Terania Creek; a significant 40th anniversary

This month marks the fortieth anniversary of what is very arguably the birth of the modern Australian environmental protest movement, when citizens put their bodies in the way of bulldozers and police to protect ancient rainforests in far north-eastern New South Wales. They felt they had to take direct action because governments – local, state and federal – had refused to respond to increasingly passionate pleas for a proper assessment of the natural values of the forests, backed by some of the nation’s most respected professional ecologists. 

Their actions were entirely vindicated within a decade, when the forests which had been on the brink of intensive logging and conversion to eucalypt plantations were not only declared national park but internationally recognised as of World Heritage Significance. 

Terania Creek, Nightcap National Park

Terania Creek is in the farthest north-eastern corner of NSW, at the end of the red arrow.

Many of those initially involved had moved to the region north of Lismore, around the settlement of The Channon, for its relatively pristine environment and were horrified at what was planned for their new neighbourhood. 

Prostanthera sp., Nightcap NP

Later they were joined by supporters from further afield as images of the initial destruction were circulated. The name Terania Creek has become synonymous with a key chapter in the history of Australian environmental history (though I wonder how many people would recognise the name?). It was this valley that was selected for the NSW Forestry Commission’s plans. It is always invidious to select individuals for attention when a community is responding, but the fact that Hugh and Nan Nicholson had recently (1974) bought an abandoned farm alongside the Whian Whian State Forest may well have been critical. Their plans were simply to open a rainforest nursery and encourage the use of such plants in revegetation programs and gardens, but they felt obliged to react when they learnt what was afoot. (Today they still live there, though now looking onto national park, are still environmentally active, and have published several very valuable guides to rainforest plants, as well as a superb online key to rainforest species from the tropics to Victoria.)

Their property became a de facto headquarters of the Terania Native Forest Action Group (TNFAG). When submissions were ignored, they went to the Channon market early in August 1979 to spread the word and ask for help to resist the logging; 300 people turned up at their property.

Their demands were modest – that no logging should take place before a proper Environmental Impact Assessment process had been implemented. The local council was single-mindedly pro-logging, and many locals had traditionally relied on the sawmill industry. Trucks and bulldozers, supported by well over 100 police, including a contingent from Sydney, were initially prevented from accessing the track but local tow-trucks were engaged to clear it. (Ironically, all these vehicles and personnel used the Nicholson’s property for convenience, despite their objections.) Dozens had been arrested by the end of August (though it’s unclear how many were successfully prosecuted), and logging of ancient Brush Boxes (Lophostemon confertus) began. 

By now there was major national press interest, and support for the protesters from major conservation groups and Sydney unions. NSW Premier Neville Wran (‘Nifty Nev’ as he was widely known) began to take serious interest and met with conservation representatives on several occasions. He sent a delegation of Ministers to inspect the situation, followed by another of backbenchers, accompanied by Dr Len Webb, CSIRO’s chief rainforest ecologist. (Dr. Webb was also publicly outspoken about the values of the forests – 40 years on I seriously doubt that his employers would now allow that.)

Along Boggy Creek walk, Nightcap NP.

On 4 September 1979 Wran announced a halt to logging, and a couple of weeks later Cabinet, supported by Caucus, agreed to extend the moratorium while an Environmental Impact Statement was prepared. The success of this campaign informed and inspired subsequent forest protection campaigns, successful and otherwise, from Daintree in north Queensland to the Franklin River in Tasmania.

Protesters' Falls, Terania Creek Nightcap NP. These lovely falls, and the walk to it,
were named to honour the Terania Creek protesters; official national park material specifically pays tribute to them.

The falls here are at the far left of the photo.

View from the top of the falls.

Twisted Liana along the track to Protesters' Falls.

With the EIS information on the remarkable values of these rainforests, Nightcap National Park (including Terania Creek) was declared in April 1983. Then in 1989 Nightcap was one of a series of north-eastern NSW parks given joint World Heritage Status as the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia. In 1994 several reserves in adjacent Queensland were added, bringing the number of units to 40 and in 2007 the name was amended to Gondwana Rainforests of Australia. It protects the largest area of subtropical rainforest in the world, most of the Antarctic Beech cool temperate rainforest and significant areas of warm temperate rainforest, plus many species, including rare ones, with direct links to the Gondwanan past. 

Bangalow Palm forest, Archontophoenix cunninghamiana, Terania Creek.

And its continued existence owes much to the dedication and courage of many idealists of all ages, often maligned, who were prepared to stand up for something they knew was too valuable to destroy. We are in their debt. Happy 40th Terania Creek Protectors.

Minyon Falls, Nightcap NP.

Blue Fig Falls, Nightcap NP.

Rough Tree Fern Cyathea sp., Boggy Creek, Nightcap NP.

Immature Fan-Tailed Cuckoo Cacomantis flabelliformis, Nightcap NP.

Lace Monitor Varanus varius, Nightcap NP.

Carpet Python Morelia spilota, Nightcap NP.

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