Transcript of media conference with Vica Bayley, Greens MHA for Clark, Tom Allen (The Wilderness Society), Nick Sawyer (Tasmanian National Parks Association), Dan Broun (Fishers and Walkers Tasmania) at Parliament Square, Hobart, 25 September 2023.
Vica Bayley
We’re here today as campaigners, representatives and carers and lovers of Tasmania’s wilderness World Heritage Area to highlight and welcome the fact that the World Heritage Committee over the weekend adopted a what’s called a retrospective statement with universal values for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Editor’s note: see below transcript, further down.
This statement is the definitive statement on the values of the World Heritage Area, the natural and cultural heritage values for which it is listed. And indeed, the values for its authenticity and its integrity, why it is such a special and unique place. And we know from this statement that it’s peppered with a range of very welcomed commitments around wilderness and acknowledgements of the value of wilderness.
Wilderness can be measured and mapped, and it’s an element of the remoteness and the intactness and other elements of the landscape. The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area is indeed one of the great wilderness areas on the planet. And this statement confirms that. We’re here to highlight the fact that wilderness is precious, and it can be degraded and the Liberal government’s agenda to open up the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area to private commercial tourism development is at odds with the recognition of these wilderness values in the statement.
And we’re here not only to call on the Tasmanian Government to do away with its controversial, secretive, expressions of interest process, but this statement should give Minister Plibersek at the federal level, everything she needs to do to reject the Lake Malbena development. This is luxury huts accessed by helicopters that would degrade hundreds of hectares of wilderness and across the Walls of Jerusalem National Park and other areas. And clearly, with this statement now being adopted by UNESCO, there is no room for Minister Plibersek to approve developments such as Lake Malbena, the South Coast Track huts or the luxury lodge in the Walls of Jerusalem.
It’s also a very welcome statement because of its acknowledgement of the Aboriginal cultural values of the area. And the ongoing connection that Tasmania’s palawa community has with this area, the cultural resources and cultural practices. This is a very positive statement that we believe underpins the strength and the specialness of the Tasmanian goodness World Heritage Area. And it really should give both governments pause to think about the the agenda to privatise areas of it for tourism development.
Journalist – unidentified
From a state government perspective. I imagine for them, it’s a really big tourism booster, you know, people come over here to bushwalk. Why is it not okay, that, you know, tourist attractions like this go ahead?
Vica Bayley
Well, look, this is a boost to the World Heritage Area. Absolutely. Recognising that wilderness underpins the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area on all four of its natural criteria and other elements as well, such as integrity, is really special. It highlights how special this is. But what this also does is highlight how the state government’s Expression of Interest process and indeed their agenda, to privatise this wilderness, to degrade this wilderness by building access elements or indeed, built commercial tourism development, they’re at odds, you know, they’re mutually exclusive. You can’t embrace, celebrate and protect wilderness by at the same time, privatising and building commercial developments on it, because then he’s no longer wilderness.
(inaudible) … accepting that wilderness is a critical element of not only the listing of this property, but our brand that we push out to the world. It should be doing away with the expression of interest process and making it very clear to developers that the place to put their aspirations for tourism accommodation is outside the boundaries of this property, because when it’s inside the boundary of the property in these high value wilderness areas, it will actually degrade and destroy those wilderness areas. And that’s why Minister Plibersek has everything she needs at the moment to reject the Lake Malbena tourism development that’s been referred to her for approval.
(inaudible) The experts have demonstrated that the Lake Malbena development, its helicopter access, would degrade wilderness. And so there is every reason for Minister Plibersek to reject that development based on its negative impacts on this outstanding value of the World Heritage Area.
Journalist – Alex Johnston
If the state government’s goal is to sort of stimulate the tourism economy should it try to leverage off an announcement like this by actually being proud of the protection (inaudible)?
Vica Bayley
This property meets more criteria than any other World Heritage area on the planet. So it is truly something special. If the Tasmanian Government was serious about leveraging the tourism potential out of our wild brand and out of wilderness areas, it couldn’t be seeking to develop those areas and in doing so degrade the wilderness values of those areas. It should be looking at expanding the boundaries of the Tasmanian Heritage Area, taking into account places like the Spero-Wanderer Wilderness and increasing the coverage of it so that more communities that are on the periphery can access the benefits.
