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- From Wendy Flannery at the Climate Frontlines Collective.

On Thursday 14 February the FoEB Climate Frontlines collective hosted a public information evening with 3 Pacific Island women in Australia for a program focusing on micro-finance for climate-change-related sustainability projects, organised by Sisters 4 Sustainability.   After participating in the Canberra conference of the International Society for Human Ecology and Sustainability, they completed the rest of the initial stage of the program in Brisbane.  The Frontlines information evening was an opportunity for them to share with a wider audience both the challenges their communities are facing and the creative responses they are involved in developing. 

Olivia Aripa (pictured above with Maureen Jane (4EB) and Lolia), a great grandmother, nurse, midwife and a respected elder from the Popondetta area in Papua New Guinea, described how extreme rainfall events have destroyed many crops, as well as plants used for producing handcrafts for daily use and income generation, making it very difficult for the women to provide for their children.  The impact on local infrastructure has meant that some basic services, such as access to school for small children, are no longer available.  Olivia has initiated a number of programmes to help the local women and children adapt to these changing circumstances and is seeking help to expand a small flower marketing business to support the programmes financially.

“It’s war”, said Senolita Vakata, describing the struggle against the impacts of climate change on Ha’apai , a low-lying group of islands in the Kingdom of Tonga.  Traditionally, people have settled in coastal areas, for ease of access to the sea.  However, their houses are now flooded with sea water on a regular basis and their coconut palms dying with their exposed roots – due to coastal erosion – being burnt by the sun.  Senolita has been able to access resources to help the people build new houses away from the coast, but this will depend on the allocation of land under the government-controlled land holding system.  In any case if they do move inland, they can only hope to eventually meet the encroaching sea on the other side of the island.

http://www.givenow.com.au/foeclimatejustice 

Rockhampton Regional Council mayor Margaret Strelow is the first in what will probably be a long line of regional council mayors who don’t want nuclear plants in their region.

Strelow told the Morning Bulletin, “It’s not even a discussion I want to have,”

“I’m a Mum and a grandma.”

 This week media report that the LNP government are reviving plants for a uranium enrichment plant in Rockhampton in the wake of the lifting of the ban on mining.

Joh Bjelke-Petersen was a booster of uranium enrichment in the early 80s, however widespread protests and the strike action of dockworkers refusing to export the yellowcake form Mary Kathleen mine stymied that plan and led to the 1982 ban on uranium mining.

Enrichment of uranium raises the risk stakes creating a much more radioactive product and other toxic waste products that put environment and human health at risk.  Accidents at enrichment plants have included workers and environmental exposures of uranium hexafluoride gas.  Transport accidents are also common, and the cause of numerous blockade protests in Germany and France.

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research says:

To enrich uranium, it must first be put in the chemical form uranium hexafluoride (UF6). After enrichment, UF6 is chemically converted to uranium dioxide or metal. A major hazard in both the uranium conversion and uranium enrichment processes comes from the handling of uranium hexafluoride, which is chemically toxic as well as radioactive. Moreover, it reacts readily with moisture, releasing highly toxic hydrofluoric acid. Conversion and enrichment facilities have had a number of accidents involving uranium hexafluoride. 


The bulk of waste from the enrichment process is depleted uranium–so-called because most of the uranium-235 has been extracted from it. Depleted uranium has been used by the U.S. military to fabricate armor-piercing conventional weapons and tank armor plating. It was incorporated into these conventional weapons without informing armed forces personnel that depleted uranium is a radioactive material and without procedures for measuring doses to operating personnel.

Like the nuclear power industry, enrichment plants are dominated by corporations with connections to arms manufacture and involved in a long history of cover-ups and failure on regulation and safety.  One of the worst accidents in the US enrichment history, a fire and release of 16 pounds of uranium hexaflouride in a plant owned and run by Lockheed Martin, resulted in a protracted Congress enquiry.

The cleanup was never fully realised and part of the companies plan on cleanup was the resale of waste metals (depleted uranium).  Depleted uranium is used in armour plating of tanks, and as ballast weight in aircraft amongst other uses.  It’s widespread contamination of Iraq and Afghanistan continues to result in an epidemic of birth defects.

article by Kim Stewart, Peace and Military Pollution spokesperson, Friends of the Earth.  

Email: kim.stewart@foe.org.au

http://qnfa.org/

Shani Tager - Six Degrees Collective

The headline screamed "Professional protestors" and the article concluded with "well practiced fringe activists engaging in fear mongering." Even though I wasn’t surprised, I couldn't help but groan.

