February 10th, 2007
You might be wondering how militarism could be one of Australia’s big environmental issues. I guess in one sense our contribution to the war on Iraq and wars in general are possibly the most thorough environmental devastations possible.
But I want to be more specific: our government has in mind the kind of collaboration with the US that will mean that military bases will be having even more affect on our environment than ever before. We’ve already experienced the widespread contamination of the British governments nuclear weapons testing in South Australia and the indigenous owners of that land still pay the price. In June 2007 the Taliman-Sabre joint war games will see at least 30,000 US troops visit our shores and possibly twice as many Australian soldiers will also be involved.
Military bases and war games put at risk our rights to a clean, safe and just environment to live in and the preservation of that environment for future generations. And they increase the publics acceptance of violence and force as a means to an end. The military pose many risks to
environmental health: toxic contamination, noise pollution, sonar water pollution, and social upheaval including increased crimes, rapes and violence. We will also see increased nuclear traffic: nuclear power vessels potentially carrying nuclear and depleted uranium munitions. All part of Howard’s wider plans for both strategic domination in our region and increased “interoperability” between Australian and US forces.
The US has around 2000 bases in worldwide. Military bases engage in major industrial operations - testing and use of munitions, fuelling and maintainence of vehicles, use of nuclear materials - creating a lethal cocktail of toxic substances including heavy metals, dioxins, and PCBs.
Military bases are a vast and unaccountable multinational activity, generating an estimated (imperial) ton of toxic waste every minute. The military, especially the US, are thus one of the world’s largest polluters - larger than the biggest five US chemical corporations combined.
One of the worst cases is perhaps the former Vieques base in Puerto Rico in the Carribean. The US DoDs 60 year presence on Vieques destroyed the environmental, health, social and economic basis of the island. Children die of cancer and many contracted asthma and respiratory diseases.
Depleted Uranium and other heavy metal pollution, chemical pollution including TNT (an explosive compound linked to anemia and altered liver function) , perchlorate (primary ingredient in rocket fuel, a thyroid toxicant) and RDX (an explosive compound and neurotoxicant), contaminate the land and water the biota including coral reefs, endangered species and archaeological sites are literally destroyed by constant bombing, navy sonar are linked to whale beachings unexploded ordinances, rusting and abandoned shrapnel and vehicles litter and pollute the landscape sunken fishing nets that still entrap fish and badly affect the ecosystem and surprisingly, the US DoDs presence has decimated the Vieqan economy.
Far from financially benefiting the local economy, the effect of the 60 years naval presence caused an ecological and economic disaster. On several occasions the local subsistence fishermen were told they were not allowed to fish for weeks on end while war games were going on.
In 2003 the people of Vieques after a campaign of civil disobedience that put their lives at risk within the bombing range, succeeded in getting the US DoD out of their region – after 60 years of occupation. Elsewhere US bases and personnel have similar impacts. In Japan, US bases at Okinawa are a source of ongoing protest and contaminate air, land and sea, the noise of jets making daily life unbearable for many. I haven’t time to enumerate the many military sites storing materials that pose radiation hazards, - the US DoD has over 200 tons of plutonium in storage for instance: only 1 millionth of a gram is need to case lung cancer.
There are also social issues: off duty US servicemen engage in drug dealing, prostitution, sexual assault, rape and even kill locals. They often get off without prosecution. The 2002 deaths of 2 Korean schoolgirls run down by a US military truck resulted in widespread riots there. There are a number of past and present class actions being taken against the US DoD at home for contamination, especially in the light of Congress’ dropping of environmental rules for DoD activities. It seems they think alls fair in war.
This Thursday night SBS screens a doco about the toxic legacy of Clark Air Base, in the Philippines, which was closed in 1999 after 100 years, but still sickens the locals – giving children leukemia and other cancers and contaminating their drinking water. The site of the former base has not been cleaned up, much of it is now used for tourist and residential and some of it was used to house the victims of the Mt Pinatabu eruptions, resulting in increased still births, miscarraiges, gastric upsets, skeletal pain and unexplained rashes. Scrap metal scavengers around the base have been killed by unexploded ordinances.
