Spring (2024) quarterly newsletter - November 2024
A lot has been happening and most of our core team has been busy defending forests. In fact the main impetus for getting this out is an urgent call for action in northern NSW.
We also have a new fundraising drive for our Ecuador campaigns, which are getting pretty urgent too, as the country battles drought, fires and blackouts and our partners redouble their efforts to keep mining at bay.
Not all is woeful in Ecuador though ... Los Cedros has some exciting updates, as the cloud forest reserve expands its capacity as a nature learning hub for local communities, and also helps write a song!
We also have news from India about an ambitious grassroots ecosystem restoration project being driven by Indigenous people in their tribal lands.
And John Seed's deep ecology schedule is packed as always, plus he shares information about the upcoming massive Rising Tide actions in NSW, only two weeks away now.
Read on ...
Defending Bulga Forest: URGENT CALL TO ACTION
A couple of weeks ago John Seed, founder of Rainforest Information Centre, was arrested in the beautiful native forests of northern NSW. John says ...
"I am one of 19 people so far arrested for direct actions in the Bulga Forest to stop the logging of this hotspot for the nationally endangered Greater Glider. I locked onto a “harvester” this month and was there for 7 hours before the Police Rescue Squad put a fireblanket over my head and cut me off with a grinder. (My) first arrest in a forest action in decades. No logging that day in the gorgeous Bulga forest home to many endangered species and a rare refuge for hundreds of nationally endangered Great Gliders."
A week before, Susie Russell, another of our board members, was also arrested.
The North East Forest Alliance and allies have been blockading this coupe since early October. This is one of the last remnant habitats for the endangered Greater Glider - who may become extinct if the forests are completely logged.
The campaign is gaining media traction, but the situation remains precarious for the Greater Glider and support is still needed on the frontlines.
This ABC article published in mid October proves either the incompetence or the bad faith of NSW's Forestry Corporation. It is clearly another bureaucracy captured by the industry they have been set up to regulate!
It's time for NSW to join Victoria and stop logging native forests! Please support our crowdfund.
Your investment will be used to fund things like purchasing equipment to identify, track or record animal habitat or forest and ecosystem features so we can better protect them. We may also use raised funds to assist with legal costs associated with advocating, defending or protecting the forest.
We need your urgent help to get this out widely ... please share in your social media and networks!
Tallaganda Greater Glider with white ears. Photo by Josh Bowell
Los Cedros writes a song!
In October 2022, a number of people from the newly established collective, MOTH (More Than Human Rights), climbed a mountain in the remote Los Cedros reserve in Ecuador's western Andes. As they camped high in the mist, immersed in a chorus of voices of birds and frogs and cicadas, monkeys, water and bees, the inspiration for a song was born.
Meanwhile, Los Cedros is becoming a hub for community engagement and environmental education in the local area. Throughout 2024 the reserve has hosted numerous events and large groups of people. These groups have included school and university students learning about biodiversity conservation, community members training to be forest rangers, and people interested in the rights of nature precedent that Los Cedros continues to set in Ecuadorian courts. The reserve has also featured in an international bird watching event.
Read more on the Los Cedros page blog!
And we do realise there are a few donate buttons in this newsletter - but please check out the new endowment fund below, which has just been set up for Los Cedros's perpetual future. It is in part a legacy of founder and previous manager of the reserve, Josef DeCoux, who worked hard on setting it up before he passed away in May.
If you know any potential donors who enjoy giving to causes relevant to the arts, artists, music, or creative legal activism, then please share "Song of the Cedars" with them and encourage them to contribute!
New fundraising drive for our Ecuador campaigns
We are amplifying our efforts to help communities in Ecuador to protect the tropical Andes from mining!
For seven years our work, driven by the Rainforest Action Group in Naarm (Melbourne), has been on three fronts:
- Coordinating a media and advocacy campaign to bring Australian mining companies to account for environmental and human rights abuses and damage committed in Ecuador since 2017;
- Researching the behaviour of these companies and generating resources for use and distribution among the community, human rights and environmental groups active in Ecuador;
- Raising funds to support grassroots mobilising and legal efforts to protect these incredibly biodiverse areas.
