World-famous Australian rock band Midnight Oil has waded into the Tarkine mining row.
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The band eulogises the western Tasmanian area in a song named Tarkine from its new album, Resist.
The highly political outfit also took aim on its website at Rosebery Mine owner MMG Limited's plans for a new tailings dam, and said it supported environmentalists' calls for world heritage protection of the Tarkine.
"This new Oils song celebrates the unique rapture of a wilderness experience," the website says.
"The work takes on extra poignancy given current plans to expand a nearby mine with a tailings dam that would impinge on this pristine area."
Midnight Oil urged the federal and state governments to "preserve this extraordinary part of Tasmania for future generations".
MMG says a new tailings storage solution is needed if the mine and the 500 jobs it supports are to last beyond 2024.
The environmentalist Bob Brown Foundation has led a campaign against use of the proposed South Marionoak site, describing the planned development as a "toxic metals waste dump" and similar.
The foundation has organised protests against the plan and against an iron ore mine and a potential tin and tungsten mine near Tullah, both projects of Venture Minerals Limited.
The BBF on Friday said it had halted drilling on Venture's mining lease for five days this month, preventing two drill rigs being deployed.
A protester was arrested on Thursday.
The foundation welcomed Midnight Oil's move.
"The wild, ancient and threatened takayna/Tarkine has just been immortalised by one of Australia's greatest bands," campaign manager Jenny Weber said.
"From our Tarkine in Motion environmental arts project, Launceston artist Darryl Rogers partnered with Jim Moginie from Midnight Oil in a Mona Foma installation.
"It was from this collaboration that Jim Moginie was inspired to write a dedication to Tasmania's Tarkine.
"Midnight Oil has captured the urgency the Tarkine faces from logging and mining.
"We will continue to resist the destruction of one of the last wild places on Earth, knowing that Midnight Oil has just given that place, its ancient rainforests and all the wildlife a new international platform."
State Resources Minister Guy Barnett said: ``Everyone is entitled to their opinion and to express those freely."
"However, the Tasmanian government remains the strongest supporter of the mining and minerals sector, which not only provides thousands of jobs in regional communities, but also provides the vital metals we need for our renewable future, like batteries, mobile phones, solar panels and electric vehicles.''
Venture declined to comment.
It is not the first time Midnight Oil has written about Tasmania.
Its 1993 single, Truganini, was about a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman.
The band's Place Without a Postcard album from 1981 featured a song called Burnie, partly concerning the city's notorious levels of industrial pollution at the time.