Community building, conservation and the environment.
Location
Western Australia
Origins
The Great Walk, a 650km supported bushwalk to raise awareness of logging old-growth forests in 1988.
Method
Studies have shown people tend to act to protect the environment when they spend time in areas of environmental significance. Great Walk Networking offers opportunities for people of all ages to visit, walk and live in such areas throughout Western Australia, two to four times a year for approximately ten days. During this time, the Walk forms a travelling and self-supporting bushwalking community with a focus on environmental issues.
Since 1988, different people have organized walks a few times each year. Most Walks are still organized with a focus on raising awareness of conservation and land use issues.[2] Great Walk Networking is a non-profit voluntary organization.[3]
History
The Conservation Movement in Western Australia, 1970s – 1980s
The Western Australian forests have been extensively challenged by significant threats: earlier destruction due to settlement patterns and later clearfelling for woodchipping, mining for mineral sands and bauxite, as well as forestry practices that showed little interest in long term sustainability.[4]
Many of the Great Walk Networking participants had been involved with other organisations that formed before 1988 to address significant threats to South Western forests of Western Australia. As early as the mid 1970s the Campaign to Save Native Forests (CSNF) and South West Forests Defence Foundation (SWFDF) had been seeking to address the forestry and mining proposals for woodchipping and mining in the forests. The Manjimup wood chip proposals of 1976–1977, and the Wagerup mining proposals in the Darling Range consumed the energies of the CSNF and the SWFDF, as well as other groups based either at the Environment Centre of Western Australia or associated with the Conservation Council of Western Australia. As the older groups changed due to resolution of some of the issues - subsequent groups like Great Walk Networking absorbed members from the earlier groups.
The Great Walk (20 March – 14 April 1988)
On 20 March 1988, 200 people set out from Denmark, on Western Australia's south coast, to walk through the forests of the State's south west on a 650 kilometre trek north to Perth.
The Great Walk was launched with an Aboriginal dance ceremony to "protect the walkers, and attune them to the country through which they would travel." Over the next 26 days, over 1000 people would take part, ostensibly to express their appreciation and concerns for the environment. These expressions were felt to be conveyed by a document called the Great Walk Tree Charter, which was carried to Parliament House where it was presented to the Premier of Western Australia, Peter Dowding.
The Great Walk required a great deal of planning and coordination: the route had to mapped, checked and marked on the ground, support crews and equipment assembled, transport arranged, child-care, first aid and medical personnel coordinated and a mobile catering system put together, able to serve 200-500 people at a time. For the most part, sections of the Walk were co-ordinated 'tag-team' style, with new coordination teams assembled for sections of the Walk. During the 26 days from March to April 1988, the Great Walk formed an entirely self-supporting, mobile community of 200 to 500 people that supported itself on A$5 contributions from participating walkers per day.
Bambooroo
Bambooroo was a magazine published by Great Walk Networking from May 1988 to May 1990. Its focus was on environmental issues of concern primarily to the South West region of Western Australia. Bambooroo means "message stick" or "message bearer" in the Nyoongah language.
During the first Great Walk, a bambooroo was presented to the Walkers at a corroborree held in Kirup, Western Australia. Ken Colbung described the bambooroo to the Walkers and supporters who collected at Parliament House on 20 April 1988 as a "spiritual message stick" that "protected (the Walkers) from the weather." He later said a message stick "has a very special spiritual significance for the messenger, and when we dedicated it at Kirup it then took all the hopes and realisations of the people present that they would have a walk that would not be caught up in the elements, so that rain would not flood them out or that mud would not be there, that the winds would not be too strong, but the elements would be very controlled and it'd allow the Walkers a peaceful walk up to Perth."
Bambooroo: Great Walk Networking. Fremantle, W.A.: Great Walk Networking, 1988–1990. ISSN1325-3328. Published from 2nd ed. (June 1988)- at: Denmark, W.A. . 1st ed. (May 1988)-no. 11 (May/June 1990) Later Title: Newsletter (Great Walk Networking Inc.) Record: State Library of Western AustraliaArchived 6 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
Worth, David John (2004) Reconciliation in the forest?: an exploration of the conflict over the logging of native forests in the south-west of Western Australia Thesis submitted to the Division of Science and Engineering. Thesis (PhD)--Murdoch University, Western Australia Record: Murdoch University Theses Project
Author Unknown (1998) Walk to heal land.Fremantle Gazette 13 March 1998, p.5.
McDonald, K. (1998) Walking tall. In: Today, The West Australian, 30 March 1998, pp.7–8. Two-page photo essay on the Great Walk. (Photos by Mogens Johansen) See also: McDonald, K. (1998) At 70, Stan takes 700km in his stride. The West Australian, 30 March 1998, p.27.
Jacobson, I. (1998) Walkers hope to save forests. Sunday Times, 15 March 1998, p.14.
Boase, K. (1998) Cowan lectures Great Walkers. The Aboriginal Independent Newspaper, 18 March 1998, p.5.
Other media
The Great Walk: The documentary of an historic environmental statement in WA - The Great Walk from Denmark to Perth, 20 March - 15 April 1988. (1989) Documentary. Directed by Noeleen Harrison. Film and Television Institute, funded by Great Walk Networking.
Perth is the capital city of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth as of 2023. It is part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, with most of Perth's metropolitan area on the Swan Coastal Plain between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp. The city has expanded outward from the original British settlements on the Swan River, upon which its central business district and port of Fremantle are situated.
