Clean up the beach [& your soul!]

by Kevin Miles (Environmental Officer)

On April 20 there is going to be a beach clean-up at Oriental Bay, "So what?"

Publicity obviously; radio announcers will be there, newspaper reporters, 2ZM, 2ZB.... the whole works. "Publicity for what?" To tell people that there is still an environment around to live in this year and probably for a couple more years. But also to tell them that we may not always be so optimistic, if we remain complacent.

So what can Ecology Action do? Are they just a useless bunch of EcoFreaks helplessly decrying the situation? Obviously so much will only be superficial talk. Even if it is possible to make local bodies create suitable environmental laws, they still must adequately enforce them and as with any other situation, the majority of the people must be in accord with the laws to make them work.

But the environment crisis is more basic—it's life styles that require changing as well. As Wendell Berry says in "Think Little "—"....the environmental crisis rises closer to home. Every time we draw a breath, every time we drink a glass of water, every time we eat a bit of food we are suffering from it, And more important, every time we indulge in, or depend on, the wastefulness of our economy—and our economy's first principle is waste—we are causing the crisis. Nearly every one of us, nearly every day of his life, is contributing directly to the ruin of this planet. A protest meeting on the issue of environmental abuse is not a convocation of accusers, it is a convocation of the guilty. That realisation ought to clear the smog of self-righteousness that almost conventionally hovered over these occasions, and let us see the work that is to be done."

And the work is understanding our position fully in respect to our environment and educating by example once this position is understood. If we start at Oriental Bay maybe, just maybe, we can make a clean sweep of the whole town, and go right to the hearts of the people: "not by words will we find truth, but by the side of a sewerage outlet and on a congested motorway."