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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Progress in Keeping Tarkine, Australia Wild at Heart

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

7/22/97

OVERVIEW & SOURCE by EE

In a major shift of policy, the long running effort to have Tasmania,

Australia's Tarkine wilderness declared a national park seems poised for

partial victory. This comes as the government is proposing to protect

half of the region's rainforest core in a new 35,000-hectare national

park. Lets hope this one continues through the system and is expanded to

include the whole ecosystem, as it would represent the largest contiguous

rainforest core in Australia.

g.b.

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Title: Key green victory will help Tarkine stay wild at heart

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Status: Copyrighted, contact source for permission to reprint

Date: Monday, July 21, 1997

Byline: By ANDREW DARBY in Hobart

A long campaign by conservationists to protect Tasmania's Tarkine

wilderness is close to its first win - an official proposal to protect

half of the region's rainforest core in a new 35,000-hectare national

park.

The recommendation suggests a radical change in direction by Tasmania's

Liberal Government. It rebuffs strong mining and logging interests,

instead seeing tourism potential as the prime objective.

In a report obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald, the State's Public Land

Use Commission recognises outstanding natural values of the temperate

rainforest wilderness based on Savage River in the island's north-west.

The national park it proposes would protect about half of this area,

putting it among Australia's largest contiguous rainforests.

The commission says it is a prime example of an area where nature

conservation and tourism values should be weighed carefully against value

to miners. It rejects a proposal by the State's Forest and Forest

Industries Council for access to timber worth $646 million.

Instead it adopts an argument by the Government's tourism arm, Tourism

Tasmania, that draws attention to World Heritage and National Estate

values of the rainforest. With mining in the region shrinking, it says,

the forests could revitalise the economy through tourism.

Under the commission's plan, part of the area would be proclaimed national

park at first, and the remaining sections protected under conservation

area status, to join the park with the expiry of mineral exploration

licences.

The recommendation was made in a June 30 report as part of the Regional

Forest Agreement (RFA) process. Commonwealth and State governments are

currently finalising wood production and conservation areas for Tasmania

in its first Statewide RFA. Its signing has been twice delayed and is now

expected within a few weeks.

The minority State Government must still adopt the RFA recommendation for

it to go ahead but it broadly reflects the new economic direction of the

Premier, Mr Rundle.

When Forests Minister, Mr Rundle claimed the Tarkine had "as much

wilderness as Battery Point", referring to an inner suburb of Hobart.

Since becoming the premier of a government in power with Green

parliamentary support, he has moved towards a "clean, green and clever"

economic agenda.

In total, the Tarkine area is about 330,000 hectares of high-value

wilderness land, much of which is already on the register of the National

Estate, according to the Australian Heritage Commission.

Green groups have been campaigning for nearly six years to obtain World

Heritage listing for the whole area of forests, moorland and mountains.

Their battle reached its highest pitch with a year-long protest against

construction of a link road through the middle of the wilderness.

The Keating Government refused to intervene to stop the road it deplored.

It opened in January 1996, despite more than 40 protest actions and 100

arrests, including the jailing twice of Greens Senator Bob Brown.

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