Colourful mural in Intag - telling mining companies to get out! Photo provided by Peter Shear
We're being ambitious in our plans for 2025! We'd like to support more communities and conservation efforts in Ecuador, as well as continue to work with our existing partners. We'd also like to expand our alliance with other networks working on extractive issues in Latin America.
We have a vision that this work is incredibly important. Most of South America, including the Amazon Basin, has spent several months under severe drought conditions, culminating in a terrible season that saw over 300,000 fires blazing across the continent.
Deforestation is a major culprit. This is occurring at an uncontrolled rate not only in the Amazon Basin, but also in the Andes - where the mountains, their forests and wetlands form part of the "biotic pump" that creates and perpetuates water currents and rainfall around the globe. The biggest driver of deforestation is the colonisation of lands by greedy transnational corporations - mining, logging, oil drilling, and beef.
In Ecuador, if mining goes ahead at the scale it is planned, this may result in catastrophic collapse of ecosystems. Why? Because one medium to grand sized open pit mine uses 8-20 million litres of water per day and will require the clearing of hundreds of hectares of land. There are also significant contamination risks associated with mine waste storage - read Melbourne Rainforest Action Group's recent article about the planned Cascabel copper mine.
A positive thing that we plan to fund in 2025 is more citizen science and biodiversity survey work in mining concessions. This work in the past has yielded exciting results - like last year's discovery of the tiny, adorable "Resistance Rocket Frog".
Resistance Rocket Frog. Photo: Carlos Zorrilla
In 2025 we also hope to help support some exciting local-scale reforestation projects! Several such projects are currently underway in rural communities in Intag and Cahuasquí, where native tree nurseries, plant-outs and environmental education sessions have had great participation rates.
To this end we're searching for new donors and grants, and we're also running a new crowdfund target of $10,000 to get things going. We're nearly a third of the way there - please pitch in! Your money will be very gratefully and quickly received in its destination communities.
A workshop on replanting native forests in Cahuasquí, Imbabura. Photo: Peter Shear
Ecosystem Restoration in Indigenous Lands in India
We recently had some news from one of our partners in India, Rajeev Khedkar, with whom Rainforest Information Centre has been working since the 90s.
Rajeev has coordinated some incredible work with poor Indigenous Katkari communities in the province of Maharashtra, including establishment of Ayurvedic medicine gardens (less that 30% of people in this region have access to Western health care) and native tree nurseries for reforestation of degraded and barren lands.
The Katkari now hold title to 10,000 hectares of tribal lands, in large part thanks to a major campaign in the 2000s supported by R.I.C. Currently, an ambitious project is underway to regenerate forests in some of the most denuded areas. The project involves employing villagers to raise and plant the trees, establishing "living fences" to stop erosion and protect the plants from being munched by animals, and training people in ongoing care of the growing forest.
Our partners have some funds from other sources to start off, but they need a lot more to bring the project to fruition.
Photo provided by Rajeev Khedkar
Can conserving and regenerating forests cool the planet?
This is a big question. There is no doubt that deforestation is massively worsening the negative impacts of global heating, and there is also plenty of evidence that conserving and regenerating forests - especially tropical rainforests - can help mitigate the worst effects of climate change, as noted in the most recent IPCC reports.
But is forest ecosystem restoration even more important than we previously thought?
Please view this 5 minute clip. And if you have more time than 5 minutes, you might like to watch this interesting lecture by Australian scientist Walter Jehne, where he talks about the vital role of forest regeneration in healing the planet's hydrological cycles.
If the data and claims made above are correct, then we could do a lot more work to fund and support local reforestation projects in our key areas.
We would love some help to research the veracity of the claims made by the short clip above and Walter Jehne’s lecture. Would there be anyone out there with the interest and capacity to look into the claims and any opposing arguments and report back to us? If you’re interested in this project, please contact j[email protected] .
We are considering funding proposals from long-time colleagues for reforestation projects in India and Ecuador. The outcome of this research will influence our decisions.
