Rainforest Warriors by Stephen Wyatt

The Hippies Were Right

The Forest Wars in the Byron Bay hinterland were a first. Never before in Australia or the world had there been a physical confrontation with loggers and police and government to stop the logging of rainforests.

It was a an historically momentous event that turned Australian Labor Governments green and created national parks right down the spine of NSW. It set the scene for environmental action for decades thereafter: at the Franklin in Tasmania, in the Daintree Rainforest in North Queensland, coal seam gas blockades and internationally.

The rich subtropical rainforests of Northern NSW - the Big Scrub, a place of spiritual significance and sustenance for the Bundjalung people - are at the heart of these Forest Wars. They were ancient Gondwanan Antarctic rainforests: rare, complex and valuable.Yet, destruction began in the 1830s. Logging, clearing and burning meant that by 1970 only 1 per cent of the Big Scrub rainforest remained.

It was devastating. The Bundjalung had no say, no voice. Their country was destroyed. But in the 1970s destruction gave way to renewal. The hippies arrived. The counter-culture surged. The Aquarius Festival in Nimbin in 1973 changed many lives. Many festival goers stayed. At the same time, the "back-to-the-earthers" settled in the area, communes were created.

There were 94 at one stage. Sixty still exist.

Suddenly there was a critical mass of environmentally concerned people. The War to stop logging was seeded. And war actually broke out in 1979 at Terania Creek, inland from Byron Bay. It then progressed to Mt Nardi near Nimbin. These wars finally triggered Government action to not just halt the logging of rainforests forever but to create a vast number of National Parks.

Significantly, a new relationship between these new arrivals and the local Bundjalung people also developed. A relationship of respect. The town of rainbow-painted Nimbin has forever changed and the legacies of the blockades are ongoing -activism continues, the counter culture in the region is alive and Nimbin remains adorned with rainbows.

Hardback
167 pages