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Glimmers of hope

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Much of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World has become a scarily similar reality since he wrote it in 1932. Draconian punishments for protests, AI, mind-numbing reality TV, mindless social media, addiction to the phone perpetually attached to the hand, short attention spans and instant gratification…

And is this the wounded world nightmare from which you cannot awake?  

Countries invading each other and bombing citizens, dozens of bloody, ongoing and equally inhumane smaller wars, Trump and his unpredictable, dangerous world where black is white if he says so, the growth in numbers and boldness of right wing extremists, the destruction of Nature and its inhabitants as forests are felled everywhere and the ocean floor is scraped of all life, the triumph anew of profit over planet and people… ?

Everyone I know has been oppressed by a sense of hopelessness, of foreboding for the future.

BUT the weight feels like it has now been lifted just enough to allow a glimmer of hope to creep in. For the worst did not happen – Trumpism-espousing Dutton and his right-wing leaning regressive Coalition did not win the federal election. 

It is uncertain if Labor will quietly grow the courage to act on our future’s behalf. Or not in time. But we now have some hope that, given the confidence of another term, poked along by The Greens and cross-benchers, they might.

Our country and our world needs prioritised action. There is always a sensible, sustainable option, even if it increases the cost of doing business, but that option needs to be framed positively when ‘sold’ to the public. Unlike the ‘Carbon Tax’.

Labor could reap praise for protecting an endangered endemic species like the Maugean Skate, instead of simply backing foreign-owned salmon farming companies in Macquarie Harbour, not even imposing stricter conditions. Why not insist that this business must be done without environmental cost, even if more expensive operationally, perhaps onshore as other countries demand … or not at all? 

Labor is supporting a transition to renewables, but still approving coal and gas expansions,  fuelling global warming at alarming rates. They must know this is ludicrously contradictory, so why not acknowledge this in policy and tell the mining industry to make other business plans, that fossil fuels cannot continue, for the sake of the planet and the future of all people? 

Many were disappointed that Labor did not do more to genuinely act on climate change, and are ashamed that they face our drowning Pacific neighbours as if Labor cannot do anything about it.

And salmon farms, logging, coal or gas, put the mantra of ‘jobs’ into perspective. These are not the only jobs. As The Greens say, ‘No jobs on a dead planet’. 

We are still stuck with National Party MPs in Cowper and Lyne, despite the rise of Independents. But I take heart that all those non-National supporters did not believe the lying smear campaigns against Independents and Greens, the glib promises of instant solutions to difficult issues in our society and economy. We are not yet Trumpland-Down-Under.

‘Oh, brave new world that has such people in it,’ said Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Huxley’s hero, John Savage, quoted it with ironic horror as he saw the identical masses of genetically-produced people. 

After volunteering in an intense but ultimately unsuccessful campaign to get Independent Caz Heise elected, I can quote it in truth, knowing so many good people were willing to work hard for months, being selfless and kind, devoting time, energy and money, for the sake of their community. 

Hope now at least flickers in my heart.

About ‘Inklings’ 

‘Inklings’ is a community newsletter. It aims to increase awareness of social, cultural and environmental issues, and to promote communication amongst local communities. All work is done by volunteers. 500 copies are printed four times a year and distributed to local outlets. If you would like to receive it by email, send your request to inklings2019@gmail.com

Our Sunburnt Country

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I have just read this powerful yet accessible book and my copy is bristling with post-it notes, marking lines I want to quote or recall, to tell others.

Dr. Anika Molesworth is not only a farmer with lived experiences of climate change impacts, but a highly qualified doctorate scientist and well-recognised agricultural researcher. The former drove the latter. 

She writes clearly, authoritatively and passionately. Her book deals with all the well-known aspects of climate change, but her perspective on food systems as critical, as both impacted, and offering solutions, is unusual. I found her discussions of food systems both insightful and fascinating, drawing on many examples worldwide.

Anika has included wonderful quotes by others at the start of each chapter, but her own text comes up with plenty to note, such as  ‘It’s not game over, but it IS game on.’ She pulls no punches, yet manages to keep constructive, to encourage bold and courageous thinking and to inspire action.

As its blurb says, ‘Beautifully written and full of hope…’

Michael Mann suggests ‘Read this book and be inspired.’ And don’t we all need that!