Tom Allen
Conservation organisations in lutruwita / Tasmania passionately support genuine (inaudible) tourism. No one supports fake tourism, fake eco-tourism. And that’s what parks privatisation is. And the UNESCO statement that was approved over the weekend puts the parks privatisation agenda more at odds with wilderness and World Heritage values.
So today, we’re celebrating the fact that UNESCO and the World Heritage Committee has finally made clear that Aboriginal historical living cultural values and wilderness are fundamental to the world’s highest-rated World Heritage wilderness, the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. However, we’re also distressed at the same time that the Tasmanian Government is continuing to weaken the Aboriginal Lands Act against the wishes of the palawa community, and without reference to free, prior and informed consent, which all entities in Australia should be because Australia is a signatory to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
And last of all, I can say that conservation organisations have written to Tanya Plibersek, Australia’s Environment Minister, first of all thanking her and her department and staff for supporting the retrospective statement that was approved by UNESCO and World Heritage Committee, but also making clear that this is much at odds with the parks privatisation agenda with World Heritage values, and that she should reject Lake Malbena proposal.
Journalist – unidentified
(inaudible) sustainable tourism.
Tom Allen
Yes, that’s really a fundamental point. That’s a good question. There’s so many alternatives to parks privatisation that genuinely respect and protect Aboriginal cultural and historical values and natural values. That’s really the point and Tasmania should be a showcase for responsible, sustainable, regenerative tourism. And it’s an absolute tragedy that the Tasmanian Government is still pushing the parks privatisation agenda, which has now been made clear by UNESCO and World Heritage Committee, is even more at odds with the values that we should be showcasing to the rest of the world. The rest of the world wants to come and experience. Well, the Tasmanian government has been degrading with its parks privatisation agenda. It’s a real tragedy and it needs to change.
Nicholas Sawyer
Tasmania used to have policy of both encouraging tourism and protecting wilderness by ensuring that tourism developments were kept off the very edge of the World Heritage Area where they didn’t degrade the wilderness value of the core areas. But that’s been thrown out the window by the current government, which is why we’ve got the current dilemma over Lake Malbena and similar proposals.
The main thing I wanted to say was that the area is called the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area for a very good reason. And that’s because wilderness underpins the integrity of the entire area and most of the other values. So that’s why we really welcome the fact that this retrospective statement of outstanding universal value is finally being adopted and the recognition of wilderness is contained loud and clear within it.
Dan Broun
We welcome this statement, it absolutely vindicates the stance (inaudible) … Lake Malbena is going to degrade by the government’s own calculations nearly 5000 hectares of high quality wilderness, all for presumably a small tourism proposal. It’s unacceptable that a tiny little proposal that can degrade so much wilderness.
What the government proposes with its privatisation of the parks concept policy, whatever you want to call it, is degradation of tens of thousands of hectares of wilderness by building luxury lodges for people who can afford it, which is not an ordinary Tasmanians. And it’s not ordinary tourists either. So they are going to sacrifice our brand, they’re going to sacrifice wilderness as a concept, and they’re absolutely going to tear apart the cultural significantly areas. They’re going to tear apart the culturally significant areas of places like the South Coast track, just so some big business can make some bucks.
It’s an absolute slap in the face to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community whose wishes are ignored. It’s a slap in the face to the people who care about these places and who are always going to fight to protect them. So this adoption by UNESCO of this statement, absolutely vindicates the stance that conservationists, bushwalkers and anglers are going to continue to (inaudible) … as long as this government continues this ridiculous policy.
Now, there are many, many, many, many options for sustainable tourism that will deliver exactly the type of experience these people are trying to achieve by sticking a dagger in the heart of our wild places. The Wilderness World Heritage Area has a very, very long boundary. And that’s where developments like this belong: on the boundaries, and they can absolutely enjoy wild places without needing to destroy them. So we advocate those proposals and we are more than welcome to stand by the government should they choose to step back from this ridiculous policy.
Excerpt – UNESCO World Heritage Convention, retrieved 25 September 2023
Item 8 of the Provisional Agenda: Establishment of the World Heritage List and of the List of World Heritage in Danger
8E. Adoption of retrospective Statements of Outstanding Universal Value
Tasmanian Wilderness
Brief synthesis
The Tasmanian Wilderness covers more than 1.58 million hectares, almost a quarter of the Australian island State of Tasmania. This is one of the world’s largest and most spectacular temperate wilderness areas and a precious cultural landscape for Tasmanian Aboriginal people, who have lived here for approximately 40,000 years.
