Fraser Island: A Case Study In NvDA For some time now, I have wanted to write for NvT about my experience of the Fraser Island blockade of logging in 1990. For me it was a peak experience of interventionary nonviolent action. It represented three months of full-time organising/preparation, and six weeks on the Island carrying out continuous actions before I burned out. It was very intense, with lots of highs and lows. It's two and a half years now since I left the Island, and I think I have enough perspective to write about the blockade, and the lessons I learned from it. Interventionary action can work I first got involved with Fraser Island when asked to facilitate some nonviolence workshops for the Brisbane Rainforest Action Group (BRAG). This group had formed out of concern for the Penan people of Sarawak, and the Australian imports of rainforest timber that had been their home. BRAG interests branched into rainforests generally. Members of BRAG "had been getting hassled" by members of the public when picketing McDonalds. They had also recently been asked (informally) by a member of Fraser Island Defenders Organisation (FIDO) to carry out some direct actions on Fraser Island, and were planning an Easter action. I talked to BRAG as a group and asked what they wanted. Because of time constraints (that old favourite) we settled on two short workshops - an introduction to nonviolence, and Fraser Island planning - on consecutive evenings. BRAG, and those of its members who attended the workshops were committed and enthusiastic, but inexperienced. I offered to attend the Easter action to provide facilitation and support. At this stage I was clear "it was not my issue", and I would be supporting only. The Easter action was a difficult affair. Preparation had been inadequate, and haste caused an accident. Fraser Island is about seventy kilometres long, and the forest suitable for cutting runs in a strip two to five kilometres wide for some fifty kilometres of that length. It is of difficult access, served by very bad roads. There was some restriction on cutting because of National Park boundaries, and the type of timber being cut, but the loggers could have been anywhere in a twenty-five kilometre long section, and there had been no prior surveillance. Over Easter, we never found the loggers at work, although we saw plenty of where they had been. We had hardly any maps, too few vehicles, and too many people for the infrastructure. In our rushing around, two of our vehicles collided, with two activists being hospitalised. This was the first time I had seen the Island and its forests. They are amazing. A strong feeling grew in me that Easter that the logging had to be brought to a halt. Others felt this too, and we agreed we would organise to come back and do just that. That organising was to take three months. During that time, we held only one weekend workshop on Nonviolence and Fraser Island, which was attended by BRAG members, where we constructed a Code of Ethics for the action. We did two symbolic actions in Brisbane to publicise the issue, and build experience and confidence in an action situation. The rest of the time was spent publicising, fund raising, and getting equipment together. This was all shared work and there were many discussions about nonviolence, monkey wrenching, what to expect, etc. It was a sort of learning and sharing "on the job". We were all working under a sense of urgency, very much aware of the cutting going on. Our intention was to physically intervene into the logging, and stop it. After three months of hard work and planning, we went back to the Island to lay down our blockade. Conditions were difficult, and we were isolated. We'd gone with our code of ethics, but it broke down very quickly as people arrived at base camp who (quietly) disagreed with it, and often chose to ignore it. The need for activists to operate the blockade led to "short-term" expediency (again the sense of urgency). Our radios never worked well, and as the blockade spread geographically, decision-making was effectively monopolised by the men who had control of the transport. For me, it was increasingly difficult to bear seeing the blockade being extended effectively in the short-term, but ignoring process and the human cost to blockaders. There was no room for strategic analysis and empowerment of newcomers. Camp conditions became increasingly decrepit, with arguments about how decisions should be made, and people burning out/leaving in bitterness. Even given these difficulties, we managed to completely halt the cutting of trees for two weeks. Along the way there had been political concessions from the Queensland government, like no cutting of old-growth forest, and no cutting very old trees in re-cut forest. Mainly, for me, we stopped the cutting for a time. It was what I had wanted to do, and I held onto it when I fled. I left the day a Melbourne RAG contingent was to arrive, leaving them to stand for nonviolence and love. A few days later, I watched the last action I knew was being planned by the remaining blockaders. It headlined the ABC news, just ahead of Iraq invading Kuwait. It was the day ABC carried no sports news. Over the next nine months I got to see the effective collapse of the Fraser blockade as those remaining burned out and left in defeat. I got to see the mounting horror of slaughter in Kuwait and Iraq, and the warmongers' public relations slaughter of the peace movement. At times I was in despair. We needed to celebrate (and plan for) diversity among activists I have long thought about my reaction to what I now call the cowboy element of NvDA. Johns Wayne without guns, but with all the machismo and arrogance. I remember feeling physically sick one day when I travelled with "the Land Rover". Eight men and one woman were exploring. The "cowboys" talked