Campaigning Since 1981...

On March 31st 2007, the Nambucca Valley Conservation Association Inc. turned 25 years old. The following is a brief journey through its changes, challenges and battles won and lost over the last quarter of a century.

Back on March 31st 1981, a public meeting was held in the CWA rooms in Macksville to form the Nambucca Valley Association and although the attendance list seems to have parted company with the old minutes, we know that an executive was elected that day; President Malcolm Ellis, vice presidents Bob Carline and Ian Robinson, Secretary/Treasurer Richard Laxton, and Publicity Officer Peggy Herbert.

Unfortunately the aims and objectives of the newly formed group have also disappeared, however notes from the discussion held at the meeting make it clear that NVA's intention was to gather information on a range of issues including water supply, pollution, chemical disposal, weed eradication, shire planning, sporting facilities, rights of ratepayers, fire trails and to build a harmonious working relationship with Council. Today we still work on all but one of these issues that being sporting facilities and probably are more realistic about the 'harmonious' working relationship with Council - let's just say working relationship and leave it at that!

In November 1981 Lyn Orrego was unanimously elected NVA president as Malcolm Ellis had left the area. The group marched on keeping a close eye on Council and commenting on many activities and proposals of the day, including Cr Moran's (yes the same Cr Moran) push for a pulp mill in the shire, the proposed sale of part of Coronation Park (ring a bell?), pesticide use, Bellwood (ding dong), Nambucca Heads high rise proposals (ding dong again) and lobbying hard for open local government.

By 1986 NVA was a well established local voice for open government and conservation in the valley with much media coverage on key issues. We were producing a modest newsletter and thinking about the possibility of an environment centre for the valley. Our consistent contact with Council on a range of issues must have been challenging for a country Council unused to being so thoroughly scrutinised. It would appear that much of NVA's input into Local Government issues was poorly received. It is little wonder that more and more Council meetings were being held behind closed doors!
Members worked on a range of issues from natural head lice control and noxious weed management to protection of wetlands and detailed submissions on Council's planning processes. In recognising the deteriorating health of the Nambucca River, we lobbied State Government for an integrated study into the system, something that eventually happed 14 years later!
In 1987 our very own president Lyn Orrego was elected to Council firmly waving the conservation banner - we were inside the castle and shifted up a gear.

By 1988 our key issues were listed as non chemical methods of growing and weed management, water quality and quantity, catchment health, tourism strategy, canal estates, planning, fire management, river health and dredging, recycling, Warrel Creek Nature Reserve, koalas birds and wildlife in general, wetlands, high conservation areas identification, crown lands, fluoride, reafforestation and tree preservation. We were younger then!!!
We were also producing Environs, a monthly regional environment magazine covering local items plus environmental news stories from around the planet and featuring the artwork of Julie Mozsny, Lyn Orrego and many others. Over the ten years of production Environs reached circulation levels in the hundreds and required a serious editorial and marketing team headed for many years by Carol Margolis.

In 1989 a public meeting was held to discuss the establishment of an environment centre. Awareness was brought to the growing number of local community environment groups which could use such a facility: People for Nuclear Disarmament, the North Coast Environment Council, Three Valleys branch of National Parks Assoc., Nambucca Natural Growers, Nambucca Reafforestation Society, and local catchment protection groups.
By 1991 we had added the word Conservation to our name to better reflect our core focus. We also had an Environment Centre upstairs in the Bowraville Community Centre. It seems that by this time NVCA was seen as a force to be reckoned with, as opposing forces made up of those with gravel extraction and conservative farming interests, stacked the Environment Centre committee and looked set to also have a go at the NVCA's committee. We witnessed the formation of the valley's first fake conservation group.
It was a time of growing up and closing ranks for the 10 year old NVCA, but with Lyn re-elected for her second term in Council we weren't backing down, on the contrary. We became incorporated and started vetted our membership applications.

In 1994 we launched the Dungirr Conservation Proposal and thanks to Lyn's flight from Sydney being delayed, I shakily launched myself into public speaking with my first ever speech to a crowd including TV cameras.
The nineties were a marathon of forest campaigning for the protection of old growth forests on public lands with NVCA members involved in numerous blockades, delegations to Ministers and agency officials, meetings, forest scouting and survey expeditions. The depth and extent of member's commitment to this critical and very public issue can barely be touched on here. This was as much an issue of the heart as it was of science and many, many tears were shed along with burnt out members. Our eight filing cabinet drawers of forest files, piles of information boards, old posters, photos and banners are testimony to an intense, challenging and exhausting period in our group's history.

