Protect What Remains: Why We Are Speaking Up for Link Road Forest

At Beside Leaders Global, we focus on practical culture transformation and leadership evolution.

We work beside CEOs, boards and leadership teams to build organisations where people, performance and purpose can thrive together. But our belief in thriving ecosystems does not stop at the office door.

Our team also happens to live and work on the land. We care deeply about the forests, wildlife and natural habitats of the regions where we live, work and play.

Rather than waiting for policies, systems or somebody else to create change, we decided to begin where we are.

We plant trees.
We restore habitat.
We support community-led regeneration.
We encourage leaders to consider the impact their organisations have on more than profit and productivity.

Through Thrive Stars, we ask organisations to measure their impact across culture, inclusion, wellbeing, productivity and sustainability. Because an organisation cannot truly thrive while depleting its people, its community or the natural environment that sustains it.

Sometimes leadership means using your voice

Beside Leaders Global is a consultancy, not an environmental advocacy organisation.

We are advisors, coaches, facilitators and culture specialists.

But occasionally, an issue is so significant that remaining silent would be inconsistent with everything we believe about leadership and stewardship.

Sometimes we must use our voice for the trees, birds and animals that cannot speak for themselves.

Link Road Forest is one of those issues.

Located on the western fringe of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, Link Road Forest encompasses approximately 574 hectares of native forest. It is one of the region’s last significant areas of urban bushland and includes ten native plant communities, two of which are threatened ecological communities. It provides habitat and a movement corridor for koalas, squirrel gliders, microbats, glossy black cockatoos, powerful owls, masked owls and more than 100 species of birds. (Save Link Road Forest)

It is more than unused land waiting for development.

It is a living system.

Its trees store carbon, cool surrounding communities, help manage stormwater, support cleaner air and provide refuge for wildlife. Its interconnected habitat allows native animals to move, feed, breed and adapt as development and changing climate conditions place increasing pressure on the natural world. (HCEC)

Once a mature forest ecosystem is cleared, it cannot simply be recreated somewhere else.

Trees can be replanted, but an established ecosystem - its soil, habitat, waterways, nesting sites, food sources and complex relationships developed over generations - cannot be quickly replaced.

Regeneration is everyone’s responsibility

A central principle of our Steward Eldership program is that leadership should leave something meaningful behind.

Every participant undertakes a regenerative project within their organisation or community: something that repairs, restores, strengthens or leaves the system better than they found it.

That project might improve the wellbeing of a workplace, restore trust in a community, regenerate a piece of land, protect habitat or create an opportunity for future generations.

The scale may differ, but the principle remains the same:

We can all play our part.

We do not need to hold political office, lead an environmental organisation or have enormous resources to make a contribution. Sometimes regeneration begins with planting a tree. Sometimes it begins with changing how an organisation measures success. And sometimes it begins with taking one minute to add your name to a petition.

A one-minute action to help protect 574 hectares...

The NSW Government is considering a state-led rezoning process that could remove existing environmental protections and open significant areas of Link Road Forest to residential development. The government is expected to consider the future of the land during the second half of 2026. (Save Link Road Forest)

An official NSW Parliament ePetition is calling for Link Road Forest to be protected and preserved.

The petition closes on Friday, 14 August 2026. It needs 20,000 signatures to reach the threshold for formal debate in the NSW Legislative Council. (Parliament of NSW)

If you live in New South Wales, please take one minute to add your name.

Sign the petition at linkroadforest.com

Then share it with your colleagues, friends, family and networks across NSW. This is not about standing against housing or progress. It is about asking whether progress must always come at the cost of the natural systems that protect and sustain us. It is about supporting thoughtful planning that meets the needs of growing communities without automatically sacrificing irreplaceable native forests.

At Beside Leaders Global, our manifesto calls us to think beyond immediate outcomes and short-term decisions. To act with stewardship. To consider the generations who will inherit the consequences of the choices we make today. To protect what remains.

Your signature may take only a minute, but the forest we are seeking to protect has taken generations to become what it is.

Please add your voice before14 August 2026.

The trees, birds and animals cannot sign the petition. But we can. And perhaps one day, our grandchildren will thank us for it.