Imagine a car-free corridor from Bellingen to the Gleniffer Valley rivers

They managed to get a 6km cycling, walking and nature corridor from Sydney Harbour to the Cooks River. "For a 20th the cost of WestConnex you could build 50 greenways throughout Sydney...When we’re building more houses, increasing density … we need these green spaces to soften up our suburbs and connect them not just by black pieces of tar."
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/06/lewisham-greenway-cycle-path-sydney-inner-west-bruce-ashley
#Bellingen #Roads #GlenifferRoad #Urunga #NeverNever #CarFreeCorridor #GreenWay #cycling #walking #climate #sprawl #cars #GlenifferValleyReserves #traffic #waste

Image : Where the tar / headland meets the Pacific ocean

The Bellinger Valley Indigenous Protected Area

"Yurruungga Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) is dedicated to preserving and promoting the rich cultural heritage of the Gumbaynggirr people. We strive to blend the oldest continuous Culture with contemporary technology and digital methods, ensuring the longevity and dynamic presence of the Gumbaynggirr culture. Our organization works closely with the community, elders, and experts to safeguard our traditions, language, art, and sacred sites. Through education, research, and community engagement, we aim to create a sustainable future for our cultural heritage."
>>
https://www.yac.org.au/
#GumbaynggirrPeople #FirstNationsPeoples #biodiversity #LandAndSea #Country #BELLIingenShire #Urunga #BellingerValley #Yurruungga #YAC #culture

Remember the Urunga wetlands waste tailings rich in antimony, arsenic, lead and cyanide?

"For five years in the 1960s and 1970s, antimony and other heavy metals leached from an ore processing plant into the melaleuca wetlands. The wetlands used to open up into a moonscape of light grey sand with not a single bit of vegetation."
>>
https://www.crownland.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-07/Urunga-Wetlands-fact-sheet.pdf
https://majorprojects.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/prweb/PRRestService/mp/01/getContent?AttachRef=SSD-5357%2120190227T035916.488%20GMT

Now they want to go for Wild Cattle Creek 'high-grade and high-tonnage' antimony-gold mining >>
https://www.listcorp.com/asx/tmg/trigg-minerals-limited/news/acquisition-of-globally-significant-antimony-project-3091939.html

A Clarence Catchment Alliance community meeting

is being hosted by the Bellingen Environment Centre,
with Blicks River Guardians and Lock the Gate Nambucca,
from 2pm on Friday May 31 at 16 Cudgery St, Dorrigo.
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https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/clarence-catchment-alliance-community-meeting/
#NSW #Dorrigo #Urunga #remediation #CoffsHarbour #mining #antimony #gold #extractivism #harm #WildCattleCreek #WCC #water #contamination #wetlands #rivers #waterways #freshwater #MarineWater #platypus #biodiversity #BellingenShire

"Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) is donating a decommissioned fire truck to the Yurruungga Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) on the NSW Mid North Coast to help protect and maintain culturally significant land."

"The bushfire tanker, which is no longer fit for purpose for FRNSW needs, will assist YAC’s Waagay Julu (fire team) to conduct cultural burns and hazard reduction within Gumbaynggirr Country in the Bellingen and Coffs Harbour local government areas."
>>
https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/incident.php?record=recDxNJzDSTn4HATs
#Urunga #bushfires #YAC #CulturalBurns #GumbaynggirrCountry #FRNSW

Urunga-o-te-Ra Marae, Rangitukia, East Coast, 1981
gelatin silver print 356 x 305 mm - Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1997

#Urunga-o-te-RaMarae #Rangitukia #EastCoast #305mm- #Tāmaki #Matapihi #Kōtuia #Māori #infants #families #interiorviews #kitchens #Photograph

http://api.digitalnz.org/records/1852195/source

#ForestryCorp is moving in on #Newry state forest, near Urunga, on Gumbaynggirr lands. Elders and activists are leading protest and trying to raise awareness. Please do all you can to help. As usual, Forestry Corp is playing fast and light with the law, and police were already at the site when people arrived.

"They were met with fencing and a contingent of police and fire officers, who doused a sacred fire lit by the protesters, before semi-trailers loaded with stripped logs drove out of the forest."

Newry is part of the highly endangered Gondawanan subtropical coastal/lowland rainforests - some of the oldest and most diverse forests in Australia, and some of the oldest on Earth.

Newry is a sacred site to the Gumbaynggirr for mens ritual, and many individual trees are culturally significant or sacred in their own right.

Forestry Corp NSW is entirely owned by the NSW Government, and has a history of blatantly breaking the laws it is supposed to operate under. Their operations have made consistent losses for years, requiring taxpayer subsidies in order to ensure the killing of our native rainforests can continue. Without these subsidies, it would stop.

Forestry Corp only exists because we allow it to.

https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/gumbaynggirr-elders-are-leading-a-protest-against-logging-in-forest-area-that-includes/enrrv6fb6

#Auspol #NSWpol #ecocide #GreatKoalaNationalPark #ForestryCorp #Logging #Forestry #NewSouthWales #CoffsCoast #Urunga