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.

Travelling Stock Routes are an integral part of Australia’s rural history. From about 1830 onwards, drovers used the routes to walk stock long distances between properties and markets. Their routes were set aside in public ownership. These connected strips of land, totalling over 3.6 million hectares, have high social and conservation values. Many still retain native vegetation such as endangered box woodlands. They enable wildlife to migrate and adapt to climate change and in the future may provide a cheaper option for stock transport.  Such an extensive network of connections in the landscape does not exist anywhere else on earth.

The Travelling Stock Networks: Biodiversity Highway of the Eastern Inland Conference was held on Wednesday 9th April at The Australian Museum, Sydney. It attracted enthusiastic participants from NSW, Queensland and Victoria, including: farmers, conservationists, scientists, government officers, Rural Land Protection Board rangers and representatives of national environment organisations. The TSN Conference reaffirmed and extolled the rich complexity of the social, indigenous, historic, economic and nature conservation values of the Travelling Stock Routes.

Following the conference a number of participants agreed to work as a national coalition concerned about the future of the travelling stock network in NSW and Queensland. 

They adopted an Action Statement calling for government action to:

• Retain, not sell-off, transfer or lease remaining parts of the network;
• Increase State and Commonwealth financial resourcing to enable appropriate care, control and management of stock routes throughout NSW and Queensland;
• Enact specific stand-alone legislation to ensure the permanent protection and effective management of the network in each state; and
• Support community awareness and promotion of the network.

These stock route networks provide many benefits to the livestock industry and the wider community including eco-tourism, grazing, landscape beauty, recreation, and as refuges for travelling birds as well as many threatened animals and plants.

“These benefits far outweigh the small commercial return to state governments from selling or otherwise degrading the Travelling Stock Routes and Reserves  ” said Bev Smiles on behalf of the groups.
  
NB: The Travelling Stock Network is commonly referred to as “The Long Paddock”. In Queensland it is called the Stock Route Network and is managed by local government. In NSW it consists of Travelling Stock Routes and Reserves managed by Rural Lands Protection Boards.