Ancient myrtle rainforest in takayna, northwest Tasmania - lutruwita
From John Seed
Interest in deep ecology is continuing to surge, allowing me to dare to imagine a virtuous j-curve of people understanding that a key to halting our slide to oblivion is the recognition of the importance of our illusion of separation and a commitment to dispelling this illusion.
I’ve decided to concentrate my deep ecology workshops on the Sydney and Melbourne regions and have cancelled planned workshops elsewhere. All the workshops are filling up months ahead of their date and I’m training several new facilitators at each event. The next two Sydney deep ecology workshops are full so Erika Aligno and I will be offering another at the Narara Ecovillage February 21-23.
With the blessing of Joanna Macy, I’m reviving the Institute for Deep Ecology, which Joanna started in 1992 with her husband Fran. A supporter has donated $15,000 to the Rainforest Information Centre to cover the cost of an intern – a year’s worth of dorm and food at the Ecovillage plus a stipend. Details here.
I’ll be offering a Deep Ecology workshop in Hobart next June as part of the 18th Biennial Conference on Communication and Environment (COCE). For the first time it will be held in the Southern Hemisphere. The theme of COCE is "Shifting Perspectives, Creativity and Conviviality from the Edge".
The other wing of my strategy to move deep ecology into the main stream is via podcasts. Three podcasts have been released in the last couple of months: James Jesso’s "Adventures Through The Mind" (Empowering our Joy for Life by Honouring our Pain for the World), Radio National’s “The Philosopher’s Zone” and “Sounds True” (A Cosmic Walk to Discover Your Ecological Identity).
Looking forward to this month's (November) kayak blockade of the world’s largest coal port by Rising Tide. I have such admiration for these (mostly) young activists. Recently they stopped a coal train in response to Tanya Plibersek's approval of 3 thermal coal projects that will turbocharge the climate crisis with 1.5 BILLION TONNES of emissions - triple Australia’s current annual emissions!
Rising Tide are starting a nationwide Peoples’ Movement. Nothing less will stop the continued capture of government and institutions by the fossil fuel mafia and the mining companies. Please join me at the Kayak Blockade Nov 22-24 - more details. Their First Wave film has just launched publicly on YouTube! See 3000 people-power participants in last year’s blockade.
Let's get 10,000 along this year!
We have put a few donate links in this newsletter. Just in case there aren't enough, here is another one - to our general donate page.
If you don't like using PayPal, or can't use it because the corporate robots won't recognise your account, contact us for our bank details (which we don't put on our website).
Of course, if you would like to get involved in any of our campaigns, please get in touch. We have a small team of time stretched volunteers with not a lot of capacity to manage other volunteers. But we do from time to time have specific jobs such as research, translation or social media. Social media is a big one! Please, if you love posting things on Instagram, let us know.
If you have the resources to travel, we can also put you in touch with exciting projects in our main campaign areas, eg, Ecuador. So if Los Cedros is calling you ..
For the Earth,
John, Liz, Susie, Greg and Patrick at RIC
June 2024 Solstice Newsletter
It's time for our next quarterly news feed of forest campaigns, projects, and deep ecology. Enjoy!
Vale José deCoux
On 20 May, 2024, our friend José - founder and staunch guardian of the Los Cedros Reserve for nearly 40 years - lost his battle with cancer.
José at the scientific station. Photo: Bitty Roy
From an excellent recent BBC article which covers an interview José did before he died:
"For more than 30 years, José DeCoux woke each morning to a deafening noise. In his home in Ecuador's Los Cedros forest, monkeys squeal, squirrels scuffle, and 400 species of bird flit and squawk. A mist hangs in the trees, and ferns and mosses in countless shades of green cover every rock and tree trunk.
DeCoux moved to the Los Cedros reserve in northern Ecuador from the US in the 1980s. He was "sort of heeding the call to save the rainforest, or something", he told BBC Future Planet with a smile in April.
With the help of friends and non-profits including Friends of the Earth Sweden and the Rainforest Information Center of Australia, DeCoux bought land in Los Cedros forest, and a conservation and eco-tourism project was born."
