History

The History Of Lamington

The background of the Lamington National Park can be traced several years back. In 2015, Lamington National Park attained 100 years of conservation. This World Heritage-listed national park spans across 21,176ha and features impressive biodiversity with over 390 species of wildlife. At the Lamington National Park, you will also find one of the most diverse areas of vegetation. In addition to the unique natural resources, visitors also get to enjoy walks on walking tracks that date back to the 1930s.

Establishment Of Lamington National Park

The Lamington National Park unsurprisingly began with a campaign to preserve a mountainous resource-rich land in the 1890s. The campaign was sparked by Robert Collins, a passionate grazier who had learned about the world’s first national park in the United States. Robert Collins went on to get elected into the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1896, and this afforded him a veritable platform to further push for the declaration of the area as a national park.

During the period, general sentiments were still mostly opposed to declaring the area as a national park especially since many in Queensland saw the land as an important timber supply and even a potential dairy farm. Against the backdrop, the campaign faced strong opposition at the time.

Thankfully, sentiments began to change in 1906 after the Queensland Parliament successfully passed The State Forests and National Parks Act 1906. It was this law that paved the way for the establishment of the state’s first national park, Witches Falls (Tamborine Mountain) in 1908. This major milestone set the tone of the eventual establishment of Lamington National park.

Although Collins died in 1913, the campaign he began remained very much alive. In part, this was thanks to Romeo Lahey – an engineer whose father was a Canungra sawmill. Larey joined the campaign in 1911 and went on to become a major factor in its subsequent success. He proposed for an even larger area to be protected and was able to gain significant support from locals through ‘lantern lectures’ as well as door-knocking.

Larey started writing letters and petitions to the major government in 1911, and his letters continued through 1913. In his letters, Larey promoted the area of the McPherson Range for consideration as a national park. He argued based on the economic and national importance of such consideration as well as the responsibility of his generation to hand down the ‘great heritage’ that had been handed to them.

The World War that broke out 1914 diverted attention from the national park proposition, however, Larey was determined and continued his campaign. He was able to secure majority support among the residents of the district for the petition and continued writing letters.

Eventually, in July 1915, the park was established and gazette as Lamington National park.

Located in Australia