Significant Places Under Threat
Media Release - Brisbane, 22 August 2002
5th Endangered Places List Released by National Trust
Releasing the 2002 Endangered Places List today, Simon Molesworth, Chairman of the Australian Council of National Trusts, decried the destruction and degradation of heritage places around the nation.
Speaking at the historic Customs House in Brisbane - a place now threatened by overtowering development - he urged his audience to maintain their vigilance to ensure Australia's rich and diverse cultural heritage survived for future generations.
This list indicates the complexity and vibrancy of our natural and cultural heritage and the intense forces which threaten to damage and destroy these significant places, Mr Molesworth said, and it is worrying that the key threats to these 23 places, as with the 100 places listed over the past 4 years, continue to be dollar-driven development and government inertia at all levels.
'I ask myself' he said, 'What kind of country are we, that we would consider further damaging the Murujuga, the world's finest rock art site on the Burrup Peninsula? Or permit any of the remaining quiet places on the Queensland coast to be overwhelmed by the juggernaut of rampant development?
How can the work of Tasmanian students investigating the ruins of the tin mining township of Garibaldi be so little valued that the place they have cared for could be flooded? And how is it possible that Belmont, one of Adelaide's few remaining grand old mansions, has been so neglected it is now unfit for human habitation?'
For the first time, Mr Molesworth noted, the List this year includes two national nominations, places of critical importance to all Australians: the River Murray where degraded water quality is causing severe damage to ecological and Indigenous cultural values, and the poor state of many Outback heritage places, now abandoned or neglected as a result of structural changes in rural industries.
He reminded his audience too, that the Endangered Places List is an indicative list only, not a complete list of all places under threat. Cape Bridgewater in Victoria for example, is but one of many places whose scenic values will be degraded because wind farm siting protocols have not been properly developed; Holsworthy, Lockiel Park, Sandon Point are but three of many areas of public land around Australia which communities want retained as parkland, not developed as housing estates.
'Governments must listen to communities' Mr Moleworth said 'and take immediate action to ensure that places of value and meaning, such as those we are listing this year, do survive, and can continue to enrich the lives of present and future Australians.'
For more information contact The Australian Council of National Trusts:
Simon Molesworth, Chairman 0412 346 432
Alan Graham, Executive Officer 0402 350 767
Marie Wood, National Conservation Manager 0421 867 166
Or refer to web site: www.nationaltrust.org.au