Our Peter Smith joined the group SOS “Save our Summits” as part of their series of short talks highlighting the injustice of summit, track, trail and crag closures across Australia. Many of you will recall the visit and talk by Marc Hendrickx from SOS to our recent AFA AGM
Peter Smith discussed the access to bridle tracks in SE NSW, the formation of AFA following the widespread unresearched declation of Wilderness by the NSW Government in 1999 and work done by AFA to prevent more trail/track closures.
The YouTube Podcast of the meeting has been posted and can be viewed at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnG1V3Ljg9g
The meeting lasted for about 45 minutes and be loosely broken down into segments: The first 25 minutes or so will give you a good insight into what AFA is all about.
- The first 2 minutes is the meeting getting going and introducing Peter Smith
- From 2 to nearly 8 minutes is discussing the announcement of Wilderness areas in 1999 and the formation of AFA
- From about 7 minutes 50 secs for the next 5 minutes, Peter Describes the numerous Bridle Tracks in SE NSW using slides of the different tracks
- From 12 min 40 seconds approx Peter discusses what "Wilderness" is and its limitations.
- At 14 minutes plus there are some pictures of various AFA meetings and work with politicans. Also the Trials of track use finding no damage.
- From about 18 minutes the "New Management of NSWNP" is talked about
- After a few images of families using some of the tracks Peter elaborates on the Legislation issues where it is proposed that all of the NSW NParks be handed over to indigenous peoples.
- From about 25 minutes into the Podcast there is a discussion between the few (mainly SOS members) on the points raised by Peter. There is mention of a broader "Conference" being an action - possibly in Canberra.
