Cape Barren Island

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Cape Barren Island (center) from space, January 1997

Cape Barren Island is located off the north east coast of Tasmania, Australia, and is one of the islands of the Furneaux Group in Bass Strait. The largest island of the group, Flinders Island, lies to the north, with the smaller Clarke Island to the south. The highest point on the island is Mount Munro at 687 metres.

Australia's only native goose, the Cape Barren Goose, was first sighted on this island.

Today the residents of Cape Barren Island consist of an Aboriginal community of approximately 70 people. Most of the residents are descended from a community of mixed descent (European and Aboriginal people) who had originally settled on Flinders Island but relocated to Cape Barren Island in the late 1870s^[1]. The Colonial Government of Tasmania established a formal reserve in 1881 and commenced providing basic social services to the community. By 1908 the population had grown to 250 people.

More active government intervention began in 1912 with the passage of the Cape Barren Act^[2]. The stated purpose of this act was to encourage the community to become self-sufficient through both incentives and disincentives. Government visits throughout the 1920s and 1930s reported poor health and education and proposals were made to remove children from their parents, ostensibly for their own benefit. Under threat of losing their children many families relocated to mainland Tasmania. By 1944 the population had fallen to 106. ^[3] From the 1950s the government did indeed remove children from their parents. This forced removal of children was part of a wider policy implemented in many parts of Australia and over a number of decades that resulted in the phenomenon known as the 'stolen generations'. From the 1970s a series of more enlightened government policies were implemented that provided increasingly greater recognition of the personal and social rights of individuals^[4]. The policies of the current Federal Government are arguably a step backwards in that they resurrect a patronizing approach to 'self-reliance' for remote aboriginal communities^[5] that is in contrast to policies adopted by, for example, the Canadian and New Zealand governments to their indigenous communities.

On 10 May 2005, the government released Crown lands on both Cape Barren and Clarke Island to be overseen by the local Aboriginal association^[6]. This marked the first official handover of Crown land to an Aboriginal community in Tasmania.

The island can be reached by air from either Melbourne, Victoria or Launceston, Tasmania to Flinders Island. From Flinders Island, Cape Barren island is only a short boat or plane trip away. Cape Barren, with the other islands in the Furneaux Group, are a popular destination for sea kayakers who attempt the crossing of Bass Strait from the Australian mainland at Wilson's Promontory, Victoria to the Tasmanian mainland.

Cape Barren Island has the distinction of being the largest island of the largest island (Flinders Island) of the largest island (Tasmania) of the largest island (Australia).