Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Easter 1986. The ‘Broad Left’ conference addressed the emergence of a ‘more extreme and confident right wing in Australia and how the left could effectively meet this challenge’. The ‘Getting Together’ conference attempted to show “the common ground shared between the various faces of the alternative movements in Australia, and to find ways of using our common ideals to strengthen mutual support”. External influences also affected the organisation and broader environment movement in these years. On July 10, 1985, two mines exploded on the hull of the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior berthed in Auckland harbour killing Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira. Green groups had to become more careful about infiltration and ‘dirty tricks’ campaigns. The threat of nuclear war continued and, as more activists became influenced by punk culture and disillusioned at the ability of mass mobilisations to have impact on big picture decisions, more spontaneous and disruptive actions such as ‘Stop the City’ protests started to occur. In Melbourne, Young People Against Global Violence organised the first ‘Stop the City’, targeting the stock exchange, WMC and other sites to ‘expose the role of financial institutions in their … profitable business of militarism and oppression.’ These actions were consciously anarchist in style and structure. Cold War conflicts and the threat of nuclear annihilation continued, yet these issues were seen by many in the broader community as either a remote threat or one about which they could do nothing. In terms of global politics, the Australian Journal of Mining (AJM) suggested that in the struggle between the USA and the USSR, FoE was effectively on the side of the Soviet Union: “it is part of a network of peace organisations which regard the USA and the multinationals – and not the USSR - as the prime threat to world peace”. The article failed to explain why FoE responded so strongly to the Chernobyl disaster ................................................................................................................................................................................................... In 1998, FoE Australia hosted the international network for the fime. beyond claiming that previously FoE had viewed the Soviet nuclear program as being ‘socialist’ and therefore ‘good’. The AJM’s conspiracy theory approach to the role of environmental groups and particularly to FoE continued when the Journal also claimed that some articles in Chain Reaction contained ‘many Soviet disinformation themes’. As the decade wore on, waste minimisation in general and recycling in particular grew as issues. The FoEM recycling campaign, through the efforts of Fran McDonald and Murray Keeble carried out excellent work in this area. The dominant campaign of the time focussed on demands to legislate for deposits to be paid on drink containers. South Australia FoE 30 Years 38
was (and remains to this day) the only state with Container Deposit Legislation (CDL) and the beverage industry fought a long and well funded campaign to ensure this situation continued. FoES mounted a strong argument about the employment benefits that would be created through good recycling and CDL, estimating that an extra 3,000 jobs would be created in NSW if CDL was to be implemented in that state. FoEM established the Recycling and Employment project (funded by the Victorian Ministry of Employment and Training), which carried out research into the employment potential of recycling schemes. FoE campaigners remained cautious on the issue of a proposed litter tax put forward in 1984 because of the possibility that it would, in Richard Nankin’s words, “victimise consumers” without “addressing the problems of wasted resources and energy and the serious disposal problems created by throw away packaging”. In approaching its campaigns, FoE consistently placed simple issues in a deeper context of consumption, social implications and political structures. ................................................................................................................................................................................................... Urban or ‘brown’ issues were consistently covered by FoE activists during the eighties, while traditional biodiversity issues continued to dominate public debate. Ian Watson, in Fighting for the Forests, wrote that “urban issues have always been poor cousins in that family of issues which have pre-occupied Australian conservationists” but noted that “FoE, the most socially radical of the environmental groups of the 1970s and 1980s, regularly analysed major urban issues”. The profile of FoE started to wane in the mid and later part of the decade, partly as ‘environmental’ concerns became more narrowly defined. Forest campaigns were the dominant priority of much of the movement and received the bulk of media attention and funding throughout the 1980s and 90s. The Tasmanian Wilderness Society, through the brilliantly successful Franklin River campaign in 1983, transformed itself into The Wilderness Society (TWS), with branches across the mainland. In true form, FoE’s main published contribution to the Franklin River campaign was a cover story in Chain Reaction on employment in Tasmania, which drew the conclusion that ‘building dams destroys jobs in other sectors of the Tasmanian economy’. As other groups gained profile on more popular and ‘sellable’ biodiversity issues, FoE continued to plough on FoE 30 Years 39
Page 2 and 3: Up to a few decades ago, many peopl
Page 4 and 5: It seemed like a simple idea: to pr
Page 6 and 7: The optimism, courage and creativit
Page 8 and 9: Over thirty years, FoE has develope
Page 10 and 11: decades. In Australia, FoE is commi
Page 12: This group acted as an inspiration
Page 15 and 16: In the 1970s, a handful of key issu
Page 17 and 18: Apart from working on the direct im
Page 19 and 20: In the mid ‘70s I was studying en
Page 21 and 22: In 1976, there was a strong campaig
Page 23 and 24: egan to jostle for access to Antarc
Page 25 and 26: Keith Suter The future is never as
Page 28 and 29: I first became aware of FoE via Pet
Page 30 and 31: I remember the attempts of the nucl
Page 33 and 34: I grew up with the threat of global
Page 35 and 36: ...................................
