Chain Reaction #144

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Issue #144 December 2022

The National Magazine of Friends of the Earth Australia

www.foe.org.au

RRP $15

Ecosystems of Resistance Radical Respect and the Power of Play What’s it Like to be a Brown Person in Progressive Spaces?

“Right… but what are your demands?”

Co-facilitating with Earth Ecofeminist Action Cycle

CONTENTS

FoE News Edition #144 − December 2022 Publisher - Friends of the Earth, Australia Chain Reaction ABN 81600610421 FoE Australia ABN 18110769501 www.foe.org.au

Join Friends of the Earth

inside front cover

Friends of the Earth Australia Contacts

inside back cover

Editor’s note

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Friends of the Earth News

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Ecosystems of Resistance

youtube.com/user/FriendsOfTheEarthAUS

Radical Respect and the Power of Play – Zelda Grimshaw

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twitter.com/FoEAustralia

Nuclear Free Collective – Sanne de Swart

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What it’s like to be a brown person in progressive space – Nathalie Farah

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“Right… but what are your demands?” – Kim Croxford

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Co-facilitating with Earth – Moran Wiesel

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Accessible public transport: a climate solution and a human right – Claud Gallois & Ally Scott

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GRANT: Our Ecosystsem of Resistance – PotDog

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The Honourable Exchange – Resisting Mindless Consumerism – Alana Mountain

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www.facebook.com/FoEAustralia flickr.com/photos/foeaustralia Chain Reaction website www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction Chain Reaction contact details PO Box 222,Fitzroy, Victoria, 3065. email: chainreaction@foe.org.au phone: (03) 9419 8700 Chain Reaction Collective

Regular Coloums

Moran Wiesel, Zianna Faud, Sanja Van Huet, Tess Sellar

Book Reviews: “The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner” – Camila Nelson

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Layout & Design

Creative Facilitation: Ecofeminist Action Cycle – Dr Caresse Cranwell and Deborah Collins

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Tessa Sellar

Hearth: The Things We Do – Aia Newport

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Printing

Working with FoE: Campaigner Profile, Michelle Baxter – Strzelecki Koala Action Team

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Creative Content: Balance – Alana Mountain

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From the Archives: Some Past Successes of FoE

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Sustainable Printing Company Printed on recycled paper Subscriptions Three issues (One year) A$33, saving you $12 ($15/issue) See subscription ad in this issue of Chain Reaction (or see website and contact details above).

Chain Reaction is published three times a year ISSN (Print): 0312-1372 ISSN (Digital): 2208-584X Copyright: Written material in Chain Reaction is free of copyright unless otherwise indicated or where material has been reprinted from another source.

Please acknowledge Chain Reaction when reprinting.

The opinions expressed in Chain Reaction are not necessarily those of the publishers or any Friends of the Earth group.

Front cover Sue Stack,

2020

Editor’s note How does our activism fit into the diverse web of change making? From disability advocacy to mutual aid, from Blockade Australia to practising gratitude and earth listening, from playfulness to critical self-reflection, this edition shines a light on the myriad of ways people in the broader FoE network are being activists. We ask the questions, how we might strengthen and support the relationships between strands of our web? And how we might step beyond our own practice and theory, and try out different, diverse, forms of being activist?

As always, if you’d like to be part of the conversation, we’d love to hear your response to the articles/topics in this edition

FOE AUSTRALIA NEWS

Friends of the Earth Online www.foe.org.au youtube.com/user/FriendsOfTheEarthAUS twitter.com/FoEAustralia facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-the-Earth-Australia/ flickr.com/photos/foeaustralia

Community solidarity in a time of climate crisis

Justice for Cassius - Forever fifteen https://www.foe.org.au/justice_for_cassius Cassius Turvey, a 15-year-old Noongar boy, was walking home from school with his friends on the afternoon of October 13 when he was brutally killed after alleged racial slurs were heard towards him and his friends. There has been a huge response to this horrific racist violence, that exposed the systemic and individual acts of racism that are still continuously present in colonial Australia.

Editor’s note: There were Australiawide vigils held in memory of Cassius on the 2nd of November. It is not too late to donate towards the family’s legal battle #justiceforcassius. https://www. gofundme.com/f/justiceforcassius

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Friends of the Earth (FoE) Australia is a federation of independent local groups. Join FoEA today, sign up to our monthly newsletters, or donate!

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We know that climate change is already impacting people and the environment.

Locally, the influence is clear in the many recent natural disasters like floods, fires and droughts. Future climate change will continue to make these disasters worse. FoE feels keenly the consequences of these impacts on our members and staff.

During our 2022 national meeting at Common Ground (Victoria), FoE agreed to formalise the grassroots support we currently offer to communities.

FoE Australia are setting up an internal mutual aid group to provide direct practical aid to communities affected by climate disasters. We see this as being a mutual aid network, which can be mobilised to help our allies in affected communities at times of crisis.

We hope to have teams, based in local FoE groups, who can be mobilised at short notice to assist with immediate disaster relief and, potentially, be involved with longer term rebuilding and recovery.

This would be a volunteer team, where people can opt in to receive notifications of work trips. FoE would

cover travel costs and provide food for participants. We expect that we will learn a lot as we run trips and will review and evaluate as we go.

Get involved: If you’re interested in getting involved, please get in touch.

Let us know about yourself: where you live, if you have any existing skills or experience in disasters relief, and your contact details.

If you would be interested in taking on co-ordination of a local team, contact cam.walker@foe.org.au.

Further resources and links here: melbournefoe.org.au/community_ solidarity_during_the_floods

East Gippsland’s Shire forestry paper supported by both Nationals and greenies?

In an interesting turn of events, the East Gippsland Shire Council (EGSC) have unanimously endorsed a position paper the Nationals and environment groups are both on board with.

The Nationals are using the paper to push for prolonging the industry – albeit in low volume, high quality output form. They are, however, ignoring the environmental outcomes the paper stipulates, which is that clearfell logging must end first.

Environmentalists are trying to make sure this and other crucial environmental outcomes are not forgotten.

What the paper proposes is a radical departure from anything EGSC has ever produced on logging. As well as including the end of clearfelling, it also includes the protection of biodiversity, protection of the unburnt, investment in naturebased tourism and recreation, and a just transition for all affected communities.

Councils are often close to the needs of the community. The shift in council policy is a departure from the traditional, and represents a shift in the community base they are yet to catch up with.

The native logging industry has been in decline for some time, as identified by the EGSC in their forestry position paper. This has been a result of industry trends including a growth in the plantation sector in Victoria. Most logged native forests in Victoria are either exported as woodchips, made into pallets, or used domestically for paper and cardboard via the Japanese company Nippon.

It is now being recognised that native logging has a cost to the community in terms of increasing bushfire risk, water security, carbon storage and biodiversity loss. Coupled with the devastating effect of the Black Summer bushfires, it’s increasingly costing other industries too, like beekeeping. The impact of clearfell logging in the high country for cattle graziers and the environment is also significant Read full article: foe.org.au/cr144d Read the Council’s position paper (see p.133): foe.org.au/cr144e

www.foe.org.au

Andrews governments epic commitment to 95% renewables puts climate action in public hands In a pre-election announcement, Victoria’s Andrews government has announced a visionary plan to reach 95% Renewables by 2035, end the state’s reliance on coal generation, and establish a publicly owned corporation that will see the public hold a controlling stake in new renewable energy projects.

Friends of the Earth says the commitment is a significant step to reversing the problems caused by privatisation.

While there remains work to be done to fully align Victoria’s climate policies with the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5C, the step-up in emissions reduction commitment is momentous.

The question now for the Victorian opposition Liberal Party is whether it commits to matching the Andrews government’s level of ambition ahead of the election.

It remains to see what evolves after the state election on the 26th of November.

More than 20% of Whitehaven shareholders reject climatewrecking new coal plans Whitehaven Coal faced backlash from big investors and community members both inside and outside its annual general meeting, held in Sydney on October 26th.

Despite record coal prices and company profits, more than a fifth of Whitehaven’s shareholders demanded the company stop expanding and start managing down coal mining, in line with a net zero emissions by 2050 pathway.

The company and its shareholders were met with a rally outside, and questions inside the AGM, highlighting Whitehaven’s failure to align its business with global climate goals.

As shown by today’s significant resolution vote, many investors don’t want to see Whitehaven spend its windfall on making the climate crisis worse, and instead want the company to return capital to shareholders while ensuring a just transition for workers and the community.

There has never been a better time for Whitehaven’s lenders to cut ties with the company.

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FOE INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Friends of the Earth International Online www.foei.org www.facebook.com/foeint www.twitter.com/FoEint www.youtube.com/user/friendsoftheearthint www.flickr.com/photos/foei Action alerts: www.foei.org/take-action FoE International’s web radio station (in five languages): https://rmr.fm/

Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is a federation of autonomous organisations from all over the world.

Our members, in over 70 countries, campaign on the most urgent environmental and social issues, while working towards sustainable societies. FoEI currently has five international programs: Climate Justice and Energy; Economic Justice, Resisting Neoliberalism; Food Sovereignty; Forests and Biodiversity; and Resisting Mining, Oil and Gas.

FoE Asia Pacific Friends of the Earth India extends full solidarity to the fishers and farmers resisting the ecologically destructive Vizhinjam Sea Port Friends of the Earth India extends its solidarity to the fishers of Trivandrum, Kerala, who are demanding immediate end to the construction of the Adani Vizhinjam International Seaport. The project is an ‘international transshipment deep water multipurpose seaport’, being developed by Adani Ports as a public-private partnership with the Government of Kerala.

On 5 June, 2022, the fishing communities started an indefinite agitation to protect their coasts, homes and livelihoods. By now, more than 500 houses had been lost to the advancing seas. Fishing has become difficult as the breakwaters have made the seas turbulent; a number of fishers have lost their lives near the breakwaters and others have been injured. The submerged reefs of this region make for productive fishing grounds, and a rich breeding ground for mussels.

However, these fishing grounds have been degraded by siltation caused by the constant dredging inside the port.

Friends of the Earth-India notes that corporates like Adani are guilty of similar exploitation of natural resources and indigenous communities in Australia, Mozambique and other parts of India.

Manobo community leapfrogs to renewable energy In March 2022, a successful pilot project with the T’boli-Manobo S’daf Claimants Organization (TAMASCO) in the village of Ned, South Cotabato leapfrogged from having no electricity to a micro off-grid (or isolated microgrid) system using photovoltaic technology. Such a model can be adopted for remote areas.

Tapping into renewable energy for rural electrification programs aligns with lowcarbon development pathways critical for battling the climate crisis.

This development framework is anchored not only in renewable energy but also in the principles of sustainable and ecological use of natural resources, scaling up initiatives for communitylevel development, supporting food sovereignty, among others.

Read full article: foe.org.au/cr144b the solar panels arrive Credit EM Taqueban LRC

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FoE International Advocating for agroecology in Sri Lanka Compiled from an interview with Chalani Rubesinghe

Sri Lanka’s agricultural landscape was completely changed in the 1960s Green Revolution, with the imposition of modernised machinery, technology, hybrid seeds and chemical fertilisers in the country, along with a shift to an entirely commercialised food system.

Before this, Sri Lanka had an ecologically-sustainable agricultural system. The imposition of industrial farming systems in the 1960s saw the farmers abandon this kind of sustainable agriculture. They switched to short-term paddy (rice) fields, using geneticallymodified, high-yielding seeds, and applying plenty of chemical fertilisers and other synthetic inputs to maximise the harvest for sale. This ‘Green Revolution’ hoped to increase total agricultural production, particularly to make the country self-sufficient in rice, and in turn improve the living conditions of rural people. Sixty years on this is not the case.

