For Sale - Pristine Tasmanian Wilderness

[pazzar]

So accommodation nodes along the SCT would mean that the track needs an upgrade. Who is going to pay for this? The PWS certainly aren't in a position to do this after the Three Capes Track. Will we be seeing track fees to walk the SCT? Expensive trip once you include flights in to Melaleuca.

I'm all for making our NP's more accessible to all, but a line has to be drawn.

[GPSGuided]

I'm all for making our NP's more accessible to all, but a line has to be drawn.

So what's your perception on how to make them more accessible?

[pazzar]

Perhaps we enhance the nodes that we already have? Lake St Clair has so much more potential. Cockle Creek could be much more than it is. We don't need to be focusing on the more remote areas in order to increase tourism in our NP's.

[GPSGuided]

Perhaps we enhance the nodes that we already have? Lake St Clair has so much more potential. Cockle Creek could be much more than it is. We don't need to be focusing on the more remote areas in order to increase tourism in our NP's.

So you are in fact suggesting continued restriction rather than increased access as purported. Nothing wrong with that view of course.

[pazzar]

Perhaps we enhance the nodes that we already have? Lake St Clair has so much more potential. Cockle Creek could be much more than it is. We don't need to be focusing on the more remote areas in order to increase tourism in our NP's.

So you are in fact suggesting continued restriction rather than increased access as purported. Nothing wrong with that view of course.

But is development of existing infrastructure really restriction? It is only restriction if the services from those nodes don't increase.

[GPSGuided]

But is development of existing infrastructure really restriction? It is only restriction if the services from those nodes don't increase.

That depends on how you define the word "increased access". Some takes it in reference to the whole state while others limit it to existing areas. Your position is clear now.

[tastrax]

So accommodation nodes along the SCT would mean that the track needs an upgrade. Who is going to pay for this? The PWS certainly aren't in a position to do this after the Three Capes Track. Will we be seeing track fees to walk the SCT? Expensive trip once you include flights in to Melaleuca.

I'm all for making our NP's more accessible to all, but a line has to be drawn.

"Recreational Creep" - once its done up then the folks that used to go there go somewhere more remote increasing impact issues in those new areas - its been going on for years. My bet is no business person in their right mind would want huts on the southcoast. Way more expensive to service than anything on the Overland track, track in much worse repair and will take years to repair if the funds are ever made available (or funded by walker fees), much more limited market because of greater distances (longer trip hence more expensive). If they do get anything they will want it for nothing, with no payments to the government for years, no environmental controls on what they install....

But what would I know...

http://dazed.org/npa/npj/200104/features-creep.htm

[tastrax]

Much more likely that someone will want a lodge at Melaleuca or on the shores of Bathurst Harbour

[GPSGuided]

Based on what has happened internationally, I can see there'd be plenty of interest in the premium pseudo-eco-tourism, or better termed, premium resorts. The big money won't be in those who are interested in walking the mud tracks of the SW but those who are willing to pay big dollars for their fly-in and fly-out stay at an isolated and exclusive resort. As for a more NZ styled bushwalking tourism model, well, that'd be more a govt initiative than private enterprises. Private investors will want to see and feel their investments and see tangible returns.

Creep is everywhere. To me, the real way to conserve is just to stay out. Let people in, the ecology is disturbed. All other solutions e.g. Eco-tourism, are just a compromise that trade off conservation with money, jobs, electoral interests.

[headwerkn]

Mixed feeling on it. So much depends on the detail in the planning and execution. Hard to be categorical.

Very true. No one wants a 300-room hotel complex dropped in the middle of the WHA - and I doubt any developer would be that naïve/stupid to even contemplate it, let alone try to make it happen.

But a handful of appropriate huts or glamping-type platform tents well hidden and located off the main track, with limited/managed visitor numbers and fly-out waste management sounds doable; something more accessible for those not able to hump out a multi-day hike, yet not spoil the area for those who can.

