Submissions closed 24th January 2021

Parks Victoria gave the community 10 measly weeks to give them feedback on their diabolical plan to gut climbing in the Grampians – the submission deadline was Sunday 24 January 2021.

This was a once in a generation opportunity to help shape the future of climbing in Australia. Parks Victoria has openly admitted their draft plan for the Grampians is a test case for other areas – and land managers across the country are paying close attention to what happens in Victoria. Do you want to see compulsory climbing permits, new route bans and prohibitions on all bouldering spread to other areas? If not then we hope you submitted feedback to Parks Victoria!

What is at stake? All bouldering and 78% of roped climbing is to be prohibited.

To get an idea of what this draft plan entails read The Future of Climbing in Gariwerd, an article penned by Vertical Life. It is an excellent overview article on the potential impacts of this draft plan and a great resource for source material for your submission. Also check out our two previous articles – Off The Charts and Management Plan Revealed for some of the nitty gritty. This Australian newspaper article gives a good overview of the issues at play. It is behind a paywall.

Submissions from organizations and individuals

Several individuals and organizations have published their submissions publicly.

Australian Climbing Association Victoria

Australian Climbing Association Victoria template – the ACAV has created a detailed submission (PDF), and also created a summary / handy word document with several key points.

Victorian Climbing Club

Victorian Climbing Club submission – this is an excellent example of a well thought out submission that was drafted by Victoria’s oldest climbing club and covers every aspect of the draft plan.. The VCC have also published an incredible bit of research into the Economics of Rock Climbing which shows millions of dollars will be funneled out of the region due to climbing bans.

The VCC has also issued a press release to various politicians and media organizations about lack of faith many climbers feel about this community consolation process.

Joint Community Submission

Mike Rockell has published a collaborative and impressive independent submission that he co-authored with several experienced Victorian climbers. The current draft of this document can be found here. He invited people to be co-signatures to this document – and received over individual 850 supporters.

Gariwerd Wimmera Reconciliation Network

Gariwerd Wimmera Reconciliation Network (GWRN) have also published their submission and it’s worth a look for some ideas on a reconciliation based approach to climbing in the region.

Crag Stewards Australia

Crag Stewards Australia has also published their submission. The submission challenges the assumptions that PV appear to have made about the impact of climbing in all areas. It offers support for the proper management of climbing impacts in popular climbing areas and calls for climbing in less popular areas to be considered as being similar in impact to off-track walking.

Victorian Climbing Management Guidelines

The Victorian Climbing Management Guidelines is an interesting and worthwhile reference document for how the Victorian climbing community wants to manage rock climbing in the state. This was a collaborative document between VCC, ACAV and several other organizations that was published in September 2020. Parks Victoria has chosen to ignore this document in their draft management plan for the Grampians.

Please share this article and don’ t forget to check out the other 60+ articles on this blog for further background reading. Stay tuned for further updates…