Courtesy of an Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Grant from the Department of Environment, DSMG has been working with heritage consultants GML to review, revise and finalise the Conservation Management Plan for the BNI over the last couple of years. We've hosted both community and stakeholder meetings and built on earlier draft CMPs from 2004 and 2015. GML has provided a full draft of the report for feedback.
The work has benefited from the support of the GML team, led by Dr Tim Owen and supported by Dr Lotty Feakins (now teaching at University of Sydney), who have contributed many hours in excess of the paid work covered by the grant.
The work on the new CMP started from a critical review of the earlier draft CMPs, and included a strong view that those plans all emphasised the colonial heritage values to the detriment of the Dharug heritage values of the BNI. So the new plan shifts the focus of caring for the BNI strongly towards caring for its place in the landscapes and timescapes of Dharug experience rather than limiting its significance to its brief use as such a central element of the development of colonial policies and practices.
DSMG acknowledges the support of Heritage NSW in providing the grant and invites community feedback on the new CMP. We will lodge the final revised plan with Heritage NSW in early-March 2024 so please provide any comments before Friday 23 February 2024. You can access the document here and provide feedback by email to DSMG (admin@dsmg.org.au) or directly to Richie Howitt who is compiling all community feedback to be sent to GML by phone or text message (0419 013313).
The file with the whole plan is large (ove 26MB) because it includes a number of images, so please be patient and wait for it to download.
If you have trouble with the full report, you can download and review each chapter separately:
Supported by Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Grant # 21-23ACH019
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