<P> Nimbin is notable for the prominence of its environmental initiatives such as permaculture, sustainability and self - sufficiency as well as the cannabis counterculture . Writer Austin Pick described his initial impressions of the village this way: "It is as if a smoky avenue of Amsterdam has been placed in the middle of the mountains behind frontier - style building facades...Nimbin is a strange place indeed ." </P> <P> Nimbin has been described in literature and mainstream media as' the drug capital of Australia',' a social experiment' and' an escapist sub-culture' . Nimbin has become an icon in Australian cultural history with many of the values first introduced there by the counterculture becoming part of modern Australian culture . </P> <P> Nimbin and surrounding areas are part of what is known as the "Rainbow Region", which is of cultural importance to the Indigenous Bundjalung people . The name Nimbin comes from the local Whiyabul (Widgibal) clan whose Dreamtime speaks of the Nimbinjee spirit people protecting the area . In recent decades, since 1973, the area has become a haven for Australia's counterculture . </P> <P> Forests of Red Cedar first attracted loggers to the area in the 1840s, but by the end of the century most of the land had been cleared . With the Cedar forests gone, Nimbin was subdivided in 1903 with the land turned over to dairy farming and growing bananas . In the 1960s, the local dairy industry collapsed due to recession and Nimbin went into serious economic decline until 1973, when the Aquarius Festival, a large gathering of university students, practitioners of alternative lifestyles,' hippies' and party people, was held in the village . The Festival was the first event in Australia that sought permission for the use of land from the Traditional Owners and a significant attempt at reconciliation . After the festival hundreds of participants and festival goers remained in Nimbin to form communes and other multiple occupancy communities, in search of an "alternative lifestyle". Nimbin in fact made legal history for the first ever application of group title ownership of land in Australia . Since the Aquarius Festival, the region has attracted thousands of writers, artists, musicians, actors, environmentalists and permaculture enthusiasts, as well as tourists and young families escaping city life . </P>

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