A lot of this new(ish) book is taken up by the Lake Malbena and Halls Island fiasco over recent years and I found that it unexpectedly re-triggered my anxiety issues.
When the Halls Island debacle blew up, I created a web site for it, and actually got the site to the top of the Google rankings for searches for "Halls Island" for a while. However, I found that every time I got involved in discussion about the issues, I started feeling overwhelmed, sick, and (what I now know to be) anxious. I later discovered that I do have a tendency to suffer from anxiety issues. I had to totally cease updating the Halls Island website, and it has been stagnant and not updated for several years now, due to the anxiety that dwelling on that development proposal caused. I found that reading 'Wild Heart of Tasmania' triggered my anxiety all over again - but it was still worth reading.
I felt very conflicted while reading the book, because of this. I deliberately avoided attending any of the protest rallies or events related to the Halls Island hotel proposal, because the more I thought about it, the more sick/anxious I felt. However, after reading the book, I wish I'd been more directly involved in those actions - I wish I'd taken part in the rallies.
What's really odd, is that I've only been to Halls Island once, and don't have anywhere near the connection to it that many other people have (although that was one of my favourite off-track walks/paddles of all time). So it's strange that it affects me so much. But I think it's more about the overall sense of the loss of wilderness that the Lake Malbena proposal represents, rather than the specific location itself. Or as Greg puts it in his book, its more about the dispossession. Ie, spending time in the wilderness is a natural and normal part of life, and they have taken this away from us by giving part of our national park to a commercial entity for their exclusive use. If they can do it for one part of one national park, there is nothing to stop them doing it anywhere else. It still makes me sick (literally) when I think about it too much.
Anyhow, I highly recommend the book. Apart from a great read about many great wild places and many great Tassie characters, its probably the best overall documentation that has been put together about the Malbena/Halls/Wild Drake fiasco. It's got just about the entire history of the issue in one place (although of course, it is not over yet, with more still to come). It also includes a lot of rather personal information from Greg's own life that I imagine must have been difficult to publish.
Although I'd kept up-to-date with the Halls Island hotel proposal as much as I could, there was still some information that was new to me. In particular, it was the first time that I'd red about Reg Hall's daughter's feelings on it all, which is something that I'd wondered about, after she had passed on the Halls Island lease to Daniel Hackett.
Oh, and the book mentions a few people who I know are members on this forum.
Has anyone else read 'Wild Heart of Tasmania'? Any further thoughts or opinions?
