Untouched rainforest, 'old-growth' is being logged for paper, woodchips and profits at an alarming rate. Trees turn carbon into oxygen, rainforests are perhaps our greatest ally against global warming and considered by scientists and ecologists alike to be Planet Earth's 'lungs'. In Tasmania you have
people turning the most beautiful land into a temporary desert for profit, ignoring public opinion, changing laws to suit themselves and a line drawn in the sand.
people turning the most beautiful land into a temporary desert for profit, ignoring public opinion, changing laws to suit themselves and a line drawn in the sand.
Angel
Untouched rainforest, 'old-growth' is being logged for paper, woodchips and profits at an alarming rate. Trees turn carbon into oxygen, rainforests are perhaps our greatest ally against global warming and considered by scientists and ecologists alike to be Planet Earth's 'lungs'.
How did a multimedia writer and performer from London end up camping in Tasmanian rainforests with logging protestors? In other words, what am I doing here, how did I get here and why?
I heard about the tree protest in the Tasmanian rainforest, a friend
was on his way, a ticket manifested via an angel with abundance and a
vast heart so I followed the synchro flow... In Tasmania you have
people turning the most beautiful land into a temporary desert for
profit, ignoring public opinion, changing laws to suit themselves and a
line drawn in the sand. The Aussie government do intend to replce the
old growth but you simply cannot subsititute 160 foot monster trees
with saplings. Before the saplings regrow yuo have what resembles a
desert, clearfells, worse still if the loggers have quite literally
burnt all of what was left. However there are few things you could do
with your time that are more satisfying than helping some of the nicest
people on the planet help save some of the biggest trees on the planet
in one of the prettiest places on the planet. The trees they are
turning into paper and woodchip are quite literally some of the oldest
living things on Earth, the tallest hardwoods and some of the tallest
trees. "Today, sadly, industrial forestry pushes into the virgin
forests of the lower Weld Valley, while its head waters, beneath Mt
Mueller, are protected in the Tasmania South West Wilderness World
Heritage Area. For more than 5 years local, national and international
activists have worked to protect the Weld from industrial destruction."
from www.huon.org/weldvalley/
I have an appetite for the unbeaten path and a tendency to follow my intuition. This has led to me interviewing ex-MI5 agents at UK festivals and radio stations, being Knighted the Bard of a Druid Order in Stonehenge on an Autumn Equinox, performing poetry in ancient Irish Hill forts, hosting art exhibitions in squatted warehouses in Bristol Druid ceremonies in lesser known stone circles, Canadian immigration cells for an internet romance and bumping into my rhyming guru KRS1 in Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice. It's been random to say the least. However a combination of luck and intuition often goes a long way if you trust, the synchronous meetings, auspicious conversations and leaps of faith weave a web that from a distance looks and feels more meaningful. I felt compelled to write about my exploits initially just to express myself, as an act of catharsis, to get things off my chest. But some of the places I have been and things I have seen are rarely documented by the mainstream media, even though these 'subcultures' are often well known and the festivals, ceremonies and protests are well attended. Often when the mainstream media do cover these stories it's not in a balanced light.
So... I left the UK Monday Morning and arrived in Tasmania Wednesday afternoon, stopping in Hong Kong and Melbourne. When my missioning partner, also from the UK, caught up with me in Melbourne (I left 10 hours before him) he was the happiest I'd ever seen him. He looked at the sunshine, the hills, then he looked at me. He looked at the countryside and shouted "WE WIN!" He was glad to be back in Australia, I'd see him even happier later in the week...
Within half an hour of getting off the plane in Tasmania the first randoms we spoke to were some cool skater kids who claimed they were also up for climbing some fat trees. I hasten to add at this point I still didn't know if I'd be up for climbing or make it up if I tried. We got on the vodka, then staggered up the hill to my missioning partner's mates house. We got lost. Luckily we had camping gear so I didn't care.