Page 37 and 38: In late 1980 a couple of people who
Page 39 and 40: In the 1980s, there was a shift to
Page 41 and 42: The Australian Mining Journal noted
Page 43: sense that these issues formed a pa
Page 47 and 48: Ila Marks Dave Sweeney talking at t
Page 49 and 50: from a community radio background,
Page 51 and 52: FoE 30 Years 45
Page 53 and 54: In the early 1990s, the nuclear ind
Page 55: With the Gulf War and the Dili mass
Page 58 and 59: What makes these comments sadder in
Page 60 and 61: FoE 30 Years 54 ...................
Page 62 and 63: Action outside the state government
Page 64 and 65: a month. Perhaps the seminal moment
Page 68 and 69: The first meeting of the Dharnya Al
Page 72 and 73: From 1985 until 1992, undercover of
Page 74 and 75: Kathleen McCann In 1996 I was in Ja
Page 76 and 77: FoE 30 Years 70
Page 78 and 79: Dave Sweeney From its earliest days
Page 80 and 81: March at the Jabiluka mine site, NT
Page 82 and 83: The camp’s office was located wit
Page 86 and 87: ...................................
Page 90 and 91: Gillian Walker ....................
Page 92 and 93: When it was announced that Melbourn
Page 94 and 95:
FoE 30 Years 88 ...................
Page 96 and 97:
Greens Senator, Bob Brown, 2004 ...
Page 98 and 99:
Steph Long, Kim Stewart Friends of
Page 100 and 101:
Australia has been largely obliviou
Page 102:
Fossil fuels have not bought wealth
Page 105 and 106:
Roman Orzanski Possibly the first F
Page 107 and 108:
Everyone helped make the procession
Page 109 and 110:
In 1996, Consolidated Rutile Ltd ga
Page 111 and 112:
Melia Bugeja, FoE Melbourne Food Co
Page 113 and 114:
genetic engineering and techno-indu
Page 115 and 116:
East Gippsland (CROEG) to launch th
Page 117 and 118:
...................................
Page 119 and 120:
1994. VicRoads was planning to wide
Page 121 and 122:
Lee Tan “Let’s chuck in some co
Page 123 and 124:
Friends of the Earth in Sydney (FoE
Page 125 and 126:
Herald Sun Columnist, Andrew Bolt P
Page 127 and 128:
change. Mark Carter, co-founder of
Page 129 and 130:
Australia given Indigenous manageme
Page 131 and 132:
Their final edition, in the year th
Page 134 and 135:
FoEA is a federation rather than an
Page 136 and 137:
input to national decision making f
Page 138:
are independent. A secretariat base
Page 141 and 142:
lead to some form of wisdom: a know
Page 143 and 144:
FoE 30 Years 137
Page 145 and 146:
FoE 30 Years 139
Page 147 and 148:
FoE 30 Years 141
Page 149 and 150:
Anon (1987); Know your FoE; the Coe
Page 151 and 152:
Page 5 • ‘U Mines’ - Through
Page 153 and 154:
1990s Page 46 • Image from Chain
Page 155 and 156:
• The march that followed the ‘
Page 158:
Page 116 • FoE ran a food stall a
show all

Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?