Introduction
Since the 1970s blockades combining the use of Obstructive Direct Action with protest camps to disrupt logging, clearing, mining and other activities have played a major role in broader campaigns to protect biodiverse places. As with today’s blockades they were generally predicated on shutting down work and denying entry by occupying space and equipment within and around the sites under threat. Many also included barricades and devices, such as tripods and lock-ons, which enhanced the risks involved through creating what Brian Doherty has termed “manufactured vulnerability.”
The timeline attached below as a PDF covers hundreds of events which established environmental blockading as a strategic option for campaigners. It runs from 1974 to 1997, the year by which a body of tactics had been formed to the point where they were documented and shared in manuals such as US Earth First!’s Direct Action Manual and Road Alert’s Road Raging: Top Tips for Wrecking Roadbuilding. The first of these manuals, the Intercontinental Deluxe Guide to Blockading, was published in Australia during the early 1990s by the North East Forest Alliance.
This chronology was originally put together as part of research for a PhD thesis that has been published in revised form as a book by Routledge in 2021. The document itself briefly details which types of campaigns, tactics and places are covered and discusses sources. Even within these parameters it is not exhaustive so please get in touch with the Commons Library if you have more blockades and details to add. A short video covering some key Australian blockades and their outcomes can also be found below.
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Why Blockade?
Many people who are interested in this timeline will likely already be well aware of the many and varied motivations that lead activists to risk life and limb to protect forests, beaches, rivers and other biodiverse places. As the coverage of events and outcomes in the chronology is generally brief, I’ll quickly revisit some of the key outcomes that blockading, in common with other disruptive activities, can generate. These often come via strategic deliberation, but can also be accidental, albeit welcome, by-products.
First and foremost blockades allow campaigners to publicly and clearly demonstrate that organised opposition exists and that those involved are committed to the cause. Such action inevitably includes personal, expressive and symbolic dimensions.
For most blockaders it is as simple as drawing a line in the sand and refusing to stand by whilst destruction takes place.
Blockades have been used by some First Nations communities to express connection to land and sovereignty over it. Activists from Christian backgrounds may see blockading as a form of ‘bearing witness’, that is showing moral opposition to an event through being present. For Gandhian influenced activists the belief that opponents can be converted via ‘psychological intervention’, including the deliberate suffering associated with some blockading tactics, provides another motivation. Many activists embrace blockading as a form of direct action which allows individuals and communities to intervene in a situation without recourse to politicians, bureaucrats or other mediators.
Blockades often aim to draw attention to concerns regarding a specific place via coverage in various forms of media as well as to impart messages regarding the importance of ecology, land rights and broader issues. Another common outcome sought by campaigners is to pressure governments, companies and their backers by imposing financial, social, political and other costs. Blockades can also delay an activity while lobbying, legal cases and other strategies progress.
Beyond this, disruption can broaden the field of conflict and expose the state’s repressive nature and complicity with destructive or anti-social activities. Blockading can also be used to highlight critiques of capitalism and other social and economic relations. Moreover, disruption can allow confrontational activists to act as a ‘radical flank’, thereby bestowing legitimacy upon moderate activists and allowing them to present their demands and behaviour as a serviceable alternative.
1970s
1979 – Terania Creek, NSW – Logging
Terania became the symbol of rainforest preservation. More widespread public awareness and sympathy [was] achieved in two weeks than in five years by conventional means. For millions of people throughout Australia the event had dramatized the destruction of rainforest. -The Colong Committee summing up the impact of the 1979 Terania Creek blockade.
Event and Tactic
Occupation of a road in August with people and vehicles, some with wheels taken off. This is followed up with tree climbing, tree-sits with hammocks and trees tied together with cables, people running through the bush, barricading of roads with logs and boulders, and the damming of a creek to flood a road. Cables are also cut on a bulldozer and logs spiked with nails.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
100 police are brought in to clear the road. 41 arrests occur during the more than 4 week blockade. It ends after the NSW government places a moratorium on logging whilst an official Inquiry proceeds. The forest is later made part of a national park.
1980s
1980 – Middle Head, NSW – Sand Mining, First Nation Rights
Event and Tactic
A protest camp is set up and clearing blocked by people standing in the way and climbing on equipment and into trees. When mining begins it is delayed by people occupying dredging pools and in once case occupying the dredge itself.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Middle Head beach is mined, but following the months long protest the neighbouring Grassy Head beach is spared. The NSW government grants no more sand mining leases after 1980.
