Pic: Emma Campbell
To cry every day is a sign that one is losing one's mind, no? No. I'm not losing my mind. I'm quite sane and rational.
I am deeply affected by the plight of Leadbeater's Possum. This little creature is 20 million years old, and has been surviving here, through climate-change and natural upheavals, for all of that time.
It was first described in the Great Kooweerup Swamp, which was drained, and the Mountain Ash habitat was felled. I've seen pictures of the loggers felling giants, and there are memorials along the highway to the 'great logging pioneers' that cleared the area. My possum might have been as far south as Tooradin, just five minute's up the road from me. This was part of the Great Kooweerup Swamp, but the swamp was drained, destroying the ability of the water-table to support the habitat required for Leadbeater's Possum. They became extinct there.
They became extinct in more and more places, as the logging moved across our great state, taking all the prized Mountain Ash giants. Today, there are just tiny pockets at Yellingbo (small reserve), Central Highlands (being logged) and Toolangi. Now Toolangi is perhaps the most important colony - it is where they are densest of all. There is only 1,000 left in the whole state. But Toolangi is being clear-felled as I write this. I'm trying desperately to call a temporary halt, while we discuss the science, which clearly, irrefutably states that we cannot sustain ANY clear-felling.
In NSW, they are felling forest that is 1,000 years old. I'm not going to link it - I've posted elsewhere. This kind of plunder of a state's natural resources is typical of a state government, and they can't be trusted with our forests.
In 2004, Rose wrote a popular song called 'I cry'. The song is about what it is like to be a firefighter's wife. At the time she wrote it, I was away on long-haul deployment in the Central Highlands, and we were briefed by top CFA brass that we were trying to save Leadbeater's Possum from the fire. I fought that fire trying to protect the beautiful, giant, Alpine Ash trees, that just can't take the heat around their base - they fall over. Everywhere. A mess of fallen trees after the fire has passed. And they fall for hours, on into the night, you hear them crashing down - another dignified, sovereign being has crashed to the forest floor. We call them 'widow-makers'. The Leadbeater's Possums don't escape the fire. They are burned alive in their hollows. On Black Saturday, 2009, 45% of all Leadbeater's Possums and their habitat was wiped out in practically one day.
"We could lose the remaining possums in one fire", says Professor Lindenmayer, who has studied the possum for 30 years. This is terrifying. Climate change is causing massive fires in forest only designed to burn every 100 years or so. Getting these fires year after year is destroying habitat. Man's fault.
But the logging is something we can stop. We can move the loggers onto the plantation blue-gum that was grown for them, but has become a failed enterprise, crippling farmers and investors. We don't need to lose a single logging job if we act now. But after December, Leadbeater's Possum begins an unstoppable extinction trajectory, says the professor. Yes, I'm sweating a little. After December I will not just work to close down logging jobs; I will work to overthrow the government!
The Mountain Ash is cut down by VicForests. They lose money. They lose $1.50 for every tonne of wood they sell. Crazy isn't it? Why would that be, and who then is making the money? Australian Paper make the money. They make Reflex Paper. VicForests are locked into 1996 prices, because Jeff Kennet signed contracts allowing the clear-felling of the state forest until 2030 - at 1996 prices. Australian Paper are 100% owned by the Japanese. Our Leadbeater's Possums are being killed by the Japanese - but you can stop them. Just don't buy any products made from Mountain Ash.
That's tricky - pallets for carting beer around around are made from it. Reflex paper. Fence palings - all those fences! The bulk of it is pulped - sawn logs for building, fences and furniture are just 4% of the tree. 60% of the tree is entirely wasted - left in the forest. No, logging has had its heyday. Those romantic pioneers, armed with just a handsaw are gone. Now they use huge machines that clear the forest in a day. Then they load the trucks with just the trunks of the grand old Mountain Ash - it's at least 50 years old. The second-growth they are harvesting at Toolangi I believe to be 70 years old. In just another 30 years, it can support Leadbeaters' Possums.
Every day, I cry. You see, I work on saving Leadbeater's Possum every single day. It is my obsession. I refuse to be the last generation to have Leadeater's Possums - that is unthinkable. I can't look my grandson in the eye. I seriously can't. At some point in my day, I will find information that makes me despair. And I'm so frustrated. All this, for greed. 20 million years of possum, ending in my lifetime. And so I find myself crying. I'm not losing my mind, and I'm not depressed. I'm deeply affected.
Back in the 1970's, I fought to end logging, and we won. We will win again, or I will die trying. I do not intend to break the law - I want to change the law. I want emergency laws passed to protect Leadbeater's Possum, and I've asked my MP (Neale Burgess) for this, but he won't respond. I've also asked Greg Hunt MP for the same, and he too won't answer the question. These Liberal men hold the possum's future in their hands.
Dr Tim Flannery says "The only reason this has been going on, is because the public allowed it." Not any more, Doctor.
Brad Lemon
11th September 2013.
