Today's blockade of coal seam gas company, Metgasco, at Glenugie near Grafton was a huge success despite the company's drill rig making it onto the property.
It took a force of about 80 police nine hours to clear the blockaders and eighteen people were arrested.
Six of those arrested refused to accept bail conditions and will spend the night in the cells before being brought before a magistrate in the morning.
The bail conditions would have made it illegal for any of the six to go within three kilometres of the site and has been used by police in the past to try to shut down such campaigns.
Lock the Gate Alliance president, Drew Hutton, said the day showed the fighting spirit of the Northern Rivers.
"Metgasco will run into the same sorts of resistance wherever it tries to bring major equipment like drill rigs into a community that doesn't want them," Mr Hutton said.
"I am very proud of all the people who mounted today's resistance and it shows the determination of them, and many like them, to keep coal seam gas out of their region.
Mr Hutton said he was confident blockades like the one at Glenugie would soon begin to happen in other regions threatened by both coal mining and coal seam gas.