Media release – Jacquie Petrusma, Minister for Parks, 2 June 2022

Expanding Mole Creek Karst National Park

It was my pleasure today to table in Parliament the statutory rules to expand the Mole Creek Karst National Park.

The media release from Dr Shane Broad MP accusing the Government of locking up more land, demonstrates that Dr. Broad does not understand the history of his own party or understand his portfolio of resources.

All of this land was already in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA), ultimately as a result of extensions to the TWWHA that happened as a result of the Labor-Green Tasmanian Forests Agreement and was therefore not available for harvesting.

Dr. Broad has been offered a briefing, and I would encourage him to take up this invitation so that he can understand what was agreed to under the former Labor-Green Government.

This Government is delivering on our commitment to reserve this land within the TWWHA, which will see the beautiful Mole Creek Karst National Park expanded through the reservation of an additional 2,850 hectares of land, which again, is already in the TWWHA.

As well, the 22,550 hectares of land in the TWWHA referenced by Dr Broad, will now be formally reserved as either conservation area, or regional reserve in accordance with the assessment of their natural values.

This process has involved significant public announcements, consultation, natural values assessments and a substantial body of work by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania over many years.

The Tasmanian Liberal Government will continue to ensure that our special natural places are protected and presented in ways that allow people of all abilities to enjoy the natural and cultural values they contain.

TASMANIAN TIMES: On ‘Wood Banks’ Becoming Reserves … – Tasmanian Times

Media release – The Wilderness Society, 3 June 2022

Doubly dudded: Major Parties let down nature on Tasmanian World Heritage and forest protection

Seven years after state and commonwealth Liberal governments fulsomely and repeatedly promised the World Heritage Committee that they would create a new national park in the kooparoona niara region of lutruwita/Tasmania, Tasmania’s Parks Minister Jacqui Petrusma has cemented this betrayal in legislation.

Yesterday in the state parliament, the Tasmanian Liberal Government tabled a proclamation under the Nature Conservation Act 2002 to make changes to 25,000ha of high conservation value forest informally reserved by the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.

“But instead of protecting the 25,400ha of this superlative and culturally-significant region as a national park as they promised, the Government has grudgingly added a fractional 2,850ha to the existing Mole Creek Karst National Park, while the main 22,550ha has been proposed to be converted to the weakest possible tenure of ‘regional reserves’ and ‘conservation areas’, in which logging and mining are still allowed,” said Jimmy Cordwell, Tasmanian wilderness campaigner for the Wilderness Society.

“Given the ongoing watering-down of environmental protections in lutruwita/Tasmania, including of the statutory management plan for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA), not only is this a betrayal, it leaves these high conservation and culturally significant areas at risk.

“It being Reconciliation Week, the Tasmanian Government could have thrown its support behind the ground-breaking Kooparoona Niara (Great Western Tiers) National Park proposed by the palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) community and honoured the recommendation in its own Pathway to Treaty report to create the island’s first ever “Aboriginal Protected Area, the kooparoona niara Aboriginal Protected Area in the Western Tiers including the Future Potential Production Forest Land (FPPFL)”. Instead, the Government is failing to support the proposal and undermining it with their weak-as-possible conservation sop.

“To make things worse, instead of taking pride in the TWWHA, Tasmania’s single-biggest conservation asset and most valuable tourism attraction, Tasmanian Labor’s shadow Resources Minister, Shane Broad MP, responded with a convincing impression of Tony Abbott by enthusiastically advocating for logging forests in the world’s highest-rated World Heritage wilderness. Mr Broad seems to overlook the fact these forests were added to the World Heritage Area by the previous Labor-Greens government,” said Mr Cordwell.

Background

  • The Tasmanian Government’s own consultation in April 2021 on protecting this area found 97% of respondents wanted National Park.

  • If created, Kooparoona Niara (Great Western Tiers) NP would be the first substantial new national park in Tasmania for about 30 years and the first ever to be returned to Aboriginal ownership and run and managed by the Aboriginal community.

  • The State Government’s own Pathway to Treaty report, released earlier this year, recommended the protection of the Kooparoona Niara region.

  • Kooparoona Niara (Great Western Tiers) is superlative and spectacular escarpment of extensive old-growth forested slopes, sandstone and dolerite cliffs, waterfalls, and flora and fauna species of high conservation value as well as containing high levels of endemism. It is highly culturally significant to the palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) community. Significant wilderness exists within the area, stretching away to the Central Plateau across a maze of lakes and tarns, an eroded glacial landscape.

  • A survey by the Tasmanian National Parks Association last year found that 90% of Australians agree with the statement “Australia’s remaining wilderness areas should be protected”.

Media release – Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania (ALCT), 3 June 2022

HIGH TO LOW IN RECONCILIATION WEEK – GOV’T IGNORES ABORIGINAL LAND CLAIM FOR KOOPAROONA NIARA NATIONAL PARK

The Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania (ALCT) has expressed dismay and despair over the Rockliff Government tabling the Parliamentary proclamations for the creation of low-grade reserves in the World Heritage-listed Great Western Tiers, as an alternative to the Aboriginal Community’s claim and proposal for an Aboriginal-owned kooparoona niara National Park.

To add insult to injury, the Land Council’s formal claim, first sent in a letter to Premier Gutwein in early 2021 (and followed by two subsequent letters), has gone completely unanswered.

After starting Reconciliation Week on a high, with support for changing the date of Australia Day, the Rockliff Government ends it on a low, shafting Aboriginal aspirations for land return and failing to even have the curtesy to reply to a formal proposal for land return, made in response to the former Premier’s own State of the State invitation.

“This is beyond underwhelming,” said Rebecca Digney, Manager of ALCT. “On the anniversary of the Mabo decision and at the end of Reconciliation Week, this completely sidelines the interest of Aboriginal people and Government’s own commitment to declare a national park.

In 2016 UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee called for the area to be given national park ‘status’ and the government unconditionally committed to doing so. Additionally, the much-lauded Pathway to Truth-Telling and Treaty report endorsed the Aboriginal-owned reserve proposal for kooparoona niara and made an explicit recommendation for such a declaration.

“Here is an opportunity where Unallocated Crown Land that was never ceded by Aboriginal people will be presented to Parliament for a tenure change. Why shouldn’t an Aboriginal-owned national park be part of the mix?

“Does the Premier support land returns and why has this unique opportunity been ignored and overlooked.

“In 1803 Aboriginal people owned 100% of lutruwita/Tasmania. In 200 years, while progress has been made and the process and benefits of returning land to Aboriginal ownership is well established, the Aboriginal Community owns less than .01% of Tasmania’s land mass.

“This is a missed opportunity to deliver a win-win and establish an iconic new tenure in Tasmania.”