Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

‘Mine Your Own Business’ Comes to Oz

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I was going to wait until we had all of the detail sorted before telling you, but in a piece by Rory Carroll entitled ‘Green Goblins’ The Guardian has spilt the beans:

“…The feature-length documentary follows the Michael Moore template of championing the underdog, in this case impoverished communities in Romania, Madagascar and Chile, but instead of attacking the mines it goes for the ecologists.

Mine Your Own Business, whose British premiere is this week, casts the green movement as the influential villain of a worldwide campaign to block development and deny people the chance of jobs and a decent life.

Written and presented by a former Financial Times journalist, Phelim McAleer, 39, it is a polemical broadside against what it sees as the duplicity and unaccountability of non-governmental organisations.

… The documentary, which will be entered into film festivals, is due to be screened in Britain for the first time on November 1 by the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, a conservative thinktank. An Australia tour sponsored by the Institute of Public Affairs will follow.”

So here’s some of the detail.

Australian screening:

Melbourne, 20th November, Arthur Streeton Auditorium, Sofitel

Hobart, 21st November, Old Woolstore Theatrette, 1 Macquarie Street

Sydney, 22nd November, Dendy Opera Quays, East Circular Quays

Perth, 23rd November, Cinema Paradiso, Northbridge.

Screeings at all venues will start at 6pm. The movie runs for 66 minutes. If you hang around afterwards there will be discussion with Phelim McAleer and maybe also drinks. Reserve a place by emailing ipa@ipa.org.au

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Thanks to Schiller for letting me know about he movie, and to Phelim McAleer for agreeing to visit us down under.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Hasbeen says

    Or Brisbane. Perhaps we should have a greenie type protest. They appear to be very effective.

  3. Jen says

    Missing Brisbane as well… and Darwin and Canberra.
    Only so much you can do with a very limited budget and 5 days.
    Little Hobart was choosen because Cinders/Alan Ashbarry is such a good bloke. Perth is full of miners, Melbourne the home of the IPA and Sydney is apparently important.

  5. toby says

    A friend of my fathers owns a large tract of land that has been badly impacted by rabbits and foxes. He has paid to fence off a large portion of this land so that it can grow unhindered. He approached WWF to have them put up signs on fences with their name on it. Most people would think they would be happy to do this since the guy is trying to protect native species and was not asking for funding. Guess what? WWF said he could only use their name if he donated a significant sum of money (many thousands). People wonder why some question the motives of so many of these NGO’s!!

  7. Sid Reynolds says

    I wonder whether ABC news and current affairs, along with the Fairfax press, will give the same extensive and favourable coverage to ‘Mine Your Own Business, as the did for Al Gore’s and Sir Nick Stern’s little efforts? Ha Ha Ha.
    Full marks to this film for exposing the lies and underhand tactics and violence practised by the ‘Green Taliban”.
    I will be travelling to Sydney (400 km.) to see it.

  10. JD says

    I’m tipping you guys are gonna love this film (as opposed to, say, oh, An Inconvenient Truth). Will it be subject to the same critical eye, or will it be swallowed whole because it affirms your ideology (oh no, hang on, it’s only greens who are ideological, right?)

  11. Jen says

    JD,

    Its nothing like the Al Gore movie, but it is a documentary. It explores the issue of development, and who gets to choose what a developing nation can do with their own resources.

    There are interviews with both sides (activists wanting to stop development, and locals mostly wanting development to go ahead) in Romania, Chile and Madagascar. The similarities across the three continents and three proposed mine sites are striking. The locals mostly want jobs, the activists say they are concerned the local people will lose their ‘charm’ and their quaint way of life.

    I can speak from first hand experience about Madagascar. I lived in Tulear for 3 years in the late 1980s and married a Madagascan.

    ‘Marohasy’ is a Madagascan name.

    In the documentary Phelim McAleer interviews a WWF campaigner in Tulear. The WWF campaigner says that while the Madagascan people may be very poor, they are very happy and they don’t aspire to much.

    Comment is made by the campaigner that if you give them/the Madagascans money they will only spend it.

    In the filem McAleer also interviews many Madagascans including about their hopes and aspirations and the young mostly want jobs, while the older people want educational opportunties for their children.

    This is my experience. Madagascan families will go to great lengths to get their children an education. They have a particularly rich cultural heritage and a great love of music, oral history and literature.

    The film is very much about ideology and explores what McAleer describes as a clash of cultures.

    It will make many western environmentists feel uncomfortable because it draws similarilities between the mindset and actions of modern environmental activists and those of the early missionaries.

  12. Pinxi says

    some environmental activists have a narrow agenda, but not all
    some investors and lobbyists have a narrow agenda, but not all

    just as many businesses are now focusing on broader concerns, many environmentalists are realising the need to address social concerns hand-in-hand with environmental problems

    pick your stream, we could portray either in a biased light

    On development issues, we’d best listen to the views of those who work in development, not the lone voice of environmentalists. People make sweeping assumptions here but let’s not lump all campaigners into the one basket.

