Climate change impacting nature-based tourism in Tasmania

Little penguins are at the heart of calls by academics to assist the state’s tourism industry in adapting to changes caused by a warming climate. Find out why.

Little penguins at Bicheno

The state’s tourism industry will need help to adapt to changes caused by a warming climate, academics say.

In a Talking Point article in today’s Mercury Destination Southern Tasmania chair and tourism academic Professor Anne Hardy and Director of tourism consulting firm episteme Alison Anderson argue in favour of a fund to help nature-based tourism businesses adapt to climate change.

“A Climate Change Adaption Fund for Tourism could assist the tourism industry in identifying probable impacts and will enhance operators’ ability to deal with the effects of climate change,” they write.

Destination Southern Tasmania chair and tourism academic Professor Anne Hardy

“In the shorter term, urgent action is needed to support the tourism operators who have been

affected so deeply by climate-induced impacts.”

Local tourism operators have reported a drop in penguin numbers this year as a rise in sea temperatures believed to be caused by climate change disrupts the penguin’s food sources and breeding patterns.

“Tasmania’s Marine Conservation Program is aware of the anecdotal reports of penguins not returning to Bicheno,” the Department of Natural Resources and Environment said in a statement.

“The breeding season is protracted, and adult numbers can fluctuate, particularly at this stage of the breeding season.

Greens spokesman for Healthy Oceans Peter Whish-Wilson described reports of the penguins’ decline as “a wake-up” call.

“Marine heatwaves generated by the burning of fossil fuels impact our oceans in so many ways, and these changes to ocean currents, biodiversity and habitat will only become bigger and more dangerous to endemic Tasmanian marine wildlife into the future,” Senator Whish-Wilson said.

And state Greens MP Tabatha Badger called on the premier to reconvene Tasmania’s Penguin Advisory Group “as a matter of urgency”.

Antarctic and Marine campaigner at Bob Brown Foundation Alistair Allan said the plight to the little penguin reflected a “crisis” in the state’s marine environment.

Bob Brown Foundation Antarctic and Marine campaigner Alistair Allan. Picture: Elise Kaine

“The fact that the Tasmanian Government has done so little to protect our unique waterways, and that we have animals like the Maugean Skate and the Red Handfish teetering on extinction, should outrage everyone,” he said.

“We cannot allow more species like the little penguin to join that list.”

Liberal minister Felix Ellis said he was hopeful the penguin numbers would bounce back but accused the Bob Brown Foundation of peddling “rubbish” when it called for better protection for the natural environment.

“I mean, the Bob Brown Foundation would be happy if we just turn the lights off and left Tasmania,” he said.

“It’s they are, frankly, opposed to the industries that keep our state running, that pay the taxes, that ensure that we can have good health, education and public safety and I think that the Tasmanian public have had a gutful of the kind of anti-scientific rubbish that’s coming from the Bob Brown Foundation.”

Originally published as Climate change impacting nature-based tourism in Tasmania