The Launceston Field Naturalists Club was formed in October 1949 and went along quietly and successfully for many years with regular meetings and outings, until 1966 when its Vice President and Life Member John Skemp died. John was the last of his family and so he bequeathed the family property at Myrtle Bank to the club. This meant that the club went from a group with around £100 in the bank to owner of a 52ha subalpine property with financial commitments far in excess of its normal income, and as it was not incorporated, the club could not legally hold the property in its name.
Mt Wellington Public Forum
People here can probably remember the weather the weekend before last. An intense cold front moved across the state on Friday, bringing fierce wind, heavy rain and snow down to 700 metres. It was sleeting in South Hobart and Dynnyrne. From Friday to Monday, the mountain was enveloped in a thick cloak of fast-moving cloud that every now and then permitted brief glimpses of snow-covered middle slopes. Then, on Monday, it cleared up – under a blue sky, the mountain looked resplendent, with not a skerrick of snow to be seen.
Mt Wellington News
Off-road Vehicles in the Arthur Pieman Conservation Area
For three years, the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS) has been talking with stakeholders and the general public regarding the impacts of 4WDs and other vehicles on the sensitive Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area (APCA): it has hired consultants to talk with the community to do further assessments; it has summarised public comments, hold workshops to discuss concerns with the community stakeholders – but not one off-road track in the APCA has been closed. (See below, ‘Parks and Wildlife Service’s Chronology of Inaction’.
Seven Mile Beach
he Tasmanian Conservation Trust recently issued a media statement accusing the state government of scraping the 2009 draft management plan for the Seven Mile Peninsula and abandoning a proposed community steering committee in favour of a Ralphs Bay–style exclusive deal, to develop a golf course and resort for the peninsula. The development also seems to defy the recommendations of a 2008 government-funded consultant’s report which ‘rules out development over most of the peninsula’.
Review of the Wellington Park Management Plan
The TCT has a long association with Wellington Park. In 1990 the Wellington Range Working Group was set up with representatives from all government agencies (state and local) with an interest in the management of the Wellington Range. The working group undertook an extensive public consultation process during which the TCT lobbied heavily for the creation of a Wellington Range National Park.
TCT submission on the State Budget 2011-12
Implementation of the Crown Land Assessment and Classification Program (CLAC) proposed reserves is the one specific budget recommendation we can identify which was funded in the 2010–12 state budget. This was the result of David Bartlett’s and Nick McKim’s election commitments and the efforts after the election by the former Minister for Environment, Parks and Heritage, David O’Byrne and the Tasmanian Greens to fight for the funding in the finalisation of the state budget. The Tasmanian Liberal party supported this commitment during the state election, and continues to push the government to actually deliver the reserves.
Off Track - vehicles appropriate in conservation areas?
The recreational use of off-road vehicles in conservation areas, particularly coastal areas, remains a controversial issue throughout Tasmania. This activity can have considerable impacts on threatened vegetation communities, coastal morphology and resident and migratory shorebird populations, and lead to the destruction of sites of Aboriginal cultural heritage significance, such as middens.
Crown Land Assessment
December 2010 Campaign Updates
Three Capes Track proposal
Throughout Tasmania our reserves seem to be under attack. A nickel mine is threatening the Dans Hill Conservation Area (as featured in the last Tasmanian Conservationist,No. 319, page 1), recreational vehicles are running amok in the Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area during the March 2010 state election the Labor Party committed $12 million for development of the disastrous Three Capes Track in the Tasman National Park.
Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area and Recreational Vehicles
The TCT has called on the Australian Government to intervene to stop recreational vehicle users threatening the immense natural and cultural values of the Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area (APCA). Since the emergency listing of the Tarkine area as a National Heritage Place under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act in December 2009, which includes the APCA south of the Arthur River (the vast majority of the reserve), we assert that the thousands of recreational vehicle users accessing the area are damaging matters of national environment significance and are therefore in contravention of the EPBC Act. Without assessment and approval under the Act each and every recreational vehicle user is committing an offence.