The Era Landscape Conservation Area was listed on the National Trust Register in April, 1993 and the Burning Palms Landscape Conservation area was listed by the Trust in November, 1994.

 

These listings followed a number of extensive visits and inspections of these sites and consultation with the cabin communities to allow the Trust to fully understand the history and evolution of the communities and the pivotal role played by the shack owners.

 

Both listings highlighted the strong associations with the Era and Burning Palm communities for social and cultural reasons.

 

These communities were created by the shack owners and their forebears. The design of the cabins, their fittings, alternative technology, their long term survival intact, their progressive upgrading and the interconnection of the community with the life saving movement are all inextricably linked to the cabin owners themselves.

 

The Trust sees no logic in the National Parks and Wildlife Service ignoring this history in its current moves seeking to strip the cabin communitees’ members of their individual cabin ownerships. Such a move strikes at the very heart of the reasons for Classification recognized by the National Trust.

 

The cabin community is close-knit and over many decades has developed its own approach to living in and maintaining the cabins in a traditional way, quite unlike other urban communities. They have no road access, no town water supply or electricity but their tenure itself (ownership of the cabins) has given them the confidence and security to bypass these obstacles and develop their own distinctive approach to living in this situation.

 

The National Parks and Wildlife Service is using a lowest common denominator approach to standardize tenures across their entire estate rather than being sympathetic to individual situations which require a different approach if vital historic, technological and cultural values are to be preserved.

 

The Trust has long opposed earlier NPWS policies supporting demolition of the shacks. However, ownership being taken over by the State to correct an alleged “anomaly” may, in time, achieve the same objective.

 

In recent years, the Trust had opposed the demolition of an historic cottage within Royal National Park at Loftus. The cottage, state owned, had fallen into disrepair and its condition was the supposed justification for the demolition application.

 

Forcing the long-term owners of any historic and culturally significant properties to relinquish their ownerships on threat of eviction and demolition is unconscionable.

 

The Trust strongly concurs with the view of the Royal National Park Coastal Cabins Protection League

that: -

 

“State ownership is not consistent with the heritage values formed over the past 70 years, where the shacks have been built, owned and maintained by the families who occupy them.”

 

The Trust wishes the Protection League well in its mediation session with the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the League’s efforts to achieve long-term security of tenure of their cabins.