If not for our local efforts and that of similar groups up and down the NSW coast, especially the North East Forest Alliance, we would not now have the additional 737,600 hectares of HCV public forest reserved in new National Parks and Nature Reserves in north-east NSW or the additional 310,000 hectares of State Forest protected from logging in Special Management Zones. So, it was not all bad news.

NVCA also played an important role challenging the escalating frenzy of in-stream gravel extraction in the valley. We questioned Council's role in the permitting of these activities. ICAC and the NSW Ombudsman both investigated Nambucca Shire Council's activities with regard to the extractive industry, with the Ombudsman's Report falling a bee's dick short of finding Council corrupt in its recognition of Existing Use Rights. In response, the State Government outlawed this form of extraction and later, in 1999 the much awaited Lyall and Macoun River Catchment Study vindicated all that NVCA had said about the disastrous environmental impacts of in-stream gravel extraction. Not surprisingly, Council continues to ignore the recommendations of this important document.

1995 saw our issue lists grown to 33, amongst them lobbying for the various areas we had nominated for protection in the forest reserve system including Mistake State Forest, Yarrahapinni Mountain, Oyster Creek, Little Wonder and expansion of the Ringwood Reserve. We were onto riparian vegetation rehabilitation and incentives to farmers for its protection, remnant vegetation conservation, stronger environmental policies in Council and sustainable water management. Our office now boasted three or four computers, an extensive library and shock horror an air conditioner!
In time we sponsored a series of Jobskills (work for the dole) participants who fulfilled the role of office coordinator. Needless to say we selected individuals with a strong conservation ethic and so had our first paid workers, without paying a cent.

Around this time the Minister for the Environment announced to our utter delight that Dungirr National Park would be gazetted. NVCA had its first major win. We celebrated appropriately in the forest at the foot of the Park on Trevor Bailey's property at the top of South Arm.

NVCA's bank balance almost exploded in 1995 with the granting of our Commonwealth New Work Opportunities application for $130,000. We planned to run a flora and fauna survey field assistant training program, our motives naturally being entirely focused on saving forests. We engaged herpetologist Mark Fitzgerald for six months to train 12 unemployed people, whilst undertaking forest surveys, and here's the good bit . . ., in all the HCV public forests we were targeting for inclusion in the State Government's proposed reserve system. Our office space doubled with the addition of the second upstairs room in the Community Centre and we were honking. Oh how sweet it was!

The late nineties saw many changes for the NVCA. Environ's editor Tom Goodwin, who brought his wonderful warped humour to the magazine and NVCA in general, decided it was time for a break and with no replacement editor in the wings, Environs days were numbered. The last edition went out in March 1996.

Home computers became the norm and our cramped Bowraville office became less relevant to our operations. More and more work was being done at home on PCs and via email, saving fuel and travel time, whilst the office becoming more a storage area than work space. After much deliberation and a little sadness, it was finally decided that the office/environment centre would be closed.

This was a period of "stakeholder representation" on various government committees. The forest reforms, water reforms, native vegetation reforms, Pine Creek Koala Management, Catchment Management and so on. In hindsight the environmental benefits of our input was varied, as members were buried under the mountains of paperwork and exhausted by endless meetings. We missed the field work and contact with issues on the ground. Some in the conservation movement said we had been hoodwinked into distractive processes. There's little doubt the Government strategists were saying "they wanted consultation, we'll give them consultation". What we needed was activists in both areas - at the table and in the field, something we had to a degree, but the movement was stretched and it got messy. These were tough years for members with very few rewards.

The naughties brought a new local environmental challenge - floodplain gravel extraction. With Council cheering from the sidelines, Mac'scon released the Environmental Impact Statement for its massive floodplain gravel extraction proposal at a site which just happened to be right next door to where we are today. NVCA joined forces with Householders United (Maureen G et al) and engaged the services of fluvial geomorphologist Dr. Daniel Martens who challenged Mac'scon's dodgy EIS with professional ease. In 2002 the Minister called for a Commission of Inquiry into the proposal and after a gruelling "David and Goliath" inquiry, Commissioner Carleton eventually recommended to the Minister that the proposal not go ahead. The river gained some breathing space and NVCA gained some new members!
During 2003/4 the NVCA put all its muscle behind my successful run for Council. After a strong and very public conservation focused campaign, the number of votes I received sent a clear message to Council that the environment was firmly on the agenda.

One consistent activity in which NVCA has proven itself again and again over its 25 year existence is fundraising, fundraising and more fundraising. Be it through dinners, music concerts, raffles, garage sales, catering, film nights, membership drives or outright begging, we have kept our band of activists funded to the very best of our ability over the years. Of course it goes without saying that our volunteer effort in terms of personal contributions of money, time, energy and love has made our organisation what it is today and can never, ever be truly measured.

- Paula Flack, President 2007