Open for business: the push to unlock Australia’s wilderness

Premier Will Hodgman’s quest to open Tasmania for business has led to a spectacular fall-out on the Apple Isle.

Hall's Island, Tasmania. Picture: Chris Crerar

A black snake slithers across our path as we head towards Lake Malbena inside Tasmania’s remote Wilderness World Heritage Area. We have zero mobile phone reception and the tramp back along overgrown tracks would not secure a life-saving dose of antivenene in time. I keep one step behind fly-fisherman Greg French and his mate, who both hunt trout in the crystal clear lakes that thread through the central plateau like freshwater pearls. They know this landscape intimately from countless expeditions over decades. French mapped fisheries here almost 30 years ago. He alerted archaeologists to the indigenous ­petroglyph he found carved into a rock face on a ­sheltered slope next to a tarn. Now he’s threatening a blockade here to stop helicopters landing beside Hall’s Island in Lake Malbena for a fly-in fly-out boutique adventure tourism business. French believes this hallowed ground should be free from mechanical access. “The mere fact that wild places survive and are accessible only through a degree of personal effort and sacrifice exhilarates us,” he says. “Wilderness is transcendental. Uplifting.”

We have walked for eight hours, over fallen trunks, through thick tea-trees and spiky hakea to reach the shores of the lake where guests will be ferried across the water for a three-night experience in the wild on the 8ha island named after Reg Hall, a Launceston bushwalker and ­lawyer who made this his secret hideaway more than half a century ago. Kayaking, fishing, swimming, walking to nearby Mount Oana or the petroglyph site are drawcards enough but the crowning glory of this place is seclusion within nature’s arms. The quirky rough-hewn shelter Hall constructed around a handsome stone ­fireplace is barely visible through the groves of native King Billy, celery top and ­pencil pines ­skirting the rocky shore.

Daniel and Simone Hackett. Picture: Chris Kidd

Tourism operators ­Daniel and Simone Hackett have won conditional approval to build three accommodation pods, a communal dining area and helipad here as they surf the slipstream of Premier Will Hodgman’s quest to make Tasmania the eco-tourism capital of the world. This temple of tranquillity has been rezoned from “wilderness” to “self-reliant recreation” in the hustle for ­tourism’s holy grail — cashed-up, nature-hungry city dwellers keen for immersion in the planet’s shrinking reserves of canopied forests and coastal habitats. National parks have historically offered a limited range of huts and lodges, but pressure for commercial gain through a share of this fast-­growing market signals a seismic shift from their traditional role as guardians.

Other states are scrambling for a share. Last month Queensland invited expressions of interest for eco-tourism ventures in three national parks including Hinchinbrook Island in the Great ­Barrier Reef Marine Park. South Australia is ­negotiating with the Australian Walking Company (AWC) to build luxury lodges on the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail in Flinders Chase National Park, while the Northern Territory is expected to grant this company the same privilege on a walking trail in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.

Hinchinbrook Island, Queensland. Picture: Getty Images

“Experiences are what people are after and nature is topping that list,” says Brett Godfrey, the former Virgin Australia CEO who holds a ­minority share in AWC and recently acquired the Tasmanian Walking Company (TWC), which ­pioneered commercial huts on the Overland Track from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair in the state’s Wilderness World Heritage Area. Also chair of Tourism & Events Queensland, Godfrey has been lobbying hard to unlock scenic-based tourism, describing himself as an “environmental capitalist” who believes the best conservation strategy is to ­showcase parks and wild places so that visitors will fall in love with them.

“Wilderness lodges is a non sequitur,” scoffs Bob Brown, father of the Greens, who has sweated long and hard to protect treasured sites from ­logging, mining and hydro. Aghast at “the ­privatisation of national parks across the country”, Brown’s foundation supports The Wilderness ­Society’s campaign against a raft of proposed ­projects inside these sanctuaries. “We will end up with wilderness lodges all over the state and no wilderness at all. Not just in Tasmania — this is happening all over the country.” He argues Lake Malbena, in the Walls of Jerusalem National Park, “is the thin edge of the wedge”.

