Twelve month wait for Western Australia's giant climbing trees to reopen, despite funding injection

South West locals and prospective tourists hope the popular climbing trees will soon reopen. (ABC South West: Jacqueline Lynch)

Communities in Western Australia’s south are hopeful one of its major tourist drawcards will soon be reopened after a promising funding announcement.

The state government last weekend said it would commit $3 million to upgrading Pemberton’s two giant climbing trees, which people have been scaling for more than half a century.

The 61-metre-tall Gloucester and Dave Evans Bicentennial trees were closed to climbers in 2023 for structural safety reasons.

At the time, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) said it would not rule out closing them permanently, prompting concerns from the region’s tourism sector.

The new funding, which is part of a $165 million adventure tourism package, has gone some way to dispelling those fears.

But a DBCA spokesperson told the ABC the karri trees would likely remain closed for at least another 12 months.

“In the meantime, people are encouraged to visit the Gloucester National Park, where entry fees have been waived, and to experience the tree canopy ropes and zip-line course,” they said.

Tourism sector keen for more details on tree plan

WA Tourism Council CEO Evan Hall said he would not be holding his breath for a sudden reopening.

“No-one’s expecting [the trees] to open soon,” he told ABC Radio South West and Great Southern.

“I imagine it might well be quite a few years still before that’s back in action.”

He said the DBCA had closed and reopened climbing on the trees multiple times in the past.

“Each time, they just leave it closed for a long time, about a year, before they get around to doing the maintenance,” Mr Hall said.

“Then [they] open it again and then discover that the maintenance didn’t fix all the problems, so they close it again.”

Mr Hall said more work was needed to maintain the trees year round and proactively improve the attraction for visitors.

“The $3 million needs to do more than just get the tree open, [but] to also create more of an experience there.”

Local tour guide Graeme Dearle said the funding was nonetheless a good sign.

“We’ve been lobbying for some time for the trees to be open,” he said.

“We’re just really happy to know that the government’s obviously been sentimental to our concerns, and [is] putting money towards these key attractions.”

Mr Dearle, who runs Pemberton Discovery Tours, said the area’s economy was heavily dependent on attractions like the climbing trees to bring in tourists.

“We get a lot of international [and] interstate people visiting and their itineraries are based on these icons,” he said.

“I know in a lot of cases people were changing their itinerary because of the trees being closed.”

He said he was excited to hear more details from the government about what the promised upgrades would look like.

The DBCA said it was already working with engineers and arborists to remove and replace the upper-tree towers on both trees.