Harbouring a legacy of swift occupation and peaceful obstruction, one node in this network is the East Gippsland based GECO, which represents the last line of defence of Victoria's remaining high conservation-value forest. Like Earth First!, GECO have become a vehicle for translating broad ecocentric and bioregional principles into an 'operational environmentalism' (Seager 1993:224). With their familiar screen-printed folk-dicta 'old growth - fucken oath' and 'tragic happens', GECO emerged out of blockades mounted in 1993/94. One activist, Belalie, conveys a common perception:
[There is] a really hostile local community [in East Gippsland] ... I mean they're living on massacre sites. It's just an area of such dark history. It's an area where, like, colonisation continues. They continue to destroy the sacred things. They continue to wipe out the native species. It's the same attitude which [early settlers] approached this country with ya'know, and it's just ongoing.
Dedicated to NVDA, GECO also engage in political lobbying, police and forestry worker liaison, conduct surveys for endangered species ('scouting') and public education. They founded an organic food co-op and have established a permaculture garden. They recognise the prior occupancy of the forests by the Bidawal (from flyer). In 1997, they united with other groups to form a community of resistance at Goolengook. With the signing of the Regional Forest Agreement, and against the recommendations of DNRE (Department of Natural Resources and Environment) botanists and prominent scientists, Goolengook forest has been exposed to clearfell logging and slash burning. A large percentage of trees are destined for the government subsidised export woodchipping mill at Eden in southeast NSW owned by the Japanese Harris-Daishowa.
The Goolengook base camp blockade was established when all other political processes failed to protect this forest. The camp experienced constant flux, with numbers swelling as 'Goolengeeks' assembled for immanent blockades20 and 'event-actions'. The latter has involved occupying the DNRE office in Orbost, and, more importantly, 'hitting the chippers' (actions on woodchipping mills at Orbost and Eden). These passionately executed actions involved conveyor belt lock-ons, banner dropping and eco-political theatrics. Instances of the feral spectacle serving the cause, they are designed to attract media attention and engineered to increase the operating costs of an environmentally destructive industry. They are often collaborations of groups representing people from diverse backgrounds - GECO and more conventional conservationists such as members of The Wilderness Society - yet it is often the ferals who commit to the lock-on. With cruel irony, on June 5th 1997 - World Environment Day - police 'broke the blockade'. Since then, there have been over 170 arrests.
Encampments are a strong source of identity formation and belonging. Like road protests in Britain, GECO's direct action can be seen to possess a ritual function:
[T]he inherent risk, excitement and danger of the action creates a magically focused moment, a peak experience where real time suddenly stands still and a certain shift in consciousness can occur ... Direct action is praxis, catharsis and image rolled into one. (Jordan 1998:133)
Indeed, eco-defensive actions, with all their trials and tribulations, have a purpose reminiscent of a rite of passage. Taylor communicates this idea drawing upon a passage from Earth First!:
Rites of passage were essential for the health of primal cultures ... so why not reinstate initiation rites and other rituals in the form of ecodefense actions? Adolescents could earn their adulthood by successful completion of ritual hunts, as in days of yore, but for a new kind of quarry - bulldozers and their ilk. (Davis in Taylor 1994:193)
A form of civil disobedience, a successful 'hunt' constitutes the delaying of logging activity via the 'lock-on'. Risks taken at 'actions' are a strong source of kudos and acceptance in these communities of resistance. Great respect is reserved for those who perform the most valorous feats 'in the field' - who, 'by deploying their bodies in precarious settings ... convert themselves into flesh and blood bargaining chips' (Williams 1998:9).21 Yet domestic responsibilities, such as cooking and washing-up, earn members equivalent respect. For instance, Bandicoot suggests washing dishes, cooking, fetching water and chopping wood are his foremost responsibilities at a blockade. Mardo lives by the Zen Buddhist philosophy: 'Before enlightenment - chop wood, fetch water. After enlightenment - chop wood, fetch water'. Along with obstructions accomplished, harassment's experienced, arrests and fines accumulated, kitchen duties and camp maintenance are important sources of kudos within the protest milieu.
Such communities of resistance are autonomous zones of warmth and solidarity. This was reported to be the case at a recent anti-logging campaign at Giblett WA in 1997, where, at any one time, in a stand off with the WA Department of Conservation and Management, there were said to be 150 people scattered throughout the old growth, many on tree platforms. One platform dweller, Zac (aged 20), revealed that 'for the first time, I feel like I actually belong somewhere ... There is such a sense of belonging and such a sense of family in this place that I haven't found anywhere' (Pennells 1997:5). While the loss of forest compartments or coups to which deep attachments have been formed occasions a 'crushing sense of grief and despair' amongst forest defenders, the desecration often binds together those who have 'borne witness' (Hoare 1998:23).
Together with blockades and other protests, forest raves, festivals and gatherings are important hubs of eco-radical sociality. Ferals will likely celebrate the season's cycle - the pagan year, the path of the sun and phases of the moon - at small gatherings, doofs (like Earth Dream events), communities (e.g. Wolfgang's Palace) or at larger ACHs (like ConFest). Immediate centres on the margins, such events provide the context for meeting new friends and/or partners, for forging alliances. Further to this, they provide opportunities for the disenchanted and directionless to form and maintain vast 'extended milieux' (Purdue et al. 1997) and to (re)turn to spiritual and activist paths. They are, therefore, recruitment thresholds. Consistent with the party/protest amalgamation of 'DiY culture', such thresholds typically combine festive celebration with political consciousness raising. With the rallying promo 'Celebrate and Defend', the Goongerah Gathering of January 1998 typified such an alliance as it hosted live music, a doof and was the kick off for a renewed forest campaign. ConFest is a magnified model of this kind of alliance.
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Footnotes
Appendices
Glossary of Acronyms and Abbreviations
References: A-L
References: M-Z
Chapter Five Contents
Thesis Contents