gives us, as the fate of national parks is up to you. The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service is marking their own homework, acting as both the proponent and the approval authority for these resort proposals.

MAKING YOUR HARD WORK EFFECTIVE

Step 1/- The usual; write a submission that explains:

What’s wrong with these specific NPWS proposals – see below;
Be specific and refer the documentation (the draft REF);
Explain your thinking behind the objections raised.

These NPWS resort proposals are outlined in the draft Review of Environmental Factors (draft REF) (look at the pictures of the resorts in pagoda landscapes - pages 62 and 63, also page 29 of the REF).

Draft your submission off-line, then upload your objection to these resorts on the NPWS webpage.

Step 2/- Deliver your concerns to those who make a difference – and spread the word

Write to Mr Brett Mitchell, Managing Director, Intrepid Travel asking him to reconsider whether Intrepid wants their brand linked to the blighting of significant and rare near-pristine pagoda landscapes in a conservation reserve that should be protected. Write to Mr Mitchell using this email brett.mitchell@intrepidtravel.com (please write your letter off-line first, to avoid silly mistakes. You’ve done the hard work. Focus on the key point - the resorts blight the internationally significant pagoda landscapes and open the door to future development of national parks.)

Let Environment Minister Penny Sharpe know she needs to decide if her legacy will be the protection of our national parks, not the damaging privatisation of them (link above goes to the Minister's webpage, so again write your letter off-line first). Then copy this letter (as is) to any potentially sympathetic Labor State MP and sympathetic Labor members with a short cover note asking them to make representations to Premier Chris Minns and Minister Sharpe to stop these resort proposals.

Then send copies of all your work to friends that might also like defend national parks from commercial resort developments in rare heritage sites.

What’s proposed

If approved, three resorts sites – each is set in a pagoda landscape – includes:

Six two-person glamping cabins each with a deck
A communal area the size of a small house with a kitchen
Amenities building with 2 showers and 2 toilets, with toilet waste flown out by helicopter
Three water tanks totalling 30,000 litres
A solar array for power to run the resort and a utility services hut
Boardwalks to connect the cabins, common area and amenities block
A 60m2 grey water system with septic tank and a large artificial soil mound sown with exotic grass, regularly mown and the grass carried off site (the big heap of dirt is needed because the sites are on rock!).

Clearing for the resorts totals 1,935m2 - equivalent to about 10 average sized houses.

Wrong and misleading assessments

The images in the draft REF reports demonstrate the resort sites and surrounding landscapes are virtually undisturbed bushland. The three sites were chosen by NPWS and Wild Bush Luxury because they are largely unmodified by logging, coal mining and off-road vehicle use. The draft REF reports twist this truth inside out.

The NPWS claims that the proposed glamping resorts are not on the pagoda formations, but they are beside them in the largely unmodified pagoda landscapes in the environs of Carne Creek. When assessing the integrity of the general landscape, the NPWS considered the more distant and irrelevant logging, coal mining and off-road vehicle disturbance of Newnes Plateau, not the near-pristine Carne Creek environs (i.e. above the gorge and its side gullies) where proposed sites are located.

Considering the actual proposed sites, the NPWS confuse areas of natural sandstone rock as being large (non-existent) areas of clearing, and that wildfire degraded the rockplate heaths and pagoda scrublands. These plant communities regenerate from seed after fire, and the 2019 fire didn’t cause crown scorch in the few trees present on these sites, so the fire damage claim is also wrong. The NPWS wrongly claim a “paper road” actually exists on site 2 and that two campfires beside the 4WD access roads leading to sites 1 and 3 degrade these sites (one campfire on site 1 is off-site anyway). Only 15 metres of an access road is within one site, site 3, and some minor off-track vehicle damage has occurred to a small area of site 1. On balance, these sites are essentially pristine bushland in an essentially pristine pagoda landscape context (which is why Wild Bush Lux wanted them).

Resort development lobbyists believe conservationists are too precious about the pagodas and these environmental concerns are quibbles. The truth is the opposite. The NPWS has recommended development of internationally significant and rare heritage in a conservation area by twisting its assessments to the wishes of Minister Penny Sharpe. These are not quibbles, they are a perversion of process seeking to set to a precedent for development of important heritage sites in national parks. As I said, this proposal shouts F.U. to national parks.

Developer Firewall

There is no transparency regarding the commercial negotiation of leases for use of national park lands. The lease proposal remains hidden from public view, despite the impending takeover of Wild Bush Luxury assets by Intrepid Travel for $5.1 million.

The NPWS is doing the dirty work for these private companies, shielding them from the brunt of the consent process so their green credentials remain unsullied.

Intrepid Travel has a strong green reputation, but they are stepping into a highly controversial and unacceptable proposal that has already seen thousands of objections.