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Our heritage at risk

There are surely few images more redolent of fading Imperial glory than the sight of idly decaying industrial machinery reports Shant Fabricatorian in Precinct Sydney Edition Issue 4/2007 in November 2007.

The hammerhead crane on Garden Island is an enduring reminder of those days when manufacturing was seen as the path to prosperity. It stood as the largest crane in the Southern Hemisphere in 1951 and it continues to occupy a place in Australian naval history.

Despite its significance, the survival of the Garden Island crane is not assured. Along with the old railway engineering workshops at Eveleigh and the Ku-ring-gai Blue Gum High Forest, the Garden Island crane is at serious risk of destruction.

Clearing in the Blue Gum High Forest, which houses many of Sydney's largest and most imposing trees, has reduced it to around one per cent of its original size, and no solution has been implemented to assure the survival of the crane or the Eveleigh railway workshop.

Stepping in to prevent the destruction of these icons is the new program, Our Heritage At Risk. The program is an extension o f the National Trust of Australia's Endangered Species advocacy program which aims to reduce threats facing heritage sights.

Our Heritage At Risk aims to focus community and media Interest on the threats facing heritage sites in the hope of bringing about change.

To outsiders, the choice of the nominated sites may seem curious, but for the National

Trust's Deputy-Director of Conservation in NSW, Graham Quint, the nominations are entirely deserving and the result of a long-term struggle.

"Eveleigh has been something we've been trying to save for 30 years. The Smithsonian Institution [in Washington] has said it's one of the world's most significant industrial sites."

For Mr Quint, the protection of these locations is about preserving our institutional memory.

"The suburb of Eveleigh is based on the railways, in a similar manner to what the steel industry was to Newcastle," he says.

He claims the State Government wants residential estates built on the Eveleigh land and a similar fate could await the Garden Island crane. Built to lift heavy machinery such as warship engines and boilers, it remains the largest dockside crane in Australia. The National Trust's Executive Director, Tina Jackson, says the crane represents a unique piece of Australia's industrial history.

"There are only 15 of these cranes left in the world and those that are in Scotland have the highest protection, unlike here," she says.

The main threat for the crane lies in its inactivity. Standing unused for over a decade, increasing degradation has made demolition a more likely option. The desired outcome is adaptation, recommissioning the crane for lower load capacities.

Like the crane, threat to the survival of the Blue Gum High Forest in Ku-ring-gai is acute. According to Neroll Lock, of the Blue Gum High Forest Group, the conservation of the forest would represent "the survival of the lamest regaining nail an

Gum high forest in Sydney".

In April, the NSW Scientific Committee listed the Forest as critically endangered.

The Forest Group has experienced some success, but according to Ms Lock, it is vital that there is no further incursion of development into the area.

The Ku-ring-gai Council has endorsed the National Trust's decision to nominate the forest for Our Heritage at Risk.

Nominations for the Our Heritage at Risk list were submitted to a national judging panel who will decide on a national top 10.

Photo: Taking seven years to build, the Garden Island Hammerhead Crane at Woolloomooloo, was the largest crane in the southern hemisphere in 1951.

Source: University of Technology Precinct Sydney Edition Issue 4/2007 page 16.

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