Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

The first Friends of the Earth
(FoE) group in Australia formed
in Adelaide in 1972, one of a
number of organisations that
grew out of a group called Social
Action. In early 1973, FoE was
established in Melbourne. These
early organisations, based in the
broad social movements that
were forming across Australia and
around the world, were products of
their times.
The FoE group world wide was
originally set up by David Brower and
others in the USA in 1969, after David
resigned from the Sierra Club (a large
and mainstream nature-conservation
orientated group) frustrated that the
organisation would not tackle nuclear
issues or work at the international level.
Thus, from its beginning, FoE was
international in its perspective and had a
strong focus on social issues. The idea
of an environmental network working on
contemporary issues in new ways was
clearly a timely one and groups quickly
formed in a number of countries.
FoE was established in the early stages
of the social transformation happening
across Australia that had been influenced
by similar movements elsewhere in
the 1970s. There was a growing public
awareness of ecology, the land rights
movement was becoming increasingly
militant and the NSW Builders Labourers
Federation (BLF) under the leadership of
Jack Mundey was profoundly changing
the role of trade unions as it took a leading
national position on a range of social and
environmental concerns. The alternate
lifestyle counter culture had held a number
of enormous gatherings and the women’s
and gay liberation movements were
prominent and dynamic.
Against this social backdrop, FoE, based
on the concept of radical grassroots
environmental action, took off like wildfire.
FoE’s origins contrasted some of the
slightly older environmental organisations
that were described in 1976 by FoE
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activist, Neil Barrett as the “establishment,
government-funded group(s) which
sprang out of an older style, middle class
movement”. For many, the new network
structure of FoE was important because
it offered an alternative to the often
hierarchical structures of many other
national environment groups.
FoE is a prominent example of ‘second
wave’ environmentalism. From its
inception, it was very much a part of the
broader social movements of the day,
and political opinions and styles within
the network were diverse. As Margaret
Jones later commented in Chain Reaction
magazine in 1982, “FoE appeared
to me to be somewhat fragmented.
Some campaigns were run on a liberalauthoritarian
structure, while in others
attempts at collectivism were made. Some
argued that FoE’s many varied campaigns
required equally varied methods and that
a uniform structure or commitment to an
ideology would be repressive.” While there
was diversity of opinion and politics and
some internal disagreements, FoE was
firmly based in a broad, progressive, left
tradition.
FoE 30 Years 8