1981 – Mt Windsor, Northern Queensland – Logging
Event and Tactic
Around 40 activists picket and leaflet logging trucks for a week slowing traffic. After a truck pushes through a group traffic is fully halted by activists laying on the road.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
13 arrests.
A long row of cars and protestors blockade a police and logging convoy in Nightcap forest in 1982. Image courtesy of John Seed.
1982 – Nightcap Rainforest, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Blockading during July and August at Grier’s Scrub includes intermittent black wallabying (running through the forest) and protesters infiltrating the forest to disrupt work by climbing on or standing in front of equipment. In one case equipment is locked down with chain. At times roads are blocked as people occupy roads with their bodies and vehicles (some with their axles tied together), remove cattle grids to leave holes in roads and superglue locks on gates. After a break blockading recommences at Mount Nardi in September and October where similar tactics of site infiltration and road blockading are used.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Exclusion zones are set up covering areas to be logged which allow protesters to be arrested for trespass. Scuffles occur with loggers. More than 100 people are arrested. Police drive over a protester in October at Mt Nardi. Litigation eventually leads to an injunction on work and the NSW government subsequently sets aside the area as part of a new Nightcap national park.
Franklin Dam Blockade. Courtesy of Earth First! Journal
1983 – 83 – Franklin River, Tasmania – Dam
Event and Tactic
3 month blockade against the flooding of forests and rivers. Non-violence training is made mandatory. Mass arrest trespass actions, occupations of roads and work sites and chaining of bodies to drill rigs, gates and equipment. Attempts to block water transport through activist flotillas, a scuba diver swimming in front of boats and others jumping in their path.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
More than 1340 protesters are arrested. The Tasmanian government increases fines and widens exclusion zones over time. Local magistrates refuse bail or impose bail conditions requiring people not return to the area. A number refuse conditions and go to jail. Almost none are convicted for protesting. Workers employ violence and ram flotilla. The dam is halted via a change of Federal government, subsequent political intervention and a High Court win.
1983 – Daintree, Northern Queensland – Road construction
Event and Tactic
First Daintree forest blockade – Over a period of 3 weeks activists disrupt rainforest clearing and road construction by standing in front of vehicles and bulldozers, parking vehicles in the road, climbing on equipment, tree-sitting (including being chained to trees), burying themselves and barricading tracks with rocks.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Local police block roads, but are circumvented by the use of ferries. Protesters arrested. Those buried are dug out with the use of a fruit tin. Various safety breaches by workers. Construction slowed until wet season ends it.
This is the third day I will have spent buried up to my neck with my right arm chained between two logs. The logs are in turn part of a fiddlestick combination linking my hole with Graeme Platt’s…Last minute preparations complete, we entered our holes to await the arrival of the police. I felt a strange serenity. There was no fear in waiting, rather a calm understanding that this was the right action and stood above the law of the land. – Graeme Innes describing being buried to prevent bulldozers from clearing sections of the Daintree Rainforest in 1984.
Care of Earth First Journal
1984 – Errinundra Plateau, Gippsland, and Locations in the Otways, Victoria – Logging
Event and Tactic
Nomadic Action Group roving protest planned. At Errinundra Plateau a logging site is occupied for weeks from Christmas work break onwards. Follow up site occupations occur in the Otways.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Activists are assaulted by pro-logging Gippsland locals at a town meeting. The Errinundra Plateau camp is evicted after which the protest collapsed quickly. Logging continued under police guard and new restrictions on public entry to logging sites are introduced.
1984 – Warners Sugarloaf, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
A symbolic blockade of 80 people stand behind a cardboard box barricade.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
As the focus is on publicity, obstruction is minimal and protesters are removed quickly.
