The global environment of Reaganomics and Thatcherism provided the background for the emergence of post-seventies eco-millenarian movements. In 1980, with their doctrine of 'no-compromise in defense of planet Earth', Earth First! emerged in the US.2 By the early nineties, Britain was experiencing the presence of self-marginal eco-tribes like the Dongas, the Flower Pot Tribe and Dragon Environmental Group.3 In the local context a contemporary face of defiance percolated throughout the eighties. By the end of the decade, these antipodean 'edgemen' (Turner 1969:128) had a name - 'feral'.4 To my knowledge, this metaphorical application, now acknowledged in the nation's dictionary,5 is exclusive to Australia, referring to a subcultural assemblage the adherents to which (often, yet not exclusively middle class youth) express an eco-radical inspired dissonance from the 'parent culture'.
It seems probable that this exclusivity derives from the unique historical response to and cultural interaction with introduced/domestic species running wild and turning pestilent across the breadth of the continent (Smith 1999). Yet, as I indicate elsewhere (St John 1999), human ferals are an enigmatic lot. They have experienced diverse reception: vilified as 'pests', green devils and 'terrorists' by rural and regional Australia, or adopted as 'wild' exotica in metropolitan centres. The diversity indicates that ferality is cloaked in ambivalence. Source of fear or subject of desire, ferals may be loathsome or lovable, a polarity fully recognised by The Macquarie where, colloquially, 'feral' may be either 'disgusting; gross' or 'excellent; admirable'!
Foremost, a critical discourse and praxis characterises ferality. Though feminist, peace, native title and New Age movements have contributed to the feral concourse, the radical ecology movement has been particularly formative. Since the 1960s, local urban middle class populations of advanced capitalist nations have been the chief proponents of a globalist sensibility decrying 'the death of nature'. Awareness of environmental degradation has precipitated the advent of what Beck calls 'long-distance moralities' (1992:137), and has raised an ecological consciousness wherein nature has become the principal 'field of collective action with which new social groups are engaged' (Eder 1990:37). A key manifestation of this growing cultural anxiety over environmental 'risks' is 'ecologism' which Dobson (1995) regards as an ideological commitment to ecological balance and diversity, sustainable levels of production and consumption, and non-exploitative practices.
On the fringes of this 'culture of the environment' (Jagtenberg and McKie 1997:91), lies radical ecologism, a multi-faceted critical standpoint delineated by Merchant (1992). I take this system of discourse and practice to possess several elements. First, an acute awareness of rampant ecological devastation under the colonialist imperatives of industrial modernity - devastation constituting the apocalypse. An understanding of the abuses of ecological rights is closely linked with a growing knowledge of human rights abuses, suffered especially by indigenes. Second, an intimacy with, and attachment to, native biotic communities. The subscription to the eco-spiritual principles of deep ecology, and a Pagan-inspired kinship with maternal nature (Gaia) is common. Third, a personal and prescriptive 'anticonsumerism'. As Purkis (1996:210) suggests, rather than 'just buying green or ethically produced goods, different ways of living, trading and working are advocated in order to "live more lightly" on the Earth and to be less dependent on buying things to feel good about ourselves'. Low impact living (captured in the phrase 'refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle') involves ethical limitation6 of the consumption of mass-produced commodities and fossil fuels, and conscientious waste management practices. Fourth, a culture of eco-celebration and defence. In their methods of defending 'the rights of nature',7 this 'earth volunteer army' (Hoare 1998:19) are the radical offspring of the conservation movement, and the product of grassroots resistance actions mounted over nearly two decades. Finally, gravitation towards decentralised, non-hierarchical co-operatives. The coupling of global consciousness with decentrist habitudes is enshrined in the maxim of Nimbin Star Earth Tribe's Tipi Village Sanctuary: 'think globally - go tribally' - perhaps the feral catchcry.
