Thursday, January 2, 2014

Fitzgerald Land use dilemma


In 1983 the Western Australian State government progressed with the preparation of many newland farm blocks at the edge of the existing wheatbelt. These were bush blocks. Some of the farms were to be in the Vacant Crown Land north of the Fitzgerald River National Park (FRNP). Preparation for release of the land to farmers entailed surveying the blocks and building access roads.

Early in 1983, while the preparations for the release of the newland blocks was intensifying, Ken and Brenda Newbey became concerned about the impact of the proposed new farms on the values of the existing National Park and on the Ground Parrot population as most recent sightings had been in the area north of the FRNP. They visited some other historical locations (near Walpole, Denmark, and at the edge of Cape Arid National Park), and found that these sites had been cleared and were established as farmland. (There were further concerns about these farmblocks. One was economic - would farming be viable here?)

Below is a locality map to show where the FRNP lies within Western Australia. The second map shows the approximate location of the proposed newland farms and also the sites in the Fitzgerald area where Ground Parrots had been located up until the end of 1983. 




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