Time capsules: the Daintree Blockade

The recent North Queensland Conservation Council garage sale attracted a wonderful collection of old environmental books – mostly 1970s – 1990s, reflecting the age of the organisation and its older members.

Every book is a time capsule, preserving knowledge and attitudes current at the time of writing. This one was more in-the-moment than most.

The Trials of Tribulation by The Douglas Shire Wilderness Action Group is a  60-page book written in haste during a pause in the very physical blockade of the bulldozers pushing a road through Cape Trib rainforest in 1983.

Political bloody-mindedness, chicanery and incompetence (especially from the local shire council) was met by hundreds of protestors putting themselves in harm’s way (tree-sits and more). The book ends with a temporary victory, as the Wet wiped out any chance of further work, and a plea for ongoing support.

The Cape Trib story ends with the track being completed anyway in 1984 (a defeat) but the rainforest being declared as World Heritage in 1988 (a victory). This was one of a few key protests which formed and defined the modern environmental movement. Lake Pedder (Tas, 1972) was lost. Terania Creek (northern NSW, 1979), Franklin River (Tas, 1982) and Cape Trib were at least partial victories.

Lessons to be learned

By 1984 we had a Greens Party and a federal Labor government which knew the power of the environmental movement. A history of the Australian environment movement by Drew Hutton and Libby Connors (1999), in fact, sees it as a watershed, calling the period 1973-83 “The Campaigning Movement” and 1983-90 “The Professional Movement”.

Looking back from 2024 it is apparent, too, that the earlier period was one of local movements against local problems. The stories about early campaigns shared at the NQCC’s recent 50th anniversary celebration were about Keith Williams’ Port Hinchinbrook development, Ben Lomond uranium mine, the Yabulu nickel plant and the Nelly Bay harbour. Like the Bloomfield Track protest, they were all very tightly community based. These days, the main issues are global and so are the responses to them; we’ve lost a lot of immediacy and engagement.

Further reading

• A new website and book by Bill Wilkie about the Daintree blockade.
• A good history of the Yabulu nickel refinery (but without much on the environmental concerns), and an activist’s account of dealing with the refinery.
• Similar activists’ accounts of the battle over the Hinchinbrook Channel.
• “The legacy of Lake Pedder: how the world’s first Green Party was born in Tasmania 50 years ago” (2022) on The Conversation.
• Similar activist actions in the USA, fictionalised by Richard Powers in The Overstory.