Staggering up a hill, lost and half cut on vodka... my first night... We didn't have a lift because my missioning partner's friends were fifteen minutes late at the airport and we were too excited to wait! We both had English mobiles and my missioning partner didn't give his number out until he got an Aussie number cos it would cost so much. We got a bus from the airport before they arrived, I'd been in Tas for hours and not seen any of my guide and missioning partner's friends yet. We eventually found the house we were searching for, and submitted to sleeping in the garden because everyone was obviously asleep or out. My first night... I intuited that they were probably out because it wasn't that late. Two minutes later someone else came out, the pleasantries were exchanged, everybody else got back from the pub, the hugs were exchanged, my buddy was filled in on how the politial situation has changed and the planned actions that week, I met the protest 'family' and we all got mash up! Standard.
Thursday we got up early to prepare for a fancy dress protest marking the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement. From www.tasmedia.org/node/1627
The first day I woke up in Tasmania I got to wear the outfit I wore for the Ancients Did Jazz (purple velvet shawl with the Star of david with an Ohm symbol in the middle on the back.) Perfect, implant Druidic shaman vibration immediately! The Synchroflow was in full swing as I read e-mails sent to me by people I just met at the protest and just as I was saying to someone I need to talk to someone about gigs they walked round the corner... Potential is huge, acoustic gigs aplenty and seeing as as far as I can tell I'm the only thing resembling a rudeboy on the island apart from rudeboy number one, my rastafied my missioning partner himself, putting on a reggae and UK Hip-Hop event should be quite easy. Especially for English boys. Thursday night everybody got mash-up but I was back on an ital flex, abstaining from booze to prepare shamanically for my first time in the rainforest.
Friday... finally going to the forest... the rainforest. So far the people were really friendly and really funny, everyone in my buddy's circle seems well on it, politically and often spiritually, and the landscape - massive green hills and mountains surrounded by giant trees and the sea between Tasmania and the mainland - it was beautiful. But I wanted to see the bush, to drive into the rainforest. We started preparing early, we bought more camping gear and some climbing gear for the giant trees. My rainforest-hugging missioning partner was eager to see his tree again. We left late. We got there later as we had to help this lady out with her garden (as in push a car out of her front yard!) We still got there in daylight. It was perfect.
In the videos the protestors had shown me you usually get to see big clearings or the tops of trees but within the rainforest is lush mossy glens with mossy rocks and massive trees covered in moss on their sides and you look up and hundreds of feet above you are massive trees upright and runnin' t'ings. Mindblowing. I also saw where they had built a huge road where there used to be nothing but trees, it looked like a scab on the planet. I saw my missioning partner's tree on the way, saw how high his 'tree sit' was (his tree sit was his home or a while) and I thought, "you must be f***ing joking." Then we went to camp.
Not nearly as many creepy crawlies as expected, a temperate rainforest is not nearly as thick on the ground for wildlife as a a tropical rainforest.
I woke up in the Upper Florentine rainforest on Saturday morning. I felt alive. Did a little chi gung. My missioning partner kept saying "I'm home". I'd been saying, about 5 times a day, "It still hasn't quite sunk in", "I can't believe I'm actually here", or "it doesn't feel real yet" to anyone that asked and a few who hadn't since I arrived. Our friend we pushed the car for the previous day was holding an outdoor open day with tea and veggie burgers near the rainforest to inform passers by about the protest. My buddy from the UK draged me off to climb his tree. Moment of truth to a certain extent. I got up that tree quicker than I expected and it wasn't that scary either. Being up the tree was utter bliss. Although I would not describe getting up the tree as a pleasant experience, it was like a zen meditation - "this is all in your mind, you're as likely to fall now as when you were 2 foot off the ground, the tree, you and the ground are all an illusion" etc, etc! My missioning partner has a 'tree sit' at the top. A tree-sit is a hardboard of wood tied to the tree horizontally with a one man tent on top of it, about 50 metres or 160 foot up. The purpose is to slow the loggers down and save trees while you're at it, they can't log a tree with a person sleeping in it. The police can ask you to move and you can chppse how long you're willing to test thir patience... or talk to them diplomatically about the value of trees and the purpose of protest, I'm sure there are many options! Next to his tree-sit he has his 'triangle' which is basically a hammock in a wooden triangle. The hardest part for me, way harder than climbing the tree, was getting from the tree sit to the hammock, which I wouldn't do unless I was tied on securely! It was a small step of a foot or two but it was 160 foot down and an awkward angle for a novice!