José was diagnosed with cancer just as he was embarking on the massive legal battle to save Los Cedros from transnational mining interests. In between bouts of treatment, he coordinated the construction of the legal case which would, in 2021, be won at the Constitutional Court. The historic ruling which upheld the Rights of Nature for the reserve and all its species would not have been possible without José.
Right up until his death he continued to work tirelessly, building the team who will caretake Los Cedros for the future.
"A giant of a man, Jose will be sorely missed." John Seed
Australian volunteer taking a break from construction at Los Cedros in the early 90s. Photo provided to RIC by Josef deCoux.
Protecting Los Cedros for Future Generations
José has left Los Cedros's future to an amazing team of dedicated local forest protectors, alongside a widespread and passionate local and international network of scientists, campaigners, and nonprofit organisations - including the Rainforest Information Centre.
The team includes the two Ecuadorian Constitutional Court judges who wrote the Rights of Nature ruling.
Another really cool collective are MOTH (More Than Human Rights), a diverse group of artists and scientists who are promoting the rights of nature in all kinds of interdisciplinary areas. Meanwhile the local management team have continued to work hard, building community initiatives and enterprises within the reserve.
José with friends of Los Cedros (including Schultzie the dog) October 2022
Los Cedros is a great case study of what can be done at the community level to raise consciousness and create major changes within the system, stopping greedy mega-extractivism in its tracks and showing the world what the alternative could look like. And José has played a huge and irreplaceable role in this legacy.
Other Ecuador Campaign News!
Ecuador is still under a mining blitz; our networks and groups are campaigning harder than ever to support locals on the frontlines, but receiving far too little attention for our efforts.
Just a couple of weeks ago an Australian company, SolGold, signed a deal with the Ecuadorian Government to build a huge copper mine in the world's most biodiverse region, just north of Los Cedros. This mine - named Cascabel - carries the risk of being an unmitigated disaster. The worst that could happen is for thousands of hectares of pristine forest and smallhold farmlands to be drowned in toxic waste, if waste is not properly managed in the highly mountainous, earthquake-prone area. This place is home to dozens of rare, endemic and endangered species. RIC is working with locals to challenge the impending Environmental Impact Study which will decide the mine's future.
Last month RIC's sister organisation MRAG did a report on the full timeline of Australian mining company Hancock Prospecting's alleged civil rights violations and corruption in northwest Ecuador. This report coincided with the media attention given to Australia's richest mining billionaire (when she objected to Vincent Namatjira's satirical portrait in the National Gallery and subsequently ensured that the "unflattering" picture went viral all over the world). Read our report on Hancock's mining exploits in Ecuador here.
They had fun sharing this picture all over Ecuador. Meme credit: MRAG
Our long time friend, rainforest defender Carlos Zorrilla, has continued to do great work with his local conservation organisation, DECOIN, training citizen conservationists in wildlife monitoring around the mining-threatened area of Intag.
Carlos: "This is part of the group that you helped finance a while back. They’re still going strong, and this is part of a workshop on learning to identify amphibians finishing up tonight ...
This was a collaboration between Cebtro Jambato, EcoForense and DECOIN. Andrea Teran from Centro Jambato led the workshop. In total 32 people participated from three different communities… it was a total success… we want to expand the same program to another community within the area of influence (mining concession) Cerro Pelado."
Citizen science. Photo provided by Carlos Zorrilla
To continue to support Los Cedros and our Ecuador campaign, which raises funds for locals to pursue legal campaigns protecting forests and livelihoods,
DONATE HERE!
NSW Forests update
Someone wise said that it appears to be impossible until it becomes inevitable. When it comes to ending logging of native forests on public land in NSW we are moving into the inevitable phase.
A recent win in the courts opening up the avenue for groups to challenge the Forestry Corporation’s breaches of logging rules is a game changer. For years, the Environment Protection Authority has been a rubber stamp for logging. The rules they have set fail to protect the environment and they haven’t bothered to enforce them anyway.
The change came about when the media started paying attention to the fact that the state-owned logging company had been looking for nocturnal species during the day. Surprise, surprise, they didn’t find any, hence no logging exclusions were triggered. The EPA were forced to make a specific change that required them to look at night. Once again, a ‘shared understanding’ between EPA and Forestry Corporation meant that almost 80% of the searches were conducted at the wrong time and triggered no protections.
