Planeteers of the universe!

Welcome back! Want to communicate with other cool enviro types from our UNSW enviro community and off-campus enviro networks? Then please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - can’t wait to hear from you!   

Oh and Happy Climate Change Awareness Week :D  !!     

1.    Climate Change Awareness Week -        Enviro collective meeting, workshops, enviro flicks!
2.    Getting in contact – details
3.    REMINDER - Nuclear is not the answer 

Public meetings, photo exhibitions and PROTEST in Sydney/ FORUM in Wollongong!

–    Tuesday 21st of April – Wednesday 22nd of April

                  CORRECTION: OLD GEOLOGY THEATRE - Sydney venue
4.    REMINDER - EVENT: Corroboree at the Alum Mountain Bulahdelah - Friday 24th of April - Sunday 26th of April
5.    Report and press release on Lake Cowal campaign!!!
6.    EVENT: Arc Student Representative Council veggie lunch - Wednesday 22nd of April 12pm– FREE!
7.    CAMPAIGN: National Student Poverty sleep out! Thursday 23rd of April…
8.    Email: ASEN 2008 Report

1. Week Six is Climate Change Awareness Week which is going to be so amazing that we’ve had to spread events across week seven as well!

WEEK SIX:
Tomorrow’s enviro collective meeting [12 @ the QUAD LAWN or in QUAD ROOM 1001 if wet] will include some more practical planning of these events and also a workshop to do some promotion, including making posters and preparing for lecture bashing.

Climate Myths workshop: This is a short, 40 minute practical session to teach you the truth behind some common climate myths and also teach you how to respond to these.  

Enviro Flicks: THURSDAY at 5:30 in the RITCHIE THEATRE a series of short clips will inspire, entertain and motivate the concentrationally challenged.  

WEEK SEVEN
Sustainability Breakfast: On Tuesday morning mingle with academics and other environmentally minded students over the most important meal of the day.  

Climate Change and Religion Forum:  What is the response of religious groups to climate change?  Can climate change be an issue to motivate all manners of belief groups into unified action?

 
2. Getting in contact
Check out our facebook group ‘UNSW Environment Collective’ and website - http://unsw.envirocollective.com for more information.

3.    REMINDER: HOTT EVENTS AND CAMPAIGN - Nuclear is not the answer

"Break the nuclear chain. Nuclear is no solution to climate change."

 Tuesday April 21    PUBLIC MEETING and Photo exhibition
 6pm, Old Geology Lecture Theatre, Sydney Uni, near Parramatta Road footbridge

Speakers include:
Muckaty Traditional Owners from the NT- Dianne Stokes and Mark Lane,
Senator Scott Ludlam (Australian Greens),
Dave Sweeney (Australian Conservation Foundation).
 
Photo exhibition: We are not no-one, this is not nowhere

Wednesday April 22    PROTEST the 2009 World Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference

 8am, Sheraton on the Park, 161 Elizabeth Street, Sydney (Near St James Station)

Speakers include:
Muckaty Tradititonal Owners Dianne Stokes and Mark Lane, Senator Scott Ludlam (Aust. Greens), Dave Sweeney (ACF), Union reps + YOU!

 Featuring Ohms not Bombs sound system for some nuclear free beats.

Wednesday April 22    Wollongong Public Forum

 6pm, Illawarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre, 22 Kerry St, Wollongong

 Speakers include:
Muckaty Traditional Owners
Dootch Kennedy, Chair of Illawarra Aboriginal Land Council chair
Arthur Rorris, Secretary of South Coast Trades and Labour Council

Contact:  Natalie Wasley 0429 900 774, Holly Creenaune 0417 682 541, Liv Nigro 0401 955 405

For more detailed and excellent info - please go here
http://beyondnuclearinitiative.wordpress.com/events/

Check out the above events on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=184824220444
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=76798578337

4. EVENT: Corroboree at the Alum Mountain Bulahdelah

You are invited to a

CORROBOREE AT THE ALUM MOUNTAIN BULAHDELAH

The Alum Mountain Bulahdelah is a very significant Aboriginal Sacred Site.  The site contains: A Guardian Healing Tree, Healing Stream, Bora Ceremonial Ground, Ochre Ground, Numerous Scared Trees, Burial Trees and Stone Artefact Sites.

