A new national park in Western Sydney will eventually cover more than 1,100 hectares as the first stage of a connected protected landscape linking three conservation areas.
Gulguer National Park is located 5 kilometers south of Silverdale and 10 kilometers west of Bringelly.
It is being created through the Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan, which allows Western Sydney to continue growing while permanently protecting important habitat, according to an announcement.
The park sits on the traditional Country of the Dharug, Dharawal and Gundungurra language groups, within the Cumberland subregion of the Sydney Basin bioregion.
Its management as a national park will protect significant Aboriginal cultural heritage and enable greater access to Country for Aboriginal people.
At least 28 threatened species are known to occur in the park, including the southern greater glider, powerful owl, giant burrowing frog, eastern coastal free-tailed bat, and the Cumberland and Dural land snails.
The park also protects areas of critically endangered Shale Sandstone Transition Forest and Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest ecological communities.
Public access is currently available only through Bents Basin State Conservation Area.
The government said opportunities for visitors will increase over time as the park expands and infrastructure is developed to support appropriate public use.
For outdoor recreation operators in the Sydney region, Gulguer National Park represents the addition of a large, publicly accessible natural area on the city’s growing western fringe — a part of the metro area that has long lacked nearby national park access.
Featured image by NSW Government via https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au