 It’s a standard and surprisingly effective tool in the belt of the coal and coal seam gas industries. They trot it out at every chance they can get. It delegitimises dissent to their actions. They portray those that are raising questions and concerns as crazy radicals with a specific political agenda who have hijacked locals to achieve their own political aims. It portrays the companies as inherently reasonable, open to talking and negotiating with the locals, who might be concerned, but only because they have been led astray or are misinformed because of these professional protestors. In six degrees, a small volunteer-run collective, we often joke about how if we’re the professionals we’re due for a pay rise. But in many ways, it’s not something to be joked about. It’s a hardline, strategic tactic by companies who are willing to go to great lengths to ensure the success of their fossil fuel projects. It’s a tactic that detracts from the hard work that local organisers have done. It’s a tactic that holds implications for future blockades.

In the case they were talking about, it was particularly unfair. It was mid-January and exactly a week into the Kerry blockade. Out the back of Beaudesert in south-east Queensland, the blockade was trying to prevent access to a drilling site for a coal seam gas well. This was a blockade initiated, supported, attended and organised by people that live in the Kerry Valley and the surrounding Scenic Rim. A blockade that started when a couple of locals decided that their part of the world, with its gently undulating cropping lands that give way to steep escarpments and some of Queensland's most popular national parks, should not be a testing ground for the coal seam gas industry. The local group is called Keep the Scenic Rim Scenic; they were running the show and all they were asking for was a baseline water study before drilling occurred. An ask more reflective of a conservative approach to risk than a radical ideology. They’d been asking politely for a long time and they’d had enough.

The week before, on the first morning of the blockade, I was one of three non-locals who the organisers had asked to come help out. The other thirty or so people that put off work that morning and got up well before the sun to get there in time - because local stretches for quite a long way - were farmers, tourism operators or like Anne, my high school geography teacher, put up with a long commute in to Brisbane so they could live in a beautiful place. They invited us that morning not to ask what they could do - they had that figured out - but because they had spread the word far and wide through their local networks and were worried that the gas workers would show up with a heavy police presence to force their way in. They’d never done anything like this before and wanted help from people who knew what to expect from the police and how to engage with them in those types of circumstances.

Our role was pretty minimal - we discussed the likely legal implications of blocking the driveway, outlined what would happen if and when they got arrested, organised a watch-house pick-up run, and checked that the people considering being arrested, if it came to that, had identification. Perhaps more importantly, we acted as a sounding board for the few sleep-deprived organisers and reassured them that they were doing a great job. We did the few, small things we could to slightly lessen their load.

Would they have been more hesitant to ask us to come if they knew that they would be getting negative media coverage because they asked for help from outside their valley? Are others who decide to stand up for what they believe in, whose farms and tourism operations are being threatened by the actions of multi-billion dollar international corporations, less likely to ask for help in the future? In many ways, it’s too early to tell what real implications this will have for future blockade organisers. But it has the potential, and is done for this very reason by the gas companies, to scare people off. To stop them from asking for help. To let the gas company divide and conquer.

The vast majority of people that are being directly affected by the booming coal and gas industries are farmers or small business owners whose jobs already require incredibly long hours and whose spare time has already been subsumed fighting forces much larger than them; who care deeply about standing up for what they believe in but have never considered putting their body on the line for it before. Who don’t know what to expect or how things will pan out once they’ve decided they’re not going to let the trucks in.

So what do we do? We can all play it smart at the blockades we do go to - to respect the decisions of the local organisers, defer any media questions to them and be cognisant that perhaps it’s not the best time to tell blockade war stories. But perhaps more importantly, we can reject their premise and work to counter the idea that “legitimacy” to protest relies on you living where the injustice is occurring and that thinking beyond our own backyards is something to be applauded, not denigrated. What it would take to do this, I’m not sure. Not letting stories like the one that appeared in the Australian slip by without being noticed and attacked for its fallacies is a starting point.

----
Shani Tager is a founding member and active campaigner with the Six Degrees Coal and Climate Campaign at Friends of the Earth Brisbane.