Curiously enough, I made it out to Lake Ina for the first time last weekend... never actually found where Dan Hackett hides his little camp while we were there. Eventually found them on Google Earth, they're several hundred metres back from the lake and any primary track, completely surrounded by trees in their own little natural clearing. You'd never know they were there without aerial photography. Certainly they didn't impact on us or the four other people out there over the weekend. Clearly, it is possible to make little ventures like this work without impacting negatively on either the environment or people's ability to enjoy it.

As always, the devil is in the detail - will have to wait and see. Poo-pooing something purely as an ideological reaction a la Christine Milne this morning is pretty stupid.

Cheers, Ben.

[headwerkn]

To me, the real way to conserve is just to stay out.

To me, the real way to conserve something is to make people truly appreciate it... and to do that, people need to experience it first hand.

Lock people out and you take away many people's reason to give a damn.

[GPSGuided]

Very true. No one wants a 300-room hotel complex dropped in the middle of the WHA - and I doubt any developer would be that naïve/stupid to even contemplate it, let alone try to make it happen.

But a handful of appropriate huts or glamping-type platform tents well hidden and located off the main track, with limited/managed visitor numbers and fly-out waste management sounds doable; something more accessible for those not able to hump out a multi-day hike, yet not spoil the area for those who can...

I sense of the current debate is fundamentally one that relates to open or close that first door to development. The position statements made on either side is just this and all the talk on "access" and "jobs" are just window dressing. The gap b/n the two camps is pretty wide and it's no surprise it could lead to a bunfight.

[headwerkn]

I sense of the current debate is fundamentally one that relates to open or close that first door to development. The position statements made on either side is just this and all the talk on "access" and "jobs" are just window dressing. The gap b/n the two camps is pretty wide and it's no surprise it could lead to a bunfight.

Well, this is Tassie. People will go to war over pretty much anything, given half a chance

[Strider]

Perhaps we enhance the nodes that we already have? Lake St Clair has so much more potential. Cockle Creek could be much more than it is. We don't need to be focusing on the more remote areas in order to increase tourism in our NP's.

Spot on. Just look how many people visit Cradle Mountain and don't walk further than the boat shed at Dove Lake. Whole parks certainly don't need to be opened up to development simply to satisfy a few nature hungry tourists.

[DanShell]

To me, the real way to conserve is just to stay out.

To me, the real way to conserve something is to make people truly appreciate it... and to do that, people need to experience it first hand.

Lock people out and you take away many people's reason to give a damn.

I agree with this statement 100%.

[north-north-west]

To me, the real way to conserve is just to stay out.

To me, the real way to conserve something is to make people truly appreciate it... and to do that, people need to experience it first hand.

Lock people out and you take away many people's reason to give a damn.

I agree with this statement 100%.

Some things cannot be experienced first hand by any more than a very small number of people before they are damaged.

[DanShell]

Some things cannot be experienced first hand by any more than a very small number of people before they are damaged.

True. Thats why we need solutions to allow the masses to see these things without harming them??

[north-north-west]

But it can't be done. Some things are simply physically impossible. No amount of ingenuity can get masses of people - especially those without reasonable experience and preparation - through the Western Arthurs, for instance, without irreversible damage.

Sometimes we have to accept that.

[DanShell]

But it can't be done. Some things are simply physically impossible. No amount of ingenuity can get masses of people - especially those without reasonable experience and preparation - through the Western Arthurs, for instance, without irreversible damage.

Sometimes we have to accept that.

No well that's also a fact but there is enough wilderness open for that type of 'masses' to see without having to experience everything.
Google images for example is a solution

[stepbystep]

Some of the proposals I've heard put forward are fine imho, they add a bit of infrastructure in a tasteful way in areas that are already being used relatively extensively, some of the other proposals will cause massive division and are downright scary. This topic is kinda pointless unless you discuss individual proposals as they are very very varied.

[jdh573]

The fact that we are discussing this issue means that any thought of preserving wilderness is lost. We dont need tourism (or as they say in NSW "multi-use" of National Parks or Heritage areas where even mining is contemplated), there is plenty of other land (at market prices) for all this development. Such elite developments are not part of any democracy but for those with money. Besides which as the population grows there will be more and more clamour from more and more people as they all want to see the beauty of our fast disappearing wilderness.

