Mass Destruction of Habitat on Toodyay Road, Western Australia... it has biospheric implications

The horror of witnessing more and more habitat destroyed along and near Toodyay Road, Western Australia, is so overwhelming that it is causing post-traumatic stress disorder for some of us, and for the biosphere itself. And it's ongoing. Soon, large swathes of bushland will remain only as photos and memories. Then people can forget it was ever there and adjust to the new reality? No.

This 'road realignment' and 'improvement' for safety reasons, to bring into accordance with 'modern road standards', is excessive and counter-intuitive. The violence of driving patterns is in evidence for all to see on any journey along that road and that's a huge part of the safety problem. Upgrading doesn't have to mean mass destruction. Further, the extraction industries and their trucking patterns are a doom in themselves. Trucks are supposed to be speed-limited to 100kmh, and I can promise you that's frequently not the case — I have seen trucks overtaking cars that were doing 100kmh. The plus or minus in their limiting must be truly flexible.

Associated (above ground) power line installation (and the wide clearing for fire-safety reasons required around power lines), the nearby mining of gravel for road-building, and ongoing agricultural land clearing (clearly some are escaping scrutiny or working the laws to their advantage) are part of a package from Dante's Inferno. 

Yesterday, nearer Toodyay, we also saw machinery tearing down vegetation around a creek, with the tracks of the diggers embedded in the stream bed itself. Have permissions been obtained from the Noongar community/elders? These are sacred waterways, as is very well known in the region. 

The environmental 'sign-offs' on these kind of 'works' is reprehensible, and the gall of the justifications, including a specious argument that because there's nearby national park, animals have other habitat available to them, is appalling. And as soon as you read that some of the bush being cleared is 'degraded', you get the (il)logical rhetoric at work. And a sign on the road saying a section being cleared is 'dieback affected' is not going to prevent its spread!

Every crunch of the bulldozer kills innumerable smaller creatures — reptiles, rodents, marsupials — and demolishes bird nests and so on. We have for many years watched white-tailed black cockatoos roosting in the very trees that are being literally plucked out by the roots —it's an inventive array of machinery the destroyers have got at their disposal.

It bemuses me to see the operators of these machines chatting between killing sprees. Sure, people are compelled to make a living, but all of us have consciences, and surely these must be bothered? It reminds me of the 'just-war' scenarios and the military tyranny we are all being affected by, some catastrophically. A pseudo-theological debate just as governmental 'environmentalism' is a pseudo-ecological fait accompli. And these demolitions are yokings of government and business — the twin arms of the modern Western state doing their best to cover each other's complicity in ecocide by fulfilling 'promises', 'contracts', and meeting 'outcomes'.

This is a local issue with planetary implications — if habitat can be treated with such disdain, then all life is devalued, and we all know where such degradation leads. We all have an obligation to act, including those doing the damage and hiding behind specious justifications. We are all in this together, let's start acting as a community that recognises that all roots reach into the planet itself, and roots around here are specifically Noongar and without ongoing Noongar consultation, there's no way through on any level.

Stages of Planet Killing on Toodyay Road

 

It starts in offices and conferences room,

unless it is that grim whisper on the road

as drivers overtake on double

white lines or thrash the speed limit.

 

It echoes through government,

through departments, to business —

that search for quotes combining

frugality, outcomes, and brag sheets.

 

The surveyors come — neat harbingers

with their deft theodolites, stakes

through hearts, pink ribbons

streaming like dead arteries.

 

Environmental clearances an exquisite fait

accompli, ultimately, and sacred water-

ways re-mapped to be entered by tracked

machinery, banks undone, water stained.

 

There is the language of minimisation,

which we’ve come to expect, thanks, and down-

loads to offset the distress. And as old trees

are yanked out by the roots, and buttressed

 

bulldozers mount vegetation

before crushing, carrion vehicles

buzz like powerlines, the land rewritten

outside so many memories — but not all.

 

Wildlife told there are other places

it can go as it is slaughtered. Contract

killers anonymous as, later, efforts to tidy

with a few plantings, or just guiderails.

