Lutruwita / Tasmania World Heritage

There is nothing else on the planet quite like the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The cultural and ecological descriptors of why Lutruwita meets World Heritage criteria should be required reading for every Australian—they are a beautiful evocation of the island's wilderness values.

Most UNESCO World Heritage sites meet only one or two of the 10 criteria; the wilderness of Lutruwita is the only place in the world that meets all four natural criteria, plus three cultural criteria, thanks to its rich Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage.

However, what makes this place special—its sense of wilderness, its cultural and natural values—is being compromised. Inappropriate development for luxury tourism within sensitive and highly-remote environments—like that proposed on Halls Island on Lake Malbena in the Walls of Jerusalem National Park—would be devastating to the World Heritage values.

Elsewhere, in Southwest National Park, we need to preserve the rich and organic inky-black night skies for future generations—a night sky that holds profound cultural significance for the Palawa people.

The massive Spero-Wanderer Wilderness should be incorporated into the TWWHA. This spectacular region holds incredible Tasmanian Aboriginal community cultural sites, as well as conservation values consistent with that of World Heritage. While the Spero-Wanderer is within a conservation area, shockingly mining exploration licences exist here, on the doorstep of the TWWHA.

The Wilderness Society is campaigning against plans by fossil fuel companies Beach Energy and ConocoPhillips to drill for gas in the spectacular and ecologically significant oceans to the north west of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage coastline. Oil and gas industrialisation of this globally significant coastal and ocean environment threatens migrating whales, the foraging grounds for rare and endangered birds and the cultural values of the coastline.

The Wilderness Society will always fight for Tasmania’s world-class natural wonders, National Parks and World Heritage Areas.

Ending park privatisation

Lake Malbena is a remote jewel, hidden deep within the ancient landscape of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. On its still waters lies Halls Island: a forested world unto itself, and a sanctuary for threatened Mount Mawson pine. Birds like Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles, endangered Australasian bitterns and critically endangered swift parrots could be in the surrounding area.

But a battle to effectively privatise the island—to the exclusion of others—has been raging here. Developer Wild Drake—actively supported by the Tasmanian Government—continues to push to have its plans approved for a private luxury development accessed by helicopters on Halls Island, which would destroy the serenity of this beautiful, sensitive region.

Tasmania’s world class natural wonders, our shared National Parks and World Heritage areas, are no place for inappropriate development. Find out how we are pushing back.

Lutruwita/Tasmania is home to astoundingly dark skies, with large areas—like the Southwest National Park in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area—unspoilt by artificial light pollution.

Palawa/Tasmanian Aboriginal People’s connections to milaythina wurangkili (Sky Country) hold important teachings about place and spirituality.

And the unique species and ecosystems of Lutruwita/Tasmania rely on their circadian rhythm—the rhythm of natural night and day—to flourish through the seasons.

Protecting the night—liwari in palawa kani—from light pollution is critical to the environment, wildlife and people’s wellbeing.

It's time the crystal-clear dark skies of Southwest Sky Country were recognised and protected for good.

Spero-Wanderer Wilderness

The Spero-Wanderer Wilderness is a huge, forgotten area that hugs the west coast of Lutruwita / Tasmania. Strangely, this remote region is almost completely surrounded by the TWWHA. It appears to be a glaring omission from the UNESCO World Heritage Area, and it is.

From mountains to coast vast buttongrass plains and free-flowing rivers give way to dense wet forests and spectacular unmapped stands of Huon pine with trees thousands of years old.

Its World Heritage-grade natural and cultural values remain outside the TWWHA, in a ‘conservation area’ that still allows mining and logging to occur.

Much of the region is covered in mining exploration licences, in what’s rather ominously called the Southwest Strategic Prospectivity Zone.

The Spero-Wanderer Wilderness has demonstrable Outstanding Universal Values—consistent with that of the neighbouring TWWHA—due to its extensive conservation importance and being a rich cultural landscape for Tasmanian Aboriginal people.

We look forward to bringing more insights from the Spero-Wanderer Wilderness and continue to build the case for protection.

Lutruwita’s west coast adjoins the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, a globally recognised landscape listed for its outstanding natural and cultural values. 

This coastline now faces renewed risk. At the end of 2025, the federal Labor government quietly opened up 25,000 square kilometres of ocean off the coasts of Victoria and Lutruwita / Tasmania for new oil and gas exploration. 

This proposal would expand the oil and gas frontier towards waters adjacent to Lutruwita’s World Heritage west coast, introducing the potential for seismic blasting and gas drilling. 

At a time when climate change is already harming communities and nature, more oil and gas is shameful and reckless. 

Together, we successfully stopped the annual acreage release for more than three years. Local communities have also defeated two major destructive seismic blasting proposals in the Otway Basin.

Despite clear community and regulatory opposition, we are forced to fight the same battle over and over—project by project—each time the government moves to mindlessly release more acreage.

Will you email Prime Minister Albanese today and demand an end to the mindless release of oil and gas acreage in Australia’s oceans?

You will join thousands of others in calling for strong protection of Lutruwita’s World Heritage coastline and in protecting the climate, nature, and communities from new oil and gas.

The Kooparoona Niara (Great Western Tiers) region is significant for the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, and is the subject of a groundbreaking Aboriginal community proposal that could see it owned, run and managed by its rightful owners, the Palawa people.

But Forestry Tasmania (trading as ‘Sustainable Timber Tasmania’) continues to log and burn Kooparoona Niara—forests indistinguishable from those within the World Heritage Area, a few hundred metres away.

Wilderness Society will continue to stand with the community and oppose clearfelling on Quamby Bluff and in forests of the wider Kooparoona Niara region. Instead of clearfelling Country, the Tasmanian Government needs to meet its commitments to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community in creating the island’s first Aboriginal owned and managed National Park.

We will continue to push Premier Jeremy Rockliff to end his government’s parks privatisation policy, recognise and protect Tasmania’s globally unique landscapes and night skies, and ensure Lutruwita’s world heritage coastline remains free from oil and gas.

Right now, we’re:

• Building the case for World Heritage level protection of the Spero-Wanderer Wilderness.
  
  

• Opposing inappropriate development in the Wilderness World Heritage Area.
  
  

• Campaigning to protect the ocean and coastal wilderness of Lutruwita’s west coast from oil and gas.
  
  

• Calling on the Tasmanian government to preserve the night skies of south-west Lutruwita.
  
  

• Supporting the Tasmanian Aboriginal community proposal to own, run and manage the forests of Kooparoona Niara (Great Western Tiers).