OPINION: Gold Coast Bulletin columnist Paul Weston takes a trip down memory lane for green group Gecko’s birthday

GOLD Coast Bulletin columnist Paul Weston takes a trip down memory lane for green group Gecko’s birthday

Lois Levy of the Gecko environment group with a furry friend.

DEAR columnist,

I wish to send an invitation to yourself and your reader (sorry readers, that was a misspell), to a birthday party.

My party. You do remember my birth, don’t you? More than two decades ago.

Lois Levy and Philip Follent had been sent by the Friends of Currumbin to a four-day workshop in Sydney to learn about environment centres.

Gold Coast Bulletin columnist Paul Weston.

For ten years, they had been part of that small group and a campaign was being fought to stop a marina, shopping centre and housing development which threatened our much loved estuary.

Remember back then, the Coast was booming and Minister for Everything Russ Hinze ruled?

The big fella would have his hands cracking mudcrabs open at a seafood smorgasbord at the new Southport marina as Christopher Skase and Alan Bond along with Japanese investors rode into the town.

And me, I was a young bloke, guided by Lois, a social worker, and mentored by Philip, an award-winning environmental architect.

Quite often Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen would fly over, count the number of cranes in Surfers Paradise and land to “feed the chooks”.

Mudgeeraba’s Sheila Davis, less restrained than Lois, would launch a verbal missile at those National Party farmers.

We had our losses and our laughs, as her husband, Steve, a rural fire brigade volunteer, would offer relief as a stand-up comedian.

Surfrider’s Brad Farmer and Nerang’s Matt Keys would telephone reporters like yourself about the beaches, and up at a small hall near the old Hinze farm at Coomera, Peter Young and Sally Spain preached to a small congregation about environmental ethics.

Benogin’s Peter Armstrong somehow made it onto a pro-development council.

But back on the tourist strip, I can tell you, it was some lonely childhood.

Any time one of us mentioned “global warming” to reporters, they would look at us like we had just smoked some green leaf and listened to a Rodriguez LP.

They still do but sea-level rises are now front page news and the Detroit folkie just performed at the Brisbane Riverstage.

In 1998, when Naturelink headed by Ray Stevens and Terry Morris, attempted to build a cableway through the Springbrook national forest, our campaign killed it off.

Today, young guns Steve Gration and Luke Sorenson tweet and Facebook, organise rallies to stop the cruise ship terminal.

We have a seat at the table with our local MPs and at city hall (sometimes, depending on the mayor), where I go by my full title.

But most people just refer to me as Gecko. My 25th birthday is on October 29.

I’m celebrating, because as a greenie, I thought I’d always be the Coast’s most endangered species. Please join me, regards the Gold Coast Hinterland and Environment Council.