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The Araucaria along with Alerce (Fitzroya cupressoides) have been a national monument in Chile since the '70's and, although frequently poached, receive at least nominal protection. The Coihue however, along with the other members of the Nothofagus family, are logged, chipped, burned and cleared with abandon. Araucaria photo: As I was walking in wonder in the Cani sanctuary, I had this incredible sense that they were calling for help, not only for themselves, but for other members of the Nothofagus family of trees and all of their associated southern forests. I hadn't felt a call as strongly as this since Terania Creek in northern NSW. In 1979, I was among a few hundred local new settlers so moved by the call of the trees there, that we launched what I believe was the world's first direct action in defense of the rainforests. Some two years later, our movement succeeded not only in protecting Terania Creek as part of the Nightcap National Park. Through winning the battle for public opinion in our state, in one sweep a string of rainforest national parks were declared which protected over half of the rainforests that then remained in New South Wales. From there we went on to participate in similarly successful campaigns in Tasmania and Queensland and to create the Rainforest Information Centre with the mission of raising awareness of the importance and plight of the rainforests throughout the world. Anyway, back in the Cani Sanctuary, like I say, I once again heard such a call and I also found myself with the idea that I was somehow supposed to enlist the aid of the Antarctic beech trees from Australia (Nothofagus moorei) to help protect their Chilean cousins. Somehow, I sensed that spreading the knowledge and the wonder of the common origins of the Nothofagus family and their associated forests in Gondwanaland more than 100 million years ago was to be part of a campaign trying to be born. This ancient Gondwanan connection had long fascinated me and, in subsequent discussion with friends in Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and Australia, I got the strong feeling that what we needed to do was to Increase protection for our Southern forests by knitting the ancient connections back together again with a 4-country environmental educations program and celebration of the trees. The symbol which represents this for me is a globe with Antarctica in the centre and Chile, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand creeping in from the sides. Somehow, I feel, the ancient Gondwanan connection when "understood" will create some magic that will raise the profile of the Nothofagus and offer them protection wherever they need it: Myrtle beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii), are being logged and chipped in Tasmania; in Chile the same is happening to their several Nothofagus species; the New Zealand government is breaking an accord it made with the conservation community not to log and chip their southern beech forests; and in Argentina, although for the time being there is no woodchipping, it is the Nothofagus forests that are most threatened by logging and clearing, especially the Lenga - Nothofagus pumilio. With the help of the Chilean Lahuen Foundation and the activist group Defensores del Bosque Chileno, I began to help organise an innovative environmental education program for the Pucon area (adjacent to the Cani sanctuary) using the All Species Project which I had seen do such wonderful things in Santa Fe, Kansas City and rural Ecuador. This project will create school curricula to enhance awareness and caring for nature and in particular will explore the Gondwanan roots of the southern forests ending in a great pageant and festival of masks and costumes and parades called All Species Day. The month following my experience in the Cani, in May last year, I found myself in the cordillera of Eastern Argentina with group of activists called Lemu who had stopped a dam at Epuyen and successfully campaigned to help create a string of national and state parks near the border with Chile. They presented me with a far-reaching proposal (appended) for a southern forest sanctuary south of the 40th parallel to join the southern whale sanctuary already in place. Although this plan seemed to me somewhat ahead of it's time, (taking in the whole of Tasmania and the south island of New Zealand as well as the southernmost 1000 miles or so of South America!) so was the whale sanctuary when it was first proposed 20 years ago, so I signed on - Yes! A southern tree sanctuary! I changed my return ticket to Australia so as to get a few days in Auckland to network the idea, find allies and learn about the status of the New Zealand Nothofagus. Back in Chile, Defensores del Bosque Chileno has now endorsed Lemu's proposal, calling it the "Gondwana World Park". Likewise, in New Zealand, the Beech Forest Action group and in Australia, the Rainforest Information Centre signed on, each group committing itself to finding further NGO support in their country for Lemu's proposal and for spreading information about the southern forests. So...that's what I'm up to with this for the moment, collecting more pieces of this jigsaw puzzle finding allies who already care for the southern forests and who may help design and network the campaign. I PROPOSE THAT WE NETWORK THIS CONVERSATION AND BUILD A GRASSROOTS SOUTHERN FORESTS CAMPAIGN WORLDWIDE. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE IN A CIRCLE OF CORRESPONDENCE AND HELP CREATE SUCH A CAMPAIGN, PLEASE CONTACT John Seed
