It’s been 39 years since the United Nations General Assembly established World Environment Day to raise awareness about environmental issues and encourage positive action.
Although our planet has continued to suffer due to increased human activity, the last few decades have seen also seen an increase in the number of environmental campaigns and public participation. To celebrate World Environment Day on 5 June, we take a look at a selection of documentaries exploring successful Australian initiatives.
The campaign to halt the damming of Tasmania’s Franklin River was an environmental success story and became a significant precedent for Australian conservation. In the documentary The Franklin Wild River (1980), a young Bob Brown paddles the length of the river in an inflatable raft – a powerful experience that influenced his political future as leader of the Australian Greens.
Walking Through a Minefield (1999) documents the efforts of an eclectic mix of protesters fighting the establishment of the Jabiluka Uranium Mine, which was located in close proximity to the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. Jabiluka (1997) presents the contrasting perspectives of mining representatives and the Aboriginal landowners, the Mirrar people.
Conflict between forest conservationists and Australia’s multi-billion dollar logging industry has been the subject of a number of Australian documentaries. Give Trees a Chance: The Story of Terania Creek (1980) recorded the campaign against deforestation in northern NSW, whilst Loggerheads (1990) presents some of the heated confrontations between ‘hippies’ and ‘loggers’.
As a part of Wamsley’s War (2000), Dr John Wamsley applied the shock factor of wearing a ‘cat hat’ to convince politicians to scrap the laws that protected feral cats from being killed in his native wildlife sanctuary. With similar success, rocker-turned-pollie Peter Garrett used the documentary Shoalwater: Up For Grabs (1992) to make his case against plans to use pristine Queensland beaches for sand mining.
Finally, the campaign against Japanese whaling continues to rage on for many conservationists. The Last Whale (1994) was produced as a passionate plea to save whales from extinction.
