-----Original Message----From: Meredith & David Parker (personal contact details deleted)
Sent: Saturday, 16 January 2010 9:00 AM
To: Irving, Jason (DEH); Tyne, Ted (PIRSA)
Cc: admin@arkaroola.com.au
Subject: Comments on proposed development plan for the Flinders
Ranges.
Dear Dr Ted Tyne and Mr Jason Irving
re Seeking a Balance - Conservation and resource use in the Northern
Flinders Ranges
I am writing to express my concerns about the document Seeking a
Balance, the rezoning project methodology, the Proposed Management
Zones for the northeastern region of the Northern Flinders Ranges as
indicated in the document Seeking a Balance, and in particular, the
possibility of mining in the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary. Like
our current global environment issue, carbon-based energy dependency
and climate change, short term economic gain can have long term
environmental consequences. I took my first Ridgetop Tour in the
Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in 1977, and experienced the
sanctuary's unique environmental, biodiversity, wilderness,
landscape, geoscientific, and tourism features. I am totally opposed
to mining in any form on the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary, because
it will have a dentrimental impact on its scenic landscape,
environmental uniqueness, wilderness nature and long term tourist
potential, and believe that the process used to identify the proposed
management zones was flawed.
On a recent trek along the Kakoda Trail in the Owen Stanley ranges in
Papua New Guinea, I experienced the huge visual impact of a mineral
exploration access track that had been cut along an adjacent mountain
range. I would hate to see such supposedly "low impact"
infrastructure being approved for our Flinders Ranges, and in
particular Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary.
As stated in the document Seeking a Balance, the Flinders Ranges has
some of the most recognisable and loved landscapes in South
Australia, with outstanding environmental, cultural, and tourism
values. Much of the Northern Flinders Ranges lies within the
Development Plan's Environmental Class A Zone, the prime objectives
of which are to conserve the natural character and environment of the
area and to protect the landscape from damage by mining operations
and exploring for new resources. The proposed management zones 2A,
2B and 3 permit to some level damage by mining operations and mineral
exploration, and therefore runs counter to the primary objective of
environmental Class A Zone.
The the document Seeking a Balance is beautiful to look at, and uses
a number of images that represent the natural beauty of the region,
but it is deceptive and short on detail or evidence to support the
rezoning proposal.
For instance it does not have a map of Environmental Class A Zone,
and has images of landscape, such as Sillers Lookout, that are not
protected from mining activities within the plan.
The rezoning project conducted by DEH and PIRSA commissioned an
independent landscape assessment by Scenic Solutions. This
assessment involved public surveys to establish and rank landscape
values based on images of a range of landscapes through the Northern
Flinders Ranges. It is claimed by Scenic Solutions that although
scenic beauty is a subjective quality in that it involves human likes
and dislikes, it can be measured objectively and rigorously, and that
the results can be used to predict the likely scenic quality rating
of a given scene, and are replicable by anyone applying the same
methodology. I agree that scenic beauty is a subjective quality, but
it cannot be measured objectively and rigorously. Of course the
subjective responses can be measured objectively, but the results are
only a subjective measure of scenic beauty, and involves human likes
and dislikes. The public survey conducted by Scenic Solutions will
only provide a subjective measure of the scenic beauty of the
targeted landscape, and will be tainted by the respondants cultural
and ethnic background, living environment and landscape experiences.
Given that many actual and potential tourists will have come from
different cultural and ethnic background, living environment and
landscape experiences, their appreciation of the Flinders Ranges
landscape would be quite different to those measured by Scenic
Solutions' landscape assessment.
It would appear from the document Seeking a Balance that the rezoning
was based on environmental, biodiversity, wilderness, landscape,
geoscientific, tourism, prospectivity values. However there are no
details on how these values are measured and combined to derive the
proposed zones, and given the flawed nature of the landscape study
methodology, it would appear that the zoning is also flawed.
I therefore request that you take a more cautious approach to
rezoning in the Flinders Ranges, strengthen rather than weaken the
the existing Class A Environmental, and withdraw the Management
Zoning proposals mooted in Seeking a Balance.
Yours sincerely,
David Parker