1984 – Daintree, Northern Queensland – Road Construction
Event and Tactic
Second forest blockade – At one end of the protest preparations to obstruct work are made by digging “elephant trap” trenches to prevent the movement of bulldozers. A yacht is also moored across the river to block traffic at low tide and a road is obstructed with a 7 metre tree trunk pole with a platform built on top. At the other end, where work continues, protesters place vehicles and stand in the road and also bury themselves in the ground. Some are chained to concrete blocks, others have “fiddlesticks” structures made out of logs stacked above them. During more than weeks of blockading a number of treesits using platforms, hammocks, ropes and nets are also set up.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
The public and media representatives are banned from the construction zone. A large number of police are brought in from outside the area and more repressive means used including heavy fines, dogs, rocks thrown at tree-sitters, bashings, etc. The road is eventually completed, but soon falls into disrepair. The area later receives World Heritage status and increased protection.
1986 – Farmhouse Creek, Picton, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
Blockading is ruled out during the January state election. A 16 day tree-sit then begins in February and is accompanied by people standing in the way of bulldozers. Following an eviction the blockade is restarted in early April and then raided by police.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Arrests and attacks on blockaders by loggers bussed in by their employer. An attempt is made to cut down the tree a sitter is occupying. Shots are fired at activist and MP Bob Brown. An exclusion zone is declared over parts of the forest.
1986 – Lemonthyme, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
30 stop a bulldozer on the same day the Farmhouse Creek tree sit starts in February. A stone wall is built on 2 April.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Protesters face violence from loggers.
1987 – Lemonthyme, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
Tree sits held in January.
1987 – Farmhouse Creek, Picton, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
Logs are winched onto a road to block it and a bridge is filled to the rails with boulders and logs. Three 30 metre high tree-sit platforms are set up from 23 February with activists remaining in place for up to 19 days.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Police raid the protest camp. As part of Federal intervention an inquiry is held, but in May 1988 a deal is cut that protects less forest than activists had hoped.
1987-88 – Mt Etna, Queensland – Mining
Event and Tactic
To prevent the blasting of caves and bat habitat for limestone, activists trespass and plug drill holes with concrete in 1987. The following year the holes are plugged again and a “cave-in” occupation held for 6 weeks.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Security guards attempt to prevent supplies from reaching activists and Central Queensland Cement initially use the counter-tactic of lowering speakers into the caves to blast high pitched siren noise at the occupiers. The company later agrees to halt blasting for 6 months in return for an end to the protest. At the beginning of November 1988 it rejects a report recommending protection and destroys the remaining caves.
1988 – Clumner Bluff, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
50 people occupy a road.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
16 arrested.
1989-90 – SE Forests, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Two years of campaigning begins with trespass actions and site occupations. Farmers occupy a road and coupe on horseback. In line with strict nonviolence rules police are informed of actions ahead of time. Splits over tactics see a group emerge who employ secrecy and develop a series of techniques for enhancing manufactured vulnerability. These include the wog wog/sleeping dragon/Blecher cylindrical canister lock-on which is designed to be buried in the ground/road. Mark Blecher also designs durable tree-sit platforms with activists which activists are able to put themselves out of the reach of cherry picker cranes. One woman stays up a tree for 56 days. Trees are also connected by fencing wire. The first tripod is constructed out of steel with a dentist’s chair on top. In other actions a chip mill is occupied and its conveyor belt locked on to, people superglue hands together as a form of lock-on, and a bulldozer is halted with a u-lock-on.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
1100 arrests are carried out and 1050 charges laid. Widespread media coverage does not translate into direct success as only 6000 hectares are eventually saved. An activist is pushed off the first ever tripod and another later falls from a tree, but negative media ensures police generally take a safer approach thereafter. Police run Operation Redgum for 6 months at a cost $1.9m. Shots are fired at protesters at one point by loggers.
1989 – Picton, Tasmania – Logging
40 activists hinder operations.
1989 – Washpool, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Cars used to block road alongside other tactics.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
After 13 arrests and 10 days of blockading NSWFC are directed by courts to suspend roadbuilding due to the presence of Aboriginal sacred sites. This blockade establishes the North East Forest Aliance (NEFA) strategy of combining litigation with ODA.
1989 – Mount Royal State Forest, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
2 people block roading.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Logging is stopped by an injunction and the area added to the Mount Royal National Park in 1997.
1990s
Patrick Anderson using an early laptop during a 1990s lock-on action in the Chaelundi forest. Courtesy of John Seed.
