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PO Box 4134
Werrington NSW 2747 |
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Welcome The Western Sydney Conservation Alliance Inc (WSCA) is a not for profit volunteer group that seeks to protect Western Sydney's dwindling Natural Heritage. That aim is being achieved in a number of ways including:
Find out more here Want to join the Western Sydney Conservation Alliance? Download our membership form. The membership fee is a modest $5.00. Post it with your fee made out to the Western Sydney Conservation Alliance to the address at the top of the page. A Gardeners Guide to the Native Plants of Western Sydney Email us if you would like a copy of WSCA's native plant booklet mailed to you. Include your postal address.
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Current
News Save Sydney's last wild Emu population NSW Government community consultation workshops being held January 28 and February 4. Follow this link to see the public invitation. If attending RSVP and register your attendance by emailing Helen Ord
Decision makers please note that at the Public Meeting held on the 19th December 2013 the following resolution was unanimously agreed to:
Meeting Resolution - This meeting of the public of NSW calls on the NSW
Government to:
NSW Governments Broader Western Sydney Employment
Area
I encourage you to take a look at the NSW
Governments plans to create the 10,800 hectare Broader Western
Sydney Employment Area (BWSEA). The BWSEA straddles the LGA’s of
Penrith, Blacktown, Liverpool and Fairfield. Of concern is that 16% of the
BWSEA is endangered or critically endangered native vegetation.
Read more here Brad Hazzard refuses to discuss planning matters impacting Western Sydneys environment Brad Hazzard the NSW Planning Minister attended a community consultation forum in Penrith on May 17 2013 regarding his White Paper for a new planning system. He spoke of the unprecedented level of community consultation he is undertaking. Yet at the conclusion of the meeting he refused to speak with Geoff Brown the President of the Western Sydney Conservation Alliance who had approached him to discuss planning matters impacting Western Sydney's environment, the failure of the NSW to protect Priority Conservation Lands and a possible future meeting to flesh these matters out. Mr Brown had recently written to Barry O'Farrell, the NSW Premier, on behalf of WSCA about these planning issues and was hoping to inform Mr Hazzard about them. Barry O'Farrell letter here Read the WSCA media release detailing what happened here NSW Government failing to protect the Priority Conservation Lands of Western Sydney Here is link to an mp3 file of Geoff Brown the President of the Western Sydney Conservation Alliance speaking with radio presenter Linda Mottram of ABC 702 Sydney. Linda has a segment called 'Exclusive' which allows issues to be aired publicly. More information on this issue will be posted asap
Media release Labor Councillor wants opponents of rezoning plan
arrested A Penrith Labor Councillor
has stated the producers of a YouTube video criticising Councils
rezoning of Aboriginal Land should be arrested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfdVzeNozcQ&feature=youtu.be At last night’s Ordinary Meeting of Penrith Council a
rescission motion was debated seeking to reverse a decision by Council
that it’s Stage 2 Local Environmental Plan (LEP) rezone a further 114
hectares of Priority Conservation Land (PCL) owned by the Deerubbin
Local Aboriginal Land Council (DLALC) to RU4 Primary Production Small
Lots allowing 2 hectare subdivision of heavily vegetated bushland. In
Stage 1 of the LEP Council had already allowed about 500 ha of the DLALC
PCL to be zoned RU4. The NSW Government has a Cumberland Plain Recovery
Plan which in order to succeed seeks to protect the identified Priority
Conservation Lands. Councils LEP in zoning the DLALC owned PCL as RU4
undermines the recovery of the threatened species and ecological
communities of western Sydney. NSW OEH advice to Council was that
Priority Lands should be zoned E2 Environmental Conservation. Labor Councillor Karen McKeown in speaking against
the rescission motion stated she had met earlier in the day with the
DLALC and was appalled at the disrespect shown to the DLALC in that no
one had picked up the phone to speak to them and that permission was not
sought from the DLALC to film the YouTube video on their land. She went
on to say the police should be called to arrest these trespassers. Clr
McKeown went on to argue the DLALC were seeking to conserve their lands. “Karen McKeown, in speaking for the ALP, has got most
of it wrong. She ought to go and read the DLALC Business Plan to learn
that the DLALC have a property portfolio of over 15,000 hectares. They
don’t just own land in Penrith. That they are seeking financial returns
from their land holdings. That attempts by Councils to reduce the value
of their land (such as with E2 zones) will be the subject of complaints
to Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and that the Darug
people (which claim traditional ownership), who oppose the DLALC, are
extinct in western Sydney. “Clr
McKeown in claiming the high moral ground needs to reflect on her
comments. Did Clr McKeown also meet with the Darug? Did the Councillor
read the advice of the NSW Government to Penrith Council that Priority
Conservation Lands be zoned E2? Did the DLALC tell her that WSCA had
initiated two informal meetings with them in recent months to discuss
how to assist them with obtaining income streams to help conserve their
land? Was she told that the DLALC has not responded to any of our recent
correspondence? Clr McKeown herself never responds to any correspondence
from WSCA. “Clr
McKeown can’t be serious to argue the DLALC seek to protect their land
when they paid a consultant to produce a report and lobby Council
arguing for 5 further development options, totalling 114 ha, within
their Priority Conservation Lands. If the DLALC were seeking their land
conserved then all they need to do is pick up the phone to the NSW
Government and agree to enter into a Biobanking Agreement or sell them
the land. “In response to Clr McKeowns call for us to be
arrested for trespassing on the DLALC land to make a video highlighting
Councils flawed assessment process I say that you are clueless about
what it takes to protect Penrith’s environment. Penrith Council trumpets
the recent protection of the 181 ha Cranebrook Nature Reserve but they
forget that this land was saved from a developers bulldozer due to
people power, people trespassing on the land to photograph, video and
document the extent of threatened species that the developer of that
land had failed to include in its ecological reports. Public tours were
illegally run on that land that facilitated the groundswell of public
opposition. “Our YouTube clip was shot mostly from the road or
the public footpath. The shots from the DLALC land were within about 20
metres of the road. If Clr McKeown is truly serious about arresting
trespassers on the DLALC lands then she should be targeting not those
seeking to conserve it but those ruining it. These lands are huge,
largely unfenced; they are used daily for trail bike and horse riding,
four wheel driving, rubbish dumping, firewood gathering etc. The odd
body gets found dumped out there. They’re the criminals Clr McKeown not
us. “Who owns the land is irrelevant. To us it’s a simple matter that this land contains some of the best bushland in Sydney and must be conserved.”
http://www.deerubbin.org.au/Final-CLBP-290609.pdf
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Save our Emus page here
Correspondence sent to our politicians and decision makers. See who is ignoring us and who is responding here NSW Government failing to protect the environment here
Media releases and articles here ADI Site info and ADI Residents Action Group website archive here Save Cranebrook Air Services Australia site archived website here. A site saved by WSCA volunteers here
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