This is contested land, and the struggle is bigger than this patch of forest

Back in July I travelled to the Pilliga Forest with a handful of activists and concerned locals, we camped out and then had our climber scale the gas drill rig to drop a banner reading “Stop Pilliga CSG” as part of  ongoing protests against the Eastern Star Gas proposal to create the largest coal seam gas project in NSW in the middle of the Pilliga.

I don’t usually write descriptive features like this, but it was a requirement for the uni course I’m doing.. and so here it is, an different type of account of my most recent trip out to the forest:

The clear night sky above us is dotted with what must be thousands of stars. There will be no rain tonight – something for which we are thankful. We lay upon an old blue tarpaulin, another strung up above us. We could have pitched a tent, and perhaps we should have done. It’s mid-July, and we’re in the middle of the forest in northern New South Wales, so even minimal insulation could have been useful to keep at bay the chilly night air and frosty morning ahead of us. As we drift off to sleep, the only noise we hear is the rustling of leaves, reminding us that while the traffic of the city is far from here, still, we are not alone, we are visitors in this place.

This spot on which we’ve slept is contested land. Midway from Coonabarabran to Narrabri you take a right hand turn off the Newell Highway onto Oil Well Road, an interesting name for a road that is situated in the middle of 3000 square kilometres of state forest. The name jars, it doesn’t sound right, but it is there. Take a look at the map.

This patch of forest we are on is leased to a mining company. The mining company digs, drills, pumps, dumps, and leaves. We’ve come here to challenge those who hold supposed authority over this land, though authority was never ceded by our Indigenous brothers and sisters. This is important, but often forgotten.

This land is now known as the Pilliga State Forest. It stretches thousands of hectares, and is home to an array of rare and threatened animal and plant life. For this reason, rules restrict those wanting to walk through the forest – though it would seem the modern rule of capital provides a loophole that ensures these rules don’t have to apply to all. While the New South Wales government warns visitors to take care, enforcing guidelines outlining everything from where to set up camp to how to dispose of waste, gas companies have been granted permission to clear stretches of forest to make way for their mining equipment. So we have slept in this forest.

We rise early as the pink and orange colours of dawn illuminate the morning sky. The landscape is bushland, but for a dirt road, leading to a clearing where trees have been cut down to make way for a gas drilling rig. Now there it stands, as tall as a telegraph pole. And for today, we’ve got an activist who has scaled the rig in protest.

Between us and the rig is a metre high fence topped with barbed wire that cordons off the gas drilling rig. There are signs on the gate, more rules governing this space. These are the rules of the gas company that has leased this part of the supposedly public forest. The signs read: “Lease Entry”, “All visitors report to site office”, “Danger: Methane gas present”, “Unauthorised persons keep out”, “Eastern Star Gas, Bibblewindi #21H, No unauthorised entry”. Though it is clear the gas company doesn’t expect too many visitors, one need not even jump the fence, for the key has been left in the gate.

Our presence at this site comes as a surprise to the gas company worker who arrives just after 6am. We explain what we are doing and from this point it is all systems go. Unsurprisingly, it is not long before we are joined by the local police. Three car loads. There are only about 20 of us gathered to protest this gas site in the forest, but the police were clearly not sure what to expect.

Formalities are brushed aside as the most senior police officer tries to ascertain the particulars of the situation before him. Nodding to the gas rig, he asks, “Is there only one person in the actual, in the site?”

“There’s only one person in the site,” we tell him.

“Alright. Ok, well, you can tell the other people here,” pointing to those of us gathered outside the fence, “That as soon as any of them go in there, into that enclosure, they will be arrested.”

We tell him we understand, and that is fine, that we have no plans to enter the fenced off space.

“Is there a likelihood of anyone else coming out here?”

We tell him probably not.

“Because that will create an issue,” he says.

Without a hint of irony, he continues, “We’re in a very confined space, if anyone else started to turn up we would have to move you because this is such a confined space.”

This gas rig is just the beginning. The full gas project proposes to clear 2400 hectares of that “confined space” on which we protest, to make way for the dropping of over 1000 gas wells. This struggle is bigger than this small patch of forest we stand on today. We know that this is just the beginning.