Fifty years ago, on this day, October 17, 1973, a “coup” happened at the Australian Conservation Foundation. The ACF had been set up by “Great and Good” figures in the mid-1960s. By the early 1970s its membership had shot up (as part of the global wave of concern about pollution. Lots and lots of the newcomers had a different understanding of what the root causes of the problems were, and how to solve them. Matters came to a head…
“How The ACF Was Taken Over: A report to ACF Members on the events of 17th October, 1973, by the Seven Councillors who resigned on that day”
From Hutton and Connors, 1999.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 329.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the ACF had been set up in the mid 60s by the great and the good. Garfield Barwick etc, as your typical elite conservationist programme. I think there were moves for it to actually be the official offshoot of the then new World Wildlife Fund, but I could be wrong. And for a few years, it was able to put out newsletters and hold conferences. It was fantastically well connected with the Australian industrial and political elite. But then with the coming of the late 60s, many more people started to get interested in and concerned about conservation, ecology, etc. And the fact that the ACF had been founded by and was being still controlled by a bunch of extremely well-connected, what we would now call old white men. began to be a problem. Because people were moving beyond the idea that the problems were caused either by greedy, poor people or a lack of information. And so there was a two or three year power struggle within the ACF – people getting elected to the board with different perspectives from the founders, countermoves, et cetera.
What I think we can learn from this
You see this a hell of a lot when a group has been established and then there’s an influx of people with a different view. Now, on one side, the incumbents can say, “Well, why don’t you just go and found your own group?” and on the other, the challengers can say, “Hang on, I thought this was a democratic organisation? And anyway, we’re the ones who brought in all the extra money and members and ideas. And we shouldn’t have to walk away from that.” It’s an age old dilemma. In this case, it was solved by a putsch. And the old ACF guard had to quit. The document described their version of history, and may or may not be accurate. I don’t care – that’s beyond the point of this website, which to remind you, is here to help people understand the patterns.
What happened next – The ACF became more “radical” if you want to call it that, it depends what your baseline is. And we also saw the rise of Friends of the Earth and Ecology Action, which is best I can tell was a very New South Wales and especially Sydney focused thing.
By the mid 70s, because of the enormous economic dislocations, the environment movement in Australia had shrunk. This was a worldwide pattern. “Whatever happened to the revolution,” as the Skyhooks sang
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.