FIGURE 6: Map showing locations of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in Tasmania

FIGURE 6: Map showing locations of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in Tasmania

Description

The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) includes significant and extensive areas of intact vegetation and provides landscape-scale environments that enable interaction between native species without human intervention. A high proportion of flora and fauna are endemic to the TWWHA. Temperate rainforest, eucalypt forest, buttongrass moorland and alpine communities create a unique mosaic and provide refuge for a wide range of rare and threatened species including carnivorous mammals. The TWWHA contains many sites of tangible cultural value for the Aboriginal community, including caves, artefact scatters, quarries and middens. The broader connection that Aboriginal people have to Country is also recognised and plants, animals, marine resources, minerals (ochre and rock sources), tracks, forests, interpretation and presentation, and fire management are all identified as broader Aboriginal values of the TWWHA. The ability for Aboriginal people to be ‘onCountry’ is highly appropriate and important to maintain that connection.

As the TWWHA is almost entirely located on public reserves, management of Outstanding Universal Values is primarily the responsibility of the State Government through the Parks and Wildlife Service in partnership with the Australian Government. CCA acknowledges the number of different land tenures within the TWWHA and the existing separate investment from both the Australian and Tasmanian Governments in its management, protection and also presentation in the form of recreation and tourist uses. The existing TWWHA Management Plan (DPIPWE 2016) provides extensive insight into the values and future of the property and prioritises actions and investment.

Threats and challenges

Fire is the greatest threat and is both a challenge and a tool for management of the TWWHA’s cultural and natural values. Management of fire-sensitive (including organic soils associated with buttongrass moorlands) and fire-adapted communities is complex and they often occur adjacent to each other in the TWWHA. The complexity of the threat is exacerbated by climate change, with the current trends of increased fire frequency and longer fire season duration likely to continue, together with an increase in the flammability of fire-sensitive communities and organosols. The scale of the TWWHA, and its extensive boundary with private and public land managers makes it inherently vulnerable to the dispersal of pests, weeds and disease. There are 70 pest species recorded in the TWWHA with key emerging threats from feral deer, feral cats and livestock present. There are 15 Declared Weeds and a wide range of environmental weeds that remain a priority for research and management, with the greatest threat considered to be to coastal, island, riverine and karst ecosystems. Fauna and flora are vulnerable to the impact of new, emerging and existing pathogens. Potential risks are posed by a new species of Phytophthora root rot, the freshwater algae didymo and chytrid fungus. Ongoing monitoring and the development of response capabilities are needed for the proper management of established pathogens.