Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

Over 5,000 people visited
or lived at the base camp
established near the proposed
mine site and there were 527
arrests. The camp was set up
in March 1998 at the invitation
of the senior traditional
owner Yvonne Margarula and
blockades of the proposed
uranium mine began in earnest
when construction work began
in June.
This campaign was especially significant
for the sheer power of the blockades, the
resolute determination of the traditional
owners, and the control they asserted
over the whole campaign. Given the
determination of the Federal Government,
which used all the resources it had to
achieve its goals, the victory at Jabiluka is
even more remarkable.
FoE activists played a fairly typical role
during the blockade: taking on a variety of
‘behind the scene’ roles like co-ordinating
buses for travel to Kakadu from capital
cities and working in the kitchen at base
camp. FoE played a key role in the
protests against Jabiluka and helped take
the message further by designing the antinuclear
hand symbol, raising the issue’s
profile in the international NGO community,
lobbying the European Parliament and
nominating Yvonne Margarula for the FoEI
Environment Award.
Meanwhile, the government continued
to advance its plans to replace the
aging nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights
in suburban Sydney. In 1997, it made a
political decision to build a new reactor
ahead of any community or scientific
consultation, needs assessment, siting
alternatives or environmental studies. In
July 2000, the Australian Nuclear Science
and Technology Organisation (ANSTO)
signed a secret construction agreement
with an Argentinean nuclear company
called INVAP.
...................................................................................................................................................................................................
An anti reactor campaign saw local
residents join with the Sutherland Shire
Council, FoE, ACF and Greenpeace in
an attempt to stop the fast tracking of
this project. FoE realised that traditional
federal lobbying or use of the Senate
alone would not be able to stall the
development of this project. While working
in alliances and being fully engaged in
all procedural opportunities around the
approvals process for the reactor, FoE
also looked for other ways to impact on
the development of a related national
radioactive waste facility. The completion
of this dump would be a prerequisite for
the reactor to become operational as
ANSTO’s operations would contribute
almost 90% of the waste that would be
stored at the facility.
In 1999 FoE initiated the idea of working
with communities along the possible
transport routes between the reactor
site in Sydney and the dump location
in South Australia, and the Nuclear
Freeways project was launched. Daniel
Voronoff co-ordinated the initiative and,
with a full scale mock radioactive waste
canister constructed by the Ecological
Designs Group, FoE activists started to
visit communities from western Sydney to
Broken Hill and beyond. The project aimed
to alert these communities to the threats
posed by the waste shipments and spark
significant community resistance to the
Federal Governments plans to transport
and dump radioactive waste.
Bruce Thompson and Loretta O’Brien
maintained this project for several years
and their work led to the dump issue
becoming significant in the NSW election
in March 2003. The project also played
a pivotal role in the resulting NSW
Parliamentary Inquiry into the nuclear
related activities of the Commonwealth
later that year. In early 2004, the Inquiry
recommended that the transport and
dumping plans could not be justified and
should be abandoned.
FoE 30 Years 77