Submission
The TNPA’s submission to the 2022 review of the State Planning Provisions focuses on protecting the environmental values of the Environmental Management Zone, which consists largely of land reserved under the Nature Conservation Act 2002 (such as National Parks, State reserves, conservation areas and regional reserves).
The State Planning Provisions allow many land uses and developments in the Environmental Management Zone if they have been approved under the National Parks and Reserves Management Act 2002, so that the public need not even be informed of proposals for the uses or developments, let alone given the chance to comment on them. The TNPA recommends changing the provisions so that such uses and developments must be publicly notified, and local councils can decide whether to permit them or not.
The TNPA also recommends changing the provisions for other zones so that local councils may permit land uses and developments in those zones only if satisfied that the uses and developments do not reduce the values of the Environmental Management Zone.
The State Planning Provisions currently say that the Scenic Protection Code in those provisions applies to areas identified by local councils. Local councils have failed to identify some of the most scenic parts of Tasmania (including Freycinet National Park) as areas to which the code applies. The TNPA recommends changing the provisions so the code applies automatically to the whole of the Environmental Management Zone.
Freycinet National Park. Photo: Grant Dixon
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.