Fig. 1.1
The Rainbow Region
The Northern Rivers region of New South Wales (NSW) was once known only as Bundjalung Country. At its geographical and spiritual heart was Wollumbin, or âCloud Catcherâ, a long-extinct volcano that erupted over 25 million years ago, leaving a caldera of rich volcanic soil that nurtured the ancient Gondwana rainforest that once covered much of the Australian continent. The Widjabul people of the Bundjalung nation resided in these rainforests. The trees provided food and medicine, and supported their recreational, ceremonial and spiritual culture. The land was imbued with lore, and every rock, tree, mountain and waterway had its place within Aboriginal culture. One of these waterways was a creek that flowed down from the southern edge of the rim left by the once-enormous shield volcano. Its name was Terania, meaning âplace of frogsâ.
After thousands of years, the process of British colonisation inscribed new names upon these sacred sites, as well as new understandings and new values. Wollumbin became known as Mount Warning, and the rainforest became the Big Scrub . The rainforest nurtured valuable timber varieties such as Cedar, Beech, Brushbox, Rosewood, Teak and Coachwood. The forest remained undisturbed for a considerable time after the establishment of the NSW colony in 1788; settlers believed it to be impenetrable, but in 1842, the first cedar cutters arrived. The clearing of the Big Scrub was intended to strip the forest of valuable timber, especially Red Cedar, while at the same time clearing the land for agricultural use, particularly dairy farms. By the turn of the century, most of the rainforest was gone.
The clearing of the Big Scrub continued throughout the twentieth century, near-unchallenged, until a third demographic shift brought with it a different set of values and understandings. In 1974, new settlers to the area learned of the New South Wales Forestry Commissionâs plans to clearfell and burn the Terania Creek basin, one of the last remaining tracts of the once-magnificent rainforest. The forest had attracted many new people who felt drawn to the ancient ecosystem at a time when the conservation movement was starting to understand the importance of rainforest. Supported by large numbers of new inhabitants determined to fight for this rare ecosystem, there followed a five-year campaign that culminated in 1979 with the worldâs first successful standoff between people and machinery in defence of a forest. The spirit and innovation of the protest, inspired in no small part by countercultural values, led to a spontaneous blockade in a style and at a scale never witnessed in the forests. Tactics and strategy that were forged there, on the ground, in the crucible of passion, confrontation, and determination, are the very same employed in forest activism globally today. Terania Creek has since echoed around the country and across the world, forever changing the nature of environmental campaigning, and empowering people to challenge the destruction of forests on a global scale.
Terania Creek was a momentous, unprecedented and highly influential protest of great global importance, yet, to date, this has been little recognised. Discussions of the Australian environment movement never fail to bring up familiar names and eventsâLake Pedder , the Green Bans , the Franklin, the Daintree âbut in the vast majority of these discussions, Terania Creek is either completely omitted or, at best, briefly referred to as the first successful attempt to use direct action to halt environmental destruction, and then left at that, as thoughâinexplicablyâit is somehow not of great historical significance. Terania Creek stands as the unacknowledged source of a great deal of activist techniques that have been passed down not only through the Australian environment movement, but onto the global movement as well. The protest pioneers of Terania Creek were not familiar with the now common images associated with a forest blockade, such as tree-sitting and bulldozer obstruction ârather, these were techniques of their own creation.
With no idea as to how things would unfold, the Terania Native Forest Action Group was formed in 1974 and for five years challenged the New South Wales Forestry Commissionâs plans for Terania Creek in any conceivable way that it could. But five years of âpoliteâ campaigning, lobbying and appealing to the NSW State Labor Government led by Neville Wran failed to save the forest, and logging was scheduled to commence in August of 1979. Hundreds of protesters converged on the property at the end of Terania Creek Road with the intention of demonstrating their opposition to the logging . With no set plan in mind, what unfolded was a natural and spontaneous response: a direct action blockade of the rainforest that the protesters had sought so fiercely to protect. Nonviolent direct action was not new, and it was a common concept for many of the protesters; what was new was the use of direct action in a forest setting, waged in defence of the trees.
A very significant factor in the success of the Terania Creek blockade was the fact that it occurred âwithin walking distance of the largest alternative community in Australiaâ (Cohen 1996, 42). The Aquarius Festival of 1973 was held in the near-abandoned dairy village of Nimbin . An event that brought at least 5000 young people to the region, this ten-day countercultural arts festival inspired many to stay on in the area, boosting the growing numbers of new settlers seeking solace in the green hills of the Northern Rivers. The number of intentional communities in the region rose dramatically, and the widespread social change and growing awareness of environmental issues that was born of the 1960s spirit became part of the culture of the âRainbow Regionâ itself, as the area would become known.
