Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 11 September 2023
National Heritage Assessment of Tasmania’s Stanley & their Nut welcome, but let’s not forget about takayna
Bob Brown Foundation has welcomed news that Stanley and the Nut will be assessed for inclusion on the National Heritage list but has reminded Federal Environment Minister Plibersek that takayna / Tarkine remains unlisted. Ten years after the Australian Heritage Council recommended a National Heritage Listing of Tasmania’s takayna, it remains unlisted. takayna has also been assessed in the 2013 Tasmanian Forests Agreement process as meeting World Heritage Values although successive Australian Governments have refused to nominate the area for world heritage listing.
“Stanley clearly has National Heritage values worthy of listing, and a listing would recognise the importance to the community of protecting those values,” said Scott Jordan, Bob Brown Foundation’s takayna /Tarkine Campaigner.
“We remind Minister Plibersek that it has been ten years since the Australian Heritage Council assessed and recommended the National Heritage Listing of takayna /Tarkine. That’s a decade of logging and mining with no assessment of impacts on national heritage values. The Minister has a request on her desk to list takayna, and she ought to be the Minister that sees this outstanding natural area afforded National Heritage protection.”
takayna / Tarkine hosts Australia’s largest remaining temperate rainforest, globally significant karst systems, culturally important Aboriginal landscapes and over 60 rare, threatened and endangered species.
“Imagine the boon for northwest Tasmania of having both Stanley and takayna listed on the National Heritage Register. It’s well past time,” Scott Jordan concluded.
A two-decade timeline of assessments for takayna without secure protection is failing to ensure national and world heritage significant values are being protected. In 2003 takayna was included on the now-defunct National Estate. In 2006 Minister Malcolm Turnbull placed it on the Australian Heritage Council’s priority assessment list. In 2009 Minister Peter Garrett placed the area under an Emergency National Heritage Listing, only to have that listing removed under replacement Minister Tony Burke in 2010. Reports by the Australian Heritage Council in 2010 and 2013 recommended Heritage Listing.
Featured image above of the Tasmanian giant freshwater crayfish courtesy Ted Mead.