Soil gradually lost fertility due to intensive cultivation methods, the need to buy costly external applications: fertilisers, weedkillers and pesticides and corporate-controlled seeds. These costs greatly outweighed the benefit of obtaining a higher yield at harvest time.

Profits from high food prices flowed to intermediary businesspeople, not peasant farmers or their families.

Insufficient training in properly using chemicals meant some farmers were mixing pesticides or applying them at the wrong moment. Around 2002, a chronic kidney disease started appearing among farmers, which many scientists suspect was due to chemical contamination of water.

The Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ), also known as FoE Sri Lanka, has been resisting this chemical-intensive farming system for many years, and advocating for a system based on agroecology. One great victory was the introduction of labels for geneticallymodified food in 2007, following a lawsuit by CEJ. In April 2021, the Sri Lankan farming sector was plunged into turmoil when then-President Rajapaksa announced www.foe.org.au

a ban on all synthetic fertilisers. This overnight shift to ‘organic’ farming was a complete failure. It left farmers unable to cultivate, and caused food prices to skyrocket, at a time when the country was already facing a severe international debt crisis.

Hidden behind environmental concerns, the fertiliser ban was really a way for the government to cut costly imports during the debit crisis.

In response to the ban, CEJ has stepped up their advocacy activities for a proper transition to agroecology, rather than a switch to ‘organic’ farming only.

They call for an agroecological farming system, wherein cultivation works in harmony with the local ecosystem, natural resources are conserved, farmers share knowledge and seeds, and public policies support smallholders’ access to the market.

While there are a number of organisations in Sri Lanka that advocate for and practice agroecology, and some government-led initiatives for smallholder farmers (such as the “Good Agricultural Practices” farmer societies, organic villages which engage women in gardening, beekeeping and other activities, and government-deployed Army officers who carry out organic farming), there is a huge challenge for farmers to be competitive in the market.

In the context of high food prices and economic turmoil, the majority of consumers in Sri Lanka can only afford cheap produce.

The Sri Lankan experience is a good example of why agroecology must be understood as a holistic approach, entailing a just economic and social transition in which small-scale farmers themselves are the protagonists.

Read the full story: foe.org.au/cr144_a

Radical Respect and the Power of Play Zelda Grimshaw

Practicing for the revolution There are always at least two things we are doing when we activist. At face level, we are campaigning for peace, justice, earth, animal and human rights. Sometimes we make concrete gains, sometimes we don’t see any tangible results. Either way, we are, almost always, engaged in a second struggle: to ‘build the movement’. For me, this second struggle is the long game. ‘Building the movement’ requires that we actively dismantle the inequalities and dominating structures that divide us. It requires us to face our own position within hierarchies and power structures and to address our own harmful behaviours. It requires us to reach across the limits of our socialisation and connect with humans who have divergent experiences and world views. To shift our thinking from ‘I’ to ‘we’. To engage in collaboration not competition.

The second struggle is challenging. At the same time, the second struggle can offer immediate and tangible results that enhance life and endure long term. The long game requires us to consciously work to create humane, loving community. I think about it as practicing for the revolution. Or the apocalypse. Or the revolution within the apocalypse. Observing, developing and facilitating this longitudinal work of creation is my main game when I activist.

Attrition There are two main reasons people withdraw from (or never engage with) activist work.

The first is to do with the effectiveness of the activism. People can feel that the activism has ‘failed’ because the campaign goal has not been met. Many of my cohort, who were activists in their twenties, withdrew their energies from campaigning, gave up in a sense, because they could not answer the question ‘What is the point?’. Large rallies were ignored, direct actions did not ‘get the goods’, strikes and pickets were smashed or sold out by union officials. The profiteers keep on profiting and the climate is still overheating. Measuring activist success by the number of campaign ‘wins’ we have is pretty depressing. Sometimes NGOs and grassroots groups contribute to activist attrition by overstating the likelihood of campaign success in their ‘theory of change’. ‘If we do this, we will be able to change government policy on coal.’

More often, the campaign goal is assumed by the humans as the only goal of the activism. So if

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that goal is not attained, a feeling of failure and defeat can overwhelm the human. An investment in winning a campaign is usually not enough to keep a person engaged in activism. There is, or can be, much more at stake.

The second reason people withdraw from activism is to do with their experience. Our ecosystems are literally collapsing in fire and flood, profiteers run rampant over human bodies and cultures, and there is destruction and exploitation everywhere we look. Activism involves looking at and facing these realities. It’s hard. Not everyone can emotionally manage this hardship over time. This is where it is essential that we also play the long game. Facing horror and engaging in struggle is much more possible if we feel held by the care and support of other activists. Our love for each other can get us through almost anything, yet the vital importance of the heart in activism is rarely recognised in Australia. Many people come and go from activist spaces without ever feeling connected or loved.

There is little or no emotional reward for their efforts. Campaigns are taxing, emotionally and materially. When the second struggle, the long game of movement building, is not attended to, burn out is quick and terminal.

The revolutionary power of play One of the ways I attend to the long game in activist spaces is to bring the fun. The climatewrecking patriarchal white supremacist colonising extractivist military industrial death machine is full of terrors. Our initial bond with each other is usually in a mutual recognition of these terrors. It is a relief to be surrounded by others who are willing to resist the death machine. Bonds forged in opposition are powerful but are not enough to sustain us on their own. Facing the harsh realities of the world is a little easier if we have a shared vision of the world we will bring; and if we bring that world with us as we go. For both our sanity and our longevity, I find it essential to create activist spaces where fun is integral. In such spaces we can engage the revolutionary power of play.

Play is drilled out of most of us during corporatised education and labour. Play is denigrated and demeaned as the realm of children and imbeciles. Artists and activists, however, who question dominant paradigms and institutional dogma, can – must – engage in play. Play subverts everything we are inculcated

to know about authority, rules, domination and protocol. Play frees our minds from unnecessary burdens of propriety and shame and enables new learning and connection to take place. We begin to bond through joy and discovery. We are able to experiment and explore our capacities, shedding limits and preconceptions. Think of the freedom of the three year old child and claim this as your birthright. Now, with all the fire in the belly and with the improvisational capacity of the child, place yourself in the space of protest. Play is a fundamental tool of liberation. Play can heal our movements and destroy the death machine. Play can set us free.

Radical respect A second concept I hope can heal our movement is a culture of radical respect. Most activists will speak of inclusion, diversity and equity as core values in their groups. Despite this, there exists a destructive amount of criticism, judgement and exclusion in our movements for peace and justice. I have tried to step outside the activist vortex of perfect ideology in my organising.

The participation agreements I use have but two requests. One is not to harm other living beings. The other is to be respectful of other participants. Being respectful precludes any kind of bigotry or hate speech or discrimination, of course. But we can go further, do better than this. We can engage our whole hearts and turn down the competitive, comparative noise in our minds, and treat each other with love, kindness, generosity: radical respect.

Radical respect entails deep solidarity, based on our interconnectedness, our shared predicament on this earth. It entails a broadening of our tolerance to accept and accommodate difference, including different philosophies or styles of protest. It asks that respect travels in every direction, so that more conservative activists respect radicals and vice versa. It asks us to see each other’s humanity, to honour each other’s dedication and to uplift our unity even when our tactics are wildly disparate.

An excerpt from the Disrupt Land Forces handbook describes the culture: Radical respect is very challenging. There have been dozens of times I have wanted to intervene in someone else’s discourse or tactics. I’m certain others also experienced discomfort at the easing of the control and censure we are accustomed to practicing in activist spaces. The rewards, though, have been magnificent. www.foe.org.au

Practice Radical Respect We do not seek to limit or control the ways people express themselves in protest at Disrupt Land Forces (other than the ‘no harm’ agreement). We ask that you extend radical respect to each other, offering kindness, compassion and support to other activists even and especially when you do not understand the way they express themselves. Some people at Disrupt will use prayer. Some might be naked. Some folks will swear. Some might throw flowers or hold art interventions. You will not relate to all of the ways that people express themselves here. Let that be ok with you. There is no right way to protest.

No right way If there was a right way to protest that was guaranteed to succeed we would have worked that out by now. We would have fixed everything and we wouldn’t have to protest any more.

The Disrupt Land Forces crew has created an abundant space for protest. We invite you all to fill that space with whatever style of protest feels meaningful to you. Try stuff out. There’s no wrong way. This is an experiment in creative social change. Go for it.

Is it counterproductive?

It is counterproductive to not turn up. It is counterproductive to publicly disrespect other activists to the media or on social media.

It is counterproductive to spend hours agonising over the right way to take action. Want to know why someone chooses a particular tactic? Engage in curiosity, not judgement. Ask, don’t tell :) Chain Reaction #144

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1. S aving time! The time saved by allowing small, decentralised crews to self-organise, in the confidence that their action will not be slammed by anybody, without the need for every word on every banner being approved by a big, long meeting, was fantastic. Engaging a ‘no harm’ rule and a radical respect culture means NO BIG MEETINGS! Unless you want one.

2. F eeling happy and safe! Activist attrition in Australia can be attributed in great part to people feeling unhappy or unsafe in activist groups. Knowing that no-one will shame you or condemn you, even if you make a mistake, is a huge step towards feeling confident to try something new. Trusting that people will support us to learn rather than attack us for a perceived wrong makes us feel happy and safe.

3. Trying new stuff! The field is then open for experimentation and play. You know your heart is in the right place, and others know it too. You can try something out, work with new people, make up your own chant or banner, explore a discourse, freely.

4. G enuine diversity! Radical respect means that the field is wide open. Any group or community with a shared vision and commitment (eg to peace, climate justice, land back) can enter the space on an equal footing, bringing their own discourse, tactics and expressions with them.

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5. Collaborative possibility! Once we are all in the melting pot of an activist space where fun and play are integral, and a culture of radical respect is practiced, the scope for collaborations across cultural, age, gender, class or any other difference is vast.

Climate disasters are coming thick and fast, wars over land and resources are still being waged and the war against the environment shows no sign of slowing down. The climate justice movement has not attained the critical mass we need. I don’t believe I have all the answers to the question of how to heal our movement. I’m not sure I have any answers at all. I do know that bringing fun and play into movement spaces has been productive.

I have seen the relief on people’s faces when they hear there is ‘no right way’ in this space and then joy as they go on to invent incredible feats of activism. I hope that it is possible to shift our activist culture away from introspection and judgement and towards something more liberatory, joyful and loving. Perhaps this IS the revolution we are practicing for.

For more information about these campaigns, go to disruptlandforces.org and wagepeaceau.org.

Zelda Grimshaw is an artist and activist who has created and engaged in struggle across this continent, South East Asia and Europe. Zelda currently works as a campaigner with Wage Peace. Her most recent mobilisation was the Disrupt Land Forces festival of resistance in Meanjin, October 1-7 2022.

Nuclear Free Collective Sanne de Swart

The Nuclear Free Collective’s way of being an activist is strongly rooted in supporting the First Nations fight against radioactive racism. Particularly, radioactive racism in the form of First Nations communities being disproportionately affected by nuclear bombs testing, uranium mining and nuclear waste dumping on traditional lands.

We stand in solidarity and work shoulder to shoulder with frontline communities resisting the nuclear industry and working to keep uranium where it belongs: in the ground.

Australia is the world’s third biggest exporter of uranium. Uranium that is used in nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. Friends of the Earth Australia started about 50 years ago around action on nuclear issues. And those issues haven’t gone away.

