- Geraldine Ryan at a forest protest at Sylvia Creek, near Toolangi, in the Victorian Central Highlands. Photo: Brent Lukey
Geraldine Ryan is a volunteer at the Wilderness Society and has been campaigning for the environment for many years.
She has a particular passion for protecting our remaining native forests and has been active in NSW and Victoria. Here Geraldine talks about her influences and inspirations.
How did you first come to get involved with the environment movement?
If I look back, the first activist seed, I think, was sown when I was a child. It was the day my father said the time had come to superphosphate the Wattle Paddock. At that time it was the traditional 'back paddock' with little water, where wildflowers still survived on a farming property in central Victoria. I can still feel the jolt of loss.
In my imagination, I instantly saw the swathes of blue pincushions disappearing from around the granite rocks, the sweet scented chocolate lilies dying and the spider orchids, yellow buttons, wallaby and kangaroo grasses gone. I voiced my thoughts and my Father, with sadness agreed, but said scientists were saying it was the right thing to do.
Much later, active involvement came through chance meetings with passionate forest activists in Sydney and Melbourne and unforgettable visits to logging coupes in the Coolangubra Forest in South-east NSW and Hensleigh Creek in Far East Gippsland.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for the environment?
Climbing onto the back of a open tray truck with about 10 others and clinging on for life as we drove up steep hills in the Coolangubra. We were being driven, rather fast, by two former loggers who were so appalled by the woodchipping of their forests that they began campaigning to save them.
What Wilderness Society achievement are you most proud of?
The Franklin River immediately springs to mind. As well, the daring and dream of the current Kimberley campaign - being up against such moneyed power. Personally, I am proud to have been part of the campaign by the Portland Field Naturalists and the local people of South-west Victoria to bring about the Cobboboonee National Park and proud, too, the Wilderness Society played some part in that success.
What do you like best about volunteering for the Wilderness Society?
I find this difficult to put into words. But it would be something like the combination of clarity of purpose and the passion of the people in the Wilderness Society. There is a precious freedom in not having government or industry money that could hold us back from from fearlessly speaking out for wild creatures, lands and seas. I'm entranced by the beauty of the places I have come to know through the Wilderness Society.
What are your top priorities as a volunteer?
At the moment, personally, as a volunteer in Victoria, I dream of a protected lands, from the sea to the deserts, in far western Victoria and, as well, the tall forests of eastern Victoria being protected at last.
Who/what inspires you?
Who inspires: the courage and skills of people who commit themselves to the environment - campaigners in the Wilderness Society and local groups and the often lone, brave voice of someone who starts a campaign; The uniqe combination of protesters in the forests and deserts braving all sorts of odds combined with their counterparts, the campaigners, using their skills in the offices of parliaments in the media and in the courts.
What inspires? Songs and poems about the land and planet, like my father Tom Ryan speaking of the native grasslands in central Victoria, "When I was a boy the land was full of little hopping creatures".
What’s your favourite wilderness area in Australia?
There are many yet to see but I want to return to Geikie Gorge in the Kimberley one day. Perhaps that means it is one of my favourites.
What do you think is the most urgent environmental challenge facing us at the moment?
The mad rush, or so it seems, to mine every mineral, extract every resource from sea or land and chop down every forest, no matter the consequences, behaviour at the core of climate change and an immense threat to the planet.
What do you like to do when you’re not working/volunteering?
Tai Chi; spending days exploring and walking through bushlands and places I have not been to before; getting on a train for a long journey of reading and looking at the land; listening to Radio National/ABC while gardening vegetables; relaxing with close friends and family members.
What is your favourite quote or saying?
Perhaps not so much favourite sayings but ones which haunt me:
'You're...standin' on sacred ground' - Shane Howard/Goanna (from the song 'Solid Rock)
"Wilderness...no canvas, symphony or temple compares with its wild intricate beauty" - Bob Brown
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