 

 

            John Kinsella

Speaking for the Jarrah Forests and Celebrating Noongar Boodja

I am reading poetry at the wonderful Mandoon Bilya Festival run by the Bibbul Ngarma Aboriginal Association tomorrow and have specifically written the protest poem below for the occasion. The festival celebrates Noongar boodja — the river, wetlands, forest and earth... a sacredness that should not be under constant threat from the ecocidal activities of companies like Alcoa and South 32:

Let’s Talk About the Shining Future of the Jarrah Forests

 

Alcoa and South 32

wish to carve up

thousands upon

thousands of hectares

of jarrah forest

to extend their already

devastating mining operations.

This is the bauxite

gambit which seems

a fait accompli —

the complete package

of ‘jobs’ (an immediacy),

‘rehabilitation’ (employment

for graduates of conscience credits),

and ‘growth’ (the state, like dieback,

clinging to the roots of the companies).

 

Alcoa and South 32

wish to carve up

thousands upon

thousands of hectares

of jarrah forest.

This is an adjunct to being

‘waterwise’ (who needs

a water catchment when

there are desal plants

excoriating the coast?);

to ‘preserving the state’s

heritage’ (on boodja

there are prisons and smelters);

and the ‘green future’

meltdown that even AI

has trouble over.

 

Alcoa and South 32

wish to carve up

thousands upon

thousands of hectares

of jarrah forest.

It’s worth tracing

what precisely those

company profits

end up doing,

but even if we don’t bother,

then simply bandy around

the word ‘security’

and count the millions

of animal deaths the process

will incur, inflict, and spin

as a positive outcome

for the entire state,

country, traditional owners,

planet, solar system, universe,

mirror universes.

 

Alcoa and South 32

wish to carve up

thousands upon

thousands of hectares

of jarrah forest.

Let’s name every species,

then every member of that species,

of plant and animal that will be

annihilated in this process.

We’re all too busy for that.

We all have lives to lead.

Let’s talk about country.

Let’s talk about what has

already gone and how

its existence in spirit

is not enough, how it needs

to be present in all states

of being, part of all stories.

How a forest needs

to remain a forest —

leaf, wing, paw, air, water

and earth.

 

 

            John Kinsella

 

 

Orcas are Not AUKUS

Prologue

They play

with eras

and oceans

with orcas

and strategies

of death

as unreal

as the pandemic

was to them

when it started

its run silent run deep

expedition

around

the planet.

    from Cellnight

Australia's arms race purchase of nuclear submarines from the US and UK is an endgame. The promise of thousands of jobs in an industry of death, and participation in the nuclear threat to the biosphere (accidents, leaks, and consequences of war), show that the obsession with a 'cradle to grave' nuclear industry is being made real in all its eschatological manifestations. All other 'smiling faced' policy shifts are meaningless in the face of such a threat to the well-being of the entire planet. The above lines are the prologue (written late in the process) to my verse novel Cellnight, which is a condemnation of the nuclear and military sell, and a consideration of how its toxicity affects all life. Though the book is based in the 1980s during the American Fleet visits, it is sadly as relevant now, and maybe more so. AUKUS is the ultimate embodiment of contemporary colonialism that deploys language in ways that pretends it's not. It is, and its 'run silent run deep' name is death. 

    John Kinsella

Forest Raves Are a Severe Threat to Ecologies

Forest Raves Fuck Up The Forest

Forest raves fuck up the forest —

the doof doof annihilation

of the birds barely registered,

 

the minuscule syrinxes, the costumed

feathers, the hyperstimulated skin,

the padded nests you can collapse

 

into exhausted but still willing

to party on, tossing the fledglings

out on the forest floor to be stomped,

 

hands reaching to the canopy

& twilight’s nimbus — a false

friend of freedom, a flattering

 

admirer of the rubbished moon. And

the spreading of cinnamon fungus as you rave

to avoid limitations on venue numbers

 

due to Covid, the imitation of animals

that has no respect or understanding

for the animals imitated, a cultural

 

mocking, the melding with an ecology

which you destroy as effectively as farmers

& mountain bikers. You can doof to this doof.

