Environmental Blockades

Obstructive Direct Action and the History of the Environmental Movement

Iain McIntyre

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367480554
• eBook ISBN: 9781000395884
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: History

Since the 1970s, environmental blockades disrupting the exploitation and destruction of forests, rivers, and other biodiverse places have been one of the most attention-grabbing and contentious forms of political action. This book explores when, where, and why environmental blockading and its associated tactics first arose.

The author explores a broad range of questions, including how did tactics and practices first developed and popularised during environmental blockades come to feature regularly in animal rights, peace, refugee, and other campaigns? What are blockaders hoping to achieve? How have such blockades and tactics shaped government policy, the culture of modern politics, and popular understandings of ecology, colonialism, and activism? This book offers the first comprehensive history and analysis of environmental blockading in three key countries: Australia, the United States, and Canada. As the first places to experience sustained protest cycles which fully established, promoted, and developed the environmental blockading repertoire as an ongoing strategic option for movements nationally and internationally, these campaigns were central in creating a new approach to conservation issues. They also played a leading role in making obstructive direct action a regular part of political campaigning, as seen in the form of the Extinction Rebellion (XR), alter-globalisation, climate justice, and other movements.

This book draws on rigorous archival research including sources ranging from personal diaries, campaign minutes, and video footage through to police reports and newspaper articles, as well as interviews with more than 30 protest leaders and campaigners. It will be of great interest to students and scholars in the fields of sociology, political science, history, green criminology, and interdisciplinary environmental studies.

1

“The forest in question was regarded as territory”

The Terania Creek campaign and the creation of the environmental blockading template

As discussed in the Introduction, Australia’s first forest blockade took place at Terania Creek in 1979. This campaign was a catalytic event in an Australian cycle of protest that extended between 1979 and 1984, popularising environmental blockading in the process. It pioneered a new combination of consensus decision-making, protest camps, and normative protester behaviour. And it had a global influence on environmental struggle.

This chapter will explore and analyse the unfolding of this pioneering campaign as well as the conditions under which it developed. It will first consider the grievances that gave rise to the protest and the political context it emerged from before providing a history of the blockade itself. As a case study presenting many dynamics which remain current in blockading it introduces a number of processes and factors shaping tactical choice and innovation.

The founding of the Terania Native Forest Action Group

The Terania Creek campaign and the forms of protest it developed grew out of a specific community’s concern with the natural environment. It was shaped by members’ pre-existing attitudes towards politics, protest, and the law, and dissatisfaction with contemporary life. From the early 1970s onwards up to one thousand people moved to rural northern New South Wales (NSW) in response to disenchantment “with the technocratic, economic, and political realities of the city, and unease with the social divisiveness and environmental impact of modernity”.¹ A distinctive set of lifestyles, labelled the “New Settler” movement, emerged, combining economic and cultural alternatives involving communes, spirituality, self-sufficient agriculture, and environmentally sustainable technology. This reflected a global phenomenon as tens of thousands of members of radical and countercultural movements in Western countries left cities in attempts to explore alternative lifestyles and more immediately implement cultural and economic change.²

The campaign to prevent logging at Terania Creek, a 700-hectare remnant of rainforest in rural northern NSW, began in 1974 when two NSW Forestry Commission (FC) workers were discovered working on roads in the state government–owned forest, neighbouring land owned by Nan and Hugh Nicholson. When they learnt that the FC intended to clear fell and burn the forest before replanting it with Flooded Gum, they and others formed the Channon Resident’s Group, later renaming it the Terania Native Forest Action Group (TNFAG).³

The form of organisation that these activists drew upon, that of a “resident action group”, had been popularised in Australia during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Such semi-formal political bodies were based in a specific neighbourhood or area, organised on a “grassroots” rather than party political basis, and campaigned against activities by municipal and state governments and private companies that were deemed to be a threat to the social and environmental health of local communities. Their form of activity and organisation drew on examples from the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as Australian traditions of community organising during the 1930s and 1950s, and extended the existing protest repertoire through connections to the “green bans” movement.⁴ ‘As a modular form of organisation, it was easily extended from its urban origins to rural campaigns such as that at Terania Creek.