[north-north-west]

The fact that we are discussing this issue means that any thought of preserving wilderness is lost. We dont need tourism (or as they say in NSW "multi-use" of National Parks or Heritage areas where even mining is contemplated), there is plenty of other land (at market prices) for all this development. Such elite developments are not part of any democracy but for those with money. Besides which as the population grows there will be more and more clamour from more and more people as they all want to see the beauty of our fast disappearing wilderness.

Yeah, they don't care about the future, just that they have the chance to see it before it's gone.

[Nuts]

Too close to do much other than convey a slowly swelling, sickly churn but some rudimentary investigation is sorely needed to steer a flawed perception of the public benefit. The realities are not intuitive.

Personally, I think the direction itself is fundamentally flawed, individual projects aside.

ps. I imagine what you do know Phil, here most likely barely scratching the surface, is a very valuable insight.

[Nuts]

The PDF file is too big to include, available from this page:

http://www.tict.com.au/tict-industry-re ... areas-2014

Yep, listed as an interested party, even I get my news from the net..

Already noticed the impact of changes that don't even get a mention on here. Not new, no, changes that I witnessed for many years, good people trying to hold back. Anyhow, even if the questions are not obvious, it's at least worth knowing what these initial proposals are, re-imagining their precedent.

[Old Fart]

Just released on the ABC News site http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-15/w ... r-/6018508 never knew logging of specialty timbers was considered a valid activity in wilderness world heritage area's but It what our beloved leaders have intended.

To quote the article The State Government has confirmed the draft plan would scrap the dominant wilderness zone, replacing it with a natural zone.

The change would allow low-scale tourism ventures, such as basic accommodation, as well as the logging of specialty timber, to go ahead

sad day if the logging part comes to be.

[Nuts]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-30/u ... es/6508506

[Mechanic-AL]

Tassie's unique timbers are a rare and valuable commodity so it's no suprise then that their value has shot through the roof as they become harder for people to get a hold of. Completely shutting down access to specialty timbers will only increase the likely hood of poaching and illegal activities. sadly, the state of the forests means bugger all to a lot of people when there is a buck involved (which is the bottom line in this whole issue).
If the long term interests of the state are really what the men in suits are trying to look after then they would have found some way to farm these timbers under ideal conditions so that they continue to be available without destroying large tracts of wilderness. Yep, I do know how long some of these trees take to mature and there in lies the problem...... No one is going to make a buck in the short term. But setting up industries that will benefit future generations must surely be the progressive way to value -add to the states undeniable natural beauty.
It shouldn't all be about us,me and I.

[Taurë-rana]

If the long term interests of the state are really what the men in suits are trying to look after then they would have found some way to farm these timbers under ideal conditions so that they continue to be available without destroying large tracts of wilderness.

It must just be the long term thing - it's not like myrtles and blackwoods are hard to grow, I've got myrtles growing in my garden from cuttings, blackwoods produce seeds and seedlings prolifically.

[north-north-west]

Individual trees may be easy to grow - although they're slow to reach 'usable' size - but forests that have been clear-felled and burnt do not regenerate to the same mix of flora, and the disruption to the wildlife that inhabits them is enormous.

And that still leaves the issue of how the logging is done. Carefully taking out a small number of trees specifically for milling and craftsmen is one thing. Clearfelling whole hillsides, taking millable timber for woodchipping, leaving immense piles of millable timber, and burning this 'residue' to hasten the regeneration of eucalypts is neither excusable nor sustainable.

No-one is even talking about Blackwood or Myrtle plantations - their idea for access is to cut down what's grown naturally and not worry about the environmental consequences.

[doogs]

I don't know much about myrtles but I have been to trial sites for the commercial growth of blackwood, and it is not quite as easy as one might think. You pretty much need to recreate a natural early stage forest where Blackwoods proliferate in the wild, and you use the eucalypts as a by product. The plot I visited had mixed success with several of the Blackwoods having poor form. The return for money of a Blackwood plot is also generational, which is difficult to persuade people to invest in.