Toona Australis – The Mighty Red Cedar
A mighty red cedar stands tall in the sunlight. One of few that remain after a European thirst for timber that seemed impossible to quench.
These ancient trees were highly prized and became the driving force for colonial expansion in the Northern Rivers on Bundjalung and Githabul land. The cedar getters sought the soft timber partly because it was easy to float. They could let the logs travel by waterways before they reached stops – using long chains across the river – in places like the Wilsons River in Lismore.
Local place names like Coopers Shoot & Skinners Shoot originate from where the getters used to ‘shoot’ their timber down steep ravines & gullies into a creek or stream and wait for heavy rains.
Australian Red Cedar was so highly prized that it is pretty rare to find old trees these days. But there’s a few still standing proudly around the place, with Bangalow and Walking stick palms swaying calmly in the understorey breeze.
It continually amazes us that these types of forests existed across this land not so long ago. But we take refuge in the fact that a few of these wise beings still remain, so we can imagine what the future could look like again in a couple of hundred years if we work at it now.
