Blue Mountains region reflects on 20th Anniversary of being granted World Heritage status by United Nations

As 2020 draws to a close, Blue Mountains City Council highlights that protecting their World Heritage Area remains more critical than ever.

For the past six months, Blue Mountains City Council has been marking this important milestone by acknowledging and celebrating the privilege and responsibility of managing a City within a World Heritage Area.

Critical service areas of Council have been highlighted over the past months, including water resource management, protection of the environment and threatened species, recognition of Traditional Owners, and future developments in the emerging scientific field of Planetary Health.

As catastrophic bushfires, floods and a global pandemic have demonstrated to all of us just how fragile life on earth can be, the Blue Mountains community endorsed vision for a Sustainable Blue Mountains has never been more critical to ensure the long-term health of the region.

In this final month of celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Blue Mountains gaining World Heritage status, Blue Mountains City Council recognises and pays tribute to the vital role that their community plays in helping achieve the vision of an environmentally, socially and economically Sustainable Blue Mountains.

From working with community-led networks such as Resilient Blue Mountains, to partnering with the Tourism and Hospitality sectors to allow the Blue Mountains to become a leader in Sustainable Tourism, to working with the business community to facilitate energy and waste reduction programs, to engaging our young people through the BMCC Youth Council, Council acknowledges that their community’s greatest asset is its people. 

Blue Mountains Mayor Mark Greenhill notes “the Blue Mountains community is made up of a great number of talented, passionate, hard-working and civic minded people whose collective efforts enrich our community in a myriad of ways. It is by working together as a community that we are in the strongest position to realise our goal of achieving social and economic wellbeing for all who call the Blue Mountains home, while continuing to protect and enhance our World Heritage environment. Every day we are getting closer to realising this goal.”

To find out more about how Council is working with their community go to bmcc.nsw.gov.au/working-with-our-community. 

Download the Community Strategic Plan 2035 here. 

Image top: Blue Mountains Connect with Nature Program; Image above: Regrowth after a bushfire, Bells Line of Road, Bilpin. Courtesy of Blue Mountains City Council. Credit: Robert Walwyn