The RTA (Roads and Traffic Authority) are planning to construct a six lane highway through the base of this Sacred Site.  Please come along to this gathering to further protect it from destruction from the RTA.

Indigenous and non Indigenous People Welcome

Bookings & Enquires

Please contact Malcolm Carrall

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

5. Report and press release on Lake Cowal campaign!!!

From Tessa Dowdell:
 
Over the Easter weekend 3 UNSW kids headed down to Lake Cowal (about 8hrs southwest of Sydney) to join a convergence protesting against Barrick Gold's mine, in the heartland of Wiradjuri sovereign country. We heard from our invitee, Uncle Neville Chappy Williams, and spent time with some sixty other glorious activists as we breathed in disgusting cyanide-laced dust!

Gold is extracted from rock with cyanide, which is then dumped in nearby unlined tailings dams, ready to seep into and contaminate ground water. That is, what is left of the ground-water - the gold mine uses 17 swimming pools of the water per day, leaving the dried up ephemeral Lake Cowal in a very tragic state. It is dying, the mine is a total ecological catastrophe...

So at 6am on Easter Sunday, two of us jumped the fence with 30 others behind Uncle Chappy and other Wiradjuri sovereigns to perform a smoking ceremony at an enclosure holding thousands of cultural artefacts which belong to the traditional owners - not in the hands of Barrick Gold. We then scaled the walls of the mine and shuffled bewilderedly through all the dust and mud, talking to mine workers and getting lost trying to find the open pit. The whole site is huge and other worldly, you can't see the outside world apart from the sky, only piles and piles of rock and heavy machinery.

After walking for almost 2 hours we eventually found the open pit, the vast, toxic, gaping hole into the earth, and began the long descent. But soon the police arrived and we were all swiftly, peacefully arrested and escorted from the site with court warrants in our hands. We will plead not guilty, as we were invited onto the land by traditional owners who remain true owners as treaties were never signed nor sovereignty ceded.

The Save Lake Cowal campaign has been going strong for some 10 years and it is finally looking as though some wins might be coming up in the next few months, following the success of the convergence!
 
We will also join Uncle Chappy on July 1 in Sydney as he fights against the expansion of the mine at the Land and Environment Court of NSW. Hope you can join us!!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Natalie Lowrey < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Date: Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 4:10 PM
Subject: MEDIA RELEASE: 28 peaceful protesters arrested after authorisation to occupy mine site
To: Natalie Lowrey < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >


MEDIA RELEASE
Sunday 12 April 2009
4.00pm EST

28 peaceful protesters arrested after authorisation to occupy mine site

28 protesters were arrested this morning at Barrick Gold's mine operation in Lake Cowal, central western New South Wales. They were authorised to enter the mine site by Wiradjuri Tradtional Owners of Lake Cowal and its surrounds.

Entering the site at dawn the protesters climbed the bund walls into the open cut pit whilst Wiradjuri Traditional Owners performed a smoking ceremony and 15 other protesters blockaded the front gates of the mine. Over 50 workers waited patiently to get into the mine site for their shift change.

"The supporters were authorised by us, the Traditional Owners," said Neville Chappy Williams, Traditional Owner, Mooka/Kalara United Families within the Wiradjuri Nation, Lake Cowal, who have been in the courts against the world's largest gold miner, Barrick Gold, for the past 10 years.

"We asked our supporters to enter the mine site to bear witness to the destruction and document the mine's impact. It is important that Wiradjuri maintain access to our cultural sites."

Lauren Campbell was arrested in the mine site having made the journey from Adelaide to Lake Cowal.

"Before going onto the mine this morning I looked at some recent aerial photos of Barrick Gold's operation, but it didn't prepare me for the devastation of what we saw. Walking onto country and standing in the mine was an affirmation of why we are here."

Another arrested protester, Nectaria stated, "To be charged with trespass after being invited onto Wiradjuri country by Traditional Owners undermines and discredits any claims by the federal and state governments that they are taking on the issues of the environment, aboriginal health and aboriginal sovereignty. It seriously highlights the continuation of cultural genocide in Australia."

