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#thedrive

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BellingenNSW

'Last chance to see' tourism: See rare or endangered species before they disappear
Bird-tracking apps turning sightings into stampedes
Chasing online alerts with a lot of fossil fuel.
"Almost one in six Australian birds are threatened with extinction."
>>
abc.net.au/news/2025-02-15/tou
#birds #birdwatching #twitchers #overtourism #LoggingImpacts #landclearing #extinction #biodiversity #conservation #TheDrive #SUVs #Fossilfuels #cats #pets

ABC News · Birdwatching and twitchers pump billions into Australia's tourism industryBy Kristy Sexton-McGrath
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BellingenNSW

The Dorrigo Escarpment Great Walk

Intensifying the throughput rate with a series of soaring walkways through the Gondwana Rainforest

The $56.4 million investment in Dorrigo National Park will create “accessible, engaging and immersive experiences for visitors. The 4-day walking track will “connect people with nature... The new 46-km multi-day walk along the rugged escarpment within Dorrigo and Bindarri national parks, includes hiker camps, pedestrian bridges and lookouts.”

The review of environmental factors for the Dorrigo Escarpment Great Walk is available for public comment
>> until 24 February 2025. >>
www2.environment.nsw.gov.au/to
nsw.gov.au/have-your-say/dorri

The Dorrigo Escarpment Great Walk project has the potential to put though an extra 200,000 visitors ...>
bellingenshirenews.com/2023/11

There is an information session at the

Gleniffer Hall at 10am on Tuesday 11 February

at which staff from National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) will outline the draft review of environmental factors (REF) for the Dorrigo Escarpment Great Walk.

Dorrigo escarpment, Gondwana Rainforest without clutter
#biodiversity#rainforest#Gondwana
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BellingenNSW

Tourism leads the pack in growing carbon emissions

"The most net emissions were reported in aviation, utilities and private vehicle use for travel. Australia ranked in the top 20 countries that together contributed three quarters of the total tourism carbon footprint in 2019.">>
uq.edu.au/news/article/2024/11

Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions
"National tourism decarbonisation strategies will require demand volume thresholds to be defined to align global tourism with the Paris Agreement." >>
nature.com/articles/s41467-024

"The study found air travel and private vehicle use were the two biggest contributors to tourism's carbon footprint. Australians, meanwhile, are travelling overseas in record numbers..." >>
abc.net.au/news/2024-12-11/tou
#ClimateBreakdown #FossilFuel #mobility #pollution #ParisAgreement #MobilityDesign #cars #PrivateVehicles #TheDrive #tourists #LongHaul #AirTravel #travel #tourism #harm #CarbonFootprint #electric #vehicles #GHG

The drive, Bellingen
Public
BellingenNSW

Fom Queensland to NSW, the same story:

“Koala habitats have got smaller and smaller over the years, and the roads through them have got busier...The animals that draw visitors to the Queensland capital are being run down at an alarming rate. Just three days apart in November, separate pairs of mother and joey koalas were hit by vehicles and left to suffer on the side of the road. They were just hit and left. People don’t stop..This year we've hit over 100 within a 6km radius."

vehicle strikes crashes
au.news.yahoo.com/road-sign-ex
#koalas #wildlife #sprawl #roads #cars #motorists #roadkill #TheDrive #Brisbane #Bellingen #GlenifferRoad #TheGreatKoalaNationalPark #SacrificeZone #ecocide #Biodiversity #extinction makers

Koala sign, Bellingen, destroyed by hoons
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BellingenNSW

"Indigenous people here speak of the lack of memorials on this land.
But every bordered property is a site for dark tourism in Australia.
Dark tourism is the effort to seek out destinations of violence and devastation, but it is not hard to see genocide from our front door in this country...Tim Rowse has called the “ongoing colonial encounter sometimes called ‘Australia’”
>>
theconversation.com/dark-touri

Gumbaynggirr Country is located on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. It is also known as the Bellingen/ Gleniffer Valley and has curated three reserves in the 21st century with memorials which are all named after white settlers:

The Arthur Keough Reserve (Never Never River) is named after the first settler pioneer families to arrive in the Gleniffer Valley.
bellingennow.com/about/index.h

Angel Gabriel Capararo 'modernised' the Promised land.
bellingennow.com/Angel_Gabriel

Earl Preston reserve was named after a settler who arrived in 1929
bellingennow.com/Earl_Preston/

Nothing about the massacres and the poisoning to death of local Aboriginal people.

Colonial Frontier Massacres, Australia, 1788 to 1930
c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonia
howlinginfinite.com/2021/03/22
trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/art
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_poi
#GumbaynggirrCountry #Bellingen #Fernmount #Gleniffer #TheDrive #MidNorthCoast #IndigenousPeoples #massacres #memorials #tourism #DarkTourism #violence #TuthTelling #denial #SettlerSociety #colonialism

Memorial to a white settler in Bellingen/Gleniffer, NSW
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BellingenNSW

Are Australia's 4WD enthusiasts wrecking the bush?
From bushwalking to ALL TERRAIN driving in the bush

"4WD touring is booming and it's putting unprecedented pressure on the bush. The increased traffic is also degrading many of the tracks...Many of the tracks are historical — initially built for logging, gold mining or firebreaks — and are not designed for four-wheel driving. These tracks proliferate, they very rarely disappear."

