reprinted from: The Cairns Post
Environmental levy push
By Janelle Gullo, Tourism
Reporter Visitors to all Australia's world heritage areas should pay a conservation tax, a senior rainforest manager said yesterday. Outgoing Wet Tropics Management Authority chairman 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 yesterday. "It won't affect the tourist industry one bit." Professor Hundloe said he recommended that tax rate of about $4 or $5 per person, which would apply to the estimated two million tourists that visited the World Heritage Area each year - a number expected to climb to 4.5 million in 15 years. "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." Professor Hundloe said he was ending his six-year term as WTMA's chairman with the World Heritage Area in "pretty good health", although his greatest concern was for the future of the endangered cassowary. "We've done our utmost with speed bumps, reducing speeds, educating kids . . . but if I had one thing that really worried me it's this endangered animal." WTMA's annual report is available at
www.wettropics.gov.au, or by
phoning 4052 0555. |