State Minister for Resources, Jaclyn Symes, has today announced that permits have been granted to Beach Energy and Bridgeport Energy to explore for gas in state waters near Portland and Port Campbell. 

Updates from the Food Coop and Cafe:

The FoE Food Co-op and Cafe remains open for click-and-collect online ordering!
Place your order via the website to pick up with minimal faff!

The Food Coop and Cafe is still open for shopping in-store. We operating with necessary physical distancing and hygiene measures in place.

Open daily during the Melbourne lockdown for organic bulk food and grocery shopping, and serving vegan takeaway meals.

Monday-Friday 10-6 / Saturday 10-5 / Sunday 11-4

We rely on healthy ecosystems for our survival. Victoria is the most cleared state in the country and natural ecosystems have faced centuries of land clearing, logging, invasion of invasive species and, now fire seasons that are being made worse by climate change. More than 120 Victorian animals, birds, plants, insects and fish are threatened with extinction. 

Last summer’s bushfires burnt more than 1 million hectares. As a result of the Black Summer fires:

- 31% of VIC's rainforests have burnt, as well as 24% of wet or damp forests, and 34% of lowland forests

- 100% of the potential habitat of East Gippsland galaxias (a small native fish) have burnt 

- 40% of sooty owl, long-footed potoroo, diamond python, brush-tailed rock-wallaby and long-nosed bandicoot habitat has burnt

Now the Victorian parliament has announced an Inquiry into Ecosystem Decline. This is an important opportunity to show that the community wants to see ecosystems restored and species protected from extinction.

Please check below for a draft submission that you could use or adapt and send to the Inquiry.

Friends of the Earth podcast history series made in collaboration with 3CR 855 AM community radio show Acting Up!    Monday 2.00pm.  Ratbags, peaceniks and agents of change, resistance radio that explores the movements that made us.

45 years of Acting Up!  Friends of the Earth Queer & Feminist History audio episode

Listen up mp3
Presenters: Em Gayfer and Megan Williams
Guests: Trish Luker (Chain Reaction magazine), Lyn Harriott and Beth Mellick, (former FOE bookshop coordinators), and Sam Castro (FOE Gender Justice working group)

International Women’s Day March, Melbourne

This episode looks back to the feminist and LGBTQ history of Friends of the Earth and the intersections informing our actions today. From the 1970s onwards, Friends of the Earth stood in solidarity for Indigenous land rights, women and gay rights, peace and conservation movements, shaping our policies and practices.  Keep reading to find out how to join Friends of the Earth and support our social, economic and environmental justice campaigns.

Join us for an online forum with community leaders, transport specialists and a representative from our Sustainable Cities campaign to discuss the future of Public Transport in Victoria post Covid-19, and the benefits of Melbourne Metro 2 (MM2).

Friends of the Earth podcast history series made in collaboration with 3CR 855 AM community radio show Acting Up!    Monday 2.00pm.  Ratbags, peaceniks and agents of change, resistance radio that explores the movements that made us. 

45 years of Acting Up!  Climate action to climate justice audio episode

Listen up mp3
Presenters: Em Gayfer and Megan Williams.
Guests: Stephanie Long, Wendy Flannery, Tristy Fairfield, Anna Langford, Emma Sanford.

Since the 1970s Friends of the Earth has promoted renewable energy options for Australia.  In the 1980s, we campaigned on global warming and carbon debt, working with Carteret Islanders and hosting tours for speakers from Nigeria, Nepal, and the Pacific talking about fossil fuels and the impacts of climate change in their regions.  From the 1990s onwards, Friends of the Earth campaigns to reduce carbon emissions, stops coal and gas expansion and calls for a just transition towards renewable energy.  In 2020, Friends of the Earth continues to lobby government and business, support communities and collaborate with environment groups to act on climate change, resist new fossil fuel projects and promote renewables.  Keep reading to find out how you can win climate justice.

You might be forgiven for thinking that once an area of forest has been burnt, it is essentially a dead zone, a pile of charred remains, devoid of life or possibility. You’d be wrong.

Research performed by David Lindenmayer, a researcher at the Australian National University and one of the world’s most cited forest ecologists, and colleagues over the past three decades has mapped regeneration and growth in areas of forest up the east coast of Australia - areas that have been badly damaged in horrific bushfires.

This research has shown incredible rates of recovery in areas of forest that appeared decimated by fires - but only if that forest is left alone in the aftermath. The worst thing that we can do post-bushfire is allow the logging of these burned areas, known as salvage logging. 

This practice can set forest regeneration back by decades, and for about 40 years these areas of forest carry an increased risk of canopy burns (setting the regeneration back repeatedly). According to Lindenmayer, animals that miraculously escaped the fires, if they are not killed in the logging process, are unlikely to return to logged areas for up to 180 years, if ever.

Can you make a tax-deductible donation today?

Friends of the Earth podcast history series made in collaboration with 3CR 855 AM community radio show Acting Up!    Monday 2.00pm.  Ratbags, peaceniks and agents of change, resistance radio that explores the movements that made us.

45 years of Acting Up!  Friends of the Earth Barmah-Millewa Collective audio episode

Listen up mp3
Presenter: Megan Williams.
Guests: Aunty Monica Morgan (Yorta Yorta), Jono La Nauze, Indira Narayan.

River Red Gum forest and wetlands (photo: Environment Victoria)

Follow the mighty Murray River 200km north of Melbourne to where the Barmah-Millewa forest grows.  This ancient expanse of woodlands and vital wetlands is the largest River Red Gum forest in the world.  In 1998 Yorta Yorta leaders, the Indigenous custodians, asked Friends of the Earth to join them in a campaign to protect Barmah-Millewa and re-establish their right to manage their river country, forming the Barmah-Millewa Collective in 2000.  Listen and learn how 12 years of resistance, resilience and activist alliances led to the creation of Barmah-Millewa National Parks and Protected Areas in Victoria and NSW, to be returned and co-managed by Traditional Owners.  Read on to find out how you can help Friends of the Earth to protect rivers and forests in 2020 into the future.

Can you donate to Friends of the Earth to help interrupt business as usual?

While we have been putting our communities first, staying inside and physically distancing, governments and corporations continue to put profit before people. Industries like coal, gas and logging have been deemed “essential”, and for them it’s Business As Usual.  Did you know that the Andrews government will soon announce which companies have won exploration rights to drill for gas and oil in State waters from Cape Otway to the South Australian border?  Meanwhile, the Victorian government has allowed salvage logging in devastated native forests, as rivers run dry. Together we can protect the places we love, and continue to campaign for climate justice. 

Contribute to campaign costs with a tax-deductible donation before June 30 here.