BY JUSTIN RANDELL & CHRIS ATKINSON
BRISBANE — Student environmentalists are set to combine their campaigns with those that are part of the growing international sentiment against corporate greed, after intensive discussions by 400 activists at the Students and Sustainability conference at Griffith University here from July 3-7.
The emphasis in the conference theme, "Solutions through community action", was on the need for collective organising and alliance-building to address the global environmental crisis. This focus ran through many of the discussions and debates which took place over the five days.
Daniel Ooi, the international solidarity officer at the University of Sydney and a Resistance activist, believes the conference was a big success as it "reaffirmed the need for environmental activists to work together to rebuild a strong movement".
He told Green Left Weekly that, for him, the plenary on "Fighting corporate tyranny" was a highlight because it discussed the links between destruction of the ecosphere and the deliberate actions of major corporations and governments. The discussion "pointed out the importance of international solidarity and an anti-system view to rebuilding the environment movement", he said.
The plenary featured Rainer, an activist from the National Student League for Democracy (LMND), who spoke of the struggle against the International Monetary Fund in Indonesia, and Doyle Canning, a participant at the Seattle anti-World Trade Organisation protests in November, who passed on some of the lessons from that event.
However, another plenary, "Overpopulation — debunking the myths", was by far the most contentious.
A minority argued that overpopulation was a major cause of environmental destruction and that Australia was therefore unable to accept any more immigrants without harming the environment. But most activists at the conference countered this view, arguing that the real causes of environmental destruction lay in the actions of companies and the structure of an economy which rewards polluters. Advocates of overpopulation are diverting attention away from these causes towards scapegoats such as immigrants, they argued.
Amongst those who opposed the overpopulation perspective, there was debate about how to counter it. Some went so far as to say that, because the conclusions drawn by the overpopulationists are necessarily racist and sexist, the overpopulationist view should be given no airing at the conference.
Meggan White-Fox, a Resistance member and the joint environment officer at Southern Cross University disagreed. "Reducing population will not halt the rate of environmental devastation", she told Green Left Weekly. "However, countering the overpopulationists' views requires more than just brushing them under the rug. Allowing open debate is an important part of rebuilding a strong environment movement."
Three protest rallies took place during the conference, a sign of activists' commitment to linking consciousness-raising to grassroots organising. One protested against insurance giant AMP's involvement in land-clearing, the second targeted the Narangba Nuclear Irradiation Plant, and the final action took place outside the Australasian Biotechnology Association's annual convention, in opposition to genetically modified food.
A final resolution session made a number of decisions, the most significant of which were that the conference as a whole is unable to overturn decisions made by "autonomous" caucuses and that the 2001 conference be held at Newcastle University.