While the countercultural nature of the New Settler community meant that it largely eschewed the accumulation of income and capital, significant sections of its membership were highly resourced in other ways. A number of those involved in Terania Creek and the campaigns that followed had developed skills in public relations, journalism, research, and other areas through the careers they had pursued before “dropping out” and new ones were learnt as required. Many of these individual’s pre-existing political and media contacts were reactivated and exploited as the group engaged in scientific research, lobbying, and a media campaign. Although involvement fluctuated, by 1979 TNFAG numbered around 30 members with a core of ten who had developed substantial campaigning skills.⁵

Although concerned about road safety due to the presence of logging trucks, TNFAG was primarily troubled with what they saw as the unnecessary destruction of a beautiful area. As with many involved in future blockades those living close to Terania Creek had formed an intimate connection with the ecosystem and perceived that it had an intrinsic worth enhanced by the degree to which it had remained undeveloped. Over the decades such values and emotional attachments would drive many activists to engage in long and exhausting campaigns as well as put their bodies at risk. As Nan Nicholson recalled in an unpublished manuscript:

The forest in question was regarded as territory, producing very strong protective instincts in those who lived next door or very close at hand… No political reasons or ideology could have given such impetus to opposition as the sight of such a valley night and morning.⁶

The political and bureaucratic context of the campaign

TNFAG’s opposition to logging formed part of growing scientific criticism regarding bureaucratic administration and government policies. The body responsible for overseeing the exploitation of NSW’s publicly owned forests, the Forestry Commission, was typical of many around Australia and the world at the time. Its critics considered it to favour commercial value, employment, and sawmiller’ profits over biodiversity. Policies giving precedence to logging over conservation in turn led to forms of regeneration that prioritised individual species over the conservation and maintenance of entire ecosystems.⁷

Activism concerning forest issues was led by a new wave of conservation organisations which had emerged in the 1970s, such as the Colong Committee and Total Environment Centre (TEC), or developed out of older ones such as the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF). Dominated by a core of fulltime activists, these bodies, unlike their polite forebears, were willing to engage in open, albeit civil, conflict with their opponents. Engaging in public protest they focused on winning campaigns by lobbying business and government, building political alliances, and mobilising public support via the media.⁸

Sydney-based organisations had been campaigning to preserve the remaining 253,000 ha of rainforest in the state, 12.5 per cent of which had not been logged or developed since colonisation.⁹ Their aim was to protect large swathes of forest in national parks, in which logging and extractive activities would be banned. Although the FC remained unswayed, political opportunities had begun to open up with the election of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to the State Government of NSW on a strong environmental platform in 1976. Although the party was divided over its policies, activists enjoyed considerable support in cabinet and the Premier’s Office.¹⁰

As the ALP had begun establishing inquiries, rescinding FC decisions, and negotiating industry compensation in order to create new national parks, the major organisations considered Terania Creek, sections of which had been previously logged, as too insignificant to prioritise. Privately these increasingly professionalised organisations doubted the ability of what they viewed as the “hippies” associated with TNFAG to run an effective campaign and advised their ALP allies that the issue was unlikely to develop into one of concern to them or the public.¹¹

Despite this, and the fact that the NSW Forestry Act lacked formal public input processes, TNFAG pressed their case by writing over 150 letters to interested parties. They also presented submissions to politicians, held public meetings and protests, and produced Australia’s first environmental TV advertisement.¹²

Faced with opposition, the FC implemented compromises regarding transportation and the species to be cut. For a bureaucracy little used to negotiation, these may have seemed major concessions, but they were rejected by TNFAG. In line with ALP policy and draft legislation, the group demanded an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be issued before logging could commence. The request was denied and by February 1977 key conservation allies Premier Wran and Environment Minister Paul Landa had made it clear that they would not risk a confrontation with pro-logging forces within their party. Despite the minimal profit of $9,000–15,000 expected on logging, the FC provided Lismore company Standard Sawmills with a licence to begin operations.¹³

From TNFAG’s perspective the primary issues for the FC concerned the wider consequences for the timber industry and a desire to maintain its decision-making dominance. Added to this were gender dynamics. Although women, mainly the wives of loggers and contractors, would later take a leading role in pro-logging groups such as Ladies for Environmental Awareness in Forests (LEAF), none held official roles in the industry. As Nan Nicholson affirms, “It was...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgement
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 “The forest in question was regarded as territory”: The Terania Creek campaign and the creation of the environmental blockading template
• 2 “An attitude, a way of life, a state of heart”: Organisational and tactical development within Australian environmental blockades, 1980–1984
• 3 “The first volley in the nonviolent wilderness war”: Environmental blockading spreads to the United States, 1983–1986
• 4 “We shut ‘em down”: Environmental blockading in the United States extends and entrenches, 1987–1990
• 5 “You’re welcome to visit our park, but leave your saws in the boat”: Canadian First Nations and conservationist activism, 1983–1984
• 6 “Someone had to stand up to them”: Canadian expansion, differentiation, and entrenchment, 1986–1989
• 7 “We refuse to bequeath a dying planet to future generations by failing to act now”: Developments in environmental blockading and ODA since 1990
• Conclusion
• Index