Our Latest News

Major recruiting drive under way for Parks and Wildlife Service

09/02/2010

The Parks and Wildlife Service had begun one of its largest ever recruiting drives, with up to 30 positions available around Tasmania.More

Rain provides respite for fire fighters

05/02/2010

Overnight rain on the Lake Mackintosh fire has temporarily cleared smoke from the Tullah and Rosebery areas, and allowed equipment abandoned by fire fighters earlier in the week to be flown from the fireground.

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Cradle Mountain interim visitor centre improvements

03/02/2010

Visitor services at Cradle Mountain are set to be improved with construction of extensions to the visitor centre under way this week.

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Savage River National Park

Introduction

Savage River Icon

Savage River National Park is a wilderness region in the north west of Tasmania. The park protects the largest contiguous area of cool temperate rainforest surviving in Australia and acts as a refuge for a rich primitive flora, undisturbed river catchments, high quality wilderness, old growth forests, geodiversity and natural landscape values.

The western portion of the park includes the most extensive basalt plateaux in Tasmania that still retains a wholly intact forest ecosystem. The upper Savage River, which lends the park its name, runs through a pristine, rainforested river gorge system. The park contains habitat for a diverse rainforest fauna and is a stronghold for a number of vertebrate species which have suffered population declines elsewhere in Tasmania and mainland Australia.

The parks remoteness from human settlement and mechanised access, its undisturbed hinterland rivers and extensive
rainforest, pristine blanket bog peat soils and isolated, elevated buttongrass moorlands ensure the wilderness character of the park. Like the vast World Heritage listed Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area to its south, the area is one of the few remaining temperate wilderness areas left on Earth.

Unlike other national parks, Savage River National Park remains inaccessible. In keeping with its wilderness character, there are no facilities and no roads or mechanised access to the park. However, the park is surrounded by the Savage River Regional Reserve, in which a number of rough 4WD tracks provide limited access. To the north of the reserve, a number of State Forest Reserves can be accessed by standard vehicles. They offer an insight into the magnificent rainforest ecosystem that lies to the southeast within the Savage River National Park.