Brown is back in the High Court, challenging controversial Tasmanian laws limiting the right to protest. He could tell how the water would gather there, how the river would slowly drown itself. UpRiver: Untold stories of the Franklin River activists. Write a list of questions and then share these with your classmates. He learnt a series of lessons. Australian Geographic acknowledges the First Nations people of Australia as traditional custodians, and pay our respects to Elders past and present, and their stories and journeys that have lead us to where we are today. Cassidys contemporary journey, shown through stunning cinematography, is the central thread in Franklin. The Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Commission proposed that a dam should be built near the junction of the Franklin and Gordon Rivers. Were sitting on sand near noon on day one of this nine-day trip, devouring muesli bars and shivering. About 70 people who were involved in the blockade have marked the milestone with a cruise up the Gordon River, on Tasmania's west coast. With weather. He worked as a producer, director, writer, script editor, cinematographer, and editor in drama and documentary projects for cinema and television. Bulldozers trying to destroy it. We have revisited the old camps, the old tracks, monitored the regrowth on the destruction site, and sang songs, eaten food and generally celebrated our beautiful world heritage, Hungerford wrote. Documents the massive non-violent civil disobedience against the building of the Gordon below Franklin Hydro-electric scheme between December 1982 and March 1983. Geoff Law admires one of the dozens of waterfalls that feed the Franklin River on its way to the Tasmanian coastline. It is very hard to get to. Protestors at the Franklin River - National Museum of Australia After the Franklin campaign was won, this photo was slipped under the door of the Wilderness Society office in Hobart, showing HEC workers in front of the remains of a famous Huon pine. Write a persuasive paragraph on this idea or hold a class debate about it. Have you heard people say that if you are lost in nature, find a river and follow it to the end? Why did the Wilderness Society oppose the building of a dam on the Gordon River? The extra electricity not needed locally couldbe sold to other states, providing them with cheap and green electricity and generating more income for Tasmania. Karen Alexander. Anti-dam protesters in south-west Tasmania, opposing the planned construction of the Franklin River dam, 1982. There is no malevolence in this river, he says, only a cruel indifference. Featuring never-before-seen archival footage and interviews with key players such as Bob Brown and Uncle Jim Everett, the eight-year-long Franklin campaign is revealed as the most significant environmental protest in Australias history; an inspiring example of the power of non-violent direct action to bring about lasting change. Until that time he had been little more than a roving, roaming witness to an environmental movement that seemed like something for earnest losers. 4. 7 8 10 Learning area History Civics and citizenship Geography Further activities In a snapshot In 1982 protesters and environmental activists led a campaign to stop the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania. For many environmentalists, Bob Brown is a legend. Bob Brown reflects on saving the Franklin River I could hardly move the day after Trump was elected, Law says, pausing. The Franklin River Blockade 1983 Documentary | 25mins | Completed This documentary traces the bringing of a bulldozer from an isolated fishing village in south-west Tasmania, up-river into World Heritage rainforest - to begin the planned destruction of the Franklin and lower Gordon Rivers - and the ensuing confrontation with protesters. 1.1 What happened with the Franklin Dam? - National Museum of Australia Lighting a fire, then dragging the soaking boat to dry by the embers. Franklin River (Vancouver Island) - Wikipedia Were the blockade to be repeated today, protesters would have faced years, not weeks, in prison. 