Interview with Shiloh Herzberg Nicholls
Shiloh is a founder of the youth-led Coastcare group Forest Heart, based at Red Head. Shiloh was eleven years old when she helped get the group started four years ago.
Hi Shiloh, thanks for agreeing to chat with me. Did you grow up in the Hallidays Point area?
Basically, yeah. We’ve been here since I was six years old.
So what inspired you to start the Forest Heart group?
Its actual conception was about five years ago when I was ten. Me and a few friends were talking about how we’re all very passionate about the earth, protecting the earth and advocating for climate action and we were wondering what would be something hands-on that we could do that would help. And probably in large part thanks to my Nanna, (long-term Landcare member, Helen Hannah) who I’ve always looked up to, we landed on tree planting as something we could do. So we started bringing the group together, working out the logistics, and then on August 1st, 2021 we had our first community planting day to kick things off and the rest is history, I guess!
Yeah, awesome. So what originally inspired you and your friends to care about climate change and the state of the planet? Obviously, your Nana’s been a big influence, but have there been other people?
Yeah. All our parents as well have always been environmental advocates and encouraged us to be environmental advocates. In 2019 I got involved with Schools Strike for Climate briefly and that was very empowering for me, and I wanted to continue doing things. I think we’ve all just always been very environmentally conscious.
Had you heard of Landcare or Coastcare before starting the Forest Heart group?
Yeah, because my Nana has been involved with Landcare in Taree for at least a couple of decades.
So has she been your biggest support in running the group?
Obviously all our parents and families have been very supportive, but definitely Nana’s done a lot of the heavy lifting, helped with a lot of organisation, taught us a lot about the sort of organisation and logistics we need to take care of. And also taught us a lot about the trees themselves.
What’s the main thing you and the Forest Heart want to achieve? What would you like to see come from it all, all your hard work?
I think our original vision, us kids, we really just wanted to support the environment in any way we could. And in many was the vision that has pushed us over these last three years is the idea of one day being able to come back to our site and see all the trees that we’ve planted and know that we’ve done something good.
Do you feel like your group has the support of the local community?
Yeah, I reckon so. Every time we’ve had a community day we’ve had a good turnout. There’s only, I’d say, a few people within the Hallidays Point community who are less supportive. And sometimes they can be loud but.. *shrugs* you know..
So what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt from starting up and continuing to run the Forest Heart group?
I’d say I’ve learnt a lot about leadership and how to talk to the group and make sure we’re all on the same page with things. Listening to ideas and stuff.
Has it been much of an effort for you to keep people involved or motivated month after month?
Obviously it can sometimes be difficult, because we have families with young kids who can sometime find it difficult to get up early on the weekends and come out. But most of the time people are very motivated to come out because it’s something that feels very important and it’s quite fun and we’re all friends with each other. So there’s a real sense of community that we have.
That’s great. I know it’s something you and I have already talked about a fair bit already, but could you describe briefly the experience you and the group went through with the poisoning that happened last year and, following on from that the massive community day at the start of December? That must have been a real emotional roller coaster for all of you?
Yeah, absolutely it was. Finding out that the trees had been poisoned was horrible. All this work that we’d done. I think one of the things that hit me the hardest was seeing some of the bigger trees that we’d planted three years ago. Some of the eucalypts in particular that we’d hoped would advance koala habitat, that had been killed. Yeah, it was really rough. And the most shocking thing was that someone would be so malicious and spiteful to do that. It still kind of confuses me. It doesn’t make sense.
But yeah, that community day that we had was amazing because we had so much support from so many people and we were able to replant a pretty significant chunk of what had been lost, so yeah, that was amazing.
Did that community day help you feel the support of the community? Did the sheer number of people help you you feel like most people were on your side?
Yeah, very much so. Obviously we’d all been very shaken up, but the show of support really helped everyone to feel reassured that something like that wouldn’t happen again. The fact that so much of the community turned out to support us helped us all feel very reassured and very pleasantly surprised.
Manning Coastcare is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year, and their theme for the celebrations is “30 years past, 30 years future”. And people like yourself are the future of Coastcare, so I was wondering whether you have any thoughts about what that could possibly look like?
Well, I would hope that Coastcare does continue for at the very least 30 more years! Yeah, I reckon it would be great to get more young people involved, as well as continuing all the bush regen that Coastcare’s been doing. It’s amazing work that Coastcare’s done, and there’s so much more work that can be done.
I agree, we do need more young people involved!
Well, that’s fantastic, thank you so much Shiloh, I really appreciate your time!
Interview and write up by Coast Coordinator, Helen Kemp April 2025
