Paradigm Shift 1 Nov 2013

Ian talks with Otway Ranges Environmental Network OREN spokesperson and Andy Paine, sometime forest blockader.

This is the story the Otways Ranges Environment Network (OREN), a diverse grassroots network of people who devoted seven years of their lives to successfully end clearfell logging and woodchipping of biodiverse native forest in the Otways Ranges.

Many in OREN suffered violence, incarceration, financial loss and finally abandonment by the peak environmental groups and the Greens Party yet won their campaign using a decentralised, regionally focused activist strategy.

There were both the external and internal conflicts OREN faced, the highs and the lows and the unrelenting devotion of those involved, from activists living in trees to Collins street business-men.

OREN still attracts attention as a case study to inspire similar campaigns around the world.