For us change looks like strong solidarity work, bringing communities together, calling out dubious plans for nuclear waste dumps, uranium mines and advocating for nuclear bans.

Change looks like taking a group of young activist on a Radioactive Tour visiting communities affected by uranium mining. Change looks like a nuclear free tomorrow for Australia.

The Nuclear Free Collective has 50 years of stories to draw from. Read here: www.foe.org.au

https://www.melbournefoe.org.au/nuclearnews about some of the amazing wins the nuclear free movement has had that Friends of the Earth have been involved with.

Currently the Nuclear Free Collective is supporting the fight against yet another proposed nuclear waste dump in South Australia; campaigning against the establishment of the first ever uranium mine in WA; working with a coalition of organisations opposing the AUKUS deal including nuclear submarines; continuously debunking the greenwashing of nuclear power by the nuclear industry; supporting the movement for the prohibition of nuclear weapons and following global events related to nuclear on an ongoing basis.

Our collective is looking for members, so if any of this sounds interesting to you, please get in touch via nuclearfree@foe.org.au and/or sign up to our newsletter here: https://www.melbournefoe.org.au/nuclear.

If you are interested in a specific role in our collective or want to do some divestment research with us, please get in touch via nuclearfree@foe.org.au.

Sanne is part of the Nuclear Free Collective and committed to keep uranium in the ground. A radioactive future is not a good alternative to a climate change ridden future.

Rally against the proposed nuclear waste dump in South Australia

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What it’s like to be a brown person in progressive spaces Nathalie Farah

My introduction to activism was through a refugee detention centre blockade. I was one of maybe five brown people in an organising crew of more than 50. Considering the campaign was about liberating brown folks in detention, it’s not a very good look for the campaign. But surprisingly, this was one of the most diverse campaigns I’ll work on to date.

You see, the more “progressive” I became, the less diverse my community was. Often, I found myself confused while struggling to understand the slogans the were thrown. What did “postcapitalism”, or “settler-colonialism” mean?

Should I even be here if I can’t understand what appeared to be basic activist terminology?

Suddenly the space didn’t feel so welcoming anymore, I felt dumb and irrelevant.

Luckily, I was able to persevere purely because I had the ability to google what these alien words and acronyms meant and I had a couple of brilliant friends who supported me through the journey, but most people from diverse backgrounds would have simply walked away.

This is by no means the experience that every brown person has had, it’s my own. But I’ve seen scenarios like this unfold many times and in certain situations, brown folk were ridiculed

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for not knowing who Marx is or why we act a specific way around police.

This is in complete contradiction to the values we hold in our communities, and frankly it’s shameful.

Our movement is losing a tremendous amount of knowledge and wisdom when we make our spaces inaccessible. This doesn’t just concern brown and blak folks, it also significantly limits the ability of people with disabilities and trauma from being involved.

We need to do better. There’s an ocean of passion, wisdom and experience that we could be tapping into, we need to start changing our approach, and it starts with looking around your zoom rooms and spaces and facing the reality. The less diversity you see around you, the less accessible your space is, and the more potential for opening it up and bringing some new people in.

My experience by no means gives me the right to preach about what must be changed, but I have a few suggestions, so take it or leave it.

First, simplify your language. Big words do nothing but alienate us and make us feel dumb. If you’re confused about what is considered “slang”, pretend you are talking to your grandmother or baby cousin and explain it in that way. And please, don’t judge those who don’t get the basic

Nathalie in the Styx Valley, southwest lutruwita/ Tasmania. Credit: Fletch; exhibited at BlackSpark (29th October-13th November 2022).

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terminology. They’re often thinking in a different language and translating everything in their mind as they go.

Second, we need to be welcoming diversity of tactics and be open to different strategies.

Campaigners on this continent have been using similar strategies day in day out. And while some of the time they achieve results, sometimes they don’t. So be open to strategic thinking that people from diverse background bring, and don’t try to fit it into your “theory of change” and “spectrum of allied” boxes, take it as it comes.

Third, run skillshares and offer support to brown and disabled folks and check in on them. Some

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actions may not be accessible to people, so don’t base someone’s value on what kind of actions they can perform. Everyone who is dedicated is equally important and vital to the movement.

Remember that so-called Australia in its infancy stage politically. This system didn’t even exist 250 years ago. People from diverse backgrounds carry unimaginable generational wisdom and knowledge that could change the face of our movement.

In Solidarity, Nathalie Nathalie is a Syrian refugee living, working and playing on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri people

Nathalie in a logging coupe in the Styx Valley, southwest lutruwita/Tasmania.

Credit: Fletch; exhibited at BlackSpark (29th October13th November 2022).

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“ Right… but what are your demands?”

Curiosity over critique, action before analysis Kim Croxford

To the volume of criticism regarding Blockade Australia’s mobilisations, I would just like to contribute the following: thank you, BA, for having the courage to meaningfully struggle.

My deepest respects to you for your boldness, perseverance, adaptability, and efforts to confront the climate and ecological crisis through a systemic and anti-colonial lens.

To the people spinning on their office desk chairs formulating critiques based on their “experience”, or sitting in their comfortable Northern suburbs lounge rooms embracing the opportunity to spout ‘superior strategies’ and receive affirmation from their select and intimate echo chamber – please, take a breath, and spend some time deeply reflecting on why you’re so confident about your own contributions to the movement, before you waste all your valuable energy analysing (and sometimes successfully undermining) the efforts of others.

When I acknowledge BA’s courage, I’m not just talking about the kind that emboldens someone to lock themselves to a steering wheel and block the Sydney Harbour tunnel. I’m referring to the kind of courage it requires to be truly honest about both the urgency and intractability of the problem. Once you accept a systemic analysis of our current situation – and concede that the climate and ecological crisis is a consequence of colonialism, capitalism, extractivism, and the nation state – to then claim that you and your organisation or action group of (predominantly) white settler Australians, have the perfect blueprint to guide us from our current neoliberal nightmare to social justice and ecological balance is absurd. BA acknowledges this. The fact that they are not overly prescriptive about how their interventions will bring about the structural change they seek is not because they haven’t thought their strategy through – it’s precisely because they have.

To clarify my own position, I cannot speak directly for BA because I haven’t been able to be directly involved (yet) in the initial mobilisations, due to my preoccupation with trying to build resistance and alternatives on Taungurung Country where I grew up. I am writing from the perspective of someone who has been involved in previous direct action efforts (such as Frontline Action on Coal, Extinction Rebellion, and various forestry blockades) alongside some of the people currently organising as BA, which has allowed

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me to witness the evolutions that can take place as activists participate in successive organising projects and learn from their experiences.

The people that I know in the BA organising community are committed, intelligent, self-reflective, determined activists. They’ve already absorbed countless critiques of the theories of change, tactics, and messaging of previous iterations of their climate justice work. They’ve been encouraged to consider the limits of campaigning to protect a particular place and to adopt a structural approach instead. They listened as XR’s targets and mass mobilising model was intensely scrutinised. They’ve been called in and called out about their own personal organising and humbly done internal work in response. Arguably, that much criticism could immobilise anyone.

But I have witnessed these gritty, tenacious people take feedback in their stride and continue to show up to defend the world they love – over and over and over – with integrity and humility. They possess both the gall and vulnerability required to act, make mistakes, integrate what they learn into their next organising project, and (crucially) act again.

What more could we possibly ask of ourselves?

Constant critique and no action is a freeze response.

Critique can be a useful tool that enables our praxis to develop – and evidently it has helped create some bold and effective organising projects, including BA. But I worry there is a culture in our present environmental movement that encourages people to be more prepared to critique others than to experiment and intervene themselves.

I would like to see us all practise asking genuinely curious questions that seek to understand the work of our movement allies – in order to learn from them or determine how our own efforts could complement theirs – rather than engaging with them in order to offer criticism. Let’s practise pausing and asking ourselves: “do I really know enough about this group/ individual’s history, motivations, and what else they’re trying in parallel?” (many of us wear ‘multiple hats’ and contribute to different parts of the movement ecology.1) “Could I be more curious?”

When I encourage people to be less critical, I’m not addressing the First Nations people, people of colour, feminists, and disability advocates within our movement who unfortunately do an inordinate amount of emotional labour reminding other organisers of different positionalities to pull their heads in and educate themselves on the experience of others. This kind of ‘critique’ – or you could just call it movement accountability – will always be essential to building an intersectional movement and a socially just world. Instead, I’m specifically trying to challenge people who routinely jump to scepticism about others’ theories of change as a way to pedestal themselves, or justify their inaction.

There are two stereotypes that seem to engage in this behaviour: 1. E nvironmentally and socially aware people who are happy to talk at the pub about the need for change, but are perpetually reluctant to take up the responsibility of trying to implement it.

2. P eople who have participated in activist social spheres for a long time, but who spend most of their energy attempting to redirect other groups to their own theory of change (these are the people who seek out new groups to ‘critique bomb’ them: “here’s my criticism for you based on my experience – okay, bye!”)

Blockade Australia Protest, 2022

I believe these two cohorts might be hiding behind critique because they’re encountering a similar barrier: a ‘freeze’ response associated with risk, often masquerading as intellectual superiority. While it might just seem like the behaviour of ‘activist scene kids’ trying to elevate their social status or tend their ego, I actually think the root cause is anxiety: the fear of risking the life they have for some tenuous future, or the fear of making the ‘wrong move’ while trying to solve this immense and important problem.

This is understandable, given the stakes, but it’s also limited, linear thinking. I’m sorry, folks, but no one can assure you that we will ‘win’ or that there will even be an identifiable ‘end point’ to arrive at. No one can promise you that getting involved and potentially bearing some of the stress that can accompany acknowledging this problem is real will reward you in the future.

There’s also no way to ensure that everything you try will have the influence that you intend it to. You just have to hold on to the conviction that change is urgent and necessary, then experiment.

Whether it’s resistance, like helping BA block a port, or solutions-based work, which navigates the complex space of ‘gesturing-beyond-butstill-ultimately-constrained-by-the-capitalistframework’, there will be hard work, sacrifice, and risk. But those things exist alongside a deep sense of meaning, camaraderie, and connection. www.foe.org.au

Change is happening. No one can protect you from it. But there will continue to be both strife and joy to experience over the coming decades, as the climate crisis unfolds.

Instead of spending all your energy yelling from dry land about how BA should change course, why not jump in the boat and pick up an oar?

Rather than giving unsolicited advice to another action group about what they “should be doing”, ask yourself: what risks can I personally take to move us closer to the world I desire?

I’m not advocating for burn out culture, or suggesting everyone should be on the frontline (especially not all the time). People must consider their positionality and capacity. But how can you expect other people to develop strategies to your ‘satisfaction’ if you don’t step up to help do the actual work involved in changing tack? Here’s the thing with decentralised action: the people in the room set the direction. So, feel free to ask curious questions to help develop your understanding of others’ work, but don’t drain their energy if you’re not prepared to show up to an organising meeting the next week and help shape the way forward.

If many, many more of us chose to lean into experimenting with action, rather than stagnating by spending our energy critiquing others, we might just be able to build the kind of movement that the status quo struggles to contend with. So, if the absence of a ‘sure thing’, the enormity of the problem, perfectionism, a sense of entitlement to your own comfort, an attachment to a part of your identity tied to white or consumer culture, anxiety about being called out, or the fear of failure is paralysing you into inaction – rather than critiquing others to self soothe, practice vulnerability and ask someone from BA about their journey navigating these same barriers. Then take a leaf out of their book: find a way to fully acknowledge the problem, let yourself feel and process what that means, then be brave, be vulnerable, be prepared to be wrong, and try, try, try again.

