This page last updated 20th March 2002

On Saturday 16th March, I caught the bus from FOE, 9419 8700, to Goolengook, for only $15. This service should be available over the next few weekends.
We turned off the highway at Bendoc Ridge Rd. Silver-top Ash regen dominates the drive, this plantation-like forest results from clearfelling and burning. A lush old-growth slope, with awesome tree ferns occurs on Pugaree Rd. It looks like the slope is too steep for logging, thankfully.
There is a camp on a disused fire trail, off Pugaree Rd, near Goolengook Rd. Apparently the NRE are enforcing an "exclusion zone", which prohibits entry within 150m of Goolengook Rd, or anywhere on the Goolengook block. The legal basis for this is unclear, but being tested in Court this week by Heidi, who was arrested for simply being in the zone, and who refused to sign bail conditions that would have prohibited her re-entry.
Life at camp was interesting, with a few sing-a-longs and blockade actions occurring regularly. On Saturday night we were visited by an NRE Offcier, Drew Wilson, who first alleged that our cars wre blocking the road; in fact, their passenger side doors wre hard up against the trees growing alongside the disused track.
Drew returned a half-hour later, when we had moved the cars. He strode into camp and promtly pushed a woman roughly out of his way. I pointed out to him that he had assaulted her, which he defended by claiming "she was obstructing me carrying out official business". Of course he had no business there and soon left.
He was accompanied by a Parks Victoria staff, who had answered a call for "all available people" to attend in Goolengook.
I suggested to them both that they should do their jobs properly and survy the coupes for threatened species, thery ensuring the logging is lawful, before coming to hassle us.
On Sunday, two-people locked on to a NRE vehicle. The lock-on effectively blocked the road, though we'd rather have stopped the dozing of rainforest, occuring deep in Goolengook's old-growth.
Seeing the forest is still posssible, if you're prepared to evade some Special Police Squad, who have dogs and night-vision. If caught, it's most likely you'd simply be asked to leave the zone.
According to maps found in the Goolengook Forest Block Report, there is warm temperate and overlap rainforest in the gullies that run through the coupes. I personally saw the threatened Slender tree-fern and the even rarer Skirted tree-fern bulldozed in the coupes in 1997.
The forest is known to be habitat to the Powerful Owl, Sooty Owl, Spot-tail Quoll and Long -footed Potoroo. My favourite is the Lyrebird, which heralds the day with an amazing song, that includes all the bird calls of the area.
More people are desperately needed to go to Goolengook. At this stage one coupe at Bee Tree North has been clearfelled, but two or three coupes of spectacular rainforest have been marked out for clearing inside Goolengook. If the blockade causes enough head-eaches at Bee Tree, maybe they won't go into Gook. If they do, we need lots of people to walk in, so that at least some will be able to get up trees and stop the clearing.

For an archive of the actions so far, and for latest updates, www.geco.org.au

You can make a difference; send the DNRE chain of command an email, calling for an immediate stop to logging at coupe 843/501/10, Dingo Creek;
Premier Steve Bracks
Peter Rutherford - the man who made the decision to go into Goolengook
Executive Director Ken King

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