Media release – Keep-It-Wild, 15 November 2022

No commercial development inside our national parks

The ‘luxury walk’ model is booming across Australia, leading to increased interest in the money-making potential of putting commercial developments in our national parks. New proposals are popping up across Australia, from Cooloola in Queensland’s Great Sandy National Park to the South Coast Track in Tasmania; from NT’s Kings Canyon to the Light to Light walk on the NSW south coast; Kangaroo Island in South Australia to the Falls to Hotham Alpine Crossing in Victoria’s Alpine National Park.

These public lands are places of outstanding natural beauty, with immense ecological, cultural and recreational value. These proposals are part of a shift towards managing our parks for profit, not protection.

So far, local community groups and not-for-profits have been fighting each project individually. Consultation has been minimal, and public scrutiny low. However, the heat is being turned up: there has been significant recent media attention, with features in outlets including the Guardian, ABC, Good Weekend and Australian Geographic. A nationwide approach is desperately needed to raise awareness of the number and scale of these proposals, and the impacts and issues associated with large-scale urban development in these delicate ecosystems. Decision makers need to be held to account.

Keep-It-Wild.org is a new website set up to shine a light on the issue, and keep track of proposals for developments in national parks and other public land across Australia. The site will help community organisations battling these proposals by providing a central space to host and share information, educate the public and media, and monitor the status of these projects.

The site will be officially launched in Sydney this Saturday (19 November) at the Bushwalking NSW symposium on Tourism Development in Protected Areas in Sydney (https://www.bushwalkingnsw.org.au/tourism-development-in-protected-areas/).