Director and Producer: Jane Hammond
Narrator: Kelton Pell

Synopsis:

Western Australia’s unique south west forests have stood for millennia and are a key part of one of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots, yet we are cutting them down at a rate of nearly ten football fields every single day. More than 80 per cent of the trees felled will be turned into woodchips, charcoal or paper and burnt within two years of being cut down. An initially successful battle to save WA’s native forests in the 1990s led to a public perception that these forests had been protected but, in the intervening decades, the hard-won gains have slowly been eroded away.

Forests play a crucial role in the water cycle, but the streams that once bubbled through these unique ecological communities in Western Australia are drying up and the critical habitat they provide for endangered species is shrinking.

Cry of the Forests takes viewers into these majestic forests to meet the activists armed with go-pros and dressed in camouflage gear, risking their lives to bear witness to the logging. We meet traditional custodians, tourist operators and farmers on the frontline of the battle to protect these forests.

Released in 2020, the film and social impact campaign were instrumental in bringing an end to all native forest logging in Western Australia by 2024.

If you have seen and enjoyed the film or would like to see it, consider hosting your own screening to share the documentary and its messages with a larger audience.