The Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS) is releasing the draft Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) Fire Management Plan for public comment.
A comprehensive Fire Management Plan is vitally important for the TWWHA in order to protect its Outstanding Universal Values as well as critical State infrastructure.
We recognise that the TWWHA covers nearly a quarter of the Tasmanian land mass and has many areas of fire-sensitive, high value, natural and cultural assets which are irreplaceable if impacted by bushfire.
The TWWHA Fire Management Plan seeks to minimise the risk of destructive bushfires as well as providing a contemporary planned burning program to maintain fire-dependent ecosystems.
The Plan also recognises the role of past Aboriginal burning practices in shaping the cultural landscape of the TWWHA, and the contemporary role of planned fire regimes in maintaining these practices.
One of the objectives of the fire management program for the TWWHA focuses on the suppression of bushfires that pose a threat to public safety and other values located inside the TWWHA or on adjoining lands.
The draft Fire Management Plan for the TWWHA is shaped by community consultation following the release of an issues paper last year.
The 44th World Heritage Committee report, handed down in June 2021, welcomed the Tasmanian Government’s commitment to developing a comprehensive Fire Management Plan.
This consultation phase that begins today is the next key step in delivering on that commitment.
To view the draft Plan visit the PWS website at www.parks.tas.gov.au.