Reflections The Journal of the Restoration Committee The lake we’re giving back to the world

Twenty one years ago, Lake its support, along with The rectifying the world’s greatest Pedder was drowned for Geographic Pty Ltd. environmental blunders can be led production of electricity. Today, People all over are by Australia. When the eyes of the plans are under way to restore the joining forces for Pedder, projects world are upon us, Sydney 2000 lake. There has been widespread are being initiated locally and will focus attention on humanity international interest and co-ordinated by the office. and physical excellence; Pedder support, beginning in January The Pedder restoration cam­ 2000 will focus attention on the 1994, when the 1000 delegates of paign is a watershed not just in environment and moral excellence. theworld conservation body, Australian conservation history but The two events will complement IUCN (International Union for the in global terms. Progress towards and enhance one another. Conservation of Nature) meeting in Buenos Aires passed a motion calling on the Australian ‘If Lake Pedder were to be re-exposed, its beauty would return, Government to back the restora­ irrespective of the length of time the lake had been flooded. … tion of Lake Pedder ‘as a symbol There is very fortunately, in this case, what lawyers call of hope that humanity can a locus poenitentiae—an opportunity to repent…if not we recover some of the global ourselves, the day will come when our children will heritage lost over the last undo what we so foolishly have done’. September 1994 century’. The inter­na­tional David Edward St John, qc, Australian Government Lake Pedder Suzuki Foundation has pledged Committee of Enquiry, 1974 • Rehabilitation • What the scientific The seven most commonly-asked questions about study showed Lake Pedder—and their answers • Twelve good reasons why Lake Pedder Hasn’t the original lake been destroyed believe it will, our surplus power will What about the trout should be restored 1 by the flooding? be 300 MW. 6 fishing? No. Scientific studies released this has hun­ How could you destroy that huge ? year have shown that the beach and dreds of trout fish­ The is not part of the the dunes are still intact, covered by a 4 ing lakes, includ­­ing Lake Pedder impoundment. It will few millimetres of sediment. , right remain. So will the Gordon Power next door. The Station. Restoring Lake Pedder Wouldn’t draining leave a muddy mess? world has only one involves releas­ing water from the 2 Yes. For a little while. But within a year, Lake Pedder. the area will begin to regenerate, and Serpen­tine and rain will wash the beach and dunes only. Will it really be a tourist attraction? clean. Will it ever look the same again? 7 Yes. The restoration process itself will Don’t we need the power? 5 Yes. We’re working for the future, not attract world-wide interest. Eco-tourism 3 No. At the moment, we have a surplus just for next year or the year after. is a huge growth industry. Lake Pedder of 130 MW. Lake Pedder produces Lake Pedder has been beneath the will be a world focus for environmental only 60 MW. If Comalco leaves impound­ment for only 22 years—in the rehabilitation. Tasmania in 2001, as most experts long-term, no time at all. From the groups It’s been done before Rehabilitation Timeline 1 MILLION YEARS AGO: There are active Pedder 2000 groups in It is anticipated that Lake Pedder wave action. The demonstrated Glacial outwash blocks the flow of Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne and In the north-west of the USA , ­opportunity to correct environmentally Beach will appear much as it was effectiveness of modern the Serpentine River. A unique glacial Sydney. If there’s not a group in your town two large dams on the Elwha River devastating mistakes of the past”. (Shann within a few months of its rehabilitation techniques, as lake is formed, nine square kilometres in area with a beach of pink quartz or city, why not get one started? Contact are coming down after 82 years – to Cantrel, Friends of the Earth, re-exposure. The same natural shown for instance by the HEC’s sand, three kilometres long and Pedder 2000 for information and material. restore the legendary salmon and USA). The Elwha dams will not be processes of wind on sand that own recent efforts in nearly one kilometre wide. Meanwhile, here’s what’s happening trout fishery. The Elwha River the first in the USA to be removed initially produced the dune will rehabilitating scarred areas 20 000 years ago: Aboriginal around the country: Ecosystem and Fisheries for environmental restoration and restore the form of its slightly around its construction sites on people lived in the area as the present Restoration Act, October 1992, river activists target several more. eroded face over one or two the King and Henty-Anthony Lake Pedder was formed. 