One of the many people who shared the ideals of Arthur and Margaret Thorsborne to save the Torresian Imperial Pigeon, also known as the White Nutmeg Pigeon, in particular , and the wider creatures and environment of Queensland's wet tropics was the late Australian poet , Judith Wright , above, called the conscience of the nation , who campaigned strongly for conservation , peace and Aboriginal landrights . (Photograph from Judith Wright Contemporary Arts Centre, Brisbane. )
One of the four founding members of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland in the 1960s, she was appalled by the proposal to mine coral for limestone at Ellison Reef and drill the Great Barrier Reef for oil .
Great damage , she pointed out, had been done to the Reef by fertilisers , pesticides , dredging, sugar production effluent and urban sewage.
Her despair at the despoilation came through in her poem , Australia 1970 : For we are conquerors and self poisoners / more than scorpions or snake /and dying of the venoms that we make / even while you die of us .Great damage , she pointed out, had been done to the Reef by fertilisers , pesticides , dredging, sugar production effluent and urban sewage.
She campaigned tirelessly across the nation to save the glorious Great Barrier Reef and set out the struggle in her powerful 1977 book , Coral Battleground .
After a 10 year campaign , resulting in a Royal Commission , the Queensland and Australian Government agreed to protect the reef and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park was formed ; in 1975 the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority, based in Townsville , charged with the management of the Reef came into being , its performance in recent years subject of some criticism. In 1981 , the reef was declared a World Heritage Area .
(Wright's book cover featured here is a 20th anniversary commemoration edition ; an updated reprint was published in 2014 , the Reef under renewed threats .)
The current president of the Townsville branch of Wildlife Queensland , Liz Downes , closely involved with the Thorsbornes , met Judith Wright at an Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Townsville in the l980s.
Wright wrote a passionate foreword to the 1988 Thorsbornes' book , Hinchinbrook Island , The Land Time Forgot , photographs by Cliff and Dawn Frith, in which she traced the impact on the continent since the arrival of European settlers, the dispossession of the Aborigines , the assault on the countryside , flora and fauna and the Reef.
Only in recent times , she said , had this onslaught begun to be remedied. A few devotees of particular regions and places , such as the Thorsbornes, were now spending time and love documenting , describing and illustrating them.
In October 1999, from Cardwell, Margaret Thorsborne sent a presentation reprint copy of the book to Tanya Schuett , a German resident of Magnetic Island , with the inscription: "If they could, all wildlife, especially the nutmeg pigeons would thank you, as I do , for all your love , care and work to protect wild places . Hinchinbrook would thank you too".
Schuett had been involved in many annual pigeon counts and officially approved observations on the birds were carried out in aviaries on her property which produced invaluable information . BELOW: Envelope with handpainted pigeons drawn by Margaret Thorsborne on a letter sent to Schuett.
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Magnetic Island pigeon study
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When Judith Wright died in 2000, Liz Downes , now also a volunteer researcher at the Special Collections section , Eddie Koiki Mabo Library , James Cook University, paid tribute with a poem which was included in a reading at a ceremony to honour her life and work, organised by the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (now Wildlife Queensland ) at Mount Tambourine, the poet's residence .
For Judith Wright - 31.5.1915 –
25.6.2000
lyrebird
singer, lover, fighter,
the
gulf of your absence opened wide in me,
an
alien void
where
you had stood so long.
As
if deep in the forest one of those grand old trees –
one that had led the way towards the sun,
stood strong against the storms,
put out stout limbs and delicate bright
flowers,
shed seeds and sheltered saplings,
sustained and housed a universe of life.
As
if this elder of the trees
had,
at last, groaned and swayed and fallen
back
to its own earth cradle,
leaving
a bewilderment of loss
and
the forest torn and grieving.
Yet
still returning life to life,
releasing
the energies of years,
so
others will grow where once you stood,
fed
by your passions,
hearing
your song,
living,
not in your shadow,
but
your light.
FOOTNOTE : Despite achievements made in the past to stop the degradation and mining of the reef , which included oil drilling during the Joh-Bjelke Petersen government , this great national treasure, one of the world's natural wonders , last year avoided being placed on an endangered list by UNESCO , but is on a four year watch . Massive dredging is planned in connection with the proposed Abbot Point coal loading expansion - outlet for the highly controversial Galilee Basin project.
UPCOMING : Further extensive articles about activists, past and present , who took part in or are currently involved in various campaigns to combat the assault on land , sea , air and flora and fauna.
UPCOMING : Further extensive articles about activists, past and present , who took part in or are currently involved in various campaigns to combat the assault on land , sea , air and flora and fauna.
