Protection of our Parks and Gardens
In 1976, the Trust recognised the important heritage of our parks and gardens and listed the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain, Sydney and Centennial Park on the National Trust Register. Approximately 100 parks have been now entered on the Trust Register, the most recent being the Isabel Fidler Memorial Garden at Sydney University, the Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre at Cowra and the Chinese Garden of Friendship at Darling Harbour.
Gardens, parklands, landscapes and avenue of trees are just as important to our heritage as buildings and sites. They play an immensely important role as places of passive and active recreation, enhance the wellbeing of those who use them and add greatly to the liveability of our cities.
Recently, the NSW government created a new agency (the Greater Sydney Parklands Authority) to manage our major parks, including:
- Centennial Parklands
- Moore Park;
- Callan Park;
- Fernhill; and
- Parramatta Park.
The government released a Draft White Paper outlining how this new agency would manage the Parks. There is broad community concern that under the Greater Sydney Parklands model the Trust appears to operate more like a public sector agency than a custodian of the parklands.
The National Trust made a submission on the Draft White Paper advocating that any overall authority must build community and local input, direction and control into its framework, and continue to make decisions that use the natural and cultural heritage values of the parks as their basis.
Follow the links below to view the Trust’s submission on the Greater Sydney Parklands Draft White Paper, and to learn more about the Trust’s Public Parks and Gardens Policy and about the historic National Trust gardens that you can visit.
Click here to view Gardens of Heritage Significance – A collection of essays on the history, conservation & management of our garden heritage.
