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Official calls for world heritage visitor tax
By Jordan Baker TOWNSVILLE - Visitors to all Australia's world heritage areas should pay a conservation tax, a senior rainforest manager said today. Outgoing Wet Tropics Management Authority chair Tor Hundloe said the charge would be similar to the $4 a head reef tax or environmental management charge. Australia's world heritage areas include Fraser Island, Shark Bay in Western Australia, the wet tropics rainforests and the greater Blue Mountains area. "I believe strongly that the wet tropics ought to have some sort of conservation charge, it might be a few dollars per head per visitor," Professor Hundloe said. "It won't affect the tourist industry one bit. "It should be across the board, all world heritage areas in Australia should have something like that - it should be uniform in a sense." Professor Hundloe said at least $2 million more a year was necessary for the Wet Tropics Management Authority to control weeds and feral animals. "Of all things, we've got a few (feral) deer around there, we've got pigs, we've had pigs forever and a day," he said. "What we haven't got is money to do some of the essential things we have to do like control weeds, control feral animals, make sure tracks are open. "As long as we Australians have this rather narrow and short-sighted focus on world heritage management, sooner or later we're going to lose these magnificent assets." State and federal environment ministers
were supportive but the opposition came from some "pin-headed people in
treasury departments", Professor Hundloe said. |
