For my last quarter at Western, I studied abroad at the University of Melbourne in Australia. In my time there linked with the Environment Collective and joined in on some of their activities, such as getting renewable energy on campus. During mid-semester break, I tagged along on a camping trip to East Gippsland, six hours east of Melbourne. But this would be no normal camping trip. It was an organized action to blockade logging activities in Victoria's old-growth forest.
"You are all within a public safety zone, if you don't leave now you will be arrested," said the officer.
Activists and arresting officers often get to know each other by first name.
"Lauren," he said in his thick Aussie accent, "You're already on bail, you can't afford to get arrested again. Danya, same with you. Leave this area immediately."
The officer knew he could get the group of protesters to leave the logging area with a simple warning. But the four people locked onto the log mover and excavator that were different story. Search and Rescue would have to be flown out from Melbourne to cut them off the machines before they would leave.
I've always felt that when political and legal means fail, non-violent direct action has its time and place. Taking part in the Seattle WTO protests in 1999, I saw how everyday people, who were not given a say in their future could stop the most powerful men in the world. I admired the bravery of the tree sitters in the redwood forests of northern California. When I heard about the East Gippsland trip and the chance to be part of forest preservation in Australia, I naturally went along wholeheartedly.
The trip was to a town called Goongerah, home of Goongerah Environment Centre, one of the most recognized environmental groups in the Australian state of Victoria. The protest focused on recent old growth forest logging. The plan was simple: set up a blockade and hold it as long as we could while gathering as much media attention as possible.
We left Melbourne on a cloudy Sunday afternoon, the Holden sedan packed to the legal limit. Visiting with my newfound Australian student companions, I watched out the window as the city faded into bush and daylight succumbed to darkness. Hours passed while I watched the landscape change on this unfamiliar continent. The last hour seemed to stretch on forever as we drove through pitch black forest, dense with Eucalyptus trees and ferny undergrowth that seemed like something out of the Jurassic.
We arrived at the blockade sometime before midnight, relieved the drive was over and eager to see which of the dark figures standing around the campfire we knew. It was a younger group, some students, some locals, and several hardcore activist types.
"We have to be ready for the loggers to rock up around dawn," said a local activist, who said she devotes most of her time to blockading logging in East Gippsland.
"There's still heaps of stuff to get done before then, so most of us aren't sleeping tonight," she said. "We'll need everyone to help set up the tripod, we need firewood, and others could scrub the road or dig a ditch. Scrubbing the road is basically putting anything you can find onto the road, mostly logs. It just buys a little more time for when the cops or loggers get here. Now, who is willing to get arrested tomorrow?"
They went over what to expect the next day, the severity of legal charges, and how to talk to the police.
I couldn't help but be impressed by the organization of the group. Many had radios for communication, piles of rope, climbing equipment, and were experts at setting up tree-sits and building tripods. Many had been arrested before.
With my borrowed hiking boots caked in mud and my trusty head torch shining the way, I began grabbing logs and throwing them on the pile across the dirt logging road. We took turns gathering logs, setting up camp, and getting to know some of the other activists. We set up the tripod that someone would sit in before the loggers arrived the next morning, tied a tree-sit to the tripod. This way two people were supported by the tripod and would have to be removed before the road could be used. With only a couple hours of darkness left, I crawled into my sleeping bag, deciding against staying up all night.
Day 1
"Everyone get up! The loggers will be here any minute, get up!" said someone at the crack of dawn.
"Is anyone in this tent?" He was only a couple of feet away.
"Yeah, got it. I'm getting up," I replied.
Adrenaline began pumping as I imagined the potential situation when the loggers arrived. Are they the violent type? Will I get arrested? Do the cops use tear gas, or mace?
Eventually two white trucks came over the hill and approached the blockade. Loggers. A young activist sat high up on the tripod and another was about 60 feet up on the platform in the tree. The loggers drove through the field next to the road, around the blockade we'd set up.
A few hours later, Victorian police and the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) officers arrived and said we were in a public safety zone and warned us all to move our camp elsewhere. Public safety zones are maintained to keep people away from falling trees and other dangerous logging activities.
"We don't believe you. You need to show us a map of where the zone is before we'll move," the local activist leader said.
