The Australian Democrats, have criticised the call by their sister party Liberal Democrats MP Norman Baker, for British tourists to boycott Tasmania.
Tasmanian Senate candidate for the Democrats, Yulia Onsman, said she understood and shared the international concern for the future of Tasmania's native forests, but harming the state's tourism industry would not help fix the problem and if anything would only make things worse.
"Encouraging people to stay away from Tasmania in an attempt to pressure for change to forestry practices is a short-sighted and misguided strategy," Ms Onsman said. "The weaker our local tourism industry is, the stronger the forestry industry will remain in comparison to it, making necessary changes more difficult, not less."
"Harming other sections of our state's economy is not the sort of strategy that the Democrats like to adopt in our campaigns for change - inside or outside Parliament - especially as tourism is the main area where jobs can be generated as alternatives to some of our forestry industry."
Democrats national Leader, Senate Andrew Bartlett, who has visited the Styx and other forestry areas in southern and northern Tasmania, said he believed there were better ways to achieve environmental change.
"In my home state of Queensland, the Democrats have for many years campaigned strongly for better protection of major environmental and economic assets such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree rainforest," Senator Bartlett said. "Both these unique and precious areas have attracted many tourists over the years, but we have never thought of encouraging people to boycott them as a way of pressuring for better protection."
"Just last week, this approach bore more fruit, with extra Federal money finally being pledged to buy unprotected areas of the Daintree. This is on top of the major increases in the size of the fully protected areas of the Great Barrier Reef."
"Frankly, we need people from around the world to see such areas, to encourage stronger and more influential global pressure as they realise what is at risk."
"The Australian Democrats have done much over the years in the Senate to try to better protect Tasmania's forests, but we believe this approach is very wrong and potentially harms Tasmania as a whole, as well as reducing the chance for protecting the forests.
"Like the Australian Democrats, the Liberal Democrats have pioneered strong environmental policies, but in this instance, they and those that support them, clearly cannot see the forest for the trees," Senator Bartlett concluded.
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