Many of us might take our high-country national parks for granted. These conservation areas have been with us for decades.
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Kosciuszko was gazetted a state park in 1944 and national park in 1967. The ACT's Namadgi began as Gudgenby Nature Reserve in 1979 and became a national park in 1984. In Victoria, Alpine National Park was amalgamated from earlier smaller parks in 1989.
But these places did not just 'happen'. Their birth was due to the insights, passion and persistence of many people over long periods of time. Some of those people came from backgrounds that might surprise us, given the contemporary make-up of the environmental movement.
Baldur Byles played a role in the declaration of Kosciuszko. He was a forester, who in the 1930s walked the grazed areas of Kosciuszko's main range and beyond. He became increasingly concerned about the burning practices of stockmen, the burning done annually to bring on new grass but which when done indiscriminately burnt native vegetation to such an extent that in Baldur's view put whole water catchments at risk.
Given that the Snowy Mountains contain the key catchments of the Murray, Murrumbidgee, Snowy and other rivers, this was a significant conclusion.
Byles' observations contributed to the NSW Government's decision to proclaim Kosciuszko State Park in 1944. Premier at the time was Labor's William McKell. A few years later as Governor General (and Sir William), McKell officiated at the ceremony to mark the beginning of the Snowy Scheme in 1949 near Adaminaby, ironically a scheme which would pose major challenges to the environmental integrity of the new park but which today continues to produce renewable electricity as an environmental plus.
Others preceded Byles. Bushwalker Myles Dunphy proposed a Kosciuszko 'Primitive Area', a fore-runner of the national park idea. He and his family had bushwalked much of NSW. The pram in which Myles and his wife pushed their baby Milo across the Blue Mountains is today in the collection of the National Museum of Australia. Milo in adult years became a major figure in the NSW conservation movement.
In the ACT, the formation of the National Parks Association in 1960 had repercussions. Led by CSIRO botanist Nancy Burbidge, the association set out to educate people about the bush and had as its ultimate aim 'A national park for the national capital', a slogan under which it campaigned vigorously.
A salient event in that campaign was in 1962 when association members did a bushwalk to Mt Kelly on the ACT's wild southern frontier. The walk was led by statistician Alan Bagnall who for many years as a leading member of the Canberra Alpine Club (CAC) had not only skied but bushwalked much of the ACT's mountain hinterland. The Mt Kelly adventure expanded the consciousness of association members like Robert Story and Fiona Brand and gave them knowledge of the mountain country to Canberra's south-west, vital to the national park campaign.
It is notable that Bagnall first went to Kelly in the 1950s on a walk led by the CAC's John Gdowski. Gdowski was a post-war migrant from Poland.
Partial success was realised in 1979 with the Gudgenby Nature Reserve decision. But more protection was needed, as much of the Cotter catchment was still under Forestry control. In 1984 the reserve was significantly expanded and Namadgi was declared, with Federal Minister Tom Uren (it was before self-government) flying by helicopter to the territory's highest peak Mt Bimberi to announce the decision.
The Canberra Bushwalking Club (CBC) had not been idle either. Formed in the 1960s, CBC lobbied politicians and took some on bushwalks into the mountains. It was CBC that put forward the proposal for a larger national park than the immediate Kelly region which had been the initial NPA idea.
Inside government, officers worked hard. Bryan Pratt's name has since become associated with his fishing shop in Belconnen, but in the 1970s-80s he played a major role in advancing conservationist thinking within government. He forged the ACT Parks and Conservation Service out of the Department of Interior's old Conservation and Agriculture Section. To Pratt, Namadgi and other reserves were 'the lungs of the ACT'.
Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve as well as Namadgi were of interest to NPA. Forester, botanist and landscaper Lindsay Pryor, a man deeply acquainted with the ACT's mountains, chaired an important early meeting. Given the fights in recent decades between environmentalists and foresters, it may come as a surprise today to realise that foresters figured in the conservation movement. They had a conservation ethic and land management experience.
In Kosciuszko, it was forester Nev Gare who became the park's first Superintendent in 1959 and oversaw a significant period in the park's history through till 1971. Sitting on the then State Park's Trust was Baldur Byles who was an important mentor to young Nev.
On Victoria's Bogong High Plains in the 1940s, botanist Maisie Fawcett assessed grazing's impact on vegetation and contribution to erosion, as the government considered the Kiewa Hydro Scheme. She constructed 'exclosure plots', fenced areas to keep cattle out so that the impact of grazing could be scientifically assessed. Her recommendations played a part in the protection of Victoria's high country and, ultimately, Alpine National Park.
Kiewa Scheme engineers were not alone in their concerns about grazing and erosion. In Kosciuszko it was Snowy Scheme engineers worried about siltation of their new dams who helped push for the total exclusion of grazing which occurred at the end of the 1960s.
Today's high-country conservation estate owes much to many dedicated people from a diverse range of backgrounds.
- Matthew Higgins is a former Canberra historian and his most recent books are Bold Horizon: High-country Place, People and Story and Seeing Through Snow.