Tasmanian Aboriginal people adapted to a changing climate and natural environment through a full glacialinterglacial climatic cycle and were the southernmost people in the world during the last ice age. Evidence of their culture remains in the property today, with significant Pleistocene cave occupation sites, and later Holocene sites, demonstrating a richness and variability rarely seen in comparable global contexts. The rock markings in caves represent an extraordinary connection to their ideas and beliefs. The property is one of the world’s great archaeological ‘provinces’, with many important sites, and a landscape shaped by Aboriginal fire management practices over millennia.
The ecosystems within the extensive wilderness areas of the property are of outstanding significance for their exceptional natural beauty, distinctive landforms and palaeoendemic species and communities. Alpine, estuarine and alkaline wetland ecosystems are globally unusual and unique. The marine, near-shore, island and coastal environments provide habitat for significant breeding populations of seabirds. These areas display extensive undisturbed stretches of high-energy rocky and sandy coastline, forests of giant kelp, and temperate seagrass beds.
Criterion (iii): The Tasmanian Wilderness bears an exceptional testimony to the southernmost occupation by people during the Pleistocene period. Cave sites contain extremely rich, exceptionally well-preserved occupation deposits of bone and stone artefacts. Well preserved, diverse rock marking sites and rock shelter sites provide evidence of Aboriginal occupation, dating back approximately 40,000 years.
Criterion (iv): The Tasmanian Wilderness is a diverse cultural landscape where Aboriginal people have managed and modified the landscape for approximately 40,000 years. Significant stages in human history, from the Pleistocene period to the arrival of Europeans, are illustrated through extensive and diverse Holocene shell middens, rock shelters and artefact scatters, as well as Aboriginal cultural heritage sites. Targeted Aboriginal burning regimes are evidenced in the modified vegetation types within this landscape.
Criterion (vi): Rock marking sites provide a tangible reflection of the beliefs and ideas of the southernmost people in the world during the Pleistocene, and of their descendants in later periods. Red ochre hand stencils, ochre smears, and other amorphous marks have been found in caves throughout the property. Amongst these sites is Wargata Mina which is the southernmost known Pleistocene marking site in Tasmania, and the first site in the world where mammal blood was identified as being mixed with ochre, possibly as a fixative.
The vast majority of rock markings in the caves are individual motifs, spatially separated from one another. This suggests a spiritual or artistic intent, highlighting a considered, organised and arranged approach to the creation of markings, which is supported by the absence of cultural materials or occupation deposits. The rock markings and cave hand stencils together represent a close connection to ideas and beliefs and living traditions of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and their ancestors.
Criterion (vii): Geological and glacial events, climatic variation at the geological and landscape scales, and Aboriginal occupation and use have combined to produce extensive and varied wilderness landscapes of
exceptional aesthetic importance abound. Important landscape features exemplifying the variety and beauty of the property include the rugged, tarn-embedded quartzite ranges, such as the Eastern Arthurs. The dramatic rampart of the Great Western Tiers, marks the northern and eastern bounds of the undulating alpine Central Plateau, where sand dunes with ancient pencil pines abut shallow lakes. Dark-watered estuaries, such as New River Lagoon, nestle below precipitous peaks. The wild and windy coast with its emerald marsupial lawns, and the bizarrely beautiful submarine ecosystems of Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour add to the aesthetic appeal of the property. The golds and greens of wind-moulded alpine and subalpine flora, extensive blankets of buttongrass moorlands and patches of dark green mossy rainforests cloaking southern slopes, contribute to its scenic diversity. Cave systems are ornamented by glow worms, wild rivers cut dramatically through quartzite ranges to calmer water below, and forests dominated by mountain ash, at 70-100 metres, dwarf the rainforest understorey below.