1835: Surveyor John Wedge names Launceston “…recognises the critic­al importance of a (Source: World Rivers Review. Vol.8 No.1. seasons of exposure. schemes, means that the the lake ‘Pedder’ after the Chief The Launceston Branch of Pedder 2000 healthy ecosystem and this historic Published by the International Rivers More active rehabilitation restoration of Lake Pedder can in Network). Justice of the colony, Sir John Lewes meets regularly—contact Helen Tait on 003 measures will be required along time be complemented by Pedder. 318389 for times and venues. The group parts of the perimeter of the effective rehabilitation of the embraces the grand ideas of Restoration, 1874: Landscape painter William Regeneration and Recovery, and is providing artificial reservoir where the peat eroded margins around the Piguenit visits and paints at Lake Pedder Pearls Pedder. lots of ideas and impetus for this hope-filled mat has been broken down by drained dam. campaign—for example, could Queen …there appears to be no major problem in draining the Huon-Serpentine impoundment’ 1898: A branch of the Elizabeth walk on the Pedder beach in 2000, Doug Hill, Engineering Consultant to the Lake Pedder Study Group track reaches Lake Pedder. the year of her 70th birthday? The HEC’s environmental statement 1946: The first light plane landing is Burnie Our responsibility is to be sensitive to the community’s concern for the environment and carry out our made on the 3 km beach. Contact: Arnold Rowlands 004 31 7439. business accordingly… protecting what we have and repairing where we have been. 1955: The Lake becomes the heart Melbourne and focus of the Lake Pedder The Melbourne branch of Pedder 2000 All major features of the original beach and dune systems are intact. …Accumulation of sediment over National Park. plans to bottle Lake Pedder water, and use it the original lake bed is slight, no more than a few millimetres. Professor Peter Tyler, Lake Pedder. A Geophysical Survey, May 1993 1968: The LPNP is incorporated in for publicity and fund-raising. They drank a new and larger Southwest National toasts to the real Lake Pedder at a recent This generation must accept responsibility for our actions and those of our fathers Park. meeting! Contact Annabel Richards 03 and be prepared to pay for the required restoration of our environment. 1967: Premier announces 8362670 or Peter Stapleton 03 4163391 for Ian McLachlan, shadow minister for environment and heritage more information. that the Gordon Power Scheme will This new lake is a shroud, a drowned plain...This place makes electricity. The whole place for miles and Restoration of Lake Pedder would begin by opening the result in ‘some modification to the Melbourne branch has the follow­ ­ing diversion tunnels at the Scotts Peak and Serpentine Dams. Lake Pedder National Park’. material for sale—excellent as rare and miles and miles, makes electricity...It cannot reveal anything of its prior effect on people. Lake Gordon and the Gordon Dam wold remain untouched. unique Christmas gifts! Russell Kelly, ‘Inheriting Old Pedder’, in press Power generation through the Gordon would 1972: The world’s first , continue. [Diagram reproduced from The Mountains of the (UTG) Paradise by Les Southwell.] The World of Last chance to What better project to end the sad century of destruction and so welcome the new is formed to oppose the flooding. get a copy of this beautiful book. Very millennium of sustainable development. David Bellamy limited numbers available. $100 plus $5 p/h 1972: In spite of a massive campaign Lake Pedder—Why a National Park Must be Beneath the of national and international opposi­ tion, the lake is flooded, to provide Saved. Very limited numbers of this historic dark water— an extra 60 MW of electricity. publication available. sponsored by Australian $20 plus $2.50 p/h Lake Pedder audio-visual revival underway Geographic Pty Ltd what the scientific 1973: The Tasmanian Government The Tyler Report—Lake Pedder refuses an offer from the Common­ study showed wealth Government to fund a simple A Geophys­ ical­ Study by Dr Peter Tyler. The Truchanas audio-visual room only, and the doors had to dissolving and fading to the demands people who had not seen the lake alternative version of the Gordon $10 plus $2.50 p/h presentation on Lake Pedder is a be closed half an hour before of music. Before the availability of were astound­ed that its destruction Sonar surveys of the drowned Scheme in order to save the lake. Why Lake Pedder Should Be Restored Lake Pedder Study Group. Report by Dr Geoff Mosely. spectacular collection of images each show. Hundreds were commercial equipment, he had a