STORY BY BOB BROWN A LIFETIME | | IN THE W ILDERNESS In June 2013 1700sq.km were added to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Bob Brown looks back over the 30 years since the historic High Court decision that saved the Franklin River. | Rock Island Bend, Franklin River by Peter Dombrovskis. An iconic image ever since its use in the campaign to save the Franklin in the early 1980s. 64 Australian Geographic November–December 2013 65 | Upper Florentine Valley, by Rob Blakers. As committed to conservation as Dombrovskis, Rob has taken on the challenge of recording old-growth forests. This area is part of the addi- tion made to the World Heritage Area in 2013. 66 Australian Geographic November–December 2013 67 IST ON OF TI T A H V E R Y E S E A N R O C WATCH a video about Peter Dombrovskis. | Download the free viewa app and use your smartphone to Ten thousand years ago, before agriculture, scan this page. the whole planet was wild and there were 10 million or so human beings making a life in the wilderness. Now, less than one-tenth of the land surface is still untouched, and by the end of this century, there will be up to 10 billion of us crowded onto planet Earth. Who really thinks, given the greed and short-sightedness evident in human history, that this crowded populace will not invade, BOB BROWN became the face of the Franklin River occupy and exploit the remainder? campaign in 1982 and was elected to the Tasma- | Some say there is no pure wilderness left. Everywhere – no nian House of Assembly in 1983. A senator for 18 years, he led debate on climate change and matter how remote – is contaminated with chemicals, heated Mersey Valley, by Rob Blakers. by climate change or invaded by weeds and feral animals. The human rights issues. In 2012 Bob was awarded the Part of the Mersey Valley in Cradle beauty of the night sky is blotted out by the glow of the cities and AG Society’s Lifetime of Conservation award. Mountain–Lake St Clair National Park was criss-crossed by the twinkling lights of jetliners and other objects, added to the World Heritage Area in 1991. such as the space station, which appears brighter than Venus. As if to hasten the end of wilderness, state governments in On that rafting trip, Paul and I spent 11 days floating down the New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland Franklin without seeing another human being. The side canyons, have recently agreed to open national parks to cattle grazing, waterfalls, rainforests, eagles, platypuses and glow-worms had recreational shooting (see page 36) and off-road motor vehicles, me entranced. Paul pointed out the flood levels of the proposed which will cause all manner of impacts. What is more, “sustain- dams high on the Franklin’s ravine walls and, just after we passed able” mining, logging and private-enterprise tourism businesses the Franklin’s confluence with the mighty Gordon River, we Conservation in focUS are on the drawing boards for some of Australia’s most far-flung were suddenly confronted by the jackhammers, helicopters and In Tasmania, the link between photography and the environment is legendary. and exquisitely beautiful places. explosives of dam builders looking for the best place to secure the first of the four proposed dams. No longer entranced, I was HEN I FIRST FLOATED down Tasmania’s wild Franklin horrified. We came back to civilisation determined to publicise River with Launceston forester Paul Smith in 1976, the plight of the wild rivers. ASMANIAN PHOTOGRAPHERS first of Tasmania are legends,” says Damien Quilliam, paved the way for photographers such as Peter this was all on the way. Although the immediate Seven years of campaigning to save the Franklin River from pointed their lenses at the wild in the curator of Into the Wild: Wilderness Photog- Dombrovskis, whose 1979 Morning Mist, Rock Wthreat to the Franklin was the contested Gordon-below-Franklin a similar fate to that of Lake Pedder culminated in the 1982 T 1860s, when Morton Allport lugged raphy in Tasmania, an exhibition charting the Island Bend played a pivotal role in halting Dam, our talk around the campfire was about the loss of the blockade at Warner’s Landing, in which 1300 people were fragile glass plates into the state’s centre to development of Tasmanian wilderness photog- construction of the Gordon-below-Franklin Dam. remote and pristine nature of the landscape, qualities of truly arrested. Domestic and international focus on the campaign produce images of Lake St Clair. In the years raphy, which is currently on show at the Queen Since the 1980s, photographers such as Rob wild country already missing in some parts of Tasmania. grew as popular celebrities including Sir Yehudi Menuhin, that followed, the landscape photography tradi- Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, in Launceston. Blakers and Grant Dixon – who