NSW drovers rally to save historic travelling stock routes

The Wilderness Society (Sydney) Inc
Media Release  
27 August 2008
 
Drovers from across NSW are meeting at the Dubbo stockyards today to form Mates Of The Stock Route and call on the NSW government to stop the sell off of the network of historic and environmentally significant travelling stock routes.

Travelling Stock Routes – also known as ‘The Long Paddock’ – have enormous historical, environmental and economic value.

A proposed new management plan has opened up the way for many of the stock routes to be sold off, logged and cleared. A recent government review recommended the Rural Lands Protection Board no longer manage the stock routes and instead the Department of Lands take over.

In 1975, the network was estimated to cover 2.3 million hectares, just 33 years later only a little over a quarter of travelling stock routes remain.
 
The Wilderness Society’s Cecile van der Burgh will also address the drovers meeting and has warned of the potential environmental damage if Travelling Stock Routes are not protected and managed properly.

“Travelling Stock Routes are not just a vital drought relief network for graziers. They are important corridors for threatened animals and a large variety of native plants are found there,” Ms van der Burgh said.

“The stock routes are too valuable to lose. Drovers, environmentalists and scientists are all calling on the NSW Premier to act now to prevent further loss of the historic stock routes and protect them for future generations.”

“The NSW Government needs to work alongside the Federal Government to retain, restore and manage the unique values of the entire stock route network,” Ms van der Burgh said.

Many travelling stock routes are believed to have started as trails established by Aboriginal people, tracks of native animals, or bullock tracks of early explorers.

From about 1830 onwards, drovers used the routes to walk stock long distances between properties and markets. Their routes were then placed in public ownership and widely celebrated in Australia’s songs, poems and stories.

Travelling stock routes used to crisscross Australia. The Bradfield Highway in Sydney is still designated as a Travelling Stock Route and livestock can still be herded across the Sydney Harbour Bridge if a grazier needed to.