The environmental movement is represented by a wide range of groups sometimes called non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These exist on local, national, and international scales. Environmental NGOs vary widely in political views and in the amount they seek to influence environmental policy in Australia and elsewhere. The environmental movement today consists of both large national groups and also many smaller local groups with local concerns.[3] There are also 5,000 Landcare groups in the six states and two mainland territories. Other environmental issues within the scope of the movement include forest protection, climate change and opposition to nuclear activities.[4][5]
The first European settlers of Australia had little regard for the environment of the continent and the early focus was to use the abundant resources and convert the environment into a less hostile and European setting to make settlers feel more at home.
The first signs of the environmental movement in Australia began with the growing naturalism movement at the turn of the 19th century.
Despite some significant discoveries by botanists such as Joseph Maiden it wasn't for many decades and with the rapid deterioration of native habitat and growing understanding of the native environment that the first organised clubs began to form. The Field Naturalists Club of Victoria was formed in 1880, followed shortly after by the New South Wales Naturalists Club and Field Naturalists Society of South Australia. A similar organisation was established in Tasmania in 1904.
Despite the existence of a strong Victorian era zoological movement, there was little emphasis on conservation or management of the environment and in the early days these naturalists were primarily concerned with cataloguing and academia.
The idea of land conservation began 1879, when the Royal National Park in Sydney was proclaimed.[6] Previously it had been a recreational area; however, it followed the lead of Yellowstone National Park in the United States as a conservation park.
As the conservation movement grew, so too did the number of national parks.
Response to endangered species
The thylacine, hunted to extinction in the wild by 1930, sparked public concern for other Australian mammals.
In 1908, the Victorian Naturalists Society and the Wilsons Promontory management committee were involved in advocating for the preservation of the thylacine, a species being hunted to extinction in Tasmania. Members of that group went on to establish Healesville Sanctuary.
The environmental movement became mainstream with public outcry following extensive culling of koalas. Between 1915 and 1927, nearly 4 million koalas were killed, with the largest cullings occurring in Queensland.[7][8] By 1924 koalas had officially become extinct in South Australia and endangered elsewhere. In response to the threat of extinction, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary was opened.
Native fauna advisory committees began to be established to address the concern of rapidly dwindling populations of a number of mammal species. In 1928, the Tasmanian Advisory Committee for Native Fauna had recommended a reserve to protect any remaining thylacines, with potential sites of suitable habitat including the Arthur-Pieman area of western Tasmania. This was also the beginning of a Tasmanian wilderness movement.
While the movement was too little, too late to save the thylacine from extinction, with the last thylacine dying in captivity in 1936, other species were saved with official protection orders. The koala was declared a protected species in all states in 1937. The Tasmanian devil, another iconic species hunted to the brink of extinction, was protected in 1941.
While threats to iconic species stimulated the public to act, the conservation movement took some time to grow. Vast areas of Australia were set aside as crown land; however, these were seen as areas of potential development and land use rather than for conservation. Private land use was in general insensitive to native wildlife.
The landcare movement in Australia was begun by farmers and has its roots in the 1960s to combat the growing problems of soil erosion and soil salinity which were having an increasing impact in Australia[9] but later also embraced benefits of native biodiversity. Groups of volunteers were formed for projects which promoted revegetation and better resource management. Many of these projects were funded by community groups such as the Returned Services Leagues and Rotary International, or official government programs, such as Land for Wildlife in Victoria or protection of remnant native vegetation through trusts and covenants. Having started locally, the landcare movement gained a national voice in the late 1980s with the foundation of Landcare and later Landcare Australia. Despite increasing awareness of greater environmental issues, however, a growing conflict was occurring between conservationists and farmers.[10]
The anti-litter movement
The anti-litter movement also had its roots in the 1960s due to the growing problem in Australia of litter as a form of visual pollution. Keep Australia Beautiful, founder Dame Phyllis Frost saw the litter (cups, plastic bags, cans and bottles) strewn along the landscapes of Victoria and then sought the support of the National Council of Women, with a group of voluntary organisations and local government groups who were invited to join Australia's first anti-litter campaign. Initially named '§tate Wide Civic Pride' under the guidance of the Minister for Local Government R J Hamer, the group adopted the name 'Keep Australia Beautiful Council' and officially inaugurated the organisation in 1968.
Attracting public support from the famous Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to the music band ABBA supporting Keep Australia Beautiful's anti-litter campaigns, the organisation remains the leading campaigner for a litter free and sustainable Australia. With regional programs supporting civic pride through the only regional sustainable programs Tidy Towns Awards, annual Keep Australia Beautiful Week to the long standing eco-education programs, Keep Australia Beautiful continues as the country's leading anti-litter campaigners with increasing responsibility being put back on to the producers through litter auditing, government reporting and pushing for corporate responsibility.
