Heritage Alert

Urban Bushland

The National Trust of Australia (W.A.) welcomes the Government's long overdue commitment to the conservation of Perth's urban bushland under the " Bush Forever" project launched on Boxing Day 2000.

Although the Government has publicly focused on conserving Perth's unique biodiversity, the National Trust is looking forward to the details of the plan. Public scrutiny is needed of the details of processes whereby some areas are given conservation priority whilst development is permitted on others. Although the importance of conserving representative floristic community types is extremely high, the National Trust expects that other values such as historic, aesthetic, social, educational and spiritual would also be considered. Together these values represent the heritage significance of the place.

The Trust is concerned that many places of local significance may have also been omitted from the protected areas because they were not considered to be of regional value. Whilst acknowledging that it would be impossible to save everything, the Trust expects the decision-making process to be extremely transparent and if applicable, to be flexible enough for changes in response to community expectations.

The Trust would also expect that the publicly quoted figure of 18% being conserved was not inclusive of wetland areas which should never have been considered for development in the first place.

The National Trust welcomes the Government invitation to assist in the conservation of Perth's urban bushland. As a community based volunteer organization, the Trust anticipates both it's tax deductbility status and the coventanting program will encourage far more active voluntary contributions from private owners of this part of our heritage.

As well, the Trust has already written education programs for schools on conserving urban bushland and would welcome an opportunity to assist in educating the general community.

The Community should support this Government commitment to conservation. This can be done not just by accepting the report, but also by making an active individual and collective commitment to take part in it's implementation. The Government have just provided a blueprint for minimum standards; it is up to the people of Western Australia to extend the outcomes

Lifeline for Perth's bush

Urban Bush - National Trust Primary School Education Package