Tasmanian Wilderness
Overview
Proposed extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area
The Australian Government is putting forward a request to extend the existing world heritage area boundary.
- Dossier for the proposed boundary extension (PDF - 7.2 MB)
- Media release: Supporting the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement - 31 January 2013
Supplementary information on the proposed boundary extension was provided to the World Heritage Centre on 28 February 2013.
- Supplementary information (PDF 3.9 MB)
- Map 1: Tasmanian Wilderness - Existing and Revised Boundary (PDF - 3.6 MB)
- Map 2: Tasmanian Wilderness - Revised Boundary (PDF - 3.7 MB)
- Map A: Tasmanian Wilderness - Formal Reserves within the Revised Boundary (PDF 3.6 MB)
- Map B: Giant Trees (PDF 2.1 MB)
- Map C: Tall Eucalypt Forests within WHA and Proposed Addition (PDF - 3.6 MB)
- Map D: Tall Eucalypt Forests - connection and context across the WHA and Proposed Addition (PDF - 5.2 MB)
The Tasmanian Wilderness is one of the three largest temperate wilderness areas remaining in the Southern Hemisphere. The region is home to some of the deepest and longest caves in Australia. It is renowned for its diversity of flora, and some of the longest lived trees and tallest flowering plants in the world grow in the area. The Tasmanian Wilderness is a stronghold for several animals that are either extinct or threatened on mainland Australia.
In the southwest Aboriginal people developed a unique cultural tradition based on a specialized stone and bone toolkit that enabled the hunting and processing of a single prey species (Bennett's wallaby) that provided nearly all of their dietary protein and fat. Extensive limestone cave systems contain rock art sites that have been dated to the end of the Pleistocene period. Southwest Tasmanian Aboriginal artistic expression during the last Ice Age is only known from the dark recesses of limestone caves.
The Tasmanian Wilderness was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982 and extended in 1989, June 2010 and June 2012.
The Tasmanian Wilderness was one of 15 world heritage places included in the National Heritage List on 21 May 2007.
World Heritage listing
Visit the UNESCO web site for official listing information on the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage area:
National Heritage listing
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