Local Community and Economy
The strait between Maria Island and the east coast of mainland Tasmania is called Mercury Passage and was named after the ship HMS Mercury, commanded by John Henry Cox, who charted the area in 1789. There are two towns of size in this part of the East Coast: Orford at the mouth of the Prosser River and Triabunna, some eight kilometres further north at the head of Spring Bay.
There is one town on Maria Island, called Darlington. It lies near the northern tip of the island. Darlington is beautiful and historic and has many wonderful old buildings, but it has no permanent inhabitants other than a few park rangers. All the rest—up to several hundred during the summer holidays—are tourists who come and go.
Tourism is important to the local economy. In nearby Triabunna other major industries are fishing, forestry and farming. An export woodchip mill is located at Freestone Point 5 km south of the town. Rock lobster (known locally as crayfish), scalefish, scallops and abalone are taken near the island by both commercial and recreational fishermen, and mussels are farmed in Mercury Passage.
Read more about this topic: Maria Island
Famous quotes containing the words local, community and/or economy:
“Savages cling to a local god of one tribe or town. The broad ethics of Jesus were quickly narrowed to village theologies, which preach an election or favoritism.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Every community is an association of some kind and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)