THE Tarkine contains the second-largest temperate rainforest in
the southern hemisphere and is also one of Australia's oldest
mining fields. Its boom towns faded back into the wilderness as
the minerals which encouraged hundreds of people to move to the
region ran out or were no longer in demand. However, prospective
miners are again casting their eyes over the area. Eighty-six
mining tenements are held, or are being applied for, in the
Tarkine. Some of them, including Venture Minerals' Mt Lindsay
tin project, near Tullah, and Shree Minerals' Nelson Bay iron
ore proposal, are moving closer to becoming working mines but
are still waiting for state and federal approvals. For their
part, conservationists are determined to stop this new wave of
mines. The Tarkine National Coalition has threatened to stage an
anti-mining campaign to rival the bitter Franklin Dam protests
of the 1980s. The coalition says 10 new mines are planned for
the Tarkine in the next five years, nine of them open-cut
proposals inside conserva