The World Heritage Committee decided at a meeting in the afternoon of Wednesday 29th of November 2000 in Cairns Queensland to commit the Blue Mountains of New South Wales the western rim of Sydney to the register of World Heritage.
The Blue Mountains are part of the Great Dividing Range which extends from North Queensland all the way under Bass Strait to the southern tip of Tasmania, a geological uplift or ancient fault line, created a mountain range and with erosion, steep rising cliffs and deep gorges of mainly sand stone.
Hidden in one of those deep gorges is the Wollemi Pine (wollemia nobilis) discovered by Mr. David Noble.
This ancient tree, when found was only seen as an imprint in rock fossils.
This tree was extinct for over 60 million years until discovered, now its hidden location is in the World Heritage area.
New developments from now on in the populated strip flanking the Great Western Highway or Bells Line of Road and settled valleys will have to undergo a full Environmental Impact Statement before any approval.
Environmentalists and bush walkers first discovered the beauty of these deep gorges well before established tracks started to form.
Early Times
One exclusive walking group had a policy of invitation only based on secrecy, a promise, to never tell anyone where they had been, to stop others following, to preserve pristine conditions.
The Blue Gum Forest was one place this group visited and when the owner decided to turn the area into a Nut farm Australia's first conservation battle started to save the Blue Gum Forest.
The Blue Gum Forest was saved by public donations in the depression years and handed over to the public to form part of a future Blue Mountains National Park.
Today the Blue Gum Forest stands in all its glory a magnificent tribute to the people who saved it all those years ago.
Present State
December 2000
The Grose River just north of Katoomba and part of the World Heritage area is still being used as a sewerage canal, politicians need to see this for themselves.
All the World now has an interest in the Blue Mountains so please E-mail an Australian politician today, tell them how disgusting this practice is, for a World Heritage Area.
The world heritage listing will also stop a proposed super highway being built across the top of the Blue Mountains from Penrith to Lithgow.
This decision will also stop the calls to increase the height of the Warragamba Dam wall and flooding the Kowmung River in the world heritage area.
The listing will also help to stop the proposed 2nd Sydney International Airport - at Badgerys Creek, which will severely impact on the world heritage values, destroying silence, a huge noise impact on the site, also fire & flora danger from fuel dumping. (Kerosene Kills Plants and will soak into dead trees and leaf litter)
The Federal Government must call an end to Badgerys Creek or suffer further domestic and international condemnation after the world climate conference controversy at the Hague in November 2000. (Global Warming)
I would like to thank the Colong Foundation for Wilderness for protecting this jewel and lobbying for so long to get the World Heritage listing ------------ K L 30th of November 2000.
Threat to World Heritage Values
The Federal Government has committed feasibility funding to build a super highway across the Blue Mountains via the Bells Line of Road route from Richmond to Lithgow.
The N.S.W. National Party has called for the super highway to be build even though the area is in the World Heritage Listed area of the World Heritage site.
Politicians must learn that half the world now has been developed and the love affair with the automobile must end, what is needed is faster public transport system through the mountains with the existing rail infrastructure and possibly new tunnels to cut out the curves and bends in the existing track.
This would allow faster passenger and freight transit through the mountains to the city, with dedicated freight hubs build west and east of the mountains to take trucks off the existing roads.
Build a complete new tunnel
A new tunnel could be built along similar lines to the snowy mountains hydro-electric project, cut through the mountains with tunnel boring machines.
Several machines working together could cut a tunnel in a lot less time through the mountains over a period of several years.
The tunnel could be aligned similar to the route of the Great Western Highway with on and off ramps into and out of the tunnel in various places to allow integration of both routes.
Bells Line of Road should remain a tourist drive.
