Governments hail nature-based tourism as a win-win but conservationists say Australia’s wild places belong to everyone and shouldn’t be sold out

The development planned for Cradle Mountain in Tasmania’s north-west is arguably the most high-profile example of the dilemma faced by governments dealing with the growing popularity of nature-based tourism in national parks.

Visited by more than 268,000 tourists in 2017, and with visits growing at 12% a year, the facilities at Cradle Mountain were stretched to the limit. So the Tasmanian government pledged $160m to build a new visitor centre and tourism village on the edge of the heritage area.

In May this year, in the midst of a byelection, the federal government tipped in $30m to make the most controversial part of the plan a reality: visitors will soon be able to arrive at Dove Lake in minutes using a cable car instead of taking a shuttle bus.

Public land is being offered to those who can afford to pay. There is something seriously wrong with this policy Carolyn Pettigrew

At the Dove Lake viewing platform, they will not even need to step outdoors to take the obligatory selfie in front of one of Tasmania’s most beautiful views.

The project has been described as a game-changer by local politicians.

“This project, for the north-west coast of Tasmania in particular, will be the equivalent of what Mona [art gallery] has done for the south of the state and the state generally,” the Liberal candidate Brett Whiteley said, standing next to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman.

“The benefits are enormous, whether it is the hotel occupancy, whether it is the service industry, and economic stimulator will be an understatement for what this will do for the region of Tasmania.”

But environmental groups says it marks a serious erosion of the wilderness experience for which Cradle Mountain became famous.

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Greens senator Nick McKim says: “This is $30m to prop up a corporate business model and turn wilderness areas into theme parks.

“Tasmania’s wild places are owned by everyone. They shouldn’t be sold out.”

The issue of whether national parks are primarily about protecting biodiversity and fragile ecosystems or whether other activities and tourism can coexist is a perennial debate.

Sometimes it’s possible to achieve both. But with growing tourism numbers and state governments in search of ways to boost their economies and make national parks earn a return, the conflicts are becoming more stark and frequent.

Helicopters and luxury lodges

In Tasmania, the Hodgman government launched an expressions of interest process after it won government in 2014 that has so far solicited 47 proposals for development in the state’s national parks. Twelve leases or licences have already been granted, 22 have been received under the second stage of the proposals and 17 are under assessment.

“The Tasmanian government has a goal to transform Tasmania into the environmental tourism capital of the world, to create jobs in Tasmania and help reach a target of 1.5 million interstate and international visitors a year by 2020,” it says.

But the development push has horrified the Wilderness Society.

“The government goes about harvesting ideas from the marketplace, then runs them through a closed-door process and then goes about dismantling the protections on wilderness areas to allow them to happen,” says Vica Bayley, Tasmanian campaign manager.

He says the process of assessing these projects is highly secretive and does not appear to take into consideration the way it will change remote wilderness areas.

One of the most controversial projects is planned for the world heritage-listed Halls Island in Lake Malbena, a “luxury standing camp” that will include fly-in fly-out helicopter access.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest There is a luxury campsite planned for Lake Malbena and Halls Island in the Tasmanian wilderness, which includes helicopter access. Photograph: Richard Webb.

“It has been approved against the expert advice of the government’s own statutory advisory body,” says Bayley. “Lake Malbena is in a remote, high-value wilderness area much loved by bushwalkers and fly-fishers. Wilderness is wild country that is in a natural state and remote from settlement or points of mechanised access,” he says.

Bayley says the helicopter flights will shatter the wilderness experience.

The Wilderness Society has lodged federal court action to overturn a federal government approval which was required because it was in a world heritage area.

Yet, despite the criticisms, the new facilities are proving popular.

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The state government has opened the Three Capes track, charging $495 for the four-day, three-night walk. Walkers stay in very comfortable huts, owned by the parks service. Or there is a more exclusive, privately owned option charging more than $2,000 to stay in private lodges, fully catered.

