Standing Up (Even When All Seems Lost)
Susie Russell is an activist for change. When she sees something that’s not right, she stands up. Thirty years ago she saw the logging of old-growth forests and knew it wasn’t right. She has locked on to trees, stood up in Court, campaigned for government change and generally agitated to stop logging ever since.
This story is for anyone needing the courage to stand up for what they believe in, even when all seems lost.
THE NOMINATION
Dailan Pugh, the granddaddy of forest activists in northern NSW, says Susie Russell’s willingness to stand up to power inspires him and keeps him in the battle to save our forests.
Physical bravery is what comes to mind when I think about courage. I remember one bloke at a forestry blockade who climbed up a tripod that was connected by a pole to a bipod. He ran up and down between the tripod, the bipod and the cherry picker while the police tried to get him off. That seemed very courageous to me.
But when it came to nominating someone whose courage inspires me, I chose Susie Russell who has been a critical ally in the North East Forest Alliance. She has a steadfast belief in what she’s doing. She stands up to power. She shows no fear when speaking up in a room full of adversaries, whether it’s politicians or angry loggers.
She stands up to power. She shows no fear when speaking up in a room full of adversaries, whether it’s politicians or angry loggers.
We met around 1992 when Susie was working with Wingham Forest Action. Over time she’s played key roles in the North East Forest Alliance, North Coast Environment Council, and the Rainforest Information Centre, which does work overseas. Most recently, she’s been key in setting up the Forest Alliance New South Wales, which is getting all the major groups involved with forestry working together.
She’s someone I rely on to step up. She’s exceptionally dedicated. Like me, she’s tried to resign over the years, but she can’t help being sucked back in. She’s very good at networking, which I’m not so good at. She’s good at communicating, whereas I’m not. The players in the environmental movement can be fractious, and she’s got the diplomatic and negotiation skills to manage that.
I’ve always thought of Susie as competent and committed, but the first time I thought of her as courageous was in 1994. The Wingham Forest Action group ran a court case challenging the Forestry Commission’s fauna impact statement. I was in Sydney and went to the courtroom to help. After three days, we realised that the legal team had given up. So we sacked them, and Susie took on the role of barrister. She ran the case for two weeks, presented to the judge and persuaded the judge to come to the forest to see greater gliders. In the end, the outcome wasn’t great. But a case that was going to be lost within a day stretched to two weeks, and we did win some minor concessions. Her willingness to take on that role seemed incredibly brave to me.
She’s got gumption, I think that’s the word for it, but you could call it courage.
She’s got gumption, I think that’s the word for it, but you could call it courage. She stands up for what she believes. She’s not afraid.
Her courage and commitment are motivating. Susie has inspired a lot of people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t have done. To be honest, I’d have trouble continuing without her.
SUSIE
From an early age, I understood that if you want change, you must agitate for it. People drive change, governments only react.
My family were active in a variety of causes, and I’ve been active since I was in high school. I saw the demonstrations against apartheid when the Springboks toured in 1971, which resulted in no apartheid team touring Australia again until Mandela was released. I saw the movement against the Vietnam War build up and watched Whitlam get elected, ending conscription and bringing the troops home.
I suppose you could call me a professional activist. It’s not a profession I’ve made any money from, but it is what has consumed most of my time over the years.
I suppose you could call me a professional activist.
In the early days. Susie (fourth from the left) at a rally for the liberation of East Timor, Melbourne, 1978
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In university, I got involved in student politics and failed medicine as a result. After uni, I travelled and worked a variety of jobs, including as a railway attendant, where I got involved in all kinds of action. I spent much of my 20s huddled in little groups of people, meeting and planning for a better public transport system.
In the early 90s, my partner Greg and I visited a little village called Elands in the Mid North Coast region of NSW. We remarked on the trees only to be told that a major logging program was about to begin. Someone took us out into the Bulga State Forest, and I saw these magnificent trees that would take half a dozen people to put their arms around. And I just thought, “How can that be?”
We decided we’d come and live in the village and went off to get some possessions from Melbourne, thinking we were going to grow veggies and have a quiet life in the bush.
The old growth logging started a couple of weeks after we got back, and we were quickly swept up in blockades, protests and arrests. That’s when the forest grabbed me and said, “You’re coming to work for me!”
That’s when the forest grabbed me and said, “You’re coming to work for me!”
I had useful skills: my background in science and maths, my analytical mind, my experience in debate and activism. I’d even been arrested (years before on a charge of use and possession of cannabis).
Susie being arrested on the roof of the Forestry Commission office while protesting old growth loggin in Bulga Forest, Taree, 1993.
We lost that first campaign for Bulga and the next one after that. But we kept going: did blockades, performed street theatre on the forestry office building and other stunts to raise awareness, got arrested, went to court, lobbied government and industry and campaigned to change the government, even stood for the Greens a few times.
