As another mammoth year draws to a close, it's a pleasure to bring you this month's news from the frontlines across the country, before we take some time out to power up for 2019.

This month we held our national annual meeting of local & affiliate groups and campaigners on beautiful Darug country in NSW, where we cross-pollinated ideas and developed our capacity for national solidarity in our interlinked efforts for environmental and social justice.

Spring is here and it's time to emerge from hibernation and into the streets!

Another busy month around the network for Friends of the Earth Australia.

It has been a busy few months at Friends of the Earth. Most exciting was the addition of a new national project - Tipping Point.

PRESS RELEASE   Bangkok, Manila, New Delhi, Melbourne                                              July 20, 2018. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is being negotiated in Bangkok, Thailand this week. The mega regional trade deal involving sixteen nations from Asia-Pacific will impact the lives of over three billion people, yet a new study reveals how the deal fails international standards of transparency and public engagement.

The Australian government is seeking to introduce new espionage and foreign interference laws that threaten our democracy.

Friends of the Earth are a community-driven organisation that has played a constructive role protecting the natural environment and supporting social justice in Australia for over forty years.

By Cam Walker In the various histories that have been written about the Australian environment movement, most have identified the 'professionalisation' phase that happened in the 1980s as a defining feature in the movement's development.

National environment group Friends of the Earth says the Federal Coalition's 2018 budget failure on climate change comes as "no surprise" and underscores the need for greater leadership from states and territories.