Mount Keira Scout Camp: Conservation Analysis Report

This report was prepared by a qualified heritage consultant and documents a conservation analysis for the Mount Keira Scout Camp area. It has been adopted by the National Parks and Wildlife Service as stage 1 of the conservation management plan for this area. Stage 2 is underway and involves minor amendments and updates to this original analysis.

Mount Keira Scout Camp is a rare example of a scout camp occupying a licensed area within a national park/state forest in New South Wales. The historical reasons for this lie in the philanthropy of local industrialist and supporter of the scout movement, Mr AS (Sid) Hoskins, who supplied the site for the establishment of the scout camp on his company's mining lease land. He supplied the land and financed the design and construction of the landscape by landscape designer and contractor, Paul Sorensen, and buildings by brother-in-law architect, Geoffrey Loveridge. The site later became part of what is now the Illawarra Escarpment State Conservation Area.

With its rich biodiversity, the Illawarra escarpment supports a number of endangered ecological communities, threatened plant and animal species and spans ecological transition zones. Of particular significance at the scout camp is the Illawarra escarpment subtropical rainforest, an endangered ecological community considered to be amongst the most mature intact subtropical rainforest in the Illawarra. Management of the licence area, therefore aims to facilitate a sustainable balance between continuing scout activities and conservation of the surrounding natural and cultural environment.

Visitor information

Millions of years in the making, the Illawarra Escarpment State Conservation Area features dramatic sandstone cliffs and a variety of different forest types, from sub-tropical rainforest to olive-green eucalypts and towering cedars.