CLOUDCACTCHERMEDIA

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.
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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

The first thing that people usually say when the subject of my veganism comes up is ‘Where do you get your protein from?’.
Actually that’s not totally true – usually, the first thing people say is ‘but what about bacon?’, and to be totally honest, when I was an omnivore that was a question I asked.
The protein comment usually comes second and I could pretty much almost guarantee that just about every vegan has been asked this question.
I’m not going to acknowledge the first question which is more about hurting someone’s feelings than about the taste of charred pig flesh, but I can address the second.…READ MORE

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

In a case of ‘oh, look over there’, while we are all focussed north to Adani and the Galilee Basin, a mining company is inching its way forward out west.

The Watermark Coal Project is a proposed coal mine in the Liverpool Plains near the village of Breeza and carried out by state-owned Chinese mining company Shenhua Group…READ MORE

A tiny baby goat, tied up in a hessian bag and left on a rubbish tip in Broken Hill to die, has done more for the lives of animals and the lives of humans than she could ever have imagined.

‘Sunshine’ as she was named by Kelly Nelder, the earthling who ended up with her, was nursed back to health and was soon joined by Sugars, a (not so) mini piglet from a failed mini pig breeding business.
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Sugars and her family had been sold to a man who bought pigs to butcher for meat. She was separated from her family and when she arrived on Kelly’s doorstep, she was covered in lice, cold and stressed…READ MORE

I for one was beginning to think Bob Brown was wasting his time with the Stop Adani convoy. The plan is to leave Hobart for the Galilee Basin tomorrow, April 17.

I (stupidly) assumed, with the weight of science behind it, the argument against the Carmichael mine would see the venture stopped once and for all.
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For starters, the name of the area is the clue – it’s the Galilee Basin – it’s a basin, it holds water. It encompasses the headwaters of seven major river basins and includes aquifers that are a part of the Great Artesian Basin.

​What could be simpler?

We are the driest continent. There is precious water in the vicinity. Leave it alone…READ MORE

Native American tribes consider the presentation of an eagle feather to be one of their highest marks of respect. A recipient would earn the feather through selfless acts of courage and honour, or be gifted them in gratitude for their work or service to their tribe.
The medicinal use of cacao originated among the Olmec, Maya, and Mexica (Aztec) peoples. It is sacred.
Didgeridoo healing is an ancient method – very few today know its true secrets.
Cultural appropriation is not cool. No, it’s not cool to get pissed and wear a war bonnet to a music festival; unless you are the product of generations of Mexicans, and no, you cannot make cacao medicine; and unless all of your ancestors were born on this country, it is not your place to put a didgeridoo on someone’s chest…READ MORE

In September 1974, a young couple, Hugh and Nan Nicholson, bought an abandoned farm at the end of Terania Creek Road adjoining Whian Whian State Forest.
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They didn’t know what lay ahead. Their plan was to start a specialist rainforest nursery.

They were pioneers in the propagation and extensive use of rainforest plants in gardens and in reforestation on degraded lands, and they had made The Channon their home…READ MORE

According to the Christian bible, the prophet Jesus tells us we must love one another. There’s no addendum stating that the love can be retracted if the recipient turns out to be LGBTQI+, that is, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other gender and sexual preferences.

Apparently a new document has superseded the ancient text – a report that suggests Jesus’ love has conditions attached.
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On 22 November 2017, the Prime Minister, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull MP, announced the appointment of an Expert Panel to examine whether Australian law adequately protects the human right to freedom of religion…READ MORE

I’m an old, fat, white chick so people get quite a shock when they have been vilifying the progeny of my ancestors and I happen to mention I am one of them – The Chinese that is.

I don’t actually look Chinese so when people are spewing their venom about Asians, they don’t think they’re offending anybody in earshot.
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I don’t look vegan either, but people don’t care at all about offending them…READ MORE

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.
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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

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

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.
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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…
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There are few who would disagree that Arakwal woman Yvonne Stewart is a strong, intelligent woman who is a role model for indigenous people, in particular, Aboriginal girls.
This assumption is flawed in that Yvonne is actually a strong, intelligent woman who is a role model for all people regardless of race and, in particular, a wonderful example to all girls regardless of nationality or creed. And there’s the rub for reconciliation.
Too often white fellas, in their ‘tolerance’ of the first peoples, relegate Aboriginal Australians to a ‘them and us’ status as a nation and a people. White Australia, in its rush to fall over itself over-compensating for the horrors of the past, is missing the point: we can only be reconciled when we are one body of humanity.
It has become a habit in recent years for the worst type of separation to happen and it is not helping the ‘Aboriginal problem’…READ MORE

Once upon a time the Merlyn (a title, not a name), would stand on a hill beside a field and watch two opposing sides beat the crap out of each other.

