Last ditch effort to save ‘Aboriginal scar trees’ in former Riverlands golf course
ENVIRONMENTALISTS are trying to save hundreds of Aboriginal “scar’ trees on an old golf course, part of about 20ha of bush set to be cleared for development.
The Express
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ENVIRONMENTALISTS have launched a last-ditch effort to save hundreds of trees in Milperra they believe have Aboriginal significance.
The Bankstown Bushland Society spent Thursday photographing scar trees at the decommissioned Riverlands Golf Course.
The evidence will be given to the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage.
Developers have proposed levelling a quarter of the 82ha bush block to prepare for roads and development, including almost 500 new houses.
It means hundreds of possible “remnant indigenous trees” could also face the axe. Scar trees were used by indigenous people to make bark canoes, shelters and containers.
Bankstown Bushland Society vice-president Chris Brogan said the hope was that if the department’s Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System deemed the trees significant it could halt development.
“It’s insanity … you will destroy the biodiversity values of Bankstown as well as the cultural history, it’s just a complete act of vandalism,” Mr Brogan said.
An environmental-impact statement prepared for developer Statewide Planning recommends relocating tree hollows to areas of the land set aside for conservation.
“Once the trees are destroyed, the ecological value is destroyed.
The idea that they can offset that destruction by moving the hollows somewhere else doesn’t make sense,” Mr Brogan said.
The society wants Canterbury-Bankstown Council to review the Riverlands planning process, like administrator Richard Colley said he would do with the Canterbury Rd corridor.
According to the OEH website, declaring an area an “Aboriginal Place” is a way of legally recognising and protecting Aboriginal cultural heritage.
The National Parks and Wildlife Act states: “It is an offence to harm or desecrate a declared Aboriginal Place.”
A heritage impact statement prepared by the former Bankstown Council in January said the site had “very little or no Aboriginal significance”.
The proposal is before NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes and is yet to be approved.
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