- Nature Diary What's happening at this time of year?
- World Heritage Listing The Greater Blue Mountains was added to the World Heritage Register in November 2000 - find out why.
- Blue Mountains Swamps Find out about these unique plant communities of sedges, shrubs and ferns that act as giant water purifiers.
- Frogs The Blue Mountains is home to 29 or more frog species.
- Flora and Fauna in Climbing Areas of the Upper Blue Mountains An introduction by Clive Heywood Barker, climbing enthusiast and Bushcare Officer for the Blue Mountains Conservation Society.
- Nature and Society Forum (http://www.natsoc.org.au/).
- Birding in the Greater Blue Mountains
- Sustainable Population Australia
Soliloquy of a Scribbly Gum
A Scribbly Gum here I standMy species iconic, proud, but now condemned
They cast the red die on my girth, the red mark of death
So numbingly final
Glazed thoughts I can only muster
My roots here so ancient, means nothing to them
Scribblies flourished this land since Gondwana dawn
Pervading this old stone country high and deep
Once a wild place, us part of it, it part of us
Of times past, these primitive escarpments hosted wilderness
When old men Scribbly Gums knew no saw
Came the getters, the settlers, the saws
For conquest, for progress, for their plot with a view
Wilderness they castrate, deeming it 'battleaxe'
Ridges and valleys to the slaughter
Slaughter they sanitized, deeming it 'clearing'
Some saw the wrong
Some good laws got through
Some Scribblies were saved the slaughter
So why don't these laws protect me now?
Heritage denied me just trees away
Relegated from their Listing, on the fringe
Zoned a resource, a commodity
Decisions cast from the hill, to serve those from distant hills
Now they reason I block their view, I block their way
They cast the red die on my girth, the red mark of death
I'll miss the rain most, the best time When nature regains control
When the cloud drifts in, when it feels wild again
Wild escarpment days
Motors approach. They come for me
Only a bus, it slows, they take photos, it groans away
Quiet again
Below the cloud, a piercing sunset glows my bark gold
Down the valley, the bush blanket surges
A breeze rising up the escarpment, fans me fresh
Around me branches sway, then settle, restful
Still again
Quiet again
Soon they come
They cast the red die on my girth, the red mark of death
My death an extinction wedge
When they scatter my woodchips on their plot
Will they know I was once a Scribbly Gum, free and wild?
Their photos a torment of treasure lost
This wild country locked in myth
Motors approach. A saw starts. No!
Steven Ridd, Katoomba, 23.10.2004
