Moss and Lichen, Arthur Pieman Protected area, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania

The Australian Heritage Council , Tarkine in north-west Tasmania of outstanding national heritage significance.
The Tarkine is a beautiful remote part of Tasmania which supports Australia’s largest tract of cool temperate rainforest. Landscapes within the area range from wild windswept beaches to extensive buttongrass plains with stunning vistas to impressive rainforests, rainforests are important for their flora, which has links to the ancient continent of Gondwana, and their lichens and fossils, which help tell the story of Australia’s ancient flora and its evolution. The Tarkine also contains rare magnesite karst systems. Dotted along the coastline are the remains of numerous hut depressions found in Aboriginal shell middens. The huts and middens are the remnants of an unusual and specialised Aboriginal way of life based on the hunting of seals and land mammals, and the gathering of shellfish.