"When we were arrested the police kept stressing to us that we didn't get permission from Barrick Gold, inferring that we did have authority from the Wiradjuri Traditonal Owners of the Lake Cowal area." said arrestee, Amanda Seckold from Melbourne.

Protesters overheard security telling the police that the mine would shut down in the next year or so because Wiradjuri and their supporters would win against Barrick Gold.

"Wiradjuri Traditional Owners of Lake Cowal have a right to protect their cultural sites, a right to protect their cultural water flows and a right to maintain access to this site. Their knowledge has been carried down generations for thousands of years and can help us better understand how to manage this land for future generations," said Natalie Lowrey, national liaison officer, Friends of the Earth Australia and and long term Lake Cowal campaigner.

"Damage to water and water resources is the worst environmental consequences of gold mining. Water systems around mines are contaminated by cyanide, other process chemicals, and the acid mine drainage that runs off the exposed rock."

"This makes you wonder why a mine like Barrick Gold was ever approved in the heart of the Murray-Darling basin which has over three million Australians directly dependent on its water."

All 28 arrested protesters will not plead guilty to trespassing in closed lands within the Barrick Gold mining lease in Lake Cowal.


more info contact:
Neville Chappy Williams, Mooka/Kalara United Families within the Wiradjuri Nation, Lake Cowal
0447 841 560

Natalie Lowrey, National Liaison Officer, Friends of the Earth Australia
0421 226 200

Arrested protesters - 0432 388 665
Lauren Campbell
Nectaria
Amanda Sekold

6. EVENT: Arc Student Representative Council veggie lunch
There will be a wonderful vegetarian lunch organised by the Arc Student Representative Council where you get to meet your Reps including the Enviro Convenors! Woohoo!

Date: Wednesday 22nd of April
Time: 12pm
Venue: Library Lawn

It's freeeeeeee!! Get there early!!!

7. CAMPAIGN: National Student Poverty sleep out! Thursday 23rd of April…
http://unistudent.com.au/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=4&Itemid=44
 
 
National Sleep-out for Student Poverty
On the 23rd of April students across Australia will sleep-out for student poverty to demand fair income support now!
1 in 8 students miss a meal regularly because of lack of money and 1 in 2 students report that their studies are adversely affected by financial stress. The time for the government to act on improving student income support is now! The National Union of Students is demanding that the government reform student income support in this year’s Budget.

With the rising costs of studying and living, and jobs being cut in the hospitality and retail sectors, students cannot cope with another year of inadequate income support. The NUS is calling on the government to:

1. Increase payments to at least the Henderson Poverty Line
2. Decrease the age of independence to 21 years
3. Increase the income bank
4. Increase the parental means test
5. Retain the provision for independence of earning over $18 800 in 18 months.

This would mean more students could access Youth Allowance and the payments would be more equitable. So more money for more students!

Are you sick of not been able to afford text books? Are you tired of skipping meals? Are you struggling with skipping classes to work just so you can get by? Are your rent and costs of living constantly increasing? Do you want fair income support now?

Then come to the National Sleep-out for Student Poverty and send a clear sign to the government that students demand fair income support now! Details of locations and times in each capital city will be released soon, but mark the date in your diary.

8. Emails:
From: Kathryn Ticehurst, Date: Saturday April 18th, Subject: kathryns asen convenor report 08
    
hey all ASEN peoples across the place

im really sorry this is sooo late. with travelling around its been a bit slow, and also needed a bit of time to reflect on things to write a (relatively!) concise and hopefully constructive report. i have tried to be thorough so its very long, sorry! ask me if you have any questions or stuff doesnt make sense.

thanks to everyone in asen and all the collectives for being so wonderful and inspiring, and for all the help you gave me last year it was really appreciated. thanks especially to everyone who looked after me when i visited your collective. and to all the state and collective and working group convenors for doing such amazing works, and for being such fun to check in with.

thanks especially to ness for being the most coolest support kid ever. and all of you who helped me survive.
lots and lots of love
Kathryn.
 

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For our earth!