HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009

Building...stone upon stone

Our own small stone of activism,

which might not seem to measure up

to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired

is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope ...

For we can do nothing substantial toward

changing our course on the planet, a destructive one,

without rousing ourselves, individual by individual,

and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile.

- Alice Walker,

The Impossible Will Take a Little While:

A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear.

Water: it's a no-brainer

If you click on the pictures below,

they will be enlarged and

you can read their vital message.

If there is one thing

more important to species on this planet

- and that includes human beings -

than food,

IT IS WATER.

Water is shaping up to be the activism issue of 2009.

In Victoria,

three water focussed groups,

Clean Ocean Foundation;

Watershed Victoria;

Plug the Pipe,

have coalesced into the

Victorian Water Forum.

In NSW,

people are beavering away

to establish a nationwide organisation,

The Australian Water Network.

Ordinary people are looking on in amazement

at how governments are managing water.

They wonder how

their communities and their livelihoods will fare.

Insufficient consultation is a glaring deficiency.

We are left to wonder, in some instances, whether

corporations or individual post-politics careers

are influencing decisions -

not communities.

There is no clear indication that

either the Victorian or Australian governments

recognise WATER as part of The Commons.

There is little indication that

decisions are being made on water as a human right.

In Victoria,

activism on water has been a regional affair -

with visits to Melbourne

to rally outside Parliament in Spring Street.

Melbournians have been

installing water tanks and solar panels,

growing their own veges,

and harvesting grey water.

Their is much good will

which the Victorian government is not building on.

In 2009, the Victorian Government

might awaken one day

to find that

the activism of the bush and the surf has come to town.