NATIONAL PARKS UNDER SIEGE

The final report by John O’Neill - “Review into Tourism in New South Wales”", April 2008, was released to the public arena in early June. The terms of reference required a comprehensive analysis of the marketing, infrastructure, regulatory and planning environments of the NSW tourism industry. Need for the report reflected the premise that global tourism is a growth industry with economic and social benefits that include an enduring demand for employees. It concurrently reflected the view that NSW is missing the boat due to government-imposed regulatory and planning constraints.

The report’s far-reaching recommendations embrace the notions that tourism is good for the economy, its growth should be facilitated through government expenditure (= public money), and planning and regulatory aspects must be streamlined. [Impediments will not be tolerated!]

The report contains environmental concerns:

• It requires the NSW Government to achieve world’s best practice in rapid and efficient processing of development applications by the Department of Planning and local government. [This spawns the ‘Sartor’ approach to consultation!]

• It requires agencies whose areas of responsibility affect the tourism industry (e.g. NPWS) to ensure that, within three years, their ‘tourism-friendliness’ at least matches comparable agencies in Victoria and Queensland – implementing the change is to be overviewed by the Minister for Tourism and the NSW Tourism Council, and to be approved by Cabinet.

• It stipulates that Government should commit to a proactive policy of opening State assets (national parks, forests, lands) to tourism – the policy should woo those paying to sustain and enhance the assets, as opposed to ‘focusing on protecting those assets from people’. [This is a distinctly one-eyed view of the role of parks!]

Yet the most disturbing aspect is one of omission – the report totally disregards greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) and climate change. ‘Growth-is-good’ and ‘business-as-usual’ concepts are supplanted by ‘growth is paramount regardless of consequences’.

Bob Beale’s article (“Nature’s not sacred, lets use our national parks”, SMH, June 13 2008, p15) is a response to the O’Neill proposal to expand commercial tourism in national parks. He promotes “conservation through sustainable use”, which he explains as an apparently contradictory strategy that “seeks to maintain a natural resource by exploiting it”. Then, having cited a couple of examples of ‘successful’ commercialisation (exploiting mountain gorillas in Rwanda; crocodile farming in Australia), he concludes that there is no practical reason why more commercial activities such as regulated hunting and controlled harvesting of fruits and plants (not just tourism) should be excluded from parks. [He is entitled to his opinion!]

Bob’s article also portrays the downside of commercial exploitation of parks. For example:

“Clearly, there are limits to commercial-scale tourism… if, say, a certain fast-food chain wanted to erect a big yellow M on top of the three sisters”.

“Many conservationists are understandably excitable about any threat to our parks: our history is littered with sorry examples of brutal land clearing, mindless development for profit, or simply stupid government policies that leave ecological ruin in their wake”.

“A tough protectionist stance… appeals because it accommodates our deep distrust of amoral commerce and keeps a firm grip on hard-won conservation gains’.

He seemingly believes that the Iemma Government and commercial enterprises comprehend the meaning of moderation and can be trusted to balance environmental needs against the ‘dollar-god’. This is naïve. Nothing in the recent history of the Government suggests this capacity. Instead, there is a clear pattern of modifying legislation to countermand long-standing checks and balances that enable meaningful community input. [Steamroller consultation is alive and well!]

Reflecting prevalent beliefs in Government, DECC has established the Tourism and Partnerships Branch with a clear mandate to promote sustainable tourism through partnerships with business, government and community ( http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/explore/ ). The extent of this approach, as indicated in the NPWS Plans to increase tourism and promote visitation to national parks (June 2008), shows that commercialisation of national parks has been embraced. Of course, NPWS may naively believe that inserting ‘sustainable’ will ensure a rational path of moderation, despite the extreme pressures that will be applied.

Response from mainstream environmental groups has so far been muted, perhaps not least because of the O’Neill proposal’s seeming disregard for International, Federal and State environmental issues. Nevertheless, by the time this article appears, the principal environmental groups (including BMCS) will have met in Sydney (on Wednesday 25 June) to plan a joint response and overall strategy. Will this involve total opposition, will there be a more pragmatic approach in which the “environmental crown jewels” (Bob Beale, SMH, June 13 2008, p15) are protected while the remainder is open to commercial exploitation, or will the dominant focus be on environmental sustainability through attempting to constrain the inevitable excesses that government-sanctioned ‘Philistinism’ will encourage?

Watch this space! But in the meantime, please contact
Morris Iemma,    Verity Firth and Phil Koperberg; or by snail-mail to: NSW Government, Parliament House, Macquarie St, Sydney 2000.
Tell them how much you deplore the Government’s veneration of the tourism dollar, its adherence to ‘business-worse-than-usual’, and its apparent disregard for the natural environment and the exigencies of GGE and climate change.

Brian Marshall

NPO.