A CELEBRATION OF THE HISTORY, CULTURE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF RECHERCHE BAY
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Auditorium Hobart, Tasmania
26–28 February 2007

Legal lessons from the recent history of Recherche Bay
Mr Tom Baxter

Tom Baxter holds the degrees Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of Tasmania and Master of Laws from the Australian National University. He is a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Tasmania and the High Court of Australia. After graduating from the University of Tasmania, Tom worked as a lawyer in private practice for one of Australia’s oldest law firms, Dobson, Mitchell & Allport, from September 1997 until December 1999. From January 2000 to May 2003 he was Legal Officer for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, an Australian Government statutory authority based in Queensland. In June 2003, he returned to Hobart and the University of Tasmania in his current position as a Lecturer in Commercial Law in the School of Accounting & Corporate Governance. Tom has been a member of the National Executive of Australia’s National Environmental Law Association since 1997.

As the title of this symposium suggests, protection of the North East Peninsula of Recherche Bay is indeed cause for celebration. However, one year on, it is also appropriate to reflect on the fate which nearly befell the peninsula.

In 2003 the Tasmanian Heritage Council recommended that the entire peninsula be declared a Heritage Area under Part 5 of the Historic Cultural Heritage Act 1995 (Tas). Despite this, Tasmania provided much more limited, site-specific, cultural heritage protection.

Following nomination by Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney in January 2004 and unsuccessful applications for emergency listing, on 7 October 2005 the Recherche Bay (North East Peninsula) Area was entered on the National Heritage List.

However, a Forest Practices Plan, certified by the Tasmanian Forest Practices Board on 31 March 2005, allowed for selective logging of a 103 hectare harvest area on privately owned land within the Recherche Bay (North East Peninsula) Area. In anticipation of logging, a road was bulldozed through the adjacent Southport Lagoon Wildlife Sanctuary.

As late as December 2006, the Tasmanian and Australian Governments refused requests to intervene. How could such a significant area have come so close to being logged, in the face of such public opposition?

Relevant provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) and Historic Cultural Heritage Act 1995 (Tas) are considered. It is argued that the recent history of Recherche Bay demonstrates grave inadequacies in current heritage protection regimes which must be addressed.