freely among themselves about what actions they would get everyone to do next. Everything seemed to me rooted in the sensation of the moment, with a search for drama and heroics high on the list of determinants. I have had to examine my motives and feelings very closely about this reaction. Was there some element of jealousy or control in there? Was I somehow trying to posses the action myself, get my own way? I don't think so. I was happy to see others plan their own actions, and was willing to join in. What I didn't like was to see actions planned for others without their informed consent. I still think the cowboy element uses people fairly brutally. I realise though that I was guilty of trying to "protect" people from exploitation. The Mega-Workshop last September helped me see how patronising such efforts at protection can be. I no longer practise it. While I always try to consider others' interests, and offer support if it seems appropriate. I warn people about cowboys, but make it clear (to myself and others) that everyone is responsible for their own actions. I refuse to work with people who don't make (and keep or renegotiate) process agreements. Drawing on this experience, I think there is a general lesson. We need to provide at least two separate camps as part of host organising interventionary actions. Camp 1 can be a reception camp for anyone prepared to sign adherence to a code of ethics, including process agreements. Inside this camp will be reception, briefing, training, formation of affinity groups, coordination and support as appropriate. Camp 2 can be for anyone who doesn't want to sign an agreement. At this camp can be wood and water. People there can do whatever they like, and take responsibility for it. People in Camp 1 can do whatever they like too, within the agreed parameters. In this camp we can celebrate our diversity as women, men, children, and wood elves. We can join with others to carry out actions that give meaning and strength to all of us. Camp 1 can become many camps, according to need and choice. This could happen in Camp 2 as well, but I doubt it. As I recall, the group of non-agreers on Fraser was characterised by people who got their own way through refusing to listen to others. I don't think they will generate much coherence or persistence in action. In all events, that is up to them. We were too isolated from the local communities We went to Fraser Island from Brisbane, and we didn't really know anyone there. We had contact with some members of FIDO and ACF on the mainland, and had asked them for meetings and liaison with other locals, but it never materialised. Women from BRAG met with Badjala women from Hervey Bay/Fraser Island, and we asked permission to run our blockade, which was given. Tribal divisions, nervousness about the government's response, and colonialism kept these relations fairly superficial, but they were a beginning. There was a common attitude in our circle that the European locals were "rednecks" who hated "greenies" and wanted to chop everything down. Certainly there were some who behaved loudly and obnoxiously. I found most of the locals were pretty nice, reasonable folk who didn't much care for the controversy but were aware of the issues. There was a sort of inverse rule of hostility. The men who cut the trees knew the damage they were doing, because they knew the forest (much better than most of us). One could have a reasonable yarn with them, and come to agreement on many things. The men who drove the trucks that took the logs away were more abusive, mostly not listening to anything we said. Many folk in Maryborough (on the mainland where the mills were) were strident, hostile, and threatening. They seemed to collectively wish us off the planet. They knew little about the forest, only about the money it earned. We would have been isolated to some extent anyhow. Interventionary action is confrontative. However the redneck mythology deepened this isolation, cutting us off from local support, and heightening fear and abuse. I promised myself after Fraser Island to form good contacts with local communities in every future action I am involved in organising. Before attending actions organised by others, I will want to know that local community networks are strong. We needed better political networks As we were isolated from the local communities, so we were isolated from the political/supporting communities back in Brisbane. Fraser Island took place in the first twelve months of a Labor government in Queensland. For many of us it was the first Labor Queensland government in a life-time. During the long march of the Bjelke-Petersen Nationals, Labor members had shared the work in peace, justice, and environment groups. In opposition, Labor policy was to nominate Fraser Island for World Heritage listing. During the election campaign, Wayne Goss had told a meeting in Maryborough that no-one would lose their jobs in the first term of a Labor government. Goss subsequently announced an inquiry, headed by public icon and former corruption commissioner, Tony Fitzgerald, to adjudicate the issues. It appeared as if the "mainstream" conservation groups were paralysed in the face of such a strategy. A number of their former colleagues were now advisors and bureaucrats in the government (they were advising to be patient). Tony Fitzgerald was a figure beyond criticism or challenge. A "six-pack" (which was really seven) of these groups agreed to take part in this second Fitzgerald inquiry. Moreover they agreed to do so through a single representative, and support a single, unified position. During the inquiry (there was no particular hurry, after all we had a three year term to get through) logging would continue. The six-pack negotiated ineffectually for six months trying for constraints on the kind of logging allowed. Two