Listen to Australia’s Science Show, ABC RN February 22nd 2020.
Some trees were over 1.000 years old. The intensity of the fires destroyed them.
The story of Terania Creek.
Saved by protesters in 1979 when loggers wanted entry. So many burnt now. BUT in NSW in 2019 legislation, protesters who dare to try to protect the environment, to protect the trees and what we have left are to be penalised, fined. It appears, despite the fires, this government would rather pollute than protect. We have to ask whose interests they are promoting.
In 2020, in NSW developers are to be allowed in without checking the impact on the quality of the environment. They don’t have to do a count to check the impact on the koala population. It’s the NSW Liberal government backed by Shooters, Hunters and Fishers. Now in power!!! BUT other States are doing the same thing. In Queensland protesters against the Adani coal mine were put in gaol without bail! I question the direction Australia is taking. Towards USA? Or towards the EU? Which approach to the environment and the future are we taking? Always the ABC RN’s Science Show makes us think about where we are going. [See also the interview with Jared Diamond about his new book, Upheaval in the February 22nd 2020 program.]
Terania Creek 1979 and 2019
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11m 52s
Download Terania Creek – saved in 1979, ravaged by fire in 2019 (16.31 MB)
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Many people have been celebrating as 2019 marks forty years since the climax of protests to save the rainforests of northern NSW from clear-felling by foresters. It was the first environmental protest in Australia and led to protests which saved Tasmania’s Franklin River and other areas. But there is a sadness, as the area was not spared by the fires which have burnt so much land in eastern Australia. Sue Higginson, now an environmental lawyer was 19 when she protested to save the forests of Terania Creek. She reflects on what was achieved. ABC reporter Leah White reports on recent changes to laws which lessen environmental protection aid developers and threaten protesters and now, what has been lost by fire, and Scott Stephens, a contributor to the ABC RN’s ‘Minefield’ asks why we mourn the loss of animals, but not trees. He asks why our concern for people, fauna and not flora when, without the flora and the fungi, we are nowhere. How short-sighted are we? Will we learn? It will show in the way we vote. This is also a podcast for listeners.
In a previous blog, I focused on The Songs of Trees: Nature’s Great Connectors by David George Haskell. Look at it. And read Overstory by Richard Powers, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize.
Sciences and Humanities 
Dreadful Erica, dreadful
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