Tasmanian local politics is a strange thing, and in the last week it got stranger when Minister Sarah Courtney quit politics, leaving her Tourism portfolio up for grabs. Unfortunately the person who grabbed it is also the Minister for Primary Industries and Resources, which includes native forest logging. This puts Tasmania’s tourism operators who are advocating for a truly responsible tourism sector that looks after our wild places, is taking action on climate change and lives up to the clean, green and clever promise we are selling to the world in a very difficult position. 

 Minister Barnett is a long-time advocate for native forests logging, and we wait with interest to see if that will undercut the care and attention given to his constituents in the tourism industry.

 That’s where you can help us, drop the office of Minister Barnett a line to ask him to represent the best interests of Tasmania’s nature based tourism sector by listening to the growing voices calling for the protection of our High Tourism Value forests like Krushka’s, Atlas and the Blue Tier from logging.

You can email Minister Barnetts office directly at guy.barnett@dpac.tas.gov.au and let him know our forests are worth more standin.