EVERGREEN
Newsletter for our Green Guardians
© Mitja Kobal / Greenpeace
Covered in this issue:
Click the headings below to jump to each section
A word from our Green Guardians
Gillian
To the people of 2020. The destruction and loss...
Victoria
It was an immaculate day in June. The sea was a mirror...
Helen
I think all of the Greenpeace activists are very brave...
Ildika
Without clean air, water and soil our planet might...
A recipe for lobbying:
1.
Make a plan
Set some objectives and make sure your ‘ask’ is clear and direct. Know what outcomes to expect from a meeting.
2.
Do your research
Who are you lobbying?
What motivates them?
What do they care about? What would help them do what you are asking for? What might be the barriers? Don’t hesitate to ask these questions in the meeting too.
3.
Know your power
How many people do you represent? What do you bring to the table - ideas, information, energy, action?
4.
Plan your next step,
and follow up after the meeting.
The end of whaling in Australia
© Greenpeace / Rex Weyler
Throwback to our first Australian campaign
It is 1977. The town of Albany in WA saw a group of five people come along in an old beat-up truck. Inside, Canadian national Bob Hunter, Australians Jonny Lewis and Tom Barber, a Frenchman named Jean Paul Gouin (aka ‘The Phantom’) and an American woman, Aline Chaney...
Meet Chris Pash author of 'The Last Whale'
"My first contact with Greenpeace convinced me that the people behind it were crazy. Many called them ratbags. Who would put their lives on the line by using their bodies as shields for whales against explosive head harpoons..."
© Greenpeace / Jaimen Hudson
© Greenpeace / Jeremy
Sutton-Hibbert
Eulogy to activist Paddy Hart
Greenpeace Australia Pacific is saddened by the death of Paddy Hart. Paddy worked as a whaler in Albany for 17 years but later became an activist...
Event review: Music, hope, and community
On 10 December 2019 a group of Green Guardians got together at Redfern Community Centre in Sydney.
Despite the smoke from the bushfires choking the city, we rallied together with the Human Sound Project to fight back with melody. Around the room, everyone shared stories about when nature had touched their hearts and left a mark. The words were flowing and we saved the best. One after the other, we put them together to form a collective song, an anthem for those who wish to act for change. A call to action for anyone willing to try. A song inviting all, not only to protect, but to regenerate, to rally, to lead.
Bight win: Celebrating successes together
Tuesday 25 March marked a pivotal success in our fight to put an end to the oil age. The oil giant Equinor announced that it will abandon its plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight.
The Great Australian Bight is home to an array of animal, fish and plant species, 85% of which are not found anywhere else in the world! It is also the home to majestic whales who go there every year to feed, play and raise their young.
The Bight was classified as one of the most prospective unexplored offshore basins in the world, estimated to contain around two billion barrels of oil. Equinor was granted approval last December to begin exploratory drilling in the Bight.
© Greenpeace / Jaimen Hudson
Book recommendations from our Green Guardians
Other Minds: The octopus, the sea & the deep origins of consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith
This erudite, yet accessible, book takes in squid, cuttlefish and octopus...
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
One of the twentieth centuries most recognised and respected environmental books. Carefully researched and beautifully written...
City of Trees: Essays on life, death and the need for a forest by Sophie Cunningham
This book is less scientific than Peter Godfrey-Smith’s book but its radical...
Storytime: Magical Australia
© wandi_dingo / Instagram
It’s a story so incredible that it’s hard to believe: a tiny, pure-bred baby dingo is dropped from the sky and lands, alive and well, in someone’s backyard. That’s what happened in August last year in Wandiligong, near Bright in north-east Victoria.
Happening upon the tiny bundle of fluff, not sure if it was a fox or a dog, a local phoned a vet who helped identify the pup, named Wandi, and confirmed it to be of a pure alpine breed. Marks on its back suggested a wedge-tailed eagle had taken it and accidentally dropped it in mid-flight.
There are three types within the species: alpine, desert and tropical, each with slightly different appearances and traits. Wandi’s discovery dispelled the idea that no pure-bred alpine dingoes remain in the wild. The alpine dingo is currently on
the list of endangered species vulnerable to extinction.
