NPWS (Parks Service) plagiarises Nature Trail’s copyright logo

Nature Trail is frankly gobsmacked to recently discover that its copyright logo (above) and pending registered trademark has just been plagiarised; that is copied and used by someone else for their own purpose and benefit.  And without asking us?

Disturbingly, the plagiarism seem to been from a combination of bloody government and sadly a local artist of Aboriginal ancestry who’s artwork has fundamentally ‘nicked’ our business logo design, modified slightly.

Nature Trail was founded by our Tour Director Steve back on 13th December 2013 and the trading business name duly registered with ASIC.  Steve is an avid hiker since his teens, has hiked the Blue Mountains since 1994 and has lived in inner Katoomba since 2001.  The idea of sharing his local knowledge and applying his skills to offer such tours has been a logical progression.

Over the subsequent years in the lead up to launching Nature Trail, business strategy  planning including marketing was undertaken early on from 2014, including devising a suitable logo.

Over time, Steve conceived the following logo integrating the stylised image of a pair of Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus) flying left to right in front of a sky blue background, and with the business name title, a tagline and a motto below.

Steve’s records confirm that he created this logo on 8th June 2018, and it was about a  year before he formally launched the business commercially.   Previously he had considered the Glossy-Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus lathami) since it has become a threatened species due to its habitat destruction.

The Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoo is a rather large species of cockatoo which can from times be seen in the Blue Mountains gracefully flying quite higher that the more prominent Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo and having a distinctive mournful call.

Steve has drafted and designed similar logo versions and a draft application for trademark  registration is underway with IP Australia.  Steve has also registered a number of other trademarks for his other unrelated business ventures.

Steve started considering the design from his vision of running bespoke hiking tours for mainly couples staying in the Blue Mountains.  With his career background in IT, he was keen to get away from the computer and get back to Nature, hence the business motto ‘Back to Nature.

The blue sky background then simply emulates a good day in the Mountains and of course native birds flying in the sky made a simple and sensible backdrop.  So the overall logo sends a simple enough message about what Nature Trail is about.

Further explanation and background to this logo design is provided on this Nature Trail Website, under ‘About‘:  ^https://naturetrail.com.au/home/copyrighted-logos/

‘Grand Cliff Top Walk’ signage  freeloading of our copyright…

On 25th March 2024, we read in the local Blue Mountains Gazette, a media release by NPWS (Nationall Parks and Wildlife Service of NSW) about its joint opening with local Council of some new ‘Grand Cliff Top Walk‘ track along atop the Jamison escarpment.

And in the article photos, we noticed a sign post (circled) that looked rather familiar to us.

 

So, then we went online and in ‘Google Images’ we typed in ‘Grand Cliff Top Walk‘ and quickly found the following close-up image listed on Google images on the following website: ^https://www.greatwalks.com.au/gallery/new-grand-cliff-top-walk-set-to-inspire 

 

 

 

We have observed that Caro is a regular PR person for the Parks Service.

 

So here is the closeup comparison between Nature Trail’s business logo since at least 2018, compared with the Parks Service new logo of 2024 (six years hence) used in multiple instances throughout this 19km track route.

Well…

• The same bird species – Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo(s)
• Flying the same direction
• Same six feathers in the wing-tips
• Similar blue sky background
• Same square frame
• Co-incidence?

We observe two differences:

(1)  On the Parks Service version there is only one bird.  Perhaps Parks shot its mate?  We observe Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos invariably flying in pairs (a male and female, and sometimes in a family group with offspring).  This is a key reason why Nature Trail chose this particular native bird species of the Blue Mountains.  So the Parks Service artist must be ignorant of this behaviour.  Other options we’ve reviewed have included the Glossy Black Cockatoo.

(2)  There is a trail of Aboriginal dots to give the Parks Service image an Aboriginal flavour it probably sought – perhaps symbolic of ‘songlines’ and ancient journeys, but one is not Aboriginal to interpret these.

The Parks Service Grand Cliff Top Walk is a recent naming of the traditional Prince Henry Cliff Top Walk.  The latter was constructed during The Great Depression between 1934 by the NSW Government utilising (and paying) unemployed men to connected Katoomba Falls Kiosk to Leura Cascades picnic area and then later on to Gordon Falls picnic area.  The overall hiking distance is 7km.

The Walk was named after the third son of King George V and Queen Mary, as has been a popular traditional theme over the centuries of Blue Mountains place naming after family members the English Monarchy.  Up until 1901, the Kings and Queens were respectively the New South Wales colony’s Head of State.

This is a Parks Service public map of Prince Henry Cliff Top Walk:

However, the Parks Service is less inclined by royalty (perhaps dominated by republicans) and more inclined of late to be guided by tourism marketing mindset.

The Grand Cliff Top Walk has basically become an extension of Prince Henry Cliff Top Walk totalling a 19km hike overall; so almost three times as long as Prince Henry Cliff Top Walk.  It’s construction was effectively an upgrade of a series of interconnected tracks similarly following the top edgeline around the Jamison escarpment.  It goes from near the Wentworth Train Station to Scenic World’s mass tourism complex overlooking Katoomba Falls.

