Threats to Tasmania’s natural areas have included hydro-electric development in the 1960-80s and industrial forestry from the 1980s onward. Conservation campaigns have led to the protection of many of these formerly-threatened areas.
Tasmania’s first national parks date from 1916 and national parks and other reserves now cover almost 50% of Tasmania. By world standards they are unusually free of tourism developments and the more remote parts of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area have a high degree of wilder character.
But Tasmania’s existing national parks are increasingly under threat. These celebrated places are at risk of exploitation from inappropriate development, insufficient management of visitor impact and inadequate funding to ensure control or eradication of threatening processes. One of our major current concerns is the threat to the integrity of national parks from inappropriate tourism developments.
Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain, an iconic scene in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Photo: Grant Dixon
Our Campaigns
Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area
The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area encompasses 1.6 million hectares of Tasmanian’s southwest and central highlands. Its World Heritage status implies the highest possible level of protection but pro-development governments mean threats to the area’s integrity and wild character persist.
National Park & Reserve Management
Poor planning and inappropriate development in Tasmania’s national parks and reserves is not restricted to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Tourism & Park Planning
The Tasmanian Government's policy of 'unlocking our national parks' with minimal opportunity for public scrutiny of proposed developments is a a major threat to the integrity of our parks and reserves.
Recreation Management
Tasmania is one on the most highly regarded bushwalking areas in Australia and there is a long history of attempts to achieve the sustainable management of walking tracks and their use by walkers.
Wilderness
The protection of wild character and managing the opportunity for visitors to experience wilderness underpins a great deal of our work.
The Tasmanian National Parks Association offers an independent voice for Tasmania’s national parks and reserves, to ensure they are managed for the conservation of the values for which they were proclaimed.