1. In March 2016, Honduran protest leader Berta Caceres was murdered following her campaign against a dam. Head guide Jordie Rieniets balances on slippery rocks while holding a raft's stern line, waiting for the rest of the party to negotiate a rapid. Thats how Law ended up on the river in 1981, wearing stubbie shorts, a wool jumper, raincoat, balaclava and bicycle helmet, sitting in a second-hand rubber duckie raft. For former blockaders who helped prevent it being dammed, the trip has added poignancy. Project-specific support provided by Screen Australia's development programs since the agency's inception in July 2008. This action was the culmination of 7 years protest against the proposed dam.Directed and edited by Roger Scholes for the Wilderness Society.Since then, our story of success continues. Many were jailed for weeks at a time. But now, with the Franklin River flowing swiftly over polished rocks, the activist Geoff Law pulls his oar through an icy flow the colour of strong tea. Listen and watch 40 years of Australian blockading songs The area has since been put on the World Heritage Register. Roger Scholes - Wikiwand The Franklin blockade remembered and celebrated in Hobart In 1978 the Hydro-Electric Commission proposed that another dam be built on the Gordon River. The itinerant ferals sung melancholy dirges We are one with the infinite sun and reminded him of Lord of the Flies, but they were committed. But in 1976, he was a young GP in . Law moved on, fighting deforestation in Sumatra and protecting old-growth forests in Slovakia and Romania. The judiciary is perhaps the other tool for resistance. Franklin review: More than an environmental documentary, this is a The bathroom experience is worse than you imagine. Environmental groups, including the Wilderness Society, lobbied the Tasmanian Government to protect the environment and stop the dam. However the dam wouldflood much of the wilderness area, destroying the habitat of the endangered animals and flooding irreplaceable cultural sites. Why? They argued this new dam would destroy the habitat of endangered species as well as important First Nations rock art. Franklin River (Vancouver Island) Coordinates: 490600N 1244900W. Natural Law: When the future of Tasmanias wild Franklin River seemed dire, Geoff Law and others fought to save it. This action saved a key wilderness area and raised awareness of environmental issues. He was one of the key campaigners behind the Franklin River blockade of 1982 and 1983 the most successful environmental campaign in Australian history and Ive come here to ask him what lessons we might learn from that historic action. 1982 Citation: A6135, K16/2/83/4 Keywords: protest Bob Hawke Tasmania About this record This colour photograph, taken on 17 December 1982, shows a protest against a decision by the Tasmanian Government to dam the Franklin River to generate hydro-electricity. Fighting for the Franklin: archive footage, Australian Geographic Society Expeditions, Endangered fairy-wrens survive Kimberley floods, Entries are now closed for the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition 2023. 10. There was fierce determination at state level for the project to go ahead, and the local community was divided between those who wanted the jobs, and those who wanted the wilderness conserved. It showed how small the scheme would be, yet how great the consequences. Sorry, we don't have images or video for this item. People establish a camp somewhere, completely inhabit a site so that its festooned with all this clothing and life jackets and kitchen utensils, and the ground is carpeted with sleeping mats and containers, and the next morning its all gone, says Law. Hawke called the proposed dam an environmental obscenity and an economic absurdity. 3. Labor opposition leader Bob Hawke campaigned against the dam and, after winning the 1983 federal election, passed laws to block the project. People have died here. ACMI acknowledges the Traditional Owners, the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation, on whose land we meet, share and work. Screen Australia is not responsible for and does not endorse any Third Party Sites' use, effect or content or any associated organisation, product or service on the third party site. It grabs you by the throat.. And he learnt the power of imagery, most notably a single photo, by Peter Dombrovskis, of Rock Island Bend. Law recalls the beginning, when Tasmanian Liberal premier Robin Gray the whispering bulldozer walked Queenstowns streets wearing boxing gloves and pledging to fight the greenies. He fell headfirst into the brisk current and is now experiencing panic, claustrophobia and confusion. Finding a flat clearing in a near-vertical landscape. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this website contains images, voices and names of people who have passed. There is little to no wildlife. With general ineptitude. The Franklin Dam case, Tasmania By the time the fight for the Franklin River began, environmental activists were disempowered. Third party web links are provided for your convenience only. Rafters have drowned here, caught in the violent swirling rush. ), Protesting at the blockade: demonstrators in rubber rafts and dinghies bear witness as HEC bulldozers made their way through the wilderness. It is also dedicated to the tens of thousands of Australians who took to streets in Hobart and across the mainland. We have reclaimed this hut the old hydroelectric Commission/Police camp for the people. The Hawke