Unesco removes ‘hurtful’ document claiming Tasmanian Aboriginal people ‘extinct’

An inaccurate claim by a Unesco body that ‘Tasmanians are now an extinct race of humans’ was made in a 1982 document. Photograph: Auscape/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

A UN agency was forced to remove a “hurtful” document that for more than 40 years publicly claimed Tasmanian Aboriginal people were extinct.

The inaccurate claim, stating that “Tasmanians are now an extinct race of humans”, was made as part of the nomination process for the declaration of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and its addition to the world heritage list in 1982.