Media release – Freycinet Action Network & Tasmanian National Parks Association, 13 April 2022
PAVING PARADISE – PARKS AND WILDLIFE CARPARK TO PAVE OVER THREATENED SPECIES HOTSPOT AT FREYCINET
An independent report has confirmed that the site chosen for redevelopment of visitor services infrastructure for the Freycinet National Park will potentially pave over or around threatened species habitat at a site considered by scientists as ‘one of the most important areas for threatened plant conservation in Tasmania’.
The Freycinet Visitor Gateway, proposed to be located on the Coles Bay Public Reserve, will have a footprint larger than the Blundstone sports arena in Hobart. The Gateway plans to establish facilities to allow a doubling of visitor numbers in a park already widely acknowledged as being overloaded, managed by an agency that is underfunded and unable to perform fundamental land management activities.
The report has recommended the visitor gateway be suspended and instead, the proposed development site be incorporated into an expanded national park.
Jamie Kirkpatrick, Distinguished Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Tasmania is an expert on threatened species and a past Chair of the State Threatened Species Advisory Council finds “it disturbing that an area identified by scientists as one of the most important for threatened plant species conservation in Tasmania should be proposed as the location for a car park designed to help people experience a national park”.
He states “People do not visit national parks to see car parks. They visit them to experience nature and to feel that there is somewhere nature is allowed to survive. It is a total abrogation of responsibility by the State Government and the Parks Service to even consider siting national park developments in a place scientifically well-known for its threatened species. The absurdity of sliding the car park itself close to but between the known precise locations of rare and threatened species also completely ignores edge effects.”
Sophie Underwood, Convenor of the Freycinet Action Network, a local group organising an Easter Monday action to highlight the values of the site and impacts of the proposed visitor hub, blames a lack of political will to address visitor numbers for the destructive Parks proposal.
“Doubling visitor numbers to over 620,000 each year is demonstrably unsustainable and building a carpark that would pave one of Tasmania’s most important botanical sites is an extremely disappointing strategy.
“We need better park and visitor management, not another massive carpark that will just facilitate the problem and expand the impacts.
Nick Sawyer, President of the Tasmanian National Parks Association, agrees “The parks service needs to get serious about managing visitor numbers to Freycinet National Park before it is too late. They also need to acknowledge that their proposed site for the Visitor Gateway is home to numerous threatened plant species – it deserves to be added to the national park, not paved over for a car park.”
Details of the Easter Monday Event
- Date: Monday 18 April 2022
- Time: 11 – 12.30
- Location: Meet at the Information Booth near entrance to Coles Bay.
- What to wear: sturdy shoes and please wear red.
Featured image above: The proposed Freycinet Visitor Gateway (Freycinet Peninsula Master Plan June 2019, page 87).
