By Tom Kelly
The campaign to restore Tasmania's Lake Pedder to its original condition is gathering momentum in Australia and overseas.
The original Lake Pedder was a shallow glacial lake covering about 10 square kilometres and situated 320 metres above sea level in Tasmania's south-west. Famous for its breathtaking beauty, Lake Pedder was regarded as the jewel of the south-west wilderness.
It now lies submerged 20 metres beneath the surface of a 242 square kilometre "Lake Pedder", formed by a hydro-electric dam that was completed in 1972.
On January 26, the General Assembly of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), meeting in Argentina, called on Australia to investigate the feasibility of restoring the original lake. The IUCN motion noted that the "restoration of Lake Pedder would be a symbol to the world of a determination to redress some of the environmental mistakes of the past".
On April 18 an international campaign was launched with the backing of Dr David Suzuki and Professor David Bellamy, to restore the original lake by the year 2000.
Tasmanian Labor leader Michael Field has reportedly described the project as "an impossible dream", and energy minister Robin Gray (who once described the Franklin River as a "leech-ridden ditch") has said that restoration is "not an option". The appalling record of the Tasmanian Labor and Liberal parties on environmental issues, which originally came to national attention as a result of the drowning of Lake Pedder, means that their views on this issue suffer a serious lack of credibility.
Studies conducted by Professor Peter Tyler of the School of Aquatic Science and Natural Resources Management at Deakin University suggest that successful restoration of the lake is by no means ruled out. A survey involving sampling and echo-sounding has found that the sand dunes and the spectacular three-kilometre-long white quartzite beach that formed the eastern shore of the original lake are lying undisturbed under the water, covered by only a couple of millimetres of silt.
Other studies have found that the soils around the lake are still held together by dead vegetation, indicating that it may not yet be too late to restore the vegetation cover of the surrounding area.
As far as electricity supply is concerned, according to a report in the Australian on April 30, Tasmania has an electricity surplus of 130 megawatts, and another 170 megawatts will become available when Comalco closes its Bell Bay aluminium smelter in 2001. The Pedder dam contributes only 60 megawatts to the state's power capacity.
While it seems likely that it is feasible to restore Lake Pedder, governments will need to be pushed into action. Lake Pedder was drowned in 1972, despite a popular sentiment that it should be preserved, because politicians believed they could get away with ignoring popular sentiment.
If Lake Pedder is to be restored, and if this is to be a real symbol of environmental hope, the restoration also needs to represent a political turning point.
The militancy and willingness to mobilise shown in the campaign to save the Franklin River in the early 1980s need to become a permanent feature of environmental campaigns. And proposed environmental solutions need to be integrated with the solutions to other social problems such as unemployment. This will make possible the building of the wide base of support necessary to challenge the powerful few who have a vested interest in environmental destruction.