Environment
The inaugural Bob Brown Foundation Environmentalist of the Year Jenny Webber
Picture: Matt Newton: http://www.matthewnewton.com.au/Commercial/People/1/
The Bob Brown Environmentalist of the Year
ENVIRONMENT PRIZE WINNERS
The Bob Brown Foundation today announced that its first Environmentalist of the Year is Jenny Weber. Ms Weber has headed up the Huon Valley Environment Centre, south of Hobart, for the last decade.
Ms Weber’s $4,000 prize recognizes her outstanding long-term commitment, intelligence and bravery in her campaign to protect Tasmania’s ancient forests and their wildlife. This has been in the face of logging destruction of many of the places she loves, threats and personal abuse.
“Jenny deserves much more than this award. She is an exemplar and hero for the majority of Australians who want the chainsaws out of these forests, which are of World Heritage value. Her leadership has never wavered”, Bob Brown said.
A special $1,000 Prize for Environmental Courage has gone to the globally renowned Miranda Gibson. Miranda has been 60 metres aloft in a giant Eucalyptus regnans tree beneath Mt Mueller in central Tasmania for more than nine months.
“Through rain, hail, snow (there will be more tonight) Miranda has shown great courage in defence of that ridge of forest and so for all the forests,” Dr Brown said.
The $2,000 award for the Young Environmentalist of the Year is to Daniel Spencer of South Australia. Dan led a widely publicized youth action at this year’s UN Climate Conference in Mexico and has been instrumental in the current walk from Port Augusta to Adelaide in support of solar power replacing two decrepit coal-fired power stations at Port Augusta.
“Dan is an eloquent, get-up-and-go member of the feisty Australian Youth Climate Coalition who knows more about global warming than most members of most parliaments”, Dr Brown said.
The Youth prize is funded by the generosity of two of Australia’s most respected young citizens, Simon Sheikh and Anna Rose, themselves widely acclaimed for their work in advancing Australia’s carbon-free future.
The Foundation’s board of seven selected the winners and intends the awards to be annual.
“We are delighted to honour these three wonderful Australian environmentalists and, in doing so, also honour the thousands more in this environment-loving nation and it’s region who work so hard, often unrecognized, for our terrestrial and marine ecosystems”, Dr Brown said.
“This new Foundation aims to encourage and directly aid those adventurous, defiant and caring Australians (and people in our region) who go right out of their way to defend the planet’s natural heritage from the onrush of destruction, now at its greatest rate in history”, he said.
“We welcome public donations and thank the hundreds of people who have already offered support, made donations or become members”, Dr Brown added.
Jenny Weber
Environmentalist of the Year 2012
Jenny Weber has been a volunteer forest activist for the past 15 years, spending the last 10 years instigating and coordinating hundreds of direct action campaigns in Tasmania’s southern world heritage forests for the Huon Valley Environment Centre. Her single vision has been to protect the natural values of these forests against the pressures of clearfell logging for woodchips and veneer for overseas logging companies.
Jenny has been the prime motivator and supporter of the Environment Centre’s forest protection activities. In 2006, she coordinated a 14 month long blockade in the Weld Valley. The blockade was dismantled and 50 people were arrested during protests about the building of a new road into wilderness areas.
She has been the backroom organiser of direct action campaigns and public demonstrations, as well as the front-of-house media spokesperson. She is also a hands-on researcher: she surveys and reports on threatened biodiversity and logging operations. She is committed to educating the public, and conducts open days into threatened logging areas, and curates art exhibitions to raise funds.
A driving force for Jenny’s environmental campaigning is the power of people mobilising together and acting non-violently to put a spotlight on an issue and so bring about change.
Jenny has been arrested four times after taking action to stop old growth forest logging. She was a defendant, along with her husband, in the Gunns 20 lawsuit. In 2010 she co-authored a report about the role of the company Ta Ann in the logging of ancient forests, and in their misrepresentation of the wood supply to their Japanese corporate customers. She travelled to Japan to inform Ta Ann’s corporate customers about the true provenance of the timber they were sourcing.
Jenny works behind the scenes to provide moral support to defendants who face court and imprisonment for their actions, and to raise funds for legal costs – from the Weld Angel who was famously pursued by Forestry Tasmania, to an activist who needed $5000 to be released from remand.
