Every runner loves a new race especially when it’s a challenge that helps you get fitter, run with and against others, whilst also protecting wild places.

The Pilliga Ultra series, created by the team who conceived the takayna Trail event (an event that has raised well over $600k to protect the majestic Tarkine rainforest) have just launched a 5km, 20km and 50km race to protect the beautiful Pilliga Forest in New South Wales from coal seam gas mining.

Half a million hectares of this rare intact temperate eucalypt woodland are under threat from mining company Santos’ plans to drill up to 850 coal seam gas wells in this ancient landscape.

At 95,000 hectares, the Narrabri Gas Project is the largest, by land area, ever proposed in NSW. It would be 38 times the size of Sydney, and would set a precedent that risks fast-tracking the destruction of our precious forests and wildlife.

All for the sake of a fossil fuel resource that threatens the future of our planet.

Fredrik Henttonen, Race Director said ’Trail runners are natural allies of the environment. The love for our sport literally depend on the health and wellbeing of our wild and natural places.

‘I’ve seen the power and motivation that trail runners have when they unite to protect the environment. Creating a series of races where runners directly contribute to the protection and conservation of these places simply by participating just made sense to us.

It was such an obvious, yet missing link that we hope will resonate with people.

With only 100 places available, ‘The Pilliga Ultra; a run to keep the Pilliga Wild’, is a bucket-list, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run in a unique wild place, and stand united with the local community and Gamilaraay peoples against the destruction of our wild places.

Our sport, and our connection to it, depends on the survival of these environments.

 
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