A Development Application for PWS's 'Next Iconic Walk' project is likely to be released early in 2024, and completion of construction is currently planned for 2029. Most of our original fundamental problems with the project remain, plus some new concerns have recently come to light.
The Glamorgan/Spring Bay Council has recently approved a development application for the “reinstatement” of commercial standing camps at Cooks Corner and Bluestone Bay which have been inoperative for almost twenty years. The TNPA considers that the proposal should have been assessed by both Council and PWS as a new proposal, not a “reinstatement” of the previous camps.
PWS has recently announced that adults will be required to purchase a $15 ticket to use the Cradle Mountain shuttle bus. The announcement has been widely criticised because it represents a reversal of the undertaking that shuttle bus costs would be covered by park entry fees. TNPA affirms its support, in principle, for the shuttle bus service and opposition to the proposed cableway.
Conservation groups have written to Australia’s Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek MP, to welcome the new Retrospective Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (page 16) for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) of Lutruwita/Tasmania. The Statement, provided by the Australian government, was approved by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee at its 45th session in Riyad, Saudi Arabia, in late September 2023.
The consultation draft of this Bill misses an opportunity to facilitate benefits to both Aboriginal people's well-being and conservation land management, even though it proposes to enable reserved land to be declared Aboriginal land under the Aboriginal Lands Act 1995.
Where introduced trout have successfully established themselves the ecological damage has been done and cannot be undone. This makes the protection of the ecological integrity of the remaining trout-free waters in the TWWHA and elsewhere in Tasmania all the more important.
We welcome the acknowledgement of the finite capacities of our natural areas and recommendations for research to understand “carrying capacity, cumulative impact, limits and thresholds”. Our major concern is the disconnect between this call for evidence-based planning and the unchallenged emphasis throughout the rest of the Key Directions Paper on growing visitor numbers.
The Spero - Wanderer region is a 139,000 hectare tract of wild country south of Macquarie Harbour and west of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) that has been left out of the TWWHA.
This issue of TNPA News contains a photo feature on Tasmania's 'forgotten wilderness', the 139,000 hectare Spero - Wanderer region left out of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area south of Macquarie Harbour.
The new book by nature writer and fishing guide Greg French, 'Wild Heart of Tasmania', is a collection of stories about Tasmania’s Western Lakes wilderness, centred around Lake Malbena, the location of a controversial proposed heli-tourism development. It is an inspirational tale for those who love wild places and wild life, and a cautionary one for those who believe Australia’s national parks to be well protected and its democracy sacrosanct.