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But, what are their demands?

One of the things that seems to be asked repeatedly in regards to BA is: but what are their demands? Perhaps this is a hangover from XR’s popularity, or the tendency of advocacy NGOs to articulate the reforms they want through policy platforms (for those that haven’t learnt much about direct action as a political bent, rather than just a tactic, or who aren’t familiar with anarcho schools of thought: you can probably start your inquiry here).

This question relies on the assumption that if we ask in just the right way, or force those in power into a corner, then they will deliver us the world we want. The truth is: we have to create it.

Elites invested in maintaining the status quo are not going to cede their privilege – and systems as insidious as global capitalism are much more difficult to dismantle than that anyway.2 When discussing the problem, most people can acknowledge this. But as soon as we begin to talk strategy, the conversation circles back to what is being ‘demanded’ of those in power. In this case, nothing: the point is to stand in their way, disrupt the things that entrench their power, and halt extractive expansion to the best of our ability. In terms of what could replace these systems: no political party or philanthropist is going to produce those alternatives. I don’t believe an all-at-once revolution is on the horizon

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to solve all our woes either. We have to ‘live into’ different ways of being that challenge dominant narratives. We have to build communities that embrace prefigurative politics and emergent strategy.3 We have to make ways of living that move us away from our dependence on capitalism and the state tantalising – and the status quo increasingly irrelevant.

I believe BA’s latest slogan, “what happens next is up to you”, is multilayered – and no accident. It’s an invitation to us all to fill the radical space they are opening up (by resisting and pushing back against the status quo) with a variety of alternatives to capitalist society that are as rich and diverse as experience itself.

I think when people who accept a systemic interpretation of the problem but still find themselves asking the question (‘what are their demands?’), what they are really asking is: what are they acting in the name of? What picture of the future can they paint for me that’s brilliant enough for me to take the leap?

I would like to attempt to answer that question, from my perspective (as I noted, I cannot speak directly for BA, but I can speak with some knowledge of the lives and politics of people in our broader direct action social sphere).

If you participate in these organising spaces, you will often catch a glimpse of the nurturing, cooperative world the people within them hope to help create. The ‘what?’ you’re searching for can be found in ‘how’ we organise.

You will observe a dedication to participatory decision making: 4 the idea that small, autonomous groups or communities can make affective, collective decisions about their own lives by seeking the free, prior, informed consent of everyone affected by those decisions (and prioritising the needs of those most affected).

You’ll see practices to avoid and distribute centralised power and efforts to consciously break down social hierarchies. You’ll witness people reclaiming the commons: occupying land owned by private or corporate entities, creating community or guerrilla food gardens, then distributing the food to their own community and marginalised communities. You’ll notice respect for First Nations cultures and solidarity with First Nations people: volunteers showing up to cook, care, and assist in holding the space at First Nations Sovereignty camps and events. You’ll witness reverence for biodiversity and non-human life and a longing for a more reciprocal relationship with the earth.

The world we desire can also be glimpsed in the ways we live and love.

We believe in mutual aid and interdependent communities. We assist communities experiencing disaster. We share money, food, and other resources freely within our own communities. We offer support to one another, as well as asking for help and embracing the practice of leaning on one another, rather than reinforcing the individualism, self-sufficiency, and isolation promoted by capitalism.

You’ll see us strive to be mindful of the impact of our actions on others and take accountability for our own behaviour. We are intersectional feminists (I want to pause to acknowledge the constant vigilance of women and non-binary people within our circles and the exhausting amount of work to ensure and maintain this). We are queer, or LGBTQIA+ allies. Many of us challenge compulsory monogamy and the normalisation of the nuclear family by loving in abundance (rather than fearing scarcity) and practising polyamory, relationship anarchy, co-parenting, and living in communal housing (mostly on blockades or in dilapidated share-housing out of necessity: remember the neoliberal nightmare).

None of the values and practices above are always visible – and they are often far from perfectly realised. During my first visit in 2019, I experienced Camp Binbee, the Adani blockade camp, as a brilliant, sparkling utopia. A few years into direct action organising (and after an attempt to launch an ambitious, transformative project closer to home, which ultimately and spectacularly failed), I’m now significantly less romantic. But we can’t always expect it to go well: we still live under capitalism, those accustomed to privilege and power don’t often choose to cede it, and many of us are traumatised by the racist, heteronormative, ableist, patriarchy that we currently live in.

It’s hard to recreate the world when you’re regularly confronting the problem – head on.

When cops are injuring your body, raiding your house, and surveilling your loved ones; when poverty, insecure housing, chronic illness, and burnout are making meeting your basic needs difficult; when you’re putting off having a family because financial stability is unattainable and/ or your awareness of the climate change is so acute; when you look around and it seems that, somehow, only your small cohort of friends have shown up to confront the terrifying beast that is the climate crisis, again – I think it’s understandable that activists are not always the perfect embodiment of the future we envision; that we’re not the people we hope that future generations will live to become.

However, it’s remarkable how often this future world is visible within the radical communities built alongside frontline organising. In an ordinary moment, when you suddenly witness – for a thrilling, magical instant – this dreamt of, better world brought to life, deep change feels possible.

Personal accountability and a “culture of resistance.”

People committed to critiquing projects like BA from the outside also seem to be preoccupied with the perception of “the general public”. I recall an article in 2019 where a “veteran activist” and long-time head of an eNGO took the time to speak to the Guardian about the “potential pitfalls” of XR Brisbane’s Rebellion Day, citing alienating ‘the conservative Australian population’ who “worry about impacts on their standard of living,” as a risk to the success of the entire climate movement.5 While my friends were still in lock up or being served huge personal fines, he saw the need to publicly critique their actions, despite clearly underestimating the self-awareness and strategic skills of the people involved, attributing their actions as motivated by “despair [and] fear”. Having attended the mobilisation, I know it was not the gutsy, experimental crew organising it that was acting from a place of fear in this scenario – this critic’s own fear of the climate fight being driven off course was manifesting itself in the criticism of others.

I hope the success of that chapter of the climate movement (which generated more media on climate change than had been seen in years and significantly shifted the Overton window in a favourable way for reformist organisations) has since demonstrated that we can’t really know the impact something might have until we act. Everything is experimental, no one has the answers, and while we can respect experience and make educated choices, action must precede analysis if we’re going to learn anything new.

The personal sacrifices that can accompany I’ve also heard people newer to the climate movement express reluctance to get volunteer, frontline activism that I just outlined are involved with BA because they don’t believe it will engage “the general public.” I another reason why people who are not currently advise these people to look up a tool called the ‘scale of allies’ – BA is not trying taking these risks shouldn’t be grilling BA for the to engage the portion of the general public who are miles off accepting that answers to the entire crisis. Consider the audacity change is necessary. BA is trying to empower you, the people who are already of people on the periphery demanding that BA fully aware of the problem, to actually take responsibility for solving it. must first lay out a fool-proof, guaranteed ‘path I am all for ‘changing hearts and minds’, as one of our priorities. My to victory’ in order to incentivise them to get off community organising role in the Forests Collective involves building trust the couch. If this is you, please understand: you and relationships in my regional timber town. But I am learning from that are asking people who have jumped in the deep work that big picture conversations that acknowledge systemic problems end to overextend themselves, so that you can can actually be a faster path to common ground than trying to make our summon the courage to dip your toe in. Unless messages ‘palatable’ based on our own assumptions about what people want you are experimenting with action yourself – and to hear. “The general public” actually seem fatigued by lines specifically your intention is to share learnings in a curious, designed by the environmental movement to resonate with them and kind, and mutual exchange – please practise your prefer the truth. Why not go with the whole truth (that acknowledges the “no comment” response. economic and colonial drivers of climate change) like BA? In fact, why not If you accept BA’s articulation of the problem use your passion for public communications to help them tell that story well?

– colonialism, extractivism, capitalism – there Even if we convince just about everyone that there’s a problem, but no are a myriad of creative ways to help challenge one acts, nothing whatsoever will happen. While bringing everyone along and undermine these systems and the dominant with us is a noble aim, there is no magic pill that will move the masses all narratives that sustain them. What’s stopping you at once and bring us to victory. And it’s no excuse for your own inaction. If from intervening by imagining/remembering/ you’re abstaining from participating in resistance, ostensibly because you experimenting with/building/articulating/ don’t want to put the general public offside, perhaps consider that maybe modelling post-capitalist, decolonial solutions? the key to the climate justice movement’s success is less about what ‘they’ Start a care collective, learn about restorative choose to believe and more about what you choose to do. and transformative justice, create commons, So, now that you know there’s a problem, what are you going to do with act in solidarity, nurture interdependent relationships, create art and media that articulate that information? BA aims to create a “culture of resistance” that empowers people to take responsibility for clawing our world back from rapacious a “yes” to inspire others to move beyond/ capitalism and ongoing colonialism. Their open-ended rally cry is a call for exist in opposition to the systems of power BA personal accountability. Your action or inaction will determine how the next is confronting. There are plenty of resources chapter of BA’s organising – and the unfolding global cataclysm – plays out: available to spark your creativity and guide you.

What happens next is up to you.

Get directly involved in these spaces to observe others’ solutions in action. Or provide material To get involved with Blockade Australia, or find out more, visit their assistance to BA in order to ease and spread the website: https://www.blockadeaustralia.com/sign-up/ unequal impacts they bear as frontline activists.

Kim Croxford has participated in a number of climate justice oriented Choose to pour your precious energy into this direct action groups and is currently organising in her local community work, instead of expecting other groups to justify toward a transformative transition out of industrial logging on their actions or inspire your faith.

Taungurung Country, as a member of FoEM’s Forests Collective.

1. Anyi Institute. What is Social Movement Ecology? https://tinyurl.com/socialmovementecology 2. Yunkaporta, T. ‘Indigenous Economics’. Spotify. Published November 2021. https://tinyurl.com/SpotifyIndigenouseconomics 3. Brown, A.M, Emergent Strategy, AK Press, 2017.

4. Friends of the Earth also operates this way https://www.foe.org.au/who_we_are_archive 5. Redfern, Graham, ‘Extinction Rebellion risks polarising Australian public on climate, veteran activist says’ The Guardian. Published 9 October 2019. https://tinyurl.com/veteranactivistsaysXR

www.foe.org.au

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Co-facilitating with Earth Moran Wiesel

How do we create the change we want to see in the world? How can we best collaborate with each other to transform our harmful systems? These are the infinite questions that as activists, I hope we will always ask ourselves.

For me, though, I have another set of questions I continually pose. These are questions that arise from my understanding that we humans are part of this interwoven earth ecosystem – and that changing anything means allowing ourselves to recognise, and play, with ourselves as ecosystems.

What does it mean to include the earth in our change-making? What does it mean to de-centre our human narrative, and allow the wisdom of the soil and birds and the song of the land to enter our organising spaces, and co-facilitate our meetings?

How might we be able to structure our actions to welcome the rich ancient histories of the creatures we’re working with, and acknowledge that even those things we say we most despise (coal, petrol) are earth-beings too? What does it mean to open our hearts and minds and bodies to listen to the wisdom rustling in the wind?

There are, of course, countless ways we might respond to these questions – and countless ways that people throughout time and space have consciously woven earth’s voice into their societies and politics.

But, several years ago, as I began to deeply interrogate how my anglo/settler-coloniser culture is exploring these questions, I very quickly recognised in myself guilt, impatience, and a deep aching longing for senses I didn’t know I didn’t have. These are emotional responses I see all around me as people clasp with desperate hands at the wisdom of ancient traditions, like the Indigenous cultures in this continent. Why, I kept asking myself, can I not hear what I know to be there? Why can I not allow myself to listen to the songs of the earth that I know carry so much wisdom for us in our predicaments? For me, transforming our world means exploring these questions.

