Australia Has Called a Halt to Logging Plans for the Protected Tasmanian Wilderness

In a victory for conservationists, Australian and Tasmanian authorities have ended an effort to open parts of the Tasmanian Wilderness to logging. The decision followed a report Saturday from U.N. cultural agency Unesco that said the World Heritage site should be off-limits to all commercial exploitation.

The Tasmanian Wilderness covers about a fifth of the island and is home to temperate forests, threatened animals and rare flowering plants. Authorities proposed in 2014 to remove the forest’s protected status and open it to logging in an attempt to spur the local economy, according to the BBC.

Unesco said in the report that it “does not consider a World Heritage property recognized for its outstanding cultural and natural values the place to experiment with commercial logging of any kind.”

[BBC]