Conservation

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Biodiversity

NPA Policies

Park Management

Threats to Kosciuszko National Park

Commercial development
Introduced species
Horse-riding

Commercial development

The drive to expand ski resorts at Perisher and Thredbo is diverting attention away from the environment and towards real estate, or the effective privatisation of the park.

The alpine environment - and particularly water resources - is already under strain around resort areas. The push for year-round activities, as well as extending the ski season through artificial cloud seeding, adds further pressure.

Snow-based accommodation is environmentally damaging and inappropriate in a National Park of international significance:

• Peat bogs become sewers,
  
• Herbfields become carparks,
  
• Footpads become roads.

NPA believes there should be no further expansion of resort developments within the national park. New accommodation should instead be based in regional centres such as Jindabyne, Berridale, Cooma, Tumut and Adaminaby.

NPA does not seek to close existing resorts, although global warming does put their viability under question.

Introduced species

Over the last ten years there has been a great increase in the number of feral horses throughout Kosciuszko National Park, and other alpine parks.

Horses are damaging in a number of ways:

• They pollute waterways and trample streambeds,
  
• They cause soil erosion,
• They destroy slow-growing alpine herbs and cushion plants,
  
• These injured ecosystems take many decades to regenerate in harsh alpine environments.

Other introduced species causing problems in the park include foxes and wild dogs, which interfere with dingo conservation.

NPA is calling for effective control and eradication of feral animals in the Park, including horses. The humane option of aerial shooting of feral horses should not be excluded.

Horse-riding

Horses and parks don't mix. If tame horses are not properly controlled, they cause as much damage as their feral relatives by:

• Eroding soil,
  
• Polluting waterways,
  
• Trampling vegetation,
  
• Bringing weeds into parks via their hooves and their manure.

Horse-riders have been gradually bettering their position within Kosciuszko National Park. They have done this mainly through large rallies, public statements of civil disobedience, and direct lobbying to Government.

Under the draft Plan of Management they have nearly doubled their number of official horse camps. Although a permit system will be introduced, this will be difficult to implement.

NPA wants tighter restrictions on horse-riding and the closure of all horse camps. NPA is particularly calling for a ban on horse riding in fragile karst areas such as Yarrangobilly Caves, Cooleman Caves, and at the Pinch.

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Photo by Henry Gold
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