 Narrabri farmer Sarah Ciesiolka is still fighting for the safety of the water she needs to irrigate her land. Photo Tree Faerie. Eve JefferyThis article first appeared on Echonetdaily in February 2020 Yesterday a 104-page report was released by the parliamentary inquiry into the CSG industry in NSW detailing how the NSW Government has failed to fully implement the majority of the NSW Chief Scientist’s 16 recommendations from 2014…READ MORE
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 A very interesting ten years for Barnaby Joyce. Photo Tree Faerie David LoweThis article first appeared in The Echo in January 2020  Image David Lowe David LoweThis article first appeared in The Echo in January 2020  David LoweThis article first appeared in The Echo in November 2019 Is it all too late? Is the end nigh? Has the fat lady sung? Is the human race run? If so, how should we live?
More than a few of us have jumped directly from saying ‘she’ll be right, there’s no need to do anything’, to ‘we’re all going to die, it’s too late to act.’ Both of these approaches to the climate crisis are passive, and play into the hands of those who have put life on earth into this precarious situation…READ MORE Barnaby Joyce blamed the stress of worrying about his parents' place burning down for his erratic behaviour last week, but as the emergency worsened, it became clear that his burning pants and those of his leader needed more urgent attention.
The attempt to re-frame the bushfire catastrophe as something caused by dastardly tree-huggers and latte-sippers was spearheaded by Nationals leader Michael McCormack, who said in response to Adam Bandt that people 'don't need the ravings of some pure enlightened and woke capital city greenies at this time when they are trying to save their homes'…READ MORE Federal parliament isn't sitting at the moment, but lobbyists and spin doctors never sleep, which is why we've all been facing fresh assaults from our 'leaders' and would-be leaders this week.
In what at first appeared to be a scrap of good news, the Morrison government announced $1 billion for new clean energy projects, including extra money for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. They also appointed an expert panel to do something about greenhouse emissions. But faster than you could say George Orwell, it was revealed clean energy – in the topsy-turvy world of the amusingly named Minister for Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor – actually meant gas, and the head of the expert panel was to be none other than Grant King, the former CEO of Origin Energy (aka the people who fracked Queensland and created a fiery spa bath in the Condamine River)… READ MORE  David LoweThis article first appeared in The Echo in October 2019 When I headed down the Summerland Way last week, days after the Rappville bushfire, there was still a pall of smoke and strange light south of Casino.
The corner of Braemar State Forest remains miraculously unscathed, but then... miles of destruction. You can see where the fire leapt the highway. It’s hard to imagine how the firefighters stopped it. Saved houses are dotted here and there, surrounded by burned trees. In what was to be the site of a major blockade to protect one of the North Coast’s last viable koala populations, the forest has turned orange, black, and silent…READ MORE  David LoweThis article first appeared in The Echo in September 2019 Koala advocates say they may end up blockading the Braemar State Forest if the NSW Forestry Corporation tries to start logging there soon.
Logging was due to start Friday 13 September but has been delayed after more than a hundred protestors gathered in the forest south of Casino. Tim Watson came from Lawrence for the event, attending because of concerns both for the global extinction crisis and threats to his local koala population. 'They're going extinct at a massive rate because of land-clearing and forestry commission, loss of habitat, fires, roadkill,' he said. 'We're destroying all their homes'…READ MORE  Eve JefferyThis article first appeared in The Echo in July 2019 Veteran environmental campaigner Murray Muzz Drechsler has joined the Extinction Rebellion holacracy, in an effort to make governments at every level sit up and take notice as the climate crisis becomes the climate emergency.
Drechsler says that Extinction Rebellion (XR) will be holding the Byron Shire Council accountable for their actions. ‘They have declared a climate emergency but they haven’t acted upon it. Not only have they not acted on it, they are going to clear critically endangered wetland rainforest for a bypass. That’s not going to happen'…READ MORE  Eve JefferyThis article first appeared in The Echo in May 2019 If you had to walk a kilometre to pump your water from a well, do you think you would be careful how many drops you used?
If you lived in Beijing would you value clean air, or in Brazil would you hug trees? What if your turnips grew in Chernobyl soil? Across the globe people are suffering because of greed. It’s as simple as that. You can argue about progress all you want (if I hear one more person ask me if I type my stories on a computer)… READ MORE  Eve JefferyThis article first appeared in The Echo in October 2018 The thing is, when you have daughters, you spend the first 20 years or so trying to stop them getting pregnant, then you spend the next 20 years hoping that they will get pregnant.
It’s funny how as prospective grandparents we feel we have so much sovereignty over our offsprings’ bodies. It’s also funny how when we have kids we don’t have enough time for them because we’re busy doing other things and then when we have all the time in the world, we look to the little people in our lives to somehow fill the void left by what we couldn’t provide for our own children. My children are now in their 20s and I have watched as my friends one-by-one have become grandparents, and I must admit, there has been a little touch of envy for me. I can’t wait to pinch those chubby cheeks and nibble those wiggling toes. But, something has happened to me in the last couple of years. A sad, terrible tragedy…READ MORE  Eve JefferyThis article first appeared in The Echo in December 2015 Okay.
I am getting fairly pissed off – I am just saying that at the outset so you don’t read to the end and get shirty when you find out that the person I am pissed off with is you. The Coalmonster and the CSG Daemon are devouring the guts of our planet and it’s pretty much your fault (and mine). You either consume too much, and/or you voted for the morons who sold us out for 30 pieces of silver. By day I am moody-mannered photojournalist for the best news publication on the planet – yes, The Echo – and by night I am an even moodier, meaner and crankier doco maker. Award-winning filmmaker David Lowe and I teamed up 18 months ago to create independent production company Cloudcatcher Media, to make some dollars in the most ethical way we can from the commercial sector to help us finance our mission of sticking the knife in the Coalmonster and finishing off the CSG Daemon…READ MORE Eve JefferyThis story first appeared in Echonetdaily in March 2015 The soil is so rich and sweet across the plains at Breeza it seems criminal to even drive on it, yet here we are travelling across almost edible earth to speak to farmers who are fighting for the land they want to continue to grow food on, not only for New South Wales, but for the country and the world.
As part of a film crew I travelled to Gunnedah to record a human sign and the community Gasfield Free Declaration celebration event for the people of the Liverpool Plains – they are grappling to save their land and their livelihoods from the coal monster and the CSG daemon. Like a silent hero, they are saving our food resources for us and we pretty much haven’t a clue what’s happening behind the scenes and to our future food…READ MORE  Eve JefferyThis article first appeared in The Echo in January 2015 It was a peaceful day on Saturday at Glenugie, a long way from the fight two years ago when the headlines read ‘More arrests follow new Glenugie lock-on’.
The protectors of Glenugie gathered at the Travelling Stock Reserve (TSR) water hole to commemorate those dark days and celebrate the silver lining. Despite massive community opposition, Metgasco managed to get their test drill into Glenugie, but the threat of invasive gasfields brought this small community together like nothing before… READ MORE |
