Bushwalk Australia

What do people think (of the concept) of the new shiny "Maydena Adventure Hub", recently announced by Forestry Tas
(even though Stage 1 doesn't appear to be open yet for mere mortals / public)

http://www.forestrytas.com.au/visiting/visitor-sites/central/maydena-adventure-hub
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/05/15/73541_travel.html

I suppose it is a "good" thing making the wilderness available to the masses - more people can appreciate the richness of Tassie's bush.
It also allows plantations to be "used" for various adventure activities (MTB, 4WD etc) while waiting for trees to grow.

I'm a bit worried that the "hub" will become another place where the tourisim dollar is parramount (much like the Tahune Airwalk), where only customers who pay the substantial "entry fee" may experience the area - which I'm sure has been discussed at length on other posts.
Fine for the fly-drive-tourists, but excessive, expensive and exclusive for the local-regular-visitors.

How is this likely to impact the general walking community?

Its an odd situation. Who ever gave FT permission to get involved in stuff like this? Weren't they supposed to just chop down our trees? Odd indeed...

I have always thought that tasmanian residents shouldn't be included in the user pays system. Fees are charged on the basis of the provision of infrastructure but then we own that too! Me ol dad gave up fishing(more or less) when he had to pay- used to always say that the day they showed him where he had received a tax rebate for the change to revenue income from licencing he would get a licence. A simple view but hey...

kramster wrote:What do people think (of the concept) of the new shiny "Maydena Adventure Hub", recently announced by Forestry Tas
(even though Stage 1 doesn't appear to be open yet for mere mortals / public)

http://www.forestrytas.com.au/visiting/visitor-sites/central/maydena-adventure-hub
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/05/15/73541_travel.html

I suppose it is a "good" thing making the wilderness available to the masses - more people can appreciate the richness of Tassie's bush.
It also allows plantations to be "used" for various adventure activities (MTB, 4WD etc) while waiting for trees to grow.

I'm a bit worried that the "hub" will become another place where the tourisim dollar is parramount (much like the Tahune Airwalk), where only customers who pay the substantial "entry fee" may experience the area - which I'm sure has been discussed at length on other posts.
Fine for the fly-drive-tourists, but excessive, expensive and exclusive for the local-regular-visitors.

How is this likely to impact the general walking community?

I largely agree with the first part - it's better to have any access to State forest than no access, though I wish FT would be more forthcoming in allowing access for other uses that aren't necessarily appropriate in NPs and nature reserves , as discussed recently in a thread in the controversy corner.

What I really fear though is PWS going down a similar track in more areas - eg the plans for the Tasman Peninsula. I don't object so much to the 'user pays' component of the system, but more the creation of an officially sanctioned 'experience' whereby off-track walking and bush camping are prohibited.

There is certainly some good in what they're doing, however, everything they do is based around their core business, which is harvesting timber. I can't help but wonder if all of these other schemes are merely marketing.

This is perhaps going off on a bit of a tangent, but I would prefer to see an overseeing forests authority which was not run by the forestry industry, but rather by a more balanced board of community representatives. Forestry would then come underneath them, along with all other interested parties, including those who wanted to build tourist infrastructure involving the forests. The overseeing board would have authority to tell forestry what they can and can't do, and similarly for the other interested parties.

Currently the nearest equivalent of this board is basically run by forestry, rather than the other way around (eg, you have to be a member of the forestry industry to be on the board, apparently).