Tabatha Badger MP, Greens Parks Spokesperson
The Liberals need to sort out their priorities and properly invest in the jobs undertaking the core functions of our Parks and Wildlife Service.
Those preparing critical environmental assessments, and looking after biosecurity programs in the TWWHA, are ensuring Tasmania’s internationally celebrated National Parks and protected for generations to come.
The Greens are proud to back a petition calling on the Liberals to get their priorities straight and shelve the costly, inappropriate Tyndall Range walk proposal. Instead, they should reinvest that more than $40 million into securing vital jobs and resources in Parks, so the department can upscale conservation efforts amid the climate and biodiversity crisis.
Nick Sawyer, Tasmanian National Parks Association
The Government is planning reductions in parks staff available for environmental assessment and reserve planning at a time when the Major Projects and Infrastructure team has received additional staff.
This shows a disturbing shift in emphasis from protecting the environment to the provision of facilitating exclusive tourism developments that really have no place in our National Parks. Without specialised support staff, the critical environmental assessment duties, if they get done at all, will be done by expensive consultants, AI or field staff who should be doing practical tasks in the bush.
Parks will be headed on the wrong track if these cuts proceed but they don’t have to. There is over $40 million available from the Tyndall Range walk, which should be shelved and that money reinvested into Parks so they can do their core job of protecting our Parks.
Dr Tiana Pirtle, Conservation Advocate, Tasmania
As we’ve seen in the Tasmanian Government’s review of its deer management plan as well as the recently leaked National Vertebrate Pest Management Report Card, deer are spreading and increasing in number across Tasmania.
A key outlier in this trend is the success of the Tasmanian World Heritage Area’s deer control project that has functionally eradicated deer from the area. This has been rightfully celebrated as a major win for Tasmania, which makes the recent job cuts, including the TWWHA deer control role, extremely shortsighted. Losing this role risks losing those hard-won gains and wasting all the time and money that has gone into the program.
Tasmania has plants and animals found nowhere else on earth; defunding the roles that will protect that biodiversity into the future risks losing what makes Tasmania a unique and beautiful place.