In those moments of my deepest longing and uncertainty, several very wise people held my hand and invited me to look for these answers deep inside myself. And when I did, finally, turn my gaze inward I found an unexpected lot. Old aches and pains I didn’t even know existed.

Resistance and blocks and fear. Trauma of my ancestors, and the collective trauma we surely all feel from being alive at this moment of earth’s

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journey. I began to realise that what I really needed to do was sit with these sticky, icky places inside me/us. Perhaps to transform them, but much more importantly to recognise them, and allow them to be. To honour that inevitably, in yearning to open up and listen to the deeper world around me, I also needed to open up and listen to the deeper world within me.

This was scary. A journey off the socially-accepted map – even (especially) in activist spaces. I am forever grateful to the human and more-thanhuman beings that held space for me; the humans who witnessed my darkest spaces, the trees that wisely encased my form in their mossy boughs, and the pixies and faeries that came and danced in the corner of my eye, inviting me to enter forest as the playful spirit I am.

It was in this slow process of recognising and beingwith the complexity of my being that I was able to gently allow myself to hear the wisdom of the more-than-human world all around me. The trees, as they held me, began whispering mossy tales to me, and the tunes of birds were gateways to hearing the subtle messages of wind and rain and sun.

When I take the time to slow down and notice the interplay between my inner and outer world, there are things I usually notice: often I am drawn to places which echo my inner state; being present with other beings brings me into deep presence and wonder at the world in a powerful recharge; old, diverse ecosystems almost always ask us to “breathe” and “slow down”, and remind us that “we [the land] are here, and we are strong”.

So nowadays my activism means inviting people to enter their inner space and recognise whatever it is within us that stops us being able to deeply hear and revel in the multiple songs of earth. For how powerful would it be to have the capacity within ourselves to ask the trees how they want to protest? To invite the ocean to be a part of our mutual aid networks? What incredible strength would we have if we had the blessings of Country in our blockades, and the rejuvenation that comes of allowing ourselves to consciously breathe inout-in-out with the plants around us?

It is building and remembering this capacity for listening to our more-than-human kin that for me, is the foundation stones of change. My activism, then, is inviting people to listen to themselves, and to earth, and holding brave collective space for whatever might arise when we open deeply into these questions.

Resources: Within Chain Reaction, the “Creative Facilitation” column often highlights practical ways we may begin to introduce deeper listening into our organising spaces.

If you’re interested to explore different connective activities, get in touch and I can share different activities and resources. ~ Meanwhile, many Work that Reconnects, and Deep Ecology, process are specifically designed for activists to tune into themselves/ earth - www.workthatreconnects.org. ~ T his book is a beautiful introduction to ecotherapy/ecopsychology - Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind, eds. Linda Buzzell & Graig Chalquist.

www.foe.org.au

~ T heoretically, I was inspired by “more-thanhuman politics”. Here’s one example on ResearchGate – “More than Human Politics” (2018) by Laura Ogden & Graig Gutierrez in Routledge Handbook of Latin American Development. DOI:10.4324/9781315162935 ~ My learning has been guided by beautiful wisdom teachers and elders around the globe. I always continue to learn, be challenged by, and grow, from these beautiful beings – and they are probably the most valuable resources around…!

Moran Wiesel is an ecotherapist, facilitator, musician, wordsmith, and activist. You can follow their work @earthenspiralled on facebook.

Music facilitating forest listening in the Styx Forest, lutruwita/ Tasmania

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Accessible public transport: a climate solution and a human right Interview with Ally Scott, by Claud Gallois

Claud: Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

Ally: Okay, so I’m Ally Scott and I work at the Disability Resources Centre (DRC) as their Campaigns Coordinator.

Claud: Why is access for all such an important part of transport advocacy?

Ally: Well, people with disabilities in Melbourne, and there’s been a particular focus in Melbourne, have been struggling to get equal access to public services for over 40 years now. And it’s become not only a battle to be able to access jobs, education, community, family, it’s also become a very symbolic battle, because it represents inclusion. And it represents valuing the participation of each and every community member equally.

Claud: Could you tell us a little bit about the DRC’s current campaign for access for all?

Ally: Particularly as a result of the recent lockdown, people who had managed to have some sense of connection within their community have lost those. And we’re encountering through our individual advocacy service, very high levels of loneliness, social isolation, and the sense that public transport is not there for people, and that taxis are scarce and inaccessible is a really big part of this. So there’s a huge cost in terms of people’s potential to connect that is at stake here. The DRC has been working on public transport for a number of years now. In 2018, we worked on a consultation that explored people’s experiences of public transport across Victoria. And the outcomes were quite surprisingly negative. Even when the service itself had relatively good access infrastructure, people had the sense that it was unreliable, it couldn’t be accessed independently and safely. So there’s a very big sense of a lack of safety in our public transport, as well as the lack of physical access. And from that consultation came the Transport for All campaign and, most recently, that has evolved into the Transport for all Coalition. This has brought together different organisations in the transport space, organisations representing aged care, unions, and other disability advocacy organisations, with a shared focus, which is to ensure that all public transport is universally accessible.

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Akii Ngo at a accessible tram protest in Naarm/Melbourne

Claud: So could you tell us a little bit about how the DRC and Friends of the Earth have worked together on this campaign and in the fight for transport for all?

Ally: Friends of the Earth have been an absolutely wonderful ally. Over the last few years they have been so supportive, and given us not only support right there on the ground, for instance in actions, but also support in terms of how best to navigate the lobbying process. As I was saying, people with disabilities have been working at this for 40 years and we don’t feel that we’re getting anywhere fast. And the most recent research and independent analysis of access indicated that our tram network, for instance, was only 15% accessible at a time when it should be approaching 100% access. So we’re needing a lot of help and support with the best way forward. So FoE has been a very powerful ally, really, in helping us navigate the best way forward. For instance, we came together on a joint submission to the Premier’s office, which was to try and inspire a focus for the future of the next government, and I don’t think we would have been able to do that without the support of Friends of the Earth.

Claud: So how do you understand the connection between climate justice and disability justice?

Ally: Gosh, this is such a big one, isn’t it? I think a big part of the richness of working with FoE over the last few years is discovering just how profound the intersectionality of concerns are.

And I suppose for us, the obvious thing around public transport is the investment in public transport is a solution not only to one aspect of climate justice, but also a solution to inclusion.

So I guess that’s the obvious overlap, isn’t it?

I suppose the other reality is that the public transport system was very much developed for 100% able bodied people, and that in this time of ageing population, we know that people who identify with disabilities are actually a very small proportion of the number of people who would benefit from what we’re looking at in terms of universally accessible public transport. That includes our seniors, that includes people with mobility issues who they themselves would not identify as a disability. But it means that public transport is cumbersome, unsafe, and uncomfortable. We really think that there is a very considerable community of people who will benefit from universal access. This is by no means just about wheelchair users. And I think, you know, improving that sense of ownership, that this public service is for everyone, will dramatically change people’s perception of it.

www.foe.org.au

Claud: So what is the DRC’s vision for the future of accessible and sustainable transport?

Ally: The DRC is looking forward to the time when we can safely say that all of our public transport is universally accessible. And this means that it’s independently and safely accessible for everybody, regardless of your mobility issue or your sensory impairment or whether you have an injury or whether you have an energy management condition. Whatever your physicality, you feel that public transport is there for you. And we’re also looking forward to a time when the potential of technology to offer another aspect of safety is fully exploited within public transport such that people can have a sense of whether they’ve encountered this train before, this driver before or this tram before. And we think that there’s a lot of scope in the development of technology to improve this sense of safety.

Claud: And how can our readers support the Disability Resources Centre’s current campaign or get involved?

Ally: So the DRC has a website drc.org.au. On there is a transport campaign page. So you can connect there for updates. We are about to launch a letter writing campaign for the lead up to the election. And we would love help with that. Because one of the issues is that people who are managing disabilities and any kind of mobility impairment, obviously often short of time and often negotiating very significant systemic issues in addition to lack of access. And so campaigning and contacting your MP can feel like something of a luxury. So, it is really wonderful that if anybody feels that this is a significant issue, we would love your support.

You can also follow the Disability Resources Centre on social media: Instagram @drc_au Twitter @DRCadvocacy Facebook @DisabilityResourcesCentre Claud Gallois is FoE’s Activist Coordinator, and is involved with the Sustainable Cities campaign.

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GRANT: Our Ecosystem of Resistance PotDog

Grassroots Action Network Tasmania (GRANT) is an activist collective based in nipaluna/ Hobart on the beautiful island of lutruwita/ Tasmania. Founded at the beginning of 2021, a number of folks from nipaluna and surrounds came together to find a way to help address the environmental and social issues prevalent in our local communities and link them to the wider, global struggles of our times.

Through our diversity of campaigns GRANT has begun to build a strong solidarity network with various organisations, community groups, and other grassroots campaigns, and our members have regularly turned out for union rallies and strike actions, climate and environmental rallies, housing and homelessness events, and peaceful, nonviolent direct action. We are lucky in many ways to live on an island where the social fabric is woven much tighter and the common threads between us are a lot more apparent. This helps to facilitate relationship building quicker and easier than what may be possible in larger cities.

In order to coordinate our two key focus areas of grassroots campaigning and mutual aid, the members of GRANT have developed and conceptualised our own unique model of organising: the lung model, where one lung is needed to support the health of the other. To elaborate, by meeting people where they are and helping them to meet their basic needs and alleviate some of the pressures of capitalism through our mutual aid programs, we can give people the time, space, and energy they need in order for them to start thinking about issues they may care about and participating in collective action to do something about them. Likewise, through participating in campaigns centred around common values and interests, we are able to build a community that can in turn help meet people’s social, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Some of the key issues GRANT has focused on organising around this last year and a half have included confronting the ongoing deforestation of native forests and the role that forestry plays as the lead contributor to carbon emissions in the state, calling out the salmon industry for the havoc their fish farms are wreaking on our local waterways, pushing for a reform of the pokies industry and the stranglehold it has on our democracy, and fighting back against anti-protest legislation designed to silence dissent and protect the vested interests of forestry and mining corporations.

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“Cover this guy up!” protest art

In addition to these grassroots campaigns, GRANT has been involved with a number of projects providing mutual aid to the local community and standing in solidarity with the most marginalised and vulnerable members of our society. Some of these projects include our Elder Care network which helps provide support and resources to Indigenous elders on the island and to which we dedicate half of our funding. Our Community Food Pantry is regularly stocked with rescued food and the produce harvested from our community garden and made available to those in need, and the Mutual Aid Community Kitchen provides free meals each Sunday to those going hungry and a space to discuss the issues impacting peoples’ lives.

A cornerstone of GRANT’s ethos is to centre First Nations issues and voices and we have stood in solidarity with the First Nations people of lutruwita – the palawa pakana people – in their protest of invasion day and ongoing colonisation each year, supported the fight against the establishment of a cable car on the sacred mountain of kunanyi, and helped call for justice to be served in the case of murdered young Indigenous man Jari Wise.

GRANT also regularly provides material support and assistance to refugee and migrant groups, including helping to organise and marshall at human rights rallies such as the Asylum Rights Campaign calling for an end to temporary protection visas, supporting the Hazara community’s protest of the return of the Taliban, helping to run events with the Friends of Palestine Tasmania group, catering for the Iranian community’s Nowruz New Year celebrations, and assisting our friend and prominent refugee advocate Arad Niksefat with his weekly market stall.

