liverworts and 92 species of mosses. Its range of vertebrate fauna include 28 terrestrial mammals, 111 land and freshwater birds, 11 reptiles, 8 frogs and 13 freshwater fish. The Tarkine provides habitat for over 60 rare, threatened and endangered species of flora and fauna. The area comprises a number of rivers, exposed mountains, globally unique magnesite and dolomite cave systems and the largest basalt plateau in Tasmania to have retained its original vegetation. There are also large sand dune areas extending several kilometres inland. Some of these contain ancient Aboriginal middens. The Tarkine played a central role in the development of Tasmania's early mining industry, and remains of early mining activity can still be seen in many rivers and creeks in the area that were mined for gold, tin and osmiridium. Nowadays the remains of approximately 600 sites of historic mining activity in the area are still evident. The majority of these mining operations were alluvial workings or small hard-rock mines, consisting often of single adits. Larger scale mining has been carried out mainly at Luina, Savage River and Mt Bischoff. Part of the area is contained in the Arthur – Pieman Conservation Area managed by the Tasmania parks and wildlife service. Early conservation movement The campaign to protect the Tarkine began in the 1960s. A formal conservation proposal was put forward by the then Circular Head Mayor Horace Arnold 'Jim' Lane for the establishment of a 'Norfolk Range National Park'. Lane's proposal was ahead of its time, though his proposal wasn't seen to fruition. From the late 1990s, the area came under increasing national and international scrutiny in a similar vein to the environmental protests surrounding Tasmania's Franklin River and Queensland's Daintree Rainforest. The case for protecting the Tarkine was significantly advanced with the Federal Government's Forestry Package in 2005 adding to reserves in the Tarkine. A significant proportion of the Tarkine area including the Savage River National Park is already contained in the Tasmanian Reserve system, which protects the largest contiguous area of cool temperate rainforest surviving in Australia. Current land tenure and legislation The Tasmanian reserve management system is one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated in Australia. The Nature Conservation Act 2002 (NCA) and the National Parks and Reserves Management Act 2002 (NPRMA) are the two key pieces of Tasmania legislation that empower reserve management. Tasmania has eight separate public reserve classes with each class having