1. Folks, I’m at my new home, Elands on the Bulga Plateau north east of Taree in NSW. Today I joined other locals in the fight to save native forest adjacent to the national park devastated by November’s fires and used by koalas and other fire survivors. 
2. Locals in NSW are trying to preserve remnant habitat where they live for flora and fauna after Australia burned, because the NSW Govt won’t.
Ours is Compartment 51 half an hour up the road from my new home. NSW wants to log Tallowwood, Brushbox & Blue Gum for floorboards.
Ours is Compartment 51 half an hour up the road from my new home. NSW wants to log Tallowwood, Brushbox & Blue Gum for floorboards.
3. Locals in Elands and Wingham (near the coast) gathered this morning at the bridge dividing the national park from State forest to locate scats and scratches so we know what native animals live there now the national park has burned.
3. Bloody cold. A couple of biggish trees (the big ones already logged) marked as do not cut down but the rest will go unless we stop it. Mutiple koala scats found, and potaroo. Greater glider scratch marks on trees.
The kids just played hard.
The kids just played hard.
4. I’ve come to Elands for to stay with friends Susie and Greg for 15 years, a retreat. They helped save forests in NSW since moving from Melbourne in the early 1990s & regenerating a soldier settler dairy farm.
Elands evacuated in Nov; they fought 4 days to save their place.
Elands evacuated in Nov; they fought 4 days to save their place.
5. I heard several harrowing fire stories over lunch. Heather Bray lost her first house and just about everything else except for her current home. She said she now has post traumatic growth syndrome - she feels stronger now.
6. @helenlauramont moved to Wingham from Manly 2 years ago, and joined Knitting Nanas and became a wildlife carer. She’s just read Overstory, by Richard Powers, “and it breaks my heart at what’s happening to forests around the world”.
7. Mike Rose lives on one of 2 Elands ‘Oxygen Farms’. Locals bought logged land paid for by subdividing small blocks on the edge and regenerated the rest, built a walking path for tourists. I saw a big bulldozed firebreak from Nov.
He brought his grandkids today.
He brought his grandkids today.
8. Aspen Charlesworth is a member of the region’s branch of Extinction Rebellion. “forest enthusiast. “We’re so close to the burnt National Park in a haven for the bushfire survivors. We found fresh poo this week so we’ll keep coming back for evidence.”
9. Next Sunday is koala action day & we’ll be back. #coronavirusworld made me think of home, it’s meaning & one’s duty to it. Always a #Queenslander, but so grateful Elands survived and thrilled to live here and join fellow residents to do my bit to protect it for the planet.
9. Hoping people around the State adopt a forest and love it and protect it from NSW Govt harm for the flora and fauna who’ve lost so much of their home and for climate change action and for our children and theirs to love and be happy in.
It’s up to us. (end for now)
It’s up to us. (end for now)
10. On the fires frontline in Wingham, near the coast down from Elands, when the Mid North Coast Manning River region burned last November
