Tasmanian independent senator Jacqui Lambie has likened the Greens to a terrorist group in a speech at a mining conference in Queenstown in Tasmania's north-west.

Senator Lambie said she believed the Tasmanian Greens damaged the mining industry while they were in government with Labor, and has likened the party to Islamic State.

"Both those groups would like us to go back and live in the dark ages," she said.

"That's the problem I have with [them]. They'd like us to go live back in caves with candles and eat tofu."

Resources Minister Paul Harriss, who also spoke at the conference, declared the conservation movement to be the biggest threat to the state's mining industry, a day after the Government's World Heritage Area (WHA) forestry plan was criticised by a United Nations committee.

Members of the Wilderness Society were in Germany this week for the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting, where Tasmania was criticised for potentially allowing logging and mining in the WHA.

The society was also pushing for more land to be added to the WHA.

Mr Harriss said the Government and mining industry needed to stand shoulder to shoulder to "stop the madness".

"The conservation movement ... is probably the principal home-grown threat to Tasmania's resource industries," he said.

"We also need to acknowledge that over the decades they have proven unbelievably successful in their destructive campaigns.

"Our forest industries are now a shadow of what they were some time back, with more than half of the state locked up in reserves.

"Constantly this industry is under attack, not the least of which has been in Bonn over the last few days."

Opposition urges more spending on minerals exploration

Tasmania's mining industry has been in decline on the back of falling commodity prices.

The most recent blow happened earlier this week when the sale of the mothballed Avebury nickel mine in the state's north-west fell through.

Opposition Leader Bryan Green said a reduction in money spent on mining exploration in the state did not bode well for the industry's future.

"Right at the moment the mining industry is doing it very tough," he said.

"Mount Lyell hasn't reopened; we would like to see that reopen.

"We would [also] like to see new projects encouraged to start.

"The Government has effectively taken their hands off the levers and said it's over to the private sector."