Nerdy facts
© Paul Hilton / Earth Tree Images
Pyrophile plants
Some plants have evolved oils to increase combustion, and these are known as active pyrophytes. Plants which require fire as an environmental trigger to complete their life-cycle (an ecological adaptation called serotiny), are known as pyrophiles, for example gums, banksias, and Xanthorrhoeas.
© Ella Colley / Greenpeace
Epicormic shoots
A shoot which lies dormant underneath the bark of a trunk, stem, or branch of a plant. Its growth is suppressed by hormones from active shoots higher up the plant. Under certain conditions, such as when damage occurs to higher parts of the plant, the buds develop into active shoots growing from an epicormic bud. Epicormic buds in eucalyptus species are highly protected, set deeper beneath the thick bark than in other tree species, allowing both the buds and vascular cambium to be insulated from the intense heat of bushfires.
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Gillian - NSW
To the people of 2020,
The destruction and loss that you are facing is terrible – the disruption to the natural world was not easily undone and much of the damage including to human lives and well- being seemed irreparable.
But, looking back now, it is as though a tide of change washed through the world. Change was not easy, but it was beginning. Twenty years on, it seems that global warming may stabilize at 1.5 degrees. Until 2020, there was no coordinated international political will to tackle what seemed an unreachable target.
Now, fossil fuels have almost completely gone from energy production, manufacturing, and transport, and the world is largely powered by cheap and reliable renewables. The largest carbon emitters have dramatically cut emissions and are well on the path to becoming low carbon economies. This has been a massive and challenging undertaking.
Air and water pollution are steadily decreasing and respiratory and lung diseases around the world are declining. Plastics are no longer produced and much of the plastic pollution on land, in the rivers and oceans has been removed. The amazing thing is we do not miss plastics and find it hard to conceive of single-use plastic bags and bottles in our plastic-free world.
It has not been an easy transition and we are not there yet. 2020 was the year that changed everything. It showed us that global action and co-operation were urgently needed to recover our health and economies
My message to you from 2040 is one of hope for the future.
Victoria - Lorne, VIC
It was an immaculate day in June. The sea was a mirror of itself. I’d been shopping in Lorne for supplies for the restaurant and was heading home to Aireys along the Great Ocean Road.
On the southern outskirts is a flat rock ledge. I stopped, got out of my car, walked down and sat. Maybe, just maybe, I might see a whale.
The Southern Rights come up from the Antarctic to warmer waters and journey along the southern coast of Australia, the males protecting the pod, the females giving birth.
A woman was walking long the ledge holding the hand of a small girl who was on her seaward side and breaking into a skippety dance every now and again. They were happy, they felt safe and at home.
Then... out of the water, emerging slowly like a submarine, came a whale. It was no more than a few metres from the little girl. You might have expected her to scream or for her mother to parcel her up in her arms and run, but no. The little girl tilted her head and looked at the whale and I saw the eye of the whale looking back at her. The moment just hung and then the whale was gone.
There are no words to describe a moment like that, it is so magical that to this day I’m not sure whether I dreamt it. Except I didn’t.
Helen, Green Guardian, VIC
Q: What Greenpeace work do you feel most proud about?
A: I think all of the Greenpeace activists are very brave and I admire their courage for protesting and highlighting environmental issues around the world.
Q: What would you like to say to future generations about the environment?
A: Dedicated people tried very hard to help the environment, but there were very dark forces which they had to fight against, who only thought about profits, greed and power.
Q: What’s your personal philosophy on what should be done about the environment?
A: We must work together and never give up because that’s what the big companies and governments want us to do. There are very clever people out there who can achieve all we need to save the environment. We must all work together to allow nature to flourish.
Q: When did your friends or family find out that you support Greenpeace what do they say or ask and how do you respond?
A: They know I have always been passionate about the environment (I have a science degree in Zoology and Immunology and a Graduate Diploma in Environmental Science). They think my support of Greenpeace is an extension of that.
Meet Ildika, Green Guardian, Teacher Librarian and Nia Dance Teacher
Without clean air, water and soil our planet might endure but the people, animals and resources will suffer. It is a no brainer to gift Greenpeace in my will as I love my planet and the flora and fauna that inhabit it. Through affirmative action Greenpeace has made a positive impact on ensuring clean food protection, protecting dwindling rainforests, saving some animal species from extinction and by challenging destructive and greedy ideology of some governments to make short term profit instead of long term goals for the future of the Earth’s inhabitants.