A keen-eyed conservationist spotted the flaw in the technique, and reported it. More media interest led to yet another set of rules and opened the avenue for potential legal challenges. More on progress of that in the next newsletter.
The Greater Glider has joined the Koala, not just on the endangered species list, but also as an icon. Sightings of the Greater Glider now trigger protections. Not big enough (25m radius) to protect their home range, but for the first time rather than a ‘landscape measure’ there is an actual exclusion zone. Our aim is to keep pushing until that exclusion zone is actually the size of the home range (100m radius).
Meanwhile community campaigns and citizen science efforts to protect forests are growing along the east coast of NSW, where the remaining tall eucalypt forests are to be found. More and more forests are becoming flashpoints, with community opposition taking a range of forms from weekly roadside vigils, to citizen science to inform logging exclusions, to permanent camps in the path of logging access, walk ons and other forms of direct action. Philanthropists are joining the cause with some money flowing in to help campaign efforts.
The main forest campaign groups, including RIC, have now banded together in the Forest Alliance NSW with the aim of ending logging of our native forests before the next State election.
The destruction will continue for a while yet, but the end is definitely in sight. Every grain of sand will help push it over the edge. Please write your emails and letters to ministers, get involved in your local groups, organise speakers and fundraisers if you live in the city. Together we can do this.
Tallaganda Greater Glider with white ears. Photo: Josh Bowell
From John Seed ...
I’ll be offering free zoom participation in 6 talks and conversations about different lenses on DEEP ECOLOGY between June 24 and 27:
June 24 7pm THE RELIGION OF ECONOMICS
June 25 10.30am John Seed & Tejopala Rawls INNER & OUTER TRANSFORMATION, DHARMA & DEEP ECOLOGY
June 25 6.30pm CLIMATE CHANGE DESPAIR AND EMPOWERMENT
June 26 7pm DEEP ECOLOGY AND THE CONSERVATION OF NATURE
June 27 10am INVOCATION TO GAIA
June 27 5.30pm John Seed & Gilbert Rochecauste RADICAL REGENERATION AND DEEP ECOLOGY
Another zoom coming up next month THINKING LIKE A MOUNTAIN - REFLECTIONS ON FORTY YEARS OF DEEP ECOLOGY WORK with Pat Fleming (co-author of Thinking Like a Mountain – Towards a Council of All Beings along with myself, Joanna Macy (who will participate via a clip conversing with Pat and I recently) and Arne Naess (who will appear via archival footage). A Work That Reconnects webinar. Sunday July 21, 2 hours from 10am.
If you register but can’t participate at the time, you’ll be emailed links to the audio and video recordings.
I remain convinced that if we are to have any chance of reversing our ongoing slide to oblivion, the solution must include dispelling the illusion of separation between the human and the living Earth – ie Deep Ecology. Hence these Melbourne speaking events and zoom. If you’d like to help spread this consciousness, please share this email or the Facebook event.
The DEEP ECOLOGY WORKSHOP at Narara Ecovillage (an hour from North Sydney), from 6pm Friday July 5 through Sunday afternoon, will be co-facilitated by John Seed, Erika Aligno and Jane Lynch. We need one more cook and if you’d like to volunteer in exchange for a free workshop, please let me know. Other DEEP ECOLOGY workshops are scheduled for Melbourne June 28-30, NSW South Coast Sept, Sunshine Coast Oct, and another at Narara in October . Check out reports from recent participants.
Our end of financial year appeal!
Of course, it is June, and the timing of this newsletter is somewhat deliberate. We happily accept end of financial year donations!
Incoming funds go to forest frontlines and projects in our main campaign areas of Australia, India, and Ecuador plus any emergency forest protection needs in other parts of the world. Our team are all volunteer and an absolute minimum is spent on operational costs.
All donations over $2 in Australia are tax deductible.
DONATE HERE!
SPRING 2023 NEWSLETTER
Malaysia: Lawsuit against land defenders dropped!
