LEGEND OF A PRISON TREE REVIVED WITH REPLANTING - 9/11/2009
In the remote Kimberley of NW Australia, a new style prison with an emphasis on training and rehabilitation is under construction. Inmates, many of whom will be from the surrounding regions, will be housed, retrained and educated in a campus style prison within the Pindan landscape, close to Derby.
Less than 3 km from the prison site is the Derby Prison Tree - a 14 metre wide, hollow boab reputed to be 1500 years old, which was used by police during the 1890s as a temporary holding cell for Aboriginal prisoners on their way to Derby for sentencing.
In haunting recognition of that fact, over 130 boabs, some with trunks up to 1800mm in diameter, have been transplanted from areas to be cleared into new locations within the prison grounds and also into the main street of nearby Derby - one of the largest boab transplant operations ever undertaken in Australia.
CLOUSTON has played a key role in the mass transplanting exercise as well as in the site planning for this ground breaking project, which will also include the planting of a wide range of indigenous bush tucker and medicinal plants.
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