I have subscribed to working in social organisations that assist and nurture people. I began my teaching career facilitating learning for primary school students both in Queensland and in the USA.
My passionate hobby is Nia Dance Technique and I have been teaching this blend of dance, healing and martial arts since 2012 in Brisbane. This is a lifestyle practice that brings me joy through movement medicine and I attained my Black Belt grading in 2018. It is danced globally, and historically it is a practice that humans from ancient times have used for their creative expression.
I have travelled overseas and seen the diversity of seasons, flora, fauna and different cultures. We are one people and we stand united on Greenpeace’s campaigns that make positive changes despite the odds.
Behind the scenes: ReEnergise
Our ReEnergise Campaign aims to shift corporations in Australia to 100% renewable energy.
Eighty big-name companies and institutions have been analysed across seven major industry sectors.
Our research showed that corporations can and should switch to renewable energy, and can do so within a rapid time frame. For example, soon after we started this campaign, Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, announced it would be switching to 100% renewable electricity by 2025.
As business and industry use approximately 70% of Australia’s electricity, corporate action is essential to shift government policy and regulation to put Australia on the path to 100% renewable energy. The ReEnergise campaign will ensure that corporations follow the right steps to make this a reality.
Breaking news: 26 August - Aldi supermarket announced their commitment to purchase 100% of its electricity from renewable energy by the end of 2021. ALDI has been rolling out widespread energy efficiency measures, installing solar panels across hundreds of its stores and distribution centres, and signing agreements to buy electricity from Australian wind projects.
Visit our website to learn more: https://www.greenpeace.org.au/what-we-do/renewable-energy-for-all/
Interview with Lindsay Soutar, senior campaigner and head of ReEnergise campaign
Alexis (A): Where does your passion for protecting the environment come from?
Lindsay (L): Over 10 years ago I was working in the Mekong region in water management and
development. 60 million people depend on the Mekong river system for their livelihood and
climate change is fundamentally threatening that river system. I had one of those penny drop
moments - climate change is the defining issue of our time. Oh plus, I love camping, kayaking,
the ocean, trees and critters- big and small. The world is an endlessly fascinating and beautiful
place. We need to respect and care for it.
A: What is your role at Greenpeace?
L: As a senior campaigner, my role is to work out what campaigns to work on, and how to win the change we need. It’s challenging and interesting. I particularly love working in renewable energy because things are always moving so fast - it’s never boring and there is real momentum and change in that space. That gives hope.
A: Why is lobbying important? What do we use it for?
L: Well, in the first instance, if a decision maker - whether in a company, government or elsewhere - doesn’t know what you want, they’re not likely to give you what you want! Meeting and talking with decision makers can help gather information, provide information, influence views, and prompt action. Big brands invest vast resources in building and maintaining those brands, which means they are very sensitive to customer pressure and anything that risks undermining them. This
gives us power. And when the target of your lobbying does what you’ve asked them to do - as in the recent wins
we’ve had getting beer companies and Telstra to commit to 100% renewable electricity - then you know it works.
A: Something you would like to tell our long-term supporters?
L: Sometimes it can be hard to maintain hope in the face of the devastation we are seeing around us, but the world is changing fast - faster than sometimes we see on the surface. Being part of a bigger movement, taking action and contributing to the issues that matter most, that is very important. It gives us hope.
Music, hope, and community
On 10 December a group of Green Guardians got together at Redfern Community Centre in Sydney. Despite the smoke from the bushfires choking the city, we rallied together with the Human Sound Project to fight back with melody.
Around the room, everyone shared stories about when nature had touched their hearts and left a mark. The words were flowing and we saved the best. One after the other, we put them together to form a collective song, an anthem for those who wish to act for change. A call to action for anyone willing to try. A song inviting all, not only to protect, but to regenerate, to rally, to lead.
Three generations shared one simple ideal that day, that our future has to be greener and healthier. It was a beautiful moment of communion, where the energy in the room put aside any element of division. And while the windows of the community centre turned grey and the streets became heavy with poisonous air, a strong wind of community, sharing, hope and love emanated from that room. Hopefully, this song will be heard and repeated by others.