 

You can crank up the energy consumption.

You can max out on the tools of capitalism.

You can carbonate in full immersion.

 

And so the fire twirlers in dry & heat-stricken

woodlands, & so the off-your-face open air

self-discovery & bonding rituals,

 

& so the mockery of all ancient knowledges,

& so the colonial paradoxes seem to be reset

with every alternative setting, each contra-

 

indication... & so the party at the end of the world

which is dance beats as utility as centres

in which you are the anonymous sole attraction,

 

the contradiction of liberation,

the raving exploitation of nature,

as your forest rave fucks up the forest

 

as you do the work for mining companies,

land developers, dispossessors and pastoralists,

as your forest rave fucks up the forest.

 

 

            John Kinsella

Save 'Julimar State Forest'/Julimar Conservation Park from Chalice Mining!

I have just put this petition up at Change.Org for any of you willing to sign (see below plus link). Addressing governments, especially when they are so embedded with the mining industry, is a forlorn and fraught process, but every peaceful method must be tried:

Chalice Mining is attempting to develop a nickel, copper, cobalt and PGE mine at the 'Gonneville deposit' near the 'Julimar State Forest'/Julimar Conservation Park, Western Australia. Their end of 2020 statement claims — 'Julimar PGE-Ni-Cu-Co-Au discovery' [is] 'advancing rapidly to maiden resource'. The company is targeting the 28 000-hectare Julimar Conservation Park as part of their 'exploration' and potential exploitation of the 'deposit'. As cited in the Financial Review (November 9th, 2021) regarding exploratory drilling in the forest, 'Mr Dorsch said he was expecting approval to drill soon and the company was “raring to go”.'

Despite claiming it's all for the well-being of the world (minerals useful for carbon-reducing technology — 'green technology'), the destruction of the ecologically vital and unique Julimar forest will be a crime against the environment and the biosphere. The forest must be protected against such a flagrant rapacity that is ultimately based on nothing more than profiteering and indifference to environmental world-health.

The forests and bushland of Western Australia are already under great pressure from mining, and we plead with you to prevent this activity. We have an obligation to all life on this planet to prevent the damage and destruction of remaining habitats.

Link to Protect Julimar Forest petition. [Note the anti-tree propaganda in the Financial Review article, aligning the area with middle-class wealth (which is untrue), attempting to divide and conquer via mining labour demographics when it's the mega-wealthy who most benefit from such mining.]

Also, I beg you all to consider the threat to the Manning Ridge from mountain-biking proponents. See and look at 'concerns'. And here is a poem in support of that campaign:

Manning Ridge, Beeliar Regional Park, Whadjuk Noongar Boodja

Parrot bush is a flowering of white-tailed

black cockatoos is a flowering of limestone 

is a flowering of the essence of terrain. 

Mountain bikes are not biodiverse, 

mountain bike trails are not circulatory 

systems, mountain bikes and the trails 

made for them to traverse bring no rare species 

back from the brink, bring no warmth 

or comfort to country. Mountain bikes

compress the ridge, break the back

of habitat. When riders ride into their future

they delete the future for so much else.

Bandicoots and lined skinks know I visited

as a child, trying to hear what they had to say —

their memories are passed on through

limestone, through woodlands

and shrublands. I won’t forget

their gifts. Now I speak out.

Parrot bush is a flowering of white-tailed

black cockatoos is a flowering of limestone 

is a flowering of a future.

Remember. Act. Remember.

John Kinsella

And for all the protesters resisting the tree and village-destroying expansion of the horrific Garzweiler lignite mine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany:

Graphology Lambent 28: for the protesters against the Garzweiler lignite mine

False light false warmth the pit dilating

to consume trees and villages, filling

atmosphere with false signs false breath —

that dirty heat that warms only death.

But those of you sitting to block ‘progress’

will bring life with every delay — you redress

our failure as the cranes migrate.

John Kinsella

The destruction of habitat and contamination of the biosphere are such a multiplex concurrence of 'events' that unless we resist all of these assaults at once, and say enough to all such behaviour and activity, they will overwhelm the planet.