Blue Mountains National Park, together with Kanangra-Boyd, Wollemi, Gardens of Stone, Nattai, Thirlmere Lakes and Yengo National Parks and Jenolan Karst Conservation Reserve, has been recently inscribed on the World Heritage List as the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
The park is of particular importance because of its spectacular scenery, the diversity of natural features and environments and its role in contributing to a comprehensive, adequate and representative conservation reserve system within the Sydney Basin bioregion and its importance in contributing to the corridor of natural lands along the Great Escarpment (Ollier, 1982). The park protects an unusually wide range of plant and animal species and communities, as well as a large number of threatened, rare and restricted species.
Other conservation values of the park include the range of Aboriginal sites and historic places protected in a natural environment. Blue Mountains National Park is also of importance as a major water catchment area for Sydney.
The park is a major focus for domestic and international tourism as well as for many types of recreation in a natural environment. These range from the passive enjoyment of the park's scenery from easily accessible cliff-top lookouts, to more active wilderness experiences in the park's many canyons and gorges. The large remote areas of the park are of special significance in offering opportunities for both the maintenance of natural processes and self-reliant recreation.
See also: Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area Strategic Plan (2009).
This plan of management should be read with the Blue Mountains National Park Amendment to Plan of Management (2021).
Photo: Blue Mountains National Park / Elinor Sheargold/DPE
