Understorey

RTRFM

In ecology, the understorey grows where light shines through the forest canopy. Our award-winning Understorey journalists highlight local and globally-connected environmental issues that the other media may commonly pass over. RTRFM’s long-running dedicated environment program makers Adrian Glamorgan and Elizabeth PO’ bring together stories from near and sometimes afar, whether it be conservationists rehabilitating habitat, citizen scientists gathering data, campaigners at the frontline, or decision-makers at their desks, seeking solutions together to the challenges affecting our shared air, water, land and life processes.

  1. 12/08/2021

    Understorey Asia: AUKUS vs Climate Action & Peaceful Pathways

    Understorey brings the second part of Adrian Glamorgan’s interview with Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John. Australia’s youngest senator warns that a belligerent “white saviour” attitude is not the best way to ease international tensions in our region.  Jordon argues we should close all foreign bases, conduct a Truth & Reconciliation Commission into our past, honour international treaties, and then our conversations beyond our shores might have more credibility. Climate change is ticking away while the Australian and US governments have distracted the world with their war talk.   While the two major political parties and the mainstream media remain uncritical of our recent and longer history of war-making, Senator Steele-John is convinced that community grassroots action – and the ballot box – will be enough to turn around the Morrison government’s “post-it note” agreement known as the Australia-United Kingdom-United States arms deal. Collage: Jordon Steele-John, Tuvalu drowning, and Virginia Class Submarine, collage by A Glamorgan, using photos sourced from Greens, Tuvalu Government and Creative Commons.

  2. 12/03/2021

    Understorey Asia: AUKUS, Nuclear Proliferation, & the Democratic Deficit

    Australia’s youngest Senator, Jordon Steele-John, is well known for his campaign which led to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. But apart from his concern about peaceful inclusion for people with disability, the Australian Greens Peace and Nuclear Disarmament spokesperson is very clear about the need for peace at an international level, and has been an outspoken critic of the AUKUS nuclear arms deal.  How does the new Australian-United Kingdom-United States alliance highlight the democratic deficit in Australia, especially when it adds to what some sense as the rising militarism?   Today Understorey’s Adrian Glamorgan brings us the first part of an extended interview with Jordon Steele-John about Australia’s engagement with AUKUS and why it is may be a dangerous and costly distraction from the real enemy ticking away at humanity: the urgent need for action on climate. Photo: Jordon Steele-John/Greens’ peace sign, arranged by A Glamorga

  3. 11/23/2021

    Understorey: Beyond COP and Coal is Landscape Pt 1

    Only days after COP26 closed its doors in Glasgow, Woodside and BHP announced they will go ahead as joint venturers building one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel developments, Scarborough gas field in the North West.   The Scarborough Gas “abatement” plan involves increasing emissions until close to the 2050 net zero date.  We’ll let you know how that’s going in 2046.  But for those who were networking outside the COP26 inner sanctum, there’s a very different approach to economic growth in the 21st century.  Banks and fund managers are quietly switching away from coal, and dubious about gas long term, and don’t give promises of carbon capture a thought.  The bankers beyond Australia are funding new kinds of projects – the kinds that are about landscapes and climate action rather than expanding the burning of fossil fuels.  This week Understorey’s Adrian Glamorgan catches up with Paul Chatterton, the founder and lead of the Landscape Finance Lab based in Vienna. Paul’s meetings at COP26 highlight the fact that not all the action in Glasgow was happening in the conference halls.  The 21st century will belong to the innovators.  Around the planet, from Microsoft to the European Union, a new world is being built and investors are finding profits in a zero carbon economy.   Australia, selling coal and arguing gas is a transitional fuel, is in danger of being left behind. Photo: Landscape Finance Lab

  4. 11/16/2021

    Understorey: Climate Justice and Loss & Damage

    On the last day of COP26, hundreds of people representing civil society walked out of the convention centre, wearing blood-red ribbons representing the red lines already crossed by COP26 negotiations. The whole civil society scene at COP was one of strong feelings about climate colonialism,  an opportunity for environmental campaigners, trade unionists, young people, women, academics, farmers and faith groups to challenge an extractive, exploitative economic system. Today Understorey’s Adrian Glamorgan brings you an interview with Grace da Costa, a political campaigner with Quakers, who attended COP26 for the first week,  and who sheds a little light for us about what was behind the hundred thousand marching on the streets: people from civil society in all its forms, calling for the world to recognise climate justice, and for action on loss and damage. Photos: Michael Preston

