Photos and paintings by Viola Barnes.

The Tarkine (from Aboriginal ‘Takayna’) is a 447,000 ha (4,470 square kilometre) forest and wilderness on the west coast of Tasmania. It contains cool temperate rainforest, eucalypt forest, heath and coastal vegetation. Just on 4% of the Tarkine is fully protected (Savage River National Park), with the remaining 96% exposed to logging and mining activity. It is actively being encroached by both these activities at the present time.

Viola is one of many working for full protection of the Tarkine as a national park or world heritage area. As well as documenting its beauty and destruction in these images, she has spent 19 days in three sessions living high in a tall tree (in a 'tree sit') to protect it from being felled. Some of these images were taken from those tree sits.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarkine
Support for protection: https://www.bobbrown.org.au/