|
The blockade at Wandella State Forest has been going now for three months.The area of forest known as Paddy's Creek has sustained fairly continuous logging throughout this time.
State Forests NSW has no record of logging within this area. The only information we have discovered is that a local Ross Rixon logged sassafras from Paddy's Creek during WW2 for gun butts.
Paddy's Creek was the benchmark for water purity in the state of NSW.South East Forest Rescue set up a blockade on May 18 with a tree sit across Brassknocker Road.
This space was maintained until the 20th May when the police rescue and local officers arrived and ordered all to leave. They served notice that we were in a prohibited area. Prior to this only the area of Paddy's Creek compartments had been in the prohibited zone.
Now it appeared that all of Wandella State Forest was prohibited including Brassknocker Road which not only serves as access to local residents on the Wadbilliga River but also serves the telecommunication towers on the top of the mountain. Brassknocker Road takes one into the Paddy's Creek Flora Reserve and the national park. How this can be a legal manoeuvre is yet to be reconciled.
The 20th of May saw us all scattering to a private property near the tree sit where we could watch and yell as they went about their business of dismantling the sit. One person who chose to stay on the road was arrested. However this charge was thrown out of court when he made clear that he had intended to leave the prohibited area towards the private land and was thwarted by police who marched him down the hill to the paddy wagon.
Following is a media release written for local newsletter Scalene:
Tom Bombadil and Goldberry were seen on Peak Alone Mountain during a blockade/protest against the logging/destruction of our forest. After a visit by the police and Forestry who presumably told them they were now in a restricted area and had to leave or be arrested they disappeared.
Goldberry was later discovered tied to a tree on Yowrie Road and in good health. Indeed she remains at the blockade to this day. Logging contractors were seen to take their chainsaws to Tom in an age where we philosophically discuss torture. What information did Tom yield before his demise? The closed minds behind the machines wielding an illusion of power demonstrated once again the true villains of this drama.
Those that desecrate our Sacred Forests our Water our Air and place our very survival at risk are those that defile Art and Beauty in all its manifestations. We remember when we belonged to the Forest when the Earth was our Mother and all of Life was a sacred thing.
The current blockade began on June 13 when again South East Forest Rescue and some local peoples set up camp on the corner of Brassknocker and Yowrie Roads. Forests NSW had declared the whole of Wandella State Forest a prohibited zone after the action in May . Over the three months many scenarios have been played out as the lovers of the forest maintain virgil and witness at first hand the slaughter of a beautiful forestes environment. The community have been invited twice to walk in and have a look at the current standard of logging operations within the Paddy's Creek area . Although those that enter the forest are liable for a PIN resiulting in a $100 fine many have turned out to witness. People are routinely disgusted and surprised at the extent of the destruction. The grass trees that are bulldozed aside to make way for roading or logging ; the seemingly little care for habitat and the recipe of erosion that will continue long after looging had ceased. What to do ?
The people at the blockade provide information ; engage with politicians and State Forests officials as well as local contractors in an effort to dispell the myths and awaken the heart that hears and sees and feels the song of our Mother Earth.
|
