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| "No Pump Mill" memorabilia - image supplied |
The Clarence
Valley Conservation Coalition celebrated its “almost” thirty years of activity
at a Re-Weavers’ Awards Dinner in Grafton on 1st June.
The
Re-Weavers Awards,
which are held annually on the Friday nearest to World Environment Day,
recognise the valuable contribution individuals and groups have made to
environmental protection over many years.
The
Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition was founded almost thirty years ago because
of a proposal for a chemical pulp mill in the Clarence Valley.
On
30th August 1988 The Daily Examiner’s front page headline
shouted: “$450m valley mill planned by Japanese”. Daishowa International had made an
in-principle decision to build a chemical pulp mill on the Clarence River near
Grafton. This, it was claimed, would create about 1200 direct and indirect jobs
in the region.
This fired up the
local community. Some community members welcomed the announcement,
claiming the mill would provide an enormous boost to the local economy.
But not everyone welcomed
it. Many feared the impact such a large
industrial development would have on the local environment – not just of the
Clarence Valley but of the whole North Coast because it was obvious that such a
large mill would be drawing its feedstock from across the region. Concerns included the amount of water this
mill would use, the decimation of the forests, the likelihood of poisonous
effluent being released into either the river or the ocean and air pollution.
On 19 September 1988 concerned people met in Grafton to discuss the
proposal and consider what action should be taken. This meeting resulted in the formation of the
Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition (CVCC).
Rosie
Richards became its President. She was
an ideal person for the job in many ways.
In the conservative Clarence community she was not publicly associated with
any of the recent or on-going conservation issues. While she was concerned
about environmental impacts, both short and long-term, and made no secret of
the fact, she did not look like a greenie – or the conservative view of what a
greenie looked like. Rosie was 56 years old.
She was a grandmother. Her background was not that of a stereotype greenie
either. She grew up in Pymble and in the early fifties was a member of the
Liberal Party Younger Set. Her other
life experiences included years as a farmer’s wife and the wife of a
professional fisherman. (Her husband
Geoff had been both.)
Rosie’s personality
also qualified her for this leadership role in the pulp mill campaign. She ran both the CVCC committee and general
meetings efficiently. She was calm,
sincere, friendly, articulate and very much “a lady” in old-fashioned
terms. But she was also determined and
possessed a “steel backbone”. This
“steel backbone” and her courage were very necessary in the campaign to obtain
information and disseminate it to the North Coast community.
Courage was
necessary to the campaigners because those promoting the benefits of Daishowa’s
plans attacked the CVCC, referring to its spokespersons as scaremongers and “a
benighted group who distort the facts.” Those in power locally and at the state
level weren’t in any hurry to provide
facts but they decried the efforts of community members who were trying to find
information on pulp mill operations.
However, this did not deter the CVCC.
It sought information on pulp mills and pulping processes from around
the world, asked questions of those in power and disseminated information to
the community.
Other
important campaigners included media spokesperson Martin Frohlich and Bruce
Tucker whose time in Gippsland had shown him what it was like to live near the
Maryvale Pulp Mill. Others who played vital roles were John Kelemec, Rob Lans,
Geoff Richards and Bill Noonan as well as core members of the Clarence Valley
Branch of the National Parks Association. These included Peter Morgan, Stan
Mussared, Celia Smith and Greg Clancy.
Public meetings were held in Grafton, Iluka, Maclean and Minnie Water as
well as in other North Coast towns. In
addition the group produced information sheets, issued many media releases,
participated in media interviews, distributed bumper stickers, circulated a
petition, met with politicians both in the local area and beyond, and wrote
letters to politicians and The Daily Examiner.
And there were many others who wrote letters of concern to the paper as
well as some who wrote supporting the proposal.
It was an amazing time as there was a deluge of letters to the Examiner.
There has been nothing like it since!!
One of my
memories is taking part in a Jacaranda procession, probably in 1989. We used Geoff Welham’s truck which was
decorated with eucalypt branches, and driven by Rob Lans with Bill Noonan
beside him. Others of us, wearing koala masks, were on the back. As we drove down Prince Street, Bill had his
ghetto blaster on full volume blaring out John Williamson singing “Rip, rip
woodchip.” I think we drowned out music of the marching bands.
Following
Daishowa’s announcement that it would not be proceeding with its pulp mill
proposal, CVCC President Rosie wrote to the Examiner (4 April 1990)
praising the efforts of the community in defeating the proposal:
“It has been an interesting nineteen months; a period
that has seen the resolve of north coast people come to the fore; we have seen
People Power used in a democratic way to say ‘No’ to something that we knew would harm our
existing industries and our air and water.
If it had not been for the people of the Clarence Valley and their
attendance at public meetings, their letters to politicians, to newspapers in
Tokyo and our own Daily Examiner, and their strong support of the Clarence
Valley Conservation Coalition, we may have had a huge polluting industrial
complex set down in our midst, without a whimper.”
People Power
did do the job – but Rosie Richards and the others on the Coalition Committee
played a very important part in organizing and channelling that people power.
The lessons
of history never seem to be learned. Those
campaigning to protect the environment from the greed of pillagers face the
same problem today.
What Rosie
wrote in a letter to The Daily Examiner in November 1990 still applies
today:
“It seems that every time we stop for breath another
issue crops up that summons us to speak up for common sense and common
interest. Most of us would much rather
be doing other things besides acting as watchdogs for what we see as poor
bureaucratic decisions and flawed advice to governments.”
In the same
letter she answered a criticism that conservationists were “greedy”:
“We speak out as we do because we believe that the
people of today’s and tomorrow’s Australia will not be well served by a country
whose finite resources have been exhausted by sectional interests that have
until now not had to make long term plans for the sustainability of their
industries.”
The pulp
mill campaign was significant both in the Clarence and further afield. It reinforced the message of the other earlier
environmental victory – the success of the Clarence Valley Branch of the
National Parks Association in campaigning to save the Washpool Rainforest. Both of these campaigns showed the state
government and local councils as well as the North Coast community in general
that there were people who were prepared to campaign strongly for effective
protection of the natural environment.
- Leonie Blain
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| Leonie Blain (left) & Lynette Eggins (right) - image supplied |
