Cape York 'sold a pup' on world heritage listing: Entsch

Making the announcement last week, federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said a World Heritage listing would give the Cape better protection so it could continue to be visited and enjoyed by future generations.

"Tourists are attracted to world heritage areas so this listing has fantastic economic potential for Queensland too," she said.

Queensland Premier Stephen Miles said the news was the first step towards Cape York Peninsula being formally recognised on the World Heritage list.

"Australia is home to just 20 World Heritage areas, and five of those are right here in Queensland," he said.

The UNESCO site says the cultural landscapes will be proposed as a serial World Heritage property comprising a number of component parts from across the peninsula and will not be proposed as the whole of the Cape York bioregion.

The sites include Alwal National Park and Quinkan Country, Laura; Kulla (McIlwraith Range) National Park, Coen; Ma'alpiku (Restoration Island) National Park, Iron Range; Olkola National Park, central Cape; Oyala Thumotang National Park, Coen; and Wuthathi (Shelburne Bay) National Park.

The landscape is home to 18.5 per cent of Australian plant species, despite being 3pc of the continental landmass, and is home to over 300 threatened species including the green sawfish, Cape York rock wallaby, and southern cassowary.

Joy Marriott, who owns the 4855ha Mountain View Station at Lakeland, and Cook Shire mayor Robyn Holmes each said there had not been anywhere near enough consultation prior to the announcement.

A conservancy and a state nature refuge sit beside Ms Marriott's land and she said she was already struggling with fire management issues, and with getting cattle returned.

About 30pc of her property, which has been in the Marriott family for four decades, was originally captured by the Quinkan Country National Heritage List area, and now that the mapping has been changed to dot points, she can't see defined areas anymore.

"The fact that the government didn't check its maps and made a declaration over a freehold area - it signals that we're not significant to them," she said.

Ms Marriott was concerned that a promise of more tourism would add to the financial burden of ratepayers, who were funding the Cook Shire Council that was paying "an extraordinary amount of money" to cart rubbish out of the shire at present.

"In the tourist season there are fields of snow - toilet paper - all the way to the tip now," she said. "More tourism's going to bring more people, but we're not managing what we've got already - we need more facilities."

She expressed concern that the whole region would become listed, saying that while she wasn't against traditional owners managing their own land, she didn't tell them how to do it and therefore people shouldn't be telling her how to manage hers.

Federal Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch described the tentative listing as a foot in the door to list the whole Cape, and said traditional owners were being 'sold a pup' after fighting hard to gain control of their own land, to then hand it over to an international body.

"Traditional owner groups say they worked hard to gain control of their own land, and they say they have a long history of protecting it, so why would you hand it over to an international body who'll tell them what to do," he said. "Traditional owners can be as enthusiastic as they like for conservation, I've no problem with that, but foreign interference isn't good."

He pointed to the Wet Tropics, incorporating the Daintree rainforest, which was added to the World Heritage list in 1988, as an example of what would happen, saying freehold areas there were restricted to tourism.

Mr Entsch described the move as the federal government offering up Cape York as a 'sacrificial lamb' so that UNESCO would back down on listing the Great Barrier Reef as endangered.

He expressed concern that a Cape York listing would take away opportunities for future generations to diversify with any horticultural, pastoral or agricultural activities on their land, and said he was putting together a petition to the government.

Mr Entsch was critical of a lack of consultation, undertaken by Peter Garrett, and Cook Shire Council mayor Robyn Holmes said there hadn't been anywhere near enough.

"A social media message advising people to make an appointment to see them in Laura in three or four days time isn't going to work," she said. "The seasons determine how people work on the land - they can't drop everything like that."

Cr Holmes said producers she'd spoken to were opposed to the tentative listing, saying they feared a total locking up of their land.

"The beef industry is massive up here - you take that out and we all may as well pack up and leave," she said. "This looks like it's putting another layer over land use, which could really hinder future use."

A number of traditional owners threw their support behind the announcement made in Cairns, including Southern Kaantju elder Allan Creek, who said he'd been involved in the talks and said it would mean his people didn't have to "bend this way and that way every time the government change their mind or a big company tells us what we need to do."

Wuthathi elder Johnson Chippendale said their fight in the early 1980s over sand mining in Shelburne Bay was the start of the conservation movement on Cape York, and the tentative listing would give their sand dunes and lakes ultimate protection for generations to come.

"This is only the tentative listing - they will be in deep consultation with all our Wuthathi people, led by Wuthathi people with the state's support, following our protocol and guidelines to ensure protection and economic wealth and management of resource for our people," he said.

Queensland Environment Minister Leanne Linard said the the listing followed an extensive period of consultation and information gathering.

It's the first step in what could be a years-long World Heritage nomination process, and Ms Linard said a full nomination would only proceed with the full, prior and informed consent of traditional owners and broader consultation with community.

"No land will be included without property owners' consent," she said.

The state government has committed another $2.4m over the next two years to continue engagement and to support traditional owners to explore values on their country.

Australian properties already on the World Heritage List include the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, K'gari (Fraser Island), Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, the Wet Tropics of Queensland, and the Great Barrier Reef.