Excellent article and deserving to be read by every urban greenie (and politician).
Two additional points. The most serious concern about the Walpole Wilderness Area is that, if it is managed in the way that former environment minister Judy Edwards wanted, then a bushfire on a hot windy summer's day will burn not just 5000 or 10000 hectares but potentially could take out the entire 366,000 hectares of the amalgamated parks and reserves. Such a fire would guarantee the localised extinction of many species of fauna, with several decades or generations required before recolonisation occurs. In other words, because of the creation of a wilderness area without adequate fire management strategies in place, the environmental consequences of a wildfire will be severe.
As for the Great Western Woodland wilderness proposal, most people don't realise that vast stretches of this area were clearfelled for mine timber and for firewood around the turn of last century, shortly after gold was discovered in Kalgoorlie in 1896. The unofficial best estimate of timber removal is 30 million tonnes over a 20 to 30 year period. The amazing thing is that, in spite of what the green movement would describe as devastating clear-felling, nature has returned the woodland and its biodiversity in less than 100 years. This strikes me as a powerful argument in support of continued human use of a sustainable timber resource.

Bliss.
Two of my favourite forestry resources.
Roger Underwood and Bernie Masters.
Readers might note that, in Victoria, the Avon Wilderness was a concern for many years due to inadequate fuel reduction measures. Two CFA friends swore that if fire hit it they would not be available to fight it.
The problem was resolved in 2006/07 when a lightning strike started a high intensity fire that, in effect, sterilised it. Its no longer a case that animals fleeing from fire will recolonise it one day. The flora, fauna and the soil that was their habitat was burned to a dust.
Wind and rain has washed the dust away. In many places there is no habitat to recolonise.
Fire is part of bio diversity. Ignore it at your peril.

The opportunity now exists to Educate people about Management of Wilderness areas , we need a philosophy that requires seamless media attention to propagating the message of Human intervention in Forestry / Wilderness management ; the public should be encouraged to assist .

Catastrophic fires are are not good for Forrest's or wilderness and if CO2 is real no good for GW either and of course we must not forget the Fauna .

We need to Photograph the Hiroshima look alike Forests right now and combine Healthy Managed Forrest with them on TV with a Presenter (Current Guv. Gen. would be terrific)asking; What do you want our Forrest's to look like , like this Chard or Lush and beautiful like this ? Then flash "Forest Floor Hazard Reduction" with adults and Boy Scouts and Basket Ball Girls with Diesel Fire wick Sticks igniting the detritus and an iconic Firee saying "Bit a' Backburnin sure beats gettin Toasted but hay!"

Hit the airwaves with this every second month to make a difference , to return Sanity to Forrest and Parks management.

The "Greens" will go mental but they have now indelibly Prooven to be hopeless Risk Managers with faulty ideas on the value of the four boys we recently lost added to the Human Carnage in Victorian Fires .

Phoenix did you know that wattle will recover topsoil faster than carting it in with a truck . Wattle is a legume so it will replace nitrogen burnt out of the soil , the wattle seed pods will carpet the soil helping it to recover it is a remarkable plant in forestry recovery , Cheers

Wilderness manages itself quite well, thank you very much. What is not needed are the two-legged mutts with insufficient grey matter between the ears interfering all the time. Nature is fine, it's people who need managing.

individual: it seems you haven't been out into the Australian wilderness for some time. It doesn't manage itself at all; instead, if left to their own devices, foxes, feral pigs, feral cats, dieback disease, weeds and (in dryer country) feral horses, donkeys, goats and camels would quickly destroy many environmental values. In fact, one can argue that wilderness hasn't managed itself at all since Aboriginal people arrived here some 50,000 years ago. Their influence has been persuasive and today, with little Indigenous land management being practiced in national parks and nature reserves, we are losing many of the 'natural' values that were in fact a result of long-term Indigenous management actions prior to European settlement.
I assume you're not calling Aboriginal people two-legged mutts so I'd be interested in your opinion on what role Indigenous people have in managing wilderness in Australia.