ACKMA Journal Edition #1 – June, 1988

Back in 1971, Roy Skinner, who was then superintendent of Hastings Creek in Southern Tasmania, was lucky enough to be awarded a Churchill Fellowship in order to study cave tourism around the world.  On his return, 1 proposed to the Australian Speleological Federation that we should set up a conference on cave tourism and management, building it around Roy as a keynote speaker. From this, we hoped to improve the quality of cave tourism, so that the general public might develop a greater awareness and understanding of caves. in the long run, the aim was to enhance cave conservation in Australia.

So, John Dunkley and I set up the first conference.  John was able to obtain the support of the N.S.W. Department of Tourism, and so it was staged at Caves House, Jenolan on 10-13th, July 1973. For this first conference, John and I arranged a series of speakers, many of whom were not cave managers. Fortunately, the program at conferences since has come wholly from the conference participants, most of whom have been managers.

Following the Jenolan Conference, some of us were -requested to prepare a plan of management for the Katherine karst parks in the Northern Territory, and so a further dimension arose.

A second conference was held in Tasmania in 1977, and since then, we have met at two-yearly intervals. The Tasmanian conference considered whether or not to form a cave management association, and at that stage the Federation was asked to continue to sponsor the conferences and any associated activities. The Commission on Cave Tourism and Management was then established by the Federation to carry out these functions.

The third conference (Naracoorte, South Australia, 1979) was graced by the presence of Margaret and David Williams of Waitomo- the beginning of a long and extremely profitable liaison across the Tasman. Conferences were held at Yallingup, Western Australia and Lakes Entrance (near to Buchan), Victoria. Then in 1985, David tempted us all across to Waitomo, thus truly cementing the Australasian character of our gatherings. Finally, 1987 saw us all join in some kind of endurance trial through the Caves of N. S.W, at the end of which it was agreed to form A. C. M. A., marking a further step in the development of karst management in our two countries.

Meanwhile, the conference proceedings have become an invaluable source of literature of karst management, and the Commission has been involved in work on plans of management at Yallingup, the Nullarbor, Tantanoola, Naracoorte, and, most recently, Jenolan.

In retrospect, one of the remarkable features of Roy's vision in applying for the Churchill Fellowship  which started it all off was that it was so much in advance of its time.  The first conferences devoted specifically to cave tourism or management elsewhere in the world did not occur until 1975, which is some indication of the lead which Roy gave us.  To take it one step further, even though we all recognized that we probably have a long way to go, ray own extensive travel (visiting caves whenever possible) convinces me that we have in fact moved a long way, and have a general level of cave management which compares more than favourably with that of most other countries.