Bluddy awful isn’t it? I was talking to some bikers in Beaconsfield who had come from NSW. They had covered a fair bit of the State already and were heading to the NW. Their only negative comment was the number of log trucks on the roads - didn’t feel safe!  I went to Lonnie on the East Tamar Hwy on Tuesday and from the time I turned onto the highway from the Batman Bridge approach till I reached Mowbray I saw at least 12 trucks - and they weren’t carrying plantation timber. I thought there was supposed to be a problem with woodchip markets….?? Just looked like business as usual to me.

What a shocking panorama! I used to travel around my beautiful home state extensively when I was younger, but now that I have aged a fair bit I tend to stay at home most of the time. One of the reasons is that I don’t want to see vistas like this one of what has become of Tasmania’s once lovely places. It is like looking in the funeral parlour at loved ones who have passed on when I would rather hold memories of them alive and vibrant.

We used to travel up from the west coast when I was a kid every weekend to our holiday home in Port Sorell. My favourite part of the trip was the drive through the Hellyer Gorge. A few yrs ago my ex-husband & I went back so I could see it again after living on the mainland for 20 yrs. I was confused as to why the highway was bypassing such a beautiful scenic place, until we came out at the other end. The sight of such utter devastation tore my heart out.I cried & cried. That was 7yrs ago & I’ve never been back. Now it’s getting to be too common a sight. How many other beautiful places will be gone by the time my grandchildren are grown. When will this carnage end?

Whilst the governments official survey does not tell of disappointed tourists who having been once will not return there appears to be an undercurrent that runs counter to this wisdom.

Its the same with the surveys about the forest industry when high percentages indicate they want the destruction to stop.

Indeed although the government denied these numbers all sorts of tactics are used to claim a change although at face value it is the same, ongoing industrial destruction.

In the modern world where people escape to a dream to escape what is their life so they can return to it, a relatively new phenomenon, Tasmania has no idea of how many have decided this escape is no longer for them.

It matters not if the pwere at the b and b is ‘green’ being able to drive past the destruction whilst dodging the last loads of logs cannot in any way, shape or form be described as a holiday except for industry officinados.

If the Japanese won’t buy our woodchips it could be very soon Angela.

Psychology, Tasmania and the fight against the Silviphobic.
What does the text book say?  How are we meant to feel, when our daily life is full of upset and is underscored by the vileness of occupation.  Surely this is what Aboriginal Tasmanians have seen since Europeans first came here - the inch by inch, hill by hill extension of the power of the invader, the widening of the changes, the lessening of the familiar and loved places.

And now, since the advent of woodchipping circa 1970, we have grown used to the sound of mechanical feet busily marching to the next front,  and we have grown used to the sight of the truckloads of trees, obscenely overloaded, taking the pillars of our forests to Bell Bay, for the final obliteration - woodchip.  We have grown used to helicopters, aerial spraying and napalm and the smoke of destruction. 

How easy it is to forget, to no longer have a memory of how things were forty, thirty, twenty, ten, even five years ago.  I’m sitting up here in Liffey, on the side of the mountain, looking out beyond Carrick, at the low hills that direct both the highway and the river eastwards.  The hills themselves were once completely dark green to my eye.  These days they are increasingly the colour of dry grass.  Further to the east, the glint of sun on rooves and windows speckling the bush at Traveller’s Rest.  Everywhere you go, the bush is being pushed back, cut down, cleared, thinned and in its place a shiny new plantation, or another paddock to run a few sheep or a shiny new home, with its ornamental garden and maybe, just maybe, a couple of the original gums down the bottom of the backyard.  Dad is out there on the ride-on - he’s keeping the grass down, keeping it nice and neat.  And there they stand, these trees,  the last survivors, grimly waiting for their own end.  Silvicide.

Everytime that more bush is knocked down, most locals seem to notice it for a day or so, and then think not much more about it.  Over weeks and months, as we travel past, the sight becomes a part of the landscape, albeit more of the Great Tasmanian Ugliness.  Then the plantation, the sheep or the house on five acres, and most of us forget how it was, when the bush was still there, just a year or so ago.  This is happening all over Tasmania.

Angela [TT Comments, ‘A Scenic Ride’ Feb22] wrote of weeping at the changes that 20 years had brought, of having expected the Hellyer Gorge that she knew in the early eighties to be there as wondrously, in 2002.  How was she meant to feel?  What does the book say?  How are we meant to deal with the constancy and ubiquity of the destruction?  How should we feel about those who perpetrate it?  How should we feel about the numbers of people who simply do not seem to care?  How should we feel about the others?  Are they the enemy?  Are they collaborators?

Q.    How do I feel about the destruction of our forests? 
A.    Frustrated, impotent, powerless, cynical, negative, angry, puzzled, sad, let-down, betrayed, cheated, robbed, lied-to, laughed at, insulted, ripped off, conned, short-changed, attacked, assaulted ... and a lot more.

Q.    How do I respond?
A.    I seek refuge in Tas Times;  I hang round wildos, greens & Tappers.  I try & make a difference.  I explore the bush.  I try to consume less.

Q.    Do I still feel frustrated, impotent, powerless, ... and a lot more?
A.    Yes.

Q.    What are the positives?
A.    Meeting people who do care, learning more, encountering honesty, finding creativity within, developing purpose, appreciating courage and commitment, seeing a gorgeous E. regnans, feeling I belong to this earth, to this island and to the bush.

silviphobia n. [L. silva wood, Gk. phobia fear] an extreme or irrational fear of and/or aversion to the bush, (coll.:  contempt for, lack of respect for the bush.)  Derivatives:  silviphobic (adj. & n.), silviphobe (n.) (see also silvicide)
Notes: 
(i)Also silva- see (ii)(a); 
(ii)The word silviphobia appears to offend against (a) classical L. prescriptions*, and (b) convention with regard to Latin and Greek roots in compound words.** 

*silva is a 1st declension L. noun, which in no case, s. or pl. would end in -i.  On t. other hand, those of t. botanic persuasion appear to think Classical norms can be dispensed with, that an expanded alphabet and tortured pronunciations are ok in t. scientific world.  Can I digress to add that in gunnii, the word should not be pronounced as gunn-ee-eye, but rather as gunn-ee-ee, & furthermore that t. dipthong ae, usually encountered in feminine case endings, & usually pronounced eye should prevail, e.g. in Plantae (as in t. Plant Kingdom) which t. untrained tongue should, & would if it but could, render as plant eye.
**a compound word in English containing a Latin root cannot elegantly*** contain at the same time one of Greek extraction.
***hence the charming schoolboy doggerel:  “latin and greek one should not speak, without some distance in betweak.”

How many other beautiful places will be gone by the time my grandchildren are grown.

Some number for sure.

Garry - a lovely, thoughtful piece and informative too! I’ve always pronounced Gunnii wrongly it seems - never again. Mind you gunn-ee-ee doesn’t roll off the tongue like gunn-ee-eye does it?