Alex Bainbridge, Hobart
The Recherche Bay Protection Group held a commemoration on October 28 for the 250th anniversary of the birth of French botanist Jacques-Julian Houtou de Labillardiere. The group used the occasion to call once again on the federal and Tasmanian state governments to save the bay from the imminent threat of logging.
The bay, located on Tasmania's south-east coastline, was the site of landings by French scientists in 1792-93 as part of the d'Entrecasteaux expedition. The French expedition built an observatory and a garden, collected samples of local flora and fauna that are still on display in Europe and made friendly contact with local Aboriginal people. Much of the information that remains about the local Aboriginal language and culture was documented on the expedition.
Recherche Bay was where Labillardiere collected most of his specimens. It was where he identified and named Eucalyptus globulus, now the official floral icon of Tasmania.
One feature of the October 28 commemoration was the display of official photos of Labillardiere's collections in the Natural History Museum in Paris. This was the first public display of the photos since state Greens leader Peg Putt brought them back from Paris.
Recherche Bay Protection Group spokesperson Wren Fraser Cameron told Green Left Weekly that "the important thing about the photos is that they link the living botanical museum of Recherche Bay with the established scientific collections in Europe".
The bay is an internationally renowned site of natural and cultural heritage and, according to the Protection Group, government inaction is the main reason that the Bay faces the imminent threat of logging.
"It is a shame that we have come together to commemorate the life and legacy of Labillardiere knowing that destruction is awaiting the forest and landscape where he undertook his scientific research", Cameron said in a media statement.
She told GLW that the regional forest agreement "has failed to protect the important values of the site". She has called for the forest practices plan for the logging on private land near the bay to be declared "null and void on the basis of the inadequacies in the current RFA".
The Recherche Bay Protection Group is holding a rally at 11.30am on November 5 at the Parliament House Lawns. The rally will be calling on the state government to overturn the licence for the logging road across the Southport Lagoon Conservation Area, to buy the private land on which logging is proposed and for a management plan to be drawn up for the National Heritage listed site.
From Green Left Weekly, November 2, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.