I highly recommend this book (Pan Macmillan):  find it here and for the audiobook here.

Burrawan

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Although I have lived in the area for several years now, I had never seen Lake Innes, never knew its story… or its real name, which is Burrawan.

There is one public driving track in to the Lake Innes Nature from the Lake Cathie/Port Macquarie side, to Perch Hole Picnic area. And this beautiful serenity is what lies at the end of that track through a paperbark swamp.

Whether you look south or north, this large lake is impressive… and empty today save for one lone kayaker.

I was driven to go and see it for myself after being on the other side of Burrawan for the launch of a book about this lake.

In it, John Heath and Ashley Barnwell have compiled inforrnation and records about the story of this lake, offering both Birrpai and colonial ideas and histories.

In front of the ruins of Major Innes’ brick home complex, once almost a small village, overlooking a grass sward that runs down to the lake, we were given some extraordinary insights.

The tall blue gums that would have totally blocked the view were long gone, and the lake was still visible behind John and Ashley as they listened to the speeches. 

Major Innes had the trees cleared for his farming establishment, while his wife kindly introduced lovely garden plants, like lantana!

We were treated to a smoking ceremony and dances, mainly by John’s charming young relatives. The Birrpai were revered and applauded here today, but as the book shows, were not considered in Major Innes’s time.

But the shocker was that this lake was then freshwater, and is now salt… and all the plant and animal life that thrived on it had died.

Despite warnings, and never-realised intentions to build floodgates to stop the saltwater flowing back, a channel was dug by hand from Lake Cathie to Burrawan in the 1930s. The idea was to drain the lake and thus create 12,000 acres for farmland! 

So, as the book summarises, the lake and all its wildlife and biodiversity was seen as merely submerged potential farmland.

Records from Albert Dick’s diary chart the demise of the rich life of the lake as the salinity increased, and they are truly shocking.  I thank John and Ashley for this work, shocks and regrets notwithstanding; like massacres, we need to know the damage done by blind colonisation.

But you need to read the book! The Port Macquarie Historical Society has published this valuable resource and record and you can buy it from them or from John Heath.

Revive Lake Cathie is a group working hard to return Burrawan to fresh water — visit them here to find out more.

Welcome to Bimblebox

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I have been camped at Bimblebox Nature Refuge near Alpha in Queensland for the last two weeks, and likely the next 3-4, to help prepare for the site visit of the Queensland Land Court and associated legal and government teams.

The Bimblebox Alliance, of whose committee I am a member, is objecting to a coal mine project, which would include Bimblebox, as proposed by Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal.

As you can imagine, an 8000ha nature refuge in the Desert Uplands is hardly close to shops, so accommodation and catering for visitors is not easy, let alone for numbers.

Days are still hot here, and surprisingly humid. Nights are beautiful, stunningly starry, and cool enough to be a delight.

As I have no time to wander about, each day I pay attention in case the termite mounds I pass have changed positions. I feel like classing them as wildlife, albeit paused temporarily.

There are millions here.

Up early and to bed early, I see the low sunrises and higher sunsets.

One evening unseasonal rain threatened… and fell.

But soon after it cleared and a pale desert rainbow appeared: my first.

May it augur well for this court case to save this gentle woodland and all that call it home…

Caring for Nature takes work!

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Bimblebox Nature Refuge occupies 8,000 hectares. Not huge by western Queensland measures, but by NSW coastal standards it’s almost inconceivably vast.

 My Mountain wildlife refuge and conservation property was only 64 hectares, and I know how much work was involved in trying to keep an eye out for new invading plants and then to try to keep them in check, year after year. Weeding, weeding, weeding…

My place was remote from agriculture… and people… so there were relatively few feral plants or animals. But even now, when I see paddocks full of fireweed and Crofton weed in vast amounts in national parks and state forests… I sigh, and groan inwardly.

What I did on my little patch may not have made much difference overall, but it meant that one forest ecosystem had the chance to regenerate as it should and not be choked by a feral understorey. And indeed to be as ‘natural’ and in balance as it could be.

