Department of Mineral Resources (DMR)

Statutory Responsibilities
NSW Mining Acts
DMR position on Renewal of Leases

Statutory responsibilities:

In New South Wales peat is prescribed as a mineral for the purposes of the Mining Act, 1992; being listed in Schedule 1 - Minerals and in Schedule 2 - Groups of Minerals (Elemental minerals (non-metallics)).

The evaluation of and provision of advice on peat and other industrial minerals and rocks in New South Wales are the responsibility of the Land Use and Resource Assessment Section of the Geological Survey...

With the enactment of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act (1979), greater emphasis was placed on the formulation of policies for the management of important natural resources (including mineral resources), and it was intended that the completed studies by the Department and the NPWS would form the basis of a State Environmental Plan for Peat. However, this Plan was never brought to fruition.

This Department's primary investigations of peat in the State were completed in 1983. A position paper (Oakes, 1982) was prepared to provide a basis for the formulation of the Department's strategies for the development of peat resources, and for the formulation of State Government policies on peat. The investigation involved the inspection and sampling of a large number of peat occurrences throughout the State, the evaluation of their mode of occurrence and economic potential, and a review of the industrial applications of peat and factors influencing its exploitation. Extensive discussions were held at that time with producers and consumers of peat...

Since the early 1980's, the Department has maintained a 'watching brief' on developments involving the State's peat resources. It also reviewed the circumstances of the State's peat industry, the potential for further development, and constraints on that potential in 1990-91 during the deliberations of the Industrial Minerals Development Strategies Task Force (1991) and in preparation of the report "The Status of the Construction Material, Industrial Mineral and Metalliferous Mineral Resources of New South Wales" (Oakes, 1993).

Geoffrey Michael Oakes, Senior Geologist, Land Use and Resource Assessment Section, Geological Survey Division, NSW Department of Mineral Resources, The Wingecarribee Swamp Peat Deposit: A Submission to the Chief Mining Warden's Inquiry into Renewal of Special Lease 567 and 568 (Act 1906) to Mine Peat, 1967.