The Greens say more than half a dozen Parks and Wildlife Service jobs are set to be cut, including roles protecting the World Heritage Area from biosecurity threats.
Greens MP Tabatha Badger said staff who carry out environmental assessments on parks and reserves were also among those affected.
“These are crucial jobs. These are part of the core functions that are going to protect our world-famous parks for generations to come,” she said.
Badger said the government had not said which jobs were going and staff whose roles were at risk had told the Greens they were not being properly consulted.
National Parks Association spokesperson Nicholas Sawyer said he understood about 10 jobs would go, but there had been no public statement on the number.
He said the cuts would fall on roles that protect nature, at a time when field staff were already “pretty thin on the ground”.
He said the service’s in-house planning team had already been run down and the cuts would be “practically the end of it”.
“I question what will happen to the tasks that these redundant workers should have been undertaking,” he said.
“They’ll either not get done at all, they’ll be done by AI, heaven help us or they get done by expensive consultants or they’ll get done by field staff who really should be out in the field.”
Badger said right to information documents showed a standard environmental assessment for a recent event at St Helens was initially not done because of resourcing constraints.
She said the assessment was later done because of a cultural heritage site and the track had to be changed.
Badger called on the government to shelve the planned Tyndall Range walk, which she said would cost more than $40 million and, like the Three Capes Track, would keep drawing on the parks budget.
The Greens are sponsoring a petition on behalf of the association and other organisations backing the jobs.
The petition has more than 1,000 signatures and Sawyer said the aim was to send a message to the government and parliament about the importance of the roles.
Invasive Species Council conservation advocate Tiana Purdell said a “very tiny team” managed deer across the state, including in the World Heritage Area, national parks and towns.
She said aerial culling had removed deer from the World Heritage Area and work was under way to remove them from Bruny and King islands, but those gains could easily be lost.
“That team and teams like it need to grow, not shrink,” she said.
Parks Minister Nick Duigan said the government relied heavily on Parks and Wildlife staff and would keep providing frontline firefighting and biosecurity services.
“It is no surprise that the government is looking for efficiencies,” he said.
“The parks department is part of that efficiency drive.”
He said half of Tasmania was held in parks and reserves and the staff who managed them were “hugely valued”.