government, which won office 40 years ago this month, launched action in the high court, securing a narrow 4-3 vote in its favour the following July that finally ended the project. Look through the possible protest methods listed below. Law laughs, reminded of his first trip down the Franklin in 1981. There was this imperative: once you start, you must finish. An inevitable mystique grew around the challenge. Poster advertising the Franklin River blockade. In the 1980s, a river guide died at The Cauldron, an incident that was immortalised by the author Richard Flanagan. As a group, create a final list of 3 questions and conduct some research to find the answers. Environmental Protests | National Library of Australia He began to hate the personal sharings each member was expected to offer, and the blindfolded trust exercises. If it is okay for one group to break the law for what they see as a good cause, cant everyone justify breaking the law by saying it is for a good cause? This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. We got the third multinational oil companyNorway's Equinorto drop their plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight in 2020. But the story of saving the Franklin runs far longer, and involves far more people, than its best remembered element, the blockade. We climb a cliff and stand in thin rain. Share. Which of these freedoms do you think were the most important for the Franklin Dam campaign? The National Library holds some interesting material from and about the Franklin Dam Blockade. How did the campaign to protect the Franklin finally succeed? Includes interviews with Dick Smith, David Bellamy and Bob Brown. Why? What else would you like to know about this defining moment? The artist painting banners. Newspaper Article From the Archives, 1983: Franklin Dam protests turn ugly, Sydney Morning Herald, Magazine Article The Battle for the Franklin, Wild Magazine, 2019, Court Case Commonwealth v Tasmania (Tasmanian Dam case) [1983] HCA 21; (1983) 158 CLR 1 (1 July 1983), Franklin River for Kids, National Museum of Australia, Fight for the Franklin, Digital Classroom, National Museum of Australia, Nationwide: Franklin River campaign, ABC Education, Protesting the Franklin Dam, National Archives of Australia, The Franklin River Debate, 1983 Historic Parliamentary Role Play, Museum of Australian Democracy, Documentary on ClickView, Getting Things Done, Series: Discovering Democracy, Getting Things Done, 2020 (Quick outline of campaign with images and task), Audio Chris Arthur recalls the Franklin River campaign, 2008, Scootle, Education Services Australia, The Franklin River: Resources for Teachers, Franklin Dam and the Greens, The National Museum of Australia. He learnt the power of courting allies, including Barry Jones, Manning Clark, Dick Smith. Between 20,000 and 25,000 people turned out to save the Franklin in Hobart, he said. The Franklin River at the confluence with the Collingwood River. He saw frightening footage that convinced him he had neither the co-ordination nor the mental agility to negotiate that kind of natural force, yet kept meeting people who were going to try. A controversy like this took place in Tasmania, in the 1970s and 1980s, over the Franklin Dam proposal. 1. Pop! Bob Brown says this is what people must do in response to the Adani coal mine in Queensland. On December 14th 1982, the Tasmanian Wilderness Society began an onsight blockade of construction work on a dam to flood the Franklin River in south west Tas. However it is in an area where a dam could be built and the water used to generate cheap, clean and renewable hydro-electricity. Investigation 1: How can you have an influence in society? Around 2500 people took part in the blockade. Wilderness Society | Franklin River saved: 40 year anniversary (modern), Early morning on the Gordon River, which winds its way through the cool temperate rainforest of the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers national park. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. The sun comes out at a camp called Newlands. The greatest environmental battle in Australian history was also its greatest act of civil disobedience. Roger Scholes [1][2][3] was an Australian independent film and television maker from 1983 on. Why? An environmental activist since the Franklin River blockade of the early 1980's in the South West of Tasmania and a NSW local Greens Councillor since 1995. Franklin River blockade Australia, 1983 Film Please note Documents the massive non-violent civil disobedience against the building of the Gordon below Franklin Hydro-electric scheme between December 1982 and March 1983. Which 3 images do you think are the most important for telling this story? As Cassidy encounters the point in his journey, he is moved: Ive seen the