ArtsCape Wynyard's 'Undercurrent' award - Tasmania - 2022

This year, I was awarded the ' Undercurrent' prize at Artscape Wynyard Exhibition with my painting: Damaged; Tin Mine
The judge was Raymond Arnold
The Little Blue Lake in Tasmania is a spectacle of turquoise water juxtaposed with banks of complimentary colours. However, unlike the pure water of similarly coloured glacial lakes, this is a toxic mining pit. Birds and animals will die in it. Water cannot be totally contained in open pits like these and it will spill during heavy rainfall. Disturbingly, official reports say that the toxins from historical and new mines will continue to contaminate the environment in numerous ways for hundreds of years. Mining still produces open pits such as the Savage River Mine in the Tarkine of West Tasmania. In addition, the vegetation loss can never be replaced as it was before. There is not only loss of biodiversity but the old growth trees remove carbon from the atmosphere and capture it in the living tree as well as in the soil. Thus, the loss of trees exacerbates the climate change problem.
Dr Pam Schultz is a conservation ecologist who advocates environmental conservation through her paintings and artwork.