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

Right deeds and wrong reasons: The politics of nature, history and the preservation of Recherche Bay
Professor Aynsley Kellow

Aynsley Kellow is Professor of Government at the University of Tasmania. He has published widely on environmental politics and policy, both in Australia and at the international level, including research on climate change, energy, water resources, forestry, risk assessment and controversies over siting undesirable facilities.

The protection of the historically significant site at Recherche Bay represents a substantial achievement, and resulted from the recognition that not all sites of importance are in public ownership, and that – if we value them, we should be prepared to pay for them. Yet economic or commercial approaches to heritage protection have not always been well received, and in this paper I will reflect on the reasons for this ambivalence. I will also note that the success in this case, as in many others, came about because of a strong campaign that saw a 'whirlpooling' together of issues that is quite common in environmental politics in Australia, such that we have in this country an erroneous impression that the World Heritage Convention is more about natural, rather than cultural heritage. I will suggest that such whirlpooling is inevitable in politics, but that there are dangers in basing commendable actions on inappropriate reasons, that what is more important is the development of appropriate institutional responses, and that there are important lessons to be learnt from successes such as Recherche Bay as well as from mistakes.