Critical discourse propagates a distinctive confrontational attitude. They are 'hippies with attitude'. On a Hot Wired webpage, Doyle (1995), claims that to be feral thou shalt 'espouse peace and love ... but don't take any shit, and never turn the other cheek'. Rather than seeking total isolation (as is characteristic of many communitarian experiments of the 1960s and '70s) or 'disappearance' (as has been described of ravers of the 1980s and '90s [Melechi 1993]), ferality is about creating a 'public new sense': obstructing, boycotting, desiring and actively promoting change. Pursuing a transgressive lifestyle, theirs is an acute 'risk identity'. Yet, it differs from that which is, according to Hetherington, cultivated by new travellers. The latter are said to actively embrace chaos by 'putting themselves in danger from the things others fear so much: transientness, eviction, ostracism, placeless identities, poverty, harassment and uncertainty in one's life' (1992:91-2). Not a directionless and 'placeless' pursuit of hedonistic excess, the feral project is an activist life-strategy of (re)connection and defence.
This culture of activism seems to have generated two types of role: protester and educator. The former are perhaps spurred on by something like the directive 'turn on, tune in and lock on' (from the English DiY zine POD - in McKay 1996:131), which, inciting direct action, or non violent direct action (NVDA), is a declaration of disassociation from hippy forbears who are rather unfairly typified and dismissed as passive. According to Mardo, unlike the Rainbow tribe, who are 'more into spiritualism and inner growth', ferals, who are 'out there doing things on the Earth plain, here and now', derive from the 'more hard core end of the seventies hippies'. This provocative 'new warrior spirit' is sometimes extended to incorporate diplomacy, mediation and commitment to the latter, educational, role.
Banyalla is a notable example of the protest activist. Inspired by the Yippy movement,8 Earth First!, and a veteran of the Franklin conflict, he once canvassed for Greenpeace but became disgruntled with 'leaders and bureaucracy'. Since Greenpeace did not train him for anything other than 'knocking on doors raising money', he led a 'sort of industrial revolt' for which he was sacked. Banyalla is now a staunch defender of East Gippsland's remaining old growth forests and a key member of GECO. He believes in the feral movement, but he says it must 'challenge the status quo'.
Quenda exemplifies the educator activist. Quenda suspects she was conceived at the Aquarius festival in 1973. Raised in a rock house on a Queensland permaculture community, she completed a degree in environmental science at Lismore, specialising in conservation technology. About her current life she says 'I've lived in my car for a long time [and] I know how to shit in the bush'. Though possessing the qualifications, she has so far resisted taking up a professional position as 'nothing really fits in with my ideals'. Quenda stresses that:
[if] you're not interacting with lots of people and you're living in a little plot of rainforest and you're just sprouting your own sprouts - you've got you're own simple herb garden and you're completely isolated from other people and temptation - then you're not the ideal feral.
Close to the ideal, she commits to raising ecological issues with 'red neck farmers', who, now she's shaved off her dreadlocks, aren't threatened by her approach: 'Hey! Ya'know if you plant x ya'know at x time of year you'll have heaps more nutrients and you can even have cow fodder. And then you can keep the cows off the creek at the same time!'
Many demonstrate a convergence of both roles. Take Mardo, a communicator and 'hard core' activist, for example. Brought up in housing commission flats, Mardo took to the streets and then the bush at an early age. His 'love of the land' and the knowledge of ecology and life on the planet developed working on cattle stations in outback Queensland and the Northern Territory. Once having objected to the cattle industry, he later became involved in several campaigns including Goolengook forest blockade in East Gippsland. By April 1997, he had been 15 months with GECO teaching people climbing techniques, bush survival skills, designing lock-on devices and building platforms for 'tree-sits'. He also liaises with police and loggers at blockades. In 1997, Mardo conceived the inclusive grassroots group CIDA (Concerned Individuals for Direct Action),9 to provide equipment and training to communities protecting natural heritage from development. He cited the support given to members of the community at Bannockburn defending the remaining 400 hectares of old-growth yellow gum in the region, as an exemplar:
They didn't want it chopped down, and they fought and they fought, and it came down to confrontational tactics - being on the ground out in front of dozers. And they didn't really have any idea of how to approach that sort of situation. I guess they had a few ideas, but not the expertise ... And I went down and, under the banner of CIDA, we went through and we helped them get what they needed, like lock-on boxes and told them how they worked, and tactics - how to play with the police or to use against the police - and what their legal rights were.