From K'gari to World Heritage
Reading the Cultural Landscapes of Fraser Island
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/qre.2012.4Keywords:
Fraser Island, sand island, human presence, World Heritage List, natural valuesAbstract
The blue crane fishing in Cooloola’s twilight
Has fished there longer than our centuries
He is the certain heir of lake and evening,
And he will wear their colour till he dies;
But I’m a stranger, come of a conquering people . . .
And walking on clean sand among the prints
of bird and animal, I am challenged by a driftwood spear
thrust from the water . . .
These lines from Judith Wright's poem At Cooloola (1955) remind us that Fraser Island is not just the world's largest sand island, but has a human presence. However, it is the largest sand island in the world, covering 1,840 square kilometres, and in 1992 it was inscribed on the World Heritage List in recognition of its outstanding and universal natural values.
References
All the descriptive information about natural heritage came from Australian Heritage Database entry for Fraser Island, http://www.heritage.gov.au/cgi-bin/ahpi/record.pl?WHL105087. Accessed 20 February 2012.
Annex 3, ‘Guidelines on the Inscription of Specific Types of Properties on the World Heritage List’, in UNESCO Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention (Geneva: UNESCO, 2008), 83.
Annex 3, UNESCO Operational Guidelines, 84.
Townrow, K., Cao, L. and Langford, J. (eds), North White Cliffs, Fraser Island: An Historic Archaeological Survey (Brisbane: Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage, 1994), 19.
Evans, R. and Walker, J., ‘These Strangers, Where are They Going? Aboriginal–European Relations in the Fraser and Wide Bay Region 1770–1905’, in, Lauer, P. (ed.), Fraser Island, Occasional Papers in Anthropology, no. 8 (St Lucia: Anthropology Museum, University of Queensland, 1977), 70.
Townrow, Cao and Langford, North White Cliffs, 20.
Evans and Walker, ‘These Strangers’, 84–9.
Lauer, P., P 1977. ‘Report of a Preliminary Ethnohistorical and Archaeological Survey of Fraser Island’, Lauer, P. (ed.), Fraser Island, Occasional Papers in Anthropology, no. 8 (St Lucia: Anthropology Museum, University of Queensland, 1977), 16.
Evans and Walker, ‘These Strangers’, 47.
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Judith Powell, Travel Routes, Forest Towns and Settlements (Canberra: Qld CRA/RFA Steering Committee), 148.
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Lennon, Jane and Townsley, Madonna, Integration of National Estate Aesthetic Values Studies (Canberra: Qld CRA/RFA Steering Committee, 1998), 33–4.