The Australian army often boasts of their great environmental record, but they were complicit in the massive areas of radiation contamination in South Australia, or the dumping at sea of chemical warfare agents such as mustard gas off Cape Moreton, Townsville and Sydney, also the ocean dumping of decommissioned boats, other chemicals, ammunition and day to day naval waste. Tere are also air pollution effects around military airbases. And most of our military equipment is US made and hence has the same pollution issues that US DoD does.
The kinds of activities the DoD engaged in at Vieques are the same kinds of things they want to do now on Australian soil and water: ship to shore bombing runs, testing of new weapons, aircraft and vehicles and on shore leave for troops. The US DoD need us now Vieques his closed – no where else can they do ship to shore bombing, it is banned on US shores.
Vice Admiral Archie Clemins, told The West Australian that traditional US training grounds around the world were disappearing and Australia was an attractive option. He said, “You have to have places to drop bombs, you have to have places to shoot live weapons, places to fly planes over that make noise, places where you can actually test and exercise your capabilities. I think Australia in the future is going to be one of the places we’d like to exercise with the Australians, as well as with the US Navy. You now have some of the finest ranges in the Western Pacific which we cannot get anywhere else. ”
Despite the promises they make about not using depleted uranium on our soil, insiders say they do have it on board their nuclear powered vessels. In any case, the presence of any military operations in the relatively pristine Shoalwater area is bound to result in contamination and destruction of some kind. Perhaps the most insidious, is that we are expected to accept increase militarism and violence in our communities and as a nation.
They have already started bombing Australian sites in QLD, WA and the NT in 2005 with operation Talisman-Sabre in 2007. That’s why the Peace Convergence collective, that I am a part of, are organising events to blockade the war games at Shoalwater Bay, near Rockhampton.
“Military activities will occur in civilian facilities such as Sydney, Rockhampton and Brisbane airports, and military training bases such as Qld’s Shoalwater Bay, Townsville and Cowley Beach and the NT’s Delamere. The Tasman, Timor and Coral seas will also be sites for military exercises and access.
Operation Talisman Sabre will utilise areas of high environmental significance, i.e. world heritage areas (WHA), natural heritage listed sites which include indigenous sites and Ramsar wetlands. These areas are habitat to many migratory birds and threatened species such as dugongs and humpback whales. Environmental impacts identified by the Department of Defence include effects on air quality, fire potential, noise pollution, waste disposal and spills and erosion from amphibian craft landings and weapon target zones.”
http://www.peaceconvergence.com
Speech given at Students of Sustainability 2006: Militarism and Environmental Health and Justice
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January 27th, 2007
Invasion Day drew around a thousand people in Brisbane despite the blazing heat.
Murris, friends and supporters of the first Australians were joined by people from all over the country, including a big contingent from the Sydney Koori community and Lex Wotton, the man charged with inciting the 2004 riot on Palm Island.
The crowd shouted a whoop of joy when the Doomagee’s lawyer, Andrew Boe, announced that the Queensland Attorney Generals department had announced that morning to charge Senior Sargent Chris Hurley with manslaughter over the 2004 death of Mulrinji Doomagee, who was found dead in the Palm Island watch house, his liver split in two. Doomagee’s death sparked a riot that culminated in the burning down of the Palm Island police station.
Boe warned that it was important now for commentators on the case not to prejudice the outcome by making strong statements of conjecture about the guilt or otherwise of Hurley.
The Attorney General’s department has come to this decision after calls for justice from the Palm Island community and nationally. It comes in the wake of the Department’s previous decision not to charge Hurley, Director of Public Prosecution Leanne Clare saying his death was “a terrible accident”.
The local indigenous community had rejected a second inquiry which they felt would not result in widespread justice for indigenous people as a whole. However, Sir Laurence Street found there was enough evidence to charge Sen-Sgt Chris Hurley over the death. At an earlier inquest, deputy state coroner Christine Clements had found Hurley responsible for Doomagee’s death.
One speaker said that the mark of justice in Queensland would be determined if there was even one indigenous person on the jury that decides Hurley’s fate.
The Invasion Day rally marched to police headquarters and then to Musgrave Park where a commemorative festival was held. Some attendees were treated for heat exhaustion.
Police did not attend the Invasion Day rally, but were two rows deep outside police headquarters.
