Tasmanians will be locked out of more public land, with Budget Estimates last week confirming that non-paying bushwalkers will no longer be permitted in beloved parts of the Tyndall Range Conservation Area under Parks and Wildlife’s proposed $40 million plus resort complex walk.
Walkers who have moved delicately through the area for generations will have to pay fees projected to be higher than the 5–7-day Overland Track – for just two nights – should they want to visit. This will inevitably put pressure on the remaining freely accessible, environmentally sensitive parts of one of Australia’s most spectacular and wild viewscapes.
This is an elitist and exclusionary approach to managing our reserve system. Ordinary Tasmanians face being priced out and locked out of public lands.
Recent price hikes for Cradle Mountain shuttle bus fares add to the fear of average Tasmanians being priced out of the beloved park with the proposed Cableway undergoing another secretive business plan revision. This comes after the project has more than tripled in construction estimates.
We’ve already seen this exclusionary approach on display. Halls Island in the Wilderness World Heritage Area is subject to an exclusive private lease to facilitate a stalled heli-tourism proposal. Several people requesting access have been refused or ignored – including me. However, after scrutiny on the issue at Budget Estimates the departmental Secretary intervened and within three hours approval was given by the leaseholder for me to visit.
It’s extraordinary that it has taken an intervention from a departmental Secretary to negotiate even limited access to Halls Island.
You shouldn’t have to be a parliamentarian to be granted permission to public land – especially part of the Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Tourism must be fair for all to ensure Tasmania’s irreplaceable wild places are authentically “for all people, for all time”.
If Tasmania is to maintain equitable accessible Parks, as well as protecting their environmental values, the state must transition toward a regenerative sector approach, instead of the privatisation and intrusive exclusive access of public lands.
