Margo Kingston

Margo Kingston

Co-publisher and editor-in-chief at No Fibs
Margo Kingston is a retired Australian journalist and climate change activist. She is best known for her stint as Phillip Adams’ ‘Canberra Babylon’ contributor and her work at The Sydney Morning Herald and #Webdiary. Since 2012, Kingston has been a citizen journalist, reporting and commenting on Australian politics via Twitter and No Fibs.
Margo Kingston

Ken Henry and I reside in Comboyne, the village on the Comboyne Plateau north of the Bulga Plateau. Ken’s father was a logger and he grew up in Taree before becoming Treasury Secretary for Peter Costello and Paul Keating and chairman of the NAB. 

Ken, his wife Naomi and I joined citizen scientists in the Bulga State forest twice to spotlight for endangered greater gliders before NSW Forestry Corp began logging. Their findings force it by law to exempt their tree dens and surrounds from logging. They do this because the Corp surveyed for greater gliders by day, despite the marsupials emerging after dusk.

Ken is busy with the ‘Accounting for Nature’ project which is creating a method to put an economic value on nature and nature repair before it’s too late. He spoke at last week’s inaugural World Nature Positive Summit as arrests mounted in the Bulga State Forest to delay logging. 

Environment Minster Tanya Plibersek said in in her keynote address: “Until our businesses and economic decision makers are factoring the value of nature into our economic decision-making – until our economic settings change – nature will continue to go backwards. We are at the start of the road when it comes to nature positive and turning things around.”

Our job is not just to do the work, but to take others along with us. To build coalitions, with unlikely allies as well as our traditional partners. 

Despite the NSW Government co-hosting the summit its environment minster Penny Sharpe was a no show. No wonder – in our interview Ken told me the NSW government has an elaborate environment offset scheme for developers but exempts its own State Forest logging from the scheme.

We discussed proposals to save the NSW People’s forests and a frontline running out of puff and needing help. 

More information

My Saturday Paper piece on my arrest is here:
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/environment/2024/10/19/lock-reporting-protests-joining-them 

No Fibs #SaveBulgaForest coverage.

My daily Tele on my 2014 unexpected arrest at the #leardblockade is here:
https://nofibs.com.au/getting-arrested-wtf-is-journalism-and-whos-the-extremist-margokingston1-interview-with-dailytelegraph/

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