Science the biggest loser from Tasmanian World Heritage decision

Despite such an obvious lack of required study and evidence, the World Heritage Committee was still able to be convinced that proposed areas which had previously been rejected in 2008 had, over the course of five years, suddenly aquired values deserving of World Heritage listing. It is apparent that something other than science had forced this change of heart.

Undoubtedly this 'something' was the changed political landscape under which a now minority Australian Government was willing to far more strongly champion the TWWHA extension to appease the Greens whose support was needed to keep it in power. Clearly the World Heritage Committee is more compelled to accept a world heritage nomination when it is strongly backed by the Government of the day. Although the experience of the Abbott Government in trying to delist part of the extension suggests that this doesn't work in reverse.

As much as the Abbott Government was hoping to delist part of this 2013 TWWHA extension, those supporting this move would arguably have been happy if the World Heritage Committee had deferred a decision subject to independent scientific scrutiny of the extension's world heritage values. This would have at least represented a return to the due process that had been by-passed for political purposes by the former Labor Government.

Certainly, those forest and conservation scientists most closely involved with Tasmania's forests would have supported such a move given that most had been incensed at how the proposed new forest reserves and the World Heritage extension proposal had arisen. Former Forestry Tasmania conservation biologist, Simon Groves, articulated this concern as 'a perversion of science ...... it rewards bad behaviour and .... those that engage in bad behaviour. It sends the wrong signals to the protagonists and the public. It sets up the rest of Australia's forested regions for similar processes .... and the conservation benefits are, I believe, largely delusional".

Despite this, it seems that Australia's broader church of environmental scientists who are mostly remote from practical involvement in Tasmanian forestry, may think otherwise. They almost universally celebrated the World Heritage Committee's refusal to accept the Abbott Government's nomination to delist part of a politically-motivated World Heritage extension. This, despite the precedent it sets which may well consign the need for their skills for independent scientific scrutiny to future irrelevance.

Of further concern is what this says about the hypocrisy of Australia's environmental community of scientists and activists. They would undoubtedly be crying blue murder if a proposed natural resource use was approved without any independent scientific study, but either remain silent or become cheerleaders for science-free decisions delivered when the political winds blow their way.

Appallingly deficient media coverage has largely denied the general public from any awareness of the corrupted process and political manipulation that led to the 2013 TWWHA extension which deserves to be regarded as an embarrassment to both Australia and the World Heritage concept. It may well be that a reluctance to acknowledge this embarrassment underpinned the World Heritage Committee's refusal to even countenance the Abbott Government's bid to redress part of this travesty.