Geoff Law: Australia a traitor to the World Heritage Convention

Conservationist Geoff Law, who last year was awarded an Order of Australia for his services to the environment, today condemned federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt for making Australia a traitor to the World Heritage Convention.

‘Mr Hunt is showing extraordinary ignorance and insensitivity to the concept of World Heritage in seeking to de-list significant parts of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area,’ Mr Law said.

‘The areas that Mr Hunt seeks to de-list contain some of the world’s most pristine forests, including some of the tallest hardwood forests on Earth.’

Mr Law said that last year’s 170,000-ha extension to the World Heritage Area contains parts of one of the world’s great temperate wilderness areas, including unlogged parts of the Huon, Weld, Florentine and Styx valleys.

‘In desperately trying to give the impression that most of the forests in the extension have been logged, Mr Hunt is deceiving the Australian people,’ Mr Law said.

Mr Law, who has travelled to World Heritage forests all over the world as part of a Churchill Fellowship, said that it is not unusual for such sites to contain small areas of damaged forest for the sake of boundary integrity. He said that nearly one third of the famous Californian Redwood World Heritage property, which contains the world’s tallest trees, had been clearfelled before it was listed in 1980. The logged areas have been undergoing rehabilitation in order to protect giant trees downstream from being damaged by erosion and sedimentation.
Geoff Law