Grand Cliff Top Walk is a joint project of the Parks Service and local Blue Mountains Council since it criss-crosses land control between both governmental bodies.  Ironically, many of the workers have been unemployed staff of local outdoor recreation businesses due to NSW Government mandatory socio-economic lockdowns imposed from the government’s bushfire emergency from November 2019, then back-to-back with the Chinavirus pandemic lockdowns (February 2020 – November 2022), followed by struggling Blue Mountains tourism and depressed visitation since.  History repeats.

However, the use of the word ‘Grand’ in the latest naming risks being confused with the Grand Canyon Walk, a tributary of the Grose Valley, some ways distant.

Yesterday (29th May 2025), Steve expressed his concerns in person directly to the Parks Service staff at its Blue Mountains Heritage Centre near Govetts Leap, about the unauthorised use by the Parks Service of his copyright logo.  Steven questioned why the use of his tour operation logo by government, particularly given that both the Parks Service and Council each have and keenly promote their own separate logos, as follows:

 

Question:  This new Grand Cliff Top Walk criss-crosses through both Parks Service land and Council land.  So then, why not just both jointly use these recognisable logos that you government lot already have?   Why instead conjure up some new logo and in the process ‘nick’ a local commercial operator’s intellectual property in the process?   They could have thrown in the logo of project funding source – the NSW Government’s waratah logo to boot.

Shoe on the other foot, dudes and dudesses; what if Nature Trail was to start using the above logos in our marketing efforts?    We’d get more business surely!  That’d be more “Love Local”.

We note that in the brochure is a reference to the artwork of the black cockatoo, as follows:

 

One of course respects traditional Aboriginal culture and connection with Nature.

We just have an issue with this particular artwork frankly, since in our opinion it is not original, but one drawn from that previously conceived by Steven Ridd, as Tour Director of Nature Trail a decade ago.  We have copious proof to that effect!

We also express our concern that the adoption of this artwork by the Parks Service for its applied and extensive us to what must be likely 100-odd ‘wayfinding’ posts it has chosen to position along its new 19km Grand Cliff Top Walk launched in 2024.

Yesterday, we ground-truthed a few examples of the application of the black cockatoo logo on some wayfinding posts:

 

Of both the design and use of Steve’s well prior logo from many years prior, Steve considers it to be an infringement of his copyright intellectual property rights, and a governmental undermining of Nature Trail’s brand as a commercial tour operator of the Blue Mountains.

So, what to do?

So, what is copyright?

 

• A type of property founded on a person’s express original creative skill and labour
• Protects the original forms or way an idea or information is expressed – eg. writing, visual images
• Provides the owner of a material with exclusive economic rights to do certain acts with that material – the right to communicate the material to the public
• Provides the creator with moral right of ‘attribution’ (i.e. “this is my own work”)
• In Australia copyright is governed by the Copyright Act 1968 and Copyright Regulations 2017
• Copyright is infringed if someone else copies/uses and/or claims attribute for the creator’s original creative property without that owner’s permission, particularly when a ‘substantial part’ is copied/used.

Well, we seek no potential legal action, nor conflict, nor animosity.

Royalty to us as licensee in return for using our IP rights?   How many signs were distributed on wayfinding posts along the Grand Cliff Top Walk?   Should we suggest $10 per sign as fair compo?

Telling truth would be acceptably reconciliatory.

One option is this on each of the posts:

Our next followup article will be a review of this so-called ‘Grand Cliff Top Walk‘.

From what we have observed and understand is that to date, the ‘Grand Cliff Top Walk‘ still ain’t completed!  There are sections locked off.

We’re set to soon do some ground-truthing reccies (tour due diligence, if you like) of this marketed 19km aggregated track.  Stay tuned.

 

Meanwhile compare this:

May be we’ll just be ‘Jagger generous’ to our Blue Mountains friends…this time.

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References:

[1]  ‘Grand Cliff Top Walk unveiled in Blue Mountains‘, 2024-03-25, Blue Mountains Gazette (newspaper), ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8566633/grand-cliff-top-walk-opens-connecting-wentworth-falls-to-katoomba/

[2]  ‘Grand Cliff Top Walk – Blue Mountains‘ brochure, National Parks and Wildlife Service of NSW, (undated), DCCEEW, 2 pages

[3]  ‘Copyright Basics‘, Attorney General’s Department, Australian Government, ^https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/copyright/copyright-basics

[4]  ‘Our Copyrighted Logos‘, Nature Trail (webpage on this website), ^https://naturetrail.com.au/home/our-copyrighted-logos/

[5]  ‘Yellow-tailed-Black-Cockatoo‘, ^https://www.ozanimals.com/Bird/Yellow-tailed-Black-Cockatoo/Calyptorhynchus/funereus.html