Forestry Corporation of NSW resumed logging in the Bulga State Forest, west of Comboyne in the Mid-North Coast region of New South Wales', in early October 2024.
Since then 22 forest defenders, including Knitting Nannas, have been attested in the state forests.
Here are just three of these defenders......
ECHO, 4 December 2024:
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Knitting Nannas Dominique Jacobs (60) and Helen Kvelde (73) yesterday became the 21st and 22nd people arrested protesting the logging of Bulga State Forest, west of Port Macquarie. They had attached themselves to the giant tree killing machine known as a harvester.
Both Nannas are active in protesting the lack of action on climate change and are deeply dismayed that the most effective carbon capture and storage technology on the planet, mature forests, are being destroyed at taxpayer expense.
Dom Jacobs said, ‘I’m a grandmother and a wildlife carer. I’m terrified about the future my grandkids face and what is happening to the wild creatures and wild places. We are losing so much that is perfect and wonderful on this planet and I’m really worried about what will be left for those who come after us.
‘As a wildlife carer I get to know those little creatures intimately, they have personalities, they are very susceptible to stress. The thought of them in their beautiful forest homes with trees crashing around them and all the noise of the machines, I can’t imagine their terror.
‘We humans, we take everything. We need to leave something. We need to leave some places be,’ she said.
‘I want to do everything I can. I want to do something that has real impact. Stopping the chopping of glider and koala homes is a good way to spend a day.’
Increasingly fed up
Helen Kvelde said, ‘I feel like I’ve been fighting this war for 50 years and I’m getting more and more fed up. The powers that be aren’t listening, not to the people or the scientists. Climate chaos is here now, it’s happening all over the globe and governments, logging and fossil fuel companies are still acting as if there is no tomorrow.
‘I’m bewildered at the lack of action. I’ve been to so many rallies and marches, signed petitions, written letters but it feels like we are just going through the motions. As Greta Thunberg said all we get back is bla bla bla.
‘Our governments are full of hot air and empty promises. They say they see climate change as a serious threat and that there is a biodiversity crisis, but their actions suggest they think it’s a joke or it’s not real,’ she said.
‘It’s like I’m watching the Lorax play out in real life. It was a story where in order to get rich, all the trees were cut down, and the land was left a dirty stinking wreck.
‘I’m hoping that our action today gives kids hope and encourages others to do the same. I’m a bit frightened but I also feel that desperate times require desperate measures,’ said Ms Kvelde.
Both women agreed that forests like Bulga are vital for threatened wildlife, saying that we need to respect and care for all those big trees, not just for their intrinsic right to exist and live in peace, but because they defend us from the most dangerous threat of all: climate chaos.
Save Bulga Forest, media release, 15 October 2024:
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| John Seed OAM, attached to logging machinery in Bulga State Forest, 15th October 2024 |
John Seed, founder of the Rainforest Information Centre and the Deep Ecology Network was arrested today for attaching himself to logging machinery in Bulga forest.
John, now in his 79th year, says he had a transformative experience in the rainforests of north east NSW during the Terania Creek protests in 1979.
“The forest spoke to me. Working to keep the trees standing was the best use of my short time on this amazing jewel of a planet, so far the only one of its kind that we know of in this galaxy.
“It’s 45 years since I was FIRST arrested for the forests (and for which I subsequently received an OAM after the Wran government turned the forest where I was arrested into the Nightcap National Park – now on the World Heritage list along with the Grand Canyon and the Serengeti).
“I believe the Bulga Forest will also find its way into National Park and World Heritage status once this government wakes up. Then tourism will earn orders of magnitude more than the vandalism that we’re currently trying to stop.
“There’s been no proper assessment of the damage done by the 2019/20 fires. We don’t know how many trees and animals died, how many hollow habitat trees were lost. The most basic element of the precautionary principle is that if you don’t know, stop making things worse.
“Climate chaos is barrelling towards us. We need to stop making the damage worse and focus on earth repair and building resilience. How can we have hope for a future for our kids and grandkids if our governments insist on destroying the planet’s protection mechanisms,” he said.
In 1995 John was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his services to conservation and the environment. Through his work over the decades, the Rainforest Information Centre has supported communities in PNG, the Solomon Islands, Cambodia, Ecuador, India to defend their forests, through direct action, establishment of protected forest areas, reafforestation programs or funds for litigation.
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