Criterion (viii): Extensive outcrops of Jurassic dolerite attest to the breakup of Gondwana more than 40 million years ago. Large areas of terrace systems, stabilized by a peat coating, provide evidence of tectonic and sea level change. Vast areas of wilderness and wild coasts, free of exotic plants, allow fluvial, aeolian and wave-driven processes to continue. Periglacial processes, globally unusual because of the absence of permafrost, actively create stone stripes, polygons and steps. Globally distinct wind-controlled striped mires are the product of ongoing bio-geomorphological processes, as are the peat pond systems. The accumulation of organic matter continues at a landscape scale in nutrient-poor quartzite country, where globally distinct, reddish fibric moor peats occur at depth under rainforest. The property contains globally outstanding exemplars of ongoing temperate maritime karst processes, unusually within dolomite. Palaeokarst, much resulting from the unusual interaction of glacial and karst processes in a maritime climate, provides one of the best available global records of southern temperate glacial processes, with deposits from three eras: the late Cenozoic, late Paleozoic and late Proterozoic.
Criterion (ix): The property’s great size and wilderness character enable significant natural, biological and geomorphological processes to continue in terrestrial, coastal, riverine and mountain ecosystems. The property is exceptional in its representation of ongoing terrestrial ecological processes involving fire and wind. Mosaic landscapes of fire-susceptible and fire-dependent plant communities have formed. These include large, remote, undisturbed areas of Mountain Ash, one of the tallest flowering plants in the world. At alpine altitudes, where wind redistributes sporadic snowfalls, cushion plants, exposed to wind and ice abrasion, thrive. Distinct plant communities, including the only Australian winter deciduous tree, the Deciduous Beech (also known as Tanglefoot), form on fire and weather protected north-eastern slopes. Wind-controlled cyclic succession in lineated Sphagnum mires appears to be globally unique. Unusual assemblages of deep marine species are found within the large estuaries, where communities are moderated by dark tannic freshwater, overlaying salt.
Criterion (x): Extensive areas of high wilderness quality ensure habitats of sufficient size to allow the survival of endemic and rare or threatened species such as the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, and many ancient taxa with links to Gondwana. The orange-bellied parrot and an assemblage of marsupial carnivores are found nowhere else.
Some of the longest-lived trees in the world are present, with Huon pines reaching ages in excess of 2000 years.
Secure habitats, including hundreds of island refuges, contain very few pathogens, weeds, or pests. Spectacular cave systems are inhabited by endemic invertebrate species, resulting from relict populations separated during periods of glaciation. The world’s most southerly and isolated temperate seagrass beds and giant kelp forests occur in Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour and remote islands support significant breeding populations of seabirds.
Integrity
The property demonstrates the interaction between people and the landscape over millennia and has an exceptional degree of intactness and high degree of naturalness. Its large extent, remoteness, and quality of wilderness is the foundation for the integrity of its natural and cultural values. Since the property was first inscribed in 1982, boundary extensions have increased the extent of land with high wilderness quality. There is a low level of disturbance from pests, weeds, and diseases. The Pleistocene cave deposits are well preserved due to the deposition of calcium carbonate flowstone (leached from the surrounding limestone) over the top of the cultural deposits, leaving them largely undisturbed and safe from natural erosion and other impacts. Bone preservation is excellent due to the high alkalinity of the sedimentary deposits.
Due to its rugged and remote terrain, tourism facilities are mostly restricted to the periphery of the property, and there are only two major roads, both pre-dating inscription on the World Heritage List. Limited hydro-electricity generation and transmission also occurs.
Authenticity
The ensemble of cultural sites across the landscape demonstrate the way of life of Aboriginal people and their ancestors, as well as their beliefs and ideas, over a period of approximately 40,000 years. Occupation of the area during the late Pleistocene and development of a unique cultural tradition in response to extreme climatic conditions are the basis for the property’s inscription on the World Heritage List under cultural heritage criteria. Since inscription, many more sites demonstrating these events have been identified.
Protection and management requirements
Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) provides legal protection for Outstanding Universal Value by regulating actions occurring within, or outside, the World Heritage boundary. A statutory management plan is in place and is reviewed at least every seven years. Over 80 per cent of the property is zoned as ‘wilderness’.
Two statutory councils, the Aboriginal Heritage Council and the National Parks and Wildlife Advisory Council, provide advice on the management of the property to the Tasmanian and Australian governments. Private freehold conservation covenanted lands within the property are managed according to international open standard management plans demonstrating a high level commitment to ongoing protection.
Aboriginal people access and protect their Country and cultural resources so that cultural practices can be conducted and maintained.