The sun is lowering as a westerly breeze ripples the skin of the lake where we sit absorbed by the quiet beauty, each of us lost in thought. Malbena is an indigenous word for wild drake. My escort, Greg French, known as “Trout”, led local tourism operator Daniel Hackett to these shores. The two men became close friends through a mutual love of fly-fishing. French served as a guide for ­Hackett’s fly-fishing business running excursions to remote Lake Ina, east of Lake St Clair. They worked together carting in materials and constructing the small standing camp of huts. French was the go-between who introduced Hackett, 38, to Reg Hall’s daughter, poet Liz McQuilkin, who gifted the lease she’d inherited to the young entrepreneur for the princely sum of $1. Now 77, McQuilkin is confident Hackett will prove a fitting custodian of her father’s legacy. She’s not overly fussed by helicopters flying people in and out. Choppers already service existing lodges and public huts on the Overland Track.

Reg Hall Hut on Halls Island. Picture: Chris Crerar

But French, 56, a writer who has tramped wild rivers all over the world, is “devastated” by the ­heresy of such easy transport because it upends the wild’s sacred tenet of remoteness. He and Hackett have fallen out spectacularly. In Tasmania, where degrees of separation are fractional, this is an intense tussle that touches on deeply held convictions. French waded through mud to save the Franklin River. He’s watched the near-extinction of Tasmanian kelp forests, the bleaching of Great Barrier Reef coral, the disappearance of glaciers in Patagonia and New Zealand, the dieback of British Columbia’s conifer forests. Hackett is younger. He has witnessed the rise of time-poor millennials unfamiliar with tent pegs and the emergence of ­off-grid technology that can minimise carbon footprints. “We can do a type of tourism now that we couldn’t do 30 years ago,” he says. “When does my generation get to choose what we do for the future?”

In the fading light I follow French over the ridge and down by a slope of springy sphagnum, pineapple grass and cushion plants, above the place where helicopters would land. He points to the spot where he’ll peg his tent in protest to stop the mechanical beast from landing if a legal ­challenge now underway fails to secure one of the world’s last vestiges of wild.

Inside the boutique Henry Jones Art Hotel overlooking Hobart’s historic wharves, iced platters of freshly shucked oysters and champagne are laid on for the September launch of the ­Tasmanian Walking Company’s guided four-day walk along the Three Capes Track inside the Tasman National Park. Premier Will Hodgman, who is also minister for parks, is here to toast the company’s swish lodges. A huge screen cycles through photographs of fine interiors, a glass of pinot and gourmet meal always in reach, with spectacular ocean views of the pillared dolerite cliffs ribbing this rugged coastline. The state’s tourism chief John Fitzgerald has barely had time to shower and change since returning from the debut guided walk with a group of journalists, me included, all of us seduced by the cushioned comfort of an exhilarating challenge. As the author of a forthcoming book on the dreamers who opened up Cradle Mountain early last century, I’m intrigued by Tasmania’s wonders.

The bus driver who’d collected us from ­Fortescue Bay, where the Three Capes Track ends, wryly referred to the straggle of people on this crescent of shore as “a crowd”, astutely fingering the raw nerve of locals who have had paradise to themselves for so long they are disquieted by its sudden popularity. “Be careful what you wish for,” he joked as he wondered how to deliver us back to Hobart for the launch party now that the city has a peak hour.

The skyline is crowded with cranes as tourist numbers climb steeply and an economy that had stalled finds its pulse. Visitors are drawn by the MONA phenomenon and the jewels of Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park and Cradle ­Mountain, which between them attract more than 600,000 visitors a year. China’s President Xi ­Jinping promoted the island as a worthy destination after his 2014 visit hooked eyeballs in a country bitten by the travel bug. Tasmania’s tourism growth leads the national average, stoking public anxiety over hotly contested plans for a cable car up Mt Wellington and a vast tourist village that would swamp the tiny east coast town of Swansea. Hundreds attended a town hall meeting in August to demand more transparency and consultation over developments. When seen against ferment in Venice and Barcelona, where citizens are sick of trinket shops and invading hordes, the Tasmanian backlash may seem an overreaction. But many locals and some operators warn an open-slather approach to growth will ruin the artisanal strengths that draw tourists here and endanger wild places that are certain to become even more precious and sought after as gridlocked cities burst at the seams.

