In celebration of our coming of age, we've enlisted our mates over at Gelato Messina to create 5 unique ice cream flavours developed by some of our favourite brands. We've got Patagonia, State of Escape, Paloma Wool, Rag & Bone and Café Kitsuné.
Next up in our 18th Birthday Series is global outdoor specialists Patagonia, who have taken this opportunity to shine a light on their fight for an ancient rainforest in the northwestern region of Tasmania, takayna/Tarkine. Alongside Gelato Messina they've created a dark chocolate and Tasmanian Leatherwood Honey sorbet layered with nougat, all in the name of a good cause.
Watch and read below as takayna – the home to Australia ’s largest temperate rainforest, rare and endangered wildlife, and some of the richest Aboriginal heritage in the hemisphere, is currently under threat from deforestation and mining.
SIGN BBF’s NATIVE FOREST DECLARATION
Patagonia Presents: Save takayna
Can you give us an insight into the fight to protect takayna/Tarkine forest?
The takayna/Tarkine region of northwestern Tasmania is home to one of the last tracts of Gondwanan rainforest in the world, and one of the highest concentrations of Aboriginal archaeology in the hemisphere.
From wild windswept beaches through to extensive buttongrass plains to ancient rainforests, more than 60 rare and endangered species found here, live nowhere else in the world.
For the past 60 years, conservationists have been waging a battle against successive governments to have the takayna/Tarkine turned into a national park and given World Heritage listing, protecting it from destructive logging and mining practices.
We're in business to save our home planet. Everything we do is in support of this mission.
Why did you choose this particular cause as a reference point for Patagonia’s flavour?
We wanted to collaborate on a flavour that brought attention to the ongoing fight to save Tasmania’s takayna/Tarkine rainforest by our 1% For The Planet grantee and partner the Bob Brown Foundation.
In 2002, a chance moment really drove home the eons-old links between our Planet’s irreplaceable wild places for Rick Ridgeway, Patagonia’s VP of Public Engagement. After interning at The Tompkins Foundation’s Pumalin Park project in the Valdivian rainforest of Southern Chile [as part of its ongoing work to purchase and handover land to governments to be protected as National Parks – one of the most prominent examples world over], Rick’s daughter Carissa moved to New York for university. When her mother Jennifer stocked her pantry with a jar of honey that stood out for its a pretty flower label, Carissa was transported back to Pumalin. Though this particular honey came from over 10,000 kilometres away in Tasmania, the flavour was uncannily similar. Rick got to researching and discovered a shared ancestor: Eucryphia, a progenitor tree in Gonwanaland from which both the Chilean Ultimo and Tasmanian Leatherwood trees have evolved.
When a visitor to Pumalin National Parks tastes Ulmo honey, and a visitor to takayna/Tarkine – which is not yet protected – tastes Leatherwood honey, they are making a connection through deep time, and moving forward through that time to today,” says Rick. “We should recognise the sister relationship between Pumalin and takayna/Tarkine. And that only in very recent time, because of habitat loss the Ulmo tree is now listed as near threatened, while the struggle to protect the Leatherwood continues.
We need to continue to call on the Tasmanian Government and the Australian Government to support the nomination of the Tarkine as a World Heritage area, so this unique wilderness and its irreplaceable biodiversity is protected just as has been in Chile.
The timing is also crucial. The Bob Brown Foundation recently launched the Great Forest Case: a new legal challenge could be the best chance in a generation to end native forest logging in Australia.
What can people do to help?
Today, people can sign BBF’s Native Forest Declaration, calling on Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, and all other MPs in our nation’s parliament, to use the Commonwealth’s powers to protect our nation’s native forests and their wildlife.
They can also follow and support the Great Forest Case, as well as join the 3rd edition of the takayna ultra running event that will be held in March 2021 to raise funds for takayna/Tarkine’s protection.
Photo: Mikey Schaefer
Can you shine a light on Patagonia’s vision as a brand? Why are projects like takayna important to the fibre of the brand?
We're in business to save our home planet. Everything we do is in support of this mission.
As wild places continue to decline over the world, Patagonia has continuously fought for the protection of these places in order to preserve environmental and cultural heritage values for future generations.
Since 2014 Patagonia has been supporting the Bob Brown Foundation’s campaign to protect takayna/Tarkine and other environmental work through our 1% For The Planet program. In 2018, we released the documentary ‘takayna’, unpacking the complexities of modern conservation and challenges us to consider the importance of our last wild places. The film kick-started a campaign that lead to more than 280,000 people from 130 countries signing the largest petition in Tasmanian’s history. It became the largest environmental petition ever tabled in Australia’s parliament. This momentum has continued; in 2019 and 2020 we supported the takayna Ultra, a trail race that has attracted top international competitors and raised further awareness.
We believe it is vital to preserve irreplaceable native forests like takayna/Tarkine, for their roles in sustaining species – from Tasmanian Devils to the world’s fastest parrot, and us humans – as well as in drawing down carbon amid the climate crisis. Further, the processes stemming from the destruction of such forests only worsen this crisis.
Please pass on a little Happy Birthday message to Incu…
For the past 5 years, Incu has been a valued partner in supporting Patagonia’s mission and bringing our responsibly made product lines and stories to its Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, and online communities.
For Incu to reflect Patagonia’s mission statement, adopt similar principals and then invest in creatively communicating those values to its customers is why this partnership has been so important to us.
We’re stoked to see Brian, Vincent and the entire Incu crew celebrate 18 epic years. You don’t get to milestones like that in business as an independent retailer without a vision, passion, some solid decision-making and a strong connection to your customers. To partner with the Incu team has been fantastic for us; we value the relationship and applaud their uniqueness.
