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- Contents Category: Non-fiction
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- Article Title: Tasmania's Wilderness Battles: A History
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In Tasmania’s Wilderness Battles, Greg Buckman provides a history of the environment movement in Tasmania. He focuses on the various battles that have taken place between environment activists and those developers that have viewed Tasmania’s wilderness as being purely a source of profit.
Buckman opens with the Lake Pedder battle in the 1960s. This battle was waged between activists and the Hydro Electric Commission, and was significant for ‘its radicalising influence on the Tasmanian environment movement’. Buckman moves on to describe disputes over the Franklin River, the Farmhouse Creek forest and the Gunns pulp mill. Buckman concludes by arguing that Tasmania needs to adopt a more ‘enlightened view of wilderness’.
- Book 1 Title: Tasmania's Wilderness Battles
- Book 1 Subtitle: A History
- Book 1 Biblio: Allen & Unwin, $29.95 pb, 272 pp
- Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
- Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
The research that has gone into Tasmania’s Wilderness Battles is impressive. Buckman’s commitment to environmental sustainability both within and outside Tasmania is heartfelt. As Buckman argues, ‘(w)ilderness is as much a state of mind as it is a physical reality’. This is a point that ‘environmentalists’ have always acknowledged, but which has not been heeded by those developers for whom wilderness ‘has nearly always been expendable’.
At times, Buckman tries too hard to make the events seem exciting and relevant. For example, he writes that during the 1960s and 1970s ‘(b)ig business forestry … arrived and the forests would never be the same again’. Lines such as this have a sensationalistic quality that is redolent of the tabloid media. They detract from the seriousness and sophistication of Buckman’s argument.
Overall, though, Tasmania’s Wilderness Battles is a useful entry into the field of studies about the environment and, more broadly, social movements in Australia. Buckman’s accounts of the various environment battles in Tasmania are lengthy and well referenced. His dedication to protecting the natural environment is inspirational.
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