The community we have built so far as GRANT is by far our greatest accomplishment. Through mostly word of mouth and friendship networks, we have managed to attract a consistent crowd of 30 to 40 active volunteers to our weekly Monday night meetups at the old Wilderness

Society building on Davey st in the city. Our Monday night meetups consist of sharing a communal meal cooked from ingredients sourced from our garden and community pantry, then holding a introductory/names round often alongside a bizarre ice-breaker question ranging from asking people how their recent bowel movements have been to whether they would prefer hands for feet or feet for hands, followed by announcements and updates from our different campaigns and projects.

We then break into working groups that are fairly dynamic depending on what is topical at the time, but which ultimately pertain to our overarching campaigns and projects. Like many other grassroots organisations, GRANT employs a lateral, anti-hierarchical organising model using consensus-based decisions making, which has allowed many of our participants to take ownership over the direction of the group and to step up into roles and take on tasks.

As a community we have also fostered our own special group culture and trademark style once described as ‘wholesomeness mixed with ratbaggery’: from holding DIY gardening bees and pickling workshops to postering highly frequented supermarket dumpsters and trash-talking conservative politicians on our community radio program ‘Stir the Possum’. As a young organisation, however, we are constantly evolving and have the flexibility to adapt to different styles of campaigning and organising according to the context and the desires of our members.

So if you mainlanders are ever visiting the south island and wish to link up with like-minded folks around niplanua, drop us a line on our socials below or feel free to come along to our Monday night meetups and grab a hot bowl of tasty hippie slop!

Follow @Grassroots Action Network Tasmania on Facebook and Instagram! Or check out the website www.grassrootstas.com.

Potto is a bush cook, wise-cracker, tory-smasher.

GRANT’s Monday night meet-up www.foe.org.au

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The Honourable Exchange – Resisting Mindless Consumerism Alana Mountain

I was recently reading a chapter from “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer about the honourable harvest and mutual exchange. It got me thinking about the relationships between humans and the Earth, and how we fit into the ecosystems of life – or whether that’s even possible anymore.

I feel that wherever we turn, we are presented with a hurdle, a choice, a difficulty of how to choose to tread lightly in this lifetime. The capitalist, patriarchal society has actively worked to sever us from the land. We have been blocked from accessing a part of ourselves that can listen and tune into the vibration of life force surrounding us. So, perhaps, we can be guided to approach life through the honourable harvest lens. And perhaps, this lens is a vitally important form of activism.

The guidelines of the honourable harvest are not written down, but they encompass values surrounding honour and accountability. Knowing the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them. Not taking too much, and giving first before taking. Seeking permission is key.

I thought of how in our consumerism we still attempt to resist capitalism by choosing to enter into transactions that are ‘less harmful’ to the Earth, or choosing to participate in de-centralised forms of currency. I like to participate in gifting systems and this includes the Earth. Participating

in the free flow of exchange, in reciprocity between humans and nature, is a must for myself. I know that there is nothing I can give that can equate to the level of gifting the Earth gives me, but at least I am working at cultivating reverence each day.

Whilst on a trip to Japan a few years back, I learnt the expression itadakimasu, which literally means “I am going to receive the lives of animals and plants for my own life” – but it is more than those words. It is an honouring and extension of deep appreciation towards the life force I am about to receive. I say it now before most meals, and it brings me home to the humility of being human. In that moment I think of the rain, the soil, the winds, the fire, the labour, the privilege of receiving the harvest.

We can’t all be afforded the privilege to choose organic or to buy ethically, but we can participate in gratitude. We can create moments of reverence and deepen our understanding of how things come to arrive in front of us, whether that’s food or resources.

When we take moments to slow down and appreciate the world around us, it leads to an awareness when we set out on our daily lives. By participating in gratitude, by taking moments to pause and give thanks, we resist the structural norm of a capitalist society to consume mindlessly and therefore rapidly. True gratitude doesn’t allow for mindless consumerism, and through this deepening of the ecosystems of care and thanks towards creation, we can develop and cultivate a resistance to over-consumption. Engaging in acts of gratitude can be an act of rebellion in a society that has geared us to not care, so extractivism can persist unabated.

Ask yourself, what is it I can give back? Is it spiritual practice, is it water to the plants, is it listening to the wisdom of our ancestors? We have to learn to send back tenderness and naturalise ourselves to the land otherwise there will be no ecosystem in which human beings can remain a meaningful part.

Alana Mountain is a forest campaigner & writer within Victoria.

She resides on Wurundjeri Country.

Credit: AnnaMaria Flynn

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BOOK REVIEW The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner ‘ There is great strength in vulnerability’: Grace Tame’s surprising, irreverent memoir has a message of hope Camilla Nelson

Abridged from The Conversation, September 27 2022. Read the full review: foe.org.au/cr144f Grace Tame’s The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner shifts expectations. It’s not a minute-to-minute backstage account of the 12 months Tame spent as Australian of the Year, or the #LetHerSpeak campaign or the March4Justice.

It’s not wholly focused on her struggles with hostile elements in the commercial media or the former prime minister she calls “Scott” – which is only democratic after all, given “Scott” invariably called her “Grace”.

The book presents a horrifying account of being groomed and sexually abused as a 15-year-old by her 58-year-old schoolteacher, but it’s also not entirely taken up with “that part of my story that has been magnified and scrutinised publicly”.

What the book reveals is that while such events are “undoubtedly traumatic” they haven’t “defined” her “unfinished experience of life”.

And this is the important message of hope it gives to survivors of child sexual abuse. Until very recently, this crime was diminished or largely ignored by a culture that has historically labelled it a myth or moral panic, thereby enabling abusers. Meanwhile, as Tame writes, “they [abusers] deny, they attack, and they cry victim, while attempting to cast [victims] as the offenders”. “Child abusers groom through isolation, fear and shame,” writes Tame.

“Through the manipulation of our entire society.

All of us, to some extent, have been groomed.”

Instead, the book shares the larger story of Tame’s life in the hope that “my being vulnerable will permit the vulnerability of another”.

Tame writes about her aunts and cousins, about her parents’ divorce, her fight with anorexia, her neurodiversity, and the six years she spent living in the United States, where she moved aged 18.

There’s her brief marriage to former Hollywood child star Spencer Breslin in 2017, with an Elvisthemed wedding, her friendship with actor John Cleese and his daughter Camilla, her work as an illustrator and indeed her brief stint working on a marijuana farm.

The book is loosely chronological, but mostly follows the rhythms and shapes of Tame’s thoughts. It is held together by a strong, www.foe.org.au

irreverent, irrepressible voice, and is enclosed within a cover illustration that she drew herself.

“My mind sees time through the glass door of a front-loading washing machine on a never-ending spin cycle,” she writes. “I can pull out specific memories that look as clean as yesterday because at any given moment everything is churning at high speed in colour”.

In 2018, Tame teamed up with Nina Funnell, a Walkley Award winning freelance journalist and sexual assault survivor who began the #LetHerSpeak campaign in partnership with Marque Lawyers and End Rape On Campus Australia. The campaign was aimed at overturning the gag clauses in Tasmanian and Northern Territory law. In 2019, Tame won a supreme court exemption to tell her harrowing story of being groomed by Bester.

But advocacy takes its toll, she writes, in “the re-traumatisation that results from reliving the abuse.” It is predicated on an incessant “unpacking and processing”, with the reality of abuse “playing on a loop”.

All the while Tame says she has been called everything from a “feminist hero of the fourth wave” to a “man-hater” and a “transgender child abuser”.

The brief accounts Tame gives of her interactions with commercial television producers and journalists (excluding Funnell) are far from flattering to the media. Though she looks strong, the media furore frequently left her “shaking”. “I’d never had such intense panic attacks, coloured by flashbacks cut with criticisms so violent that all I could hope to do was knock myself out in the hopes of knocking them out of me.”

In place of confected outrage, which is “disturbingly skewed”, this memoir attempts to “bridge gaps in understanding” and “ignite a conversation”. It’s worth the “risk and pain”, Tame writes, because “evil thrives in silence”.

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CREATIVE FACILITATION Exploring creative and embodied facilitation practices for activist spaces.

Ecofeminist Action Cycle This is a transcript from an interview between Caresse and Deb who authored The Ecofeminist Action Cycle Deb: Today we’re talking about the ecofeminist action cycle, which is something Wicked Elephants developed this year when they ran a conference event for the Women’s Climate Congress exploring how we engage in climate action.

So why is it called an ecofeminist action cycle?

What is the difference between this model and other action model?

Caresse: Yes! It is an action reflection model, but one based on a deeper understanding of ecology.

If we saw ourselves, and our organisations AS ecology what would ecological action look like?

What would it be like to work in a way that is consistent with the way nature works?

The feminist dimension of the model is where ecology and feminism converge. From both perspectives it’s all about relationships and interdependent systems of relationship, communions of inter-being, like family, community, economic or eco-systems. In both worlds relationships and interdependencies are primary. So what would action look like if we operated from a place that says relationships are primary, honoring our inter-dependency is primary? That’s different to a goal focus right?

Deb: What are some features in the model that speak to this?

Caresse: Number one is our emphasis on having the core inspiration live in our everyday practice. What is the inspiration, the felt longing and felt love, behind what we do? This is the place we need to continually touch into, nurture and ground our actions. Why? Because we get exhausted in action. We get overwhelmed, we get tired, we get disenchanted, we get into conflicts. We need to be able to tap into the ground, the love, from which our idea is born.

For me, the core principle of sustaining ourselves in action is to be grounded in our love for the earth, or our kids or – whatever it is — that lives and sings in me. What is the seed of love that is at the core of my action? Why do I act?

I’m acting because of my distress about what’s happening on the planet. But underneath that is my love for this beautiful, incredible world.

My longing is that we become partners and preservers of life rather than the destroyers of

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it. That’s my guiding inspiration. When I get knocked off kilter, when I run out of energy, I come back to that place and sit in that center of that love, I nurture that love. Only then can I return into grounded action where I’m not driven and I’m not driving anyone else.

Deb: How do you access this place of inspiration?

How do you reconnect with that energy? What’s the personal experience of that for you?

Caresse: I’ll sit in nature. I do a breathing exercise. I exchange breath with the green plants. I remind myself that there are other living beings who give me life and with whom I share life. I get the felt sense then, in my body, that I’m being supported by this whole community of life that wants me in joy and aliveness. It’s there that I find the energy to go out and go on.

Deb: Do you have to find an isolated place or wild place to do that?

Caresse: No. I live and work at home with noisy others, on a busy street. I’m lucky to have a veranda where I have a view of a forested hillside. Or sometimes, when I’m stuck at my desk I connect to the pot plant and breathe with it. I remind myself of its aliveness and my aliveness and that we’re in this together. I sink into that sense. I re-source myself in this place.

Deb: I’m hearing it’s not necessarily a certain amount of time, but you’re also quite practiced at it. How might you encourage people, who aren’t as practiced, to access their guiding inspiration?

Caresse: I invite people to connect to the core of what they love and long for. It’s more important to stay in the love rather than the longing. The longing sits on top. It can guide us to the love.

Staying only in the longing can lead us into anger, frustration and judgement. If we act from these places, it brings dis-ease, drivenness, the opposite of wellbeing. Go deeper. The love that sustains is underneath. Sit in wonder, gratitude, your love for family, nature, community.

You need to identify who or what is your ground. For me it’s nature. Having a sit spot in nature where you go regularly, being in that breathing practice. Walking in nature I see the creative intelligence of this universe and feel its desire for each one of us to really thrive.

