Media Release – The Wilderness Society, 24 February 2022

South Coast Track shaping up to be the new Malbena & Experience Co the new Wild Drake

Following a private meeting with Experience Co last week, the Wilderness Society is extremely disappointed

  • That this private meeting was publicly cited in The Mercury this week

  • That this meeting is referred to by Experience Co as a ‘consultation’

  • That it is implied that the Wilderness Society supports Experience Co’s proposals

  • To learn that Experience Co has decided ‘to proceed’ with the South Coast Track and South East Cape when it said the exact opposite at the meeting last week – that Experience Co had not decided whether to proceed or not.

“Given the Malbena case is now effectively won, after huge public opposition and after Wild Drake effectively withdrew its planning permit application in December, you would think that companies like Experience Co would have a more professional approach,” said Tom Allen for the Wilderness Society Tasmania.

“The fact is, the plans that Experience Co purchased from Ian Johnstone involve six luxury lodges along an ancient Aboriginal track, require clearing of World Heritage forest for them to be constructed and would commercialise and degrade wilderness values of one of the world’s most spectacular walking tracks within the world’s highest-rated World Heritage wilderness.

“Thanks to the expertise of one of Australia’s foremost wilderness experts, Martin Hawes, the impacts on natural values, wilderness and serenity are plain to see (see images below).

“As the near-universal opposition to Malbnena and the Gutwein Government’s parks privatisation policy shows – reinforced by a national poll by the National Parks Australia Council this week – most people are opposed to national parks and World Heritage wilderness being commercialised, privatised, degraded and existing users excluded.

“It remains the case that the Wilderness Society wants to see responsible tourism alongside properly protected and respected wild areas. That’s the win-win for Tassie but the opposite of what Experience Co is proposing,” said Mr Allen.

Wild and tamed: A map of existing wilderness character in the south of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and a simulation showing the impact on wilderness character if Experience Co is allowed to construct its six luxury lodges along the ancient South Coast Track. (Copyright Martin Hawes.)

Media release – Cassy O’Connor MP, Greens Leader and Parks spokesperson, 24 February 2022

Conservationists Ready to Fight Privatisation of South Coast Track

The South Coast Track is 85km of life changing wilderness walking, traversing long windswept beaches, mountain ranges, lush rainforest and vast moorlands. Truly wild and wondrous.

For decades bushwalkers from across the globe have made the pilgrimage to Melaleuca to begin their week long adventure to Cockle Creek. The walk is transformative to the human spirit, and it is necessarily arduous.

To privatise and sanitise the South Coast Track would destroy its integrity and the increasingly rare experience of wild-ness.

To build a track of the standard expected by those that would pay many thousands of dollars for a lodge based walk would cost tens of millions of dollars. This would likely be at the expense of taxpayers, all to benefit a private company and to the detriment of wilderness.

Experience Co is an ASX listed company based in Queensland, headed up by the former Chair and Managing Director of Tourism Australia. The big boys are moving in, and they clearly want to turn the Tasmanian wilderness into a Gold Coast styled theme park.

We won’t stand for it. Nor will anyone whose lives have been forever changed on their south coast odyssey.

The Southwest National Park is enormously significant to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community and the ongoing presence of their 40,000 year history is embedded in every step of the South Coast Track. This place cannot be developed in any way without their expressed permission.

The South Coast Track EOIs need to be torn up. Apart from anything, they fly in the face of UNESCO requests for a comprehensive cultural heritage assessment over the entire TWWHA before any development be considered.

The white shoe brigade, and their enablers in the Gutwein Government should be warned. The Greens, Aboriginal Tasmanians, conservationists, walkers, fishers and all Tasmanians who love the South West wilderness will fight them every step of the way.