The Tasmanian Greens have written a letter to UNESCO highlighting the failures of the Australian and Tasmanian governments to properly manage the Outstanding Universal Values of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, requesting an urgent intervention.
The letter outlines failures to honour commitments made in the TWWHA Management Plan 2016, including to publish crucial reports, evaluated case studies and a failure to update status and trends reports. These are critical for monitoring and assessing the health and vulnerabilities of the TWWHA.
The government has also failed to reform the Reserve Activity Assessment (RAA) process for assessing development proposals on reserved land. This urgently needed reform was announced in 2021, but little to no action has occurred all while the government ploughs ahead with plans to build resort complexes on reserved land and encourage developers while setting aside natural and cultural values.
The letter also informs UNESCO of the hack-handed approach the government has had to the Lake Malbena heli-tourism development proposal, supporting a proponent that has been sent into liquidation and has failed to consult with the Tasmanian Aboriginal community despite UNESCO’s requirement for a landscape-wide cultural heritage assessment requirements.
Both the Federal and Tasmanian government also failed to honour the agreement made when Lake Pedder was dammed, that being that at end-of-life the dams would be dismantled and Pedder would be restored, instead the government wants to strengthen dams that were weakened over time due to their positioning on an active fault line. The letter also calls out Federal Environment Minister Plibersek’s failure to refer the proposed dam works under the EPBC Act, despite the obvious need they should be.
Comments from Tabatha Badger MP
The Tasmanian & Australian Government have totally neglected their intergeneration obligation to properly manage our irreplaceable wild landscapes.
It’s shameful that commercialisation has trumped conservation. Rather than safeguard these biodiverse, culturally rich natural landscapes, Labor and Liberal at both the state and federal level want to erode and privatise our greatest assets.
Seeking intervention from the World Heritage Committee comes as a last resort to save our Wilderness World Heritage Area for future generations.
It shouldn’t take Tasmanian Greens MPs and Senators to write to UNESCO to shame governments into doing their job. The TWWHA is recognised as the most significant world heritage site on the planet and should be honoured and protected by all of us, most of all the government of the day.
Comments from Senator Nick McKim
We are letting UNESCO know about the litany of failings at State and Federal level caused by an obsession with profiting from wild places rather than protecting them.
The Tasmanian and Federal Governments have been negligent in the extreme, which is risking the natural and Aboriginal heritage values of the TWWHA that it was protected for in the first place.
Halls Island on Lake Malbena should never have been privatised, and the lease with an insolvent company should be cancelled immediately.
We are asking UNESCO to step in and ensure that the state and federal governments meet their responsibilities to protect the natural and cultural heritage values of the TWWHA.
The Labor and Liberal parties have demonstrated time and time again they can’t be trusted to look after Tasmania’s wild places.