The rise of the green movement
The first rumblings of the Australian green movement as a political force came with protests over the Lake Pedder damming project in 1972. The project gained worldwide publicity and brought the environmental movement to the mainstream in Australia. The movement escalated with the Franklin Dam project and Bob Brown was made a martyr for the cause when he was jailed for environmental activism.[11]
The protests included the United Tasmania Group who were the precursor to the Tasmanian Greens and are now recognised as the world's first green party. The group that preceded the Tasmanian Wilderness Society, the South West Tasmania Action Committee, continued after the flooding.
Indigenous land
An increasing consciousness in Indigenous Australian culture and the practices of sustainable landcare also contributed to an overall increase in popularity of the environmental movement and concern for indigenous species. Additionally the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 which granted indigenous people ownership based on traditional occupation, which effectively locked away large tracts of land from overdevelopment.[citation needed]
Late 20th century
The environmental movement reached a peak in Australia in the 1980s. Popular Australian culture began to embrace the environmental messages of rock bands like Midnight Oil.[citation needed] Blockades disrupting logging, mining, dredging, clearing and other environmentally destructive activities were increasingly undertaken throughout the 1980s and have become regularly used by campaigners.[12]
The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand polarised the community on the green movement. Nuclear testing and whaling in the Pacific region had major impacts on the social consciousness of Australia.[citation needed] The environmental movement also became a hot political issue. The Australian Labor Party, in particular, began to capitalise on the popularity in its election campaigning with a national conservation and soil conservation strategy.[citation needed]
In July 1989, Bob Hawke made a famous "Our Country, Our Future" speech that the Australian Labor Party would plant a billion trees to combat soil erosion and declared the 1990s the "Decade of Landcare".[13]
However, with the shift to the Keating government the economy became the dominant issue and government environmental policy was not a mainstream political issue for over a decade.[citation needed]
Environmental issues were a key political issue in the 2022 federal election, where a loose alliance of "teal independent" candidates made addressing climate change a key campaign issue and won several seats from the incumbent Liberal coalition.[18][19]
Several groups specifically concerned with nuclear issues were established in the mid-1970s, including the Movement Against Uranium Mining and Campaign Against Nuclear Energy (CANE), cooperating with other environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and the Australian Conservation Foundation.[23] However, by the late 1980s, the price of uranium had fallen, and the costs of nuclear power had risen, and the anti-nuclear movement seemed to have won its case. CANE disbanded itself in 1988.[24]
About 2003, proponents of nuclear power advocated it as a solution to global warming and the Australian government began taking an interest. Anti-nuclear campaigners and some scientists in Australia emphasised that nuclear power could not significantly substitute for other power sources, and that uranium mining itself could become a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions.[citation needed]
Growing concern in Australia about climate change reached its peak in 2006, largely in response to climate change campaigner Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and once again pushed environmental issues to the forefront. The Howard government stirred the environmental movement by refusing to acknowledge the Kyoto Protocol and pushing a strongly pro-nuclear power stance. In addition, Howard created controversy by refusing to meet with Gore during his visit to Australia. In contrast, opposition leader Kevin Rudd proclaimed climate change as "the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time" and called for a cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 60% before 2050.[25]
The Rudd government began on 3 December 2007, and as his first official act after being sworn in, Kevin Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol.[26] Rudd stated that:
Australia's official declaration today that we will become a member of the Kyoto Protocol is a significant step forward in our country's efforts to fight climate change domestically – and with the international community.
However, the Rudd government's environmental credentials suffered some negative perception from environmental groups when post-Kyoto cuts to emissions were subsequently scaled back[27] and the fallout of the public embarrassing Energy Efficient Homes Package scheme which included the much criticized insulation and Green Loans programs.[28]
The thylacine, also commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. The thylacine died out in New Guinea and mainland Australia around 3,600–3,200 years ago, prior to the arrival of Europeans, possibly because of the introduction of the dingo, whose earliest record dates to around the same time, but which never reached Tasmania. Prior to European settlement, around 5,000 remained in the wild on Tasmania. Beginning in the nineteenth century, they were perceived as a threat to the livestock of farmers and bounty hunting was introduced. The last known of its species died in 1936 at Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. The thylacine is widespread in popular culture and is a cultural icon in Australia.
The environmental movement is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create sustainable living. Environmentalists advocate the just and sustainable management of resources and stewardship of the environment through changes in public policy and individual behavior. In its recognition of humanity as a participant in ecosystems, the movement is centered on ecology, health, as well as human rights.
Conservation in Australia is an issue of state and federal policy. Australia is one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world, with a large portion of species endemic to Australia. Preserving this wealth of biodiversity is important for future generations. 25% of Australia is managed for conservation.
Robert James Brown is an Australian former politician, medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian Senate on the Tasmanian Greens ticket, joining with sitting Greens Western Australia senator Dee Margetts to form the first group of Australian Greens senators following the 1996 federal election. He was re-elected in 2001 and in 2007. He was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia and the first openly gay leader of an Australian political party.
