The lengths to which climate-action protesters will go to get their message heard is ratcheting up, but so, too, are the level of police action and the severity of the punishments being handed down by the courts. A much harder line is being taken against protesters, with higher costs imposed, along with other penalties.
A Kiwi from the “Just Stop Oil” group was recently given a three-year jail term in England, and it’s likely local protesters will face ever more severe penalties if there’s a change of government here.
In 2019, Extinction Rebellion members blocked a coal train from reaching the Port of Lyttelton. Nineteen people were arrested, but none were charged. A couple of months later, “dozens of arrests” were made at a big Extinction Rebellion protest in Wellington, but, again, no charges were laid.
Later that year, Christchurch man Dylan Parker became the first Extinction Rebellion activist to be charged in NZ for illegally being in a building, at the New Zealand Gas Industry Forum. This charge was dropped the following year.
Between December 2020 and April 2021, climate protesters blocked a railway line in Dunedin four times to try to stop Fonterra’s coal deliveries from Bathurst Resources’ Nightcaps mine. No one was detained or charged at any of these protests.
Police appeared reluctant to arrest climate protesters and even less likely to charge them until 2021, when there seemed to be a change of position, shortly after the government declared a “climate change emergency”.
The “Restore Passenger Rail” movement arrived in New Zealand in 2022 to push for a return to train travel. Only three national rail routes are left of the almost 100 that existed in the 1950s.
Although Restore Passenger Rail protesters had a popular cause, their methods were anything but. In October last year, small groups of protesters blocked roads with their bodies. They returned to the capital earlier this year and stopped traffic seven times, much to Wellingtonians’ frustration, and were back again in recent weeks. A number of repeat protesters were charged with both bail offences and a new charge of “endangering transport”, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years’ jail.
The most recent people to pay a stiff price for activism are long-time climate protester Rosemary Penwarden, who sent a satirical email cancelling the annual Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of NZ conference in Queenstown in 2019, and Siana Fitzjohn and Nick Hanafin, who boarded the giant mobile oil-drilling rig, the COSL Prospector, as it travelled near the Marlborough Sounds in March 2020.
Despite Penwarden’s email being a pretty obvious fake, Penwarden was convicted in Dunedin last June for two charges of forgery and using a forged document. She awaits sentence, with the latter charge carrying a possible 10-year jail term.
The following month, Fitzjohn and Hanafin were refused a discharge without conviction. The charges relate to breaches of a controversial amendment to the Crown Minerals Act, which specifically outlaws interference with deep-sea oil exploration and carries a maximum penalty of a year in prison or a $50,000 fine. The Austrian owner, OMV, claims the activists’ actions cost the company $39,084, which the judge could yet order Fitzjohn and Hanafin to repay.
So, why are these people risking big fines and possible jail time? Many of us have been active in the climate/conservation movement for more than 20 years, but in that time, we’ve seen no progress. There have been 32 international climate conferences, but still, worldwide emissions keep growing. Even the declaration of a “climate change emergency” here has not yet resulted in concrete actions, other than more talk and delays.
We will not save our environment by persecuting the people trying to protect it.
Bruce Mahalski is a Dunedin-based conservationist and artist who is active in both the peace and climate movements.
