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THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA : : WWW.FOE.COM.AU ISSUE # 108 MARCH 2010 RRP $5.50 WATER FEATURE COMPETING VISIONS FOR URANIUM MINERS TURNING AUSTRALIA’S TROPICAL RIVERS WATER INTO LIQUID WASTE GREENWASHING DESALINATION MAKING MELBOURNE A WATER- SENSITIVE CITY ONE LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THE MURRAY-DARLING BASIN CLIMATE REFUGEES IN AUSTRALIA POPULATION AND WATER WATER PRIVATISATION Edition #108 - March 2010 Publisher Friends of the Earth Australia, ABN 81600610421 contents Chain Reaction Team regular items Water privatisation 30 Jim Green, Cam Walker, Simeon Scott, Holly Creenaune, Daisy Barham, Hannah Elvery, Lilly Lowrey, Global water facts: US EPA petitioned Georgia Miller Earth News 2 to regulate chemicals in water 31 Layout & Design FoE Australia News 6 Lilly Lowrey FoE International News 8 One last chance to save the Murray- Darling Basin FoE Australia Contacts Inside back cover Printing - Jonathan La Nauze 32 Arena Printing and Publishing, Melbourne Competing visions for Australia’s Subscriptions water feature tropical rivers Six issues (two years): $A33 - John Mackenzie 36 Twelve Issues (four years): $A60 See subscription ad on pg.13. Water in Australia: the facts 10 Uranium miners turning water into liquid waste Subscription Enquiries Climate change and water - what’s in Chain Reaction, PO Box 222, Fitzroy - Jim Green 38 Vic, 3065, Australia. Ph (03) 9419 8700, store for Australia? Fax (03) 9416 2081 Email: <[email protected]> - Cam Walker 11 Paladin to set uranium ‘standard’ in Malawi ISSN: 0312 – 1372 Population and water - Jessie Boylan 40 - Cam Walker 12 Copyright Written material in Chain Reaction is free of copyright unless otherwise indicated, or where material has been Climate refugees in Australia? reprinted from another source. Please acknowledge - Cam Walker 14 Chain Reaction when reprinting. Permission to use reviews 42 graphic material must be obtained from the artist. Black Saturday and Melbourne’s The opinions expressed in Chain Reaction are not water supply catchments necessarily those of the publishers or any - Simon Birrell 14 Flow: for the Love of Water Friends of the Earth group. Blue Coventant Chain Reaction is indexed in the Alternative Press ndex. Making Melboure a water sensitive city Gagged: The Gunns 20 and other law Chain Reaction is published three times a year. - Cam Walker 15 suits The Watermark Australia project Bottlemania - Mary Crooks 19 CHAIN REACTION ADVISORY BOARD ‘Really cooking good food’ Victoria’s Bass Coast desalination Petty’s Parallel Worlds Karen Alexander plant -Biodiversity campaigner [Vic] - Chris Heislers 21 Wildlife Australia Greg Buckman - Author/Researcher [Canberra] Best Australian Political Cartoons Damian Grenfell The Victorian North South pipeline 22 - Globalism Centre RMIT [Melbourne] 2009 Jo Immig Ross Scott and the fight to save the Elephant Reflections - National Toxics Network [Bangalow, NSW] Gippsland lakes Geoff Evans – Sustainability researcher/campaigner - Anthony Amis 23 Water Conciousness [Newcastle] Binnie O’Dwyer Greenwashing Desalination Eco-Efficiency & Global Justice: - FoE representative [Lismore] - James Hitchcock 24 Women Write Political Ecology James Whelan - Co-director of the Change Agency [Brisbane] World Ocean Census Privileged Information The board provides big picture thematic and political advice - Brigid Walsh 26 Celebrity scientists and nuclear power to the CR editors, advice on themes for future editions, as well as helping to ensure that a broader range of sectors/ - Jim Green 47 constituencies are represented in the articles.The CR Witch’s Brew: contaminants and editorial team are still responsible for content, editing and design and so any problems, omissions or other failures waterways are ours! - Peter Fisher 28 Chain Reaction is produced in Melbourne, Newcastle and Perth. We acknowledge the traditional owners of these lands and the fact that Aboriginal land has never been ceded. PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER Lake Cowal Easter Gathering settlement was a “commercial decision to To support these rights, developing avoid a lengthy and expensive court case”. countries have been calling for a single Since 2001, Traditional Owners and The case started in 2004 when Gunns sued international, legally binding agreement. supporters have spent Easter at Lake Cowal 20 individuals and groups for $6.4 million In 2005, formal negotiations began to defending the rights of the Wiradjuri for loss of business as a result of protest form such an agreement but were resisted people to access land and protect their activities. Forests and free speech activists by developed countries, backed by business sacred sites from mining. Barrick Gold, around Australia are celebrating this