On January 27th the police union announced it would consider mass strikes over the decision to charge Hurley. The strike threat has been called “utterly childish” by Australian Council for Civil Liberties president Terry O’Gorman who says it is further evidence of the crisis in Aboriginal-police relations.
I don’t know what the police are thinking, as long as any suspicion of Hurley exists, isn’t it better to thrash it out in court than allow his existence to forment further anger in the indigenous community?
Lex Wooton is running for mayor on Palm Island. Good luck to him I say. It was right to be angry about what happened and he should be admired for standing up for what is right and just.
There’s some pictures I posted on Melbourne Indymedia
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/137879.php
Categories: indigenous rights |
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November 10th, 2006
This year I had the privilege of being invited to speak on behalf of the BHP Shareholders for Social Responsibility at the BHP Billiton AGM, the world’s biggest mining company, in Brisbane.
And while it some of it approached sleep-inducing, my eyes were nonetheless open wide by the end of it. Technologically the experience was stunning. It was a well orchestrated and slick combination of information overload, long and impressively worded speeches accompanied by many graphs and massive Brave New World style screens relaying the faces of the Chairman and CEO as they spoke.
A number of controversial and unjustified statements were made by Chairman Don Argus in his speech including absolving the company of moral wrongdoing in giving a shipment of Australian wheat as a deal softner to the Iraq regime during the sanctions period (of which the supreme court absolved them) and extended defense of nuclear power complete with unexplained graphs that seemed to back his claim that
nuclear power was both cheaper than renewable energy and more clean than coal. Hardly the area of
expertise of a mining executive. In addition both Argus and Chief Executive Officer Chip Goodyear
boasted of the great and extended opportunities for BHPB in China and India, which ACF spokesperson
David Noonan has said undermines the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Noonan says, “India is right
outside all those international regimes and it’s simply undermining our safeguards reputation and damaging that international treaty by trying to constrain nuclear weapons to push to get uranium export approval to China and to India.”
We were also treated to a couple to of short films extolling the many virtues and good works of the company that left even a cynic like myself feeling they were really helping people and improving the lives of the poor in developed countries rather than raping nations everywhere of their natural resources, undermining democratic process with cash donations, taking advantage of corrupt regimes and leaving many places with a legacy of environmental and social disarray that continues long after the mining is over and BHPB has moved on.
The grand finale of the three hour meeting was perhaps the rush on the tea and pastries that seemed be the highlight of the experience for many of the shareholders present.
BHP Shareholders for Social Responsibility was formed in 1994, over concerns regarding the environmental damage done in Papua New Guinea, by BHPB’s Ok Tedi copper mine, which they owned until 2002. The gold and copper mine discharges 90 million tons of contaminated tailings and waste rock into the river each year. In 1999, BHP admitted that the mine is an ecological disaster. The toxic cocktail of cyanide and acid has killed all life in the Ok Tedi and Fly Rivers and made local people ill while depriving them of their land and livelihood. The dumping of waste rock from the mine into the river changed the ecology and water flows creating flooding and disruption to local transportation. BHPB has still not fully compensated the locals.
Since then many other environmental and social justice issues have emerged as a result of the operations of BHPB. BHPSSR have raised many important questions of the board of directors over the years including those related to BHP’s influence upon PNG legislation, the Gippsland-Sydney gas pipeline, environmental and native title issues, the lack of rehabilitation at deep open cut coal mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, whistle Blower cases; a continuing oil leak at Groote Eylandt, and unsafe practices on the Griffin Venture (a 100,000 tonne floating oil storage near North West Cape in Western Australia), Gammon Ranges National Park, South Australia, mining and exploration leases in Weetootla Gorge and many others. In essence BHPSSR exists to monitor the effects BHP operations have on people and their environment, workers safety and health and the amount of waste created by their operations: BHP have been accused of environmental vandalism, displacing indigenous people, and unfair union controls.
The pretense of a democratic affair was embodied in the voting of resolutions that included giving non-executive directors a pay rise of AUS$900,000 from a maximum AUS$3m to US$3m. I was surprised in how little interaction there was from shareholders, many of whom I heard discussing the flagrant sizes of the executive paypacket and scoffing at the Chairman’s claims regarding non-culpability in the AWB Iraq bribes affair.