photo, but somehow Im seeing this place for the first time. Had the dam gone ahead, the spot would be underwater today. Read more about the blockade In 2013 Franklin blockader Alice Hungerford produced the bookUpRiver: Untold stories of the Franklin River activists. Other states are making similar anti-protest reforms. Pop! would blockade the construction of the dam site beginning on 14 December 1982. . Carmel, another member of the group, wrote it was remarkable to be part of a family re-united directly opposite Warners Landing where we were arrested blockading the bulldozer. He has this indomitable, puckish intelligence a green fire about him which was and is indispensable.. This website contains names, images and voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The campaigners had painted the Franklin River as an untouched natural wonder, a . Franklin Dam and the Greens | National Museum of Australia Saving The Franklin on Apple Podcasts This past comes rushing back through archival footage in Franklin, a new feature-length documentary on the most significant environmental protest campaign in Australian history: the battle to save Tasmanias wild, white-water river. Solved: EXTINGUISH THE AUTUMN REBELLION We get that there was - TAE Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park | Parks & Wildlife Service 1982 Fight for the Franklin Franklin Dam protests, use of the electoral system to vote for or against political representatives. The businesswoman who kept the organisation afloat financially, and had the idea of enlisting shareholders to buy a campaign office. Photo: Colin Totterdell, There was the singer writing protest songs. In 1978, the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission (HEC) announced intentions to construct the dam. It turned him into a born-again greenie, Law says. Years later, as Michael was dying of cancer, he left Oliver his paddle a symbolic challenge to traverse the same jaw-dropping wilderness which he and other activists protected. (Before the crowdsourcing era of GoFundMe, such ingenuity was the mother of survival. (a) Find Australia. (Brown became head of the Wilderness Society, state MP, federal senator and, eventually, leader of the Australian Greens, but his profile began with the fight to stop the Franklin being dammed by Tasmanias Hydro-Electric Commission.) And he recalls the end, when the High Court saved the river in 1983, and a photo was sent to the Wilderness Society of HEC workers posing in front of a famous Huon pine. It was wonderful to be thanked in person by our young rafting guides and young fellow rafters for protesting and thus saving the river for us all, says Wallwork, an artist and designer, recalling marches in Hobart she and John attended. 2. All up, 1,272 protesters would be arrested over the four months to March 1983. When engineers create a dam to hold back the water and release it when electricity is needed, the area behind the dam wall floods. That you should work for something you believe in and not give up. Missing people, death threats, savage political moves and young people flooding into Tasmania to put their bodies in front of bulldozers. The fight to save the Franklin River, by stopping the Gordon-below-Franklin Dam hydroelectric project, was always going to be an uphill battle. Franklin reminds us that we must fight to protect our democratic rights and freedoms. Frontline activism and public relations combined in the campaign to save the Franklin River., The film is dedicated to the 1,272 people (including Oliver Cassidys father) arrested at the blockade for protesting., Peter Dombrovskis shot of the white water swirling past a mist-shrouded rock island bend was a key part of the campaigns imagery., The film reminds us that we must fight to protect our democratic rights and freedoms.. This cold Tuesday in February, however, its a hissing, spitting chicane of freezing turbulence. With fear. But in the same week of the films release the Tasmanian parliament finalised the enactment of a law civil society groups say is aimed at environmental protesters. We would have had a lot more industry in the state, we would have had cheaper electricity and we would have had clean electricity, he said. Can you believe it?. Hint: It has another name in this list. We must protest and defend our right to do so. Franklin Dam controversy - Wikiwand Right now though, Law cant see anything. Franklin is in cinemas now. Home Topics History & Culture Fighting for the Franklin: archive footage. Why? In 1982 and 1983 protesters and environmental activists led a campaign to stop the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania. Law helped woo Bob Hawke before he became PM. We do have help on the river, in the form of guides. Listen to a podcast about this film on ABC Radio National. More