About two hours' drive south of Sydney is the Jervis Bay Territory, a peninsula of land cut off the map of New South Wales and surrendered to the Commonwealth Government in 1915.

Surrounding the military facilities that exist there, within land owned and jointly managed by the local Wreck Bay Community, is an astonishing national park called Booderee.

Within its 7,500 hectares are six major biomes, feather-tail gliders weighing just 10 grams, sedgelands, grass trees hundreds of years old, turtles that walk overland and sometimes bury themselves in a drought, and cliffs some 130 metres high which plunge into the ocean.

The pure white sandy beaches in Booderee are one of the biggest drawcards for tourists. ( ABC RN: Ann Jones )

The surrounding marine environment is bountiful and protected, in part, by the Jervis Bay Marine Park.

The cliffs themselves look like a stack of crepes rising from the ocean, thin layers of sedimentary rock formed over millions of years.

This is part of the Sydney sandstone sequence, which continues virtually all the way up to Newcastle.

Swamp wallabies are common in Booderee National Park. ( ABC RN: Ann Jones )

"In many respects, this place is Sydney without all the development," says Professor David Lindenmayer from the Australian National University.

"It [has] extraordinary cliffs, amazing heath vegetation, forest, an unbelievably exquisite bay, beautiful marine environments — except without the development."

Sorry, this audio has expired The sounds of Booderee National Park

Professor Lindenmayer says Booderee looks the same as Sydney Cove's natural heritage "before they added five million people to it".

Just as in Sydney Cove, Professor Lindenmayer also stresses the extreme natural variance contained within the park.

A crustacean crawls inside a rock formation at Booderee National Park. ( ABC RN: Ann Jones )

"You might walk 200 metres and in that time go from shin high sedgeland, through to warm temperate rain forests, and then back into sedgeland again."

"Across all those different environments there'll be different plants, different birds, different assemblages of mammals, and even reptiles.

Leeches and spiders are plentiful within the national park. ( ABC RN: Ann Jones )

"You get this extraordinary diversity of things as they change from one environment to the next."

Professor Lindenmayer, who has been involved in environmental monitoring of Booderee since 2002, works alongside Parks Australia and his ANU colleague Christopher MacGregor to help manage the park.

They are also ably assisted by the Wreck Bay community. "One of the reasons this place exists is because of thousands of years of Indigenous management," says Mr MacGregor.

The sooty oyster catcher is listed as vulnerable in NSW. ( ABC RN: Ann Jones )

"Booderee National Park wouldn't exist if it wasn't for a lot of work by Wreck Bay people in fighting against the development that was going to occur — the nuclear power station — and they have to be applauded for doing that.

"It's a continued struggle. At the moment, they're fighting for sole management of the area."

An eastern yellow robin sits on a tree branch in the national park. ( ABC RN: Ann Jones )

For a park that is only 7,500 hectares, Booderee receives a phenomenal 450,000 visitors a year, a feat only possible due to strict management and the best environmental monitoring in the world, according to Professor Lindenmayer.

The park is home to many rare and endangered species, including the eastern bristlebird: a small ground-dwelling bird that was almost brought to extinction by the introduction of foxes and cats.

A diamond python crosses the road. ( ABC RN: Ann Jones )

"It's a beautiful place, and a lot of people love it for its beaches, but this landscape is incredible — you won't find any place like it on this very populated east coast of Australia," says Mr MacGregor.

Professor Lindenmayer says Australians should recognise the utility of nature, not just for aesthetic reasons — but also its economic benefits.

Booderee's cliffs are part of the Sydney sandstone sequence. ( ABC RN: Ann Jones )

"Australians need to embrace this amazing set of natural endowments that the country has, and not see them as costs, but in fact, vast benefits to the country," he says.

"My great desire would be for Australians to wake up to the fact that our natural environment is a wonderful part of Australia's culture, its psyche and increasingly part of our economy, and revere these wild and natural places for all the values that they bring.

The eastern bristlebird is one of the park's endangered species. ( ABC RN: Ann Jones )

"The flip side of that is to make sure that we manage them effectively. And the only way that we can do that is to monitor them well, to understand how to manage them well.

"I know that we're living in a post-truth world — but evidence is important if you're going to seriously manage precious things like these environments."