We begin with very good news. Malaysia's largest timber company has withdrawn its defamation lawsuit against Indigenous grassroots organisation, SAVE Rivers! This dramatic turnaround is an enormous relief for local people, who were potentially liable for damages of over one million dollars.
SAVE Rivers represents Indigenous communities located within a protected part of the largest remaining stand of primary rainforest in Borneo. People are protecting their lands from illegal logging which threatens their culture and many endangered species.
RIC raised a crowdfund to support the legal costs of SAVE Rivers as they prepared for their September hearing at the Miri High Court - which now has not needed to go ahead. The fund reached its target of $7000, and the money has been received - with much gratitude to all donors who contributed.
Malaysian sun bear, an endangered species. Photo credit: Chien C Lee Photography
Ecuadorians vote to protect the world's most biodiverse forests
On August 20th, two national referenda were held in Ecuador, calling to protect forests from extractive industry. Both were wins for people and biodiversity!
58% of Ecuadorians voted to stop all current and future oil drilling inside the Yasuni National Park - an extraordinarily biodiverse part of the Amazon rainforest. This is great cause for celebration for Indigenous people, including the Waorani, whose ancestral lands have been impacted by oil exploitation for decades.
The second referendum has blocked mining development in the Choco Andino UNESCO reserve - a biological and cultural gem in the country's northwest. Australian mining companies, among others, now cannot operate within the area. Listen to a recent 3CR podcast about this with Rainforest Information Centre campaigner Liz Downes.
Alicia Cahuiya, Waorani leader, stands beside a tree in her Yasuní homeland within an area secretly earmarked for a new oil well.
Updates from Los Cedros
In March this year Los Cedros hosted a German film team headed by Bettina Behrend, who is creating a documentary about deep ecology, rights of nature and the importance of respecting Indigenous ways of relating to nature.
Currently, scientists are on site studying nectar feeding bats and the flowering plants they depend on. Los Cedros has some of the world's richest diversity of pollinator species - and not just insects. Birds, bats and mammals are equally important.
Earlier this year, RIC supported Los Cedros with a grant enabled by bee conservation organisation and social enterprise, Flow - Billions of Blossoms towards the ongoing work of protecting pollinators - not just insects, but bats, birds and even mammals!
Watch and share our very cool 9 second Bat Tongue reel, created to acknowledge our partnership with Flow.
Recently, an exciting discovery was made in the reserve - a mammal new to science! Called an "olinguiló", this nocturnal, tree dwelling furry critter was previously mistaken for a known species. Los Cedros continues to be a scientific frontier for biodiversity!
RIC is working to amplify the legal precedent of the 2021 court win, which banned mining in Los Cedros. This is vital, as Ecuador's unique Rights of Nature laws are in no way safeguarded for the future. There continues to be mounting pressure to mine two million hectares of Ecuador's most ecologically vulnerable regions.
Olinguiló - photo provided by Josef de Coux.
Frogs galore!
Another grant enabled by Flow - Billions of Blossoms has birthed an enthusiastic team of citizen scientists in the mining-affected region of Intag, close to Los Cedros in northwestern Ecuador.
Funds have gone towards training local people to monitor the Junín cloud forest reserve (threatened by a massive copper mining project) for endemic and endangered species. This is part of a process called ecoforensic, which involves compiling evidence towards future Rights of Nature court cases.
A recent night time expedition found lots of amphibians - at least one of which may be new to science! The last time the Junín community named a new species was in 2021, with the "Resistance Rocket Frog."
Help us continue to protect Ecuador's rainforests - including Los Cedros - and support grassroots legal battles against destructive mining projects. We've just reached halfway towards our 2023 crowdfund target - a bit of a way to go (:
VISIT OUR ECUADOR ENDANGERED CROWDFUND HERE
NSW Forests: Fight to save koalas from extinction continues
As the biodiversity and climate crises heat up, you’d think that protecting carbon rich, biodiverse native forests was a no brainer, but the NSW government continues the tradition of head in sand decision making.
