Upriver: Untold Stories of the Franklin River Activists
2015; Volume: 34; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1836-6600
Autores Tópico(s)Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism
ResumoAlice Hungerford 2013 Upriver: Untold Stories of the Franklin River Activists, Maleny, Queensland, Upriver Mob. ISBN 978 0 646 56238 4.Every so often a self-published book, written in the knowledge that it fills an important gap, bursts triumphantly onto the publishing scene. What it lacks in conformity to the methods of scholarly analysis, it makes up for in authenticity and emotional impact. Upriver is such a book.Alice Hungerford and her sister Nicky were involved 'from beginning to end' in what Bob Brown, then the director of the Tasmanian Wilderness Society and later a senator for the Australian Greens 1996-2012, describes in the Foreword as 'the most successful, peaceful direct-action in Australian environmental history'. This was the saving of the wild Franklin River in southwest Tasmania from exploitation by the Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Commission in the form of a dam. The Hungerford sisters were two of thousands of blockaders in a campaign that gained momentum in the early 1980s and ended when the High Court of Australia ruled against the dam on 1 July 1983. Thirty years on, the activists - many of whom have remained the closest of friends - gathered to revisit the sites of their struggles and to celebrate the significance of their victory to this World Heritage wilderness. Alice was ready with Upriver, a compilation of the anecdotes of that special group of activists who camped upriver as its guardians while the Tasmanian Wilderness Society waged the campaign from their offices in Hobart, the state's capital, and others kept them supplied from the port town of Strahan.Her method is communal. Hungerford travelled all over Australia to conduct interviews and collect photographs, and narrates the campaign through the 64 upriver folk who 'organised the logistics [...]: ran the camps, drove the boats, guided folk along the tracks to get arrested, and, after the blockade ended, how we maintained an ongoing presence to monitor destruction throughout the summer and into the cold heart of winter [before the High Court decision in July 1983]'. The result is an extended radio documentary in textual form; a pastiche of voices and viewpoints; a grand assemblage of witnesses and forest advocates with Hungerford providing additional linking narrative. Although at times she misjudges the amount of explanation and context necessary for readers who lack prior knowledge of the campaign, she skilfully splices the words of the participants to drive her overarching narrative forward in a compelling way, documenting the action as the stakes rose and the drama intensified.Hungerford begins with dedicating Upriver 'to every activist who has made a stand in defence of Mother Earth' and states that 'this is a non-profit production with any funds raised donated to saving the Tarkine [another area of pristine beauty] in western Tasmania'. Her book is therefore an extension of her youthful activism as well as a work of oral history. It is beautifully designed and strongly visual with more than a hundred photographs. There are even reproductions of Clifton Pugh's etchings. He was one of the many 'famous faces' from Australia and many other parts of the world who came, stayed and supported the campaign. …
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