CHITTERING VALLEY: RECOGNISED FOR DECADES. BUT WILL IT BE PROTECTED?
For more than thirty years, government records have acknowledged the Chittering Valley's exceptional scenic, environmental and community heritage values. Now, as major mining infrastructure is proposed across the region, an uncomfortable question arises: what does that recognition actually mean?
The Chittering Valley is not simply another stretch of rural countryside.
Its rolling hills, ancient woodlands, winding waterways, agricultural landscapes and wildlife corridors form a distinctive part of Western Australia's natural and cultural identity.
Generations of families have made their homes here. Visitors have travelled its scenic roads, explored its countryside and experienced a landscape increasingly difficult to find so close to a growing capital city.
But what many people may not realise is that the Valley's significance has been documented in government assessments for decades.
And some of those historical findings are remarkably strong.
1997: A landscape considered to meet a national heritage assessment threshold
During the Western Australian Comprehensive Regional Assessment, the Chittering Valley was examined through the Community Heritage Program.
The assessment identified the Chittering Valley, including the Brockman River, Chandala Lakes, Chittering Lake and Scenic Drive, for its social and community heritage values.
An associated heritage record went further.
It stated that the Chittering Valley had been assessed for social value and was considered to meet the National Estate threshold for social value.
The record described the scenic drive as a landmark landscape of considerable importance to Western Australians' sense of place.
It also recognised the Valley's remnant forests, wildlife corridor functions, community conservation efforts and importance as a culturally modified landscape.
This was a heritage assessment undertaken as part of a Commonwealth–State program, documenting the Valley's social significance and its importance to the wider community.
Importantly, meeting the former National Estate assessment threshold did not automatically confer statutory National Heritage protection.
Nevertheless, the finding provides historical evidence that the Valley's significance extended well beyond its immediate residents.
1993: The State Government recognised its scenic importance
Four years earlier, in November 1993, the Western Australian Government officially launched the Chittering Valley Tourist Way, Route 359.
The announcement recognised the region's scenic interest, orchards, vineyards, wildflowers, wildlife and opportunities for nature-based tourism.
The route was intended to encourage visitors to experience the distinctive countryside north of Perth.
The landscape itself was the attraction.
More than three decades later, the scenic qualities that supported that recognition remain central to the Valley's identity.
The Avon Arc: Protecting an exceptional rural landscape
The Western Australian Planning Commission's Avon Arc Sub-Regional Strategy subsequently examined the landscape character and environmental values of the broader region.
Its description of the Chittering Valley was particularly striking.
The strategy identified the middle reaches of the Valley as an exceptionally attractive rural hill landscape, characterised by steep slopes, dense vegetation and flowing waterways.
It also recognised the need to conserve landscape character, protect remnant vegetation and manage development so that important scenic qualities were not unnecessarily diminished.
The strategy identified landscape management priorities and recommended their use in guiding planning decisions.
These were planning objectives, not blanket prohibitions on future infrastructure.
But they demonstrated that landscape character was an important consideration in how the region should develop.
What happens when mining infrastructure enters the picture?
Chalice Mining's proposed Gonneville Project is not confined to the proposed mine site near Julimar.
Its associated infrastructure would extend across a substantial area of the Perth fringe, including the Chittering district.
The proposal includes a water pipeline, electricity infrastructure and associated construction and maintenance requirements.
The final disturbance footprint has not been settled, and the proposed development envelope should not be confused with the area that would ultimately be cleared.
Nevertheless, the potential impacts extend beyond the physical width of a trench or powerline easement.
Mature vegetation, rural views, waterways, habitat connections and the experience of travelling through the Valley could all be affected, depending on the final alignment and infrastructure design.
These potential impacts raise questions about how the scenic, environmental and community heritage values identified in earlier regional assessments will be considered in Gonneville's environmental assessment.
The question is not simply how much land would be disturbed. It is what could be lost from a landscape whose significance has already been recognised.
Heritage is more than a formally listed place
Heritage is often associated with historic buildings, monuments or officially protected sites.
But cultural and natural heritage can also encompass entire landscapes.
A scenic road, a river valley, a network of remnant woodland and the relationship between people and their surroundings may collectively contribute to a place's significance.
The Chittering Valley's historical assessments recognised aspects of precisely that relationship.
Yet formal recognition and legal protection are not the same thing.
The former Register of the National Estate is no longer a statutory heritage list. Historical assessments can provide valuable evidence, but they do not automatically prevent development.
That distinction exposes a wider concern.
If a landscape has been recognised as significant for decades, but that recognition does not guarantee protection, how will its values be safeguarded when major development is proposed?
A cumulative impact that cannot be measured in hectares alone
The Chittering Valley is already experiencing pressure from changing land uses, subdivision, infrastructure and development.
Gonneville would introduce another potentially significant layer of change.
Individual project assessments may examine vegetation clearing, fauna habitat, visual impacts, waterways and construction disturbance under separate environmental factors.
But the community experiences the landscape as a whole.
Its identity comes from the combination of natural vegetation, open farmland, wildlife, seasonal waterways, scenic roads and rural settlement.
The cumulative loss of these qualities may not be adequately understood by considering each disturbance in isolation.
A mature woodland cannot simply be recreated elsewhere within a few years.
A fragmented wildlife corridor may no longer function as it once did.
And a scenic rural landscape altered by major infrastructure may never return to its former character.
Recognition must carry weight
The Chittering Valley's significance was documented long before Gonneville was proposed.
The State Government recognised its scenic tourism appeal in 1993.
The 1997 Community Heritage Program identified its social heritage significance.
Regional planning subsequently recognised the importance of conserving its distinctive landscape character.
These records do not establish that every part of the Valley is legally protected, nor do they automatically determine the outcome of Gonneville's environmental assessment.
But they establish something important.
The environmental, scenic and community values now potentially affected by major infrastructure are not newly discovered concerns. They have been recognised for decades.
That history deserves meaningful consideration in the decisions now being made.
Will the assessment examine the wider landscape, rather than simply the immediate construction footprint?
Will historical heritage and landscape assessments be considered alongside contemporary environmental surveys?
Will cumulative changes to scenic character, ecological connectivity and community sense of place receive appropriate weight?
And will the public be able to see how those values influenced the final decisions?
The Chittering Valley was recognised as special long before anyone proposed running mining infrastructure through it.
The question now is whether that recognition will carry weight when it matters most.
Sources and historical records
1997 — Community Heritage Assessment Report, Western Australian Comprehensive Regional Assessment
Chittering Valley — Heritage Statement of Significance
https://library.dbca.wa.gov.au/static/FullTextFiles/019098.pdf
1993 — WA Government announcement: Launch of Chittering Valley Tourist Way
Avon Arc Sub-Regional Strategy — Western Australian Planning Commission
https://library.dbca.wa.gov.au/Journals/080218/080218-974.pdf