Media release – The Wilderness Society Tasmania, 11 April 2021

Tasmania’s Parks agency finds Lake Malbena proposal would degrade c.5,000ha of World Heritage wilderness

The Wilderness Society Tasmania has obtained, through a freedom of information request, a copy of the previously secret ‘wilderness quality assessment’ by the Tasmanian Government’s Parks and Wildlife Service.

The assessment shows that, if the proposal to privatise Halls Island on Lake Malbena with luxury, helicopter-accessed tourist accommodation proceeds, it will degrade nearly 5,000 hectares of World Heritage wilderness.

The Wilderness Society Tasmania is calling on all parties contesting the state election to commit to scrapping the existing tourism Expression of Interest (EOI) process, and, if they wish to have any sort of EOI tourism process at all, to replace with one that invites sustainable tourism proposals from and within local rural and regional towns and villages, instead of privatising remote national parks.

“The supporters of the parks privatisation policy and its tourism EOI process talk about ‘sensitive development’ but the State Government’s own Parks and Wildlife Service’s ‘wilderness quality assessment’ proves this talk is misleading because, in reality, the parks privatisation policy and tourism EOI process degrade the very thing the State Government is supposed to protect: the world’s highest-rated World Heritage wilderness,” said Tom Allen for the Wilderness Society Tasmania

“The state’s tourism EOI process is now further discredited. The Parks and Wildlife Service assessment shows that the Lake Malbena luxury tourism proposal would degrade nearly 5,000 hectares of World Heritage wilderness. This sorry tourism EOI disaster can’t continue.

“The Tasmanian Liberals’ parks privatisation policy isn’t just an affront to the right of everyone to roam in World Heritage wilderness, it isn’t just a threat to the Tasmanian way of life. And now the government’s Parks and Wildlife assessment confirms that the current policy and process will also degrade the very thing the Government is supposed to protect: the world’s highest-rated World Heritage wilderness.

“This election, we’re inviting people to consider the issue of parks privatisation and to understand where candidates stand on the important issue of safeguarding World Heritage places from inappropriate development,” said Mr Allen.

To be credible, any new tourism EOI process would have to be transparent, publicly consulted, be focused on urban areas outside national parks and adhere to one of the recognised international tourism development criteria, such as those outlined by UNESCO and/or the Global Sustainable Tourism Council.

Today’s Guardian article: Privatising the wilderness: the Tasmanian project that could become a national park test case.

Tom Allen trying to spot the difference between the PWS wilderness assessment and the TWS-commissioned one.