John Forrest National Park is a national park in the Darling Scarp, 24 km (15 mi) east of Perth, Western Australia. Proclaimed as a national park in November 1900, it was the first national park in Western Australia.
The Bibbulmun Track is a long-distance walk trail in Western Australia. It runs from Kalamunda in the east of Perth to Albany, and is 1,003.1 kilometres (623.3 mi) long.
The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to the south of Pemberton. The adjacent Darling Plateau goes easterly to include Mount Bakewell near York and Mount Saddleback near Boddington. It was named after the Governor of New South Wales, Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling.
The West Australian Football League is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from April to September, with the top five teams playing off in a finals series, culminating in a Grand Final. The league also runs reserves, colts (under-19) and women's competitions.
Kirup, originally named Upper Capel, then Kirupp, is situated between Donnybrook and Balingup on the South Western Highway, 228 kilometres (142 mi) south of Perth, Western Australia in the upper reaches of the Capel River valley.
Wagerup is a town located in the Peel region of Western Australia just off the South Western Highway. It is located between Waroona and Harvey, 12 km (7.5 mi) south of Waroona.
Civil disturbances in Western Australia include race riots, prison riots, and religious conflicts – often Protestant versus Catholic groups.
The Dryandra Woodland National Park is a national park in Western Australia within the shires of Cuballing, Williams and Wandering, about 164 kilometres south-east of Perth and 22 kilometres north-west of the town of Narrogin. It is a complex of 17 distinct blocks managed by the Western Australian Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions and spread over approximately 50 kilometres separated by areas of agricultural land. The area is considered to be one of the state's major conservation areas, and although it is far from pristine due to its history of logging operations, a number of species of threatened fauna are rebuilding populations through the removal of introduced predators such as foxes and feral cats.
The Conservation Council of Western Australia is the umbrella body for conservation groups and organisations in Western Australia. It has been the co-ordinator, publisher and guiding body for issues of woodchipping in the South West of Western Australia, the logging of old growth forests, as well as providing input into government processes involved with all aspects of environmental protection and conservation.
The Campaign to Save Native Forests (W.A.) (CSNF) was the name of a grassroots organisation which grew from a campaign started in Perth, Western Australia, in 1975, as a response to the development of a woodchipping industry in the south-west jarrah and karri forests of Western Australia. The Manjimup woodchip project aroused significant levels of protest in Perth and the South West region out of public concern that inadequate measures had been made for conservation alongside exploitation of the south west hardwood forests.
South West Forests Defence Foundation (SFDF) is a group that has been involved in the conservation of the jarrah and karri forests of the South West region of Western Australia for more than four decades.
The West Australian Forest Alliance is an organization made up of a number of Western Australian environmental activist groups concerned with the destruction of old-growth forests in the South West region. It has published a range of posters and documents. It is a successor to and includes membership of the earlier groups the Campaign to Save Native Forests, South West Forests Defence Foundation, Great Walk Networking, and other member groups of the Conservation Council of Western Australia. Advocacy and campaigning by WAFA and its members played a major role in the Western Australian government deciding to end the commercial logging of native forests from 2024 onwards.
Woodchipping is the act and industry of chipping wood for pulp. Timber is converted to woodchips and sold, primarily, for paper manufacture. In Australia, woodchips are produced by clearcutting or thinning of native forests or plantations. In other parts of the world, forestry practices such as short rotation coppice are the usual methods adopted.
The W.A. Chip & Pulp Company was founded in 1969 to export woodchips from sustainable bluegum plantations after the Government of Western Australia granted a Bunnings led consortium rights to establish a woodchip project in Manjimup. In August 2000, the business was sold to Marubeni.
Jarrah Forest, also known as the Southwest Australia woodlands, is an interim Australian bioregion and ecoregion located in the south west of Western Australia. The name of the bioregion refers to the region's dominant plant community, jarrah forest – a tall, open forest in which the dominant overstory tree is jarrah.
The network of railway lines in Western Australia associated with the timber and firewood industries is as old as the mainline railway system of the former Western Australian Government Railways system.
Eucalyptus wandoo, commonly known as wandoo, dooto, warrnt or wornt and sometimes as white gum, is a small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds in groups of nine to seventeen, white flowers and conical to cylindrical fruit. It is one of a number of similar Eucalyptus species known as wandoo.
The Bunbury woodchip bombing was an unprecedented and politically motivated act of property destruction that took place on 19 July 1976 at a woodchip export terminal in Bunbury, Western Australia. More than 1000 sticks of gelignite were planted by two environmental protesters with the resulting partial detonation causing an estimated $300,000 in damages. The intention of the bombing was to prevent the export of woodchips from Western Australian old growth forests for 18 months. This act of protest is now largely unknown outside of Western Australia but was considered to have been a serious setback for the emerging environmental movement at the time—despite the perpetrators being unaffiliated with any environmental organisation.
The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) is the Western Australian government department responsible for managing lands and waters described in the Conservation and Land Management Act 1984, the Rottnest Island Authority Act 1987, the Swan and Canning Rivers Management Act 2006, the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority Act 1998, and the Zoological Parks Authority Act 2001, and implementing the state's conservation and environment legislation and regulations. The Department reports to the Minister for Environment and the Minister for Tourism.
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