Deb: I’m also hearing that the source may not be nature, may not be the family. The seed of inspiration might be community justice for instance.

Caresse: Yes! The seed of inspiration is different, but it’s the seed of love. Love is the germinating force in nature. What is that that is germane to us, generative of our being?

Deb: In the cycle what follows on from the seed of inspiration ?

Caresse: We test and grow our ideas, see if the soil is right for it to grow, see where our ideas can take root. Seeds need nurturing and support.

We need to go out and test the idea with trusted others, share our vision, see what is possible.

We identify the primary shift we want to see happen. It’s a shift from this to that. For me it’s a shift from a consumer culture to a partnership culture. We’re partners with life not its consumers. So we start sharing our vision with people, seeing their response, feeling into it. They might direct you towards a group of people, who are already doing this well but would love your ideas and your contribution.

You may be able to join with them and bring your idea along or compost your idea. If people are responding you know you’re onto something.

It’s a testing and discovery phase, watering the idea, giving it nutrients.

Deb: I see there’s a couple of places on the model where we can compost. Will you say a little bit more about this because we can be prone to thinking that if nobody likes the idea, and we’re not getting good feedback, we’re a failure. What’s different about our model?

Caresse: There are no failures in nature. In nature everything’s an experiment. Everything tries out new ways of being all the time. That’s how we get diversity. Sometimes things die if they can’t adapt to changing circumstances. They become compost. Sometimes ideas die and need to be composted. Let’s be part of that cycle. Let’s stop beating ourselves up if others aren’t excited www.foe.org.au

by our ideas. Maybe the ideas need to grow deeper roots in us, grow through lived, reflected experience to have greater depth. Or maybe something new grows through our letting go.

Deb: So composting is a very positive force in the cycle?

Caresse: Absolutely. Good soil grows healthy communities.

Deb: So moving into the forest ecosystem, on the model, what is happening here?

Caresse: Well, in nature, in healthy forests, there’s a diversity of beings who co-create the ecosystem. The higher diversity in fact the greater the stability.

When we start to take our ideas into the world and gather others around us, we’re bound to encounter a diversity of ways of seeing, a diversity of ways of doing and relating. We encounter others, who might be linked to the same end goal but hold different priorities and values. So how do we operate as an ecosystem valuing those differences as part of our richness?

It invites us to move away from power hierarchies and systems of control to holarchies where leadership is distributed. We need to confront our personalities and explore how they want to control others and direct specific outcomes. How do we lean into the community of others, lean into the collected wisdom, interindependent effort rather than directing things through centralised control? How do we learn from what we perceive as resistance?

How do we allow for diverse pathways action?

Diversity needs great “commune”-ication skills, that’s for sure, keeping clear the core intent and having everyone aligned with the eco-systems purpose – our collective growth and well-being.

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we lean into and tap one another’s distinctive brilliance? It does take skill to do this, an honest self-effacement. However, the urgency of the times is really asking us to grow up, to shift from a Me culture, my view, my way to a We culture where we get better at inter-independent action.

Deb: I hear you speaking about a paradigm shift here: “We’re not following my path, we’re looking at multiple paths”. It’s not so simple to do that is it, to suddenly be able to work with complexity and a diversity of perspectives? What might be a couple of the skills that you think are essential, that would really help people embrace this more regenerative style of working collectively?

Caresse: I like to say, “our habits become habitats that we inhabit and we become like rabbits or crocs or wombats creating the world around us”. In other words, yes! We have to work with our habits and be open to how we might need to grow. Life gives us instant feedback through the difficulties and conflicts we face. We tend to see others as the problem. Well I do! And really, conflict just shows us how we need to grow ourselves up.

The first step of growing new capacity for me is coming into a grounded presence to the moment, rather than running with habituated patterns of thinking, of relating, habituated patterns of speaking. For example, what conversations, or ways of holding conversation,

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like complaining, do we need to stop having?

How can we hold conversations on the edge of newness where we’re not just regurgitating what we know, our opinions, our analysis?

Being really grounded and present to our senses, to the world around us, tapping into our emotional intelligence, our bodies, gives us lots of information about what’s going on. It’s like our whole body-mind is involved in conversation, not just our strategy, control brain. We sense into what’s happening inside us and in the relational fields around us. We stop the busy mind going “yabba, yabba, yabba” all the time. We step into open spaces where we listen in a different way.

We can also open ourselves to the imaginal world where a tree, for example, might “speak to us” of being more grounded, or flexible or in tune with the relational, mycelial, network that nourishes us.

I’m an eco-therapist and facilitate something called Nature Conversations. My experience is the world shows up, symbolically, imaginally, to meet our psyches. We just have to attune ourselves to life as if it’s having a conversation with us. It’s how the ancients created myths!

Deb: What I hear you talking about is connection and relationship with ourselves and ‘the more than human world’. This has been knocked out of us, hasn’t it? How do we practice and find the space to do this?

Caresse: You know, I think that’s a great question. It’s a great invitation to learn to see the patterns of our thoughts, see where we’re getting hooked up, where we’re getting defensive.

When we see it we can stop and step out of our habituated responses. We do that by coming into our senses. I coach people to ‘practice the pause’, cultivate sensing, take your questions into nature and settle into some deep listening.

Deb: I’m really drawn to the middle of the diagram and the words ‘pause, presence, and evaluate’. I’m curious about this emphasis on pausing. Not being driven by our goals and agendas. This practice of pausing, presencing, is almost like a check in.

I imagine us asking ourselves, am I grounded here? Am I in right action? Are things right with the people around me? Am I on track? I’m really evaluating how I’m showing up.

Part of our reason for developing this model was seeing that people were exhausting themselves in action, in activism. We all feel the enormity of being activists, the precarious nature of clambering up walls that seem impenetrable at times. So, to finish off, can we talk about this whole notion of rested action?

Caresse: Yeah, for me, it’s counter cultural because I think any driven action is an action that comes from our strategic mind. It comes from our pain. It comes from our anger. It comes from needing to change something. And when we’re in that energy we will always get a reaction. Always!

There’ll be a force that opposes us. We’re also not at our most creative and not able to connect powerfully with others. We focus on the goal, not the relationship. We need both.

Whereas the idea of rested action is really counter cultural. It’s like, stop the pushing, stop the driving.

We absolutely, fundamentally, need to be in action but it’s how we are in action that is transformative.

It is how I am in action in my relationships, my relationship to myself, others and nature. It’s my relationships that will bring transformative change.

I believe the way that we can do it differently

www.foe.org.au

is through the pause, deeply listening into our own being, into the community of life, into the community of others that we’re working with, that call us all into this deeper ground.

We can’t create a new system, from the old mindset and the old ways of being, away from driven, emotionally laden action. We can’t create a thriving ecology If we don’t cultivate our social ecologies. Acknowledging and celebrating our efforts is a big part of this.

We haven’t talked about feedback. In an ecological worldview feedback is just feedback.

It is information from the system that helps us to evaluate our action, our ways of being and relating, to reorient and navigate our way through the challenges. We need to cultivate skill at feedback, giving and receiving it. Move away from ‘criticism’.

It’s just information, however unskillfully it might be delivered to us. How do we grow with that?

What can we compost from that?

Deb: I noticed myself breathing out as you were talking about rested action. I think there’s something in that. I’m imagining that we can really bring our work, and our lives, forward in quite different ways. It’s not by doing the same thing over and over again, working harder or faster. It’s doing it differently, from a rested, grounded place where we’re really working relationally from what we love. It feels great!

Wicked Elephants is a cooperative of modern elders who are facilitators, coaches and creatives. We’re supporting the shift from Me to We by creating social ecologies, supporting creative embodied collaborations and transformational conversations. Caresse holds a PhD in eco-philosophy and is an experiential therapist. Deb is a social ecologist and science communicator and with others they have been co-creating the work of the Co-op over several years. To find out more about their programs and offerings visit: www.wicked-elephants.coop or reach out to them at hello@wicked-elelphants.coop.

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HEARTH Reflections on rooting change-making into our daily lives, as a means of living the future now.

The Things We Do Aia Newport

I don’t know about you but my theories of change feel more like a criss-crossing dirt track than a linear, well-sealed route with a clear beginning and destination. I don’t have a precise roadmap for the change I want to see.

What I do believe in is creating change through eroding harmful behaviours, structures or beliefs by offering alternatives, assuaging fears and deepening networks of co-operation.

I like to think of system change as being like erosion, inspired by Erik Olin Wright’s ideas on eroding capitalism. Erosion is often slow and can be difficult to observe on a small scale, but obvious on a larger scale.

In an attempt to demonstrate our collective capacity to erode systems of oppression I turned to my friends and asked, “What have you done this week that fits with your personal theories of change?”

As the number of responses grew I began to get a sense of our collective power. “If this is what a group of twenty people did in their week, imagine what we’re doing as a whole community or a whole continent in a whole year!”

The following are mostly responses from friends, plus a few things I’ve done in the last month but could have done this week and a couple of things friends have done at other times that felt appropriate to add. Each line represents a new friend/character.

I worked a small cash job that didn’t accurately represent colonial history so I donated the money to a First Nations organisation.

I went to the Cassius Turvey vigil, showing up in solidarity and grief.

I planted trees in a revegetation area that I’ve been fencing off and planting out over the past few months.

I made a pair of earrings and donated them to a fundraiser for an ex-detainee.

I took my family to a working bee at the community garden because I want to decrease our community’s reliance on for-profit corporate giants for access to food.

I slowed down at work to ask colleagues how they are and really listen to their responses because relationships, care and trust are everything.

I cancelled plans and said ‘no’ to people asking for support because I needed to focus care on myself.

I let a client stay longer while he opened up to me about feeling shame for his attraction to fat bodies and trans women. I wanted to reassure him he’s not alone, both in the shame and the attraction, and give suggestions on ways out of that shame.

I donated clothes I no longer wanted to the free-shop outside a friend’s house because I believe in sharing.

I organised to take young people to the community garden because I believe being connected to our food can be a source of joy, grounding and humility.

I helped organise a protest against the International Mining and Resources Conference because I deeply oppose extractivism. Connecting with others through music sharing stories was also a big plus.

I emailed the director of my children’s childcare centre about integrating the messages from the ‘boys can, girls can’ campaign into the early learning program as I would like my son to keep wearing dresses and tutus when he wants and feel free to be himself. I also believe challenging gender stereotypes and toxic masculinity will reduce the occurrence of genderbased violence in our society.

I picked flowers for a friend who was having a hard day because I’m a big believer in (small) acts of service or kindness as initiators of greater change and community connection.

I contacted my local councillor who made racist remarks about young people in Mparntwe (Alice Springs).

I succeeded in getting gender affirmation/gender transition leave approved in my workplace.

I talked with a friend about alternatives for food transport in the desert, imagining food arriving on electric trains that run on solar power.

Conversations like these give me hope and energy to keep going.

I watered the native trees I planted with a friend in the park close to my house.

I listened to the storm and remembered I am doing all I can and that doing all I can is enough.

In the past week...

I spent time chatting with neighbours around navigating family trauma and mental well-being.

I helped a senior community member set up the stage for a local band to play at our local market because strong, connected communities are key to system change. Also it was lovely and cup-filling.

I cycled to a regional wedding because I strongly believe that we have to stop using fossil fuels if we want a better future.

I shoplifted meat and dairy that were nearing the end of their shelf life because there’s no guarantee they’ll be salvaged from bins and landfill.

I started learning AUSLAN so I can communicate with the Deaf community.

