A CELEBRATION OF THE HISTORY, CULTURE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF RECHERCHE BAY
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Auditorium Hobart, Tasmania
26–28 February 2007

Recherche Bay and legitimate interest: Establishing priority in the politics of place
Dr Peter Hay

Peter Hay is Reader in Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Tasmania, as well as a poet and essayist. His research interests include environmental thought and the politics of place, with particular interests in islandness and island identity, and the place politics of Tasmania’s forest communities. He is the author of Main Currents in Western Environmental Thought (2002), Vandiemonian Essays (2002) and Silently On The Tide (2005).

The interests that laid claim to priority in the struggle for Recherche Bay are identified, and the different bases upon which rival priority claims were made are explicated. Via discourses of public interest and place, principles are advanced for adjudicating these rival claims to priority, and it is further argued that what an be held to apply in the instance of Recherche Bay is of more general applicability.