In the lead up to the last state election, open and transparent park management for the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area was preceded by backroom deals and planning by media release for tourism development. This is totally understandable as then Environment Minister, Matt Kean, had to get Deputy Premier and local Nationals Member, Paul Toole, on side with the reserve proposal. The results were an adventure park at Lost City (now discontinued), glamping resorts and a downhill mountain bike park were annouced, well before the park's plan of management was even thought of, distorting future reserve design.
Better tourism solutions for the reserve management that put nature conservation first are outlined by conservation groups in Destination Pagoda, a plan also designed to benefit Lithgow as the gateway to the reserve. It actually will deliver more benefits to Lithgow than the current plan because park values are respected and presented, creating a broad perception that this iconic area is worth visiting.
The spectacular natural heritage of Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area simply must not become an amusement park, with accommodation hubs in remote bushland, supported by a tax-payer funded Great Walk. What the Government should be doing is establishing effective environmental management and protecting core reserve values - its pagoda landscapes and nationally endangered swamps.
This is a classic political tug-of-war, and now, months out from the next state election, key decisions on these tourism plans are to the fore.
A proposed downhill bike park has not moderated its potential impacts to pagoda landscapes, and kilometres of bike track are to be carved into bare rockplate in the Dobbs Drift-State Mine Gully gateway area to the park. Three glamping resorts are also planned in three pagoda landscapes above Carne Creek. Lithgow's iconic pagoda cachet is being exploited, and the bike park proposal even wants to use local rock slabs as a raw material for track construction. We are a long way from the 2014 Planning Commission determination that pagoda landscapes must be "potected at the highest possible level". Literally on top of all this is the Emirates Plan to have FIFO (fly in, fly out) helicopter operation of its Wolgan Valley Resort. But don't worry, the NPWS has said that the choppers will fly quickly over Forest Camp, the main accommodation site in the reserve located in a former pine forest, so it won't impact visitors too much! This tourism-focused vision delivers a perception that this wonderland is degraded, and visitors simply won't bother to come.
The only bright spot is the rejection of the adventure theme park proposal for Lost City, but even there many trees and threatened plants were removed to create the popular Lost City Walk. Efforts to obtain the data to establish how much was lost have come to naught due to a legal technicality that prevents the location of threaten species being revealed.
The reality is that all visitor use and visitor facilities cause damage, and the art of nature-focused reserve management is to reduce the damage to a minimum while protecting iconic values. Its just not happening, and that's the problem.
Like bushwalking, if you get the starting point wrong (in the case people-focused tourism development), the further you go, the more you get lost. The first step to sorting this out is to realise you're lost, but the NPWS thinks its delivering Destination Pagoda, when its holding this map (i.e. this vision) upside down and going in exactly the wrong direction with all the right intentions. Well, the NPWS has to get it sorted and home by the next election. I can hear the conversation in the Minister's office now, "Well, this is a fine mess you've got me into!"