Lake Pedder, once a glacial outwash lake, is a man-made impoundment and diversion lake located in the southwest of Tasmania, Australia. In addition to its natural catchment from the Frankland Range, the lake is formed by the 1972 damming of the Serpentine and Huon rivers by the Hydro-Electric Commission for the purpose of hydroelectric power generation. Consequently, the lake is also known, somewhat derisively, as the Huon-Serpentine Impoundment.
The Gordon-below-Franklin Dam project was a proposed dam on the Gordon River in Tasmania, Australia, that was never constructed. The movement that eventually led to the project's cancellation became one of the most significant environmental campaigns in Australian history.
Anthony Stephen Burke is an Australian politician serving as Leader of the House, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for the Arts since 2022. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and has served as member of parliament (MP) for Watson since 2004. He held cabinet positions in the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from 2007 to 2013.
The Wilderness Society is an Australian, community-based, not-for-profit non-governmental environmental advocacy organisation.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) is Australia's national environmental organisation, launched in 1965 in response to a proposal by the World Wide Fund for Nature for a more co-ordinated approach to sustainability.
Earthlife Africa is a South African environmental and anti-nuclear organisation founded in August 1988, in Johannesburg. Initially conceived of as a South African version of Greenpeace, the group began by playing a radical, anti-apartheid, activist role. ELA is arguably now more of a reformist lobby or pressure group. Considered by some to be a key voice in the emerging environmental justice movement, Earthlife Africa has been criticised for being too radical, and by others for "working with traditional conservation movements" in furthering the environmental struggle.
Environmental issues in Australia describes a number of environmental issues which affect the environment of Australia and are the primary concern of the environmental movement in Australia.
The environmental movement in South Africa traces its history from the beginnings of conservation and preservation groups in the late 19th century, to the rise of radicalism amongst local ecologists and activists. The early environmental movement in South Africa was primarily made up of conservation groups whose membership was dominated by affluent whites. Many of these groups advocated for forms of fortress conservation that were used to justify forcibly removing Black South Africans from their land. Throughout the mid to late 20th century, justice-centered environmental groups sprung up in connection with anti-apartheid movements advocating for change on issues that affected the environment as well as the rights of workers and rural peoples, showing how environmental issues in the country were "inextricably linked to issues of race and politics."
The Australian environment ranges from virtually pristine Antarctic territory and rainforests to degraded industrial areas of major cities. Forty distinct ecoregions have been identified across the Australian mainland and islands. Central Australia has a very dry climate. The interior has a number of deserts while most of the coastal areas are populated. Northern Australia experiences tropical cyclones while much of the country is prone to periodic drought. This dry and warm environment and exposure to cyclones, makes Australia particularly vulnerable to climate change -- with some areas already experiencing increases in wildfires and fragile ecosystems.
Nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining and export, and nuclear power have often been the subject of public debate in Australia, and the anti-nuclear movement in Australia has a long history. Its origins date back to the 1972–1973 debate over French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the 1976–1977 debate about uranium mining in Australia.
Canada has an active anti-nuclear movement, which includes major campaigning organisations like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Over 300 public interest groups across Canada have endorsed the mandate of the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP). Some environmental organisations such as Energy Probe, the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR) are reported to have developed considerable expertise on nuclear power and energy issues. There is also a long-standing tradition of indigenous opposition to uranium mining.
Nuclear power in Australia has been a topic of debate since the 1950s. Australia has one nuclear reactor in Lucas Heights, New South Wales, although it is only used to produce radioisotopes for nuclear medicine, and does not produce electricity. Australia hosts 33% of the world's proven uranium deposits, and is currently the world’s third largest producer of uranium after Kazakhstan and Canada.
The Conservation Council of South Australia, also known as Conservation SA and Conservation Council SA, is an environmental organisation serving as a peak body, representing over 50 member groups, representing over 90,000 individual members, in the state of South Australia.
Friends of the Earth (FoE) Australia is a federation of independent local groups working for a socially equitable and environmentally sustainable future. It believes that pursuing environmental protection is inseparable from broader social concerns, and as a result uses an environmental justice perspective in its campaigning. It was founded in 1974 and is the Australian member of Friends of the Earth International.
This is a list of notable events relating to the environment in 1983. They relate to environmental law, conservation, environmentalism and environmental issues.
References
↑ "History". Australian Greens. May 2010. Archived from the original on 11 March 2013. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
↑ Roy McLeod (1995). "Resistance to Nuclear Technology: Optimists, Opportunists and Opposition in Australian Nuclear History" in Martin Bauer (ed) Resistance to New Technology, Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–173.
↑ Roy McLeod (1995). "Resistance to Nuclear Technology: Optimists, Opportunists and Opposition in Australian Nuclear History" in Martin Bauer (ed) Resistance to New Technology, Cambridge University Press, pp. 175–177.
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