Blue Mountains join list of world treasuresDate: 30/11/2000 By James Woodford and Claire Miller in Cairns The decision gives a 1,000,000-hectare area of the mountains the same international status as the Great Wall of China, the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, Kakadu and the wilderness of south-west Tasmania. It makes Sydney the only major city in the world to have such a large, internationally protected wilderness as a neighbour. Conservationists immediately hailed the listing as one of their greatest successes - the campaign to have the Greater Blue Mountains nominated and listed by the World Heritage Committee has been under way for more than a decade. The longest serving campaigner for the listing is 91-year-old bushwalker Mr Alex Colley, of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness. "The feeling for us is that this is the biggest thing we have ever pulled off," said Mr Colley, who first hiked in the mountains in 1913. "If we hadn't fought like tigers for the protection of the Blue Mountains they wouldn't have been worth listing and preserving. The Blue Mountains are not just for us any more - they're an asset for the world." 
The 21-nation World Heritage Committee, meeting in Cairns, unanimously supported the listing as representing outstanding examples of eucalypt forest types and biodiversity, including many rare species left over from Gondwanan times 65 million years ago. The site contains 91 eucalypt species - 13 per cent of all eucalypts - and 132 plant species found nowhere else on the planet. Included is the Wollemi wilderness, home to the Wollemi pine, a species thought to be extinct since the age of dinosaurs until a handful of trees was found in a remote gorge in 1994. The 14th addition to Australia's World Heritage list was described in a World Conservation Union address to the meeting as a living biological laboratory. The Prime Minister, Mr Howard, said he was delighted by the decision "as somebody who spent a lot of time in his childhood holidaying there ... it's a great part of the world, and I have great affection for it". The Premier, Mr Carr, praised the decision and the work of conservationists who had pursued the listing. Mr Carr, a keen bushwalker, said: "This is very happy news. It makes me think of the sandstone and the eucalypts and the great silent gorges that is the unique heritage of the Blue Mountains." The Federal Environment Minister, Senator Hill, described the decision as historic, saying: "Sydney is privileged to have such a spectacular area on its doorstep." The Blue Mountains were the location of many of the nation's earliest conservation battles and the stamping ground for generations of hikers, including the father of the Australian wilderness movement, Myles Dunphy. The Greater Blue Mountains become the State's fourth World Heritage area, joining Lord Howe Island, Lake Mungo and the East Coast Rain Forests. Tourism NSW welcomed the listing, saying it would reinforce the "already strong environmental tourism industry in the Blue Mountains". The chief executive of Tourism NSW, Mr Tony Thirlwell, said it would be especially valuable for the international market. "It will put a World Heritage-listed park within easy access for visitors to Sydney, making it a real coup in tourism terms."
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