1987: The Saltwater Creek Action Group (one of many PICS subcommittee over the years) holds a beach rally to protest against plans to convert the creek into a Paterson Lakes type canal development. Artist Jan Bodaan (in red cape) wrote a song – “Where do you flow to my lovely” – for the occasion. The author, Christine Grayden is to her left, and SWAG secretary Josie Allen Kent to Christine’s left. John Eddy is on guitar.
By Christine Grayden
IN MAY 2023 the Phillip Island Conservation Society turned 55 years old. If you scan briefly over that it sounds like nothing much. For the handful of us left who have lived it, it’s immense.
PICS was formed in 1968 at a meeting convened by the Phillip Island Jaycees. (I joined the year after.) In the “Year of Conservation” they knew nothing much about it, so they agreed to host a meeting to initiate a local conservation group. After formation, PICS quickly evolved into a grassroots activist group fighting against a Phillip Island Shire councillor’s multi-million-dollar proposal to turn the “useless mud” of Rhyll Inlet into a marina development.
IN MAY 2023 the Phillip Island Conservation Society turned 55 years old. If you scan briefly over that it sounds like nothing much. For the handful of us left who have lived it, it’s immense.
PICS was formed in 1968 at a meeting convened by the Phillip Island Jaycees. (I joined the year after.) In the “Year of Conservation” they knew nothing much about it, so they agreed to host a meeting to initiate a local conservation group. After formation, PICS quickly evolved into a grassroots activist group fighting against a Phillip Island Shire councillor’s multi-million-dollar proposal to turn the “useless mud” of Rhyll Inlet into a marina development.
| Looking back from 2024 it seems so absurd on so many levels as to be laughable. I can assure you that neither that proposal, nor the myriad of other equally unrealistic plans that proponents tried to bulldoze through the council and various incarnations of planning panels, were in any way funny to those of us who slaved into the early hours of every morning to lead campaign after campaign to stop the lunacy in whatever way we legally could. We had plenty of wins, no doubt. Many of them were on display at the PICS 55th celebrations at Berninneit on January 5 and 6, where 10 impressive banners and six highly informative talks gave the public and PICS members a better understanding of how we came to this point. PICS, along with the number of grassroots environmental organisations that sprang up across much of Australia in the two decades after PICS was formed, have gradually brought the public and all levels of government with us – kicking and screaming in many instances, but along just the same. Much of what we were proposing for decades may have seemed radical and pointless back then. Now it’s mainstream, and young people can’t see it could ever have been any different. |  Christine Grayden is a PICS Life Member and the author of An island worth conserving. A history of the Phillip Island Conservation Society 1968-2008, which won the Collaborative community section of the Victorian Community History Awards in 2009. She also edited Women in Conservation on Phillip Island. |
Since the 55th celebrations I have pondered how PICS members have kept up the good fight for decades without wavering. Fifty-five years is a long time to keep banging your head against brick walls. Looking back over the PICS scrapbooks, which contain articles dating back to the early 1900s, it’s demoralising to see the same old issues keep coming back to haunt us in some other guise. Still we keep “rallying the troops”, finding new ways to run campaigns and hope that eventually sanity will prevail.
Occasionally an unexpected powerful ally will descend from the blue and state our position as their own so emphatically that the proponent can only put their tail between their legs and cringe away. Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s recent damning assessment of the Victorian Government’s proposal to turn the Port of Hastings into the major shipping hub for offshore wind farms caused cheers and hugs all round in PICS ranks.
Occasionally an unexpected powerful ally will descend from the blue and state our position as their own so emphatically that the proponent can only put their tail between their legs and cringe away. Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s recent damning assessment of the Victorian Government’s proposal to turn the Port of Hastings into the major shipping hub for offshore wind farms caused cheers and hugs all round in PICS ranks.
“The Victorian Renewable Energy Terminal Proposal project would have had unacceptable impacts on the internationally protected Western Port Ramsar Wetland.” |
Does it mean that this Ramsar wetland, which is still healing from dredging for big tankers in the 1970s and 1980s, has finally been saved from any further threats? Not a chance! We’ll be back fighting for Western Port again within a few years, mark my words.
So how do we keep going? I can assure you, there have been times I would happily have thrown in the towel and walked away. Now I can’t walk very well, I can’t even participate in the hands-on revegetation I used to so love, so I find other ways to fight the good fights.
One of the most tenacious of PICS warriors was recently described to me as being “resilient”. It was an understatement, but reminded me of Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ 2001 Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times: Do Not Lose Heart, We were Made for These Times. Estes compares humans to great ships made of strong timbers, designed to withstand the most turbulent seas, with the ancient knowledge of the trees and earth the ship’s timbers came from, guiding and sustaining us until we can calm the chaos of the storms.
Those of us whose purpose in life is to show how we can all truly love and care for our planet unnerve those who do not. The unnerved disparage us with labels such us as “looney greenies”, or “woke”. But of all the obstacles placed in our way over the decades, in her letter Estes captures for me the defiance to not give in:
“…There will always be times in the midst of ‘success right around the corner, but as yet still unseen’ when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.”
Nor mine. Life is for living and standing up for life, not for hiding behind others and hoping “they” will sort it out. It is incredibly hard being an activist of any kind. In some contexts it can be fatal. But in others it is a way of being truly alive; provided you are brave and, yes, resilient enough. We’re not heroes; all humans have that potential.
As Estes concludes: “When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But … that is not what great ships are built for.”
So how do we keep going? I can assure you, there have been times I would happily have thrown in the towel and walked away. Now I can’t walk very well, I can’t even participate in the hands-on revegetation I used to so love, so I find other ways to fight the good fights.
One of the most tenacious of PICS warriors was recently described to me as being “resilient”. It was an understatement, but reminded me of Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ 2001 Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times: Do Not Lose Heart, We were Made for These Times. Estes compares humans to great ships made of strong timbers, designed to withstand the most turbulent seas, with the ancient knowledge of the trees and earth the ship’s timbers came from, guiding and sustaining us until we can calm the chaos of the storms.
Those of us whose purpose in life is to show how we can all truly love and care for our planet unnerve those who do not. The unnerved disparage us with labels such us as “looney greenies”, or “woke”. But of all the obstacles placed in our way over the decades, in her letter Estes captures for me the defiance to not give in:
“…There will always be times in the midst of ‘success right around the corner, but as yet still unseen’ when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.”
Nor mine. Life is for living and standing up for life, not for hiding behind others and hoping “they” will sort it out. It is incredibly hard being an activist of any kind. In some contexts it can be fatal. But in others it is a way of being truly alive; provided you are brave and, yes, resilient enough. We’re not heroes; all humans have that potential.
As Estes concludes: “When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But … that is not what great ships are built for.”
June 2017: Campaigners and supporters from Preserve Western Port (another PICS subcommittee) gather to celebrate after Infrastructure Victoria declared that Western Port was too delicate and valuable an environment to turn into a container port. From left, Lisa Schonberg, Kate Whittaker,
Anne Davie, Jeff Nottle, Pauline Taylor, Alia Schonberg, John Adam, Virginia Hamilton, Sue Saliba and Kevin Chambers. Photo: Christine Grayden
Anne Davie, Jeff Nottle, Pauline Taylor, Alia Schonberg, John Adam, Virginia Hamilton, Sue Saliba and Kevin Chambers. Photo: Christine Grayden