Landcare's Jane Lemann talks Mount Gibraltar Heritage Reserve conservation works

Southern Highland News previously reported a petition via Change.org to: "Save the Gibraltar Mountain bike and walking trails." The petition being driven by 14-year-old Tavish McPherson had 2,674 signatures at the time of publication.

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The Chevalier College student hopes to save the popular trails which are used for a particular type of "gravity" mountain biking.

However, on the other side of the debate is bush regeneration expert Jane Lemann and the Landcare and Bushcare group she represents.

The group [Landcare] has dedicated 30 years and over $1 million to its Gib Reserve conservation works and find the man-made bike trails "disheartening" at best and "illegal" at worst.

"The whole concept of conservation and saving the little that is left of our natural areas is so important," Mrs Lemann said.

"Here we are with this treasure in the middle of our urban areas. You can just walk up there before breakfast and have this peaceful moment."

The volunteers are very proud of what they've dealt with in terms of weed invasion. She said it was a big project and hard for most people to comprehend.

"We're looking at the long, long-term future and we're trying to correct the mistakes of the past for the future generations," Mrs Lemann said.

The Mount Gibraltar Heritage Reserve was first formed in 1919 when the then Bowral Council bought 66 acres from one of the quarrying companies to create a flora and fauna reserve.

That was according to Mrs Lemann who said that over the years various councils have added "little bits" to the currently 130ha heritage reserve.

In 2013 the NSW Heritage Council listed the reserve on its Heritage Significance Register for both the special biodiversity and the industrial heritage, according to Mrs Lemann.

"Years ago we lobbied the Bowral Council to try and get the reserve cared for but until the quarries closed they weren't prepared to do anything," she said.

"When the final quarry closed in 1986 they still couldn't insure volunteers so no one could touch it and it just got worse and worse and worse."

By 1993 Mrs Lemann said the area was highly disturbed by over 100 years of quarrying.

"And all the weeds from these great gardens of Bowral, which were bigger in those days, moved in," she said.

"The birds bought the berries and there was ivy everywhere; jasmine; honey suckle; cotoneaster; then the wind blows and all those things sort of moved in and overcame the bush."

Landcare "lobbied and lobbied" what was the then newly formed Wingecarribee Shire Council under mayor David Wood. He called a public meeting and appointed five committees to help the council look after the reserves at Mount Gibraltar, Gibbergunyah, Mount Alexandra, Hammock Hill and Mansfield.

"I had done bush regen and we were lucky in that we had somebody who knew a bit," Mrs Lemann said.

"The first year was spent assessing the place; where we would begin, what our plan would be and what the assets would be; and then we had to apply for a Landcare grant for some tools because the council wasn't going to supply anything except insurance. That was in 1993."

The group "started at the top" following one of the basic principals of bush regeneration.

"You start at the least infested place and work towards the worst which is down in the wet south corner," Mrs Lemann said.

She challenged the local residents invested in the current dispute to look out the window and: "Just imagine if the Gib wasn't there as a central, quiet, natural sanctuary."

There are sites along the Wollondilly River and escarpment are "hotspots" for revegetation, according to Mrs Lemann. This follows a number of grants given to try and get the Moreton National Park connected to the the Blue Mountains world heritage area.

"This work is part of a much bigger program. There is an amazing government initiative called the Great Eastern Ranges Initiative. The plan is to revegetate from Kosciuszko Mountains up to the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland so that as climate changes creatures can move or migrate - whatever they need to do - including plants; they're slower but they still migrate according to the conditions," she said.

"And so there are a couple of places that are really broken right across in Victoria, here, the Hunter Valley and somewhere near the Border Ranges on the boarder of Queensland ... That makes Mount Alexandra and Mount Gibraltar key from east to west because quite a lot of birds like the robins and the fantails move to the coast; they go to the beach for the winter."

Until the COVID-19 pandemic the Landcare and Bushcare group had invested over $1 million of volunteer hours into the conservation project. It's work they say the mountain bike trails and gravity riders directly threaten.

"We got $1 million of outside grants for things like tools and professional people to do the quarry faces and things like that which we as 50-year-old plus volunteers simply couldn't do," Mrs Lemann said.

"At one stage we had a group called the Good Bush People who specialised in abseiling and weeding."

Ms Lemann said the microsyenite was what makes Mount Gibraltar both "unique and special".

"The vegetation is only growing in the deposits of eroded rock so the clay that's derived from this rock is unique. And so the assemblage of vegetation and what lives in it is unique and that's why it's nationally endangered and it's a sanctuary," she said.

"A lot of people, even bush regenerationists, don't realise that the engine room for all this is in the clay; it's the microorganisms and the worms and ants and beetles. If you kill off the undergrowth in the soil then there's no engine room functioning.

"Every plant has a set of fungi that helps it to feed itself and get the goodies out of the soil in return for photosynthesis sugars. But they're talking to each other ... They're amazing; it's just extraordinary."

Mountain biking and other trail activities currently in the spotlight may not affect the "whole picture" but it has ruined the little bit of recovery work volunteers have spent 30 years to achieve, according to Mrs Lemann.

"Because the natural communication between here and there has been cut-off; it's been compacted by the weight of the bicycles jumping on it and riding on it so it's turned into brick so the ants which are a secret to healthy vegetation and everything can't cope and neither can the fungi. The beetle can no longer walk from one point to another without being picked off by a bird because its cover's gone," she said.

"Where this particular bike track has been constructed was burned by fire three years ago and the fire got away and it burned the canopy . It was drastically damaging and it's only just now starting to recover."

The Landcare representative was keen to make it known publicly that the group was not against mountain biking or teenagers getting out and enjoying the great outdoors.

"It's like our Billie carting back in the day," Mrs Lemann said. "It's outside, it's exercise, it's skillful and it's got an element of testing yourself ... and that's what you need to do as a child; test yourself."

Despite understanding the motivation behind the sport the trails in this sanctuary must be eliminated, say Landcare.

"They've got to learn it's precious and it's a treasure and you don't just go in and do things because you feel like it," Mrs Lemann said.

"To go in and do it without permission and insurance - it's illegal - we're training them to be bolt cutters and go and do it. We're not showing them how a community is run."

Landcare want the council to find a solution without being "divisive".

"The EPA said the council has really strong powers to close this down but so far they are pushing that it's for passive recreation - bike riding is not passive," Mrs Lemann said.

"But our solution is that we all do it together instead of fining them $330,000 which they won't because they haven't got it."

A Wingecarribee spokesperson confirmed that the council had now reached out to the community members involved to facilitate a workshop on Monday, May 22.

"For the purpose of better understanding their needs and wants, and to help them understand the legislative constraints that the council operates within," the spokesperson said.

"The learnings from this meeting, combined with research of similar instances in other LGAs will form the basis of a report to the June council meeting where we will propose a pathway forward that best meets the needs of the community.

"Opportunities for the community to contribute to the decision making will form part of the process toward a resolution," she said.

This preliminary meeting will be for the council and the seven teenagers directly involved and their parents/carers.

"For the purpose of clearly understanding exactly what they need and want," the spokesperson said.

The meeting will be facilitated by the council's community development coordinator and attended by its senior strategic planner and natural resource projects coordinator.

"To help them understand the heritage and environmental significance of this site," the spokesperson said.

"The outcomes of this discussion will inform an approach to wider community engagement as the basis for finding a way forward that will best meet the needs and interests of the community as a whole."

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