Dungog is set for a dose of green as a number of speakers converge on the town to discuss the future of national parks and forests in the area.
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The forum has been organised by the Paterson Allyn Williams Science and Ideas Hub, an organisation that aims to promote science and ideas in the Dungog region, according to the president of the organisation, Jane Richens.
"We provide science and ideas, community engagement ideas for the community. We're based in the Dungog area and we chose the three names of the three main rivers," Ms Richens said.
"We're preparing a forum looking at what's happening about the forests in our area... The film The Giants coming on after, it's about some important forest actions that happened.
"Let's put a spotlight on the forests in our region and look at what's happening here because when we're living amongst them we forget about them a bit... I'd like to highlight them, look at the science behind them."
The forum will be a free community event taking place at Dungog's James Theatre on Saturday, June 3, starting at 4.45pm and running until 6pm. It will be followed by a showing of the documentary, The Giants.
Three speakers are set to bring their perspectives to the forum, Co-ordinator of the Hunter Community Environment Centre, Jo Lynch will be discussing the proposed Barrington to Hawkesbury Climate Corridors.
President of the National Parks Association of NSW (Hunter Branch), Ian Donovan will be discussing the history and future of the Barrington Tops National Park while the Chair of Dungog Regional Tourism, Cameron Archer will talk about the impact of national parks and forests on local tourism.
In particular, Ms Richens is excited to hear from Joe Lynch about her proposal to establish a series of climate corridors extending down from the Barrington Tops.
"She's talking about this proposal that's fairly new, I heard about it a year or two ago when it was still COVID times. There's a group of organisations... They're wanting to set up climate corridors that go from the Hawkesbury to the Barrington tops," she said.
"It's a proposal at this stage and there's quite a big report out about that... There's the national parks and state forests but in between there needs to be corridors for ecosystems, flora and fauna, to be able to travel through the ecosystem.
"We're losing so much biodiversity so it's how to value and protect and build so that we have stronger corridors between the key environmental areas and certainly through the Wallarobba range here."
Chairperson of the Friends of the James Theatre, Brian Doherty sees these forums as incredibly important, especially in the Hunter region.
"In many ways the Hunter region is very much on the front line. If you're in Sydney you probably don't need to have these sorts of conversations but in any area that is semi-rural and planning for the future, you're very much on the front line about making decisions about hundreds of species going extinct," Mr Doherty said.
"You need to actually start getting some science around those different options so that it doesn't end up being a Franklin conflict. I don't think that anybody wants to be in a situation where there's a perpetual war between the environment and other aspects of our community.
"We need to start the conversation early, give people a whole range of facts, start the people thinking before they just go into the standard us and them scenarios. We don't want war around the environment, we want reasonable, socially just decisions."
