The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS)) has demonstrated its long-standing interest in Wingecarribee Swamp. This interest commenced when the swamp's conservation values were first identified by early natural resource surveys carried out by NSW Fauna Protection Panel, CSIRO, NPWS and Royal Botanic Gardens staff as being of high conservation value in the mid to late 1960's.
The establishment of a nature reserve over the Wingecarribee Swamp was first proposed by the Fauna Panel in the early 1960s and again by the NPWS in 1968. Due to a number of factors including the transfer of tenure from the NSW Lands Department to the Sydney Water Board, the construction of Wingecarribee Dam, objections from the Department of Mineral Resources and their approval of mining leases over the swamp, it was not possible to proceed to gazettal of a nature reserve. It was anticipated in l 992 that upon the expiry of the mining leases the nature reserve proposal could be finalised.
NPWS has objected to the renewal of the leases because of the now very well documented scientific, natural, cultural, historical, palynological, conservation and education values of the swamp, as well as the long-term proposal for the establishment of a nature reserve over the swamp.