The Wilderness Society

So, like, you know, I really into, like, the Australian Conservation Society.

I'd follow that, or the Wilderness Society, RSPCA, Greenpeace.

I didn't really know what any of it meant, but I just really...

it was-

Yeah, would you be able to explain which organisations are part of the campaign?

Yeah, we've got ourselves from the Victorian National Parks Association, we've got the Wilderness Society, Environment Victoria, the Victorian Forest Alliance, and we've got a whole bunch of other groups which have signed on to support And there's also a call out if you're listening to this and you are liking what you're hearing, you're really passionate about nature, you really want to have a voice and speak out on the website, there's an opportunity to join with us.

And, yeah, you'll see that on the website too.

Yeah, awesome.

So it was driven by a marketing necessity, but it ended up being a really big purpose for me.

And it became kind of one of the biggest drivers for my run besides raising the money for the Wilderness Society.

Yeah.

Well, I want to ask you about that as well, but also have you got your world record now? No.

It's just a long time.

It's a long time.

You raise money for the Wilderness Society who advocate for protection of Australian animals and wildlife.

Why is that cause so important for you?

The New South Wales Premier is not in a position to instruct polluters or to instruct the federal government about how the offset scheme works.

So again, after the pressure from the Australia Institute, Bob Brown Foundation, the Wilderness Society, a wide range of other groups who are deeply concerned about this.

After, not only did we get the Premier saying, well, what if I promise not to give them to gas and coal companies? We've now got Chris Bowen saying, oh, maybe we can find a way to take...

Minns' promise and turn it into a federal law.

And, um, so when the Franklin came along in the wake of Lake Pedder, like so many other people, I think it was a line in the sand where you go, hold on, not this time, you know? And, um, so I, um, A couple of friends of mine who I was at school with, Damien O'Keefe and Anna Molan, they were both involved in the Wilderness Society in Melbourne.

Was it still the TWS then, I think? Talking early 80s.

I think it was possibly still the Tasmanian Wilderness Society.

Yeah,

I believe it would have been, yeah.

I got to see three and 4,000 year old human pine trees.

And you know, it wasn't long before you know some crazy locals got in there and set fire to them and through yeah and destroyed something that was older than as bob brown would say older than christ um older than muhammad older than you know um the wanton destruction the mindless destruction um and um Seeing all those young people as well down there at the time with Protect the Sacred Sites banners with the Aboriginal flag on there and Greenpeace flags and a great coalition of like-minded young people who were of a time that really was the first time kind of fell to our generation to really stand up in large numbers and say, no more, we have to do better than this.

So it was an extraordinary feeling to be in the midst of that and to be in that country, your silence sings to me, you know, was one of the lines that, and Tasmania is all about silence, the silence about absolute decimation of the aboriginal population the decimation of the tasmanian tiger uh the you know the decimation of the landscape and then this was still going on this new brutalism ravaging going on in the 1980s so that was my introduction to the tasmanian wilderness society to tasmania um you know, and now I can't get away from the place.