introduction: chain reaction #92, summer 2004-5

Towards a global environmentalism

The environment movement in Australia is strong, diverse and incredibly broad-based. But it can be argued that it has often been inward looking, and neglected to build links with movements in other parts of the world.

Partly it seems that this is simply because of a lack of awareness and profile of environmental activism outside Australia. When people in Australia think of the 'environment movement', they tend to think of groups and individuals here. Where there are links with, or awareness of, environmentalism in other parts of the world, it tends to be with North America and Western Europe. This issue of CR seeks to paint a broader picture; giving a snap shot showing something of the size, strength and diversity of environmental activism in the majority or Southern world; how its issues and tactics differ to the movements in the North, and where common cause, solidarity and collective action can be found. We hope it inspires and encourages environmental activists in countries like Australia to remember the global dimensions of their work and campaigns.

With limited space, we can only profile a few groups and so we have tended to concentrate on organisations within the FoE International federation. We also offer some examples of key issues affecting movements around the world, including the need for a radical approach to climate change, the impacts of fossil fuel extraction, the spread of industrial plantations, and so on. The article 'victims of conservation' reminds us that western style conservation, with its focus on biodiversity protection separate from humans means that often it is the poorest communities, both indigenous and non-indigenous locals, who suffer in the interests of conservation.

Obviously, environmentalism in Australia operates under different political and economic realities to other parts of the world. Yet we believe that there are basic principles which can guide our work wherever we are; environmental space with equity – the right of all people to the resources needed for a dignified existence; environmental justice; and ecological debt. We hope they will be useful frameworks for placing local, Australian-based ecological action into a broader planetary framework. There will be an edition of Chain Reaction dedicated to these themes in mid 2005.

It is clear that in an era of global problems like climate change, we must build alliances with groups and communities around the world. Beyond the need for collaboration on specific campaigns, ongoing ecological destruction and human rights abuses demands our solidarity. We hope that in some small way this edition helps in building better links between the Australian movement and our allies elsewhere on the planet.