The battle over national parks crosses state borders as governments eye off revenue streams from commercial leases promising ­tourism jobs, regional spending, more rangers. Precedents for private accommodation in national parks date back to the turn of last century with chalets at Mt Buffalo in Victoria, Kosciuszko in NSW, and Cradle Mountain’s valley. As early as 1914, when barely a trickle visited Cradle Mountain’s glacial ­landscape, those who loved its isolation worried about letting the secret out. The ­solace of wilderness has been an evangelising force throughout history, from Henry David ­Thoreau’s Walden to Cheryl Strayed’s Wild.

The surge of adventure tourism based on iconic walks beckons a new era of encroachment. Queensland’s tourism minister, Kate Jones, made no secret that her state was seeking to emulate ­Tasmania’s success when she invited companies to tender for 60-year leases to build and run ­“eco-accommodation” in three wilderness areas: Hinchinbrook Island, Australia’s largest island national park; Whitsunday Islands National Park; and a coastal trail in the Great Sandy National Park. Her timing could not have been worse. ­Pioneering conservationist Margaret Thorsborne, who with her late husband Arthur had dedicated her life to preserving wildlife and flora on Hinchinbrook, with a 32km wilderness trail along the island’s east coast named in their honour, had barely been laid to rest when the news broke. For years, rangers have limited the numbers of overnight campers for the sake of its fragile ecological integrity.

Amendments to Queensland’s conservation law in 2013 prepared for heightened activity in places where experiments with eco-tourism had a patchy record. The ruins of Hinchinbrook Island’s Cape Richards resort, slammed by Cyclone Yasi then destroyed by fire, sit forlorn among the ­frangipani and pines, the pool covered in green slime, awaiting resurrection.

When Tasmania first allowed private huts to operate beside public huts along the Overland Track 30 years ago there were only 84 walkers a year. Now about 9000 people complete the 65km track annually. Rangers stagger numbers with a daily cap of 60 starting from the north. The state modelled its enterprise on New Zealand’s Milford Track, jealous of that country’s clever promotion of its natural treasures. Bob Brown opposed the Overland huts. “If it had kept at that, life would go on,” he says, likening the spread of red dots ­flagging new developments in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area to an outbreak of measles. In April the state government put ­forward plans to rezone Frenchmans Cap in the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park from wilderness to recreation; a prohibition on huts was lifted and $3 million gifted to green-light “six environmentally sensitive” huts along an 85km stretch of coastal track in the state’s far south; Halls Island has been rezoned for commercial use; and a $70,000 grant is funding plans for the proposed upgrade of a track around Lake Geeves at the foot of Federation Peak in Tasmania’s Southwest National Park.

“Will Hodgman has spent his life opposing the environmentalists who have protected these areas,” Brown says. “Now they are protected he arrives on the scene happy to be led by tourist industry ­supremos who want to open the floodgates.” He has consistently argued that national parks are public places that should not be squandered in the ­interests of private profit.

As the biggest industry player, Brett Godfrey hascrafted an expert defence to allay fears of ­barbarians at the gate. “In-park tourism doesn’t have to involve greed, eco-vandalism or the loss of biodiversity,” he says, describing the phone book of compliance ­regulations that govern the TWC’s leases. “Nobody would claim New Zealand has buggered up the Milford Track.” But he concedes the act of building any infrastructure disturbs nature. “No matter how light the impact, you are moving stuff around, rocks, trees.” His light-hearted admission moments later that “the Exxon Valdez was not meant to hit a rock” exposes the fault line in this debate.

The TWC has an unblemished record but ­Godfrey is a relative newcomer to this business and a recent convert to nature walks. His first ­venture into the wilderness in 2012 gave immediate flight to fancying its untapped potential. “My passion for highly inflammable cylinders that fly at 30,000 feet and produce nitrous oxide and ­carbon by the tonne has waned,” says the former Virgin boss, “and now I am most passionate about another tourism product.”

