World Heritage Values

takayna deserves World Heritage listing  

takayna’s spectacular coast, rainforest, rare wildlife and remarkable Aboriginal cultural landscape, await World Heritage listing, National Park protection, and return to Aboriginal ownership.  

World Heritage protection would recognise takayna’s outstanding universal values, including the largest area of cool temperate rainforest in the southern hemisphere, living reminders of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana and remnants of villages that bear testimony to the long habitation by Tasmanian Aboriginal people. 

Outstanding natural heritage attributes include the largest tract of intact cool temperate rainforest in Australia, extensive high-quality wilderness, expansive tracts of temperate moorland and heathland, habitat for in-situ conservation of biological diversity and geological and geomorphological evidence of Earth’s history. 

Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) is only one of two World Heritage sites on Earth to fulfil seven of UNESCO’s ten criteria for Outstanding Universal Values. takayna has features for each of the seven relevant criteria for Outstanding Universal Values, that lie outside the current boundaries of the TWWHA. 

The Australian Heritage Council found takayna to be of outstanding heritage value and recommended it be entered on the National Heritage List. The Council found that the rainforests are important for their flora, lichens and fossils, which help tell the story of Australia’s ancient evolution. In 2013, the Australian Government failed to list the full recommended area. The Aboriginal Heritage Coastline that was placed on the National Heritage list still suffers severe damage to its cultural values from off-road vehicles. 

Adding takayna to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area will make it a beacon for northwest Tasmania’s economy, job-creation and sense of pride in a world where wild and scenic beauty is diminishing every day.