As an avid supporter of Fridays4Forests, you can often find me out front of MP Janelle Saffin’s office on a Friday morning; holding a banner, attempting to book an appointment or performing in a short skit for socials, choreographed by our dear Nanna Dot, highlighting the plight of our endangered wildlife and their habitat in Northern NSW.
This month I decided to find out what ‘citizen science’ is all about, and attended a camp in a state forest less than two hours away from Lismore.
If, like me, you consider yourself a local eco warrior, an animal lover or a keen amateur ecologist, then this crew is for you!
Scores of forest protectors gathered on the unceded lands of the Bundjalung nation. We shared skills, food, stories and knowledge. We collected scientific proof to help our fragile forests survive into the future.
Forestry Corp have breached hundreds of regulations over the years. To add insult to injury when they’re found guilty by the EPA and fined, they use taxpayers’ money to settle their dirty business debts.
The only thing that stops them is the people power of citizen science in what we call locally ‘the Bentley effect’. It is working!
Our staunch crew went out diligently every day at dusk and spotted many greater gliders and dens! Rare frog and bird calls were heard.
We searched and found endangered Scrub Turpentine trees and even a suspected spotted quoll latrine!
This data resulted in the intended harvest plan being suspended in at least two locations.
Our beloved gliders, quolls, frogs and owls protected from the logging, clearing and destruction permitted by government in the final death throes of late-stage capitalism.
The success of the weekend has resulted in much more local interest, creating many new friendships and strengthening old ones.
I strongly recommend you sign up for some micro biome time with your local forest protecting family and let’s all #EndNativeForestLoggingNow
Tour of resistance
The following week I found myself on the way to Lutruwita, so-called Tasmania.
The Bob Brown Foundation had invited us from the “north island” to join them in their annual Tour of Resistance, and help save these ancient forests being ripped apart and turned into paper and wood chips.
I was devastated after a picturesque morning in Liffy to witness the bulldozed piles of forest debris awaiting a napalm-like substance aerial attack from Forestry Tasmania, killing all the remaining wildlife sheltering in the detritus left after their habitats are destroyed in the name of profit.
I joined a group of over 100 forest activists, we set up camp, shared ideas and hot food while the locals showed us what’s left the old growth forests on the stolen lands of the Palawa Pakana people.
We visited some local timber merchants let them know they have no social licence to log these sacred trees, habitat for swift parrots, tassie devils, masked owls and wedgetail eagles.
The tour was an immediate success.
We held up work for hours, and many BBF volunteers risked arrest in the spirit of “doing it for the forests”.
It was an honour to resist alongside such forest legends and admire their life’s work and dedication to these trees and its inhabitants from the very small to the giants!
More new friends made and existing relationships more grounded.
The week concluded with a large ‘endangered species banquet’ held at Salamanca markets in Nipaluna (colonised Hobart), where we performed as grotesque bloodthirsty profiteers of forest destruction.
The characters included PM Anthony Albanese and the premier of Tassie Jeremy Rockliff, and I got to play Suzanne Weeding, forestry’s woman of the year with decades of family business experience in exploitation and extraction of our delicate ecosystems.
Let me assure you she had so much blood on her hands that some of the food colouring is still in my nails two weeks later.
We are excited that the March for Forests is returning to Lismore this year, starting 10am Sunday 22nd March in the Quad and hosting a huge range of regional talent including musicians, performers, choirs and passionate forest experts.
In 2025 theMarch for Forests was held in the main street of Byron Bay, bringing around 800 people out onto the streets to stand up for native forests.
The march attracts high profile regional speakers and musicians, and has caused a stir across NSW at recent events when David Heilpern called the Forestry Corporation NSW a “criminal entity” and listed in detail their serial offences.
Contact the BBF website or on socials to get involved. Join us at F4F and pursue your dream of being a citizen scientist.
If we can end logging in NSW, it will definitely end in Lutruwita. The forest dwellers and trees need us now more than ever.
