Ecotourism Australia Conference

Peter Mooney
General Manager
Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania

Peter was born and educated in Tasmania. He started with the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS) as a trainee, attaining tertiary qualifications in environmental management.

Since 1981 Peter has worked as a Ranger and Park Manager in many of Tasmania's reserves. He has completed a number of overseas postings working for NGOs, the most recent of which with the Charles Darwin Research Institute, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, performing marine ecology assessments with the community.

Since January 2004 Peter has been the General Manager of the Tasmanian PWS, a division of the Department of Tourism, Parks Heritage and the Arts. Peter has a strong commitment to building the capabilities of conservation agencies to manage reserves with local communities and tourist operators.

The PWS has been leading a number of programs involving the tourism industry, local communities and Government agencies that have delivered innovative sustainable solutions on the ground.

Good conservation is good tourism and conversely, good tourism is good conservation.

Tasmania is in the unique position of having nearly 40 per cent of its land area in formal conservation reserves. Most of the increase in national parks and reserves has been a result of significant political campaigns, ie Lake Pedder, Franklin River and most recently Tasmania’s forests.

It is time, however, to put the conflict behind us and establish a new modus operandi; one where tourism and conservation co-exist in balance, and where one delivers benefits to the other and vice versa.

In fact it is critical to Tasmania’s future that we strike the balance, as tourism is based on our iconic national parks and reserve system, and our parks and reserves provide a range of cultural, social, economic and environmental benefits to the State.

In 2002 the Tasmanian Government created the Department of Tourism, Parks, Heritage and the Arts, bringing together all of the activities relating to the development of the State’s natural, built and cultural assets. It is the first time that this has been done by any Government in Australia and across the Westminster system.

Having the Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS) and Tourism Tasmania (TT) in the same Department required the use of common language. As a result we have created an environment to better align both the objectives of PWS and TT to promote “good tourism is good conservation”. Peter will outline how the partnership works and why this has been a trigger for a more vibrant Tasmania.

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