Joan Masterman, who with Ken Latone pioneered commercial huts on the Overland Track, now run by Godfrey’s TWC, treads more carefully. “The government has gone a bit mad. They’ve got to watch it. All these places are pristine and beautiful because they were saved by the Tasmanian Wilderness Society. It can tip over and turn something precious into something terrible. The last thing you want to do is go on a nature experience and have city noises impinging on your consciousness.”

Godfrey says he is “super, super passionate about making this work for everyone. I very strongly believe our national parks and world heritage areas are irreplaceable and must be protected but that should not mean they are simply the domain of backpackers.” The target demographic for adventure travel is middle-aged people willing to pay $3500 for a guided journey over five days. “A beach holiday won’t cut it with this group anymore. They have time, money, better health and more than anything else they want experiences.”

Those wary of commercial intrusion are accused of athletic elitism, of wanting these glorious spaces kept for trekkers who can pitch a tent. Godfrey understands the importance of walking in to wild places to feel their timeless significance. None of his companies’ signature walks drops ­people at the door of the lodges, which tick every box on the sustainable off-grid spectrum. But like most good businesses his appetite for scale is ­insatiable and the AWC, held in partnership with former Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon, is now pursuing leases for lodges and walks in South Australia (Kangaroo Island), Northern Territory (Kata Tjuta) and NSW (the Blue Mountains). “The Blue Mountains is the most popular park in Australia but you can’t sleep in a bed in the park,” Godfrey says.

NSW has 134 commercial operators in its parks but 120 of these are confined to the Thredbo ski village. Western Australia has “eco-tourism” lodges in four national parks with a new development proposed at Millstream Chichester National Park. Victoria is the toughest to crack with commercial leases held to 21 years. “Nobody would buy a house for 21 years,” notes Godfrey, who has his eye on a new trail in the Grampians. “It’s going to open up once they get compliance procedures sorted out.” His TWC has a separate wish-list for additional huts on the Overland Track as well as a lodge at Lake Rodway near Cradle Mountain.

“Every state and territory has natural iconic assets that if carefully opened to low-impact adventure tourism I would gladly, along with many others, seek to invest in… the rest of Australia now realises this is a competitive market,” he says. “It is much smarter to manage national parks by forcing people to stay in guided camps than putting up tents. If you want people to protect national parks they have to care about them, and I guarantee whoever goes in comes out as an advocate for wild spaces.”

Opponents challenge the logic that bringing more people into these places guarantees their survival. They argue we already have state laws and international conventions protecting Australia’s natural heritage but these checks and balances are being eroded in the rush to embrace tourist ­activities. Vica Bayley, Tasmanian campaign ­manager for The Wilderness Society, says there has been a philosophical creep from the idea of parks for preservation to the notion of parks ­turning a profit. “The Tasmanian government has perverted proper planning processes. Expressions of interest are secret. There is no consultation. Anything that poses a barrier to development is dismantled,” he says, pointing to the rezoning of Lake Malbena. “This zoning change was not publicly announced, nor was it subject to community consultation, and it was not assessed against the need to protect ­outstanding universal wilderness values. Every roadblock to development in these places is being removed by sleight of hand.”

The National Parks and Wildlife Advisory Council, an independent statutory body that advises the state and federal governments, did not support the Lake Malbena project because of ­concerns about helicopter access and whether the proposed accommodation pods met the definition of “standing camp”. But both levels of government waved it through. The Wilderness Society has launched a federal court challenge.

Environmental groups in Queensland fear a similar briskness of due diligence under the 2013 amendments permitting eco-tourism facilities within park boundaries. Work is progressing on a 76km trail with luxury huts for walkers and ­mountain bike riders to travel from Palm Cove to Port Douglas through two World Heritage-listed zones. “Nobody is sure of the new process,” says Sean Ryan, principal solicitor from the state’s Environmental Defenders Office. “There is growing concern these proposals will be fast-tracked with no mandatory requirement for full environmental impact statements.”

Weeks after the TWC launched its guided walk along the Three Capes Track, Premier Hodgman extended the deadline for operators competing to design the next iconic tourist experience because of “massive interest”, adding: “The Overland and the Three Capes tracks have captured the world’s attention and are a major drawcard for visitors.”

