Dear NvT, Arrests and injuries are continuing in the mountain forests around Dorrigo in northern New South Wales. Some of the last ancient trees in Australia are being bulldozed onto members of the public who are attempting to save them. The forestry commission is committing acts against its own regulations by continuing to fell trees while members of the public are in the forest. Police are standing by while potentially lethal situations arise, and media are curiously absent while extraordinary scenes unfold. The last few days have seen dozens of arrests of nonviolent women and men standing with little support in the midst of the last remnants of this nation's natural heritage, their civil liberties and physical safety ignored by police, forestry, politicians and media. Crying out amid the temporary issues that flood our day-to-day lives, ecosystems and life forms that pre-date our own species are being annihilated before we can even know what they are, in the name of ignorance, greed and political manipulation - not in the Third World but here in our own nation. All this and more is admitted in the reports and advice of the forestry commission and others, but the political and legal systems appear to offer the people of Australia no legal redress to this injustice in time to make a difference. Peaceful protest has been our only resort, and no human being can afford to compromise over our old growth native forests any longer - there is simply none left to argue over. The Dorrigo area has only eighteen months of old growth forest left to log and is then faced with logging regrowth forest and limited employment in any case. The town's only real chance of survival is to preserve what little remains of this magnificent region so that tourists can offer the townsfolk a desperately needed bridge into alternative local industries. By saving the forests we're saving ourselves and our children. All protests in the forests of northern New South Wales have been over old growth forest - ancient remnants whose last vestiges we must preserve now. There is no tomorrow for this issue. There will be no need for destructive and wasteful confrontation when native old growth forests are protected. As another working week draws to a close, so does the life of another irreplaceable heartland of primeval forest, still growing despite the attentions of humanity. We need more people to come to these forests to experience for themselves their natural wild heritage. Only those who have experienced these native forests directly have a right to decide their future. Earth first! No compromise on old growth forest! Wild Cattle Creek Action Group 25 Sept, 1992 PO Box 302, Dorrigo, NSW 2453, (066) 57 5180.