Sydney Knitting Nannas ventured into the wild, visiting a pristine swamp in the Royal National Park on Sunday 1 March, Clean Up Australia Day.
Nannas went to learn more about why swamps are important, how long wall coal mines affect them and what this means for the swamps in the Royal National Park in the southern suburbs of Sydney.
We have supported the long campaign by local community groups and conservation organisations against Peabody’s Metropolitan long wall coal mine and we’re shocked that it has been allowed to continue in spite of the damage it has caused.
To make matters worse Peabody has applied to open up new longwalls under the Woronora Reservoir catchment. We have also heard that six endangered swamps are expected to be destroyed if this mining expansion goes ahead.
We had to know more, so what better way to find out than a Nanna Listening Tour?
Our first stop was at a beautiful upland swamp not affected by mining, where we met Dr Joe Cairns, Bob Crombie and Cooper Riach, researchers who were our guides and informants.
Light rain fell, leaving dew-like droplets on the plants. New growth and emerging flowers were a result of earlier showers. The frog calls were very loud. We’d been warned to look out for snakes and leeches, but they weren’t a problem.
Mining fundamentally impacts swamps across NSW, and it was good to visit a healthy swamp to get a sense of likely impacts, and to learn more about what we stand to lose. Swamps are vital ecosystems, full of life. In drinking-water catchments, they also perform an essential service, purifying and cleansing our drinking water, holding water and slowly releasing it, even as other parts of the catchment become dry. They’re a natural filtration system, that serves as critical public infrastructure, working a million times better than under-sink water filters.
Dr Cairns told us about his research into local swamps and the ways in which they have already been damaged by mining. He was awarded an R&D Excellence Award in 2024 for his work on upland peat swamps on the Woronora Plateau, which is a vital part of the Greater Sydney Water Catchment. Swamps are endangered ecological communities, and Joe’s latest research has found that mining damage to swamps is irreversible.
At least 10% of swamps on the Woronora Plateau have already been damaged by undermining. Over 45% are at risk of accelerated collapse if mining operations continue.
Peabody has also infamously polluted the main waterway that runs through the length of the Royal National Park. It’s a shocking record. Nannas saw coal in the river at Audley, over 20kms downstream from the mine’s surface facilities at Helensburgh.
What we can do to protect swamps and the Sydney drinking-water catchment
One thing we can do is sign the petition by Save Our Swamps to the NSW parliament. It asks that the Woronora Reservoir ‘Special Area’ catchment be protected, and that Peabody not be permitted to use biodiversity offsets to legitimise irreversible damage to critical public infrastructure. Please ask your family and friends to sign and then post the petition to the address on the bottom.