Featured Events
Featured events at the conference include:
Panel - Doing or Debating: Civil Disobedience versus Deliberative Governance
A number of recent instances of large scale civil disobedience, including the Easter convergence at the Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia, and protests around logging issues in Queensland highlight that strategies "outside" the deliberative governance structures created to bring stakeholders "inside" the policy process are alive, well and flourishing. Why do groups choose to work outside the process when offered a seat at the consultative table by governments? Environmental groups and citizens are faced with the choice to work inside or outside deliberative governance structures, to achieve their goals. Are these goals able to be achieved within deliberative governance, or is civil obedience the better option?
Panel - Suing for Silence: GUNNS 20
Australian logging company Gunns Ltd is currently seeking $6.3M damages from twenty individuals and organisations, alleging conspiracy, interference with trade and business, and defamation. The writ, which has shaken environmental organisations across the country, comes at a time when protest and dissent are under increasing pressure. A similar legal action has been launched against People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to stymie their campaign against cruelty in the wool industry. With the Howard government's ascendance in the Senate, many groups face the loss of their tax deductibility status. Some have already lost the government funding that for decades allowed them to coordinate and represent grassroots environmental action. This forum with two Gunns20 defendants explores the significance of counter-environmental tactics and strategies to sustain and assert environmental dissent.
Book Launch - Tim Doyle
Environmental Movements in the Majority and Minority Worlds: A Global Perspective.
Book Launch - Michael Howes
Politics and the Environment: Risk and the role of government and industry
Journal Launch - Griffith International Journal of the Environment
The Journal provides a Griffith University faculty-based mechanism for students as well as research academics, to demonstrate their intellectual and research skills. The Journal offers the opportunity to display high levels of skill with respect to written communication and academic abilities (critical thought and evaluation). It is not confined to researchers in any particular institution, but rather, is distinguished by its focus on environmental issues, interdisciplinary and integrated content, and its encouragement of collaborative research effort.