As several of us discussed in the past few weeks week, there is a new proposal by the Tasmanian state government to open up some of the World Heritage sites to for-profit activities such as eco-tourism and even logging. One of the things I was really impressed by in researching the Tasmanian bats is that all eight species are really doing well. They live predominantly on protected land and do not have many threats. I wanted to find out more about the history and current state of environmental protection in Tasmania.
As of 2012, 41% of the island was protected in 584 pieces of reserved land, some of which is private and some public (by contrast the US has only about 15% of its land protected). The protected lands include many different ecological zones, including forests, beaches, islands, rivers, and historic sites. Most of the sites are IUCN category V or VI sites, which means they allow controlled human interaction with the environment's flora and fauna. Hopefully we’ll get to explore some of them on our trip!
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_areas_of_Tasmania
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