ABSTRACT
Australia’s first forest blockade took place at Terania Creek in 1979. This campaign was a catalytic event in an Australian cycle of protest that extended between 1979 and 1984, popularising environmental blockading in the process. It pioneered a new combination of consensus decision-making, protest camps, and normative protester behaviour. And it had a global influence on environmental struggle. This chapter explores and analyses the unfolding of this pioneering campaign as well as the conditions under which it developed. It considers the grievances that gave rise to the protest and the political context it emerged from before providing a detailed history of the blockade itself. As a case study presenting many dynamics which remain current in campaigns based on obstructive direct action, it introduces a number of processes and factors shaping tactical choice and innovation.
