Paul Bibby
The Global Climate Strike event in Byron on September 20 will kick-off with the screening of a powerful, locally produced film about a devastating fire in Tenterfield – one of the town’s most affected by the recent fires across the Eastern seaboard.
Quoll HQ – the Inferno will be shown at 8.30am at the Beach Hotel on the day of the strike.
The film, produced by the owner of GoPro Byron bay, Danny Harris, tells the story of a devastating bushfire that struck a spotted Quoll sanctuary in Tenterfield in February this year.
‘Fires are a really important part of the Australian bush,’ the owner of the sanctuary (Quoll Headquarters) Steve Haslam told Mr Harris in an interview about the film.
‘What we got [on February 12] was something totally different… It caused a fire storm, it caused an inferno and it’s caused permanent ecological damage to this property.’
The organiser of the film screening, former Byron Chamber head Greg Owens, said he hoped to engage all locals, including the business community, in the fight against climate change.
‘The main event of the day is the march at 10am,’ Mr Owens said.
‘The idea is that people will watch the film and then head down and join the march.
‘As the former head of the chamber I’d like to think that the businesses will get behind this’.
The Global Climate Strike is an event inspired by Greta Thornberg, the 16-year-old Sweedish student who brought the Extinction Rebellion movement to global attention .
Hundreds of Byron school students are expected to hit the streets, despite the fact that the march is happening on the first day of the HSC maths exam.
Local school student and climate activist, Mia Thum, will speak briefly at the film screening.
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