TARKINE EMERGENCY NATIONAL HERITAGE LISTING NOMINATION LODGED

MEDIA RELEASE: 5/11/2009

As polling shows Tasmanians support Tarkine National Park and World Heritage Area by a five to one margin.

The Tarkine National Coalition has formally lodged a nomination for Emergency National Heritage Listing of the Tarkine.

In a display of unity on this crucial issue, the proposal has been endorsed by Australia’s leading environmental organizations, WWF, Australian Conservation Foundation and The Wilderness Society, and by local environmental advocates Tasmanian Conservation Trust, Environment Tasmania and North-West Environment Centre.

The proposal, which is based on the 2004 National Heritage Listing nomination currently being assessed by the Federal Government. A unanimous motion of the Senate in 2007 recommended the nomination be placed on the Priority Assessment list. The completion of this complex assessment was due in August 2009 but the Australian Heritage Council has sought and been granted an extension to this deadline.

For an emergency listing to be enacted the Minister must be satisfied that there is one or more National Heritage values, and that there is a likely and imminent threat. The referral of the road has triggered this condition, and the nomination seeks to have the Emergency National Heritage Listing in place prior to the assessment of the $23million Forestry Tasmania Tarkine Road.

“The protection of the Tarkine as the last disease free refuge for the Tasmanian devil is now critical. This nomination seeks to activate the National Heritage protections that should have been in place at the time of the lodgement of the Forestry Tasmania Tarkine Road ” “The State Government’s own referral details the high level of impact that this road will have on the Tasmanian devil. With the clear decision of the Tasmanian Government to condemn the Devil to extinction in the wild, Minister Garrett is now the last hope for the Devil, and we believe he needs all the tools available to him. This nomination will give him another tool.”

Recent polling commissioned by TNC (conducted in October by Essential Media Communications) showed 63% of Tasmanians support a Tarkine World Heritage Area while only 13% opposed, and 67% of Tasmanians support a Tarkine National Park while only 11% opposed.

“A clear majority of Tasmanians want the Tarkine protected. The nomination satisfies the technical criteria and we believe it will have broad community support. We commend it to the Minister and urge his swift attention to this critical matter.”
Scott Jordan, Tourism Project Officer