Sitting in the hammock, above the tree line in one of the tallest trees in that area, listening to Bluetech, Midnite and Synchromystickz... well I might be here longer than I thought! "The towering forests, deep gorges, spectacular waterfalls and wide open plains of the Weld River Valley in Tasmania's Southern Forests represent one of the finest remaining vestiges of pristine ecology in the State." From www.huon.org/weldvalley/
Sunday was hardcore chilling! Cotch factor ten Mr Sulu!
Meanwhile it is important to note - this is early days. There is a national election soon and if last year is anything to go by the powers that used to be will hold back from damaging the rainforest in these politically sensitive times and then go for it as soon as the elections are over. There is currently a moratoriam over an area, a moratoriam is like a legally agreed ceasefire for logging, the moratoriam coincidentally ends within days of the election. That is when the direct action volunteers and activists are likely to be needed and that is when there is likely to be less time to chill because tree sits are being built, camps are being solidified and the effort will have to crank.
On a more introspective note...
My spiritual practices and inclination have taught me the value of trying to see all sides of every argument, I might not always succeed but I try. I am also not by nature a confrontational person. But when you have people turning the most beautiful land into desert for profit, ignoring public opinion, changing laws to suit themselves and a line drawn in the sand it's hard to escape duality or the mind of separation. But in the silence of the rainforest, with just the wind in the trees, it's very easy to to escape the mind. However turning some of the planets oldest trees into paper seems so utterly ridiculous and selfish that it makes sense that I'm here to help in whatever way I can, it is a cause I 'resonate' with, regardless of judgment. However I also feel that on a 3D level the trees are our mothers lungs and everything's perfect including me being in a position to help in whatever way I can. I don't intend to see the hospital or the police station. This is heaven on earth and a warzone at the same time. These are some of the most welcoming people I've met and there is an amazing vibe. everybody, at least in my missioning partner's wide circle of friends, is always talking about strategies and battle-plans when they're not cracking jokes. It is at once a serene and an intense place to be. It's fun and it's nice to be somewhere where so many people care, it makes a change. The entire community is behind them which also makes a change from British protests.
Since my first week I have had a chance to talk one on one with more of the protestors who have expressed empathy for the loggers and the jobs that they do, it is the corporations behind the loggers who appear to lack empathy and ignore public opinion. Between 10 and 15 thousand people attended a recent protest rally in Hobart. I have also been offered refuge from the often intense warzone-like atmosphere of battleplans and strategies in more than a couple of houses in idyllic locations away from the city. The warmth and generosity here is immense.
Bottom line. Some people are tearing out our mothers lungs and other people are living in the trees to stop them, camping in paradise but working hard. I won't know until it comes whether or not I'll be on the front line but there are a variety of ways to help. They need help, come join them. Why not? Babylon will always whisper excuses in your ear, come to Tasmania. We are all one, loggers and protestors alike, but we all have different parts to play within the same song, one song, uni-verse (I thank Rodney, the poet formally known as Paradox, for the Uni-verse link...) What part will you play?
Everyone around me is involved in judging a political and ecological warzone and with good reason. Trees turn carbon into oxygen, our greatest assistance against greenhouse gasses.
Know Peace
www.myspace.com/kpknowledgeispower (yes, I'm sorry about Mr Murdoch.)
They have wishlists - from little things like food and cash to ropes, portable GPS systems, laptops with satellite dishes so we can e-mail from the rainforest but they do not need anything as much as they need more people.
The Huon Environment Centre is actively involved in helping to protect, preserve and promote the Tasmanian Rainforest. If you would like to assist they would vastly appreciate donations of any amount.
Cheques can be made payable to 'Huon Valley Environment Centre'
Write to...