long interests such as the pharmaceutical and now the biggest gold mining company in awaited victory. Gunns has paid $1.3 biotechnology industries. the world, owns and operates an open-cut million in settlement costs to Gunns 20 In late 2009, there was a significant shift gold mine at Lake Cowal using cyanide defendants and $2.8 million in legal costs. in the international sphere, indicating that leaching to process the gold. Lake Cowal is The company continues legal action more developed countries may be willing part of an intricate wetland, in the centre of against 13 people in relation to a protest at to agree to a Protocol. The details are yet the Murray Darling basin. Come and camp the Triabunna woodchip mill. to be determined, with the final text likely out at Lake Cowal this Easter weekend for to be negotiated before being sent to the music, action and learning with the Mooka More information <www.gunns20.org> Conference of Parties in October 2010. Kalara united families and supporters. Source <www.twnside.org.sg/title2/ More information <www.protestbarrick.net>, <www. resurgence/2009/231-232/cover1.htm> myspace.com/lakecowal> Contact: Mia Pepper <bar_ Greenhouse trigger dumped [email protected]> 0415 380808 Friends of the Earth Australia condemned UN report recognises the announcement late last year by federal impacts on Indigenous Alistair Hulett environment minister Peter Garrett that the Peoples government would no longer support the Alistair Hulett, an icon of Scottish inclusion of a climate change trigger in the The United Nations recent report ‘State of folk music, international socialism, Environmental Protection and Biodiversity the World’s Indigenous People’ reveals that and Australian punk rock died in early Conservation Act. Garrett announced the land-grabbing by state authorities and state February, aged 57. Fellow musician David breaking of this election promise while supported private interests is contributing Rovics said: “He lived for 25 years in releasing the Hawke report into the EPBC to the high levels of abject poverty amongst Sydney and was on the ground floor of Act. the Australian punk rock scene, playing in Indigenous Peoples. Released in January, towns and cities throughout Australia with Information on the Hawke review is posted at <www. the report confirms that the dispossession environment.gov.au/epbc/review/index.html> his band, Roaring Jack. The band broke up of Indigenous Peoples from lands and decades ago but still has a loyal following territories is ongoing, promoted by throughout the country. Roaring Jack was development and globalisation policies. a brash, in-your-face musical experience, Progress towards an anti- The report notes that despite the 2007 championing the militant end of the biopiracy treaty Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Australian labour movement and leftwing Peoples and other international documents causes generally, fueled by equal parts rage Over 15 years of lobbying and negotiation recognising the rights of Indigenous Peoples, against injustice, love of humanity and by developing countries may pay off this abuse, displacement and marginalisation is alcohol.” Since the 1990s Alistair has lived year, as prospects rise for the finalisation of ongoing. in his native Glasgow. He was an organiser, a Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing The report is posted at <www.un.org/esa/socdev/ a historian of social movements, and an under the Convention on Biological unpfii/en/sowip.html>. inspiring human being. Diversity. Developing country governments and organisations representing Indigenous Peoples’ rights have been campaigning for ANZ Bank funding terror Gunns 20 case settled years to put an end to the misappropriation weapons, Uniting Church of biological resources and traditional says The Gunns 20 court case finally came to knowledge. Although many national laws a close on January 29 when Gunns agreed exist around such biopiracy, campaigners The ANZ Bank is funding terror weapons to a settlement with the four remaining argue that once biological resources and/or whose manufacture, trade and use have defendants. This occurred ahead of the associated knowledge are removed from the been banned under a convention signed by trial, set for the following week, with country of origin, it becomes very difficult Australia, the Uniting Church said late last Gunns company secretary stating the to enforce such laws and rights. year. The church’s Victorian social justice 2 Chain Reaction #108 March 2010 spokesperson, Mark Zirnsak, said ANZ had screenings and launches and using them More information <www.wrm.org.uy>, <www. joined a global consortium lending money as an opportunity for indigenous leaders regenwald.org/international/englisch/news. php?id=1445>, <www.biofuelwatch.org.uk>, <www. to Lockheed-Martin,