68 It's war

Rose rang and she was agitated. Rose lives at the south end of Creewah with Helen and their horses. Have you seen what’s happened on Creewah Road outside your place, she said. I had been aware of council vehicles working on the road in the distance but that was about it. ‘Yes’, I said, as always trying to appear knowledgeable, ‘the road looks good’. What, she bellowed; they’ve cut down the big trees. Rose is a good talker and I like her because she speaks with sufficient volume for a deaf person to be comfortable. She expanded the recent news to include all the previous crimes the council had committed on her property entrance so it was about 20 minutes before I could put the phone down and wander across the paddock to check out the disaster.

The view across the river from my place to the road had previously been screened by large ribbon gums draping their long tresses from upper branches 30 or 40 metres above the road down to the ground. On windy days the tresses rattled as they flew out and back and struck against their neighbours. Some snapped off to join growing piles of bark on the ground. The trees grew well because they lined the river as well as the road; the road was about 5 metres from the river at the nearest point, more due to history than mismanagement by council.
The new view had a lot more sky. The trees were lying down with their snapped and shattered white branches littering the roadside and the river. Some had flattened the tea tree scrub that had previously blocked the road gravel and mud wash from polluting the river during heavy rain.

I was just sad, accepting the narrow-minded non-thinking nature of humanity, and knowing that the problem was really triggered by the ‘New Line Road Chop-it-Down Contagion’ in the air, but others were angry, even mad. I’m going to bankrupt the council and close them down, Kim said. I can do it. They have failed to meet environmental regulations; trees half this size are ‘Significant Trees’ in towns and put on registers and looked after. Kim had lain down in front of bulldozers and chained himself to trees before in the cause of national parks so his response was expected. The big outcry from everybody else was unexpected. Creewah dwellers are mainly quiet people who want to get on with their lives quietly in their scenic environment. The problem was that their scenic environment, a primary reason for their being in Creewah, was progressively being destroyed. On top of the destruction along New Line Road, and the extensive harvesting by Forestry, this felling was the twig that broke the gum tree’s back. Creewah declared war on the world.