In October 2011, breathtaking images of Scenic Rim protestors with homemade banners and cheering on peaks and in paddocks beamed across television screens and splashed onto newspapers across Australia.
More than a thousand people registered to take part in Protestors on Peaks (POP), unfurling banners across our magically beautiful region.
If you weren’t on a peak, you might have been in a field or a kayak on a lake.
Organised by Keep the Scenic Rim Scenic, POP was an epic undertaking and the largest single action in a national day of action against coal seam gas. In the days before, organisers dropped a banner off Frog Buttress at Mount French for an exclusive Channel Seven media event, and television stations planned an aerial flyover on the day to capture footage.
At the last minute, the commercial channels pulled the plug, so Mt Barney Lodge came to the rescue. Innes and Tracey Larkin funded a helicopter and arranged for the event to be captured through the lenses of Andrew Peacock (stills - Footloose Photography) and Rob Hales (video).
The sheer scale of our mountains dwarfed the enormous banners, and they had to navigate by a map to find the banners.
These images made news across Australia and were even featured in international reporting.
For weeks afterwards, people across the Rim shared stories of their part - memories of banner making with new-found friends, heroic climbs and feats of endurance. A lot of people went to great lengths to be in place before the 11am flyover.
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