I negotiated a three-day-a-week job interview for a This is what change looks like on an everyday level - eroding, resting and “full-time” job, which creates space for me to live growing. Is it enough? Are we on track? I’ll leave those questions up to you.

Aia (they/them) was born on Wurrundjeri country and is of Scottish, Welsh, in the slower world I believe we all deserve. and English descent. Get in contact at sunshine.punch@protonmail.com.

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At the launch of our last issue “Extractivism & PostExtractivism” we invited people through a meditation dreaming: What does the utopian post-extractivist future feel/dream/taste like? Then we asked Now imagine this is 5 years time. What are 5 things that have happened to create just one thing in your vision?. These are some of the responses that emerged…

What are yours?

If you’d like to continue this conversation, send us a pondering/art to include in the next edition.

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CONTRIBUTING TO FOE Each edition, we hear from those working and volunteering at FoE about what they get up to, and why they’re passionate about FoE.

Campaigner Profile: Michelle Baxter Strzelecki Koala Action Team I joined Friends of the Earth Melbourne and the SKAT collective in March last year as a campaign coordinator. Looking back on the last year, what invites the biggest smile and provides me with a deep seeded comfort is knowing the growing community of koala lovers and advocates, not only centred in Strzelecki koala heartland but also near and wide.

Last year we kicked off our monthly, online SKAT meetings, where people could tune in to find out what was happening in koala-land through surveys and general updates, we would listen to people’s concerns from their own koala patch and we would welcome everyone’s contributions to shape how SKAT chose to advocate for the Strzelecki koala.

Some people may say they’re “zoomed out”, but considering our “scattered” geography, online meetings really work well in connecting interested folk who may be tuning in from overseas, across the metropolitan cities or perhaps across the regional districts.

Whilst we may not have been able to connect with folk face-to-face for much of 2021, it brought me incredible joy when we launched a community roll-out of our koala informational pamphlet in townships neighbouring the Strzelecki koala. Last year at least 1,000 pamphlets were distributed across post offices, info centres, libraries, letterboxes and schools.

This pamphlet is designed to be used as a toolkit to encourage people to send in koala sightings which also features a basic “how-to” look for koala scats.

This year I would love to see more opportunities to excite community

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engagement and involvement in participating in scat-searching citizen-science. I know there is a burning energy for the community to take ownership in securing protection for their unique, furry neighbour, and I would love to empower them to continue fighting for the Strzelecki koala.

The Strzelecki koala relies on community efforts to champion their genetic importance, to distribute educational resources, to share their koala sightings, to engage in citizen-science, to sign petitions, to inspire political leadership and to importantly own wearing Kranky the Koala (our recent addition to the SKAT team).

This is one of the reasons that I love working for Friends of the Earth, because at its heart is a conscious, thriving, diverse, fluid, grassroots community of people that listen and respect one another. There are no expectations to be anyone else but yourself and the sky’s the limit, if there is energy to pursue a project, you can go for it!

Balance.

Stories I’ve been told Say the world May end in ice Others shared It would end in fire I read once a poem That has sat within My mind Forms a coalescence Of both futures But I walk through The fires And burning visions Cold frosted in my heart And dream of a new vision Where everything will return To green Poetry from Earth and Bone,

by Alana Mountain

www.foe.org.au

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FROM THE ARCHIVES Winter 1981 #24

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Friends of the Earth Australia contacts National Liaison Officers:

International Liaison Officers

Zianna Fuad (Melb) zianna.fuad@foe.org.au, Phil Evans (Melb) phil.evans@foe.org.au, Anisa Rogers (Melb) anisa.rogers@foe.org.au, Anna Langford Cam Walker cam.walker@foe.org.au Phil Jackson

Chloe Aldenhoven (Melb), 0432 328 107 chloe.aldenhoven@foe.org.au, Emma Harvey (Melb) emma.harvey@foe.org.au, Franklin Bruinstroop (Bris) franklin.bruinstroop@foe.org.au 0466 319 323, Pat Simons (Melb), 0415 789 961 patrick.simons@foe.org.au, Sam Cossar-Gilbert (Melb) sam.cossargilbert@foe.org.au

Membership issues Melbourne: Jemila Rushton jemila.rushton@gmail.com, ph 9419 8700, 0426 962 506 Other states − see Local Group contacts or contact nlo@foe.org.au

Financial contributions finance@foe.org.au, freecall 1300 852 081, ph (03) 9419 8700

Local Groups FoE Adelaide

FoE Far North Queensland

Bridgetown Greenbushes Friends of the Forest

FoE Melbourne

c/- CCSA, 111 Franklin St. Adelaide SA 5000. adelaide.office@foe.org.au. www.adelaide.foe.org.au

PO Box 461, Bridgetown, WA, 6255. president@bgff.org.au, www.bgff.org.au, Richard Wittenoom 0427 611 511

FoE Brisbane

20 Burke St, Woolloongabba (above Reverse Garbage Qld).

PO Box 8227 Woolloongabba, Qld, 4102. ph (07) 3171 2255, office.brisbane@foe.org.au, https://brisbane.foe.org.au 6 Degrees: Coal and CSG: karenajallen@hotmail.com

National campaigns, projects and spokespeople Anti-Nuclear: Jim Green (SA), 0417 318 368 jim.green@foe.org.au, Robin Taubenfeld (PACE), 0411 118 737 robin.taubenfeld@foe.org.au.

Climate Justice: Leigh Ewbank, 0406 316 176 leigh.ewbank@foe.org.au, Cam Walker, 0419 338 047 cam.walker@foe.org.au Anna Langford, 0478 031 771 anna.langford@foe.org.au; Climate and Health: Harry Jennens, 0417 418 225 admin@healthyfutures.net.au Sasha King (FoEM), sasha.king@foe.org.au Coal and Energy Justice: charlie@tippingpoint.org.au, moira@tippingpoint.org.au wendy.farmer@foe.org.au Community Energy: Wendy Farmer wendy.farmer@foe.org.au Finance, Divestment and Banks: Julien Vincent contact@marketforces.org.au, ph (03) 9016 4449 Food and Emerging Tech: Louise Sales, 0435 589 579 louise.sales@foe.org.au, www.emergingtech.foe.org.au,

Food Irradiation Watch: www.foodirradiationwatch.org, Robin Taubenfeld 0411 118 737, robin.taubenfeld@foe.org.au Forests: cam.walker@foe.org.au, anthony.amis@foe.org.au, Chris Schuringa (GECO) c.schuringa21@gmail.com Kim Croxford, 0417547433 kim.croxford@gmail.com Latin America Indigenous solidarity: Marisol Salinas, 0422 455 331 marisol.salinas@foe.org.au Climate Frontlines (Pacific & Torres Strait Islands Climate Justice): Wendy Flannery (Bris) wendy.flannery@foe.org.au, 0439 771 692 Pesticides & Drinking Water: Anthony Amis (Melb) anthony.amis@foe.org.au Renewable Energy: Pat Simons, 0415 789 961 patrick.simons@foe.org.au wendy.farmer@foe.org.au Sustainable Cities & Public Transport: laura.sykes@foe.org.au Claudia Gallois, 0448 752 656 claudia.gallois@foe.org.au, www.facebook.com/WeSustainCities, @WeSustainCities

www.foe.org.au www.facebook.com/FoEAustralia www.foe.org.au

Tipping Point (climate action) www.tippingpoint.org.au, info@tippingpoint.org.au. charlie@tippingpoint.org.au. moira@tippingpoint.org.au Trade and Economic Justice: sam.cossargilbert@foe.org.au jemila.rushton@gmail.com Jarred Abrahams, 0468862503, jarred.abrahams@foe.org.au, cam.walker@foe.org.au Unconventional gas: zianna.fuad@foe.org.au War and the Environment: Robin Taubenfeld, 0411 118 737 robin.taubenfeld@foe.org.au Sam Castro, 0439 569 289 sam.castro@foe.org.au.

Phil Evans phil.evans@foe.org.au Margaret Pestorius (FNQ) mpestorius@foe.org.au Wet Tropics: Ingrid Marker (Qld) ingrid.marker@foe.org.au 0438 688 229 Gender Justice and Dismantling Patriarchy sam.castro@foe.org.au 0439 569 289 Zianna Fuad, 0401613301 zianna.fuad@foe.org.au phil.evans@foe.org.au Kim Croxford, 0417547433 kim.croxford@gmail.com

PO Box 795, Kuranda, Qld, 4881.

Ph Ingrid Marker 0438 688 229, fnq@foe.org.au, www.foefnq.org.au, facebook.com/FriendsoftheEarthFNQ PO Box 222, Fitzroy, 3065.

Street address – 312 Smith St, Collingwood.

Ph (03) 9419 8700, 1300 852081 (free call outside Melb.) foe@foe.org.au, www.melbourne.foe.org.au, www.facebook.com/foemelbourne, www.instagram.com/foemelbourne Membership and fundraising coordinator: Jemila Rushton, jemila.rushton@gmail.com, ph 9419 8700, 0426 962 506 Act on Climate: Anna Langford, anna.langford@foe.org.au, www.actonclimate.org.au Nuclear Free Collective: nuclearfree@foe.org.au

Dirt Radio: www.3cr.org.au/dirtradio, Mondays 10:30am and Tuesdays 9:30am on 3CR, www.facebook.com/DirtRadio Food co-op: food@foe.org.au, ph (03) 9417 4382 Forest Collective: cam.walker@foe.org.au www.melbournefoe.org.au/forests No New Fossil Fuels​campaign: www.melbournefoe.org.au/nnff-vic River Country Campaign: www.melbournefoe.org.au/ river_country Sustainable Cities Campaign: Elyse Cunningham, elyse.cunningham@foe.org.au, www.facebook.com/WeSustainCities, @WeSustainCities Yes 2 Renewables: Pat Simons, 0415 789 961 patrick.simons@foe.org.au, Wendy Farmer, wendy.farmer@foe.org www.yes2renewables.org

Affiliate members Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN) info@asen.org.au, www.asen.org.au, www.facebook.com/asen.org.au, Anisa anisa.rogers@foe.org.au

The Hub Foundation Castlemaine

Earthworker Cooperative Dan Musil, 0432 485 869,

Market Forces Julien Vincent, contact@marketforces.org.au, www.marketforces.org.au, @market_forces, www.facebook.com/MarketForces

contact@earthworkercooperative.com.au www.earthworkercooperative.com.au

www.facebook.com/Earthworkercoop, @Earthworkercoop GM Free Australia Alliance Alex Mijatovic, 0449 872 327 info@gmfreeaustralia.org.au, www.gmfreeaustralia.org.au

Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO) www.geco.org.au, facebook.com/GECOEastGippsland, geco@geco.org.au, @eastgippyforest, Tuffy Morwitzer 0423 373 959 Healthy Futures www.healthyfutures.net.au, admin@healthyfutures.net.au, Harry 0417 418 225, Kate 0438 347 755, facebook: Healthy Futures

http://mash.org.au/about-thehub-foundation, jo@hubfoundation.org.au, 0455 589 065

Sustainable Energy Now PO Box 341, West Perth WA 6872. www.sen.asn.au, contact@sen.asn.au.

Outreach Convenor Rob Phillips 0416 065 054.

Outreach Organiser Alastair Leith 0432 889 831 Wildlife of the Central Highlands (WOTCH): wotch.inc@gmail.com, www.wotch.org.au, www.facebook.com/VICWOTCH School Strike 4 Climate (SS4C) admin@schoolstrike4climate.com

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COMMUNITY GAS RETIREMENT ROADMAP How and why to get off gas in Victoria

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Chain Reaction #141

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