The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) is Tasmania’s greatest intergenerational asset, in both an environmental and economical capacity – it’s time for a state Government to acknowledge this fact and properly safeguarded this significant landscape.
For the last 11 years the Liberal government has eroded protections, seen management plans abandoned or neglected, and directed funding into the privatisation of our public lands instead of upgrading conservation efforts.
It was the work of the Greens and conservation groups over many decades that achieved world heritage status for the Tasmanian Wilderness – the most significant site on the planet. It’s past the old parties stood aside and let the Greens fix this mess.
In the climate-biodiversity crisis, now is the time for an urgent, strategic expansion of the TWWHA, to safeguard currently under protected globally unique ecosystems found nowhere else on the planet.
The Greens will progress World Heritage recognition for Takayna/Tarkine, the Spero-Wanderer Wilderness, the West Coast Range including the Tyndalls, the Vale River Catchment, Granite Tor Conservation Area, and Recherche Bay.
The required protection of this environment must extend beyond terra firma to also include sky country. Southwest Tasmania is home to the Creation story of the Palawa, and the Greens will protect the sacred Southwest Sky Country by declaring it a dark sky sanctuary, and work towards certification of the rest of the TWWHA.
We must redirect funding from non-essential projects such as the $40m Tyndall Range lodge complex walk proposal, into hiring more Parks staff to undertake core conservation works, walking track maintenance and interpretation.
The Greens plan will see more park rangers employed alongside, aboriginal rangers, field officers, fire crews, and a fully staffed Threatened Species Unit.
The Greens will scrap the flailing Liberal policy to privatise our national parks. We will tear up the lease over Halls Island and see that Lake Malbena is returned to all Tasmanians. We will invest in the neglected walking track network, as well as landscape restoration to ameliorate the degradation caused by invasive species.
Expanding the TWWHA to encompass other areas of outstanding universal value is overdue and will elevate Tasmania as the global leader in environmental management and conservation that our state deserves to be.
We must see the new state government finally step up and protect Tasmanians magnificent wild places in perpetuity.
