By Marce Cameron
PERTH — The forest campaign in Western Australia has focused on blockades, in which small groups of protesters chain themselves to trees and machinery or construct elaborate tree-houses. The blockades have helped to keep the media spotlight on the issue and dramatised the impact of clear-felling. But while the blockades have succeeded in delaying the bulldozers and chainsaws, they have been unable to stop them.
Public support for the blockades and the campaign to save old-growth forest is overwhelming. This is what scares the government. Several high-profile celebrities have been arrested in the forests, and there has been a rally for "respectable" people in suits. But there's been no serious attempt by the peak environment groups to involve all those people who are opposed to old-growth logging and want to do something about it.
Since most people are unable to participate in the blockades, the huge support for the campaign has been passive. Harnessing this "people power" is the key to stopping the destruction in the forests.
The government is feeling the heat. It could not ignore a campaign of sustained mass demonstrations and street marches which mobilises thousands who oppose logging.
Resistance has called a rally and march against environmental destruction for noon, Saturday, February 27, at the Perth Cultural Centre, Northbridge. We will march to Parliament House to demand that the WA government reject the regional forest agreement and preserve all remaining old-growth forests. We will also demand the closure of the Jabiluka uranium mine and that no uranium mines be built in WA.