Terania was, therefore, largely carried by alternative settlers influenced by the new ideas that a revolutionary era brought with it. Protest techniques such as sit-ins and moratoria were adopted primarily from Britain and the United States , both of which exerted a strong influence on Australian protest movements (see for example Gordon and Osmond 1970; Horne 1980, 52; Gerster and Bassett 1991; Scalmer 2002). Sean Scalmerâs Dissent Events (Scalmer 2002) analyses the Australian protest movement and argues that it was based on the interpretation and extension of the imported concept of the âpolitical gimmickâ. He concludes that Australians appropriated protest techniques to suit their own movement and imbued these techniques with their own culture. Absent from Dissent Events is any mention of Australiaâs environment movement. Contrary to his theory of importation, Australian forest protest is, in fact, an exportâScalmer does not consider the reverse process, but he does acknowledge that his work is an incomplete history (Scalmer 2002, 8).
Contrary to claims that Australian protest culture is merely an international import, the Australian forest protest movement is quite the opposite. From 1979 onwards, innovative techniques spread from Terania Creek, around Australia and across the oceans. Terania Creek and the culture of Northern NSW has had a tremendous and unacknowledged impact on the history of the Australian environment movement and has helped to create and shape protest techniques that have resonated around the world. While Terania Creek itself signalled the start of something new, tactics and techniques were further refined by a significant number of individuals who found themselves so transformed by the event that their lives were forever changed.
This book is an attempt to set the record straight. Leena Rossi argues that oral history is âirreplaceableâ as an environmental history methodology, as it allows direct access to the individualâs experience of the natural environment (Rossi 2011, 153). Drawing on the voices of protesters themselves, the inspiring story of Terania Creek comes to life through a combination of memories, first-hand accounts, and photographs. Starting with an outline of the conditions under which something like Terania could occur, Chapter 2 focuses on the context of the 1960s and the emerging Australian environment movement. In particular, it details the establishment of Northern NSW as a countercultural hub from the late 1960s. This chapter then considers the critical importance of the blockadeâs local context, situated in the heart of a region that hosted the largest concentration of countercultural intentional communities (more derogatorily known as âcommunesâ) in the Southern hemisphere at the time.
Chapter 3 traces the events in the lead-up to the protest, including the formation of the Terania Native Forest Action Group (TNFAG) and the details of its five-year campaign. Between 1974, when locals first learned of plans to log the Terania Creek basin, and 1979, when the blockade occurred, TNFAG tried all manner of âpoliteâ forms of protest, including letter-writing , lobbying and appealing to well-established conservation groups for advocacy. While the groupâs campaigning remained within the confines of conventional protest techniques, it pushed the boundaries in terms of its approach. TNFAG drew on the skills of the highly educated countercultural community and pioneered innovative methods such as the production of a television commercial, the colourful and entertaining use of the arts to engage with senior politicians, and the original use of what we now call âcitizen scienceâ , conducting transect surveys of the forest and disseminating information about ârain forestâ, an only recently distinguished and little-known category at the time.
Despite TNFAGâs extensive efforts, the Forestry Commission maintained its determination to log Terania Creek, due to commence in August 1979. Chapter 4 documents the blockade: when all else failed, a mass demonstration spontaneously evolved into a month-long protest, which saw the pioneering of many now well-known activist tactics, including tree-sits, bulldozer obstruction , road sabotage , theatrical protest and âblack wallabyingâ. This chapter details these events, including the establishment of the camp and the principles of consensus decision -making on which it was formed, the strict adherence to nonviolence and the evolution of organic protest techniques. It also details the police reaction, the response of the media and the eventual intervention of politicians, bringing an end to the blockade and resulting in the protection of the forest, and all rainforest in NSW, in 1983.
Chapter 5 assesses the influence and dissemination of Terania Creekâs repercussions on an individual, national and international scale. A great many of the Terania Creek protesters found themselves âtransformedâ. They took their new-found knowledge and spirit of success, and went on to advocate for the environment in a variety of ways. Some continued down the activist path by attending future protests and training activists in nonviolent direct action. Others, inspired by the rapidly increasing awareness of the significance of rainforest, took this knowledge overseas, became environmental educators or established rainforest regeneration nurseries. The protest also led to the direct establishment of other envir...