It was pouring rain, and dark, as my 14-year- old son Omar, Frankie our faithful Jack Russell, and I made our way four hours south to the traditional logging town of Taylors Arm, west of Macksville. Taylors Arm was made famous in Slim Dusty’s song, The Pub With No Beer.
I checked my phone on where to meet the activists for our ‘guerilla strike’ the next morning. After 30 years of forest activism and confronting loggers with my camera, I am tired. I just wanted to pitch my tent in the drizzle and get to sleep with my boy. It was Omar’s first forest action. He was there with dad because he knew dad cared for the animals and birds in the forest. And cared for the world we are passing onto the next generations.
The Minns government promised to establish the Great Koala National Park to save the koala, and other Australian species, like the greater glider that are under threat of extinction. We just had to vote for his MPs at the last state election. That was 15 months ago – still no koala park.
Still the felling of the big trees (and small immature trees that end up as woodchips rather than homes for animals) goes on at a frightening pace in NSW’s state forests. Labor or Liberal-National Party – nothing changes.
Since elected, Minns and his Environment Minister Penny Sharpe and NSW Forestry Corporation (NSW FC) have given the loggers another 20 months of free license to keep savaging the forests we all rely upon for our clean water and air, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, the pollinators for our food supply, and tourist values.
The text from veteran forest activist Susie Russell did not read encouragingly: ‘David, a lot has happened in last 12 hours. We’ve moved to a private property. Call me.’
One young logger alerted to ‘them bloody greenies are in our town!’ had followed Susie’s car and told her threateningly when she pulled over, ‘I’ve 20 blokes who will sort you lot out quick smart if you get up to any tricks.’
Silent movement
Omar and I set up our tent in the pouring rain. A wet Frankie shivered in the back corner. A silent sentry waving a torch walked through our camp at 3.40am. Silently our group of 12 packed their tents, started up their engines and drove in single file up the logging dirt road into the appropriately named Mistake State Forest. We would blockade the road to stop the loggers getting out their prized ‘big trees’ they’d felled the week before.
Over an hour later while still dark, the loggers turned up in their 4WDs. Incensed that their passage to the money trees was blocked, they immediately fell back on name calling, ‘You f—ing scum! You dole bludgers! You f—ing pieces of s–t!’ Fortunately we are all seasoned activists used to this abuse by those who only look upon the forest as a means to support their lifestyle and pay the mortgage.
They got back into their 4WDs and left angrily to call the police.
As light crept into the darkened, rain-soaked forest and the kookaburras started to laugh at these antics of mice and women. Nicole, a local, aged about 45, drove up. She too was outraged at us blocking ‘her road’.
‘Look, I’m with you guys, I really am! I love animals and I understand what youse are doing. But this is not the way.’ We patiently heard her out.
She was confused and less volatile when Susie told her what the loggers are doing here was illegal. That NSW FC had broken the law that requires them to do surveys for koalas and other threatened species before letting the loggers in.
Suddenly our conversation with Nicole turned tragic. She told us that she had been kidnapped by one of the local men years ago who had held her prisoner in his caravan isolated in the bush and raped her over a series of days and nights. When he had gone somewhere, she managed to kick her way out of his locked caravan and ran through the bush in a frenzy.
‘Look here… at the scars on me head!’ she declared to us as she bent her head forward and combed her hair through her fingers.
‘I didn’t feel any of it, the barb wire ripping into my legs as I ran through the bush. I got to the highway and tried to flag down a truck speeding by. He ignored me. Crazy woman by the side of the road. But the next truckie stopped and took me to get help.’
Joy, one of our group who herself knew what it was like to be traumatised having survived trapped in the bunker of their home during the bushfires of 2019, wrapped her arms around a sobbing Nicole. We all stood there in silent respect for yet another woman who had been the victim of male violence and contempt.
Shortly after, a woman police officer and male partner rolled up in their 4WD. She read us the usual ‘riot act’. Not hostilely, just matter-of-fact. ‘If you don’t leave the designated logging area, you will be placed under arrest.’
We had a quick conference and decided that we’d made our point. We got into our cars and drove down the windy mountain track past the gloating loggers who filmed our car rego plates…for easy identification next time we dared to come to the town with no beer.
I contacted the minister’s office for an interview with Environment Minister Penny Sharpe as to why it was taking so long for the Great Koala Park to become a reality. I received this reply: ‘The process to establish the park is well under way and work is on track for a government decision in late 2024.’
Don’t hold your breath for koalas and greater gliders.
See the vide clip for this action at: https://youtu.be/LR0_YYd-eCc
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