A protestor is refusing to come down from a tree, that’s set to be removed to make way for a multi-million dollar upgrade of the Pacific Highway at Buladelah.
Aboriginal elders argue the tree is sacred, and have launched a last-ditch legal bid to save it.
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There is no excuse for ignorant and blatantly biased reporting. Information regarding the RTA’s mishandling of much of the Pacific Highway ‘upgrade’ and their sadistic treatment of both the natural environment and the human environment – i.e. human beings – is readily available on the internet.
Intellectuals have opposed the RTA’s intention to utilise the Alum Mountain for an extremely destructive and dangerous new section of highway at Bulahdelah since the year 2000. Human rights advocates, flora experts, fauna experts, heritage experts and experts on the Aboriginal heritage and culture of this area, including Aboriginal people of cultural knowledge and beliefs, have been objecting to the use of this route for over nine years.
Denigrating the spiritual beliefs of others is a form of religious persecution. Just as the Pope does not ‘argue’ that the spirit of Mary MacKillop has performed miracles, Aboriginal elders do not ‘argue’ that the Guardian- Healing-Tree is Sacred.
The RTA – and Karuah Aboriginal land council – knew as long ago as 1990 that the Alum Mountain is of Aboriginal cultural heritage significance. (Ref: Pacific Highway (State Highway No. 10) Bulahdelah – Coolongolook Deviation Environmental Impact Statement Working Papers September 1990)
Karuah Aboriginal land council, owning two parcels of land in the path of the RTA’s intended route ‘option’, has a pecuniary interest in the proposal. It is the intent of Karuah Aboriginal land council and the RTA to kill the Guardian- Healing-Tree which, with two coolum scars and a burl which needs no imagination whatsoever to be regarded as having the form of an Aboriginal woman’s head, and to put the head on exhibition. Killing this Sacred Tree and displaying its executed corpse is not ‘preserving’ it.
The RTA does not intend to commence construction until February, 2010. Neither this nor any other tree is currently in the way of the RTA’s intended massive devastation. And no one is physically delaying a project which is not yet due to commence.
In light of the fact that the Environmental Impact Statement shows that the RTA intends to build a death-trap for the Bulahdelah section of the ‘upgrade’, the RTA’s statement regarding delays potentially costing lives is preposterous.
During the YEARS of construction, lives in Bulahdelah would be exposed to volcanic rock dust which is over 50% toxic (Silica 18.10% and Sulphuric Acid 32.30%) and windblown acid-sulphate soils which can kill marine life. It has now been proven not only that but also HOW diesel fumes cause cancer. Lives would also be exposed to the fumes of some five million litres of diesel fuel used by construction vehicles and put at risk from landslide and other ‘slope failure’ hazards.
RTA documentation (the EIS) shows that, with this route, road users’ lives would also be put at risk – from landslides and rockfall hazards PLUS CRASHES DUE TO LACK OF CLIMBING LANES for slow-moving vehicles.
The RTA ‘needs’ to be ‘removed’, not the Guardian- Healing-Tree, not the 150,000 to 200,000 cubic metres of rock which would be blasted out of this iconic mountain, not the other Sacred and multicultural sites on its surface and NOT HUMAN LIVES.