  5. 11/10/2021

    Understorey: Women of Colour call for Climate Justice

    Climate Justice addresses climate effects that are borne by peoples who have had no real connection with causing the problem, nor have they gained any special benefit from the historic exploitation of fossil fuels. Thus global warming has sometimes been called climate colonialism, while climate justice has been linked to racial justice, because the poorest of the poor tend to be people of colour.  Because of this structural violence of climate consequences, there should be a systematic redistribution of resources, and differential policies and institutions, that would reduce global inequality, and pay for climate adaptation by poorer countries at the richer countries’ expense. Today Understorey features women leaders of colour attending the first day of COP26, each separately calling on world leaders to make practical plans connected with their heart and their genuine will to act: we hear from Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, powerfully laying the call for action at the feet of the polluters; environmental advocate for Samoa, Brianna Fruean, speaking up for island states around the world; and Kenyan environment campaigner, Elizabeth Wathuti, daring world leaders to admit and face the consequences of climate disaster, not just in the future, but as it is happening in Africa right now. Photos: UN Climate Change

  6. 11/02/2021

    Understorey: Youth (and great-grandparents) are Rising Up for Climate

    Yesterday Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was in Scotland, explaining to the world how Australia will stick to its 2015 targets in order to reduce even more carbon.  But not everyone is convinced that recycling the Paris Agreement will keep temperatures rising no more than 1.5 degrees.  The Understorey team brings us some of the young people protesting outside of the Western Australian Parliament a couple of weeks ago.  But not just students and union organisers and grandparents are rising for climate.  Understorey brings a British great-grandparent who yesterday addressed world leaders, and put everyone straight, including Scott Morrison, in the nicest possible way. Photo: A Glamorgan

  7. 10/26/2021

    Understorey: Traditional Owners waiting still to see Minister Dawson’s new Cultural Heritage Bill

    Last year’s  destruction of the 46,000 year old rock caves at Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara was felt around the world.  Those concerned with protecting Aboriginal cultural heritage in Western Australia say Juukan Gorge wasn’t the first event of this kind, and it won’t be the last.  Hundreds of sites are at risk of harm or destruction right now.  Defenders of this cultural heritage are alerting Western Australians to the Jawaren and Garnkiny sites in the East Kimberley; Mt Richardson and Lake Wells in the Goldfields; Burrup and Harding Dam in the Pilbara; and Munday Swamp.  But these are just a few. Protectors of Aboriginal heritage here in WA are pointing to the sites that intersect sacred waterways, cave systems, songlines and sites of significance, many with irreplaceable engravings, paintings and artefacts that are tens of thousands of years old.   These precious places identified by traditional owners can be legally destroyed, right now, if the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs signs off on it – and it seems this will continue. Traditional owners want to see the Minister’s bill, which has been withheld from circulation to all but a few; they want these new laws to give Traditional Owners the final say over sites of significance; and also to meet with the Minister.  The Understorey team has requested an interview with Minister Dawson – and have asked for a copy of the proposed legislation… Photo: Aboriginal Martu (Western Desert) Elder Bruce Thomas & Nyamal (North Pilbara) Elder Doris Eaton speak to the Walk, by A Glamorgan

  8. 10/19/2021

    Understorey: Finding WA’s Climate Courage

    WA Climate Leaders want the Minister for Climate Action, Amber-Jade Sanderson, to set clear climate targets that honour the 2015 Paris agreements, and to lead the whole community in the face of our new climate realities. That includes explaining why we mustn’t allow warming of our climate more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, but also recognising the business opportunities that are waiting for us to become renewable global leaders. WA Climate Leaders is a network that came out of the 2020 visit to Perth by UN negotiator Christiana Figueres, who managed the impossible – bringing the leaders of 195 countries into a global consensus at COP21, creating the 2015 Paris Agreement.  Last year, Figueres came to Perth, but not one representative from the state government was able to find time to share a public stage with her, to talk about their action on climate.  That lack of leadership from the state government (and the reluctance of oil and gas to talk about the issue) shocked facilitator Meri Fatin into action.  Since March 2020 she has been working independently to create a Climate Leaders’ network in Western Australia, comprising business and industry leaders working across diverse networks to strongly encourage our state political leaders into action. Meri Fatin supports Brad Pettitt’s Climate Action Bill introduced to state parliament last week because it is consistent with the Paris Agreement, and similar initiatives in other states and territories, and thus deserves cross-party and mainstream support. Meanwhile she calls on Western Australians to educate themselves about the issue, speak to politicians about their concerns, think carefully about their vote and, where appropriate, move their money. Photo Collage: Meri Fatin, Christian Figueres, Amber-Jade Sanderson

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About

In ecology, the understorey grows where light shines through the forest canopy. Our award-winning Understorey journalists highlight local and globally-connected environmental issues that the other media may commonly pass over. RTRFM’s long-running dedicated environment program makers Adrian Glamorgan and Elizabeth PO’ bring together stories from near and sometimes afar, whether it be conservationists rehabilitating habitat, citizen scientists gathering data, campaigners at the frontline, or decision-makers at their desks, seeking solutions together to the challenges affecting our shared air, water, land and life processes.

Information

  • Creator
    RTRFM
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2021
  • Episodes
    99
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright RTRFM - For Personal Use Only
  • Show Website
    Understorey