Event report from Sarah, NSW
I volunteer for Greenpeace as I believe in their aims of defending the natural environment and promoting peace. I chose Greenpeace as I liked their practical solutions to bringing about change.
Greenpeace has provided me with a variety of ways to take action on climate change over the years, from cyberaction to organising community groups.
Holding events with supporters takes climate action away from the office into the community. The event with The Human Sound Project was unlike any other event I’ve been involved in. With its positive emphasis on community, creativity and the power of music, it was an escape from negative news about the bushfires and climate change.
In our group sessions we had to think about positive times we had spent in nature and put that into a single word or sentence. Mine had been in bush regeneration which became the theme of our song after everyone’s ideas had been coordinated.
Seeing how Simon and the members of The Sound Project set these ideas to music was for me a unique experience. I would certainly recommend it to others.
Bight win: Celebrating successes together
Tuesday 25 March marked a pivotal success in our fight to put an end to the oil age. The oil giant Equinor announced that it will abandon its plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight.
The Great Australian Bight is home to an array of animal, fish and plant species, 85% of which are not found anywhere else in the world! It is also the home to majestic whales who go there every year to feed, play and raise their young.
The Bight was classified as one of the most prospective unexplored offshore basins in the world, estimated to contain around two billion barrels of oil. Equinor was granted approval last December to begin exploratory drilling in the Bight. This was met with great concerns and fortunately these concerns have been put to rest. As Equinor is the last major oil company that holds a permit, this win is highly likely to mean the end of exploration in the Great Australian Bight.
This is a momentous victory for our long- term fight against further oil exploration and it was made possible because of you. This victory was born of hundreds of rallies, paddle-outs and community meetings. It was fought in the dark corridors of power through many hours of lobbying local politicians and pressuring the state and federal government.
This is a great win and I want to thank you for it, because you made it possible by lending us your voice and by believing that we could see environmental justice triumph. Thank you!
Concerns for climate change mean that fossil fuel companies are under increasing pressure to monitor their environmental impact and to redirect their investment to renewable energy. This win stands us in greater stead in our fight to reform Australia’s offshore petroleum laws and ensure the protection of our precious marine environment for generations to come.
Meet Chris Pash, author of the book 'The Last Whale' (Fremantle Press, 2008)
My first contact with Greenpeace convinced me that the people behind it were crazy. Many called them ratbags. Who would put their lives on the line by using their bodies as shields for whales against explosive head harpoons?
In 1977, I was a cadet journalist at the Albany Advertiser in Western Australia’s south when a direct action campaign was launched against the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company, the last land-based whaling operation in the English-speaking world.
Among them, and holding the national and international media’s attention, was Bob Hunter, a Canadian journalist and author who was Greenpeace’s first president. With him was his wife, Bobbi Hunter, Greenpeace’s first treasurer or, if you like, first fundraiser.
The fact that they came to Albany was confounding to the locals. Why such attention? To them the whaling was just another local business as usual.
The direct action - using zodiac inflatables to put people between the whales and harpoons of the three whaling ships - was modelled on Greeneace’s action in the North Pacific against the Soviet whaling fleet. It was these images which catapulted Greenpeace into the world’s consciousness.
This global impact, and media attention, was what Jean-Paul Fortum Gouin, a wealthy Frenchman who also wanted to save the whales, wanted. He called Greenpeace in North America, offering to pay all expenses, and Bob and Bobbi jumped on a plane. (He’s still around. I speak to him in Europe most months. He went on to later play a significant role in getting the votes at the International Whaling Commission to end commercial whaling.)
The 1977 direct action in Albany can be described as the first international action, outside North America, of Greenpeace. Among the activists was Tom Barber (sometimes called two harpoon Tom because he had a harpoon fire over his head twice in the same campaign).
Thirty years later I wrote the book, The Last Whale (Fremantle Press, 2008). I had always wanted to write the story of the activists and the whales, presenting both viewpoints but it needed some distance in time, for the hurt to ease, to allow all to speak. Many lost their livelihoods but those same people today speak against whaling.
The action in 1977 had a profound influence on me. These days I often start a talk with the words: “My name is Chris and I am a ratbag.” I can recommend ratbaggery. It brings change.