1990 – Chaelundi, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
‘Earth Police’ carry out a ‘citizen’s arrest’ of the Chief Forester. Logs and vehicles are placed on roads and people lock onto them. Women lock onto a logging truck.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Scuffles with loggers. 14 arrests. An injunction on logging is granted and the NSW Forestry Commission (NSWFC) ordered to undertake an Environment Impact Statement (EIS), pushing the issue back for a year.
1990 – Washpool, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
A blockade is set up including the first use of a CB system for communications and tripods made from wooden poles drawn from the bush.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
The blockade is not tested as an injunction is gained due to illegal logging and faults with the EIS. The area is added to the Washpool National Park in 1999.
1990 – Fraser Island – Queensland – Logging
Event and Tactic
Logging is disrupted via site occupations, tripods, people being buried in sand and some gluing themselves to equipment. A protest vigil is also maintained.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
In July the protest camp is raided and regularly moved on thereafter. In May 1991 a government inquiry report leads to logging being phased out and the island is later accorded World Heritage status.
1990 – Brown Mountain – Victoria – Logging
Event and Tactic
The East Gippsland Coalition hold more than five days of actions including road occupations.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
180 arrests and 21 detentions. A logger drives a truck through 100 protesters and shots are later fired at the protest camp. Logging trucks blockade blockaders and loggers protest at Victorian parliament. Logging is ended for 3 years in the run up to the 1990 election. Actions are held again in 2009 against logging.
1991 – Operation Forest Storm, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
Cable logging disrupted in February.
Winners are grinners! John Seed takes action during the Chaelundi logging blockade. Courtesy of John Seed.
1991 – Chaelundi, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
In July 1991 the NSWFC announces it will log the area. The Chaelundi Free State/Peoples Wilderness Park is set up by NEFA and includes 3 main camp sites. Five months of blockading includes tactics such as road barriers, tipis placed on roads, tree-sits with netting strung between them, concrete culvert pipes buried in the road with activists locked inside, lock-ons to equipment, bodies buried, heated rocks, protesters sitting in holes in road locked onto vehicles placed above them or anchored by chains below, monopods, bipods, tripods and combinations of various devices. Lock tubes, metal cannisters into which activists arms are encased and locked together are used for the first time.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Authorities attempt to wait out the protesters. When they move in to evict them it takes almost two weeks to remove all obstacles. 200 are arrested from late July to mid-August. Following the eviction work resumes for one day before a court injunction against logging is gained.
1991 – Weld, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
Road construction blockaded in December.
1992 – East Picton, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
During a 10 week blockade in February and March up to 80 protesters occupy a road and build a barricade. A follow up action is held in July.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Pro-logging vigilantes attack and burn the barricade and wreck two cars. Police are granted extra powers in regards to trespass laws and public lands.
1992 – Mt Killekrankie, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
After a Chaelundi reunion/meeting a blockade against logging in a World Heritage listed site begins. Tactics used include tripods, drainage pipes being buried in the road vertically and a cable/net being strung across a road. The use of cantilevers is shared from the US by Dalian Pugh and expanded on with the addition of a blockader hanging off its end.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Logging supporters attempt to counterblockade. NEFA’s blockade forces the prosecution of the NSWFC for polluting the Bellinger river. The area is added to the New England National Park in 1999.
1992 – Mummel Gulf, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
A 3 month blockade by NEFA includes tipi village camps involving 200+ protesters. Main entrances to coupes are blockaded and the Mummel Free State declared. Protesters use a radio network for communication between camps and other blockades.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
FC agrees to hold off logging until the following May. The Mummel Gulf National Park and Mummel Gulf State Conservation Area are created in 1999.
1992 – Carrai Peninsula, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
A NEFA vigil is held outside the logging site due to closure to the public with sporadic blockading. A major blockade on 13/10 is removed by a large number of police. A bulldozer is subsequently monkeywrenched.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
The district forester and a contractor knock down tripods with vehicles, but there are no injuries. 20+ arrests. After sabotage occurs NEFA withdraws and the blockade collapses. Logging continues, but the area is added to the Carrai National Park in 1999.
1992 – Wild Cattle Creek, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Wild Cattle Creek Action Group blockades logging with tripods.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
NSWFC closes the forest, after which much harassment is endured from police and loggers.
1992 – Styx River, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
NEFA blockade including tripods.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
NSWFC abandons logging.