could ever have been contemplated. lake by Professor Peter Tyler and 1982: The Huon-Serpentine $15 plus $5 p/h celebrating the moods of that turned away! system of fading projectors, manually- From the beginning of the his team from Deakin University impound­ment is included within the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heri­ Lake Pedder by . A superb photo­­ exceptional place. The key to the successful operated, that was his own invention. flooding, the evidence of the beauty prove that all the major geomor­ tage Area because of the IUCN’s graphic record. $15 plus $5 p/h Olegas Truchanas visited technique in the audio-visuals He set about solving the problem of of this once incomparable place phic features of the original Lake (International Union for the Conser­ Lake Pedder Tshirt: unbleached, with Lake Pedder over 30 times and was provided by Olegas’s long- recording a pro­gram of image and resided in the photographs. The Pedder remain largely intact. vation of Nature) express hope for its restora­tion as a natural lake. 4-colour painting of the lake. S M L XL photo­graphed there. He saw, as a time friend Ralph Hope- sound, per­fecting it in his studio, and audio-visual was taken to capital cities Sediment accumulation on the $29.50 plus $5 p/h public servant required to Johnstone. Ralph probably took later presenting it, fully-automated, to around Australia and was used as floor of the new reservoir has been 1993: The IUCN, meeting in Buenos Aires, passes a unanimous Pull The Plug t-shirts. Unbleached, Aust-made. maintain political silence, that the first colour pictures of Lake a large audience. When he acquir­ed evidence before the Lake Pedder minimal over the past 21 years. L only. $16 plus $5 p/h resolution calling for the restoration there was only one course open Pedder. He was first there in the Arion 2000 dedi­cated program­ Committee of Enquiry in Hobart in This is consistent with known long of the lake. Lake Pedder posters. Beautiful laminated poster. $20 plus $5 p/h to him—to show the people of December 1947, one of a party of mer, he pain­stak­ing­ly recorded the 1973. The Committee members were term deposit rates documented 1993: Scientific studies reveal that Pull The Plug bumper stickers $2.50 plus 50¢ p/h Tasmania, through his walkers flown in by Lloyd Jones, steps taken in synchronising the deeply moved—Edward St John QC from other lakes since the retreat beneath 15m of water, the features of the Lake Pedder area—beach, dunes, If you live in Melbourne, you may be photography, what they were Tasmanian-born aviator who recorded program with appropriate said ‘The best attempt to re-create of the glaciers that formed them at and Serpentine River—are unchang­ interested in genuine Lake Pedder water in a about to lose. In the early 1970s, intro­duc­ed aerial photography in music. some of the feeling of the place is the end of the last ice age. ed under a few millimetres of silt. souvenir bottle. Please enquire. this was an act of moral courage. the South West. The subtle and mysterious beauty probably by means of the audio-visual The beach is intact—samples of Please send orders and cheques to 1994: Comalco closes its third The response to his public audio- Ralph was an engineer with a of Lake Pedder was view­ed on a large production.’ sand were taken. Even Pedder potline. Tasmania’s power surplus Pedder 2000, 114B Winmalee Road In 1994, Pedder 2000 is seeking reaches 130 MW. Balwyn Vic 3103. visual present­ations at the Hobart wide knowledge of optics, screen, where scene after scene Pennies were retrieved by the Sydney Town Hall was dram­atic and electronics and music, and was appeared, faded and dissolved to the to bring the Lake Pedder audio-visual Eckman Grab. The dune also 1994: Pedder 2000 is launched in Hobart with national and inter­ Contact Milo Dunphy (TEC) 02 247 7476; unrivalled—on eight con­secu­tive deeply interested in the visual haunting music of Sibelius and Delius. back to life as a powerful force for the remains in position, protected by a nation­al expressions of support. Brigid Dowsett (ACF) 02 247 4285. occasions there was standing appeal of the images from slides The vision was so powerful that spirited bid to restore Lake Pedder. mat of peat. Twelve good reasons why Lake Pedder should be restored Bob Brown