In 2005 BHP Billiton purchased the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia from Western Mining Corporation. Along with the profitable benefits of owning Australia’s biggest deposit of uranium, they also will benefit
from the Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act 1982 which suspend the mine operations from
a number of significant laws. These laws include: The Aboriginal Heritage Act 1988, the Development Act 1993, the Environmental Protection Act 1993, the Freedom of Information Act 1991, the Mining Act 1971 and the Natural Resources Act 2004 (including the Water Resources Act 1997). The size and influence of the mining giant brings with it the arrogance that they can operate outside the law, putting at risk much more than shareholders money.
Near the end of the meeting shareholders were invited to ask questions which just a few of them did. Speaking for ‘BHP Shareholders for Social Responsibility’ I asked Mr Argus if the board would relinquish those legal exemptions to maintain his companies stated commitment to the “highest ethical standards”
and the “strictest environmental and health standards”.
Argus told shareholders that they would not make a commitment to relinquishing their extra-legal privileges granted to former owners. Mr Argus argued that they would continue to benefit from those legal exemptions, that it was “not uncommon” in the mining industry. Mr Argus says that the shareholders (and the rest of the community) would have to trust his word that they were doing the right thing.
He says, “we will apply to the highest standards…we are acting within the law.” I argued that “In refusing to have to abide by the laws that bind every other person, shareholders can only assume that they expect to breach those laws, otherwise they would have nothing to be afraid of.”
While they operate outside the law and with no accountability to environmental and social concerns,
the community has no assurance of culpability for accidents. These exemptions represent a racist and
environmentally irresponsible outcome for the community.
Their exemption from the Freedom of Information Act means that if they have an accident, a radioactive a
leak or destroy aboriginal artefacts, we may never know. It is within the realm of possibility that these things may happen. The Olympic Dam mine, in 1994, had a considerable leak of radioactive water from it’s
tailings dam that went undiscovered and unremediated for years. Things do go wrong. The community needs to know it can be protected. The Chairman’s word does not constitute a legally binding commitment to protect the natural and cultural environment from harm and for future generations. It behooves the world’s biggest mining corporation to set the example of good environmental and ethical practice and not simply pay it lip service.
Until they relinquish the Roxby Downs Indentures, their admissions of best practice, sustainability and integrity with regards to the Olympic Dam mine will remain a sham.
My colleagues from the Mineral Policy Institute also questioned them on human rights abuses in the Phillipines, Columbia and Indonesia and more about the issues surrounding BHPB’s performance on those issue can be found on the MPI website. Much credit should go to Techa Beaumont, who it is apparent by the BHPB Chairman’s reactions, is a regular spokesperson for human and environmental justice at their AGMs and beyond.
originally published in Groundswell, the newsletter of Friends of the Earth Brisbane
for more info see the Mineral Policy Institute
Categories: environment, indigenous rights, social justice |
Tags: environment, indigenous rights, uranium | No Comments
August 10th, 2006
The phenomenon of peak oil - that is the likelihood that the peak oil production occurred in the 60s and now we are in rapid decline - worries a lot of us. The end of oil as a cheap energy source is an economic crisis for the world, but it also spells a social disaster: for as oil prices soar, everything from food to consumer goods will be increasingly effected. However, it can also be seen as an opportunity.
It’s time to do something to free ourselves from over-reliance on the old system by developing our own skills and resources in sustainable ways.
In August 2006 Permaculture guru David Holmgren teamed up with author and peak oil commentator Richard Heinberg for a national tour. They were speaking about down-to-earth things anyone can do to alleviate the peak oil crisis.
The attraction of permcultural solutions relies on the independence and localisation of energy and food production. Local energy production and reduction through rewables like wind and solar, passive solar design, sharing vehicle resources and biking it mean less reliance on fossil fuels. Holmgren highlights the importance of food security. Modern food production relies overwhelmingly on fossil fuels: from the machines that cultivate crops, vehicles that transport it , refrigeration, right down to the plastic bags it comes wrapped in.
Holmgren sees living soil as the basis of food security: yet modern agriculture has killed the earth:, spraying all manner of contaminants on the soil and crops. Our home gardens are real opportunities to bring life back to the earth where we are at: by composting, mulching and growing our own foods we are returning life to the soil and eliminating some of those food miles that rely on increasing fossil fuel production. At the same time, growing your own food puts you in touch with the weather and the seasons in your region, placing the permultural concept of local ecological knowledge back into the picture.
