Save the Chinese Market Gardens in La Perouse

SAVE THE La PEROUSE (BOTANY) HERITAGE LISTED CHINESE MARKET GARDENS
Heritage for All

Background:

The neighbouring Botany Cemetery is preparing to take over the land on which market gardens have been established since the 1860s, first tilled by the Europeans then by the Chinese in the early 1900s. These gardens have been listed on the NSW State Heritage Register since 1999.

The NSW State Heritage Register states: “It is believed that this vegetable garden [ La Perouse’s] was Australia's first primary industry site and the site was more or less the same site as the Chinese Market Gardens. The first farms in the La Perouse area recorded in 1830 on land granted to John Brown. The Surveyor General's Map of 1889 identified market gardens in this area.

The La Perouse Chinese Market Gardens are of historical, agricultural and social significance to NSW and to the Sydney Metropolitan area in particular.

§ historical: the area is seen to have the importance in the evolution of the area from a landscape occupied and modified by the area’s Aboriginal population, to an area adapted to the settlement and food production needs of the European colony initially by the Europeans and then the Chinese;

§ social significance for its association with the Chinese immigrants who became predominant in the Market Gardens of this area for about 100 years. The current agricultural use somewhat extends the unique use by the original Aboriginal owners of the land, the Dharawal Community;

§ agricultural: these gardens are one of few remaining highly productive market gardens in the inner Sydney area producing and delivering fresh vegetables with minimal carbon footprint. The greening of this area with vegetables also reduces carbon pollution.

The needs of Botany Cemetery are important but the cemetery has many alternative solutions other than to demolishing the Heritage Chinese Market Gardens. NSW environmental and other legislation in effect protects these Heritage Market Garden areas.