Two activists groups were identified as suitable for this inquiry, anti-‐ whaling activists who were members of the Sea Shepherd Society and forest activists in Tasmania, who were members of several networks. These groups were chosen because they are both radical in the sense that they reject mainstream environmentalist approaches to achieving change, and engage in illicit direct actions. They are also groups that, in Tasmania at least, are currently active, visible, and receive significant public attention. It was also thought that studying activism in completely different environments (forest and ocean) might present interesting similarities and differences.
There are significant differences between the two activist groups. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society obstructs whaling and other fishing operations in the Southern Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean, that is, its direct actions operate globally. On the other hand the forest networks are concerned with the forests of South Eastern Tasmania. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is global in terms of its organisational structure and resembles a small corporation run by a charismatic and authoritarian leader, whereas Still Wild Still Threatened is a network of grassroots environmental activists (of whom many represent
other organisations and local communities) that places less emphasis on the role of a chief executive or leader.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was formed in 1977 by Captain Paul Watson, a founding member of Greenpeace and a long term environmental activist. Watson left Greenpeace because of disagreement about the use of direct action strategies and Greenpeace’s bureaucratisation. Originally founded to protect marine mammals, its charter was extended to the protection of marine life generally. Citing several international conventions, especially the United Nations World Charter for Nature, Sea Shepherd (as it is generally known) argues that the enforcement of whale protection is lawful. Watson “saw a global need to continue direct action conservation activities on the high seas by an organisation that would enforce laws protecting marine wildlife,” because countries and the International Whaling Commission had failed to enforce conservation agreements. (This and the following material is sourced from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society website – Sea Shepherd Conservation Society nd)
The Sea Shepherd’s history of direct action begins with the interruption of the annual Canadian harp seal ‘harvest’. But attention soon turns to whaling and in 1979 the whaler Sierra is rammed in its harbour in Lisbon and then sunk by two activists. Following this, several whaling vessels are sunk and whaling activities in the North Atlantic documented. In 1986 the International Whaling Commission introduced a global moratorium on whaling. The Sea Shepherd turns its attention to Icelandic whaling, destroying two whaling ships and a meat processing plant. These actions establish a program of documenting and sabotaging whaling operations, sometimes receiving aggressive intervention from the state sponsoring the hunting, and using media actions to embarrass the whaling nation. The first campaign in the Southern Ocean takes place over the 2002-‐03 summer.
After a year break Sea Shepherd resumes Antarctic campaigning each summer.
Sea Shepherd relies solely on donations and most positions are voluntary. The organisation has an effective international network of grassroots fundraising chapters and several vessels, which it uses in its various whaling and other marine campaigns.
Sea Shepherd has experienced strong grassroots support in Australia. It regularly uses its ports for resupply, maintenance and fundraising and has an office in Melbourne. But at a government level its relationship has been more ambivalent, largely because of the dangers involved in Sea Shepherd campaigns and Australia’s important economic relationship with Japan. Captain Watson has regularly lambasted the Australian government for failing to enforce whale conservation when hunting takes place in the Australian territorial waters and it has lobbied Australia to take legal and naval action against Japan. (At the time of writing Australia and Japan were engaged in legal proceedings before the International Court of Justice, action initiated by the Australian Commonwealth Government.) The Australian Federal Police has also searched Sea Shepherd vessels returning from the Antarctic at the request of the Japanese government. Retired politicians have served on the Sea Shepherd’s advisory boards. For example, Ian Campbell, who was a Commonwealth of Australia environment minister, is listed as a member of the Sea Shepherd legal and law enforcement advisory board. Bob Brown, founder and ex-‐leader of the Australian Greens, joined Sea Shepherd Australian branch board of directors in December 2012 and supervised the 2012-‐13 Antarctic campaign, following Interpol’s issuing an arrest warrant for Captain Watson.