The new facilities have opened up the park to a whole new audience that might have balked at camping.

The Three Capes track has proved so popular that the Hodgman government is considering many more new projects in national parks and has asked the private sector to pitch ideas.

New hut-based walk sites under consideration include Freycinet Peninsula, Southwest Conservation Area, the Walls of Jerusalem and the Tarkine. These areas are currently only accessible by camping, though some tour companies already offer supported walks with base camps and catering.

‘Duck-shoving’ and dance parties

The idea of luxury walking seems to have made its way northward, with the Queensland government currently running a similar expression of interest process for three walks in its national parks that will include accommodation.

These are in Hinchinbrook national park (along the Thorsburn trail), the Whitsundays and at Cooloola in the Great Sandy national park.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shute harbour, Whitsundays, Queensland. Photograph: Ted Mead/Getty Images

But critics say the Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy has a chequered record in managing the leases it grants in national parks, often for 60 years, and that operators are allowed to routinely breach them without consequences.

They point to the crumbling eco-resort at Cape Richards in Hinchinbrook national park that has sat in ruins for the best part of a decade.

The resort, once known as Hinchinbrook Island wilderness lodge, closed in 2010 after being damaged by cyclone Yasi and was destroyed by fire in 2015. It is now being gradually consumed by nature.

A Western Australian businessman, Adam Tree, has offered to rebuild it as a glamping resort, but has been hamstrung by the department’s insistence he pick up the $800,000 owing on the lease.

“There is endless duck-shoving over these leases,” says Cairns-based environmentalist Bill Sokolich.

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“The primary purpose of these places is conservation. The Newman government changed it to ‘recreation’. The ALP promised to reinstate the cardinal principle, but then added ‘conservation and tourism’,” he says.

The commonwealth is also getting in on the tourism in national parks trend. Last year it approved Swell Lodge, a luxury ecolodge in the rainforest of Christmas Island, one of the six national parks it manages.

The first solar-powered chalet in Swell Lodge opened in July 2018 and another seven are planned.

But the development will place tourists in the path of an annual crab migration, an event described by Sir David Attenborough as one of the 10 greatest natural wonders on Earth.

During the annual migration, when the ­island is carpeted with red crabs on their way to the sea to lay eggs, tourists will have to walk rather than drive into the monsoonal rainforest to reach their five-star clifftop chalets.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Natural wonder: red crabs migrate from the forest to the sea on Christmas Island. Photograph: SUPPLIED/PR IMAGE

The federal government has signalled it is ready to allow more development inside its parks which also include Booderee national park at Jervis Bay, Kakadu in the Northern Territory, Uluru, Norfolk island and Pulu Keeling island.

In theory this could make some of these areas more accessible, but there is always the risk that, in pursuit of dollars, the development will favour high-end resorts available only to the very few.

New South Wales has had long experience of trying to balance tourism development in the form of several ski resorts, with management of a fragile environment in Kosciuszko national park.

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The latest flashpoint has been the issue of brumby culls and whether the horses, revered in Banjo Patterson poems, should be afforded heritage status.

Despite expert reports recommending continued culls, the horse-riding community has triumphed with the Berejiklian government.

The other flashpoint has been commercialisation of existing structures within parks such as Sydney Harbour national parks.

“In the name of revenue-raising, New South Wales Parks and Wilderness Service invites hire of buildings and locations in Sydney Harbour national park and other national parks as being available for weddings, corporate Christmas parties, and other functions,” says Park Watch’s coordinator Carolyn Pettigrew.

“There is even a policy for dance parties,” she says. “Just how dance parties and weddings fit with the aims of the NPW [National Parks and Wildlife] Act defies logic.

“Public land is being offered, excluding others, to those who can afford to pay. There is something seriously wrong with this policy.

“Tourism also requires the attention of parks staff, leaving them with little time to undertake conservation activities. With pressures on parks budgets and staff cuts, the problem has become acute in some NSW parks.”

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