Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

In the 1990s, nuclear issues
continued to dominate,
especially after the Howard
government embarked on
an aggressive expansion of
Australia’s nuclear industry
following its election in 1996.
FoE played a key role working
with the Mirrar people to oppose
the proposed Jabiluka uranium
mine in Kakadu. Practical,
campaign-orientated alliances
with various Indigenous
communities continued with
campaigns against sand mining
on North Stradbroke Island
(Minjeribah) in Queensland and
blockades of logging operations
in western Victoria.
FoE’s involvement in forest issues also
became more prominent in this decade. In
the early 1990s, FoE carried out extensive
campaigns to ensure protection of high
conservation forests around the country.
This included helping to maintain the
direct action camp on Fraser Island in the
campaign that led to the end of logging on
this island.
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On a global level, as neo-liberalism
entered a new phase with a systematic
liberalisation of trade regimes, FoE’s focus
on trade issues grew dramatically, as did
street level opposition to the structures
implementing this agenda.
Community organising against corporate
defined globalisation reached a high point
with the massive protests against the
World Economic Forum meeting held in
Melbourne in 2000. Climate justice and
climate change also became increasingly
high profile campaigns in the later part of
the decade.
A new round of international negotiations
on trade occurred and FoEM took an
active role in mobilising against these.
FoEM was active in the successful
campaign against the Multilateral
Agreement on Investment (MAI), which
would have established a set of rules that
would restrict what governments could do
to regulate international investment and
corporate behaviour.
FoE 30 Years 46