Lake Pedder was, will again be, one of of visi­tors to Tasmania, and increas­ed The Pedder 2000 Committee­ and Dr 1 the Planet’s most gently beautiful intrastate (local) tourism by only 2 10Louise Crossley have recommended a places. ­It is three kilometres long and per­cent, this would boost spend­ing in centre of excellence in restorative wide, an area of nine square Tas­mania by $20 million annually. ecology be set up—to decide how best kilometres, 300 metres in altitude, in to restore Lake Pedder. The centre’s This would mean an extra 620 jobs in Tas­mania’s western mountains. World studies and experience could then be Tasmania’s service industries. authorities, including the World 7 used for similar projects overseas. Conservation Union have called for The impoundment, as it is, is the least The 3 small dams used to flood Lake the lake’s restoration. popular of Tasmania’s seven top trout 8 Pedder could be removed, with Feder­ fisheries, with the worst catch rates. 11 The lake’s beach of fine, pink quartzite al funding. This would create hun­d­reds Restor­ing Lake Pedder and the sand was, and will be, a Mecca for of jobs. But this is not essential. The 2 Serpen­tine River could create a ‘wild’ walk­­ers, photo­graphers, artists and recovery can be carried out by ‘pulling trout fishery of the type which is most poets. The beach, three kilometres the plug’ in the diversion tun­nels at the popular these days. long, took six minutes to walk across. dams. Perhaps the dams could be kept Behind it are Pedder’s 8 metre high Lake Pedder is a unique type of glacial as a monument to the trag­edy of sand dunes and, behind them are the 9 lake, formed by the last glaciations. flooding Lake Pedder in 1972. exquisite little Maria Lakes and Dr Kevin Kiernan, a Tasmanian The whole world would win. marshes. Geomor­pholo­gist, describes it as an 12What a symbol of optimism, as we The study by Professor Peter Tyler’s ‘…extraordinary landform complex celebrate the new millennium,­ the 3 expert team from Deakin­ University that…has no replicate on Earth and is Pedder 2000 Project (alongside has found that the lake bed, its dunes, akin to a biological species for which ‘Sydney 2000’) would be a symbol of Lake Maria, and even the sand only one solitary and vulnerable human-kind turn­ing around at least patterns on the beach are still intact, individual remains’. some of the destruc­tion of the awaiting recovery. Only a few It is of world scientific interest. twentieth century, in a gesture of millimetres of fine silt covers the Its recovery is already sparking goodwill to nature and to all future scene. international attention. generations. Even the Pedder Pennies, little stones 4 surrounded by a smooth soft collar of ferromanganese, sit on Pedder’s floor, as they did before the inundation. The Support from across the world restoration would allow study of the The campaign to restore Lake Pedder has fired the imagination of many people. pennies, and, if they survived,­ any of The Aga Khan, Prince Phillip, Joanna Lumley, John Farnham, Allan Ginsberg, Arne the area’s unique species of molluscs Naess and Bryce Courtenay are among the thousands of people who have registered and other life forms, as well as any their support for the project. Here’s what the Aga Khan wrote: aboriginal sites in the valley. Economist, Mr. Brian Kohl, has found I have just been advised of proposals to restore Lake Pedder to its original 5 that there will be no cost from draining splendour, and hasten, through the good offices of Professor David Bellamy, to add the impound­ment over Lake Pedder. my personal endorsement, as a lifelong conservationist, to this visionary and most This is because the flooding of Lake inspiring endeavour. Pedder provides only 60 mega­watts of The tragic fate of Lake Pedder presents in microcosm the ravages on the ecology of electricity, while Tasmania has an our planet wreaked by profit-motivated attitudes which ultimately prove both excess of 130 megawatts, and when shortsighted and short-term. Comalco goes, that will be 170 mega­ Efforts to prevent the initial destruction gave birth to a new green consciousness watts more. That is, Tasmania can spare which spread throughout the world. May its reincarnation similarly serve as a the 60 megawatts at no loss or cost to universal symbol attesting to the validity of those beliefs and re-inforcing the our economy. environmental awareness which must henceforth guide our destinies. Lake Pedder presents a cautionary tale to which we have a unique and unhoped-for Tourism expert, Dr Louise Crossley, opportunity to provide a happy ending. The conservation com­­munity must rise 6 estimates that even if the lake’s recov­ vigorously and united to meet this exemplary challenge. ery drew only an additional 4 per­cent Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan

WHAT YOU CAN DO • Please join Pedder 2000, and become part of the efforts of existing conservation organisations and individuals worldwide. • Please give generously to enable us to run a first-class campaign.

Pedder 2000 130 Davey St Hobart Tasmania 7000 Australia Phone (002) 24 0235 [International 61 02 24 0235] Fax (002) 23 5112 [International 61 02 23 5112]