Natural Values and Threats of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area: Changed Perspectives Over Four Decades Since Listing

Abstract

The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) meets seven of the ten criteria for World Heritage listing, an achievement not surpassed by any other property. Here we document how understanding of the values that meet the four natural criteria have changed since the TWWHA was first inscribed in 1982, as well as changes in threats and their management. Since the original nomination, the highly unusual freshwater-marine ecosystem in Bathurst Channel was revealed, and buttongrass moorland and alpine sclerophyll shrubland were recognised as globally distinctive ecosystems. The main threats have shifted from mining, forestry and hydro-electric power generation to bushfires, invasive species and climate change. Climate change exacerbates other threats, as evidenced by greater bushfire risk caused by increased lightning ignited fires. The fire management paradigm has shifted from fire exclusion to landscape-scale planned burning aimed at maintaining fire-dependent values and vegetation mosaics as well as reducing bushfire risk and implementing cultural landscape management. Increasing visitation and information sharing via social media are placing more pressure on the TWWHA through increasing access to environmentally sensitive sites and unauthorised activities. While the size and integrity of the TWWHA confer a degree of security and resilience to the natural values within it, pressure on its environment from cumulative and compounding threats will escalate. These threats, impacting at both landscape and local scales, require strong management responses. With continued degradation of natural environments globally, the importance of the protection of geodiversity and biodiversity in the TWWHA will increase.