Craig Duncan, Gelorup - 2023 (PEOPLE 2023)

The Gelorup Corridor was 70 hectares of pristine bushland. Originally logged for jarrah wood, the forest that remained became an untouched oasis, between the establishing town of Bunbury and a vast sea of monoculture farmland. Home to the critically endangered western ringtail possum, black cockatoos and black-striped minnows. The corridor was an ecological stronghold in the ever-diminishing biodiversity of Western Australia’s southwest. As part of the greater Bunbury planning scheme, the land was put aside, for the potential development of a road in the early 1980s. People built homes around the area, farmland expanded, and a group of people got together to protect the forest in their backyard. The Friends of the Gelorup Corridor was established in 1985 and began lobbying for the planned route to change. For 30 years the group fought to save the Corridor. However, in 2019, funding for the Bunbury Outer Ring Road was granted and the Corridor was set to be destroyed. The group mustered all the support possible, pleading that the route could be changed to the farmland parallel to the Corridor. Main Roads argued the costs of developing farmland would be greater than clearing the forest and stuck to their plan. On the 1st of August 2022, bulldozers were unloaded, and clearing began. Within a year the corridor was gone. These are the people that remain.

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