This week Clare sits down with legendary Aussie Greenie, Bob Brown to talk Tasmania’s old growth forests - where towering eucalypts that have been standing for centuries are threatened with the chainsaw, thanks to government short-sightedness and corporate greed. The good news? Grassroots action is rising, as the numbers of tree-appreciating citizens swell, helped by a glowing new documentary, The Giants, by Rachel Antony and Laurence Billiet.
The film's subjects are indeed giants - not just Bob, but the towering Eucalyptus Regnens, Huon Pine and Myrtle Beech trees of the Tarkine forest. As Bob said back in the 1980s when another pristine wilderness in his adopted state was under siege: destroying these natural wonders would be like scratching the face of the Mona Lisa.
Don’t worry fashion fans, we do talk about clothes at the end - Bob has thoughts on strategic dressing for getting what you want, including at protests.
This interview is both essential and a thrill for anyone who cares about forests and life on this planet.
FILM The Giants is a film about legendary Australian environmentalist Bob Brown, by Rachel Antony & Laurence Billiet. THEY SAY: “Told in Bob’s own words, his story is interwoven with the extraordinary life cycle of Australia’s giant trees, brought to the screen with stunning cinematography and immersive animated forest landscapes.” WE SAY: don’t miss this in the cinema if you’re in Australia - an inspiring, rousing portrait of a life in activism and a love letter to our precious old growth forests.
NOTES
NATIVE FORESTS The IPBES defintion of native forestry is: “Forests that are made up of native tree species, and are either primary (have never been clear-cut) or secondary (regenerating naturally).” According to the Australian Government that includes: “Any one of eight broad national forest types (Acacia, Callitris, Casuarina, Eucalypt, Mangrove, Melaleuca, Rainforest, and Other native forest) into which Australia’s native forests are classified in the National Forest Inventory.”
The TARKINE is the greatest expanse of cool temperate rainforest in Australia, and the second largest in the world. The Bob Brown Foundation is lobbying to have the ancient forests, mountains and coastline of takayna protected as a World Heritage-listed National Park, returned to Aboriginal ownership.
MYCELIUM NETWORKS “Walking through the forest, it’s easiest to pay attention to what is happening at eye level and above. Birds, sunlight, wind, branches, there’s a lot to observe. Next time you’re exploring a forest, consider what lies below the soil, leaves, and moss that carpet the ground. Underneath the forest floor, intertwined with the roots of the trees, is a fascinating microscopic network of fungus.” Via National Forest Foundation.
Listen to Episode 183 with Merlin Sheldrake here.
CARBON As The Bob Brown Foundation notes: “Native forests are not only vital habitat for wildlife. They are also carbon sinks crucial for absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.”
Forests cover 30% of Earth’s land surface and hold over a billion trees. Forests are known as “carbon sinks” because trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air, store the carbon in their trunks, and exhale oxygen. Scientist have leveraged this property to measure the ratio between two naturally occurring forms of carbon (12carbon and 14carbon) to assign an age to trees, a technique termed carbon dating. More here.
“AUSTRALIA NEEDS NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS TO THE CLIMATE AND BIODIVERSITY CRISIS THAT INCLUDE PROTECTION OF NATIVE FORESTS AND RESTORATION OF LOGGED AND DEGRADED NATIVE FOREST.” - BOB BROWN FOUNDATION
NATIVE FORESTS ARE STILL BEING LOGGED IN AUSTRALIA and the vast majority in Tasmania, Victoria and southern NSW goes into woodchips and paper pulp, which is completely needless - we have enough plantation timber to cover our requirements. In 2019-20, 87% of logs harvested in Australia came from plantations. What on earth are we doing taking the rest from ancient/endangered forests?
Here’s the situation by state: Western Australia has pledged to end native forest logging by end of 2023. Victoria is ending native forest logging by 2030, but that still leaves many years of trashing the joint. NSW and Tasmania have not made the same commitments. WHAAAAT? So stupid and short-sighted. Find out what you can do to help here.
THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY began in 1976 with a bunch of friends at Bob’s kitchen table, formed to save the FRANKLIN RIVER. Coming at the tail end of Tasmania’s massive hydro-electric expansion of the mid-20th century, and after the flooding of the spectacular Lake Pedder, the proposal to dam the Franklin prompted opposition across Australia and a new movement to protect nature. More here.
The proposal to dam the Franklin was so divisive that in 1981 the Tasmanian government called a referendum. Voters were given a choice of two different dam scheme options, but none to object outright. More than 30 per cent wrote ‘No Dams’ across their ballot papers, resulting in the toppling of the premier. Over 6000 Australians registered to join the blockade. Nearly 1500 were arrested, and 600 jailed. Bob was one of them. The day after his release from Risdon Prison in 1983, he was elected Tasmania’s first ever Greens MP.
Bob wore a suit and tie to march through Hobart in the June 1980 protests. On the podcast, he says he did it on purpose - inspired by UK-based Canadian physicist WALT PATTERSON, who in 1972 became Friends of the Earth's first energy campaigner.
THE ROLE OF COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHY & TV. This iconic photo by PETE DOMBROVSKI did much to persuade people to join in.
MASKED OWLS These glorious birds live in forests, woodlands, timbered waterways and open country on the fringe of these areas. The main requirements are tall trees with suitable hollows for nesting and roosting and adjacent areas for foraging. Masked Owls are territorial, and pairs remain in or near the territory all year round.
The Tasmanian subspecies of the Masked Owl is listed as endangered in Tasmania, as a result of habitat loss.
POTTEROOS The long-nosed potoroo, Potorous tridactylus apicalis (‘three-toed potoroo’) is the most widespread of the small marsupials known as the potoroos.
Kangaroos are marsupials and belong to the Family Macropodidae (i.e. big feet) that is grouped with the Potoroidae (potoroos, bettongs, rat-kangaroos) and Hypsiprymnodontidae (musky rat-kangaroo) in the Super-Family, Macropodoidea. This comprises around 50 species in Australia and a dozen or more in New Guinea. Via Tasmanian Geographic.