Tasmanian tourism operator Simon Currant, who took over and expanded Cradle Mountain Lodge in the mid ’80s, recalls scant opposition because the resort was outside the park border. More recently he turned Pumphouse Point, at the southern end of Lake St Clair, into a luxury ­destination, avoiding controversy because the ­infrastructure already existed. “I’m totally for growth,” he says. “But not for growth that wrecks our brand.” He slams the proposed Cambria Green development at Swansea as “a blot on the landscape”. “I was a voice in the wilderness,” he says of his 16 years on the state’s tourism board. “I fought and fought. What is their strategy? It’s mass ­tourism. It should be niche. More small is better.” He supports ­Hackett’s development at Lake ­Malbena. “There is enough for everyone,” he says. “Again it’s a matter of managing it. I’ve just visited Yellowstone [in the US]. They get five million ­people. They manage the numbers. You minimise the impact.” The cable car slated for Dove Lake, near ­Cradle Mountain, wins his support as a way of ­easing ­traffic on the narrow road to this glacial basin.

“What are they going to do next?” pleads ­veteran conservationist Geoff Law, who describes himself as “a shocked onlooker” of plans for lodges, tracks and helicopter access inside World Heritage areas. “Each infrastructure will beget another until the wilderness is gradually degraded with squadrons of helicopters flying over bringing in bed linen and taking out vats of excrement. How confident can we be that the government will properly ­adjudicate what is appropriate within these remote, sensitive, ­special secluded places? Parks and ­Wildlife has gone from protector to developer.”

In a 2015 address to tourism ministers, ­Godfrey raised the spectre of bigger lodges to cater for Korean and Chinese visitors who prefer groups of more than 20. He told them New Zealand hogs this market because its park accommodation sleeps up to 50 walkers a night whereas Australia limits capacity to a maximum of 20. “That in itself is a road block worthy of consideration.”

An echidna snuffles along a grassy stretch beside Olive Lagoon not far from Lake Malbena as we approach the boundary of the World Heritage area on our homeward tramp. “Daniel could land his helicopter here,” Greg French says, pointing to an old dirt logging road that ­terminates at the fringe of this wild place. “So much for ­self-reliance,” he jokes in a dig at the rezoning of Halls Island to accommodate Hackett’s proposed venture. His concern stems from his belief that “the healthiest natural ­environments are found in the middle of big, well-protected nature reserves”. Walking in rewards visitors with sights and sounds worth every ounce of physical effort.

Three years ago, Hackett opposed a proposal for float plane and helicopter access at Lake Ina, where he runs guided fly-fishing trips because “the disturbance and increased human pressure…would have a strong negative impact” on the seclusion and privacy of guests. “That was a thought bubble,” he tells me now, his hackles raised in the heat of dissent. “We’ve been vilified and bullied,” he says of The Wilderness Society’s efforts to block his plan to fly in about 30 parties of six guests a year. “They want to make an example of us so that nobody does anything bigger. It’s politics. We’ve been extremely open. We’re not going to fight the Greens. There has always been that part of Tasmania led by a select group who refuse to have any generational change. We’re just going to do a bloody good job with a type of ­tourism we couldn’t do 30 years ago.”

When I visit Reg Hall’s daughter Liz McQuilkin at home in Hobart she spreads photographs and maps of her father’s “spiritual” retreat on the ­dining room table. “I was a custodian. I wanted someone who would look after it and respect it. The main issue is the helicopter,” she concedes. “But Dan says there will be relatively few flights and only over a few kilometres of the wilderness area. You can’t lock up everything forever.” She shudders at the controversy. She only accompanied her father here once, in her 20s, riding in with several of his friends on horseback. Reg insisted on walking in. She says he always carried a sawn-off shotgun and a vial of antivenene as protection from snakes.

I’m still on a high from sleeping out, inhaling lungfuls of fresh air, traipsing through forest, ­skirting lagoons and lakes so clear you can see the trout, by the end of the trek able to lift my gaze more often instead of scouring the ground for snakes. My two companions were oblivious to the threat, far more rattled by another presence ­lurking in our final earthly frontiers.