As Archie Roach sang, ‘The Australian bush is losing its identity…’

For the 22 years since the gazettal of Bimblebox Nature Refuge, it’s been mainly Ian Hoch doing that neverending work on those 8000ha. Paola is often needed on their sister property, and since 2007, greatly occupied with the fight to save the place from the coal threat. Occasional volunteers have helped, but there have never been enough.

Many who visit have offered advice on how to run or improve Bimblebox, often with grand plans, especially since that coal threat reared its head higher in late 2019.

 The other day I read the following  words of Ian’s; they struck me as expressing so well the many and varied needs of caring for the Refuge there… and why at least one other person helping would make a big difference. So I asked his permission to share extracts from them.

As Ian says, we need these visiting people to see:  ‘the Bimblebox paradox  – it’s everything and it’s nothing’.

‘Change comes one step at a time.’ If people can ‘…see this situation from the resident’s perspective, or at least some of it, or at least to think more about the reasons for historical failure rather than the prospects of future success. I could then say to each as they departed – rather than all the fanfare, the best way you can help is look out for that one person. Now you know how it is here and what’s missing. It’s not at all the postcard depicted by the artists and for the media or government or EDO. 

‘The missing bit is out there somewhere in the suburbs and you might be in a position to fill the gap. One person who can handle this domestic situation, and has a similar interest and has nothing better to do – that’s all we need right now, so starting today we go systematically around the property and catch the coffee senna and parkinsonia and this latest ghastly interloper with thorns to puncture a bullock hide, before they shed their 20 years worth of seed, and of course the horrid harrisia can’t be far away and with the advantage of bird dispersal in this jungle we’ll have a veritable nightmare when it arrives. 

‘After that we might even get some fencing in, secure the hotspot boundaries to avoid more strife with the neighbours, and run electric wires along roads so we can graze to reduce fire, or control burn without having the stock flog the pasture in that critical recovery phase. We might manage to rabbit proof this nursery, and make a start of thinning the century of thickening and ultimately show results to make developers everywhere wish like hell they’d never cleared their land. That’s when we arrive at the irrefutable conclusion – conservation pays, i.e., we’re far better off working in conjunction with nature than fighting with it. It’s an obvious and oft recited axiom but almost meaningless. We don’t see it around us. 

Guess which side of the fence is cared for?

‘You have either production land or recreation land. One stripped, one struggling. Already the health and vitality from retaining diversity is becoming apparent driving around the boundary, but that’s due to the neighbours’ actions, or you might say overaction, rather than our deliberate or constrained inaction.

‘We haven’t done anything yet, and that’s a big part of the aversion and resistance. Whereas with a few years of interaction, or what we now call regeneration, where we check the spread of exotics and enhance floral diversity (with controlled grazing) and redress the pasture/woody imbalance (with herbicide, because we’ve learnt that fire can’t and bulldozers make it worse) would turn everything around. In that regard one able bodied person with nothing but work clothes and willingness is worth more than a thousand novel proposals, as clever and well intended as they are. We could start our on the boundary where the contrast is most telling.

‘We’ve been here 22 years now, longer than anyone since the first people were turfed out, or at least I have, and in that time have actually come up with a few worthwhile undertakings myself and it’s amazing how many think you’re short of  ideas and direction. Art camp’s a case in point.’

It was built from ‘recovered and repaired materials’, mainly by Ian and son Karly. As TBA said in their Chuffed campaign, it needs an upgrade, and the funds are there, thanks to supporters’ generosity; COVID stopped one capable and keen helper from coming over the border when the weather was cool enough to start the work last year, and now it’s that time again.

Despite funds and advice, ‘nobody bends over and picks up the pieces.’ Ian is about to start the camp work, although he has so much to do already. He now urgently needs that helper. Weeds don’t wait while he is busy elsewhere! Then he could keep up the daily work of caring for Bimblebox and make the camp fully functional again for September, when the rains have come and the heath is a mass of colour. Then artists or visitors who want to come and camp and be energised and inspired by Nature at Bimblebox can do so again.

So I am pleading with you all to think hard whether you know someone who might be able to fill that volunteer role very soon and help Ian with this camp and other work. Caring for Nature takes work!

If you do, or may be able to volunteer yourself, please email Paola on bimblebox@gmail.com or call her on (07) 4985 3474