[3] The Tarkine is noted for its beauty and natural values, containing the largest area of Gondwanan cool-temperate rainforest in Australia,[4] as well as for its prominence in Tasmania's early mining history.

[5][6][7][8] The area's high concentration of Aboriginal sites has led to it being described by the Australian Heritage Council as "one of the world's great archaeological regions".

[12] The name does not appear in maps, but in recent decades has featured prominently in the Australian media as a subject of contention between conservationists and mining/logging interests.

[13] The Tarkine can be entered from several points, with the most common being via Sumac Road from the north, Corinna in the south, Waratah in the west and Wynyard from the north-east.

[3] The area comprises a number of rivers, exposed mountains, globally unique magnesite and dolomite cave systems and the largest basalt plateau in Tasmania to have retained its original vegetation.

A formal conservation proposal was put forward by the then Circular Head Mayor Horace Arnold 'Jim' Lane for the establishment of a 'Norfolk Range National Park'.

From the late 1990s, the area came under increasing national and international scrutiny in a similar vein to the environmental protests surrounding Tasmania's Franklin River and Queensland's Daintree Rainforest.

One such example is the Corinna Wilderness Village, which empowers the region by allowing tourists to experience the southern end of takayna/the Tarkine in an accessible and ecologically friendly way.

[23] In the section of the report discussing specialty timber harvesting the Director clearly stated that "The management objectives for conservation areas and regional reserves (s5 and s7, Schedule 1 NPRMA[24]) have included ‘the controlled use of natural resources’, since the NPRMA commenced in 2002 and prior to that they were in the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1970" and "The 2014 legislation did not provide anything that was not already implicitly or explicitly provided for in regional reserves and conservation areas."

The Emergency Listing was in response to a proposed Tarkine Road, which would have coursed through old growth forest and detrimentally affected the natural values of undisturbed areas.

In December 2010, the incoming Environment Minister Tony Burke allowed the emergency listing to lapse in the face of numerous mining proposals in the Tarkine.

Conservation groups declared this an unacceptable delay, and had voiced concerns that this left the Tarkine unprotected from mining while the reassessment took place.

[28] This legislation was signed on 7 August 2011 by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings.

[33] The initial tranche of TFA reserves including those in the 2013 Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area extension was not repealed under this legislation and remain in place today.

This would require managing some areas on long intervals between logging operations as well as the planting of suitable species on private land."

In his letter to Br Bill Kelty, dated 6 March 2011, former Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne called "for agreed areas to be set aside for sustainable selective logging of high-quality, specialty timbers.

"[35] Later in 2011, former Senator Brown also stated in an article in The Examiner newspaper "The Greens have always wanted to provide for specialty timbers for craft work, furnishings, the things Tasmania are so famous for and proud of, in an ongoing forestry industry," he said "If the Libs find fault with that, crikey, is there anything they can agree too?

Commenced in 1976, this trial was conducted to establish the best silviculture method for regenerating Myrtle dominated forest post harvesting to ensure an ongoing supply of special timbers.

This project commenced under the Tasmanian Forest Agreement process with funding from the former federal Labor government and was completed in October 2017.

Utilising best available modelling techniques including LiDAR, a standing volume of special timbers (14.3 million cubic metres) and subsequent annual sustainable yields in perpetuity were developed.

Although ENGOs had previously shown strong support for the special timbers sector, this has now largely been withdrawn due to the conflict between resource location and reservation aspirations.

The areas of Corinna[37] - Long Plains,[38] as well as the Savage, Donaldson[39] and Whyte[5] rivers, were important early goldfields, exploited since the 1870s.

[citation needed] Alternatively, significant local support for mining has also been evidenced, with over 3500 people attending one pro-development rally,[47] and the mayors of the four affected council areas publicly condemning the environmental groups.