People, Place & Culture Archive

Friends Of the Earth: Chain Reaction Publication Material

Chain Reaction is the magazine published by Friends of the Earth which had its early life in Melbourne. This collection charts story development to publication including submissions, photographs, and graphics. Correspondence, letters and minutes provide insight into the publication and decision-making processes. The publication is still available today and can be sourced from the Friends of the Earth Australia website including a section on the history of the publication.

View Friends of the Earth: Chain Reaction.

Friends of the Earth campaigns

• Barmah-Millewa campaign
  This campaign brought together environmentalists and representatives from indigenous communities to save what is now known as the Barmah-Millewa Forest which is a significant large river red gum forest. The Barmah-Millewa campaign as noted in the publication 30 Years of Creative Resistance (p. 63) were: ”1. To achieve a joint management system over Barmah-Millewa as a means to achieving control over land that has been denied the Yorta Yorta through the courts; 2. To sustainably manage the whole forest (both sides of the Murray/Dhungalla) for the protection and conservation of its ecological and cultural values; and 3. To gain real and diverse employment opportunities for the Yorta Yorta people.”
• Energy campaigns
  This material relates to campaigns against the Newport power station, and the Alcoa aluminium smelter at Portland. It includes research into both campaigns, correspondence, and a number of S.E.C reports from the early 1980s.
• Streets for People campaign
  The Streets for People campaign was one of many projects organised through Friends of the Earth Melbourne. To quote from the publication 30 Years of Creative Resistance (p. 58), “In 1999, Streets for People was established as a new transport campaign at FoEM focussing on proactive, positive and creative action.”  
• Transport campaigns
  Several specific transport campaigns developed in association with the Streets for People campaign. This individual collection relates to campaigns on lead free petrol, sustainable transport, and a 1985 bike ride known as ‘Critical Mass’. Transport submissions and reports are also included in the material.

David Unaipon: Towards publication of “Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines (2001)”

This archival material follows the research and correspondence relating to the publication of the book. Also included are manuscript versions and material on intellectual property. The introduction to the book includes: “In producing this edition, Muecke and Shoemaker have at last righted the injustices done to David Unaipon by the brazen appropriation of his stories and by the patronising editorial changes effected by Ramsay Smith. The stories are accompanied by a substantial Introduction, which gives the historical and cultural context of Unaipon's work, and recounts the complex sequence of events that led to the theft of his book.”

View David Unaipon: Towards publication of "Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines (2001)".

Bike Paths in the West

Alan Parker founded the Bicycle Institute of Victoria (Bicycle Victoria) with other cyclists in the mid-1970s and was involved in various groups such as the Town and Country Planning Association of Victoria and the Bicycle Federation of Australia. He collected material on activities undertaken including working papers, local planning documents and correspondence regarding bicycle paths and infrastructure in the west of Melbourne.

View Bike Paths in the West.