1992 – Tantawangalo State Forest, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
In July blockading in the state’s south east forest begins again with a large group occupying a logging site, setting up a tripod over a bulldozer and planting concrete pylons. A protest camp is then put in place to continue with further ODA.
1992 – Little Wonder State Forest, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Activists from the Bowra Action Tribe camp in the forest for a year to prevent logging.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Most of the area is included in the Gumbaynggir State Conservation Area in 2003.
1992 – Exit Caves, Tasmania – Mining
Event and Tactic
Activists attempt to prevent blasting at the Bender Limestone Quarry from damaging a 24 kilometre long cave system. All were located within a World Heritage site. Protesters initially slowed work by blocking bulldozers and earthmovers before filling blast holes with rubble and later chaining themselves to equipment.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
The mining company threatens, but does not follow through with a suit against protesters. At least one protester was assaulted by pro-mining advocates. Blasting was halted by the federal government in 1992 but mining allowed to continue until 1994 when the quarry was closed.
1993 – Mistake State River, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Blockading occurs as part of a series of NEFA “hit and run” actions in the run up to the NSW state election. A one man Koori embassy is set up, equipment stashed throughout forest, and a bulldozer locked onto.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
A compromise agreement is made leading to divisions with those who wanted to save all of the area.
1993 – Toonumbar, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
NEFA blockade
1993 – Dingo and Bulgar Forests, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Logging in the Bulga forest is blockaded by two suspended platforms, debris barricades, three tripod configurations and a dragon lock-on. After this is evicted a second action involving a suspended platform is undertaken.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
NSW FC closes off 100 km of forest and then systematically documents protesters before following up with a failed legal suit and attempts to gain injunctions against 32 individuals. 30 police remove the first set of obstructions using a cherry picker and bulldozer. Notably no search and rescue officers are used. During the second action the platform involved is sent swinging when a bulldozer knocks a tree into it. Sections are later added to the Tapin Tops National Park.
1993 Skyrail Protest. Courtesy Nonviolence Today
1993 – People against Kuranda Sky Rail, Carins, Northern Queensland – Clearing
Event and Tactic
A blockade against clearing within World Heritage listed rainforest to construct a 7.5 kilometre skyrail. Save Australian Forests for Everyone (SAFE) hold a ten day campaign. ODA includes black wallaby, tree sitting and tripod tactics.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Two campaign coordinators are jailed. This attempt to mobilise the Australian Non-Violence Network around a short campaign received some media and actions continued afterwards, but didn’t meet the goal of leaving a direct action group in place.
1993 – Coolangubra, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
TWS members and others disrupt logging operations with site occupations.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
A closure order is placed on the forest. Six arrests occur during one action including four for “intimidation”.
1993 – Barrington Tops, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Blockade
1993 – The Wilderness Society “Long Hot Summer”, Tasmania – Logging
Fortnightly actions in the early part of the year include disruptions of cable logging in Bobo and the occupation of a road and bridge at Picton by 60 people.
East Gippsland site occupation in 1994. Courtesy of Friends of the Earth.
1993-95 – East Gippsland, Victoria – Logging
Event and Tactic
Campaigning begins late in the year with the occupation of a logging site by hundreds of people. This is followed up in early 1994 with tree sits, lock-ons, tripods and a protest camp set up on a logging road. The camp is maintained until 1995.
1994 – Chaelundi, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
A camp is set up and a blockade threatened over the logging of compartments containing old growth.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
NSWFC backs down quickly.
1994 – Wild Cattle Creek, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Chaelundi blockaders head on to Wild Cattle Creek to set up a second blockade. A vigil previously set up moves into blockade mode with black wallabying, tripods, lock-ons, dragons and mass trespass actions over a 3 week period.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
86 face court. With most of the area logged NEFA calls off the protest. The area is later added to the added to Cascade National Park.
1994 – Hinchinbrook Island, Queensland – Clearing and Tourism Development
Event and Tactic
Protesters disrupt dredging and other work with water-borne blockades, trespass actions and site occupations.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Assaults by workers. The Federal government uses powers under the World Heritage Act to stop work, but bulldozers continue clearing and destroy most of the mangroves. The ban is later lifted and the marina completed.
1994 – Gibblet Block, Western Australia – Logging
Event and Tactic
During July up to 1200 take part in a month of ODA during WA’s first blockade at the point of destruction.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Loggers initially move to other sites. 4 protesters are arrested for disrupting work with a tripod and13 for blocking a railway line.