Thus, logging continues apace in the area proposed and promised as a Great Koala National Park (around Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Nambucca). The latest announcement from the Environment Minister says there will be another 2 years of destruction before we are likely to see the promise of protection kept. Absolute insanity. Much fanfare was made about protecting ‘Koala Hubs’ which only make up about 5% of the area available for logging.
Koala and joey, Bulga Forest. Photo provided by Susie Russell
Some of the RIC team are actively involved in trying to protect Bulga Forest, west of Port Macquarie, which our citizen science efforts have shown to be a stronghold for the Greater Glider. Greater Gliders are wondrous creatures. About the size of a cat, they are nocturnal, feed almost exclusively on gum leaves, and are able to glide 100 metres tree to tree… if the trees are there. They depend on old trees with hollows, in which they shelter during the day and raise their young. Since the 2019/20 bushfires they have been recognised as Endangered, with an estimated 80% fall in their population over the last 20 years.
A glimmer of hope is that Tallaganda Forest in Southern NSW, which also has a healthy population of Greater Gliders has seen the Environment Protection Authority recently put a Stop Work Order on logging there, because of the abject failure of the Forestry Corporation (the State owned logging company) to identify and protect the Greater Glider den trees.
White Greater Glider, Bulga Forest. Photo provided by Susie Russell
Hopefully the EPA will be consistent, and require Forestry Corporation to protect the den trees in Bulga, and other forests where there are still Greater Gliders. Meanwhile the local community remains vigilant and ready to engage in direct action if necessary.
Another forest hot-spot is Kiwarrak near Taree on the mid-north coast. Kiwarrak was badly burnt in the fires and is in recovery. Koalas are recolonising the forest. Locals in the area are getting organised to oppose the logging.
Koalas with their young joeys have been seen in the forest scheduled for logging in November. But unfortunately, despite Koalas also being Endangered, the presence of Koalas doesn’t trigger a search and protection of the area they live because some super dodgy ‘science’ has been done that says Koalas aren’t impacted by logging. The age of misinformation is truly upon us.
Other communities are getting organised to raise awareness of the values of the forests that are the water catchment for most of Australia’s east coast cities. There have been protests on the NSW central coast, speaking up for Ourimbah forest.
We are all waiting for the judgement in several court cases that have been heard that will determine whether the logging being conducted under the Regional Forest Agreements is even legal. We say it is not, but the judge gets to decide. If our colleagues in the North East Forest Alliance win the case, then that will open much of the logging occurring up to legal challenge. Another legal challenge against specific Harvest Plans is also awaiting judgement .
RIC, of course, will continue to support in whatever way we can, including financially.
Forest Festival - North Coast NSW
For those on the north coast, there is a Forest Festival organised by the Bob Brown Foundation in Bellwood Park, Nambucca Heads on November 4 from 3.30pm.
Speakers include Bob Brown, Uncle Miklo and John Seed.
END ALL NATIVE FOREST LOGGING NOW!
Update: Forest Way Restoration Project, Arunachala, India
For decades RIC has been helping communities to reforest of the sacred Arunachala mountain in India's Eastern Ghats. Listen to John Seed talk about this history
Over the past 20 years we have been supporting The Forest Way with their amazing restoration work at Arunachala - read more here.
In a recent report, The Forest Way mentioned to RIC that the nursery will need the equivalent of $26,000 to operate in 2023-24. In response we have just forwarded $11,000 to our project partners. You can make a tax-deductible donation through our donate page below.
Mother Nature Forest Project in Cambodia
Mother Nature Cambodia, a youth-led environmental rights organisation, is among the recipients of this year’s Right Livelihood Award (dubbed the 'Alternative Nobel Prize') for their activism protecting Cambodia’s natural resources and standing up for human rights and democracy.
RIC first started supporting the work of Mother Nature Cambodia around 2010. From John Seed's blog entry:
"See this 5 minute clip we made in defence of the largest rainforest remaining in Southeast Asia. RIC's colleague in Cambodia, Alex Davidson writes:
Great news for many reasons, mainly because it should minimise risks of further jail time for our activists. Here's an excellent article about it. I am once more reminded of the support you and your team / supporters provided to us back in the day, over 10 years ago now, my god! You guys were the very first ones to support us and believe in us, and we have come such a long way since.
