Saving the Tarkine Wilderness

True wilderness still exists on planet earth – within driving distance of a domestic airport.  The Tarkine is named after the Tarkinener Aboriginal people who inhabited a large expanse of North West Tasmania at least since the land bridge to mainland Australia was flooded circa 6000BCE.  It’s an incredible primordial and still largely unspoiled place.  It is also a stronghold of the new threatened Tasmanian Devil.  Stands of tall Eucalyptus forest give way to pure temperate rainforest that wash up against rolling grassy hills interspersed with woodland, rivers and streams that find their way to a wild coastline. 

This should have been made national park along with Yellowstone but instead the Tasmanian government spent scarce public funds bulldozing a road through the middle of it.  It was calculated vandalism.  I joined the fight against the road, eventually suing the Government in the Supreme Court.  Largely as a result of that campaign eco-tourism is flourishing in the Tarkine and the world’s largest tract of temperate rainforest is protected from logging.  However it is now threatened by mining. Given the size of the area some small scale or underground operations could be managed without doing great violence to the integrity of the area.  Unfortunately we are talking ‘open cut,’ lots of mines and lots of roads.  

 

This is not my video, is was shared on youtube by user jeffdjtube. It shows some of the gorgeous scenery in the Tarkine region.

This is a call for help.   

See more here: http://www.wilderness.org.au/regions/tasmania/tarkine-indigenous-heritage-under-threat