Keep Manly Dam Wild

The journey to

© Michael Allen

Many years ago, the fragile bushland of Manly Dam catchment galvanised a community to rise up and endeavour to protect it, through a multitude of demonstrations, public meetings, blockades, vigils, arrests and even a ‘Jam-for-the-Dam” music festival and march’. This is our story.

  • Where it all began...

    The Manly Dam environs have been home to the Gayamaygal people for millennia. The Dam itself was built in 1892, to create a water supply for the settlement of Manly, leading to the native bushland catchment being protected. A unique War Memorial was established after WW1 - the only war memorial created by conserving natural bushland.

    In 1972, a huge swathe of this bushland was cleared to create Wakehurst Golf Club. In 1984 the club was registered as a waste disposal depot and permitted dumping on the course.

    The Dam Action Movement (predecessor of SMDCC) was formed in an effort to stop illegal tipping (including toxic materials) during the construction.

  • Our vision: keep Manly Dam wild

    The vision is to protect this beautiful catchment from the pressures of over development and to keep it as wild and undamaged as humanly possible. As a consequence a beautiful new logo was created by local artist Brentos. This features one of our iconic creatures, the “Eastern Pygmy Possum” feeding from a Banksia flower.

  • Challenges

    The road to keeping Manly Dam Catchment as pristine as you see today has been fraught with challenges.

    It all started with trying to prevent land clearing at what became Wakehurst Golf club and over the years the wider catchment has lost an equivalent of 25 soccer fields worth of bushland to various development projects.

    Our challenges today include opposing the Council’s proposal to build yet more mountain bike tracks - including through rare "Duffys Forest Endangered Ecological Community". We are also aligned with other community groups to stop the contentious Lizard Rock proposal at Belrose and potential development of five other sensitive MLALC owned bushland sites (including land adjoining Manly Dam).

    Environmental Impact Statement Reports for various developments that have led to the loss (or potential loss of bushland), can be found here.

    Photo © Michael Allen

  • Where are we now?

    We continue to show up every month (join us), even today, to restore the bushland around Mermaid Pools.

    - We continue to lobby (since 2019) for declaration of bushland adjoining Mermaid Pools as a Small Bird Habitat Corridor, to give it a higher level of conservation.

    - We continue to strive to stave off the impacts of construction run off (after rains) from the new Forest High school development at Allambie heights (to protect the dwindling populations of the precious Climbing Galaxias.)

    - We continue to try to limit the expansion of Mountain Biking paths which impacts the habitat of a wide range of species.

    - We continue to lobby for the return of surplus Sydney Water land at Seaforth to be returned to the War Memorial Park. Background to this scenario can be seen below in the Milestones section.

    Photo © Michael Allen

Milestones at a glance

Awards