Actions

Current Actions
1. East Cockle Creek - Southwest National Park
2. Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park - Cynthia Bay
3. Recherche Bay
4. Other Activities

Archive of Past Actions

1. East Cockle Creek Resort - Southwest National Park

The State Government has signed away public land - your land - to a proposed development at East Cockle Creek in the State's far south. The land is within the Southwest National Park.

To facilitate the destruction of the values for which the land was initially reserved, the Government has rewritten the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area Management Plan to allow for the development to go ahead. It had been proposed that this area would be included within the World Heritage Area. Should the development go ahead the values of the area would be significantly eroded.

If you do not support the privatisation of our national parks or the government encouraging commercial developments inside our public reserves then please write to the State Minister for Tourism, Arts and the Environment, Paula Wriedt or the media.

We have also developed a draft ideas sheet for the Recherche Bay area in general – Click here

2. The Cynthia Bay Re-development

The TNPA made a submission to prevent the environmentally insensitive redevelopment and expansion of accommodation facilities at Cynthia Bay on the shores of Lake St Clair (within the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park and the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, WHA). The proposal will result in a large increase in facilities within the National Park (i.e. a trebling to accommodate up to 326 persons). Download the submission (PDF - 896 Kb)

The current Tasmanian Wilderness WHA management plan provides very clear objectives and management prescriptions for accommodation and concessions within the WHA:
• To encourage the provision of accommodation in nearby townships and areas adjacent to the WHA (p132)
• If adequate facilities or services exist or can be developed outside the WHA that meet visitor needs, such facilities and services will not be provided as concessions within the WHA (p178).

These objectives are based on the premise that many of the experiences sought by visitors to the WHA and marketed by the tourism industry are based on the area's wilderness quality.

A copy of the Accommodation Expansion Cynthia Bay - Environmental Management Plan is available online at www.parks.tas.gov.au/publications/techrep.html. Free copies of the draft plan are available at Service Tasmania in Launceston and Hobart, and the Parks and Wildlife Service offices at Strahan, Queenstown and Lake St Clair. You can also have a copy sent to you by contacting the PWS on 6233 6285.

3. Recherche Bay

The issue of a logging road crossing the Southport Wildlife Sanctuary to access the NE Peninsula of Recherche has involved the TNPA in meetings with the Tasmanian Heritage Council, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the National Parks Australia Council. Pressure brought to bear by the TNPA has been partly responsible for the Heritage Council's resolution, yet to be accepted by the Premier (as Minister for Heritage), to protect the historic D'Entrecasteaux site.

Efforts to ensure the protection of this region met with success when the Tasmanian Land Conservancy, with the generous support of Dick Smith, purchased the property. See the Tasmanian Land Conservancy web site for details.

4. Other Activities

Crown land Assessment Classification Project

The Tasmanian National Parks Association has been reviewing the proposals for Tasmania’s remaining areas of unallocated crown land. So far we have made a submission on the West Coast Municipality area, raising the need for Parks and Wildlife Service to be better resourced if it is to receive more land to manage. (Some of the crown land was of significant conservation value and requires higher levels of protection).

Walking Tracks - BATR

In 2002 the Tasmanian Government formed the Bushwalking and Track Review panel (BATR) to outline options for the management of overnight bushwalking tracks within Tasmania's national parks. In particular, BATR was to advise the PWS on the implementation of a management strategy based on the concept of Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC). The TNPA has filled the conservation position on BATR since inception of the review. Throughout 2003 BATR focused on how the LAC approach could be implemented within the Western Arthurs Range (WAR). After a series of meetings a working paper outlining management options was put out for public comment in October 2003. Around 90 submissions were received and the BATR panel is currently finalising an agreed management option. During 2004, BATR will apply the approach adopted for the WAR to a number of other bushwalking tracks.