Last night I had a terrible dream. I was standing there when suddenly something dropped out of my jumper to the ground. I looked down and it was a spider. I didn’t care and everyone was very impressed with my nonchalance… They all thought I had become very brave or just very in tuned with nature. Then I heard something else drop to the ground- I looked down – another spider. I wasn’t feeling so casual about the situation any more.  I pulled up my jumper and there were hundreds of spiders all crawling around in there!! Oh my god… I screamed so loud!

When I woke up I wondered what the dream might represent?  Hmmm….  while I was pondering this question I couldn’t help but feel a bit creepy. Every little twitch, every little movement of clothing against my skin…. made me squirm. Suddenly I couldn’t help the urge to make sure that there wasn’t spider infestation crawling around inside my clothes! And then I saw it out of the corner of my eye and in a split second I grabbed my blanket and threw it across the ‘room’…. and let out a scream! The big spider that had been sharing my cozy bed with me seemed unconcerned!

I looked around – oh, no. I wished I hadn’t just flung it across the room like a mad man, because now I couldn’t see where it had gone. Now everywhere seemed like a perfect spider hide out – the folds of my swag, the sleeve of my jumper, the inside of my shoe…

I came out here to the deck, even though it’s raining, because it’s easier to monitor for any approaching spiders!

If it had been some other bug I’d probably be feeling excited about the visit. Why is it that spiders are so creepy? Maybe it’s their potential for poisonous bites? Hopefully these ones are harmless! I’d been getting used to their presence around here, actually. Sometimes they scatter away as I move something, or come crawling out of the rope as I un-tangle it. But after that dream… they seem creepier than usual.

I guess living in the forest you have to get used to creepy crawlies. But I still can’t help feeling a bit scared when it comes to spiders. I remember the tree sit at Camp Floz was a favorite spider hang out.  Little ones that gleamed in the light of your head torch. Sometimes I couldn’t’ see them but I knew they’d been around becuase they left slithers of web, trailing its way across the tarp, around the ropes, on the platform. Yep, they’d definitely been there alright. I remember one night climbing up to the tree sit, opening the swag and seeing those little trails of silver web zigzagging across the blankets. I just couldn’t bring myself to snuggle down into the swag, with all those little spider-webs. What was I to do? Was I really going to get down because of a few spiders? I ran it through my mind – the loggers and police turning up the next day and getting through the blockade all because I was scared of spiders. No, I couldn’t let that happen. What about getting down and asking someone else to come up instead- surely there were people braver than me who would be happy to cuddle up to a spider or two? I thought it would probably be a bit shameful to get down and ask someone. Maybe I could claim a sudden bout of diarrhoea? No? Ok, I guess my commitment to the forest will just have to outweigh my spider fear. Well, sort of. I still didn’t want to sleep with the spiders, so I took my spare sleeping bag and climbed to the platform at the top of the tree. I had no swag and no tarp, but the hard platform beneath me and the possibility of rain seemed like the lesser of the two evils.

Sorry to have to break the myth of the brave eco-warrior! Oh no, now you will know the truth, that us tree-sitting types are no braver than the ground-dwellers!

Here I am once again having my commitment to the forest put to the test by these little critters. “Come on spidey” I want to say “don’t you know I’m here to save your whole ecosystem? Couldn’t you cut me a little slack and go hang out some place else on the tree for a while.” But I don’t think he really understands what I’m talking about. And I guess it was his home long before I moved in!

I stumbled over the answer to the question. I’ve gotten used to answering all sorts of questions about anything from the details of clause 27 in the IGA – to what I eat and where I poop! But I hadn’t been expecting this one and no one has ever really asked me before. So when the journalist said “how has the forest changed you?” I have to admit that I didn’t know how to respond. So I stumbled my way through an answer, but really what I wanted to say was give me a day to reflect on this and get back to you, it’s a big question!

So, I’ve had some time to reflect, and I want to share some thoughts with you.

The forest has changed me; there is no doubt about that. The question is hard to answer because it goes way beyond the three weeks I’ve spent in this forest. It stretches back to the first moment I stepped foot in Tasmania’s old growth forests. Or maybe it goes back even further than that…. to lying on the grass in Queens park, as a child, looking up into the tops of the trees and pretending I was in the middle of the ‘wilderness.’ Maybe it goes back even further than that?