Finally, Sea Shepherd has been an extraordinarily effective media campaigner. The cover of investigative journalist Heller’s 2007 account of a southern ocean campaign describes it as “two parts high-‐seas swashbuckler
and one part inconvenient truth” and “a story so fantastic it eclipses fiction”. Sea Shepherd has achieved largely positive media exposure (in non-‐whaling countries at least) through its piratical image and adventuring, spectacular protest actions, sponsorship by media personalities, the failure of state sponsored criminal actions to prosecute Sea Shepherd successfully, and television exposure, such as the Discovery Channel series Whale Wars that documented Sea Shepherd southern ocean campaigns, have given the organisation.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was identified as a suitable group to research because of its involvement in radical environmentalism (irrespective of its claims that its actions are lawful) and its regular use of Hobart as a point of departure and return to the Antarctic.
The forest activists
The people involved in Tasmania’s direct action protests do not operate under the banner or constraints of a particular organisation, in contrast with the highly organised and professional Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Activists and potential activists seem to join the forest campaigns by meeting another activist, or simply turning up at the Florentine and offering to help, rather than officially joining an organisation. Two networks are most strongly associated with the forest campaigns of southern Tasmania: the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened. Another network involved in direct action forest activism that arose during this inquiry and which has members who also operate under or alongside the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened banners is Code Green Tasmania. This network describes itself as an advocacy organisation based in Launceston, Northern Tasmania (Code Green nd) and it has focused upon actions against the proposed Bell Bay pulp mill, near Launceston, and forestry operations in northeast Tasmania.
The Huon Valley Environment Centre has an office and shop front in Huonville, a small community near Hobart, which is the heart of Southern Tasmania’s forestry operations. It describes itself as “a not-‐for-‐profit volunteer run organisation in Southern Tasmania which campaigns for the protection of Tasmania’s wild places and promotes sustainable living” (Huon Valley Environment Centre nd). Formed in 2001, the Huon Valley Environment Centre was established to focus attention upon the forests of the Weld Valley near Huonville. It relies on community donations, membership subscriptions and volunteers. It is an effective media campaigner, using traditional and social media, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Still Wild Still Threatened is an informal network of activists that has traditionally provided the banner for direct actions in the Florentine and Styx forests, although it has also been engaged in other areas such as the Weld and Recherche Bay. It is informal in the sense that it is not incorporated and does not have paid membership or public governance processes. It describes itself as a “grassroots community organisation campaigning for the immediate protection of Tasmania's ancient forests and the creation of an equitable and environmentally sustainable forestry industry in Tasmania” (Still Wild Still Threatened nd).
Still Wild Still Threatened is the subject and narrative core of investigative journalist Anna Krien’s (2010) investigation of Tasmania’s forestry battles. She lived with the ‘ratbags’ or ‘ferals’ as they described themselves in Hobart and at the Florentine blockade, during part of the research for her book. Krien provides a generally sympathetic description of its culture and commitment to defending Tasmania’s old growth forests. Some activists described in Krien’s book became research participants in this inquiry. While it does not have a formal leadership, Still Wild Still Threatened maintains an active new and old media presence. At the time of writing its
current spokesperson was Miranda Gibson, who drew international attention to the Tasmanian forest campaigns through her 449 day tree-‐sit in the Styx-‐Florentine forests. Its actions are well organized and target particular forest operations to achieve media exposure. The tactics used, such as the erection of tree-‐sits, barricades and locking on to forestry infrastructure, require well developed skills and coordination.
Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened have maintained a commitment to direct action and preventing all native forest harvesting in Tasmania since their formation. This has continued throughout the recent negotiations between the state government, forest industry and other environmental groups, that led to the passing of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement Act 2013. The act provides for an overhaul of forestry in Tasmania, including a more than 50% reduction of the legislated saw-‐log quota and a lengthy process to conserve approximately 500,000 hectares of forest in reserves. In June 2013, 170,000 hectares of forests, including the Weld, Styx and Florentine forests, were accepted by the World Heritage Committee as an extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, and approved for national park status by Tasmania’s Legislative Council at the end of August 2013. The act contains several repeal triggers that threaten the preservation of the remaining ‘future’ reserve areas, including a requirement that should environmentalists undertake significant protest actions against Tasmanian forestry, future reserves will lose their protection. The act also provides a series of ‘transitional coupes’ within the future reserve areas that can be harvested if required to meet saw-‐log quotas. These conditions were unacceptable to the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened, and both groups have maintained a campaign of direct actions to protest ongoing harvesting of old growth forests in the reserve areas.