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Last Updated: January 29, 2012
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ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION

On this page: Josie Lee

Josie Lee

At the time I was doing re-vegetation work along the river at Warrandyte and Eltham, when I saw a forest meeting promoted in the Friends of the Earth newsletter. I went along and that was it.

I have been involved ever since.

Although I began my learning curve about forest issues at Friends of the Earth, a major part of my efforts on forest protection has been carried out through community collectives such as the Melbourne Tarkine* Action Group, which I helped form in 2003 and that worked on Tasmanian forests.

That was an amazing group to be part of. It was about 20 people who were really into grass-roots action. It was a beautiful, non-hierarchical, consensus based group. Everyone was really empowered to do what they were good at, what they loved and every one had a significant role in our function and success.

Some were good at organizing, some were great at culture jamming and things like that, some were good at the creative and visual aspects and others had the ideas. But we all had great enthusiasm to raise awareness and make a stand on Old Growth forest destruction. It just fell together really well as a group. We were non-aligned.

We met in Ross House where the Wilderness Society was and we had a desk at Friends of the Earth. We were doing actions almost every week for about 6 months. It was inspiring.

We organized an art exhibition with 'Artists for Tarkine' (a sub-group of Artists for Charity). They really came in behind us - they raised tens of thousands of dollars for our campaign.

After the Federal election in 2004, I decided I had been working on forests for a while, and wanted to shift gears. Although I had been predominantly focused on the 'natural' environment in my activist life, particularly during my uni years I have deepened my understanding and engagement in social justice issues as well.

I believe society and nature are inseparable. If we want a truly just and sustainable future you can't separate them. Friends of the Earth isthe only formal organization I know that integrates social justice and environmental issues, as well as having a grass-roots, non-hierarchical structure with a strong emphasis on change, not just reform, that suites me very well.

These days I am now working there as joint International Liaison Officer with Damian Sullivan. It is a great position. I am really interested in working internationally. Since travelling solo in South America in the year proceeding high school, I have been studying Spanish, (as well as Geography) at University.

I realized early on that having a second or even third language would be invaluable given my passions and the investment of that time is already paying off. As Friends of the Earth International operates in French and Spanish as well as English, I have already been able to use my Spanish skills in my position to the benefit of FoE Australia and the global network.

I am also looking forward to studying in South America where I might further develop my language skills as well as have the opportunity of learning about ideas surrounding poverty, power and environmental sustainability from a non-Western perspective, education which I consider invaluable.

At the start of this year I helped form another group called Friends of the Earth Action Collective (FOEAC) because I thought that although Friends of the Earth has a good reputation locally, it could gain from more public exposure at the state level. I thought an action group could tag on to certain international days of celebration or mourning, and impart a Friends of the Earth message or work with schools and the broader community.While undertaking projects in these areas, the collective has also become very interested on working on the Friends of the Earth Climate Justice campaign.

FoE seems to me to be the only organisation that is looking at climate change as a social justice issue as much as an environment issue. Hence FoE Action collective has been really inspired to disseminate information about the social aspects of climate change, particularly highlighting what will be the inevitable development of millions of climate refugees if swift actions are not taken to curb our greenhouse gas emissions.

* Tarkine is a large wilderness area in the northwest of Tasmania.
It has about a hundred kilometres of old-growth temperate rainforest and is one of the more significant tracts of rainforest in the world. It is also surrounded by mixed forest and plains.
It has a mountain range in it and goes all the way down to the coast.
The whole area is a wilderness area.
There is only one road through, basically, the whole area and it is an amazing place. Four hundred thousand hectares and a whole ecosystem.
It was one of the last places in Tasmania inhabited by the indigenous people before they were moved off the main islands.
The Tarkinia people lived there - hence the name.
There are still Aboriginal middens and tent impressions all along the coastline.
It is a place of great natural and cultural significance and for the large part it is not protected, although there are parts of the region in low-level reserves and there is a small National Park.
It meets the criteria for World Heritage listing on both natural and cultural levels.
It is on the WWF 200 significant world sites list.
Note: On 12th May 2005, John Howard, in line with his commitment in the lead up to the 2004 Federal Election, which was brought on by strong pressure from environmental groups such as
The Wilderness Society,
Australian Conservation Foundation,
the Tarkine National Coalition,
our humble little MTAG,
and of course the wider community, promised to protect over 80% of the Rainforest Corridor in the Tarkine, one of the most significant tracts of temperate rainforest on Earth.
We await action in line with his public commitment.
(Note that ALP's, the Democrat's and the Greens' policy at that time, would have protected not just the rainforest, but the vast majority of Old Growth forests in Tasmania).