travelled around The devastating impact of the road from Maydena to Barry Humphries, Eartha Kitt, Claudio and Lesley Alcorso, and tion grew. ­Photographers such as the Spurlings “It was these photographers who championed Australia with his slide collection on a personal Strathgordon was already evident. It was built in the middle of David Bellamy (his arrest created headlines in London) backed and John Watt Beattie brought their images to efforts to recognise and preserve our wilderness crusade to raise awareness of the fragility of Tasmania’s southwest wilderness more than a decade earlier – the river’s rescue. More positive headlines were created when public awareness through magic lantern shows, by creating evocative images that encouraged so Tasmania’s wild places – have continued the funded by a £5 million (about $120 million today) grant from founder of AUSTRALIAN Geographic Dick Smith arrived in whereby images were projected onto screens many to appreciate these landscapes,” he says. wilderness photography tradition. In 2010, the Commonwealth under prime minister Robert Menzies. The his helicopter and helped set up the remote blockade’s radio when exposed glass plates were placed in In the 1920s, celebrated photographer with a group of contemporary wilderness road increased access to Lake Pedder National Park, which was communications (see page 75). lantern boxes. and conservationist Fred Smithies did just that photographers, they focused their lenses on the established in 1955 and folded into Southwest NP in 1968 before Yet it was the river itself that saved the day. The advent of In 1904, Beattie used his lantern slides to try when he travelled across Australia with his Vale of Belvoir, in Tasmania’s north-west (see the construction of three dams for generating hydro-electricity colour television brought the river’s natural beauty into Australia’s to dissuade the government from selling part of hand-coloured slides to showcase Tasmania’s Tasmania’s Veiled Beauty, AG 98.) Collectively, flooded the lake itself. Once-fabled bushwalking destinations, lounge rooms. The first ever colour campaign poster, featuring the Freycinet Peninsula, on the east coast. Four natural beauty. In the 1960s, renowned photog- they produced a portfolio of images the Tasma- including Frankland Range, Mt Anne and even the Western a photo of the Thunderush rapids, in the Franklin’s Great Ravine, years later, he used images of the Gordon River, rapher Olegas Truchanas took lyrical pictures of nian Land Conservancy has made freely available E Arthurs, lost their character as the huge expanse of the flooding was produced in 1979 by Sydney’s Southwest Committee. In L on the state’s west coast, in a campaign to have the beautiful, doomed Lake Pedder. He spent to environmental groups to help protect what’s ESP lake and its attendant white gravel roads affected the region’s 1980, after a number of solo rafting trips on the Franklin, cr a reserve on its banks enlarged. years campaigning with his camera to save left of the state’s untouched wilderness. IE IE L Continued page 70 U the lake from its eventual flooding. Truchanas JOANNA EGAN “The trailblazing wilderness photographers landscape and remoteness. Tasmanian photographer Peter Dombrovskis J 68 Australian Geographic November–December 2013 69 taSmaNia’S prOTEctED arEAS AND RESErvES | | N 1982, THE then Cradle Mountain– AREA OF ‘No dams’ blockade, Warners Landing, Gordon River, 1982. Crotty Road blockade, near Queenstown, 1983. TASmaNia 71,555sq.km Lake St Clair National Park, Franklin The campaign to stop the Gordon-below-Franklin dam culminated in a Bob Brown prepares to address protesters before they block the access road –Lower Gordon Wild Rivers NP and blockade, attracting thousands of protesters over its three-month staging. for dam construction; under his bail terms, he had to keep his distance. i Total protected area: Southwest NP joined the World Heritage 28,210sq.km List as the 7694sq.km Western Tasmania Wilderness National Parks WHA. The 39.4% WHA has since been extended: a 34 per Tasmanian cent increase in 1989; minor inclusions in Wilderness WHA: 2010 and 2012; and old-growth forests in 2013. Tasmania also has 19 national 15,845sq.km parks, only two of which (Deal Island and 22.1% Savage River NP) are inaccessible. There are more than 420 other reserves, includ- ing the Bay of Fires Conservation Area in the north-east and Tarkine Reserve in the north-west. Generally, no resource extraction is permitted in these parks. The majestic wild peak of Frenchmans Cap was saved from the indignity of being surrounded by a methane-belching moat. captured the now legendary photograph Morning Mist, Rock Island from the indignity of being surrounded by the methane-belching Bend (page 64); it was reproduced an estimated 1 million times moat of a dammed river and drowned forests.