Save Our Jarrah Forests — Original Painting Auction

Description

An ancient living forest

Western Australia’s Jarrah Forest is part of one of the world’s great biodiversity hotspots. These forests have developed over millions of years and support an extraordinary variety of plants, animals, birds, reptiles, insects and fungi.

South-west Western Australia supports more than 6,000 native plant species, with around 75% found nowhere else in the world.

Some of the oldest jarrah trees have stood for hundreds of years. As they age, hollows form in their trunks and branches, creating essential nesting and shelter sites for native wildlife. These hollows can take more than a century to develop. Fallen timber, understory plants, waterways, fungi and the forest floor are all part of the same complex habitat. What we see today has taken generations to grow.

A tiny snapshot of an extraordinary habitat

I have filled this painting with some of the remarkable species found within these south-west forest ecosystems. There are more than 40 different plants and animals represented, yet they are only a tiny snapshot of the life these forests support.

Look closely among the trees and you will find a djer-djer (blue wren), a kambany (tawny frogmouth) with babies, a djidi-djidi (willie wagtail), an eagle, a karak (forest red-tailed black cockatoo), a Ngoorlark (Carnaby’s cockatoo), a kooba (scarlet robin), a red-capped robin, a kanyinak (kingfisher) and a grey fantail. Forest red-tailed black cockatoos have a particularly close relationship with these forests, feeding heavily on the seeds of jarrah and marri. Carnaby’s cockatoos also depend on native vegetation for food and on the hollows of old eucalypts for nesting.

Hidden among the branches, logs and forest floor are a western false pipistrelle, inland kwoka (quokka), mardo (yellow-footed antechinus), chuditch (western quoll), noombat (numbat), nyingarn (echidna), kwenda (quenda), kwoora (western brush wallaby), wawding (western ringtail possum) and kingo (red-tailed phascogale). The tiny western false pipistrelle hunts insects at night and shelters in tree hollows. Chuditch use hollow logs and other sheltered places as dens, while the numbat is one of Australia’s few marsupials that is active during the day and feeds almost entirely on termites.

The smaller inhabitants are here too. I have included yoorn (shingleback lizard), black-headed tree monitor, Stimson’s python, motorbike frog, pygmy perch, peacock spider, ngoowak (blue-banded bees) and hairy-backed marron. Motorbike frogs get their wonderful name from a call that sounds remarkably like a motorbike changing gears. Blue-banded bees are native solitary bees and important pollinators, while the tiny, brilliantly coloured peacock spiders are famous for the elaborate courtship displays performed by the males.

Throughout all of this wildlife I have woven the plants and fungi that help create the forest itself. There are balga (grass trees), kangaroo paws, old man’s beard (Clematis pubescens), mungite (bull banksia), wattle, kararr (spider orchid), djara (jarrah tree), karril (karri tree), zamia palms, bracken fern, numar (Australian beefsteak fungus, Fistulina spiculifera) and graceful parasol (Macrolepiota clelandii) tucked into the painting.

Even with all of these species together on one canvas, this is only a glimpse of what lives here. I hope people spend time looking through the painting, finding its different inhabitants and thinking about the habitat each one needs to survive.

Why these forests need our help

The Jarrah Forest faces continuing pressure from land clearing and fragmentation associated with mining and development. Climate change, altered fire regimes and diseases such as dieback add further pressure.

When mature forest is cleared, wildlife can lose feeding grounds, nesting sites, tree hollows, hollow logs and the corridors they use to move through the landscape. For threatened species already under pressure, the loss of suitable habitat can have serious consequences.

These forests have taken an extraordinary length of time to develop. Protecting them means protecting the whole living system and giving the species that depend on it a future.

LEAP, Locals for Environmental Action and Protection, is working at a community level to protect the environment and raise awareness about the impacts of bauxite mining on the Jarrah Forest and surrounding communities.

Art for action

I created this original acrylic painting because I wanted to contribute to the protection of the Jarrah Forest in the way I know best, through my art.

The original will be auctioned online from 10 to 24 October 2026, with bidding starting at $5,500. All funds raised will go to LEAP and may help support water quality sampling, dust monitoring, motion cameras to identify threatened fauna in impacted areas, and Freedom of Information requests.

A3 prints of Save Our Jarrah Forests will also be available, with proceeds going to LEAP.

Online auction

10–24 October 2026

Opening bid: $5,500

All funds raised from the auction of the original painting will go to LEAP.

Learn more about the campaign at endforestmining.org.au.

Noongar language varies across Country, and names and spellings can differ between language groups and regions.