rounds of constraints were eventually granted; one immediately before our blockade came into play, and one about four weeks into it. BRAG stayed out of the inquiry process, and was asked informally by a FIDO member to consider direct action. The reaction of the six-pack to this was fear that a direct action campaign might upset the new government and "jeopardise" the bureaucratic process. I remember BRAG being approached by representatives from the ACF and Wilderness Society (TWS), and asked to defer all their plans for twelve months or so. One of these representatives is now a policy adviser in the Cabinet office. BRAG decided to continue with the blockade at the earliest possible date. The relationship with TWS was consistently interesting. BRAG worked as an action group of the Wilderness Society, met in the offices behind their shop-front, and had access to resources. TWS formally disagreed with what BRAG was doing until the week before the blockade was laid down. Once it was clear the deed would be done, TWS withdrew from the inquiry and supported the blockade. "In return" the TWS logo would go on all media releases along with BRAG's. Once the blockade went down, communications between the activists and the Brisbane office (which coordinated support and PR) were poor. The radios didn't work, nor did the mobile telephones, and there were only two public phones on the Island we could use, both of which were a trip to get to. As internal communication and morale began to break down, this problem got much worse. I never got over the suspicion that TWS used the Fraser Island blockade and BRAG in a fairly cynical and low-risk way. It took as much credit as it could, distanced itself from any real responsibility, and provided minimal support. They did a lot of media for themselves around the blockade. During the blockade, organisers from the ACF and Queensland Conservation Council came to "tour" the action, and were personally encouraging, but were unable to organisationally support the blockade in any way. It occurs to me now that most "mainstream" social change organisations have no real understanding of NvDA, or of the difference between symbolism and intervention. The idea of successful intervention seems foreign to them, and they seem to see actions as photo-opportunities. Fraser Island led me to promise better liaison with both environment groups, and the wider political constituencies before large-scale actions in the future. We need more education and preparation Looking back, I can see a lot of reasons the Fraser Island blockade failed in so short a time. Insufficient care was taken to build the bases of support. Local support, political support, activist support, and organising support. In one sense, this happened because it wasn't the long-term future of Fraser Island that was at stake. The eventual outcome of the second Fitzgerald inquiry was never in doubt. The Great Sandy Region, of which Fraser Island is the beautiful centre, is a place of immense value. No-one seriously disputed that it should be World Heritage listed. The only question was whether logging should continue for three years to minimise compensation and social dislocation, while the bureaucratic compromise worked its way out. In this sense, the Fraser Island blockade "mined" a state and nationwide pool of existing activists, to show this policy was unacceptable. People participated for a wide variety of reasons, and found few opportunities to exchange and develop their personal needs and visions around what was going on. I suspect if you asked twenty different activists where they saw the blockade in the medium-term, you would have received twenty different answers. While a core of BRAG people and others had some understanding of nonviolence, an equal and growing number didn't. Many had experience of nonviolence only as an ongoing dispute from past action camps, or as an encumbrance in need of dispute right now. Everyone was caught up in the urgency of the task (only one step away from despair) so issues of process could never be discussed, because it would "get in the way". Looking back, I think our mining operation wasn't sustainable. I remember thinking in the first week of the blockade about the millions of dollars being spent around the "Fraser Island Issue" - by the government on an expensive and unnecessary inquiry, on the police task-force we had looking out for us, by the conservation and timber industry groups on their PR campaigns, and by the media "keeping everyone informed". I realised that nothing at all was being spent on those problems of the locals that led them into cutting and milling the forests. I felt bad about that, but I too was caught up in the urgency of "the blockade" (no time for anything else). I felt bad too when I found out timber cutting had been stopped because a cutter had been injured at a site where we were performing a mobile "stop-work" action. Cutting was declared "unsafe" (which it certainly is). After the blockade failed, the bureaucratic compromise worked its way out. The locals were largely ignored. I sat in the forest next to the Walsh River for nine months, recovering and starting to work things out. The forest here is lovely, and there's nothing like waking in it to the dawn for some restoration of spirits. All the mistakes I/we made on Fraser Island can be worked on and solved (at the very least we can find new mistakes to make). Mostly I think, the solutions lie in developing local networks, empowering ourselves and anyone else willing to accept responsibility for their lives, and our environment. And we need to give ourselves time to be effective. Perhaps trust a little in the power of the planet to heal, while we do what we can in a human life-time. If we can't sustain our own lifestyles/actions, we can't build a sustainable future. Bryan Law