Protected areas of Tasmania

Protected areas of Tasmania consist of protected areas located within Tasmania and its immediate onshore waters, including Macquarie Island. It includes areas of crown land (withheld land) managed by Tasmanian Government agencies as well as private reserves. As of 2016, 52% of Tasmania's land area has some form of reservation classification. The majority is managed by the Tasmania Parks & Wildlife Service (about 42% of total Tasmanian land area). Marine protected areas cover about 7.9% of state waters. Australia is a signatory to the Convention of Biological Diversity and as such has obligations to report the status of its National Reserve System. Changes made to the Nature Conservation Act 2002 in 2014 permit timber harvesting. In addition many reserves have had their reserve status downgraded from a class excluding timber harvesting and mineral extraction to ones where these activities are now permitted. This mis-application of the IUCN protected area categories needs to be remedied or the reserves protected land class under the Nature conservation act 2002 should be adjusted to reflect its currently assigned I UCN category. There are several Commonwealth marine reserves in the vicinity of Tasmania. All of the reserves are part of the South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserve Network.