"Something bogs up, drivers go round it, and it gets bigger, damages vegetation and spreads weeds and pests...The rules for four-wheel drives are the same whether you're in a national park or in a state forest, you're supposed to drive them on a road. You're not supposed to drive them around in the bush, willy nilly."

"Seasonal closures can also protect areas at risk of degradation.The spokesperson says 181 infringements totalling more than $60,000 were given to people caught driving cars or riding trail bikes illegally off-road or in restricted areas last year."

Déjà vu of SUVs being washed in a perennial stream (Orara River) on the eastern slopes of the Dorrigo Plateau and nappies deposited on river rocks.
>>
abc.net.au/news/2024-07-13/4wd
#conservation #NPs #TheBush #NSW #TheDrive #Bellingen #Orara #rivers #NeverNever #SUVs #ATV #OffRoad #DomesticTourism #rubbish #weeds #toilets #degradation #car #culture #regulation #bushwalking #biodiversity #habitat #climate

ABC News · 4WD touring is booming and it's putting unprecedented pressure on the bushWith more people than ever owning four-wheel drives and taking them off-road to explore the bush, wilderness areas are under unprecedented pressure. So what are the off-road rules?
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BellingenNSW

Unchecked tourism at Bellingen's Never Never River
Indigenous custodians embrace chance to curb tourism at 'trashed' swimming spot

"Occasional closure part of Indigenous Protected Area plan for troubled Never Never River's Promised Lands. The spot has now been declared part of an 81,000-hectare Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) in the Bellingen Valley."

"There have been concerns about pollution in the Never Never River at a popular swimming spot known as the Promised Lands, near the town of Bellingen...In January 2023, water quality at the river showed concerning levels of faecal matter, with human and dog excrement the suspected source."

"It was once regarded as something of a secret spot, but coverage on social media has seen it become an increasingly popular swimming site. But as the site is not recognised as a tourist area by Forestry Corporation NSW, which manages the Crown Land, there are no public toilets or rubbish bins, and minimal parking."

"Rather than it being a free-for-all, driving up and down from sacred places, we need to give it a rest sometimes during the year."
>>
abc.net.au/news/2024-07-10/nev
#PromisedLand #NeverNever #rivers #Bellingen #TheDrive #ExcessiveTourism #tourism #NSW #pollution #dogs #SaveTuckersNob #GumbaynggirrCountry #GoBeforeYouGo #swimming #toilets #MidNorthCoast #platypus

Trashing the Bellingen Never Never river. Go before you go!
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BellingenNSW

Gleniffer Reserves and waterways management

There will be a review of the 5 year management plan of the Gleniffer Reserves. A meeting will be held at the Gleniffer Hall on Tuesday 23rd January from 9.30am to 12 noon.

Once residents and visitors have frequented the local watering holes in Bellingen, the swimming holes at Gleniffer are the main thing to do on a hot day. The mass tourism is funneled via ' the tourist drive'. The scenic country road has just been reconstructed into a highway-like infrastructure. Motorists are now enticed to race from the watering hole to the swimming hole. Cars park as close as possible to the small creeks and unload dogs and gear. The unwanted waste is commonly left behind for the local wildlife and the next load of visitors.

The reserves have a lot of car parking infrastructure and educational signage about settler explorers now.

A "Go before you go” campaign urges visitors to go to a public toilet before leaving the township. Many motorists/swimmers forget and the dogs can't read.

The 'upgrade' of Gleniffer road channeled the flow of visitors into local waterways that have no toilets.

Go befoer you go!, Bellingen waterways
#tourism#toilets#waste
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BellingenNSW

The end of the road trip?

The culture of 'the drive' requires sisyphean road maintenance, especially in a climate emergency.

Mobile sprawl as a form of 'recreation' eliminates the landscape. It is the annihilation of space and time. Motorists want to get from their door to the spectacle in the fastest way possible. The 'in-between space' viewed through the car window vanishes.

The pleasure cruise from A to B does not just degrade the landscape, but also eradicates possibilities of a livable planet. The overuse by the masses in their fossil fuel boxes makes the hillsides crumble, leads to landslides and erosion. After flash flooding, drought and heatwaves the roads have to be rebuilt over and over again.

Here are three cases of 'scenic drives':
California, Victoria and NSW

Extreme weather is changing California. These road trips show how
theguardian.com/us-news/2023/d

Climate Risk : The Path Ahead for the Great Ocean Road
Unsustainable Tourism
earlywarningnetwork.com.au/new

Waterfall Way scenic drive, NSW
nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/thing
Why is the road called Waterfall Way ?
abc.net.au/news/2020-12-15/wat

Scenic views, NSW
#TheDrive#Cars#roads
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BellingenNSW

The biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters? Our car tires
Driving is not just an air pollution and climate change problem — turns out, it just might be the largest contributor of microplastics in California coastal waters.

“No one had looked at all the water rushing off the streets during rainfall events to see whether that had plastics in it...That makes all that driving we do something to think about, not just in the Bay Area, but any setting where there are cars.”

“...It’s about individual behavior change, it’s about more corporate responsibility. Together, we can make a big change.”

latimes.com/environment/story/
#runoff #tyres #cars #roads #traffic #pollution #plastic #Bellingen #TheDrive #parking #Bellinger #rivers #NeverNeverRiver #water #catchment #ocean #biodiversity

SUV parking on tree roots, Bellingen tree roots
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