Bushwalk Australia

EDO looking at developments in wild places
https://www.facebook.com/events/461026884335066/

Lophophaps wrote:EDO looking at developments in wild places
https://www.facebook.com/events/461026884335066/

I went to the Hobart event, it was very informative(and frightening) I'd very much encourage all reserve users to go along.

Rezoning, private developments and overflights. Greed/ignorance by some pollies, hypocrisy/ignorance by others:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/h ... nt/9860202

This is similar to the Falls Hotham Alpine Crossing. Not good.

Malbena is not an area that gets a lot of walkers, but it's the principle that matters here. We can't allow them to effectively excise a section of the TWWHA purely for private profit.

Yes. And the same principle is sound for any reserved public lands, or for those determined to limit places for the public who are not prepared to pay for the resulting service. It's even a good benchmark to keep in mind when advocating for new reserves.

From 1970, still germane.

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone.
They paved paradise,
And put up a parking lot.

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum,
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em.

Meh Joni I much prefer Edward...

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the *&%$#!.”
― Edward Abbey

I am confused about rezoning.

I have a copy of the Draft TWWHA Management Plan from 2015. Alongside it I have the 2016 final version. I can clearly see where Lake Malbena mysteriously got rezoned from Wilderness Zone (actually called Remote Recreation Zone in the draft) to Self-Reliant Recreation Zone. I have not heard or read anywhere how that rezoning took place. That much I understand.

The bit I don't understand is how Self-Reliant Recreation Zone can be used to approve the Lake Malbena / Halls Island project. Here's a description of the Self-Reliant Recreation Zone:

The Self-Reliant Recreation Zone aims to:
• conserve natural and cultural values in an area subject to low-level, but potentially significant, recreation use;
• maintain, as far as possible, characteristics of remoteness and isolation; and
• retain a largely unmodified natural setting for a challenging experience that meets the needs of a relatively low number of self-reliant recreation users.

Installing accommodation huts and a kitchen and transporting guests by helicopter doesn't sound like "self-reliant" users to me. The proposal cannot proceed under the management plan. Simple as that. What have I missed?

tastrekker wrote:What have I missed?

Politics?
A plan can be changed. Laws can be changed. Taxation can be changed.
They (pollies) change things all the time, they think that is part of their 'job'.

The Falls Creek to Hotham walk, FHAC, has conservation zones, notably near Mount Feathertop. This is from a submission to the FHAC Draft Management Plan:
Page 68 details the top of Diamantina Spur. The "clearing is large enough for helicopters ... structures will be installed on the protected southern side of the ridge amongst existing (sic) Snow Gums". This is a Conservation zone, defined as "Areas of high natural value where the emphasis is on protection of the environment." This structures breach the Conservation zone,
and are quite repugnant. "Servicing access (by) transport drones will be considered". So not only will there be helicopters but drones. Merde. More breaches. This is utterly insane.

That is, FHAC is similar to the WOJ madness. Parks Victoria simply ignored comments like this. If the political will is there they will do anything to achieve their goals. It was shown that the FHAC route up Diamantina Spur was too hard, and that most people would not be able to safely or at all climb the spur. The solution in the Final Plan is to suggest an easier route, and build the lodge at the top of Diamantina Spur anyway.

The best strategy is to make mad proposals like those at the WOJ and FHAC politically bad. Show that they do not have good economics, find points which most voters can see. At the same time, attack the proposal from the inside. I'm doing this about FHAC on several fronts. Might work. Regardless, every little piece of opposition will add up. Social media may be another way.

Looking at the goings on in the Tassie parliament I can’t help but side with the greens.
There are plenty of ‘exclusive’ resorts for wealthy fee paying anglers.
It’s a slippery slope before you know it there will be a helli pad a Westons and other remote lakes,
"Exclusive" just comes to mean the one closest to the shrinking WHA.
John

Politicians(and media) use new language all the time to gradually get the public used to ideas that are contentious. I can't imagine how pissed off and upset all the people who literally put their lives on hold and went to jail to save the Franklin River must be to see the word wilderness removed from the area around Frenchmans and beyond...I for one will work in whatever way I can to have those hard won battles respected and the very few victories honoured. I simply can't type the level of contempt I have for Hodgman and his ilk.

Writing was on the wall for tourism ingress back in the eighties too.
Harder to see the negatives, harder to support a definitive argument, politically troublesome?

Just a few little huts they said..

tastrekker wrote:
The Self-Reliant Recreation Zone aims to:
• conserve natural and cultural values in an area subject to low-level, but potentially significant, recreation use;
• maintain, as far as possible, characteristics of remoteness and isolation; and
• retain a largely unmodified natural setting for a challenging experience that meets the needs of a relatively low number of self-reliant recreation users.

I suspect the wording can be manipulated to include catering for remote wilderness users (and their oft-mentioned value in conservation).
Ongoing, the exclusive use could be promoted as a part of providing limited ingress to remote places, highlighting the small numbers involved (for now)?

Thin end of the wedge. Was not Three Capes meant to be the last such development? If they want a hut then carry it in, access by foot and canoe. Should not take more than a decade.

Three Capes is a different model, (imo) one that could have worked well in limited application.. and with the right attitude... in different times..(maybe)
But the area does have it's private huts operation coming... (with their own spa pools.. security guards maybe?).( )

For a long time I (for one) was under the impression CM Huts were to be the 'last'.

(ps. though i'm not entirely sure how we do that.. have a 'last'..)

A bed tax for international visitors does not make much sense to me. The details will be a little hard to determine. For example, what of an overseas student studying at a Tassie university? An immigrant who intends to take out Australian citizenship? ? NZ has waived a tourist fee for Australians, making NZ more welcoming for us. Policing the bed tax will be hard. Of course those of us who camp will not have to pay, and there's mainly bunks in the NP huts.

A government should take responsibility for the tourist effect while reaping the accolades.
Just like miners should pay for reparations, preferably in advance.
A bed tax does sound unpleasant.

Do they charge by the hour, or is it some special function of bed area used v weight of user v total time of occupation?

north-north-west wrote:Do they charge by the hour, or is it some special function of bed area used v weight of user v total time of occupation?

(t*s)/Psi=x

https://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/56 ... 12#slide=1

Fabulous if you could afford it and had no morals/understanding of the issues around development in our "pristine wilderness".

They keep forgetting that once you drop a bunch of buildings like that down there, the wilderness is no longer "pristine".

So that's one of the three (?) resort complexes. And I doubt leaving all that surrounding leech infested, unsightly scrub is more than an interim, placating measure.
Oh, right.. sustainable.. let's just stop at three(?) they said.

Hi, long time reader, first time poster; apologies if this was covered earlier. What I would be interested to know is how the government can justify funding private huts on the South Coast Track, when there are no public huts (aside from Melaleuca). I am yet to walk it myself, and I don't think we should stick eco-lodge's in, but a dry space with a tin roof would be a nice break on a semi-popular walk that I imagine the more serious overlanders consider as a next step.Better to fund PWS in my opinion.

Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-04/f ... ea/9724798

The feds fund a lot of half baked proposals. Just insert some keywords into an online form and you are 1/2 way there. It's unlikely the approval brief that went up to the appropriate delegate had any info about the area... just some broad info about tourism and employment figures from Tasmania.