Tarkine history - people and land use
This page has been archived and is no longer updated.
Aboriginal history
- Aboriginal presence since at least 10,000 years ago (generally accepted that Aborigines have lived in Tasmania for the last 37,000 years).
- 400 to 600 Aboriginal people lived in at least eight groups on the northwest coast of Tasmania when European settlement of Tasmania took place.
- Used coastal areas and inland buttongrass and forests.
- Government, through George Augustus Robinson, convinced north-west Aborigines to move to Flinders Island in early 1830s.
Aboriginal presence
- Aboriginal Tasmanians assert their connection to the Tarkine today.
European exploration
- 17th century Dutch and Portuguese explorers most likely first Europeans to see the Tarkine coast.
- Abel Tasman's are the earliest remaining European records of encounters with the northwest. He sighted Mount Zeehan and Mount Heemskirk in 1642.
Minerals
- 1820s: limited prospecting
- 1850s: exploration
- 1871: tin found at Mt Bischoff (Waratah) - most prosperous tin mine in the world at the time
- 1870s/80s: gold and other minerals found in most waterways
- 1890s on: mining corporations take over operations
- 2004: Savage River mine only major operation
Logging
- Timber companies Gunns, Britton Brothers and Corinna Timbers process timber taken from old-growth forests in the Tarkine.
- Gunns uses the majority (90%-95%) of this timber for woodchips.
- Britton Brothers processes rainforest species (30% of its take) primarily for rough-sawn timber.
- Tasmanian government announced plans to lift the logging moratorium in the Tarkine's Savage River rainforest corridor, which will also allow the logging of deep red myrtle.
Hydro
- Pieman River hydro-electricity scheme was approved by parliament in 1971 and completed in 1987.