  13. Schiller Thurkettle says

    I’d gladly drop in for the screening, but Exxon-Mobil doesn’t pay me enough for that. Which is to say, unfortunately, they don’t pay me at all. I wish payola were as rampant as the Greenies suggest.

  14. cinders says

    A common ability to oppose development is creative writing. We had in Australia Flanagan writing in the Bulletin about the rape of tasmanian forests now this film responds to an emotive claim by a environmental activist award winner:
    The developers “are modern-day vampires; who in the name of progress aim to bleed Rosia Montana to death. Their lust for gold has already given rise to flagrant and crying injustices. I refuse to accept this and I refuse to stay silent about this.”
    The film should be a must see how truthful is this claim on this Romanian mine.

  15. Trev says

    Toby that’s dreadful stuff about WWF…I guess it comes as no suprise that they’re also the Liberal Parties NGO of choice!

  16. Davey Gam Esq. says

    Jen,
    What are your memories of the traditional use of fire by villagers in Madagascar? Does it destroy ‘biodiversity’? I believe there is a very good book called Isle of Fire, by Christian Kull (?), that explores the history of burning there. Have you read it? Is it truthful?

  17. Jen says

    Hi Dave,

    Haven’t read the book by Christian Kull.

    I was in Madagascar working as an entomologist, looking for biocontrol agents (insects and diseases) of rubbervine (Cryptostegia spp.). There are three species with a distribution right along the west coast. I survey all of this region.

    In 1987, according to a ferry operator south of Majunga, mine was the first vehicle, my landrover, to make it through from Morondava to Majunga since the 1970s. Bridges were far and few between in that stretch from Morondava to Majunga, and I thought I was going to lose the landrover several times driving through rivers, but I swear it could almost swim. No hotels or guest houses, camping unsafe, so I pulled in and ask for shelter at the next/nearest village each night and usually was asked to share a meal with the local chief and assigned a hut. I travelled that stretch with three Malagasy including an anthropologist who wrote our experiences/the journey up for the national newspaper.

    Parts of this west coast are burnt annually keeping the countryside open and grassy for the many zebu cattle. Within these grassy plains there were ‘pockets’ of amazingly diverse vine forest. Not sure how the small areas of remnant forest survived in the expanse of open grassland which was regularly burnt.

    From a biodiversity perspective I saw charcoal as the biggest issue. Not in the remote areas but near Tulear and Majunga. They converted wood, even mangroves, into charcoal because that is what most people cooked on.

    BTW, Marohasy doesn’t much look like a Magasgascan name as Madagascan surnames typically begin with ‘Ra’ or ‘Andriana’. Marohasy has been shortened from Andrianamarohasy, and is Betsileo.

  19. Davey Gam Esq. says

    Thanks Jen,
    I think the survival of lush clumps (‘sacred groves’) within regularly burnt grassland is not surprising. It is known from many parts, including India, Africa, and even Northern Australia. The only reason such groves have survived, in a drying climate, is the fact of frequent protective burning around them. Stop burning the grassland (as some would wish) and it will convert to woody shrubland. Then a fire is fierce enough to burn shrubs, groves and all. I think the stinkwood groves of South Africa were destroyed that way when a colonial botanist (Robert Browne?) stopped grass burning around them in the early nineteenth century. At least he had the good grace to admit his error, instead of blaming global warming.

  21. Pinxi says

    Jen do you have an opinion on the controversy whether eco-tourism helps to conserve or instead damages unique Madagascar environment?

  22. Jennifer says

    I’ve no problems with eco-tourism, and there are probably also jobs in mining.
    The Malagasy (its actually more correct to write Malagasy than Madagascan) have lots of jokes about tourists …and not just Americans. But hey, they are also happy to take their money. Poverty is the biggest threat to the environment.

  23. Davey Gam Esq. says

    Jen,
    Your comparison of some NGO people (only some, Pinxi) with early missionaries is accurate. Local people are rarely fooled for long. An old African once told me how missionaries pointed to heaven with one hand. While the Africans were looking up, their land was stolen. He also described the difference between Africans and Europeans. Africans have curly hair, but inside, the brain is straight. Europeans have straight hair, but inside … well, you can guess. O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others see us, It wad frae mony a blunder free us, And foolish notion. Note for Monsieur Louis Hissink: That was nae French, Jock.

  24. Ian Mott says

    To paraphrase the Eagles, classic song, The Last Resort,

    “They will provide the grand design,
    of what is yours, and what is mine.
    They try to make a new frontier,
    by driving families out of here.
    They called it sustainable (paradise),
    I don’t know why.
    If greens call something sustainable,
    then kiss it all goodbye.”

  25. Pinxi - humour alert for the dry sticks says

    We’re looking for peer-reviewed sources Motty, not beer-reviewed sources

  26. Davey Gam Esq. says

    I like it, Pinxi and Motty,
    This blog needs more brief wit, and less windbag quotes from dubious ‘peer-reviewed’ sources. Is there a Eureka Prize for the most Tedious Scientific Quote of the Year? Should Jennifer award one?