From the 31st of January till the 14th of Febuary a crew of 9 activists from varied backgrounds and cities came together to tour along the Murray river from Albury to Swan Hill, through Wiradjuri, Yorta Yorta, and Wamba Wamba nations, talking to both primary and high schools about the gold mine currently under construction at Lake Cowal and how it may affect their lives, as the Lake shares the same water network as the Murray River. Over the weeks we spoke to about 700 students, in four different towns, and camped by the beautiful Murray every night. The tour was kind of a practise run for the water cycle tour,( which may or may not happen) where a bigger crew will canoue the same route to spread the word about the Lake Cowal Campaign.

Although one primary school kicked us out and accused us of spreading leftie propaganda, generally the reaction from kids and teachers was really positive, considering only one of us had ever taught a school class before and we all looked pretty wild compared to... well, everyone. We all have a general knowledge of what is going down at Lake Cowal (see link on bottom of this article for more info), and of environmental problems along the Murray, but to split the work load we all had areas of expertise, and shared the talking in what quickly became a routine script. We also used a power point presentation and videos, as well as some old skool blackboard action to explain the gold mine, and the significance of Lake Cowal, and link it locally.

The biggest issues we faced were being seen as enforcing our political views onto the impressionable minds of youth, and being seen as attacking farmers, which is really full on when you are talking to a class where 20 out of 25 kids parents are farmers. To avoid the first, we acknowledged our bias up front, and with the high school kids, we split them up into interest groups: locals, aboriginals, and environmentalists. We then took on the role of Barrick Gold to debate the different view points of the gold mine. Despite having to work through lots of teenage apathy, the arguments they came up with were nearly always pretty realistic. We also tried to hint at the fact that what they are fed in class everyday is also propaganda and biased, but with at least one teacher supervising every class we were limited in the extent of out dialogue with the kids.

As for the second issue I still don't feel as if we resolved it. What we are doing was telling kids that the way their parents farmed was playing a role in destroying the Murray river through salinity and over irrigation. Luckily for us, the salinity issue is so huge that alot of farmers are already taking action by planting trees and reducing irrigation, so kids told us about what they had already done instead of feeling accused and helpless.

Many of the teachers were really shocked to find out about the gold mine, especially as they understand the nature of the land and the flood plains out there, and we distributed heaps of Lake Cowal booklets and has some really great conversations.

Thanks crew, jEs, Ange, Rory, Mia, No, and Stephan xxxx
The tour couldn't have happened without funding and the loan of a van from the College of Fine Art, U.N.S.W. student association, so cheers to them, and so jEs for doing the original prep, and sticking out the hard yards and no for being a legend kitchen bitch and never complaining about the slug.

For more information on the Lake Cowal campaign go to www.savelakecowal.org
For more information on the environmental issues around the Murray river just google it, there are heaps of different organisations working on it. To find out more about the tour or ask questions, please email Indi or jEs > royalrebelriot@hotmail.com
scootajam@hotmail.