I want to share something very personal with you and I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t know if I wanted to come up this tree. I’d been planning The Observer Tree project for a while and we were going to launch it a few months ago, because this coupe was listed for logging in October 2011. I was in Sydney having just done the banner drop on the Opera House and preparing to come back to Tassie and come up this tree. Then I got the phone call that changed everything… a good friend of mine had passed away.

It’s funny how the first thing I wanted to do was get on the plane to Tassie and come up this tree. Maybe it is my past experiences in the Floz that have shown me how much the forest can heal me. Or maybe it was the shock and denial that lead me to just want to keep busy with something, anything else. I soon realised though, that what I needed to do was go up to Brisbane to say my goodbyes and be with my community.

Two weeks later I’m back in Tassie, full swing into preparing for The Observer Tree. I’m excited but there is something weighing on my mind. I feel too scared to tell people that I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t want to let everyone down. And most of all I don’t want to let the forest down. I’m not sleeping. Instead I stay up all night watching “the secret life of plants” over and over again.

I think I feared being up here alone. With so much time to sit and think and go over and over again in my mind how things could have turned out differently… how maybe she would still be alive if…?  And I didn’t want to be alone because I felt this sudden urge to spend as much time as I could with everyone important in my life. Suddenly spending time with friends seemed so important, you just never know when you’ll never get another chance. In addition, someone very important in my life, a close family member, was unwell. I spent every day worrying about them, hoping they would be ok. The Observer Tree launch date loomed closer. I called up a friend of mine who was helping with the project to break the news…. I had to go back to Brisbane. The Observer Tree was postponed, perhaps indefinitely.  I felt the weight of 430,000 hectares of forest on my shoulders. How could I stand by and let this forest be torn apart? Especially now, when it was promised protection, when it is so close to being saved… could I really do nothing as the chainsaws moved in? But I had to, it was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. But sometimes you just have to do what is right for yourself and your family.

As it turns out, the timing was perfect. I felt much better within a few weeks. I returned to Tasmania, packed my bags and came out to the forest. Logging began that week, and so we launched the project just in the nick of time.

You might wonder why I have told you that story and think that perhaps it doesn’t really answer the question. But as I often do, I needed to give you some back ground detail about my life in order to explain what goes on up here. Sometimes when I sit quietly watching the forest I get a feeling of sadness. I know grief takes time, I know that it comes and goes. And sometimes it pops up unexpectedly. So I let it have its place, when it needs to. But what I wanted to say is that the forest for me is a place that heals because when I am quiet and I watch the forest, listen to it, take it in… I start to understand things about life that I just didn’t really grasp in the city.

To be here in this tree that has been growing for hundreds of years before I was born and potentially ( if we give it the chance) will stay standing long after I am gone….In some ways, it makes me feel insignificant. A small spec in time on this planet. Similar to how people feel when they look up into the stars and realise how tiny they are in comparison to the universe. But the feeling of insignificance isn’t a bad one. I like the way it makes me feel humble. And honored to share a moment in time with this forest. It changes the perspective of things in my life. That is not to say that the death of a dear friend is insignificant. Because every person matters and losing a friend is difficult. But one thing the forest has taught me about is the cycle of life and death.

Here you see trees grow old, begin to rot, fall over. It’s strange how the sound of a tree falling naturally in the forest is kind of exciting, and at Camp Floz we’d all love to go and have a look, see which one has fallen and where. It is very different from the loss of a tree before it’s time, at the hands of a chainsaw. When trees fall in the forest, they may die, but they do not stop being a part of the forest. They provide shelter and homes for animals, crucial to the survival of the entire ecosystem. They become a part of the soil, to produce the next generation of trees. They continue to hold their store of carbon. They live on forever, in some ways, recycling and returning their energy into the forest for its continuance. That is why sometimes it seems almost a tiny moment in time to talk of trees that are 400 years old, when really this forest has been evolving for so many thousands of years, each fallen tree regenerating the soil to make life for the next.

Although it makes me feel humbled and insignificant, at the same time it gives me a feeling of importance. Because in the forest it is clear that everything matters. Everything has its place. From the tallest of trees to the tiniest of bugs. Every single thing is crucial to the survival of the whole, of each other. The interconnection of life is clear here.

