Plumwood

Tucked deep in the forests of southeastern Australia, Plumwood Mountain carries a story of defiance, deep thinking, and a fight for justice—both ecological and human.

It was home to Val Plumwood, one of Australia’s most radical environmental thinkers, a woman who spent her life challenging how we see nature. And now, more than a decade after her passing, it’s becoming something even bigger: an Indigenous Protected Area (IPA), a place where conservation and justice come together to rewrite the future of this land. 

Val Plumwood: The Philosopher Who Fought for the Forest

Val Plumwood wasn’t just an armchair philosopher—she was on the frontlines. In the 1970s and ‘80s, she was deep in the battle to save the South Coast forests from logging, working alongside other activists to halt destruction that would have wiped out old-growth ecosystems. The Monga Forest Campaign—one of the biggest victories of the time—was driven by this kind of relentless dedication, eventually leading to the creation of Deua and Budawang National Parks.

But Val wasn’t just thinking about trees. She was thinking about how we think—how Western culture has built an artificial divide between humans and nature, treating the environment as something to dominate and control.

She pushed back hard against this mindset, arguing that we needed a whole new way of seeing the world, one that recognized humans as just another part of a vast, interconnected web of life.

And she didn’t just talk about it—she lived it.

 She built her home on Plumwood Mountain, off-grid and surrounded by the forest she fought for. She lived through the land’s seasons, its storms, its quiet moments. She was even attacked by a crocodile while kayaking in Kakadu, a moment that deeply shaped her thinking.

Instead of framing it as a “man versus beast” survival story, she saw it as a humbling experience—one that reminded her that humans are not the masters of nature, just another animal moving through it.