Environment

Camping to halt climate change

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This may not sound like much action, but when there’s frost on the tents and no hot showers for six days (10-15 July) – it is suffering for the cause.

Held in Newcastle, the world’s largest coal port, the national Climate Camp drew hundreds of committed environmental activists, mostly young, since it followed the Students for Sustainability conference. But there were enough greyheads for me to feel at home when I joined them for three days.

With workshops and discussion groups, the whole event was astonishingly well-organised and run by volunteers. Great vats of great vegan food were prepared to feed the hundreds. I earned a blister from my stints there, chopping pumpkin mostly.
And there was action. On the Saturday hundreds more concerned people joined us. We crouched down to form a human sign – ‘Cut carbon — now or never’ and a human ticking clock, which caused us to leap up and ‘explode’ over the oval at ‘midnight’. If you weren’t in the helicopter it wasn’t much of a photo opportunity, except for the rear end of the person in front!

On Sunday we had over 1000 people of all ages and backgrounds turn up to walk to the coal terminal and perhaps stop the coal trains, to protest against coal’s role in fuelling climate change.

The rally included way-out costumes, clowns, drummers, the Radical Cheerleaders, mums pushing strollers, kids holding hands – and knee-challenged grannies like me. There would have been a lot of high bright beseeching banners but the police banned their poles.

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Bangladeshi coal battle

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We in the Hunter Valley think we have problems with the coal companies wrecking communities and lifestyles with their spreading, polluting coalmines.

Last week I heard a far worse tale, from Bangladeshi coal and climate change activist and economics Professor, Anu Muhammad, on an Aidwatch speaking tour.

Proposals such as the Phubari Coal Project, in a heavily populated, intensively farmed and very wet delta region, are obviously disastrous for the people and the environment, and make no economic sense – and yet they get the backing of so-called humanitarian institutions like the Asia Development Bank.

Australia is heavily involved in this, both as proposer and backer.

We didn’t pull the triggers on the guns that in 2006 fired on the 50,000 people protesting against the mine, but we are as responsible for the resulting deaths and injuries.

As we will be for the forced relocation of 50,000-150,000 people and the environmental vandalism.

May power play

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mayday1
This year I went to my first May Day Rally. It was held at Darling Harbour because that’s where the Labor conference was. And there was one particular agenda item that had us all up in arms: the sell-off of our state electricity industry.

Unionist placards and flags were almost equalled by the Greens flags and triangles, and the message on all was similar: `No power sell-off’. Shouted chants focused on the charming Mr Costa whose scheme this is, and ranged from the universal `Costa out!” to the more radical `Give Costa the electric chair!’

Rather than the traditional street march, the crowd walked round and round that area of Darling Harbour to reinforce the message to Iemma and Costa.

No doubt they got it, and their conference voted seven to one against the proposal, but nevertheless they are ploughing on.

This is arrogant, but also seems a cowardly lack of leadership at a time when global warming makes it absolutely critical that we have control of how our power is generated and distributed.
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Seed Savers bush conference

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This year the Seed Savers’ Network held their conference in rural Gulgong, near Mudgee, a world apart from Byron Bay, where Seed Savers is based.

Gulgong, the town on the $10 note, is quaint, and so was the event. Set in and around the tin sheds of the Gulgong Showground generously catered for by the ladies and gentlemen of the Gulgong Show Society, the pace was relaxed.

That didn’t prevent many stimulating topics, like genetically modified foods or climate change farming, and ideas thereon, from sparking up the delegates. Seed Savers do a great job on many levels — have a look at their website.

mike pridmore
The local Seed Savers branch organised it so some speakers were local, like Mike and Sue Pridmore, who collect and sell native tree seeds.

sue pridmore
Sue also makes beautiful baskets from just about anything that once grew. As Mike is also an ex-potter and renowned mud home builder, you could say they are truly in touch with the earth.

But the unique part of this conference was the Saturday night entertainment, when the Mayor, and then his old mate in the cowboy hat, recited or sang their own and other’s ditties — unaccompanied. Henry Lawson would have been impressed.

Tops that rock

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hunter dustEarly in March I went to the Coolah Tops National Park for the first time. Averaging 1100 metres, they offer what would be stunning views over the Liverpool and Breeza Plains—if the Hunter coalmines’ dust haze hadn’t got that far. But I’d actually come for the Coolah Tops Jazz Festival.

coolah screerocksbandBefore the music began I did note that each ridge top was of loose basalt rocks, that screes on mountainsides were common, and that certain freestanding rocks were glaring rather balefully at the tourists snapping them.

Then the Bogalusa Strutters started strutting about, making music on the move and being cheeky. We left the rocks alone.

As the afternoon progressed towards evening, the Eskies and folding camp chairs multiplied, coats and beanies replaced the sunhats, and artists like the George Washingmachine Band and Julie O’Hara took to this stage at the edge of the world.

In between we had displays of Australian wildlife such as writhing but friendly pythons, a closely held crocodile and even an amiable Joanna Goanna.

NPWS guides led short bushwalks nearby for those who wanted to stretch their legs or slow down on the Shiraz.

It was a fun country sort of day in a great setting, where most people camped overnight nearby, after dancing in the dark on a dance ‘floor’ the size of a football field. Bit like picnic races I imagine.dancefloor

How brown is my valley

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brown hunter
As I drove over a hill just outside Muswellbrook, I was treated to this panoramic view of the new hillscape. Highlit by the late sun, the man-made range was shown in its full brown beauty.

It isn’t brown because it’s Autumn: it’s that colour all year round, with shades of grey, depending on where the dumps have come from in that huge hole nearby that is the Bengalla coalmine.

The only change is that unlike real hills—the green sort—Hunter Valley hills keep getting bigger and more numerous. And this is despite constant loss as the winds carry the dust over the skies of the Valley—turning them brown too.

To quote from a recent industry expo supplement: ‘Open cut coal mining occupies much of the open space between Singleton and Muswellbrook.’

And they were boasting, not apologising.

Country Viewpoint

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abc
The ABC Radio National programme ‘Bush Telegraph’ has a segment called Country Viewpoint and they have been kind enough to let me have my say from time to time.

My next viewpoint is about the appallingly high levels of fine dust concentrated in the air of the NSW Upper Hunter Valley.

It’s called ‘Clean country air?’ and will be broadcast at 11:55am AEST on Monday 25th February, so tune in if you can.

Or you can listen later on streaming audio or download a podcast from the Bush Telegraph website.

Forest fruit

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rosewood thicket
rosewood fruit
rosewood seedsMy forest does not have much understorey but in the damper dips and gullies there are always pockets of a small tree—scentless rosewood, Synoum glandulosum.

It has made its presence very evident lately because of its profusion of clusters of pinkish red fruit.

Unfortunately for me they are not as succulent and appetising as they look, being really only fleshy seed capsules.

They remind me of mini-pomegranates—but only visually.

These are now splitting open into three sections to reveal orange-red seeds, which birds seem to like.

A rainforest pioneer, it is one of the few I do not need to raise and plant as, with help from the birds, it has looked after its own future very satisfactorily.

Envirowiki

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windfarmThe Envirowiki website was started in late August, 2006. It’s slowly getting bigger, but it needs your help!

For it to become a great resource for environmental and social justice activists of all hues, people like you need to help out.

It is now available in several languages, so take a look and make an entry on your pet topic.