By Paul Oboohov
SYDNEY — Liberal and National Party backbenchers in the state parliament are trying to stop the declaration of 350,000 ha of 11 remaining wilderness areas in NSW, or water them down. These areas were announced for declaration on December 23, as a "Christmas present" to the people of NSW by the conservative government.
The main figures in the push for rolling back wilderness are Peter Cochran (National, Monaro), Alby Schultz (Liberal, Burrinjuck) and Russell Smith (Liberal, Bega). They complained that they had not been consulted about the wilderness declarations in their electorates, despite environment minister Chris Hartcher saying that he had informed them.
In a minority government, the backbenchers are threatening to abstain, cross the floor on crucial votes or resign from their parties. Cochran in fact resigned on the morning of December 23, withdrawing his resignation only after extracting a promise from Liberal Premier John Fahey that the issue would be debated at a joint Coalition party meeting on February 15.
The conservative backbenchers argue that wilderness declarations cut use of these areas to the majority of people, who are not fit enough to walk into them and therefore must relying on four-wheel-drive (4WD) vehicles and horse transport.
The Wilderness Society's Tom McLoughlin argues that Australian society has a responsibility to maintain quality of access from one generation to the next, maintaining large enough areas for perpetual natural evolution and biodiversity.
Further, 4WD roads are on the periphery of wilderness areas, and 4WD and horse enthusiasts are well catered for outside of the 4.4% of the state that remains as wilderness. Only a minority of national parks have remaining wilderness.
High impact use involving 4WD vehicles and horses causes destruction of vegetation through trampling, browsing, compaction and drying out of soil, accelerated soil erosion, proliferation of trails, large camp sites and holding pens, introduction of weeds and feral animals, altered water flows along eroded tracks and sedimentation/pollution of streams.
Smith has argued that wilderness areas are obstacles to fire control, and that the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has not maintained fire trails. However, as McLoughlin points out, the recent fires included only one in a wilderness area, Wollemi to the north-west of Sydney, and that did not threaten life or property. The majority of the fires were on the urban-bush interface, and only a minority in national parks.
Environmental groups do not oppose hazard reduction burning in national parks, and the Wilderness Society supports fire trails, although not in rainforests (the Royal National Park south of Sydney was almost totally burned, except for the 10% that is rainforest).
However, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW believes that wilderness areas should not be subject to broad acre intentional burning, as distinct from the periphery of national parks that can be regarded as fire buffer zones. There is evidence that burning off on too large a scale and too frequently, particularly in moister forest regions, can change an area's ecology to a drier and more dense, therefore more flammable, one.
Liberal Premier Fahey reacted to his rebellious backbench initially on January 18 by saying that there was room for compromise. Fahey and National Party leader and deputy premier Ian Armstrong said on January 25 that changes could be made, in particular in controlling noxious weeds, feral animals and bushfire access via fire trails.
This last is a significant back-down, as unlocked fire trails mean four wheel drive and horse access.
On January 30, Armstrong said that fire control ought to be brought under the control of one authority, taking it out of the hands of the NPWS in regard to the management of national parks.
On February 3, Peter Cochran, emerging from the National Party's special Ballina meeting, declared that the NSW cabinet was close to caving in. He went on to say that he believed two of the Snowy Mountains wilderness nominations are to be deleted, and a dirt track to a beach in the Nadgee Wilderness will remain open. If Cochran is correct, this would threaten 60,000 ha of planned wilderness area.
Fahey publicly stated on January 30 that he would like to resolve his problems by having an early election that presumably would give him a majority. However, the pact with the three independents, signed after the election in 1991 that resulted in a hung parliament, means he is bound by law to go his full term until March 1995. There are loopholes in the legislation, including the independents blocking supply. Conveniently for Fahey, the impending State Bank of NSW privatisation legislation might be seen as fitting the bill.