User:Jamestremain/Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute

The Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute was formed in 2004 to broker interdisciplinary research to enhance knowledge of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and to engage communities in its management and conservation.

The institute works with academics, government regulators, land managers and community interests to develop policy and management strategies that maximise the resilience of the World Heritage Area's natural and cultural values in the face of climate change, invasive species, urbanisation and agricultural and industrial development.

It aims to foster research that will help land managers and regulatory agencies make decisions that will preserve the integrity of the world heritage area, its biodiversity, geodiversity and cultural heritage.


The Greater Blue Mountain World Heritage Area

The Greater Blue Mountain World Heritage Area covers about one million hectares of bushland along a central eastern portion of New South Wales, west of Sydney, Australia's most populous city. It is an expanse of contiguous reserves stretching from Mittagong in the south to Denman in the north, and from the Central Coast and western Sydney in the east to Lithgow, Rylstone and Bylong in the west.

The area was nominated for inscription on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s World Heritage List by the Australian Government in 1998 and declared by UNESCO in 2000.

The nomination, which was prepared by the NSW Department of National Parks and Wildlife Department and Environment Australia, stated:

"The Greater Blue Mountains Area is a dissected sandstone tableland that cradled the birth of new continental flora, while at the same time sheltering in its deepest recesses the floristic remnants of Gondwana. This vast and beautiful area of upland reserves, inhabited by indigenous people over millennia, stands adjacent to the largest metropolis in Australia. Through their scale and symbiosis with the City of Sydney, the Greater Blue Mountains exemplify the links between wild places and human aspirations.

"The combination of dramatic landforms and colour, complex patterns of water flow, highly variable atmospherics, diverse eucalypt-dominated vegetation, rich wildlife and extensive areas for the experience of nature in solitude has created an area of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance which contains superlative natural phenomena."

Member organisations

The institute is supported by several universities and government natural resource management and regulatory agencies, including: Australian Museum Blue Mountains City Council Botanic Gardens Trust, NSW Department of Environment & Climate Change (DECC) Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Management Authority Parks and Wildlife Group, DECC Sydney Catchment Authority University of New South Wales University of Sydney University of Western Sydney University of Technology, Sydney 


Flagship programs

The institute has three flagship programs to guide its research and community engagement work:

• Coping With Climate Change – researching the likely impacts on the ecology and fire regimes of the world heritage area under different climate change scenarios, and developing mitigation strategies;

• An Effective Buffer Zone – minimising the negative effects of development abutting the world heritage area; and

• Healthy Ecosystems and Communities - building knowledge and community awareness of the connection between healthy ecosystems and human wellbeing.

The institute values the knowledge and culture of the traditional owners of the world heritage area and other Aboriginal communities in the region, and it’s activities are guided by the UNESCO's World Heritage Convention.