The challenge of environmentalism in modern Australia

Written by: Leo A. on 28 April 2025

In the 21st century, the accelerating environmental crisis both in Australia and globally has sparked increased interest among the masses in advocating for environmental preservation and protection. Notable relevant groups in Australia include the Australian Conservation Foundation, Lock The Gate, and perhaps most prominently The Wilderness Society. Unfortunately, the environmental movement in Australia has been hindered by several key flaws. 

Lacking a Marxist understanding of the environmental crisis and its root causes, these environmental organisations currently suffer from an all-too-common case of “focusing on the symptoms, not the disease”. As a result of this lack of a deeper understanding, they don’t know who their potential allies are, and work in isolation from other working-class movements. They seem more dedicated to organising events than to organising people. 

This lack of class consciousness hides a distant history of past successes, the methodology to which appears to have been ignored or forgotten by these organisations in their current form. For example, The Wilderness Society has gone from its successful thousands-strong mass campaign against what would have been the ecologically-devastating Franklin River Dam over forty years ago, to expecting thirty voicemail messages in the Premier’s office to save the Great Koala National Park this year.

The Wilderness Society also has runs on the board in respect of the campaigns to stop multinational oil companies from drilling for oil in the Great Australia Bight. This five-year campaign united Indigenous communities, regional Councils, the surfing and fishing communities and working people, and was successful. 

They still have a vague understanding that the masses have the power to make a difference, as evidenced by promotional material last year which claimed that millions-strong mass action could end Australia’s use of fossil fuels within a decade. But they appear to have lost the knowledge of how to build a mass movement, and are unaware of how to expand it to such a scale, how important doing so is, and the wider context the environmental struggle is a part of.  

Does the environmental movement in Australia have a good future ahead of it? If it can be guided in the right direction, yes. But that is a critical “if”, and in our age of accelerating catastrophe this matter is more important than it has ever been before. A Marxist understanding of the world, or a lack of it, can have real-world consequences even in our pre-revolutionary capitalist society. 

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