These clashes always resulted in death, and the victorious team would sing bawdy songs and prance around the paddock with the day’s trophies: anything from metal rings stolen from arms and fingers, and animal skin jerkins pilfered from lifeless opponents, to parading the head of the other team’s captain on the business end of a spear.

​Think Mel Gibson and blue face paint. You get the idea. But I digress into gore.

Forget men in tight kilts, and let your mind wander to our dear Merlyn on the grassy knoll. His job was to oversee the action and hold his staff above his head for the duration of the battle.

The reason for this being that in those days of yore, the definitive primates of the time were a superstitious bunch and believed that the Merlyn had mystical powers. Standing up high for all to see, in clan colours under the tribal flags, he was a constant reminder that the gods were on their side. Any given Merlyn’s stamina in keeping his trusty wand aloft showed that he was wise and strong and able to out-Merlyn the other wizard – and probably that his penis was larger and that he had a cherry red cart in his stable as well.

This mystical fellow had to literally ‘uphold’ the army if they were to win. Soldiers would sneak sidelong glances to the hillock betwixt parry and thrust to make sure that the magic was still guiding their swords, and bloody Merlyn had better be there.

Or else.

The ultimate barracker.

The problem was that these battles sometimes lasted for hours and even days and his arms would get a tad sore; one suspects that he may have had a stunt magician for such occasions and kept himself fresh for the victory par-tay.

Jump forward several hundred years and things haven’t changed all that much. The troops still battle it out on the paddock and encourage fans to sing and swish banners and scream till they’re hoarse. The punters still paint their faces and wear the right colours but have let weary arms fall, and in an attempt to placate the warriors have renamed upholding the battle the ‘Mexican wave’.

Sport fans are a breed apart, well actually a half breed. Those that can be seen to be normal, holding down jobs, raising families and being solid community members, don colours and become animals – and I am not talking about the other mongrel breed, the ‘sport parent’, who should be bound and muzzled (the umpire is not a poof – not that there’s anything wrong with that) – but the folk to whom the mere mention of the words guernsey, pitch and, dare I say, ball creates a simultaneous desire to yell obscenities and drink beer or, as my mate Grumpy Gutz used to say of his Victorian compatriots: drink bee-ah.

I once had an English boyfriend. A gentle man who was kind to children and old folk and a person who I have a hard time believing would harm a fly. He told me of a misspent youth in the UK as one of waiting in soccer stadium car parks for the families and older fans to go home before he and his brothers in arms would face off against their counterparts from the opposing team. He doesn’t ever recall there being a death, but there were certainly blood and bruises. He recounted, ashamedly, how he once held someone down while his mate kicked the man into unconsciousness. In the face. This was a common after game ‘sport’ among his contemporaries, all in the name of fanhood. He was a mild mannered courier by day.

Does sport turn fans into fanatics?

I like sport. I used to play sport. I can tell you what a tennis racquet looks like. I was a champion netballer until my boobs got too big and I was in danger of a broken jaw every time I shot for goal. But I have never been a huge fan of sport, unless of course by fan you mean my one big, black and white eyed, Colliwobbling, men in tight shorts ogling, Hot Pies eating love of the one true Australian game of aerial ping-pong: F-O-O-D-Y!

I am mad. I have to make sure I am distracted on Grand Final day, because no matter who is playing (God help my house if it’s Collingwood), I get a knot in my belly and my kids look on in horror and embarrassment as I scream at the tube and call the ump the most disgusting names in the bluest of Carlton blue language. It’s like a switch is turned on somewhere.

One minute I am normal (well normal for me), the next I am a total lunatic (well lunatic for me, which is pretty bad). Inexplicable.

Maybe I am the reincarnation of an ancient wizard. Does Nathan Buckley really think I have a magic wand and command over the gods?

Who knows?
Who cares?
​C’arna Mighty Mighty Hot Pies!