1994 – Kerr Forest, Western Australia – Logging
Event and Tactic
30 Balingup residents blockade logging near their town.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Litigation leads to an injunction being placed on logging.
1994 – Picton Valley, Tasmania – Logging
During a blockade by 30 protesters Senator John Devereux announces his resignation from the Australian Labor Party over forestry issues.
1994 – Warners Sugarloaf, Tasmania – Logging
A road blockade in February is followed up with a two-month blockade from March 21 onwards.
1994 – Great Western Tiers, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
Local campaigners occupy a logging road and begin ripping it up to reafforest the area.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Forestry officers withdraw loggers from the coupe.
1994 – East Gippsland, Victoria – Logging
Event and Tactic
Logging disrupted by various actions including a tripod and a treesit. Platforms made from doors are attached to trees by steel cables.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
The tripod remains in place for a month. Police move into evict the camp shortly after the tree sit begins. Officers from a Search and Rescue team cut cables and allow logging close to the sitters, but the occupiers only leave after police withdraw.
1995 – M2 Motorway Protest, NSW – Clearing, Road Construction, First Nations Rights
Event and Tactic
Opposition to road building through outer Sydney that would clear 200 homes, Aboriginal sacred sites and 100 000 trees includes lock ons, treesits and site occupations. In one action 15 treesits, including some using lock boxes, are deployed whilst 150 occupy the ground. During two ‘cyclestorms’ hundreds of cyclists occupied worksites. The official opening of the tollway was interrupted by soundsystems, mounted in trees, playing audio of car crashes, emergency sirens, and construction work.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
More than 100 arrests.
1995 – Northern NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
In the run up to the 1995 state election various short-term blockades are set up by the Forest Action Response Team (FART) at Forestland, Wild Cattle Creek, Killungoondie, Ingalba, Styx River, Nulla Five Day and Barrington Tops. At Styx River dragons, cantilvers, tripods, bipods and a “Bentrepoint” monopod with a lock-on at the top are employed.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Logging is halted until the week after the 1995 election. After the election the ALP promises to create new national parks and halt old-growth logging until after a regional assessment is completed.
1995 – Wollumbin State Forest, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
NEFA blockade
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
During the Wollumbin blockade a logger fires a gun and hits a cow in an adjacent paddock. The blockade ends after NSWFC agrees to undertake surveys for endangered species before logging. Lawyers for Forests begin attending NEFA blockades. Wollumbin is made a State Conservation Area in 2003.
1995 – Mebbin State Forest, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
NEFA pickets logging in this area near Wollumbin.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Mebbin was created as a National Park in 1999.
1995 – Nullum State Forest, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Blockade organised by residents and the Byron Bay Environment Centre.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Logging halted and the NSW Forestry Corporation fined $25,000 for breaches of the Pollution Control Act. The area is later added to Mount Jerusalem National Park.
1995 – Tarkine, Tasmania – Logging
Event and Tactic
An initial protest is followed up with 2 camps. The Tarkine Tigers set up treesits, block bulldozers and lock-onto gates and machinery.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
The road is completed after 38 actions and approximately 100 arrests.
1995 – Picton, Tasmania – Logging
Blockade
1995 – Friends of Jane Block, Western Australia – Logging
Event and Tactic
In the context of summer protests and intermittent ODA at various sites a blockade is set up in early 1995 which disrupts work with tree sits, site occupations and black wallbying.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Timber workers counter-blockade a dairy after its owners allow protesters to camp on their land. Litigation eventually protects the remaining stands of forest from logging.
1997 – Whian Whian State Forest, NSW – Logging
Event and Tactic
Lobbying, litigation, ODA and vigil camps had stalled logging since 1994, but when it restarts in August intermittent site occupations disrupt operations. A protest camp is set up in September and action becomes more regular, including the use of tripods.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Protesters agree to halt ODA and move their camp towards the end of September in return for an end to logging in certain coupes. At the end of the month the logging contractor agrees to withdraw from the area and the following year it is added to the Nightcap national park.
1997 – Iron Gates, Evans Head, NSW – First Nations Rights, Development
Event and Tactic
Blockading against a proposed suburban development on beachfront which includes Bandjalung sacred sites.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
More than 55 people are arrested. Clearing is put on hold by litigation and the developer, who subsequently goes bankrupt, is ordered to rehabilitate the site.
