CAVE TOURISM AND SPELEOLOGICAL EXPLORATION

B.S. Nurse, President, Sydney Speleological Society

Some people say that cave tourism and speleological exploration are not compatible.

This might be true in the case of uncontrolled exploration. Controlled speleological exploration is of great benefit to cave tourism, although the benefits might be indirect or the benefits only occurring in the future.

The question of if speleological exploration can be of use to science and science to cave tourism will be covered by another panel speaker.

It is obvious that present day cave tourist areas have resulted from cave exploration in the past, and in some cases not in the distant past.

Many examples of tourism resulting from exploration in the past would be the Caves area of Buchan, Wellington, Jenolan, Abercrombie, Wombeyan, etc.

There are of course many examples of recent discoveries that have furthered cave tourism, some of these will no doubt be mentioned in Roy Skinner's talk.

It is safe to say cave exploration can be an essential prerequisite to cave tourism.

Cave tourism is motivated by a number of reasons chief among these would be the need to allow inspection of a natural resource under a system that would allow continued protection of it.

A secondary reason would be one of profit, either to cover expense of inspections or to provide a profit for the promoters.

For either reasons, exploration in tourist areas is tolerated and needed today for the following reasons.

1. If there is a need to handle more tourists. This happens when an area becomes so popular, that an extension or a new cave is needed to handle the increased visitors.
2. If there is a need to protect a cave from overuse. This happens when the cave is drying out or being dirtied by excessive use.
3. To provide more variety, or choice of cave inspections.
4. To create an interest in the area. This would arise when a new discovery is published. Such as in the case of the discovery of Barellan here at Jenolan.

If the above reasons are not present, some Cave Tourist Controllers consider exploration to be worthless and consequently restrict and sometimes prevent cave exploration.

All Cave Tourism Controllers occupy an unique position of protectors of the "National Estate". This position is being more and more recognised and no doubt in the future guidelines will be brought down.

In a considerable number of countries overseas, all limestone caves and the surrounding karst landscape are automatically considered to be a natural asset. This often means the areas are under Government control. So also is the exploration of caves, with a licence required by speleologists to explore caves.

This position has not yet been reached in Australia. But, signs of part of this happening, or at least being discussed is indicated by the subject being inquired into by the Commonwealth Government in their enquiry into the National Estate.

In the meanwhile, Controllers of Caving Areas should consider themselves to be Trustees of the "National Estate". They should, where there is no organised exploration, utilise groups who are prepared to extend the speleological knowledge of the area.

Some broad guidelines would need to be introduced.

1. That exploration be carried out by a recognised Speleological Group (i.e. members of Australian Speleological Federation). This would mean that little or no supervision of exploration would be needed.
2. That the records of exploration in the area be kept and made available to those working in the area. This would allow rationalisation of work, with the necessary reduction of unnecessary duplication of effort being eliminated.
3. That exploration be carried out with the least damage to caves. This would mean eliminating unnecessary caving often referred to as 'sporting caving'. This of course does not mean the elimination of true exploration coupled with mapping.

If caving is carried out under these guidelines, any objection to cave exploration would have little substance.

Cave Controllers should consider a master plan of exploration for their area. A master plan would result in a maximum rate of gain of knowledge of the area. This should be of great benefit to the Cave Controller as well as speleology generally.

The subheadings of the master plan could contain the following:

1. The mapping of the area
2. Positioning of the limestone belt
3. Positioning of cave entrances on the map
4. The numbering and tagging of all cave entrances
5. The mapping of all caves
6. Facilities for storing and making available details of work done in the area.

Other work in the area could be undertaken providing trained people were available such as.

7. Geomorphology
8. Geology
9. Hydrology
10. Fauna
11. Flora
12. Meteorology
13. History
14. Setting up of a museum

Further discussion of points of this paper might be worthy of discussion of this panel. For the time being. I thank the panel for their courteous attention to my paper.