Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise tonight to congratulate two friends of the Meander Valley community for taking the stage at last week’s Great Western Tiers Tourism Association Award. Proud members of the Hands Off Quamby Bluff Community Group, Katie McLaren and Jules Campbell, won awards for their photographs highlighting the ongoing logging at Quamby Bluff and its remaining high conservation value forests.
The Visual Arts competition was to celebrate the unique beauty of the Great Western Tiers, kooparoona niara. Quamby Bluff is towering above Jackeys Marsh and is the dominant dolerite icon in the landscape of the Great Western Tiers. This is the range that provides the scenic backdrop to the Meander Valley. In 2022, when a swathe of this forest on the slopes of Quamby Bluff was clear-felled and burnt, leaving a mark of destruction on the spectacular landscape. This logging took place against the community wishes, and the community rallied and founded the Hands off Quamby Bluff Group to take a stand against the further 110 hectares of forests that were planned to be logged. Kudos goes to Katie, who is committed to donating her prize money to the Quamby Community Group.
Award-winning creativity has become a bit of a unique cornerstone for the Hands Off Quamby group. In late November last year, locals, Lucinda, Tyler and Stuart spent 15 hours making a cake that was a replica of Quamby, complete with a logging scar. The cake was entered into the Deloraine Show and won second prize. I had the privilege in March to walk through the towering forests that are under threat. I joined more than 50 concerned and caring people to explore and admire the ecosystem with a noteworthy diversity of bird life. We saw the geological values of the region and heard about its immense cultural significance. We were captivated and many were motivated to join the Hands Off Quamby Group in pushing for an end to logging on the bluff, as well as the wider Great Western Tiers.
The Quamby Group has been utilising citizen science to monitor the species that call the coupes home, and just a few weeks back they captured footage of a Tasmanian devil in a coupe that is destined for destruction. Proper protection of the high conservation value forests of kooparoona niara, including Quamby Bluff, are a necessity. These forests have the same values as those formerly recognised with outstanding universal value, just a few hundred metres away in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. We are in a climate and biodiversity crisis and our forests stand as a safeguard against further environmental decline.
There remains a strong case for the kooparoona niara National Park to perpetually protect not only the forests but the unique geology and cultural values. This can and should be Tasmania’s first Aboriginal managed national park. Thank you to the Hands Off Quamby Group for taking a brave stand, but mostly for doing so with creative style.
