NPWS Meeting Apr 9, 2008

This afternoon Justin and I met with a two representatives of NPWS (Ranger Kim McClymont and Area Manager Chris Grudnoff) at their office in Forestville.

I am very pleased to report this was seen by all parties as a very productive encounter, with everyone keen to hear others point of view and coming away with some constructive actions that will hopefully help all involved, and of course the mountain bike community as a whole.

The short version: Things have come to a head at Oxford Falls (Garigal National Park) as a result of large rider numbers, illegal trail use and erosion becoming too much of an issue in the NPWS organisation. If riders can please show restraint and respect the 'no go' areas recently signposted here then future legal trail building may well be approved.

The long version - meeting minutes of what transpired today:

Chris introduced the issues that NPWS face in the Oxford Falls area of Garigal National Park. Large numbers of riders congregating at the Morgan Road area have brought too much attention to themselves and the riding of mountain bikes to be ignored. The Director of NPWS witnessed the large numbers personally and seems to have added much weight to the issue.

Chris went on to explain how legally the local NPWS officers are tied by the directions set out in the POM (Plan of Management) which states riding is not permitted on single track trails. There are some discretionary policies for each park, but single track trail access for mountain biking is not included in these. The only parks in NSW with MTB single track trail access are The Oaks and Thredbo, and each of these areas needed government approval to allow this.

Chris also explained the many different types of park area that NPWS manage. Many areas such as Nature Reserves are completely off limit to mountain bike riders. In most other parks however, riding on fire trail is always allowed.

Abusive trail users, particularly motor cross riders were discussed. The Rangers agreed that such users, particularly unregistered riders are a danger to themselves, others and the trails they ride on. As well as trying to protect parks from illegal mountain bike use the Rangers are especially vigilant of motor cross bikes. All National Park users are to be encouraged to report activity of this kind to the Bobbin Head office which is manned seven days a week.

The conversation moved on to what objectives NPWS had for this meeting. Over the course of the meeting various points came up, but can be summarised basically as wanting to establish a means of communicating with the local mountain bike community, especially the mapping of illegal trails. To enable this the following was decided:

• A section on the NoBMoB site for ranger communication would be very useful. We floated the idea of "News from the Rangers" but later came up with the more jovial title, "Ranger Danger!" for their section. Robin and Justin agreed this was a good thing and would create such a section.
• It is pointless for content authors to remove certain trails from NoBMoB maps as everyone knows they are there. Rather it would be better to point out where the boundaries of legality lie and hope that individuals could respect the law.
• Kim agreed to email Robin and Justin from time to time with any issues or other information to appear on the 'Ranger Danger!' section.

The Rangers explained how Garigal National Park POM (Plan of Management) is due for review. The time frame of such reviews seems to be elastic but it appears that it should most likely be in progress in the next couple of years. If riders want to be heard and win concessions they must become organised and make many submissions. As a guide the horse lobby provided some 1500 individual submissions on another POM. Volume equals action.

When mentioning State Forests (in particular the work done by Huw Kingston in Wingello State Forest) the Rangers conceded that nothing on this scale was likely to appear in National Parks, due to the underlying differences between State Forests (commercial) and NPWS (there to protect habitat as well as provide some recreation areas).

There are rock carvings at various locations in Garigal National Park that must be protected. Recently some of these have been purposefully damaged at Bantry Bay. All parties find it ridiculous that riders would do this given these particular carvings are no-where near the trails everyone knows about. The issue of pointing out carvings to protect them, versus the attention this would draw from the violent minority is a tricky one. No one had a good solution.

The example of Royal National Park (RNP) was brought up. Apparently RNP had a full time office for 12 months looking after trail maintenance and building in order to bring about the changes that have recently been seen there.

It was mentioned that much work was done on a Northern Beaches Trail Network but progress on this seems to have stagnated, possibly due to the loss of key personnel.

The Oxford Falls area of Garigal National Park is where Rangers would like to focus efforts. They do understand that a solution to the problem of erosion and illegal trail access will not be found by simply closing the trails there. The Rangers agreed that if trails in this area are closed for good then riders will have no option but to seek out other local areas and therefore the problem will simply move. However, due to the limitations of the POM trails on National Park lands must remain closed.

Again it was discussed that it's imperative that when the Garigal POM is reviewed as many mountain bike riders as possible submit requests for access. If riders are viewed in a favourable light then it is more likely such requests will be heard at review, and that access to the trails now illegal would possibly be opened. Once the constraints of the POM are lifted there is no reason why the community cannot be involved in fixing erosion and other trail problems and these trails have a chance to re-open. It was agreed that this is somewhat of a carrot to dangle at riders in order to prevent them from riding illegally.

As part of the recent access activity Council asked NPWS to place signage to the entrance of the Moon Rocks section of trail.

Given that POM legislation prevents trail building on National Parks lands it was noted that much of the land to the South of Garigal National Park in this area is Council controlled. Given that NPWS have already helped Council in this area an idea was floated, whereby perhaps NPWS could work with the mountain bike community and local Council to allow creation of trails on this land. If such trails were available it was agreed this would go a long way to discourage riding illegal Garigal National Parks trails. As Council land is no doubt marked for later development it was hoped that Council would view such activity as acceptable. Any trails built thus could become a stop-gap measure for use, mountain bike riders should be hopeful that once the Garigal POM is reviewed trails there that have been illegal for years will be reclassified as legal.

It was noted that any if trail building or maintenance on Council lands was approved it would be an excellent way to hone the skills required. Any such activity, even resulting in just short trails would serve this purpose well. A couple of candidate locations were discussed but as this idea is pending discussion with council it may well not see fruition and interested parties should not get their hopes up.

The meeting concluded after an hour and half of constructive and friendly conversation.