Find the book at: www.fremantlepress.com.au/products/the-last-whale
Eulogy to activist Paddy Hart
Greenpeace Australia Pacific is saddened by the death of Paddy Hart. Paddy worked as a whaler in Albany for 17 years but later became an activist and went to Japan to speak in defence of two Greenpeace activists arrested and charged after exposing embezzlement within the whaling industry. Storytelling is a critical part of changing hearts and minds, and Paddy’s own story played an important part in turning the eyes of the world to the courageous actions of passionate activists.
Our thoughts are with his family.
Other Minds: the octopus, the sea & the deep origins of consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith
This erudite, yet accessible, book takes in squid, cuttlefish and octopus but concentrates on octopus.
Octopus have an amazing number of neutrons (i.e. brain capacity, to us non- scientists) and in tracking where this leads – well, it actually leads to an awful lot of unanswered questions!
Questions such as: why have they developed the amazing skin camouflage and hi-tech skin fireworks, when they, and more importantly their suitors, cannot see in colour?
Along the way, Peter Godfrey-Smith takes us via baboon colonies and 2,000-year-old pine trees in California. ‘Cephalopods are evolution’s only experiment in big brains outside of the vertebrates’, he writes. There is much, much more which I can’t reveal – you must read it yourself.
The book is dedicated to ‘all those who work to protect the oceans’. – Jeffrey
Photo credit: © Greenpeace / Gavin Newman
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
One of the twentieth centuries most recognised and respected environmental books. Carefully researched and beautifully written, ‘Silent spring’ warns of the dangers of widespread pesticide use, particularly DDT and its impact on biodiversity. Carson was widely criticised by the chemical industry which tried, unsuccessfully to discredit her. Her integrity and deep love for nature resonate strongly today. – Gillian
Photo credit: © Greenpeace / Anne Gabriel-Jürgens
City of Trees: Essays on life, death and the need for a forest by Sophie Cunningham
This book is less scientific than Peter Godfrey-Smith’s book but its radical and emotional content beautifully compensates.
It is basically an eclectic collection of essays from 2015 to 2017. It takes us around the world chasing stories on trees, as well as an assortment of other stories of an environmental nature such as New York’s horseshoe crabs, a Californian mountain lion and a variety of stories on Australian native flora and fauna. Along the way we are also treated to snippets of Sophie’s slightly unconventional family life.
These two completely different reads both have the environment emotionally and intellectually at centre stage. Both are well worth investing in. – Jeffrey
Photo credit: © Markus Mauthe / Greenpeace
Throwback to our first Australian campaign: The end of whaling in Australia
It is 1977. The town of Albany in WA saw a group of five people come along in an old beat-up truck. Inside, Canadian national Bob Hunter, Australians Jonny Lewis and Tom Barber, a Frenchman named Jean Paul Gouin (aka ‘The Phantom’) and an American woman, Aline Chaney. A crew of humble activists and their two inflatable zodiacs, dedicated to bringing a final blow to the last remnants of the whaling industry in Australia.
“I remember when the activists came out, yes. I didn’t like them but I had the utmost respect for them.” - Bob Reeby, Engineer on the Cheynes IV whale chaser in 1977.
The crew wasn’t welcome at first. Although the industry was already close to ending, as cheaper synthetics oils were arriving on the market, and oil, and fertilisers made from whale bones and blood weren’t as efficient, the town of Albany’s economy relied mostly on whaling. The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company had the last remaining active fleet in Australia, with three whalers and a full crew. Between 1952 and 1978, in Albany alone, 1136 humpbacks and 14,695 sperm whales were killed for commercial use. Local companies had pushed the whale population to the brink of extinction, and children from this era cannot remember seeing a single living whale passing by, only corpses on the pavement, getting cut in pieces with the unbearable foul smell of fast-decaying blubber.
Armed with nothing but their wit, the activist crew set out, and followed the whalers around, putting themselves between the harpoons and the whales, human shields as a last resort. The speed of the zodiacs and the unwavering dedication of the group meant that no whales were caught that day. In fact, this event and the lobbying efforts later on launched a judicial inquiry, and the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company announced its final closure on the first day of the hearing. No whales would ever be caught there again.
Nowadays, Albany has recovered and thrives with the whale sightseeing industry and unique museums offering tours on the actual ships with recreated simulations available to visit. Wrecks are now diving sites for the more adventurous tourists, and children of the newer generations can appreciate the thousands of whales migrating every year.