Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area
| Tasmanian Wilderness | |
|---|---|
| Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List | |
 Cradle Mountain and Dove Lake, Central Highlands |
|
| Location | Australia |
| Type | Mixed |
| Criteria | iii, iv, vi, vii, viii, ix, x |
| Reference | 181 |
| UNESCO region | Asia-Pacific |
| Inscription history | |
| Inscription | 1982 (6th Session) |
| Extensions | 1989, 2013 |
The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area is a World Heritage Site in Tasmania, Australia.
The area is one of the largest conservation areas in Australia, covering 15,800 km², or almost 20% of Tasmania after extensions in 1989 and 2013. It constitutes one of the last expanses of temperate wilderness in the world, and includes the South West Wilderness.
The Tasmanian Wilderness, a network of parks and reserves with steep gorges, underwent severe glaciation. Human remains dating back more than 20,000 years have been found in limestone caves in the area.
Despite advising the UN World Heritage Committee(WHC) in 2010 that it had no intention to extend the property any further the federal labor government submitted a proposal for a minor boundary modification (MBM) to the property in January 2013 which was accepted at the 37th session of the WHC in June 2013. Former Greens Senator Bob Brown, claims to have secured the government backflip on extending the property further, using the Greens political leverage in minority Labor government and with holding the balance of power in the Australian senate following the 2010 election.
The underpinning science used to justify the MBM was that generated by the 2011/12 Tasmanian Forest Agreement (TFA) Independent Verification Group (IVG). This group was jointly appointed by Tasmanian and Federal governments to verify claims of high conservation value in 572,000ha of reserves proposed by the TFA environmental signatories The Wilderness Society(TWS), The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Environment Tasmania (ET). The Terms of Reference for the Verification group issued by the former Prime Minister Julia Gillard explicitly required those involved in the IVG process to be independent of government and all other stakeholders.
The IVG process validated all the TFA ENGO claims as did the peer review.
Public concerns were raised about the independence of the IVG's work in 2012/13 with former World Heritage Centre Director, Mr Kishore Rao, who subsequently wrote to the Australian Government in early 2013 requesting clarification on the independence of the IVG's work. The Australian government response stated that the process and academics involved were independent.
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