By Tony Iltis
HOBART — More than 600 students and activists gathered at the Students and Sustainability Conference (S&S), held at the University of Tasmania and the Lea Scout Camp, July 6-10. The conference is an annual forum of student environment activists and the decision-making meeting for the Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN).
The conference theme was "Visions of the future". The opening address was given by Tasmanian Greens MP Christine Milne. Plenary speakers included Greens parliamentarians Peg Putt and Senator Bob Brown, and Hobart academic Peter Hay who also advocated Greens in parliament as a pathway to a sustainable future.
Other plenary speakers emphasised the importance of personal change with some, such as David Tacey, emphasising spirituality. Indigenous speakers were represented on plenaries and at the "Land rights and the environment" seminar, but concerns were expressed that Aboriginal perspectives were insufficiently incorporated into the agenda.
A highlight was writer Sharon Beder's talk on the power of multinationals and the techniques used by the media, advertising and PR industries to manipulate and control information. NUS (Qld) education officer and Resistance member Zanny Begg put forward the socialist vision of the future, explaining how production for profit, not human need, made environmental destruction inevitable. Democratic control of production, she said, could create an environmentally sustainable society.
The individual approach to social change was put by permaculturalist and writer Bill Mollison in a confrontational diatribe on how his small business model of organic agriculture was the only pathway to sustainability. Many conference participants were alienated by the racist and misogynist outbursts punctuating his talk and his abuse of other participants. Begg, who spoke on the same panel, argued that democratic, collective mass action is a more effective strategy for social change than either parliamentarianism or individual change.
The struggle against the Jabiluka uranium mine was a theme throughout the conference. Mirrar-Gundjehmi traditional owners' representative Jacqui Katona was an inspirational speaker. She said that the mine-site blockade and the mass mobilisations in the major cities could, and must, stop the mine. Many S&S participants were travelling to the blockade after the conference.
On July 9, conference goers marched through Hobart, confronted the federal shadow environment minister, Duncan Kerr, about the ALP's inadequate uranium policy, and staged a brief occupation at the North Forest Products' offices. NFP, a principle destroyer of Tasmanian forests, is owned by the same company — North Ltd — as the Jabiluka developer, Energy Resources of Australia.
For many participants, the most productive sessions at S&S were the workshops. These covered a vast array of subjects including campaigns; theatre, movement and dance; vegetarianism; natural birth control; marine ecology; gender; Third World issues and international solidarity. Resistance members presented several workshops on campaign issues, Cuba's sustainable agriculture and challenging the arguments of "populationists" such as Paul Ehrlich and Jonathon Porritt.
A large number of resolutions were passed at the conference setting perspectives for ASEN and student activists. These included several resolutions on international solidarity, such as support for East Timorese independence and an end to the US blockade of Cuba.
On July 11, 300 people joined a forests rally organised from the conference. Protesters lay on the ground in the shape of letters spelling "SAVE OUR FORESTS!". Opposition to Jabiluka was also raised in chants and on placards.