25.8.08
Sweeping award ceremonies is not the only recent milestone in the Crunch Time Australia campaign
“I created this film in the hope it would create real change,” explains Jordan Mundey, the director and producer of Crunch Time: Saving Tura’s Biodiversity.
Last Sunday Jordan and collaborator Jacob Shields (writer/director) received both the Best Film and Best Documentary awards at the 2024 Far South Film Festival for their short film. Their work is part of a broader campaign which is calling for housing solutions which benifit both people and the environment. ‘Community-oriented housing’ is they term being used across the campaign.
Jordan Monday accepting the Far South Film Festival 2024 Best Film Award on behalf of himself and Jacob Shields: Far South Film. PHOTO: Far South Film
From the FSFF judges:
“This was a unanimous jury decision. Passion 10/10”
Jacob and Jordan spent nine months in 2022/23 working on the short film, which tells the story of now-famous Tura Corridor, a remnant piece of threatened ecology which was discovered in 2022 to be under threat of imminent and irreversible damage from a ‘Zombie’ DA (Development Application) from 1989. The 34-year-old approval does not take modern ecological safeguards into account.
The Tura Corridor, an ecological highway on Yuin Country. PHOTO: Jordan Mundey
The film focuses on the extremely special case of the Merimbula Star-Hair plant, which only grows in the Tura Corridor and surrounds, as well as the endangered Yellow-Bellied Glider and Long-nosed Potoroo
“What the film has done for public awareness about Tura Corridor’s significance can’t be overstated.” says local ecologist Elisabeth Larsen, who has a role in the film. “These are extremely rare species that are nocturnal and very shy. Many people didn’t know they existed, let alone knew how important they were, before Crunch Time.”
A Yellow-Bellied Glider photographed after a long stake out in the Tura Corridor. PHOTO: David Gallan
Jordan Mundey was the production powerhouse behind the film, while Jacob Shields is the voice that guides the audience through the trials, tribulations, and significance of the coastal forest. “The fate of the Tura Corridor is to me symbolic of the fate of our planet. We are campaigning for our existence,” explains Jacob, who grew up in Tura Beach near the forest corridor under threat.
For Jordan Mundey, this was about creating something beautiful: “The thing that drew me to creating Crunch Time was the opportunity to tell a meaningful story about passionate people with deep motivations.”
At Crunch Time’s premiere - which sold out all 180 seats at the Merimbula Picture Showman - Jacob and Jordan organised a Q & A panel with the then candidates for the NSW lower house, Cathy Griff and Michael Holland, and Nathan Lygon, a local First Nations leader who also appeared in the film to explain the spiritual significance of Tura Corridor. All of the panellists pledged to do their utmost to protect the forest. Holland went on to win the 2023 NSW lower house elections.
After the documentary was released Jacob and fellow Tura Corridor activist Juliet Fontaine founded Crunch Time Australia, a youth organisation dedicated to stopping dangerous housing developments and realising community-oriented alternatives. In July 2023 Jacob and Juliet visited 6 small communities on the NSW South Coast, all of which were campaigning to prevent destructive housing developments. They held film screenings and ran youth workshops on community-oriented housing in Dalmeny, Tuross Head, Moruya, Broulee, Manyana and Callala Bay.
Juliet Fontaine with Liza Butler MP in Manyana during the Crunch Time South Coast Tour. PHOTO: Supplied
From the tour emerged a network of young South Coast citizens who later that year organised a delegation to NSW Parliament House, where they liaised with the Minister for Environment, Penny Sharpe, and the Minister for Housing and Youth, Rose Jackson. The group presented a set of demands for community-oriented housing solutions to the ministers which they requested to be realised within 2 years. The delegation and demands were documented in Crunch Time produced minifilm, Green Housing: Demanding Sensible Solutions.
Freya Occleshaw speaks with Ministers, Councillors and MPs at the Crunch Time delegation to Parliament House. PHOTO: Supplied
Ongoing Crunch Time activism after the Parliament Delegation and in conjunction with Coastal Residents United has led to a NSW lower house committee decision which could make or break the fate of important natural habitats under threat all along the NSW South Coast.
Crunch Time activist Poppy Collins (left), with Eurobodalla Deputy Mayor Alison Worthington and Shoalhaven Greens candidate Takesa Frank. All in attendance at a CRU event at NSW Parliament House. PHOTO: Supplied
“There is no doubt that Crunch Time was significant in prompting the current NSW Inquiry into Historical Development Consents, which has the potential to rectify these ill advised DAs.”
— Cathy Griff, Deputy Mayor, Bega Valley Shire Council
“This is the beginning”, said Jacob Shields, who has spent the first half of 2024 travelling to Norway, where he is starting a course in ecological micro-housing construction. “I have lots of family in Norway I’ve never gotten to be close with. The journey has been so long because I’ve tried to avoid flying for climate reasons”, he explains. “I’ll be spending the next year getting my head around the practicalities of building houses ecologically, then I’m thinking about going down the architecture route. We’ll see.”
While the future is uncertain for the young people involved in the Crunch Time campaign, we do know some things for sure: they have helped to both put the clearing of the Tura Corridor on ice, and to prompt a parliamentary committee decision which could save large sections of threatened forest on the NSW coast from Zombie DAs.
“The Crunch Time film and organisation was phase one. It was about getting our thoughts out there - now we’re all set on physically creating the communities we want and need,” says Jacob. “We’ve built an incredible team and network, and we’re only just getting started in our adult lives. We find ourselves in this bizarre situation where we sort of have to save the planet, and we are more than up to the challenge.”
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Jacob Shields at Fosen Folkehøyskole in central Norway. He is pictured infront of the ecological micro-houses he is learning to design and build. PHOTO: Supplied