Unite Sort of On Site
Mar. 20th, 2011 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithThere hasn't been an anti-pulp mill gathering of any size in a while. A lot of smaller events, but the last one I seem to have photos of (and I always take photos) is from November 2007. I think they might be getting warmed up again. There's a big rally planned for Hobart in May.
This was one was at the Batman Bridge, over the Tamar.
It was originally planned to be on the actual site of the mill, but the organisers changed the location because they underestimated the turnout. They were apparently expecting about 100 people to turn up.
Slightly more.
Six or seven years this has been going on for: rallies, protest marches, community meetings, petitions. Now there's talk of civil disobedience, and other more active options.
I can't remember all the speakers (I was missed a lot because I was, um, pre-occupied; and the traffic on the bridge was light but noisy) but they included a local man whose name I didn't catch who talked about the problems Tamar Valley residents are having selling their houses -- little things that are very big for the people effected & Peter Whish-Wilson, scuba diver IIRC, who talked about who little is known about the potential effects of effluents on the maritime life.
I went up onto the bridge to see what I could see.
WIN cameraman. From the feet, I wonder if she was having trouble seeing what she wanted to see. The front part, with the speakers, is a bit close to the bridge.
Trudy Maluga I think did the Welcome to Country and talked about the Jordan River levee. There was guy from the Wilderness Society who I couldn't hear because I was up on the bridge but some of the crowd heckled him about supporting plantations.
I've come back to down to join the masses now. Actually, I wanted to look for some interesting signs/banners but there weren't many.
Peter Cundall talked about politics, and got the crowd stirred up. Richard Flanagan talked about Gunn's fiction & the power of the powerless: to say No, to withdraw consent, to refuse to agree; with comparisons to recent and past international events, and got the crowd stirred up again. (Yes, he was the last speaker, that why I remember it.)
After all the speakers finished, everyone went up onto the bridge with the intent of having a line of people bridging the river.
The organisers wanted people to stay on the path and only on this side. The path is only wide enough for 1 or 2 people to walk side by side. Slight problem there, and the lead walkers had returned and gone their own way before we got on there.
On the way back.
This was one was at the Batman Bridge, over the Tamar.
It was originally planned to be on the actual site of the mill, but the organisers changed the location because they underestimated the turnout. They were apparently expecting about 100 people to turn up.
Slightly more.
Six or seven years this has been going on for: rallies, protest marches, community meetings, petitions. Now there's talk of civil disobedience, and other more active options.
I can't remember all the speakers (I was missed a lot because I was, um, pre-occupied; and the traffic on the bridge was light but noisy) but they included a local man whose name I didn't catch who talked about the problems Tamar Valley residents are having selling their houses -- little things that are very big for the people effected & Peter Whish-Wilson, scuba diver IIRC, who talked about who little is known about the potential effects of effluents on the maritime life.
I went up onto the bridge to see what I could see.
WIN cameraman. From the feet, I wonder if she was having trouble seeing what she wanted to see. The front part, with the speakers, is a bit close to the bridge.
Trudy Maluga I think did the Welcome to Country and talked about the Jordan River levee. There was guy from the Wilderness Society who I couldn't hear because I was up on the bridge but some of the crowd heckled him about supporting plantations.
I've come back to down to join the masses now. Actually, I wanted to look for some interesting signs/banners but there weren't many.
Peter Cundall talked about politics, and got the crowd stirred up. Richard Flanagan talked about Gunn's fiction & the power of the powerless: to say No, to withdraw consent, to refuse to agree; with comparisons to recent and past international events, and got the crowd stirred up again. (Yes, he was the last speaker, that why I remember it.)
After all the speakers finished, everyone went up onto the bridge with the intent of having a line of people bridging the river.
The organisers wanted people to stay on the path and only on this side. The path is only wide enough for 1 or 2 people to walk side by side. Slight problem there, and the lead walkers had returned and gone their own way before we got on there.
On the way back.
