Mossman author triumphs

A FAR Northern author has taken out a Queensland literary award for shining a spotlight on one of the region’s biggest environmental protests.

Bill Wilkie’s eight-year labour of love beat Matthew Condon’s Little Fish Are Sweet, Mary-Rose MacColl’s For a Gile and Innisfail author Cathy McLennan’s Saltwater to win the Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Signifigance for his book The Daintree Blockade: The Battle for Australia’s Tropical Rainforests. The book follows the 1983 protests by local and interstate environmentalists against the construction of the Bloomfield Track through the Daintree rainforest between Cape Tribulation and Cooktown.

The opposition made national headlines and was second only to the Franklin River campaign in terms of size.

Although the road was completed in 1984, the blockade was not a total failure.

The events succeeded in raising awareness of the Daintree, which led to the area forming part of the World Heritage-listed Wet Tropics.

“I thought it was a really big story which hadn’t been fully explored and told,” Mossman resident Mr Wilkie said.

“The passion of the people in the protest to lay down in front of the bulldozer, or spend six days living in a tree, which was an Australian record at the time, should be remembered.

“It started as a very local affair initially and, of course, they were happy to get support from people down south.

“It’s a real honour.”

HONOURED: Mossman author Bill Wilkie has won an award for his book about the controversial 1980s environmental protest against a road to Cape Tribulation, The Daintree Blockade.