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The above pictures are buttons, which if clicked on will open various sections of this website.
Forests |
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This site last updated 7th November Y2K
"Halt! Who goes there?" The call is strong and firm, the drawbridge is up, the road is closed. Only once identified as friendly is the drawbridge lowered across the moat and access to Fort Goolengook is permitted.
Fort Goolengook is the most hard-core blockade ever constructed, and the longest running in Australia. It was January 1997 when the road was first blocked by a small tripod, and since then has seen countless structures, lock-ons and protests. It was World Environment Day 1997 when clearfelling of the National Biological Site of Significance (for Rainforest Values) began. Since then the blockade has been busted and re-constructed at least 50 times, over 160 people have been arrested, it has been through the media, through the courts and is becoming folk-lore.
The battle to save Goolengook is being fought on many levels. The Government make claims such as "rainforest is 100% protected", that endangered species are being cared for, that old-growth forest is protected. Yet Goolengook is endangered species habitat, is rainforest, is old-growth and IS still being clearfelled. Only the blockade protects this forest, the Government maps show it as "General Management Zone" - available for clearfelling. Coupes are scheduled for immediate logging and just last week cops and DNRE scouted the area - they could bust he blockade any day!
Earlier this year the blockade was attacked by a mob of bat wielding loggers, who beat the crap out of a visiting tourist, flattened the camp, then attacked and rolled a vehicle, beat its male occupants and threatened to gang-rape the women. The threatened to sodomise anyone found in Goolengook when they returned.
Perhaps this helps explain the construction of the Fort. This is part of what makes Fort Goolengook so hard-core. There is also the fact that Goolengook is so remote - 6 hours from the nearest city (Canberra), and the nearest towns are notoriously dangerous. Orbost has seen dozens of attacks on anyone looking slightly hippy or green. Vehicles are sabotaged by loggers and defected by the cops. Of course not everyone in town is that way, but it is the aggressive few that scare the rest into submissive acceptance of the violence.
Fort Goolengook not only stands to protect the forest and the cute furries, but to stand against intimidation by violence, to stand against thug rule, and to stand against Corporate Oppression. Ultimately the driving force behind the logging is the woodchipping industry, which sends the pulped logs to Japan to make paper.
By reading this you have alrady made a difference; the more people that know the truth and spread the message, the more power Fort Goolengook has. The most you can do is go there and see it for yourself. Seeing the old-growth rainforests of Goolengook will change your life. GECO is in radio contact with the blockade, providing a life-line, supporting GECO supports Fort Goolengook.
Click here for more information about Goolengook