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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-07-23 Daily Xml
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ECOTOURISM

Ms BREUER (Giles) (15:01): My question is to the Minister for Tourism. What is the state government doing to develop and market nature-based tourism and ecotourism experiences?

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH (Adelaide—Minister for Education and Children's Services, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (15:01): I am really delighted to answer a question about nature-based tourism. The member knows that her electorate is the home of some of the most exciting nature-based tourism in our state, ranging—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Ranging from those fornicating cuttlefish.

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: Yes, ranging from those cuttlefish. I was very pleased to see the weekend newspapers talking in glowing terms about what is for me the most exciting experience I have ever had in South Australia. I do not think anything can quite come anywhere near the excitement of swimming with copulating cuttlefish. It seriously is extraordinarily exciting. There are up to 100,000 of the beasts together off Point Lowly. It is an extraordinary opportunity to get up close to animals that are really unusual in terms of their morphology.

However, that is just one of the experiences in the member for Giles' electorate, which also includes some extraordinary ecotourism destinations. It is widely recognised that Australia attracts one million nature-based tourists each year. South Australia, with the SATC, has been in partnership with the Department for Environment and Heritage to market a whole range of activities around our inaugural national Conference on Green Travel in 2008. It will include climate change and ecotourism. We have contributed $40,000 towards the conference bid. The conference will be held in Adelaide in November, with regional visits to the Adelaide Hills, the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island. For anyone interested, of course, the cuttlefish are off Point Lowly only until the end of August, so there are only a few weeks left during which these animals can be seen in our waters.

The conference will also use some of the images that it used through the National Landscapes promotion. This is a federal government initiative, which will identify 20 superlative iconic sites around the country and which can be used in future marketing offshore. The first eight Australian landscapes include the Flinders Ranges, and they were launched at a recent ATE event in Perth that was attended by the member for Finniss.

South Australia has been a pioneer in promoting and acknowledging sustainable tourism practices since the implementation of our own inaugural sustainable tourism award in 2005. This concept has now been adopted at a national level, and we are delighted that Qantas is now the sponsor for the Qantas Award for Excellence in Sustainable Tourism, with much of the criteria identical to those we originally developed in South Australia.

In 2007-08 the SATC is working with DEH to facilitate the national parks representation at ATE, including the development of materials for distribution to international wholesalers. The SATC contributed funding towards an advertisement promoting SA ecotourism operators, and encouraged ecotourism operators to achieve eco-accreditation.

I am proud to tell the house that South Australia now has 71 eco-certified products. Amazingly, for a country of our size, with so much ecotourism for international visitors, we account for 12 per cent of the national eco-accredited business and punch well above our weight. In addition, of course, we can promote South Australia as being the most aware in terms of climate change, with our climate change legislation and our high level of grid-connected wind and solar power, as well as the fact that our food and wine have to travel less miles to market within our state than food from other places.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Fewer miles.

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: Yes—fewer miles. In 2008-09, we will continue to work in ways that promote nature-based tourism—ecotourism, dive tourism, wildlife, birdwatching and national parks—as well as the emerging market around fossil tourism. I am very keen to promote more fossil tourism. Of course, we have some of the iconic—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: You can laugh, but I remind the house that we have not only the Flinders Chase National Park, with megasaurs, but we also have the world heritage listed Naracoorte Caves, with a whole range of—

The Hon. M.D. Rann interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: Yes. Of course, we are one of the few places in the world that can claim the creation of a new era—the Ediacara era—based on some of our fossils in the Far North. These achievements mark us out. In the South-East, around Mount Gambier, there is an increasing drive to promote geo-parks and geological tourism, and that geo-park area crosses over the Victorian border.

We are well placed to target this growing number of eco-tourists from around the world, and we wish to maximise our competitive advantage by promoting our green credentials politically as a state, as well as our products, which are second to none and well renowned in terms of ecotourism accreditation.

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