And the thing about all these understandings I have come to see through living in the forest is; I don’t see them only in relation to “the forest” as something out there, separate from us. When I am in the forest I am a part of it as much as any of the other creatures here. And I realise that we all are, no matter where we live, a part of the earth’s ecosystem. The lessons of the forest are relevant to me because the forests’ life is my life. I am a part of the world; I will live and die like everything in this forest.

In this way, the forest has helped me to grieve and understand death. It has taught me that all things will die, but it doesn’t mean they are gone. As the trees live on after they have fallen, so too will fallen friends who have left this world behind. They will continue to bring life to this world as long as their memory remains in our hearts. All the precious moments spent  together, the things they have taught us and what they have brought into our lives; they will remain behind for a long time…Keeping this community, this ecosystem, evolving and changing. Every fallen friend will be forever apart of the world, as will we when our time comes too.

This is just one way in which this forest has changed me. It doesn’t mean I don’t still feel sad sometimes, or ask “why” and “what if.” But I have found some comfort in what I have learnt from the forest. It has been a hard lesson to learn. But I am thankful to this forest for sharing it with me.

This blog is dedicated to Sophie; you will live on in my heart.

I want to tell you a story about this forest….

I first visited this particular patch of Tasmania’s south west almost four years ago. A delegation was coming to Tasmania from the World Heritage Committee, International Union for the Conservation of Nature and ICOMOS. In preparation Still Wild Still Threatened did comprehensive surveys of 40 areas of forest scheduled for logging, all that were within 2 km of the boundary of the current Tasmanian Wilderness Wold Heritage Area (TWWHA).  It was a hectic mission, but an inspiring one. Every day we would leave from Camp Floz in teams of four, off to different valleys – the Styx, Wedge, Counsel, and Tyenna.

I knew this place was special as soon as I saw it. I didn’t need the data on the survey sheet to prove it (though it did anyway).

It was a slightly overcast rainy day ( you know the ones typical of Tasmania’s wet forest) and we traipsed through the bush trying to keep our notebooks dry as we recorded the details of the spectacular world we’d found ourselves in. Gullies bursting to the brim with ferns, growing tall as trees, their rough bark scattered with epiphytes; filmy, kangaroo and finger ferns growing like a vertical garden up their trunks. Waterways spread through the valley everywhere, trickling their way down from Mount Mueller, which loomed above us.  Up on the ridges we were met with vast tall eucalypts rising up from the ground 60-70 meters tall. These ancient trees are some of the most carbon dense in the world. Research done by Still Wild Still Threatened to radio-carbon date trees of a similar size in the nearby Styx Valley found that the trees had been between 400-600 years old when they were taken down by a chainsaw.

As we walked I could see a clearing in the distance. I looked at the map, but it didn’t correspond with any roads or clearings. I knew something wasn’t right. As we pushed on I could see the clearing was a road. Stepping out of the lush dense forest onto a brand new gravel road felt devastating. The road itself was like a clear fell, zigzagging its way up the hill, taking out most of the forest on the entire slope as it went.

It was then that it hit me – how precariously this forest was teetering on the edge of survival, so close to being lost forever. With the road complete and the Forest Practises Plan cleared, logging could begin at any time.  We walked back through the bush a little quieter than before. Reflecting on what this meant for these ancient trees that stood silently around us, waiting defenceless for the moment when the evolution of an ecosystem would be brought to an abrupt and ruthless end.

The survey project for the World Heritage Committee delegation was a time of great hope for me. Recording meticulously the flora, fauna and the other world heritage values would surely  provide evidence to the committee to show how important these forests were. I really believed that those coupes might never be logged.

The good news is that the World Heritage Committee and the IUCN did see the importance of the forests. In 2008 both these organisations voted unanimously in favour of the need for the TWWHA border to be extended to take in these forests.

You see, the thing about the TWWHA is that although it is quiet extensive, it is not necessarily representative of all vegetation types. The protected area covers mountain tops and alpine areas. These are significant ecosystems, but they were not under threat because they have no use to the logging industry. Looking at the map of the TWWHA you will notice the way the boundary follows the contours of the landscape. This is because where the mountain tops give way to the forest at the tree line, the border stops. The areas of tall trees, the areas most desired by the logging companies are excluded from protected zone.  This is why the World Heritage Committee stated in 2008 “only 29% of tall eucalypt forest is included within the property (TWWHA) it has also been suggested that the values outside the property are different and complementary to those of the tall eucalypt forest included in the property. Areas of high potential value as World Heritage have consistently been identified, including tall eucalypt forests in the Styx Valley and the Upper Florentine” (WHC-08/32.COM/7B).

