Series 02: Alan Gibson Stewart papers, 1987-1989 - Page 757
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Following Landa's example, I told the story of a lesson jack Ferguson had taught me...
In 1979, a new name had hit the headlines -- Terania. This referred to an obscure valley in north-eastern NSW.
In the ranges above Lismore an agrarian revolution had been taking place. Tradtional rural industries were in decline -- the dairies were closing and the best of the hardwood forests had been cut out. The "drift" to the city was taking many of the descendants of the original settlers away. In the 1970s, a contrary trend started -- new settlers from the city began to arrive in the secluded valleys. These "hippies" had a foreign life style, and strange ideas about the value of the natural environment.
At Terania, a small creek rose in a horseshoe shaped range of hills and flowed down through a narrow valley covered in ranforest. A derelict farm at the lower end of the valley, adjacent to the rainforest, was purchased in 1974 by Hugh and Nan Nicholson, new settlers. They soon learned that the Forestry Commission planned to allow the whole valley to be logged. The rainforest was in a State Forest, owned by the people of NSW, part of the national heritage. The local private sawmillers, however, threatened to close unless they could exploit this last remnant of the once extensive forests.