"I can't possibly thank you enough for that support, it meant so much and made me/us realise so many things. Cambodia's nature is still immensely under threat, but at the very least certain areas of it are still hanging in there, thanks to the amazing campaign of activists ..."
Upcoming Deep Ecology Events in lutruwita (Tasmania)
Mt Field Immersion – The Call of the Land: 12-17 Nov
Embodied deep ecology? A deep immersion ritual in the alpine wonder of Mt Field? A circle of sacred community? Weaving together deep ecology, eco-somatics, and creative expression, this is a special opportunity to sink-deep over a whole week. NOTE: Bookings will close this Thursday 26th October, so if you feel the call, get in quick!
Bruny Island deep ecology with John Seed, Antonia Burke and Shar Molloy: 17 - 19 Nov
Shar Molloy says: "Very excitingly, Antonia Burke, a Yanyuwa/Garrwa woman who grew up on the Tiwi Islands, will be co-facilitating with John and I. I have worked with Antonia on the highly successful Stop Barossa campaign, where we centred the "more than human" in the campaign, so actively applying deep ecology into environmental work. Antonia is also an incredible advocate and healing practitioner.
This will possibly be the only time Antonia comes from Darwin to Tassie to co-facilitate a deep ecology workshop, so if you can make it, I highly recommend it. You can hear Antonia sharing at a Barossa Campaign rally in this Facebook video- she starts talking at the 5:10 minute mark."
Deep Ecology Network updates from John Seed
Friends: I’ll be offering deep ecology immersion weekends in Tasmania Nov 17-19 and Feb 2-4, Melbourne Dec 1-3 and at the Narara Ecovillage near Sydney, Dec 15-17.
If you’d like more of an idea of what a deep ecology immersion feels like, one of the participants in a Melbourne workshop earlier this year has written a delightful account.
My close friends and colleagues Inna, Skye & Miraz are offering 6 weeks of “Practices for Awakening & Resilience in a Changing World” – a course of online sessions and home practices, starting November 3.
I was invited to submit an article to the “Metabolising Grief” episode of the Deep Times Journal and this allowed me to engage in the first serious writing I’ve done in yonks; "Hearing, Inside Ourselves, the Sounds of the Earth Crying".
My colleagues Skye Cielita Flor and Miraz Indira’s wonderful "The Joyful Lament: on Pain for the World" may also be found there.
Skye and I took part in the Work That Reconnects webinar series with a session last month titled “Honouring our Pain for the World”. Over 600 people from around the world registered for our earlier contribution on Experiential Deep Ecology in May.
I’m delighted to join Joanna Macy and a host of other wonderful presenters for the Gaian Gathering for the Work That Reconnects Network from November 1 to 5.
The Aussie deep ecology community is much enriched by the return of Pat Fleming after decades in England. One of the Authors of “Thinking Like a Mountain – Towards a Council of All Beings” (alongside Joanna Macy, Arne Naess and myself) Pat has wasted no time integrating with the 50 plusdeep ecology facilitators in Oz and the wider deep ecology community.
Joanna, Pat and myself had a marvellous 90 minute zoom call last month, the first time the three of us have been together since we finished the book 35 years ago. It felt like lots of new directions emerged, and highlights will be available on YouTube soon.
Meanwhile, Pat and I did a webinar for the Australian Earth Laws Alliance last month on the Work That Reconnects.
Nettie Hulme hosts the wonderful hour-long, free, active hope session on zoom every Sunday 5-6pm: "Falling in Love with The World". This is a facilitated, friendly check in to help get you ready for the coming week using the Active Hope framework - a practice of deep ecology.
If you would like to be involved in RIC's campaigns ...
If you are in Melbourne area, and would like to be active, reach out to the Melbourne Rainforest Action Group. MRAG is currently focused on the Ecuador Endangered campaign and research on environmental and human rights issues with Australian mining companies.
And to help us continue our work protecting rainforests and supporting the people who depend on them ...
Thank you for all that you do for the Earth in these challenging times,
John, Susie, Greg, Patrick and Liz
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