Permaculture also focuses on the importance of reduction: consumer purchases increase your ecological footprint significantly. By reducing and creatively recycling what’s already available in your local area, sharing skills with local people, you can fulfil many of your needs while developing skills and reducing oil consumption. (Visit Reverse Garbage for some ideas!)
Holmgren’s permacultural prescription extends into the economy. New ways of trading including Local Energy Exchange Systems (LETS), Community Supported Agriculture and WOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) expands our human relationships while dealing with or economic ones without the destructive practices of being involved in an unethical banking industry.
Lastly, land ownership is crucial to the ability of a people to live self-sufficiently. Home ownership is becoming increasing unrealistic and is an unproductive use of land. Permaculture offers new ways of organising land ownership including co-housing and community housing which can offer the empowerment of community governance.
Heinberg’s book, The Oil Depletion Protocols, outlines his global diplomatic vision to avert oil wars and social disaster. Holmgren is coauthor of Permaculture One
originally published in Groundswell, the newsletter of Friends of the Earth Brisbane
Categories: environment |
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August 8th, 2006
The Howard government presents so many targets for people seeking social justice. Thanks to all of you who’ve come here today to enumerate them. I’m here for all those reasons, but one of my primary concerns is the inroads that the Howard govt is giving the nuclear industry in this country.
With dollar signs in their eyes, the Howard govt has told the world that Australia is ‘open for business’ for uranium mining. They’re talking up nuclear power as a mad-man’s solution to climate change, and nuclear waste dumps on indigenous lands. They’re already irradiating our food and letting nuclear powered vessels carrying nuclear weapons enter our ports and train here. There vision is for a landscape littered with nuclear reactors, polluting uranium mines and nuclear waste barrelling down our highways and through our suburbs while we sleep. These things have been done against the will of the people, of the states and as usual, without the consent of indigenous people.
This week they stage a protest outside the Lucas Heights reactor, many thousand of kilometres from the proposed destination of it’s waste. The Central Land Council is completely against it, saying it will threaten their way of life. This week the Howard govt, true to form, introduced the
Radioactive Waste Management Bill - overturning their previous decision to consult indigenous people over the site of a proposed nuclear waste dump in the NT. The fact is, the govt will never find a place that wants to live next to a nuclear waste dump. There is no ‘state of the art’ guaranteed safe storage site.
Perhaps the most insane suggestions emanating from a govt known for radical ideas that threaten social and environmental health, the science minister Brendan Nelson, is pushing for nuclear power. He says we willhave nuclear power plants withint 20 years. All but the most fatalistic profiteers would accept that this is legitimate solution to climate change. No, it’s not safe. Nuclear power plants are replete with small accidents and leaks, they’ve been linked to cancers in the communities that live near them.
But importantly, nuclear power is no solution to climate change either for two important reasons: electricity provision accounts for only 15% of world GHG emissions! Nuclear power wont’ stop deforestation, car pollution or cows farting! And secondly: it actually contributes to climate change – the mining, processing, enrichment and transportation of uranium is energy intensive and done with fossil fuels. There are so many other reasons why it’s unviable economically and socially, but these are the biggest holes in the argument.
Still , they are going gung-ho on uranium mining. With dollar signs in their eyes, the federal govt have recently permitted the expansion of the Roxby Downs mine, which already uses 60 million gallons of water a day. With the US and China the biggest buyers of Australian uranium, Alexander downer’s claim that we can monitor the use of our uranium is laughable. It will be used, directly or indirectly in the production of nuclear weapons. The Australian govt are now implicated in nuclear weapons proliferation. But that comes as no surprise to peace activists, who note the increased US military presence in Australia and the military nuclear devices that come with them.
Australians don’t want to live in a nuclearised state, with the increase threats of contamination, accidents and weapons in our midst. QLD anti-nulcear, environment and Peace groups have recenly convened the QLD Anti-Nuclear Alliance. If you interested in getting involved why not come to our public meeting this Sunday, November 13, at 1pm, at the offices of Senator Andrew Bartlett in Brusnwick st. see me later for more info.
Thanks for listening.
speech given at anti-howard protest
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