The clearing of native vegetation to grow beef is one of the most devastating things for an
ecologist to witness. To know the diversity of what was there before it was turned into a giant
paddock is heartbreaking, and even in the 21st century, under the spectre of climate change
this practice still continues.

Who cries for the Brigalow
When the clanking machines with their mile-long chains
Turn a forest of life into empty plains
With the splinter and crash of broken trees
While red dust hangs in the summer breeze
Who cries for the Brigalow?

When the goggle-eyed geckos and the fragile frogs
Burn on the pyres of the bulldozed logs
And the grey smoke rises like a million ghosts
Of the creatures that lived on their gnarly hosts
Who cries for the Brigalow?

Even the crows cry out in pain
As diverse bush becomes a plain
And each tree a promise of homes and hollows
Is burned to ash in the fire that follows
who cries for the Brigalow?

The melodious warble of the Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater
No diva has ever sung her song sweeter
The birds are silenced, by the crash and the rattle
Diversity destroyed to feed some more cattle
Who cries for the Brigalow?
İAlexander Dudley/Faunaverse