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Objective To maintain Tasmania's high quality wilderness estate. Recommendation It is recommended that: - the National Wilderness Inventory is updated for Tasmania in order to better assess changes in wilderness quality and to support development planning (including environmental impact assessment for major projects);
- the update of the National Wilderness Inventory is used to inform and support a whole-of-government commitment to maintaining Tasmania's wilderness;
- more pro-active approaches to managing bushwalking impacts in wilderness areas are developed and trialled;
- information is gathered on bushwalker usage of, and demand for, Tasmania's wilderness in order to better target management actions; and
- monitoring is undertaken to enable changes in the extent and severity of track degradation to be reported on a more regular basis.
Key issues The Australian Heritage Commission's 'National Wilderness Inventory' (Lesslie & Maslen 1995) describes wilderness as having two essential attributes - remoteness and naturalness. Protection and preservation of Tasmania's wilderness is important not only environmentally but also socially and economically. Of importance to Tasmania are the economic benefits associated with nature-based tourism. Nationally and internationally, Tasmania is recognised for its natural wilderness areas. Wilderness is important for the sense of place felt by Tasmanians and for its intrinsic value (irrespective of how people may wish to use it). Further detail is provided in the Wilderness Issue Report. Some of the key points from the Issue Report include:- Improvements in biophysical naturalness of areas outside high quality wilderness may provide buffers in maintaining the values of higher quality wilderness areas. Such areas may still retain wild character that can also contribute to the visitor experience and the sense of place of Tasmanians.
- Wilderness needs to be considered at a range of scales. At Statewide scales there are a range of land use and land cover influences on wilderness quality, while at finer scales land management issues may be significant. Providing an assessment of wilderness condition requires consideration of the various influences on wilderness quality at different scales.
- Intensification of land use arising from a range of activities has impacted on biophysical naturalness and, over time, reduced the area of high quality wilderness in Tasmania.
- However, the reservation of the remaining high quality wilderness in Tasmania has improved. The Inquiry on the Progress with the Implementation of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement 1997 identified that 95% of Tasmania's 1.9 million hectares of high quality wilderness was within formal and informal reserves. This is an increase in the area of high-quality wilderness reserved of 9% or 176,700 hectares since 1996 (RPDC 2002). There was no requirement for an update of the wilderness inventory for Tasmania as part of the inquiry.
- During the past two decades an increase in the numbers of walkers in Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area has led to a deterioration in the walking tracks throughout much of the region, and to other usage-related problems such as crowding and unplanned track formation.
What has been achieved 1998-2003 There have been a number of key responses since the last SoE Report in improving wilderness management in Tasmania. These include the following. - Implementation of the Regional Forest Agreement (1997) and the Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative reserve system through the Regional Forest Agreement. This resulted in the reservation of some 95% of the high quality wilderness in Tasmania (RPDC 2002).
- Completion of the World Heritage Area Management Plan (Parks and Wildlife Service 1999).
- Completion of the report to the Minister by the Track Assessment Group on options for responding to environmental degradation of the World Heritage Area through bushwalker impacts (TAG 2001).
- Tasmanian Walking Tracks Strategy and Marketing Plan (Tourism Tasmania 1997).
- Preparation of the Code of Practice for Recreational Vehicle Users.
Tasmania Together Relevant Tasmania Together goals and standards for 'Land' are listed in the linked file. The Tasmania Together Progress Board reported on progress toward targets for benchmarks set (Tasmania Together Progress Board 2003). Indicators, targets and baseline data are available in the latest Progress Report June 2003. Further information, including progress report updates, is available from Tasmania Together. Related Issue Reports
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