Turning Tasmania's national parks into a commodity

Peter Mac

Tasmania has joined NSW and Queensland as states in which ALP 
governments are taking steps to transform national parks and 
other sites of prime heritage significance into a commodity.

The Lennon state government in Tasmania proposes to lease off a 
huge site at Cockle Creek, in the Southwest National Park, for a 
tourist development. The plan includes a major lodge, 60 cabins, 
a jetty and boatsheds, and other facilities. The project, which 
is adjacent to the pristine Planters Beach, would also require 
construction of a new access road to the development site.

It would involve the destruction of 18 sites of major 
significance to Aboriginal people. The Tasmanian Greens have also 
raised objections to the project because of its adverse impact on 
the appearance and natural values of Cockle Creek and the Park in 
general.

The government has for several years stalled on the release of 
information about this and other proposed developments within the 
state's national parks. The developer has also failed to submit a 
heritage assessment, despite this being a formal requirement of 
the approval process.

Moreover, there is clear evidence that the state's national parks 
are nearing the point at which an increase in the visitor numbers 
will cause unacceptable damage to the natural environment. On the 
state's most popular walking trail, the Overland Track, the 
number of visitors has had to be capped.

Nevertheless, the project has been given the go-ahead. The 
government appears not the least bit worried about criticism of 
the project, and is willing to back the developers to the hilt. 
For his part, the project's boss, David Marriner (described by 
one observer as Melbourne's "prince of property") is absolutely 
candid about the commercialisation of such national treasures. 
"Part of what we are selling is relationship to nature. So we 
don't want to destroy the reason people would go there", he 
declared proudly. Note the operative word "selling"!

The controversy over the Cockle Creek project is timely, in view 
of recent developments such as the much heralded entry of 
entertainer, and former campaigner for the environment, Peter 
Garrett as an ALP candidate in the coming federal elections.

Tasmanian Greens Senator Bob Brown recently commented that 
Garrett's ALP candidature was highly disturbing, in view of the 
environmental policies of successive Tasmanian ALP Governments, 
which Brown described as "chainsaw driven".

And he's right, of course. The current Tasmanian ALP Government 
continues to permit massive clear-felling to produce woodchips, a 
process that has indiscriminately destroyed hundreds of thousands 
of ancient trees and ruthlessly eliminated the flora and fauna of 
vast areas of the state's forests.

In seeking to justify these practices the government never refers 
to the massive profits derived by the logging companies involved, 
nor to the outstanding natural qualities of the forests they 
harvest. Instead, they continually refer to the loss of jobs that 
will ensue when clear felling finally ceases. They appear to have 
never investigated the possibility of alternative sources of 
employment, and they ignore the fact that clear felling employs 
far fewer people, and is much more destructive of the 
environment, than traditional selective logging in carefully 
chosen areas.

Garrett would do well to reflect that the federal ALP leadership 
failed to halt the environmentally-damaging policies of the 
Tasmanian ALP Government despite considerable public opposition 
to some of them. In fact, it was actually a Liberal Prime 
Minister, Malcolm Fraser, who acted to block the worst act of 
proposed government vandalism, the damming of the Franklin River 
in the 1970s, even though the project was the brainchild of a 
Tasmanian Liberal Government.

This is not to suggest that the ALP has not taken a fine stand on 
environmental issues at various times in the past. And the 
Australian conservatives are certainly not wedded to conservation 
issues. Far from it! Fraser was almost unique among the Liberals, 
who over the years have implemented some of the worst 
environmental initiatives in Australian history.

The Howard Government still refuses to sign the Kyoto protocol, 
despite growing evidence of the most terrible impacts on the 
world's atmosphere.

But it is the current Tasmanian ALP Government that arrogantly 
pursues the policy of clearfelling in the state's forests, and 
which now appears intent on pushing through the East Cockle Creek 
project.

Greens parliamentary leader, Peg Putt, received a typically 
snarly and dismissive rebuff from Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon, 
when she tackled him recently over the project's destruction of 
sites of Aboriginal significance. She commented: "I was asked to 
bring the urgent concerns of the Aboriginal community of south-
east Tasmania to the Parliament and to get the Lennon Government 
to state their position on the destruction of 18 primary sites, 
but he insultingly plays politics and calls it a stunt.

"The arrogance of Mr Lennon and his Labor colleagues in 
persistently targeting the messenger with gutter accusations to 
distract from their own appalling conduct is getting worse by the 
day, and I regard it as unacceptable that he will not seriously 
address his unqualified support for the destruction of aboriginal 
heritage."