The Gardens of Stone National Park has been a bushwalking playground of mine for a few years now. It's about two hours north west of Sydney, and it's packed with unique features and wilderness values galore. It's worth World Heritage status, without a doubt.
Except that much of the relevant, precious, area is not actually protected. Not a part of the National Park. And it's mostly because of mining - coal mining in fact.
The dirty, dying, coal mining industry still goes on around here. There are longwall mine shafts under much of the area, and subsidence, pollution, and unexpected swamp drainage is going on largely unchecked.
So it's good to see there's a well organised campaign on to extend the Gardens of Stone National Park. Here's a link to the Colong Foundation's campaign: https://www.colongwilderness.org.au/campaigns/the-gardens-of-stone/about-gardens-of-stone
The other day I attended a photographic exhibition organised as part of the campaign. I'm sure they won't mind me directing you to the photo gallery: https://www.colongwilderness.org.au/gardens-stone-focus-photographic-competition-gallery
I put in a bid to buy one of the fine pictures in their silent auction. I haven't heard back yet from them, but fingers crossed.
It reminds me a bit of Tasmania 35 years ago, when the Franklin-Lower Gordon Wild Rivers campaign was underway. Fabulous photography played a huge role, as the Australian public was educated about the unique beauty of an area which was about to be dammed and flooded by an uncaring and out-of-control government bureaucracy, for no known public benefit. That one had a happy ending. Lets hope history repeats itself here.
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