Earth Matters

Defending Sacred Sites and energy autonomy in North AmericaCorrina Gould is a Chochenyo/Karkin Ohlone woman who has dedicated her life to protecting her peoples' sacred sites, even though hundreds of them now lie below the pavements of San Francisco. She led a successful 100+ day blockade camp to stop a foreshore development on a sacred burial site and shellmound called Sorgorea Te. A new document...

It’s been described as the next big land-grab - the race to dig-up the sea bed. It’s called deep sea mining. And the mining industry see it as their next new hope. Canadian mining company Nautilus Minerals has its eyes set on Papua New Guinea as the testing ground for the world’s first attempt to mine metals from the sea floor. Nautilus plans to extract gold and copper from the bottom of the Bisma...

On this episode of Earth Matters we talk to Robin Taubenfeld and Kim Stewart from Friends of the Earth Brisbane about their report 'US Bases in Australia:  the social and environmental risks'. Robin has recently been protesting the US-Australia war games up in Shoalwater Bay near Rockhampton, Queensland.

The South Australian Royal Commission into nuclear expansion is losing credibility as it continues. The expert advisory panel is stacked with nuclear advocates and barriers are high for public participation, with requirements that submissions are typed and signed by a Justice of the Peace. Many Traditional Owners have already experienced the radioactive racism of the industry and have vowed to sto...

Australia is currently part of negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership which is a secretive free trade deal between 12 countries led by the united states of america. Free trade agreements that the United States have negotiated in the past have undermined other countries' abilities to make and enforce their own laws. A few chapters leaked by Wikileaks, including a draft environment chapter,...

Moves are afoot to keep Australia’s disastrous old-growth forest logging industry alive. Leaked documents have recently revealed what many have been saying for a long time, that logging in the East Gippsland region of Victoria isn’t economically viable and is propped up by taxpayer money. But as this industry loses more and more of its economic and social credibility, it seem that the federal gove...

On today's show we talk to Bill Hampel who has written a book, "Against the Grain," about farmers' efforts to prevent and adapt to climate change. We play one of the interviews that Bill did with sheep farmer Mark McKew on this topic. Mark McKew is involved in Project Platypus. Bill Hampel recommends Landcare for farmers looking for help with climate change prevention and mitigation.

This week, a good news story and some cautious optimism! Rio Tinto's Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) has announced it's abandoning the Ranger 3 Deeps project. With the current mining lease expiring in 2021, the Mirarr traditional owners have called for the rehabilitation of the site and the complete protection of Kakadu from mining. We ask how realistic is rehabilitation and what ERA's move in...

Borroloola Frackdown: Resistance in the GulfBorroloola, NT, is a small town plagued by a big mine; the biggest zinc and lead open-cut mine in the world. The McArthur River Mine has contaminated the river with dangerously high levels of lead, and is the NT's first man-made "volcano", with a smouldering pile of waste rock that's been belching noxious fumes for ten months. With this plus the shale ga...

Wind Turbines are an excellent source of renewable energy, but some people say that they cause an illness called "Wind Turbine Syndrome". On this show we investigate the legitimacy of that claim. Guests: Leigh Ewbank, Friends of the Earth Yes2Renewables campaignSimon Chapman, Professor of Public Health at University of SydneyDoug Hobson, wind farmer

Many people in the pacific are already experiencing the drastic effects of human induced climate change. Rising sea levels, storm surges and more severe weather events are forcing communities living on low-lying islands and atolls to face the prospect of losing everything as sea water literally bubbles up through the ground, and waves wash their shorelines away. On today’s show we look at those wh...

This week's show will be a look at what funding was and wasn't allocated to the environment on Tuesday night's Federal budget. For an overall view we talk to Greens Senator Larissa Waters. Nick Heath from the World Wildlife Fund talks about Federal funding for the Great Barrier Reef, and new Federal and State policy regarding dredging. Tessa Jakszewicz talks about funding changes to Landcare and f...

We are often told that we have to make a choice between jobs and the environment. And that we have no option but to continue with an economic system that has lead us to a point of climate catastrophe. But there is a growing awareness that to effectively redress climate change we need to radically change the nature of our economy, to transition to a system that is just for people and the planet. We...

Is Carbon Capture and Storage going to enable Australia to keep on burning coal? On this show we explore the feasibility of the technology and whether it is the best solution to the problem of global warming. Guests: Professor Ralf Haese from the Peter Cook Centre for CCS Research at the University of MelbourneCam Walker from Friends of the EarthGerard Drew from Beyond Zero Emissions

The Tasmanian State Government has just axed a nine year long, nation leading project monitoring pesticide residues in waterways. We speak with Anthony Amis about the importance of that monitoring program, and the alarming effects pesticides have on our health and the environment. See also the Australian Pesticides Map, Friends of the Earth Pesticides & Toxic Chemicals campaign, and the National T...

The NSW government is buying back Petroleum Exploration Licenses (PEL). We talk to  Louise Steer from Stop CSG Sydney about what it took to make it this far and what's next in the fight to rid Australia from fracking. Estimated millions of pieces of space debris are orbiting around the planet left over from space missions and satellites. Professor Steven Tingay, the director of the Curtin Institut...

On this week’s show we delve into the (not-so-fictional) universe of Cli-Fi, or climate change fiction. We hear from novelists Alice Robinson, and Naomi Oreskes. And later in the program, something that should be relegated to the world of fiction, but unfortunately is all too real. The duck shooting season has started again in Victoria, and so too has the campaign to stop it. We speak with Laurie...

This week on Earth Matters, we're tuning into Dr Vandana Shiva speaking in Sydney in February 2015.Dr Vandana Shiva is a scientist, ecologist, author and winner of the Sydney Peace Prize. She speaks about food sovereignty and seed freedom, the threats created by industrial globalised farming, industrial monocultures and the use of chemicals. She tells us about how genetic modification is first and...

The Bunya Pine is an ancient and sacred tree. It's native to Cubbi Cubbi country in South East Queensland. It has long been an important food source for Aboriginal Australians and European colonisers are starting to catch onto the idea too. On this show we talk to Aunty Beverly Hand from Cubbi Cubbi country who organises the annual Bunya Dreaming; Patrick Evans from Maton who make a Bunya Pine Gui...