Jenny Weber has a sociology degree from the University of Wollongong, NSW. She is married to Adam Burling, a fellow forest activist, and they have two children.
Dan Spencer
Young Environmentalist of the Year 2012
Dan Spencer is 22 years old and grew up in Adelaide.
While studying music at university, Dan became involved in the student environment movement and in 2010, left his studies to join the AYCC (Australian Youth Climate Coalition).
In December 2010 Dan joined the AYCC delegation to the UN Climate Conference in Cancun, Mexico. On the last night of the conference he helped to organise a youth based action focusing the world’s attention on the 21,000 climate change related deaths that year.
The experience of the conference, and in particular meeting delegates from communities at particular risk from climate change, left a real impression on Dan and galvanized his commitment to become a full time community campaigner.
In 2011, Dan became State Coordinator for AYCC in South Australia and set about strengthening and developing partnerships with community groups, campaigning for a price on carbon and working on a strategy for the Re-Power Port Augusta campaign.
As that campaign gained momentum, Dan decided to move to Port Augusta in July 2012 to concentrate on the community-based campaign for a solar thermal power plant to replace the region’s two aging coal fired power stations.
A community poll organized by Dan and the AYCC in 2012 saw 99% of the Port Augusta community vote for solar thermal as the preferred alternative to coal fired power.
Currently, Dan and some 80 walkers are nearing the end of the AYCC’s 300 km Walk-for-Solar trip from Port Augusta to Adelaide. The walk will culminate in a rally in Adelaide to support Port Augusta’s overwhelming desire to be a solar powered community.
Miranda Gibson
Environmental Courage Award 2012
Miranda Gibson is one of Tasmania’s most committed and courageous front-line forest campaigners. She has been a core member of the environment group Still Wild Still Threatened for over five years, living at Camp Floz, a blockade in the Upper Florentine Valley.
Miranda has been the media spokesperson for Still Wild Still Threatened for the past year and half.
Miranda is a qualified high school teacher, specialising in Society and Environment and English. She has put her career on hold to dedicate herself to the campaign to protect Tasmania’s forests.
Miranda was one of 13 forest campaigners who were targeted by woodchipping giant Gunns Ltd when the company attempted to sue these activists for the protesting at a woodchipping facility. The case was dropped after about two years.
In 2008 Miranda was one of two activists assaulted by logging contractors in a vicious attack that was caught on film and made international headlines.
Undeterred, Miranda has worked with other Still Wild Still Threatened campaigners to monitor wildlife in Tasmania’s threatened forests using remote-sensor cameras. Their work has documented the presence of threatened species including Tasmanian Devils and Spotted Tailed Quolls inside areas scheduled for logging.
In 2008, Miranda co-authored a guide to the “Flora and Fauna of the Upper Florentine Valley”, the sales of which have helped raised money for the forest campaign.
Miranda is passionate about giving young people the opportunity to learn about and learn from the wonders of the natural world. She is an inspiring example of an individual willing to take a stand to ensure that future generations can experience and enjoy our precious natural heritage.
Miranda has now spent more than nine months in her tree sit, more than sixty metres high in a huge Eucalyptus regnans tree (below Mt Mueller), which would otherwise have gone to the woodchippers.
• BOB BROWN FOUNDATION PRIZE
Nick McKim MP
Greens Leader
Friday, 28 September 2012
The Tasmanian Greens today congratulated the recipients of the Bob Brown Foundation’s inaugural Environment Prize.
Greens Leader Nick McKim MP today acknowledged the courage and leadership of Jenny Weber, who received the prize for Environmentalist of the Year.
Mr McKim also acknowledged the achievements of Miranda Gibson, who received the prize for Environmental Courage and Daniel Spencer, the Young Environmentalist of the Year.
“Jenny has been courageous and tireless in her work to save Tasmania’s ancient forests from the woodchipper, and I am thrilled that she has been recognised for her efforts,” Mr McKim said.
“Without the courage and leadership of people like Jenny, the fact is that there would be no ancient forests in Tasmania left to protect.”
“Now more than ever our planet needs people like Jenny, Miranda and Dan who are prepared to stand up and defend our natural heritage from unsustainable exploitation.”