*Pic– Ted Mead – Mist cloaks the Tarkine’s forest near Savage River – Raw wild earth
Australia’s largest single tract of rainforest is an unexplored realm draped in dense forests and vibrant greenery, yet injudicious politics driven by insatiable greed has prevented this vast emerald world from being protected in a secure reserve. This exquisite expanse should be held in reverence as the Tarkine’s rainforest is wildness at its finest.
Fulfilling the IUCN criteria for World Heritage listing, the Tarkine’s emerald core is of ‘outstanding universal significance’, and a place of dreams and mystery where biota flourishes and wild things roam.
Since European settlement in Tasmania, resource exploiters have been desperately seeking an El Dorado in the Tarkine believing that it must be elusively out there somewhere, but in our modern nature-diminishing world the regions richest values lay in its naturalness, and as far as remote country goes, the bigger the expanse, the greater the asset.
Our interconnectedness to wildness
Despite what most politicians, economists, bankers, miners, loggers and tourism developers claim, the world does need wildness. We simply need to retain as much of our natural earth as possible because without it humans will struggle to have any guidance and connection to all living things and the web of life.
Nineteenth century wilderness explorer, campaigner and philosopher, John Muir professed in a pantheistic manner “The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness”
Pantheism in the true sense of the word comes from being immersed in nature. We embrace solace in nature, and within wildness that congruity is far more profound and understood. So when we lose wilderness we lose the opportunity to grasp our basic identity, and for many of us our interconnectedness to nature is how we measure our inner happiness.
Wilderness is not only the last remote natural refuges on Earth, it is a place where our primal souls emerged, and without question our emotional connection with nature is such a compelling part of what we sense. We respond to the wilds because we evolved from it in both in body and mind. There is nowhere better to find ourselves then to be out amidst it, and so our primeval epiphanies come from being receptive to the earth that surrounds us.
Exploring the Tarkine’s wildness can be a fulfilling pastime
The recent discovery of Tiger Hollow, which is not defined on any topographic map, is compelling insofar as its location deep in the densest of temperate forest gives some credence to that there still remains much to explore within the Tarkine.
The Hollow itself is a mysterious clearing amidst a grand expanse of complex rainforest topography. It is a rare phenomenon in a vast jungle to find a place where the sun reaches the earth. How it came to be may be a subject of conjecture, and is one of the many unknowns to discover within this wild country.
Emerging from the rainforest into a clearing such as Tiger Hollow you feel a sense delight. On arrival one’s imagination immediately begins to ponder. Is this the last refuge for the Tassie Tiger? If so, then nobody can disturb it, and therefore should its whereabouts remain a secret?
For many of us it is a blessing that detailed maps don’t depict every feature of the landscape or the true nature of the vegetation mix that decorates such places. Part of the essence of wildness is that its features and dimensions remain relatively unknown, which enhances the attraction towards pure exploration.
In Tasmania the concept of wilderness, and the need to preserve it has been contested for near a half a century now, even longer in places such as the USA.
The commodification of wilderness, particularly in the present era, seems to be the neo-paradigm as tourism vested interests chose to exploit it without fully understanding it.
Our future lies in being guardians of wild places. Yet as history shows, we often don’t fully value something until we lose it.
All the more reason why we need to securely protect it now!
On arrival at Tiger Hollow, Ted was overwhelmed by a plethora of pesky Thylacines …
*Ted Mead has been campaigning for the protection of the Tarkine’s wilderness for decades, and during that time he’s been exploring the remote reaches of its expanse. Ted believes the formal dedication of a Tarkine National Park is still some years away, and is realistic that it would take another lifetime’s effort to comprehensively discover the region on foot.
