This book is a compilation with no named editor, but built from contributions ranging from stunning photography to flora, landscape, history and cultural heritage. The ten contributors include Robert Purves of the WWF, Sharnie Read, Dr Sally Bryant, Rick Ridgeway and not forgetting Bob Brown. 

It’s an almost impossible task to do a conventional review except to say that overall it’s highly emotional in love of the land, environment and heritage and is essentially dedicated to longtime campaigners and the brick walls they have had to climb over in seeking recognition and preservation. Three constant themes emerge: the unique value and beauty of the cool temperate rainforest and its landscape, the millennia of occupation by First Nations people, and the almost total lack of formal preservation of a terrain that’s unquestionably of World Heritage rank.

Figures 1 and 2 taken on my March 2021 Climate Council trip, give a fleeting glimpse of the Tarkine rainforest vegetation. I say 'glimpse' because if you want a fuller picture you need to buy the book ($75 available through most quality bookshops). The book's predecessor, much harder to find, is the pictorially stunning Tarkine, compiled through the WWF by Robert Purves and published by Allen and Unwin. 

Fig 1. Savage River near Corinna fringed by dense myrtle beech Nothofagus cunninghamii rainforest.

Fig 2. Myrtle beech rainforest flanking the Pieman River is strikingly punctuated on the left by a tall Huon pine. An even taller eucalypt, probably a mountain ash, towers skywards on the right.

I could close off there but there are aspects of the landscape and vegetation of NW Tasmania and the Tarkine that come to light viewed from high points and need to be highlighted. These impressions have accumulated in several visits over 30 years, but the Climate Council trip of 2021 brought them into sharp focus. 

The geology of NW Tasmaina is hugely complex and built of highly deformed sedimentary rocks of Neoproterozoic age. The ragged, jagged coastline exposes these beautifully (Figure 3), so why then do these ragged rocks not create rocky spurs and ridges everywhere? Why is the landscape a low, undulating plateau indented and cut by steep-sided valleys (Figure 4)? Well, it’s actually a classic uplifted peneplain that was previously worn down and smoothed over by erosion over many millions of years, then blanketed and softened by vegetation under a climate that rivals North Queensland in rainfall levels. 

Fig 3. Jagged coastline of Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks north of Pieman Heads.

Fig 4. Looking south across the Pieman River from the slopes of Mt Donaldson. The landscape has essentially a uniform elevation 100 to 220 m asl but incised by numerous river valleys.

Fig 5. View across a tiered landscape crowned by Cradle Mountain and Mt Ossa. The wet heath and button grass slopes and enclaves tend to dominate the higher ground, but are otherwise scattered fairly randomly as groves within eucalypt and rainforest.

A second intriguing feature. If you’re familiar with the consistent 1700 to 1800 m treeline in the Snowies then you’ll perhaps be puzzled by the apparently random relationship of forest to heath and swamp in Tasmania (Figure 5). However if you take on board our typical forest-swamp relationships in the Blue Mountains or Hawkesbury Sandstone country you will conclude that few tree species like wet feet. NW Tasmania is very very wet, with many sites exceeding 2 m mean annual rainfall and without a long dry season. Climbing steep, heathy slopes like Mt Donaldson near Corinna one is struck by the swampy heath sweating and trickling as one slips and slides through the mud. Trees clearly tend not to like such in wet ground. One might also need to consider historic First Nations burn patterns that may have fine-tuned heath/forest boundaries. 

Reviewed by John Martyn

takayna/Tarkine: One of the Last Wild Places on Earth
Compiled by Australian Geographic
Hardback, 224 pp

Ku-ring-gai is lucky to have many very old and beautiful tree specimens. The trunks are huge, maybe equivalent to the outstretched arms of more than four people. They can be over
100 years old and contain many hollows that provide nesting homes and shelter for birds and animals. They create beautiful streetscapes that cool our suburbs.

These landscape features are precious and should be recorded as an asset to be managed by council and appreciated by us all. Ku-ring-gai does have an urban forest strategy but there is no public register of individual trees that is available to the public.

Under the NSW planning legislation the Vegetation SEPP allows councils to use the development control plan to regulate the clearing of both native and non-native vegetation and trees not linked to development.

The SEPP provides that a development control plan may include a significant tree register that lists individual trees, native and non-native, based on their significance and value to the local community, such as cultural, aesthetic, spiritual, educational and environmental value. This includes shade trees or heritage trees that have historical significance.

All trees listed in a significant tree register have additional protection as, if they are on private land, development consent is required to either significantly prune or remove them so that the whole range of values recognised in the listing are taken into account. This is in addition to the usual process of simply lodging a tree permit application.

Trees on the register can be publicly recognised by listing on the council website and signage on the trees, maybe as simple as a QR code. This helps the public appreciate the extent of the green assets and heritage.

There are several examples of councils in Sydney that have a significant tree register, such as the City of Sydney, Randwick and Central Coast.

Other tree initiatives

It is good news that council has decided to support a Treecare program. This will be a volunteer-based program to assist in the protection, enhancement and monitoring of selected native canopy trees in key locations.

The first tree to be nominated by a group of residents is the large Angophora at the St Ives Showground at the edge of the entry carpark.

Council has also established a tree trail starting in St Johns Ave in Gordon. The Killior'ra Tree Trail introduces 18 trees during a 45 min walk.

It includes signage which identifies individual tree species along with a link to a web page where more information can be found.

Killior’ra is the local indigenous name for the Turpentine, one of the tree species featured along the trail.

We hope there will be more initiatives like these. See Issue 224 of STEP Matters for more information about tree protection in Ku-ring-gai.

The recent storms have brought down many trees. This has been a regular occurrence for many years – see photos below from 1991 and 2025. The 30 m Blackbutt had a dual trunk. It would have been over 150 years old and had a circumference of about 5 m. There are other large old trees in this street that would have been part of the original Cumberland Forest. The tree split in two during the storm in January and had to be removed as the core was rotten.

In future years will we remember what has been lost? Loss from natural events is on top of the significant loss of trees that is occurring with the housing densification process and knockdown and rebuilds.

Street trees like these examples are being replaced with new plantings but it will take many years for them to provide the ecosystem functions of mature trees.

Tree damage January 2025

Pentecost Ave after the January 1991 super storm

A development application has been lodged with Ku-ring-gai Council for another stage of development of the SAN hospital site, this time on the opposite side of Fox Valley Road to the hospital. It covers 136 to 144 and 148 Fox Valley Road where there are currently some old cottages and a services building. Behind the site there is a large area of high quality Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest that is part of the Greenweb Program.

The proposal is to build two buildings containing 84 residential units. The associated landscaping will include a swimming pool at the current site of the services building.

A small area of 0.062 ha of Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest (PCT 3262), mostly canopy trees, will not be removed from the community. There is also some Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest in a ‘poor condition’ as a small patch on the southern boundary that includes some native groundcover that will be retained.

As most of the development will affect existing cleared areas the impact on biodiversity will be small. The asset protection zone will be provided by the swimming pool area.

The main concern will be, once again, traffic that is already about to be increased by the new apartments behind the school opposite this new development.

There is a large area of forest comprising high quality Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest and Sandstone Gully Forest down the hill below the site. The chief concerns for this forest are stormwater and pollutant seepage. This forest is already riddled with walking and bike tracks.