Recognition & protection
Many of the World Heritage and other values of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) have been studied, assessed and documented.
Monitoring is crucial for adaptive management but methods developed to do so have not been adequately resourced.
There have been significant expansions of the TWWHA since it was first listed as World Heritage in 1982 but a boundary that both includes all important values and facilitates effective management of these has yet to be achieved.
Values
- UNESCO documentation regarding the TWWHA (including evaluations, World Heritage listing and associated decisions, from 1982 onwards)
- Australian Government TWWHA website (with links to State Party state of conservation reports & other World Heritage documentation)
- Inadequacy of draft Statement of Outstanding Universal Value 2014
- Summary of the values of the TWWHA
- TWWHA Wilderness Mapping Project 2006
- Assessing Wilderness Values of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area
- Floristic Values of the TWWHA
- Geoconservation Values of the TWWHA
- Climate Change & Geodiversity in the TWWHA
- Fire in the Wilderness
- Submission to Senate Inquiry into bushfires in Tasmanian wilderness 2016
Monitoring
- A Monitoring & Evaluation system for the TWWHA has been developed by the Parks & Wildlife Service since 2005 but is not adequately resourced.
- State of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area report no 1, 2004
- Our Recreation Management campaign page also contains a range of links regarding the monitoring & management of recreational walking in the TWWHA.
Boundary
- History of reservation of the TWWHA
- Western-Tasmania- a place of Outstanding Universal Value Report commissioned by The Greens, 2009.
- The TNPA’s Submission to the 2008 World Heritage Mission called for a comprehensive review and holistic consideration of TWWHA boundaries and management.
- TNPA call for Cox Bight-Melaleuca corridor to be national park 2008 The Cox Bight-Melaleuca area is now part of the Southwest National Park & TWWHA.
- The Appropriate Boundary of the TWWHA This report describes the ideal boundary of a TWWHA that would both recognise and protect all relevant values. It was prepared by the then-Dept of Parks, Wildlife & Heritage in 1990 under a commitment in the Labour-Green Accord. Despite expansions of the TWWHA since, many of its recommendations remain relevant.
Highland rainforest stream, Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Photo: Grant Dixon.
“… the Southwest Tasmanian wilderness is exceptional in size, quality and diversity in the Australian context and in the temperate regions of the world. As such it is of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science and conservation. The specific features of world heritage value which it contains only serve to enhance its value as an item of world heritage.”