 With the IUCN and World Heritage Committee making remmendations to the government for the boundary to be extended, it felt like there was a chance to save those precious forests at the base of Mount Mueller.

In 2009 we were out surveying again. This time we were not taking note of flora and fauna, we were taking notes of log piles, machinery, stumps and burning clear-fells. Still Wild Still Threatened reported to the WHC and IUCN that of the 40 coupes surveyed the year before 18 had been seriously degraded by forestry operations. In addition another 7 coupes within 2 km of the TWWHA border that had not been on the previous logging schedule had been impacted by operations. A year had passed and the government had done nothing to act on the WHC recommendations. It was clear that the area surrounding the TWWHA was becoming increasingly fragmented as more and more logging occurred in close proximity, sometimes even coming right up to meet the boundary of the protected area, with no buffer zone. Another year passed and still no action had been taken by the government. This time we reported an additional 11 coupes had been lost to logging operations and two more had roading complete.

That was two years ago now. We didn’t do an update report last year. I guess it just didn’t seem like the government would ever take notice of the World Heritage Committee’s recommendations. It seemed like the intact forest stretching out from the TWWHA would become fragmented and disjointed, separated by clear-fells and if we ever got the government to listen I feared it would be too late.

These forests at the base of Mount Mueller have always had a special place in my heart. I’ll never forget the giant tree we discovered in TN49A – 18.7 meters girth around the base. Part way up the trunk split, so that it almost looked like two trees growing closely together. Its nickname became “forked tongue.”  It is one of my favourite trees. In TN48A we measured a tree 16.5 meters in girth. Neither of these trees made it into the “giant tree” list. To receive protection as a giant a tree must measure over 85 meters in height. This can be a bit of a disadvantage for the very old trees. Like people they tend to shrink a little with age. Their crowns begin to die and then drop off, shortening the tree. The dead crowns of old trees can be seen from a distance. As you look out across valleys of old growth you can see their pale grey sticks contrasting against the green forest. As for trees that are exceptionally fat, like ‘forked tongue” they get no special protection, unless they meet the criteria based on volume (280 cubic meters), which can be difficult to achieve without the height too.

Walking up Mount Mueller is a special experience, and if you’re ever out this way, you should give it a go. The track goes through a proposed logging coupe, so hopefully it is still intact when you get the chance to do the walk. Up on the mountain is a glacial lake called “Fossil Lake” it is surrounded by pandanii and looks out across the Styx and Tyenna valleys. I think there is something special about the fact that the mountain is also the beginning of three spectacular rivers that run through three of the most spectacular forests – the Florentine, Weld and Styx.

(Click here for a bushwalking website that details the walk)

I remember a friend of mine whom I’d spent many walks with in these forests had to leave Tassie for a while. “Keep an eye on those Mueller coupes while I’m gone” he said. And I did. I have spent many nights in the rain and sometime snow, checking up on these forests. That feeling of driving up the road and your heart stopping for just a second as you round the corner…. Waiting to see what you will find, will the forest be there or will it be replaced by machines working their way greedily through the trees?

One night about two years ago now I had a night mare about this coupe I’m sitting in now. I dreamt that logging started and I tried to tell people but no one would listen. I wanted to stop the destruction but no one had time to help. It’s funny how I still remember that dream and the disheartening feeling it left me with when I woke up. But here I am today, sitting in this coupe, and lots of people are listening. Yesterday I checked my emails discovering all these messages from people in France who had read about The Observer Tree through a French website. Today I had a visit from local residents of the Derwent Valley who brought me fresh fruit and vegetables. People are listening all the way from New Norfolk to Paris! The government may not have listened to the WHC or the IUCN, but we are going to make sure that they start listening to us. Because the people of Australia and the world are recognising how unique and valuable these forests are and we are not going to let them be taken away forever simply to line the pockets of companies like Ta Ann.

Today marks three weeks since I started my constant vigil at the top of this tree. The word is starting to spread around the world, so keep up the good work in sharing this blog as much as you can.
Talk to you tomorrow, Miranda.

Click on links below to view Still Wild Still Threatened’s reports to the IUCN and WHC
2008
2009
2010