3/17 Wilmot Road
Huonville. Tasmania. Australia. 7109
Care of KP, Know Peace
Phone: 03 6264 1286
Fax: 03 6264 1243
Email:
centre@huon.org (these e-mails go to the centre, not to me.)
For more information on the protest investigate www.huon.org
Huon Valley Environment Centre are a grassroots, volunteer run, not-for-profit charity based in the Huon Valley, Southern Tasmania.
How did a multimedia writer and performer from London end up camping in Tasmanian rainforests with logging protestors? In other words, what am I doing here, how did I get here and why?
I heard about the tree protest in the Tasmanian rainforest, a friend
was on his way, a ticket manifested via an angel with abundance and a
vast heart so I followed the synchro flow... In Tasmania you have
people turning the most beautiful land into a temporary desert for
profit, ignoring public opinion, changing laws to suit themselves and a
line drawn in the sand. The Aussie government do intend to replce the
old growth but you simply cannot subsititute 160 foot monster trees
with saplings. Before the saplings regrow yuo have what resembles a
desert, clearfells, worse still if the loggers have quite literally
burnt all of what was left. However there are few things you could do
with your time that are more satisfying than helping some of the nicest
people on the planet help save some of the biggest trees on the planet
in one of the prettiest places on the planet. The trees they are
turning into paper and woodchip are quite literally some of the oldest
living things on Earth, the tallest hardwoods and some of the tallest
trees. "Today, sadly, industrial forestry pushes into the virgin
forests of the lower Weld Valley, while its head waters, beneath Mt
Mueller, are protected in the Tasmania South West Wilderness World
Heritage Area. For more than 5 years local, national and international
activists have worked to protect the Weld from industrial destruction."
from www.huon.org/weldvalley/
I have an appetite for the unbeaten path and a tendency to follow my intuition. This has led to me interviewing ex-MI5 agents at UK festivals and radio stations, being Knighted the Bard of a Druid Order in Stonehenge on an Autumn Equinox, performing poetry in ancient Irish Hill forts, hosting art exhibitions in squatted warehouses in Bristol Druid ceremonies in lesser known stone circles, Canadian immigration cells for an internet romance and bumping into my rhyming guru KRS1 in Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice. It's been random to say the least. However a combination of luck and intuition often goes a long way if you trust, the synchronous meetings, auspicious conversations and leaps of faith weave a web that from a distance looks and feels more meaningful. I felt compelled to write about my exploits initially just to express myself, as an act of catharsis, to get things off my chest. But some of the places I have been and things I have seen are rarely documented by the mainstream media, even though these 'subcultures' are often well known and the festivals, ceremonies and protests are well attended. Often when the mainstream media do cover these stories it's not in a balanced light.
So... I left the UK Monday Morning and arrived in Tasmania Wednesday afternoon, stopping in Hong Kong and Melbourne. When my missioning partner, also from the UK, caught up with me in Melbourne (I left 10 hours before him) he was the happiest I'd ever seen him. He looked at the sunshine, the hills, then he looked at me. He looked at the countryside and shouted "WE WIN!" He was glad to be back in Australia, I'd see him even happier later in the week...
Within half an hour of getting off the plane in Tasmania the first randoms we spoke to were some cool skater kids who claimed they were also up for climbing some fat trees. I hasten to add at this point I still didn't know if I'd be up for climbing or make it up if I tried. We got on the vodka, then staggered up the hill to my missioning partner's mates house. We got lost. Luckily we had camping gear so I didn't care.
Staggering up a hill, lost and half cut on vodka... my first night... We didn't have a lift because my missioning partner's friends were fifteen minutes late at the airport and we were too excited to wait! We both had English mobiles and my missioning partner didn't give his number out until he got an Aussie number cos it would cost so much. We got a bus from the airport before they arrived, I'd been in Tas for hours and not seen any of my guide and missioning partner's friends yet. We eventually found the house we were searching for, and submitted to sleeping in the garden because everyone was obviously asleep or out. My first night... I intuited that they were probably out because it wasn't that late. Two minutes later someone else came out, the pleasantries were exchanged, everybody else got back from the pub, the hugs were exchanged, my buddy was filled in on how the politial situation has changed and the planned actions that week, I met the protest 'family' and we all got mash up! Standard.
