Heart, Art & Science for takanya/Tarkine
takanya / Tarkine forest in North West Tasmania has magnificent diversity and abundance of native species, of which 56 are rare, threatened or endangered. This sacred forest has significant wisdom within it to show us ways to create a regenerative future.
Our mission is to connect with takanya / Tarkine as a community with a heart, head and hands approach of teaching. We will host an annual collective art project based in Hobart and a citizen science project based in Corinna in the Tarkine. Both of these initiatives will connect our participants to the interconnected and cutting edge wisdom and science of living systems.
“Throughout the living world, we find living systems nesting within other living systems.” Fritjof Capra
Photo credit: Dr Keith Martin-Smith
Facts about takanya / Tarkine.
The Tarkine is the second largest temperate rainforest in the world and the largest temperate rainforest in Australia, with over 400,000 hectares of virgin wilderness. Here are some facts to share about this beautiful forest:
There are three plants that are a direct link with South America’s Patagonia, New Guinea and New Zealand, with which Tasmania was connected to as part of the super continent Gondwanaland.
Over 2,000 hectares is covered by wet eucalypt forest areas, where trees grow to be taller than 41 metres high! These areas are said to be “large enough to be self-sustaining and support ongoing evolutionary processes”.
The Tarkine is home to more than 60 species of rare, threatened and endangered species.
The world’s largest extant carnivorous marsupial, the Tasmanian Devil, lives in the Tarkine rainforest.
The Tarkine is home to the world’s largest freshwater crayfish, Astacopsis gouldi, also known as the Giant Freshwater Lobster.
There are almost no introduced predators.
The world’s only known insect fossils were found in the Tarkine rainforest, found in sediments of true glacial origin.
Fossils between 100-700 million years old, algal stromatolite fossils, were found around the Arthur and Julius Rivers and are Tasmania’s oldest known fossils.
The Tarkine is a mix of rainforest, wet and dry eucalypt forest, mixed forest, riverine, heathland, moorland and coastal ecosystems (Reference: https://www.tasmanianexpeditions.com.au/Blog/top-facts-about-the-tarkine).
Would you like to participate in one of our events?
We would love for you and your family to participate in one or both of our art or science projects. Please get in touch with us to register your participation: info@magicalfarm.org
Photo credit: Dr Keith Martin-Smith
“takanya / Tarkine is a vast expanse in a wilderness wonderland of wild rivers, dramatic coastal heathlands, button grass plains, bare mountains, ancient Huon pines, giant eucalypts and myrtles and extraordinary horizontal scrub. It is home to rare and endangered birds - like the orange-bellied parrot and the white goshawk - and countless animals such as the eastern pygmy possum. 40,000 years takanya has been home to the Tasmanian Aboriginal tarkiner people who inhabited the Sandy Cape region of this island’s wild west coast. The name Tarkine means belonging to, or of the tarkiner”
— Tarkine by WWF / Discover the Tarkine