ABSTRACT
Prior to Terania Creek similar protests using blockades to defend biodiverse areas had taken place in Brazil, India, New Zealand, and Finland. Although all played a role in popularising ecological preservation within each country, none initiated protest cycles that significantly established, promoted, and developed the environmental blockading repertoire nationally or internationally. This role was instead undertaken by Australian activists through a series of campaigns between 1980 and 1984.
This chapter provides an analysis of the Middle Head, Nightcap, FranklinRiver, Daintree and Errinundra Plateau campaigns. It demonstrates that the activism and publicity associated with these had a significant impact on Australian politics and attitudes to the environment and established environmental blockading as an enduring strategic option. It explores how the involvement of a variety of organisations and thousands of participants created a process of differentiation through which new tactics, organisational variations and approaches to normative protester behaviour emerged. Associated with this it also traces how the success and threat of blockading drove authorities and businesses to spawn a repertoire of counter-strategies and tactics.
