The hammerhead crane on Garden Island
is an enduring reminder of those days when manufacturing was seen as the path
to prosperity. It stood as the largest crane in the Southern Hemisphere in 1951
and it continues to occupy a place in Australian naval history.
Despite its significance, the survival of the Garden Island
crane is not assured. Along with the old railway engineering workshops at
Eveleigh and the Ku-ring-gai Blue Gum High Forest,
the Garden Island crane is at serious risk of
destruction.
Clearing in the Blue Gum High Forest, which houses many of Sydney’s largest and most
imposing trees, has reduced it to around one per cent of its original size, and
no solution has been implemented to assure the survival of the crane or the
Eveleigh railway workshop.
Stepping in to prevent the destruction of these icons is the
new program, Our Heritage At Risk. The program is an extension o f the National
Trust of Australia’s Endangered Species advocacy program which aims to reduce
threats facing heritage sights.
Our Heritage At Risk aims to focus community and media
Interest on the threats facing heritage sites in the hope of bringing about
change.
To outsiders, the choice of the nominated sites may seem
curious, but for the National
Trust’s Deputy-Director of Conservation in NSW, Graham
Quint, the nominations are entirely deserving and the result of a long-term
struggle.
“Eveleigh has been something we’ve been trying to save
for 30 years. The Smithsonian Institution [in Washington] has said it’s one of the world’s
most significant industrial sites.”
For Mr Quint, the protection of these locations is about preserving
our institutional memory.
“The suburb of Eveleigh is based on the railways, in a
similar manner to what the steel industry was to Newcastle,” he says.
He claims the State Government wants residential estates
built on the Eveleigh land and a similar fate could await the Garden Island
crane. Built to lift heavy machinery such as warship engines and boilers, it
remains the largest dockside crane in Australia. The National Trust’s
Executive Director, Tina Jackson, says the crane represents a unique piece of Australia’s
industrial history.
“There are only 15 of these cranes left in the world
and those that are in Scotland
have the highest protection, unlike here,” she says.
The main threat for the crane lies in its inactivity.
Standing unused for over a decade, increasing degradation has made demolition a
more likely option. The desired outcome is adaptation, recommissioning the
crane for lower load capacities.
Like the crane, threat to the survival of the Blue Gum High
Forest in Ku-ring-gai is acute. According to Neroll Lock, of the Blue Gum High
Forest Group, the conservation of the forest would represent “the survival
of the lamest regaining nail an
Gum high forest in Sydney”.
In April, the NSW Scientific Committee listed the Forest as critically endangered.
The Forest Group has experienced some success, but according
to Ms Lock, it is vital that there is no further incursion of development into
the area.
The Ku-ring-gai Council has endorsed the National Trust’s
decision to nominate the forest for Our Heritage at Risk.
Nominations for the Our Heritage at Risk list were submitted
to a national judging panel who will decide on a national top 10.
Photo: Taking seven years to build, the Garden Island
Hammerhead Crane at Woolloomooloo, was the largest crane in the southern
hemisphere in 1951.
Source: University
of Technology Precinct
Sydney Edition Issue 4/2007 page 16.
Publications from the UTS School of Journalism can be
found online at www.journalism.uts.edu.au/future_students/student_publications.html
and at www.reportage.uts.edu.au/