During the morning Potts, Rita and myself  were invited to join the CWA meeting here in Calliope.  After listening to Potts and myself talk about the walk we enjoyed a delicious morning tea. We said goodbye to Rita this afternoon, so sad to see people leave who have shared their lives, food and love with us in close community. Rita had brought a wonderful lamb roast with all the trimmings potatoes, pumpkin, carrots and peas to be cooked by Potts in his special camp oven. A great big thanks to Rita, we all thoroughly enjoyed it, especially John with the shank . Also thanks to Kim for preparing the veggies and a wonderful pavlova for afters.  Thanks also to Kim, Liz and Piet for painting our banners, they really look great.  I was early to bed (again) this time in a BED complete with air conditioning.

For more photos of our walk click here.

For videos of our walk click here.

No Stars this morning, the sky was overcast but that meant we had cloud cover for a lot of the morning and that makes walking much more pleasant. Last night was Sheree’s first experience of camping out and she was very excited to be walking. I was pleasantly surprised at the pace we were able to walk. Adele had earned a few blisters on her feet the day before but with the help of band-aids she soldiered on with no complaints.  After about 12 klms Sheree was feeling exhausted, then Adele spotted a beautiful running creek.  We left the trolley beside the road to let the guys know where we were, then struggled through the long grass, stripped off and soaked in the wonderful cool running water. The guys stopped and waved to us from the bridge then continued on to set up camp. This revived us all and Sheree was able to continue on till the next break. After food and a good rest, Potts and Bindi joined us in the last 5 klms  That night we were joined by my friend Di and her husband Bill from Brisbane , Kim and Rita from Brisbane,  Peit from Kin Kin and once again Liz, she just cant stay away.  Di quickly set up (on the esky) a pre dinner snack, cheeses, dips, dried tomatoes, fetta and olives.  While we were enjoying that Di then put a huge pot of beef and veg stew to heat, along with garlic bread. All this as we sat, some in chairs, others on mats and cushions in this beautiful country side, and watched the sun set in the west. After dinner with now three guitars, we all enjoyed a singsong, the first being the song Liz wrote for us about the walk. A few of us then retired to listen to the music as we fell asleep.

For more photos of our walk click here.

For videos of our walk click here.

This morning’s walk was so beautiful. There was a mist in the valley and as the sun rose, the glistening dew on the still tall grass was amazing.  Patches of spider webs were highlighted with drops of dew and flickering sunlight through the trees. It was another morning where I felt so privileged to be walking through this special great land.

Leaving Banana late (5.30) after a thick shake at the truckstop for breakfast, we experienced our worst day ever for traffic.  There was virtually no verge on the road and the cars and trucks were continuous. Bright lights and most not slowing down when approaching us made it a scary hour of walking.  They were all heading to the coal mine at Moura. Other than that the 22klms walk was pretty uneventful, Potts, Bindi and I made good time and Liz bought the backpack to our campsite and stayed the night with us.

For more photos of our walk click here.

For videos of our walk click here.

Today I began walking at 3.30am as I had earlier calculated a 35klms walk to Banana. The night before Jim had said it was only 28Klms but I had already set the alarm and was so glad I did.  I had been walking for over an hour when I saw a sign 30klm to Banana which meant it was 35klm in total.  I powered on thinking if I had to I would stop at 11am till 5pm, if I was late for the 5.30 gathering so be it.  As it happened, it was overcast all day, with showers of rain, not enough to be a bother, and I soon dried off.  I received lots of support from passing motorists, rested every few hours and arrived at the roadhouse at 11.30am. What a walk, I felt really happy with myself.

Potts had   his legendary ride in the cattle truck and  he and bindi were waiting for me at the truck stop. The manager, Micky, greeted me at the door and wheeled my trolley in, sat me down at a table and said help myself to coffee, tea.  Helen then came over introduced herself and said they had been expecting me, she was president of the local group who were welcoming  us that night .   I was just enjoying eggs for breakfast when Liz came in, she had been at the hall opening up and checking everything was ready.. The truck stop was extremely busy but Micky found time to check on us every so often and offered me a pair of (theropedic) thongs as I had asked Helen if there would be a sports shop in Biloela as my sandals were wearing thin under the pad of my foot. That evening, just before our meal, Bec from the local  Telegraph newspaper arrived to take a photo of us with the locals. About 12 people joined us for a shared meal,(that included Potts favorite dessert} and Liz showed the doco of the Kerry Blockade. The “throwing down the hats” action affected the group as they were all elderly and knew the symbolism of the act. One lady, in her eighties Pat Palmes was very outspoken about the  madness of what was happening.  Banana is such a small town and we were so warmly welcomed by everyone.

For more photos of our walk click here.

For videos of our walk click here.