A climbing community petition launched at midday on Sunday is well on track to break 10,000 digital signatures by the end of the day today (18 March 2019). Created by the Grampians Access Working Group to generate support, it has succeeded in broadcasting these Grampians access issues to a truly global audience. Any climber on Facebook would think there is simply nothing else newsworthy in the world as our feeds show share after share of the same link. This is a powerful message of support to overturn the draconian SPA region bans put in place through much of the Grampians. If you haven’t signed and shared please do so now.

The petitions aims are simple and uncontroversial:

• ensure our continued access to the Grampians/Gariwerd National Park, including firm confirmation of PV’s publicly stated approval to responsibly climb in Special Protection Areas (SPAs) until a new Park Management Plan is implemented;
• ensure climbers be actively included in the assessment of significant and sensitive sites to achieve intelligent and targeted access outcomes;
• ensure climbers, as a key responsible user group, be actively included in the development of all future park management plans.

We believe that as a community, armed with the right knowledge and empowered by strong, constructive working relationships, we can all share the Grampians/Gariwerd National Park in a positive and harmonious way.

Over the weekend a similar paper petition has been doing the rounds of crags and gyms. This petition has a different objective, it is to be presented to Victoria parliament on March 25th by local MP Emma Kealy. The aim is to seek legal support through parliament to allow us to climb in SPA areas before a new Management Plan is created, and to guarantee climbers a seat in negotiations drafting of this Plan. Emily has received many letters of concern from climbers in the last few weeks and has been very supportive of our cause. Lets hope this petition can work in parallel with the online one to gain support in both the wider community and the government.

Thanks to everyone who is helping by signing up!