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Tasmanian Government to Remove “Wilderness”

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The Tasmanian government is attempting to remove the term “wilderness” from the state’s wilderness world heritage area. Source: The Guardian (UK)

According to The Guardian this could open the vast ecosystem to selective logging, cruise ships and landing strips for aircraft. In a draft plan, extracts of which have been seen by Guardian Australia, the term “wilderness” is dropped because it is considered “deeply problematic for Aboriginal people” and replaced by “natural area”.

The document states the current terminology “implies a landscape empty of human culture”.

The plan refers to the “extraction of speciality timbers” within the wilderness area, indicating that logging may be allowed for the first time since the 1.58m-hectare area was inscribed on the world heritage list in 1982.

Cruise ships berths will be considered on Lake Gordon, Macquarie Harbour and Port Davey, with landing sites for planes and helicopters to be permitted in areas including Cradle Tasmania plans to open wilderness world heritage area to logging and tourism mountain and the Walls of Jerusalem national park.

The plan also axes wording from the area’s previous strategy document that pledged to ensure the world heritage site remained “in as good or better condition than at present”.

The plan marks a significant escalation in the kind of development allowed within the world heritage area, with a shift towards “commercial tourism” rather than the status quo of highly restricted access.

Tasmania’s wilderness world heritage area covers about a fifth of the state and includes tracts of largely untouched forests, lakes and mountains. It is listed internationally for both its environmental and cultural value.

The Tasmanian campaign manager at the Wilderness Society, Vica Bayley, said the new plan was “atrocious”.

“The rezoning of the wilderness area is highly divisive and is a backwards step in the protection of the area,” he told Guardian Australia.

“Wilderness is a management tool that has underpinned the protection of the world heritage area and it has also helped the tourism industry and Tasmania’s brand. Getting rid of it is lunacy.”

Bayley said the plan would “open the floodgates” to development and undermine the area’s world heritage status.

“This plan will cause alarm across Tasmania, Australia and also internationally, given that it’s a world heritage site,” he said.

“We will still have a world heritage site but with a very hollow commitment to protecting values. It would be a wilderness area without integrity.”

The state government’s plan will be submitted to the federal environment minister, Greg Hunt, for consideration.

Tasmania’s parks and heritage minister, Matthew Groom, told the Australian: “The draft plan is about achieving balanced outcomes that are genuinely respectful of cultural and natural values, while at the same time recognising that the Tasmanian wilderness WHA is an area to be used, celebrated and shared.

Through the plan, the Tasmanian government is seeking to facilitate sensible and appropriate recreational experiences, including new tourism opportunities.

“This recognises the important role tourism plays in contributing to the economic wellbeing of the Tasmanian community.” Bayley said the conservation movement would take “community, political and international action” against the plan.

Last year, the federal government attempted to remove 74,000 hectares of forest from Tasmania’s world heritage area, only for a United Nations committee to take just eight minutes to rebuff the plan at a world heritage meeting.