HERE'S AN UPDATE ON THE PROGRESS OF THE GONDWANA - SOUTHERN FORESTS SANCTUARY PROJECT FROM A NEW ZEALAND PERSPECTIVE BY GARRICK MARTIN, NATIVE FORESTS NETWORK REPRESENTATIVE FOR NEW ZEALAND. GARRICK WAS A RIC VOLUNTEER IN AUSTRALIA FOR SOME YEARS AND CONTINUES HIS EXCELLENT WORK NOW FROM NEW ZEALAND Introduction In April 1998, a group of international native forest campaigners met in Pucon, in the south of Chile, and Chiles capital city Santiago, for the inaugural strategy session for the proposed Gondwana - Southern Forests Sanctuary. Out of this meeting came a working group which has continued to network this vision. This document is a one-year progress report from New Zealand, and speaks predominantly to ongoing strategy and planning for the creation of a Southern Hemisphere Gondwana reserve. One of the goals of the Gondwana Working Group is to prepare an inter-national proposal for the protection of the Southern Forests, in recognition of their status as remnants of Gondwanaland. Therefore, a primary focus of our work towards the creation of such a proposal is the identification of the remnant forests in each country that are to be included. Ecological profiles of these areas are a priority, and possible steps towards generating and collating this data constitutes a large part of this report. Other strategy proposals on aspects of the Gondwana-Sanctuary project are put to the Gondwana network and working group. Below is a summary extract from the document produced from that meeting in Pucon, April 1998 along with a list of organisations and individuals participating in this campaign. Your attention is also drawn to the two Native Forest Network (NFN) websites, which carry information on this campaign: Southern Hemisphere: http://www.nfn.org.au Northern Hemisphere: http: //www.nativeforest.org Extract from the 1998 report: GONDWANA - SOUTHERN FOREST SANCTUARY CAMPAIGN MISSION STATEMENT: To protect, reconnect and restore the life of Gondwana by creating an international sanctuary of Earth's southernmost forests. PHILOSOPHY: No major civilization has flourished following the destruction of its primary forests. The forests that originated in Gondwanaland constitute the oldest and most unique temperate ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere. In this era of economic globalization, the concept of a global commons as reflected in the Antarctica World Park needs to be expanded toprotect Gondwana's far-flung surviving forests. With the new millennium close at hand, now is the time for a new era in international forest protection. The Gondwana Forest Sanctuary provides local, national and international communities with a new model for how humans relate to the land. AREA OF CONCERN: The Gondwanic forests are found in portions of South America, Australia and New Zealand. In South America, the forests occur in south-central Chile and in all of Patagonia, straddling both the Chilean and Argentinean side of the Andes from the 37th Parallel south to Tierra del Fuego. These regions contain the major Gondwanic genii and species: nothofagus (southern beech), alerce (Fitzroya cupressoides) and araucaria (Araucaria Araucana). There are 8 nothofagus species found in Chile and Argentina including ruil, roble, rauli, lenga, hualo, coihue, magellanic coihue, and nirre. Gondwanic forests grow extensively on the South Island of New Zealand and in small portions of the North Island. In Australia, the island state of Tasmania hosts the largest extent of Gondwanic forests, while significant remnants are found on the mainland in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. The islands of Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia and New Britain also contain significant and diverse Gondwanic vegetation. 1999: Where to now? Since the meeting in Pucon in 1998, most of the members of the Gondwana working group have remained focused on local forest issues, such as campaigns on Boise-Cascade in Chile and Timberlands West Coast in New Zealand. The extent to which the Gondwana Sanctuary concept has been consolidated since the Pucon meeting has been varied and slow. In most instances it has been adopted into the rhetoric of existing campaigns on southern temperate forests. The ongoing work of drawing together a coherent proposal for the creati on of a Gondwana Southern Forests reserve is complicated by the distance between us, but the energy to continue with this project still exists. This report focuses, then, on aspects of the campaign which have progressed since the Pucon meeting, and hopes to identify areas that require more thorough work. The immediate questions regarding the continuation of this project are mostly goal-oriented: how can we best map out the forest areas of most concern to us; how do we go about funding the work needed to do this; how do we coordinate and share the results of this mapping and information gathering process; how do we best coordinate campaign efforts in our own countries so as to still be working toward some tangible Gondwana Sanctuary reserve system; how do we structure, prepare and deliver an education/awareness campaign to promote the concept embodied by the Gondwana project. Native Forest Network rep. Aotearoa/New Zealand Email: garrick@freemail.co.nz Postal address: PO Box 2771, Christchurch Central Aotearoa/New Zealand NFN Southern Hemisphere website: http://www.nfn.org.au; NFN Northern Hemisphere: http://www.nativeforest.org For specific information on New Zealand forest campaigns check out the Native Forest Action website: http://www.nfa.org.nz NFN is a global autonomous collective that seeks to protect forests worldwide.
Last Updated: 27 Dec 2001 |