Project Sandcastle Protecting the D'Entrecasteaux National Park In November of 1990, the W.A. Government released a policy on mining in national parks ironically entitled "Resolution of Conflict". This policy allows mining in three of Western Australia's national parks - Karajini and Karlamilyi in central WA and the D'Entrecasteaux National park on the south coast. Two large rallies were held in Perth, one coinciding with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Conference to expose the policy to the international community. The D'Entrecasteaux Coalition was formed of over fifteen local environmental groups in the south-west and Perth. The D'Entrecasteaux National Park is one of the south-west's great wilderness areas. It extends along the coast and encompasses sandy beaches, towering limestone cliffs, freshwater lakes and rivers, sand dunes, extensive wetlands and huge granite outcrops. Paul Llewellyn, author of the Draft Management Plan for the D'Entrecasteaux and Shannon National Parks, and a nonviolence trainer, began to train people for direct action, forming small groups under the name of Project Sandcastle. Following the very successful and well-publicised occupations of Cable Sands offices and David Smith's office [minister for the south-west, eds] in November and December of 1991, more people became interested, and further direct action training workshops were held, with Perth people training to carry out support actions in the city. Cable Sands, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nissho Iwai (Japan) has two main compounds, in Northcliffe and Jangardup which they use as bases for exploration activities into the national park. They also own a block of land in the area, which is at present leased out. Most of the activists involved in the blockades are people living in the south-west, and there is a considerable amount of travel involved to get to actions. This requires a high degree of coordination of the "network" and indicates the degree of commitment of the participants. A workshop at a Great Walk Network Camp in early January 1992, as Cable Sands were preparing to enter the park for exploration, and the establishment of a support camp focussed the energy and enthusiasm of Project Sandcastle. The first of a continual series of blockades from January through to early April was carried out on January 30th in Northcliffe. Six further blockades of company vehicles followed including a highly successful two pronged action which prevented work in both Northcliffe and Jangardup for five hours on 20th February 1992. Support actions by Project Sandcastle's Perth group included the occupation of Nissho Iwai's head office on February 5th and the dumping of sand outside the Japanese Embassy, with the presentation of a letter in Japanese asking for respect for our national parks. Television media were obvious by their lack of attendance. It should be noted that at the time the deputy premier was visiting Japan to encourage "business investment in W.A." The organising of silent vigils in nine towns throughout the south-west and in Fremantle by the D'Entrecasteaux Coalition was more successful media-wise, and certainly provided an opportunity to give out the beautifully prepared pamphlet about the park. So far actions both in Perth and the south-west have been very well-disciplined with good media and police liaison. The courtesy and openness with which the police have been treated has also created a very positive atmosphere which is cooperative and friendly. In fact when the police officer in charge at Bunbury was going on leave, he came back on his day off to accompany and introduce his replacement to the Project Sandcastle police liaison, Josh Ledger. There has been some discussion within Project Sandcastle concerning whether we are supporting racist sentiments in making the ownership of Cable Sands by a wholly owned Japanese company, Nissho Iwai, an issue. Since Nissho Iwai has such a bad environmental record we are trying to focus on that area of its operations. Despite a sustained series of blockades, and with the exception of the local papers, the media are generally ignoring the issue. Due to recommendations of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the company has had to stop work for the winter, due to the danger of spreading die-back. Project Sandcastle is using this time to run more direct action workshops and to assess the campaign so far and plan for the next season's activities. Cable Sands were supposed to pull out for three weeks over Easter, but held a secret review meeting with Dept. of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) and they resumed work after a two week break. Protests about the wet weather threatening to spread die-back (which had been noted in the EPA recommendations) finally stopped work for the winter. Total twenty-four arrests. Patsy Molloy with the assistance of Josh Ledger.