CONSERVATIONISTS READY TO FIGHT PRIVATISATION OF SOUTH COAST TRACK

The South Coast Track (Tasmania) is 85km of life changing wilderness walking, traversing long windswept beaches, mountain ranges, lush rainforest and vast moorlands. Truly wild and wondrous.

For decades bushwalkers from across the globe have made the pilgrimage to Melaleuca to begin their week long adventure to Cockle Creek. The walk is transformative to the human spirit, and it is necessarily arduous.

To privatise and sanitise the South Coast Track would destroy its integrity and the increasingly rare experience of wild-ness.

To build a track of the standard expected by those that would pay many thousands of dollars for a lodge based walk would cost tens of millions of dollars. This would likely be at the expense of taxpayers, all to benefit a private company and to the detriment of wilderness.

Experience Co is an ASX listed company based in Queensland, headed up by the former Chair and Managing Director of Tourism Australia. The big boys are moving in, and they clearly want to turn the Tasmanian wilderness into a Gold Coast styled theme park.

We won’t stand for it. Nor will anyone whose lives have been forever changed on their south coast odyssey.

The Southwest National Park is enormously significant to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community and the ongoing presence of their 40,000 year history is embedded in every step of the South Coast Track. This place cannot be developed in any way without their expressed permission.

The South Coast Track EOIs need to be torn up. Apart from anything, they fly in the face of UNESCO requests for a comprehensive cultural heritage assessment over the entire TWWHA before any development be considered.

The white shoe brigade, and their enablers in the Gutwein Government should be warned. The Greens, Aboriginal Tasmanians, conservationists, walkers, fishers and all Tasmanians who love the South West wilderness will fight them every step of the way.

Latest News

On track for trouble: plan for luxury cabins on Tasmania’s South Coast Track praised and panned
MATTHEW DENHOLM – TASMANIA CORRESPONDENT
Published: 18 June 2022
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/on-track-for-trouble-plan-for-luxury-cabins-on-tasmanias-south-coast-track-praised-and-panned/news-story/98e35a1bab0203c82e4fae6fc2121bb4

Comment on the South Coast Track Private Huts Proposal
Tasmanian Wilderness Guides Association
Published: 16 June 2022
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/610f4aa3161ca9440954acec/t/6301695a2d9ccd1f69f00c4e/1661036890690/20220616+South+Coast+Track++Media+Release.pdf

Aboriginal elders voice concerns over proposed Tasmanian trek through areas of ‘immense importance’
Loretta Lohberger – ABC News
Published: Sun 5 Jun 2022 at 8:16am
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-05/south-coast-track-development-aboriginal-heritage-concerns/101124320

South Coast Track – Proposed Development
Cassy O’Connor MP
Published: Thursday, 10 March 2022
https://tasmps.greens.org.au/parliament/south-coast-track-proposed-development

South Coast Track developer moving ahead despite near-universal opposition to parks privatisation
Wilderness Society
Published: February 25, 2022
https://www.wilderness.org.au/news-events/south-coast-track-developer-moving-ahead-despite-near-universal-opposition-to-parks-privatisation

‘South Coast Track the New Lake Malbena’
Tasmanian Times
Published: February 24, 2022
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2022/02/tws-south-coast-track-the-new-lake-malbena/

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