Ms BADGER – Thank you, Chair. Minister, I’ve just got the parcels of land here in front of us that have been touted or are currently going through the RAA process to be opened up to recreational deer hunting. Those being – The Alma Tier Conservation Area, the Eastern Tiers Conservation Area, Apslawn Regional Reserve, Hardings Falls Regional Reserve, Swan River Regional Reserve, Cygnet Regional Reserve, Avoca Regional Reserve, the FPPF Land extensions to Castle Quarry Regional Reserve, Royal George Regional Reserve, Snow Regional Reserve, Fisher Tier Conservation Area, Midday Hill Conservation Area, River Hill Conservation Area, Blackjack Hill Regional Reserve, and Remarkable Rock Conservation Area.
Some of these areas are incredibly biodiverse. They’re home to endangered and threatened species. In particular, the Eastern Tiers Conservation Area is frequently home to breeding swift parrots. You have FPPF land in there. This is area that should be properly protected, certainly not being opened up to recreational deer hunting.
Minister, can you outline what time of the year these reasonably active recreational areas ‑ there is a lot of tourism attractions in these areas – are going to be opened up and how that’s going to be managed? What evidence you’ve actually based this on? Because there isn’t any that suggests the recreational approach is successful anywhere else in this country nor New Zealand. It’s just a cheap funding measure to use volunteers.
Mr PEARCE – I recognise your concern and appreciate your question on this. What I will say is that those conservation areas are incredibly biodiverse, as you rightly point out, and that is why we can’t afford to have concentrations of wild fallow deer in them. That is why they need to be removed from that environment to allow the ecosystem to survive as it is intended, as nature intended.
When it comes to the management and the negotiations, the consult that we have already detailed is underway at the moment. I’m going to hand over in a minute to the secretary to go through that. I will say that if a deer population – if an epicentre and we’re seeing them spread out. The aerial deer survey was very clear in the increase in the numbers, but also the split of the epicentres and the concentration of those animals. They are getting into national parks. We should be protecting our national parks. We, as a government, are very proud that we’ve got national parks and we don’t want deer invading those national parks and messing with the ecosystem.
I will hand over to the secretary now to detail more about the consult process on those particular areas.
Ms BADGER – Just in the interest of time as well, if it’s just going to be on the RAA process, I think there’s enough on record of how this works and we could move on to the next question, because it has been half an hour and I note that this is probably the longest hearing with answers that we’ve had and we have quite a few to get through. It’s a huge portfolio area.
Mr JACOBI – I can keep it short. Ms Badger, thank you for the question. I absolutely recognise that there are values in each of those reserves. It’s important to note that none of the reserves tabled are national parks. They are a lower order protected area tenure. They are a protected area tenure where the schedule and objectives in the act allow for that type of activity for the removal of pest animals. It’s also important to note, as you rightly pointed out, that there is a range of stakeholders, both adjoining landowners, but also lessees and possibly also licensees, tourism licensees and recreational organisations that might use those areas.
Without going into the detail of that, the whole purpose of the RAA process and the consultation will be to understand who are the users, when are they using it, what are the opportunities for recreational hunting to occur in those reserves, how can it be done in protection of the values, so it doesn’t compromise those values but achieve an outcome whereby it is just another tool that we can use to help remove deer? Because, we know that those parcels contain deer and we know that those parcels have values. Therefore, they have been identified as a first cut for us to add to the list of potentially balloted reserves. The timing of when they’re made available, the buffers that are established, all of those conditions will be critical to deal with through the REA and consultation process.
Ms BADGER – Okay, thank you for that. I note that they’re not national parks because Tasmania hasn’t had a new national park in a very long time, but these are touted as the next ones. That should be some of them on the list. You talk about how important it is to protect these areas. Absolutely nobody is disputing that, minister. It’s about doing it the right way with evidence backing, and I note you didn’t answer that part of my question.
You spoke earlier in the Estimates hearing about the $400,000 through the Australian Heritage Grant that was awarded for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area biosecurity. How are you going to do more with less money? The last time you had one of those grants was $440,000 and that was specifically for deer. Now you have $400,000 ‑ which is less ‑ to do deer, cats, foxglove, and everything else. Yes, we should be protecting these areas, but let’s get the money and investment to do it because we know that the recreational shooting approach doesn’t work. How are you going to do more with less?
Mr PEARCE – For that, who have we got from – Jason? I will pass to the secretary on that.
Mr JACOBI – Thank you, through you, minister. The funding that we achieve from the Commonwealth Government in support of the funding that we have in the Tasmanian government is critically important to delivering on those initiatives. The invasive species action plan, which we talked about earlier, is a key commitment and deliverable announced by government recently, will help us to triage and identify the most important priorities, so we are all clear across both government but also NRM and we are collectively using all of our resources to target the most invasive species and using the best technology available to do that.
Ms BADGER – Through you minister, just for clarification though –
CHAIR – Sorry, next time, next rotation. Prof Razay.
