The discovery of valuable minerals on Tasmania in the late 1800s and the development of hydroelectric energy in the early twentieth century posed a serious threat to Tasmania’s natural environment. The mining boom and industrial development led to heavy exploitation of Tasmania’s natural resources, including a significant depletion of its forests for timber resources. Then, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the proposed flooding of Lake Pedder for the construction of a hydroelectric dam project sparked a wave of environmental activism in Tasmania. Many Tasmanians opposed the hydroelectric dam project because of the environmental impact that it would have on Lake Pedder and the surrounding ecosystem, and the citizens’ response in opposition to the dam project inspired a new-found enthusiasm for wilderness conservation that prompted the enactment of the modern legislation that would help establish Tasmania’s network of nature reserves.

Tasmania first established a statewide policy for the development and management of its reserves with the passage of the National Parks and Wildlife Act of 1970, which also formed the Parks and Wildlife Service. Reserves now are declared under the Nature Conservation Act of 2002, which has mostly replaced the 1970 Act and both regulates the conservation and protection of flora, fauna, and geological diversity within Tasmania and also defines the values and purposes of each class of reserve that can be established in the state. Classes of reserves in Tasmania include national parks, state reserves, conservation areas, and private nature reserves. The reserves are managed under the National Parks and Reserves Management Act of 2002, which entrusts the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service with the duty to ensure that reserves are managed in accordance with the management objectives for each reserve class and to provide for the development and implementation of management plans for reserved land. These policies, along with the Regional Forest Agreement (1997) and the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement (2005), have resulted in the establishment of the Tasmanian reserve system that now protects 45% of the state’s total land area and 45% of its forests.

Tasmania has often been the front line of the conservation “struggle” in Australia, and conflicts still remain between proposed further development of the forest and other resources and a strong and continuing push to protect more of the island’s wild nature.

The logging of Tasmania’s native forests has been one of the most bitter and protracted of nature conservation battles in Tasmania, and 2 ½ years ago this conflict culminated in the Tasmanian forestry industry approaching nature conservation NGOs in Tasmania to negotiate a resolution to the conflict over native forests logging.  These negotiations recently reached an agreement – the Tasmanian Forest Agreement of 2012 – that would provide for the protection of an additional 500,000 hectares of Tasmania’s native forests (including rainforests, wilderness areas, and giant Old-Growth Eucalypt forests) as dedicated nature conservation reserves.  At this present time, the lower house of the Tasmanian parliament has passed legislation to enable the protection of these native forests, and the legislation is now awaiting debate in Tasmania’s upper house of parliament.

Tasmania is as much a cultural landscape as it is a natural one. For 35,000 thousands of years the Aboriginal People of Tasmania have stewarded a this rich treasure trove of biodiversity. Intangible values spring from a network of Aboriginal sacred sites in the Tasmanian wilderness (approximately 1,000) and continue to influence the development of the land and people through song, dance, custom, and ritual.