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A Campfire View of Giblett Forest
John spent the past week camping in Western Australia's glorious Giblett Forest, one of few old growth forests that remain in Australia. It is currently being logged. Campfire View of Giblett Forest Sitting by the campfire at the protest/witness camp here at Giblett forest in the SW of WA. Guitar and didge drift over from the other fire, I guess there were 20 of us here last night waiting for CALM (the State Government's Department of Carnage and Land Massacre - alias Conservation and Land Management) to declare the area a TCA (Temporary Control Area) and try and move all the people out. I guess there was 20 of us camped here last night, a motley crew of young ferals and old hippies and Chris Lee up on his platform 30 m above us perched halfway up a massive Karri tree, his 7th night up there. They have a quaint habit in these parts called "scrub rolling" where they send in dozers and anything else they have that weighs a few tonnes to flatten the undergrowth, to clear the way for the chainsaws through the dense undergrowth. Ancient cycads, she-oak, snotty gobbles, bulich, tea-trees, lucepogan, isepogan - crushed carnage everywhere. Then they start cutting the big trees but this time they've been stopped dead in their tracks. We got in late and slept on a huge scar (forest clearing, Ed.) scraped bare for a log dump. Eshana's setting up our camp now, on the edge between the rolled and flattened scrub and the still inviolate ancient forest, grieving the desolation here. Pitching our tent beneath some of the obscene CALM graffiti in bold white spray paint on the huge old trees, big _X's_ marking the edge of the coupe. It's so disgusting, such a majestic, huge forest, most of it trampled into dust to expose the big trees, and then 85% of the volume of these turned into woodchips. What's more, the whole thing is heavily subsidised by the taxpayer - all the roads and port infrastructure and, in spite of the loggers and chippers vast profits, the workers get payed so little that they qualify for social security support to supplement their income. Chris spends lots of time on his treetop telephone and I can hear him up there on the platform with another radio-talkback station. The story is spreading quickly around the country, I guess it won't be long before the greenies start to arrive from around the land. The other day there was a victory in the Australian Federal Senate - they passed a motion condemning the WA State Government and stated that this forest should not be logged. Postscript It's really important that emails come through in the next few days to the Premier of West Australia, Richard Court <wireland@mpc.wa.gov.au> and the Minister responsible for CALM, Cheryl Edwardes <sitecoordinator@mpc.wa.gov.au> and let them know Australians and others are interested in this issue. I believe that we can win this one. Please send an email. It's enough to say that we want the logging to stop in Giblett and the declaration of the GREATER BEEDELUP NATIONAL PARK. Please copy your emails to Chris Lee at <gaiasw@griffin.bis.net.au>. If possible, please forward this to others you know who might respond. John Seed |
This Onroad installment comes to us from world renowned rainforest activist, John Seed. Since procuring a laptop many years ago, John has written personal accounts of his many international trips, emailing them to friends often from some of the remotest rainforest regions that remain.
SATELLITE DISPATCH / ONROAD / JOHN SEED