positive headlines were created when founder of Australian Geographic Dick Smith arrived in his helicopter and helped set up the remote blockades radio communications. In deep still stretches, it pools like crude oil slick and black, forbidding and slack. The first people to successfully run the full river John Dean and John Hawkins took years to do so, enduring a series of smashed canoes and near drownings before finishing the 85-kilometre stretch on an attempt in 1958. The National Museum of Australia acknowledges First Australians and recognises their continuous connection to Country, community and culture. The dam would have created a large reservoir that flooded and destroyed the surrounding wilderness area. The campaign office had its phone lines cut. Eighth-generation Tasmanian and environmentalist Oliver Cassidy embarks on a life-changing solo rafting trip down the beautiful yet remote Franklin River. It was a time where we were not so sure we were going to succeed and there was a lot of antagonism against us in the community and it was quite a revolutionary event in itself and I think that still reverberates until this day.. Later, when safe and dry and warmed by a cup of coffee, Law, 59, will say he doesnt attribute motive to our spill. Get into a mess? The Franklin River blockade became one of the most iconic in Australian history, stopping the damming of the river and bringing footage of rugged forests and civil disobedience into loungerooms of the country on the news. Franklin is a vivid illustration of the power of protest. Encouraging others to experience his epiphany was one of the campaigns first strategies. It is impossible not to marvel at their skill and knowledge: the things learnt and passed down. 1. By Carol Raabus From a brown muddy ditch to World Heritage protection, the Franklin River has meant many things to many people. So people walk away from the campsite alone, doing their business in small plastic bags. Thousands raft the Franklin every year on journeys like this one, named best rafting trip in the world by Outdoor magazine. (b) Was there any other information that you found interesting? Is this your listing? The ground rules are collaboration and respect. They call this one the Duck Chute and ordinarily it is not challenging. The eight-day trip was the most terrifying, fear-inducing, challenging, exciting, beautiful, amazing thing I think Ive ever done. Listen: Geoff Law explains the art of portage. Setting up camp in the rain. Without protest then, we would no longer have this captivating wilderness that Cassidy paddles through in the film. Purchase a copy. 3. He has described it as one of the worst political decisions ever made, and said if the dam had been built Tasmania would be better off today. Weve slept in caves and rock overhangs. They have drowned in Big Fall. The Greens are now the third most popular national political party in Australia. Both major parties in Tasmania the Liberals then in government and Labor backed at least two dams that would have flooded a large region of the Franklin catchment and tributaries. That event, explains thePeace Review, was "characterised not just by the presence of violence but by adherence to, and promotion of, principles of violence." (Varney 2007, p.386). A river guide strums a ukulele at the campsite known as Newlands, where rafters spend the night sleeping in cliff overhangs and caves. The psychiatric nurse who quit to become a blockade liaison. And in 2022 we worked with the local community to get three coal leases cancelled on the doorstep of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.Let's support the life that supports us all: https://www.wilderness.org.au/. "Group of 27 people joined to celebrate 30 years to the day that the Franklin River Blockade started. Murray Matson - East Ward Councillor - Randwick City Council - LinkedIn And what aspects of active citizenship did the opponents use to achieve their aim? Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates, thousands protesting in Tasmania and on mainland, honoured 30 years on for saving a rafters life. Poster reading Vote for the Franklin because only your vote can save it, Melbourne rally in support of the Franklin River campaign, corner of Swanston Street and Flinders Street, 13 November 1982, Poster advertising a concert to support the conservation of the Franklin River, 1983, Poster advertising the Franklin River blockade, A 1982 protest poster used in the Franklin River campaign, by Bob Clutterbuck, Protesters and police during the campaign to save the Franklin River, National Library of Australia nla.obj-138236013, Tasmanian Wilderness Society.
Pre Built Cabins For Sale In Maine, Lunenburg Finance Committee, Massage Heights Facial Elevations, What Should You Do When You Approach A Roundabout?, Articles F