Peter Sypkens, Hobart
More than 1000 people marched through Southport Lagoon Conservation Area in southern Tasmania on April 17, to support the protection of Recherche Bay, a national heritage-listed site under threat from logging.
The march route followed a recently built logging road through the public reserve to the privately owned land on Recherche Bay, which consists of a mere 146 hectares of regrowth forest. Construction of the road was stopped at the end of 2002 by the Recherche Bay Protection Group (RBPG), which saved the site from being clear-felled the following year. However, the land is due to be "selectively logged" within the next few months.
Halfway through the conservation reserve the marchers held a rally, chaired by Ren Cameron from the RBPG. Cameron acknowledged the traditional owners of the land, and condemned the sacrificing of heritage for a small amount of regrowth timber. Other protests on the day included a rally at La Perouse in Sydney and a banner drop from a Tall Ship in Sydney Harbour.
Professor John Mulvaney, one of Australia's leading archaeologists, said the site should have been bought by the state or federal governments. The site is significant because it was the location of one of the first recorded meetings between Europeans and Aborigines. In 1793, for a period of five weeks, the sailors of the French ships La Recherche and L'Esperence (meaning "to study" and "to hope", respectively), visited the area, establishing friendly relations with Tasmanian Aborigines from the Liaquannie band.
Mulvaney nominated the site under the new Commonwealth heritage legislation — it is No.6 on the list — and made an urgent plea for the area to be preserved, as no archaeological study had been done. "It doesn't have to be done now", he said. "It could be done in another 200 years".
The Recherche Bay land is also notable for being the site of the first documentation of Tasmania's floral emblem, the blue gum, collected by botanist Labillardiere; a cottage garden created by expedition gardener Lahaie; and for the world-first discovery of the variation in the earth's geo-magnetism.
Geoff Law of The Wilderness Society said that it was typical of the "fraudulent way that Tasmanian forests are treated by the Lennon government and [logging company] Gunns", motivated by profit alone. After logging the site would resemble "a mixture of Swiss cheese and a dog's breakfast".
Some two-thirds of the site would be clear-felled, with many heritage sites, such as middens, being lost forever. One of the few concessions is a 100 metre buffer zone from the beach. Law concluded by telling those present that "we do have the power to save Recherche Bay".
Greens Senator Bob Brown likened the proposed destruction of the site as being analogous to book burning. "Great crimes followed book burning, and great crimes will follow the burning of Recherche Bay".
He told the rally that "we must not allow them to bulldoze the living heritage of this nation", and said that it was the people present who represented the wishes of the Australian people, not those such as PM John Howard and environment minister Ian Campbell who stood for "small-minded greed that placed profit ahead of everything". Brown urged the rally to walk further into the reserve to see the beauty of the area but also to "see the squalor of what Gunns has done", referring to the scar of the logging road and the damage done by four-wheel drive vehicles going off-road.
The rally ended with a plea by local resident Anneke Thomas for the Tasmanian government to realise the value of the area and step in and protect a "cornerstone for a place of reconciliation", and with peace activist Peter Jones leading the crowd in a spirited chant of "Save Recherche Bay", in French and English.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 27, 2005.
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