Road to Goolengook Traditional Cache
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This little road leads into Australian Environmental Protest history. 27kms away is the Goolengook forest block. Site of the longest running continuous forest blockade. The area is now part of the national park but not before 127 hectares in its heart was logged. The blockade went for over 6 years.
So what was it all about.
It was claimed to have the best remaining saw log quota's in East Gippsland. Of the 127 hectares that where logged 77% were exported as woodchips. A couple of weeks work for local loggers, and a holiday in the bush for the police and forestry who protected these logging operations 24 hours a day from protesters, who had to walk 20km through the bush from the edge of the exclusion zone.
On the other side was endangered species. Sooty Owl, Powerful Owl, Long Footed Potoroo. I personally found a breeding Den for Spot-tailed Quolls and new populations of the Slender Tree Fern Cyathea Marescens and a hybrid fern known as Cyathea marescens marescens (skirted Tree Fern). Which is a hybrid between the endangered slender tree fern and the common Cyathea australis (Rough Tree Fern) They grow in seperate habitats and I believe there are less then 20 plants known to esist in the world. It was also the largest patch of old growth forest left in Victoria and apart from Wilson's Promontory the only spot where Cool and Warm Temperate Rainforest grew together.
The story of the blockade could become a mini series, with the associated stories. 2 people disappeared. 1 of them had stories going around local pubs before anybody knew he was missing. Vigilante attacks on the camp until it was built into a bush fort. Many arrests, celebrities and lazy ferals. There are many other stories woven into this peace of history.
Now protected for the future to enjoy and survive in.
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