1997 – Giblett Block, Western Australia – Logging
Event and Tactic
An eight-month blockade is set up with a camp and tree platforms. One sitter remains in place for 5 weeks and media interest intensifies when prominent sportspeople take part in another treesit.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
The state government holds off declaring a closure area or mounting an eviction due to increasing opposition to clearfelling. Local activists are harassed and timber workers hold rallies of up to 400 people in support of logging. In December blockaders agree to withdraw in return for an agreement that no logging will take place before the following winter.
1997 – Goolengook, Victoria – Logging
Event and Tactic
Having set up a base camp the previous year blockaders disrupt clear felling for logging road construction with regular ODA including road occupations, lock ons, tree sits, black wallabying and tripods. Disability activist Katie Ball takes part in a tripod sit by being hoisted in her wheelchair. Conservationists maintain a presence in the area and carry out ODA into the next decade.
Outcomes and responses from authorities and opponents
Police injure themselves whilst using an angle grinder to remove a lock-on. The first Australian woman to scale Mount Everest, Brigette Muir, has her sponsorship from the Beaurepaires tyre company withdrawn after she hangs a banner reading ‘Let this Forest Forever Rest’ from a tree in 1997. Over a period of six months 177 are arrested. 160 challenge charges on the basis that logging was illegal and a test case finds that it took place too close to a river. The state government subsequently amends logging laws to only allow a 100 metre river buffer.
International
To see blockades around the world download the full timeline – ENVIRONMENTAL BLOCKADING TIMELINE 1974-1997
Some of the countries included are:
- Brazil
- Finland
- New Zealand
- US
- UK
- Malaysia
- India
- Germany
- Nigeria
Explore Further
Environmental Blockades: Obstructive Direct Action and the History of the Environment Movement, Routledge, 2021, Iain McIntyre
Contents
Introduction
1. “The forest in question was regarded as territory”: The Terania Creek Campaign and the Creation of the Environmental Blockading Template
2. “An attitude, a way of life, a state of heart”: Organisational and Tactical Development within Australian Environmental Blockades, 1980–1984
3. “The first volley in the nonviolent wilderness war”: Environmental Blockading Spreads to the US, 1983–1986
4. “We shut ’em down”: Environmental Blockading in the US Extends and Entrenches, 1987–1990
5. “You’re welcome to visit our park, but leave your saws in the boat”: Canadian First Nations and Conservationist Activism, 1983–1984
6. “Someone had to stand up to them”: Canadian Expansion, Differentiation, and Entrenchment, 1986–1989
7. “We refuse to bequeath a dying planet to future generations by failing to act now”: Developments in Environmental Blockading and ODA since 1990
Conclusion
Treesits, lock-ons and barricades: Environmental blockading in the 1980s – Podcasts (including Terania and Nightcap blockades)
From 1979 to the 1990s Australia, Canadian and American activists took part in a series of environmental blockades that didn’t just defend old growth forests, rivers and other biodiverse places, but also changed how we value and understand them. From occupying trees high up in the redwoods of the Pacific Northwest to facing down bulldozers in British Columbia and Tasmania these activists created a tactical toolkit that has served communities ever since. Join Iain McIntyre for a series of conversations with the people who took part in these pioneering campaigns.
Aquarius Rising Terania Creek and the Australian Forest Protest Movement [Thesis], 2010, Vanessa Bible
“In 1974 a new settler to the area learned of the NSW Forestry Commission’s plans to clearfell and burn the Terania Creek basin, one of the last remaining tracts of the once magnificent rainforest. The forest had attracted many new people who felt drawn to the ancient ecosystem at a time when humanity started to learn the importance and significance of preserving such environmental wonders. Supported by large numbers of new inhabitants determined to fight for this rare ecosystem, what followed was a five year campaign that cumulated in 1979 in the world’s first successful direct action anti-logging protest. Terania Creek has since echoed around the country and the world, greatly changing the nature of environmental campaigning and empowering people to challenge the destruction of forests on a global scale.” p.5
Saving the Rainforest: The NSW Campaign 1973 – 1984, 2005, James G. Somerville
Listen and watch 40 years of Australian blockading songs