Thursday we got up early to prepare for a fancy dress protest marking the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement. From www.tasmedia.org/node/1627
The first day I woke up in Tasmania I got to wear the outfit I wore for the Ancients Did Jazz (purple velvet shawl with the Star of david with an Ohm symbol in the middle on the back.) Perfect, implant Druidic shaman vibration immediately! The Synchroflow was in full swing as I read e-mails sent to me by people I just met at the protest and just as I was saying to someone I need to talk to someone about gigs they walked round the corner... Potential is huge, acoustic gigs aplenty and seeing as as far as I can tell I'm the only thing resembling a rudeboy on the island apart from rudeboy number one, my rastafied my missioning partner himself, putting on a reggae and UK Hip-Hop event should be quite easy. Especially for English boys. Thursday night everybody got mash-up but I was back on an ital flex, abstaining from booze to prepare shamanically for my first time in the rainforest.
Friday... finally going to the forest... the rainforest. So far the people were really friendly and really funny, everyone in my buddy's circle seems well on it, politically and often spiritually, and the landscape - massive green hills and mountains surrounded by giant trees and the sea between Tasmania and the mainland - it was beautiful. But I wanted to see the bush, to drive into the rainforest. We started preparing early, we bought more camping gear and some climbing gear for the giant trees. My rainforest-hugging missioning partner was eager to see his tree again. We left late. We got there later as we had to help this lady out with her garden (as in push a car out of her front yard!) We still got there in daylight. It was perfect.
In the videos the protestors had shown me you usually get to see big clearings or the tops of trees but within the rainforest is lush mossy glens with mossy rocks and massive trees covered in moss on their sides and you look up and hundreds of feet above you are massive trees upright and runnin' t'ings. Mindblowing. I also saw where they had built a huge road where there used to be nothing but trees, it looked like a scab on the planet. I saw my missioning partner's tree on the way, saw how high his 'tree sit' was (his tree sit was his home or a while) and I thought, "you must be f***ing joking." Then we went to camp.
Not nearly as many creepy crawlies as expected, a temperate rainforest is not nearly as thick on the ground for wildlife as a a tropical rainforest.
I woke up in the Upper Florentine rainforest on Saturday morning. I felt alive. Did a little chi gung. My missioning partner kept saying "I'm home". I'd been saying, about 5 times a day, "It still hasn't quite sunk in", "I can't believe I'm actually here", or "it doesn't feel real yet" to anyone that asked and a few who hadn't since I arrived. Our friend we pushed the car for the previous day was holding an outdoor open day with tea and veggie burgers near the rainforest to inform passers by about the protest. My buddy from the UK draged me off to climb his tree. Moment of truth to a certain extent. I got up that tree quicker than I expected and it wasn't that scary either. Being up the tree was utter bliss. Although I would not describe getting up the tree as a pleasant experience, it was like a zen meditation - "this is all in your mind, you're as likely to fall now as when you were 2 foot off the ground, the tree, you and the ground are all an illusion" etc, etc! My missioning partner has a 'tree sit' at the top. A tree-sit is a hardboard of wood tied to the tree horizontally with a one man tent on top of it, about 50 metres or 160 foot up. The purpose is to slow the loggers down and save trees while you're at it, they can't log a tree with a person sleeping in it. The police can ask you to move and you can chppse how long you're willing to test thir patience... or talk to them diplomatically about the value of trees and the purpose of protest, I'm sure there are many options! Next to his tree-sit he has his 'triangle' which is basically a hammock in a wooden triangle. The hardest part for me, way harder than climbing the tree, was getting from the tree sit to the hammock, which I wouldn't do unless I was tied on securely! It was a small step of a foot or two but it was 160 foot down and an awkward angle for a novice!
