The Prime Minister of Australia and the Premier of Tasmania addressed a global audience from New York last night as part of a glittering awards ceremony for the Lake Pedder restoration.
It is 12 months since Lake Pedder was fully restored, and four weeks since the announcement that the restoration had won the prestigious United Nations Champions of the Earth Award for 2030.
The PM and the Premier were both invited to New York after they led bi-partisan political support and industry-driven initiatives to find the resources to restore the lake.
The Champions of the Earth award is given by the UN Environmental Program to outstanding efforts to protect the natural world and revive ecosystems.
A restored Lake Pedder is now one of Tasmania’s premier environmental attractions and, since the declaration of the Lake Pedder National Park, tops the list of domestic and international tourist visits to Tasmania ahead of Port Arthur, Cradle Mountain and Freycinet national parks.
“We finally realised that the lake’s flooding was a tragedy that had to be reconciled with and reversed. Environmentally and economically, it all made sense to undo our past mistake and honour the global significance of this area," the Australian Prime Minister said in New York.
“The difficulty in achieving this vision was not in the physical restoration of the lake – that happened quite easily with the simple unplugging of the dam walls – but with changing the mindset of those in government and the private sector who did not understand the ecological and tourism values that the lake holds. Once our paradigm shifted and we understood the adverse enormity of what we had done in the early 1970s, and the significant value in reversing this, we acted quickly and cooperatively. By restoring this beautiful lake and landscape we have recovered a masterpiece – like restoring a damaged painting by da Vinci or finding a lost symphony by Mozart. Both the Premier and I are very proud to be a part of this global event.
"Visitors are fascinated by the deconstruction and reversal of one of Australia’s major 20th century mistakes. This area now has the significance of other great natural areas around Australia like the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru.
“People just want to see it again in its natural state. They want to feel its serenity, see its beauty, and take heart that we have essentially said sorry to the environment and have prevented irreversible damage to it.
“We have revived this ecosystem, protected its biodiversity, and renewed our relationship with the land. All Australians, especially those community-based Tasmanians who have been waiting for the Lake’s recovery since 1972 when it was flooded, should be proud of what we have achieved and be grateful to the UN for acknowledging our success.
“The cathedral has been restored. I am pleased to accept this award on behalf of all Australians.”
The annual Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour. It recognises outstanding leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector. The United Nations Environment Programme’s Champions of the Earth honours individuals and organisations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment.
The United Nations General Assembly has declared the years 2021 through 2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Led by the UN Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, together with the support of partners, it is designed to prevent, halt, and reverse the loss and degradation of ecosystems worldwide.
Don Defenderfer is a native of San Francisco who once went on a holiday to Alaska where he met an Australian who told him to visit Tasmania. So he did, and while here he met a woman. That was 40 years ago. He was state coordinator for Landcare for many years, a job that allowed him to be inspired by not only the beauty of the Tasmanian landscape but by the many people that are trying to repair and renew it. He has a Masters Degree in Social Ecology and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies with a minor in writing. He has published three volumes of poetry, and his work has appeared in newspapers and periodicals, including The New York Times and The Australian. Two volumes of collected essays and poems, "Tasmania: An island dream" Parts 1 and 2, can be bought through the Forty South Bookshop.