The DSE arresting officer ignored her.
"You've been warned. If you don't move you'll be arrested," the officer said. Singling out a protester with patched pants and long dreadlocks, the officer announced, "If we come back here, I'll make sure you're the first one arrested."
The singled-out activist rolled his cigarette, not phased by the threat.
"We have a winner! Ten free beers for you!" yelled the activist leader.
Heckling the officers is common, mostly to lighten the mood.
Day 2
"Everyone wake up, the cops are going to be here in 20 minutes!" someone announced early in the morning, banging on a pot.
I got up with just enough time to get dressed and eat. Then a parade of about 20 police, DSE, and other vehicles came over the hill.
Again, the public safety zone warning from the DSE.
Again, the protesters said they didn't believe them, and requested to see documentation of the zone.
We knew the options were to stay and get arrested, or move down the road to another campsite. I packed up my tent and belongings.
Up at the site, the police cabled off the ropes that were tied to the logging equipment, leaving the treesits untouched but the machines free. After shutting them down for a day and a half, the loggers continued. Our friends in the tree-sits sat and watched as this mature, native forest was turned into lumber likely to be shipped to Japan in the form of woodchips.
"We're deciding what we should do for an action tomorrow, but we wanted to ask how everyone is feeling. A little worn out?" one of the leading organizers asked.
Nobody objected to more action. Most people were excited at what they'd seen and wanted to keep the momentum going while we still had the numbers. And, the best news of all, our actions were making a difference.
"I've been at the roadhouse all day doing press. Media is going off! I had two national interviews, radio, and we're on the front page of The Age online," the unofficial public relations guy for the group said, motivating everyone for more action the next day.
Day 3
Up bright and early, we packed in cars and drove up to a different logging site. Two loggers were on the job. As we parked and walked up to the site, they got into their trucks and drove off, leaving us full reign of the site.
Two pairs of protesters went about locking themselves onto the heavy machinery, consisting of a log mover and an excavator. With chains around their wrists, they slipped their hands into metal pipes and hooked onto a rod welded across the middle.
Then the same DSE and police officers we'd encountered over the last two days showed up, and gave the same public safety zone warning they'd given at the previous site.
Two girls on one machine and two guys up the other remained locked to the machines while the rest of us waited at the end of the road.
Late that afternoon Search and Rescue freed the people locked on and the police made five arrests. Twelve people were arrested in total over the three days of action.
That night around the campfire I talked to a tall Australian activist who has been protesting in forests across Australia for approximately 13 years. He was pleased to share his activist battle stories to us new recruits.
"I was tortured for two and a half hours once," he said. "We stormed a woodchip mill some time in the late 90s. I hit the emergency stop on the conveyer belt and locked onto it. About 30 mill workers punched and kicked me, then sprayed me with the firehose until I was nearly hypothermic. Right about the time they got a blowtorch out and started braising my legs with it, the cops showed up."
He went on about winters spent living in the forest setting up blockades, his experiences hanging out with loggers, and what he plans for the future.
"This is like a war," he said. "I would die to protect these forests."
David Hammerton, the University of Melbourne student union environment officer, was also in East Gippsland that week. Hammerton was arrested twice for protesting. He received five different charges when he and three others broke into a shipyard in Geelong, south of Melbourne, and locked themselves onto a ship transporting woodchips to Japan.
"I think everyone should be doing everything they can to make certain that we don't destroy the planet anymore, and this is my part," Hammerton said.
He says that the forests in East Gippsland will be gone in four years given the current rate of logging.
"Over the last year we've delayed logging by maybe 40 or 50 days," Hammerton said. "By blockading, you're not going to protect the forest. Delaying [logging] is really important, but when you tie it into the forest political campaigning, that's where it becomes most useful."
Although 85 percent of old growth forest in Victoria is set aside from logging, a large portion of what remains lies in East Gippsland.
I came away from that week with an experience I could have never predicted choosing to study abroad. The important thing about being in another part of the world is the knowledge you gain, and the knowledge you bring back to share with others. After being told my whole life that "there's nothing you can do," or "it's just the way it is," I saw people just like me on the other side of the world doing what they could to build a better world, and I'm content knowing that it has changed my outlook at least a small amount for the better.