PETER Andrews is digging in at Bylong Valley’s Tarwyn Park, and the community is standing behind him.
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On Sunday (July 31) the gates of the iconic property will be opened to the public for the last time for a Save Tarwyn Park rally before Korean state-owned mining company Kepco takes over on August 1.
But Mr Andrews and his 20 horses will stay as squatters when the clock ticks past midnight on July 31, and no one is sure what will happen then.
Kepco says Peter Andrews’ decision to move onto the property several weeks ago after his son Stuart moved his family off, after selling to Kepco in 2014, is a matter between father and son.
Now there’s a community petition to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and other federal ministers, appeals to the NSW Government to have Tarwyn Park heritage listed, and a rally on Sunday from 10am to protect the property from Kepco’s open cut coal mine proposal.
“Tarwyn Park is a living blueprint for landscape restoration in the 21st century,” said Lock the Gate Alliance.
“It has been the developmental cradle of Peter Andrews’ Natural Sequence Farming approach to the repair of broken landscapes, and it is historically significant as having been one of Australia’s leading thoroughbred horse studs.”
Newcastle University Tom Farrell Institute associate, and former NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service senior manager Peter Stevens, said any approval to mine the Bylong valley in NSW would lead to the permanent sterilisation of high value agricultural land.
The loss of Tarwyn Park was “ill-considered”, he said.
Sunday’s rally will include tours of the property, talks from Natural Sequence Farming practitioners, and inspections of the historic Harold Hardwick-designed homestead. The Tarwyn Park stables where thoroughbreds including Heroic and Rain Lover spent their final years will be on display.
A Kepco spokesperson said the company designed its mine to “avoid and minimise direct impacts to local heritage wherever possible”. The mine would employ 800 people and pay up to $783 million in royalties, it said.
“The Tarwyn Park homestead and horse stables will remain. A historic heritage management plan and conservation management plan will be prepared to guide the management of the Tarwyn Park complex, including the stables,” the spokesperson said.
Mr Stuart Andrews sold the property in 2014 after three years of fighting Kepco’s proposal, and “they have the law on their side’’.
‘‘It’s just you trying to stop a multinational company, and the politicians couldn’t give a s---t,” he said.
Details: www.facebook.com/SaveTarwynPark/