Sitting in the hammock, above the tree line in one of the tallest trees in that area, listening to Bluetech, Midnite and Synchromystickz... well I might be here longer than I thought! "The towering forests, deep gorges, spectacular waterfalls and wide open plains of the Weld River Valley in Tasmania's Southern Forests represent one of the finest remaining vestiges of pristine ecology in the State." From www.huon.org/weldvalley/
Sunday was hardcore chilling! Cotch factor ten Mr Sulu!
Meanwhile it is important to note - this is early days. There is a national election soon and if last year is anything to go by the powers that used to be will hold back from damaging the rainforest in these politically sensitive times and then go for it as soon as the elections are over. There is currently a moratoriam over an area, a moratoriam is like a legally agreed ceasefire for logging, the moratoriam coincidentally ends within days of the election. That is when the direct action volunteers and activists are likely to be needed and that is when there is likely to be less time to chill because tree sits are being built, camps are being solidified and the effort will have to crank.
On a more introspective note...
My spiritual practices and inclination have taught me the value of trying to see all sides of every argument, I might not always succeed but I try. I am also not by nature a confrontational person. But when you have people turning the most beautiful land into desert for profit, ignoring public opinion, changing laws to suit themselves and a line drawn in the sand it's hard to escape duality or the mind of separation. But in the silence of the rainforest, with just the wind in the trees, it's very easy to to escape the mind. However turning some of the planets oldest trees into paper seems so utterly ridiculous and selfish that it makes sense that I'm here to help in whatever way I can, it is a cause I 'resonate' with, regardless of judgment. However I also feel that on a 3D level the trees are our mothers lungs and everything's perfect including me being in a position to help in whatever way I can. I don't intend to see the hospital or the police station. This is heaven on earth and a warzone at the same time. These are some of the most welcoming people I've met and there is an amazing vibe. everybody, at least in my missioning partner's wide circle of friends, is always talking about strategies and battle-plans when they're not cracking jokes. It is at once a serene and an intense place to be. It's fun and it's nice to be somewhere where so many people care, it makes a change. The entire community is behind them which also makes a change from British protests.
Since my first week I have had a chance to talk one on one with more of the protestors who have expressed empathy for the loggers and the jobs that they do, it is the corporations behind the loggers who appear to lack empathy and ignore public opinion. Between 10 and 15 thousand people attended a recent protest rally in Hobart. I have also been offered refuge from the often intense warzone-like atmosphere of battleplans and strategies in more than a couple of houses in idyllic locations away from the city. The warmth and generosity here is immense.
Bottom line. Some people are tearing out our mothers lungs and other people are living in the trees to stop them, camping in paradise but working hard. I won't know until it comes whether or not I'll be on the front line but there are a variety of ways to help. They need help, come join them. Why not? Babylon will always whisper excuses in your ear, come to Tasmania. We are all one, loggers and protestors alike, but we all have different parts to play within the same song, one song, uni-verse (I thank Rodney, the poet formally known as Paradox, for the Uni-verse link...) What part will you play?
Everyone around me is involved in judging a political and ecological warzone and with good reason. Trees turn carbon into oxygen, our greatest assistance against greenhouse gasses.
Know Peace
www.myspace.com/kpknowledgeispower (yes, I'm sorry about Mr Murdoch.)
They have wishlists - from little things like food and cash to ropes, portable GPS systems, laptops with satellite dishes so we can e-mail from the rainforest but they do not need anything as much as they need more people.
The Huon Environment Centre is actively involved in helping to protect, preserve and promote the Tasmanian Rainforest. If you would like to assist they would vastly appreciate donations of any amount.
Cheques can be made payable to 'Huon Valley Environment Centre'
Write to...
3/17 Wilmot Road
Huonville. Tasmania. Australia. 7109
Care of KP, Know Peace
Phone: 03 6264 1286
Fax: 03 6264 1243
Email:
centre@huon.org (these e-mails go to the centre, not to me.) For more information on the protest investigate www.huon.org
Huon Valley Environment Centre are a grassroots, volunteer run, not-for-profit charity based in the Huon Valley, Southern Tasmania.
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