We had successes. With the new Carr government, we were able to get some reserves in ’98. But not enough, so we kept going. In 2003, we got some more reserves. When we realised we weren’t going to get any more forest protection in northeast NSW for a while, we focused on the river red gums and woodlands in Western NSW.
Then, in November 2022, after the mega-fires in 2019 had done so much damage, they started logging the Bulga State Forest again. It was too much This is my backyard. I thought if we can’t stop them here, no one’s going to stop them anywhere. We heard about it on a Friday, and we were ready on Monday morning when the loggers arrived.
We kept the logging at bay for almost two years by being quite imaginative. After the fires, greater gliders and koalas were declared endangered, and our citizen science showed healthy populations of both in the Bulga Forest. New laws guaranteed a 50-metre radius logging exclusion zone around a greater glider den tree. With a lot of people putting in a lot of hours looking for greater glider dens, we were able to win one hectare of protection at a time.
Susie acting as Police liaison in the Bulga Forest, 2022.
It was the first time in a long time that we could actually win a patch of forest. And as desperate as the situation was, I got joy from our small band of merry men and women doing our best to f&ck it up for the logging corporation and embarrassing the government into transitioning out of native forest logging. I was hopeful.
I got joy from our small band of merry men and women doing our best to f&ck it up for the logging corporation…
At the beginning of October 2024, a gate went up across one of the forest roads; it was clear that logging was about to start. Almost immediately, a group of us camped on the road. The next day, the police told us to move on. Two people stayed and were arrested. The next day, someone else was arrested and then someone else, and by the following week I felt it was my turn.
I remember a campaign near Narrabri against Whitehaven mine. Someone said, “I’ve got a lock on, do you want it?” I felt a bit of pressure and said yes. It was foolish. I was on the ground, locked by the neck, in the heat and they told me police rescue wasn’t coming. I was really scared. There was a slight possibility that the tree would fall over, and I’d die.
I got out of that situation with the help of friends. But I didn’t want to lock on again. In that first week, we watched the ‘harvesting’ machine cut down a tree a minute. It was just so fast. To slow the logging, we needed to take out that machine. I didn’t want to lock on, but I did want to stop that machine. At times like this, I think to myself, “You need to be brave here.” I need to set an example because others are feeling just as scared as I am.
I got up very early, trekked through the bush with a small support posse and locked onto the machine in the dark. At about 12:30 pm, police rescue finally cut the bicycle lock connecting me to the tree killing machine I was put in handcuffs, which surprised me. It was very muddy and slippery walking to the ‘dog box’ on the back of the police wagon and I had trouble getting into the back because my hands were cuffed. Fortunately they took the cuffs off before the hour and a half journey to the police station. The road was potholed there was no suspension and nothing to hang onto. Once we arrived at the police station, it took 4 or 5 hours to be told there would be six charges against me, including two under the Inclosed Lands Act which potentially carried jail sentences. I wasn’t worried. I knew the land wasn’t enclosed. But they said the seriousness of the charges was enough to deny bail, and I spent my first night in a police cell. The next morning I went before the magistrate, who gave me bail conditions. At about 2pm they let me out.
Susie locked on to logging equipment in Bulga Forest, 2024.
Before I was released, I saw two of my friends arrested, having done the same thing as me on the following day. That was incredibly heartening. I thought, “If you think arresting me will be a deterrent and the whole thing’s going to stop, you’re wrong.”
But it does feel like pushing shit uphill. Of course, we are lobbying. I’ve spent three weeks in Sydney over the last couple of months talking to politicians and whoever else will listen about the need to change the rules for gliders and end native forest logging. The end is coming, but it could be several years away. For so many forests and species, that’s several years too long. And that’s what’s happening on this planet, little pockets of diversity are blinking out.
I feel like Cassandra, the Trojan priestess who was cursed to speak the truth but never be believed.
I feel like Cassandra, the Trojan priestess who was cursed to speak the truth but never be believed. We are warning of what’s to come and then watching the headlong destruction that now feels unstoppable. On a global scale we are losing, and we are losing here too.
But I keep going and hope for a miracle, a black swan event. There will be something: wild weather, flood, fire. Something will make people pay attention and push for change.
I try to do things proactively, so I don’t become so burdened by grief that I can’t be useful anymore. “We have to try and find comfort in our discomfort”. Someone said that at a talk I attended recently, and it’s true. I kept saying that to myself when I was locked on and in the police wagon, and it was helpful.
I try to do things proactively, so I don’t become so burdened by grief that I can’t be useful anymore.
Am I courageous? It does take courage to stand up in a shareholders’ meeting and attack the board of a company when everyone else in the room has no interest in the forests, to challenge a government minister or to lock on to a ‘harvester’. I can do those things. I know others think I’m courageous…and you do have to gird yourself in moments like that, but we’re not being rounded up or shot at. I’m not sure how courageous I would be then. A lot of people have and do endure a lot worse for what they believe in. I try and make my grain of sand count.
Photographs provided by Susie Russell