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Activists in Australia and France Target Ports to Highlight Causes

port protests
Police providing passage to a bulker at the Port of Newcastle on Friday (Rising Tide)

Published Nov 22, 2024 5:50 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Ports have become the renewed target of activists seeking to highlight their causes and advance their complaints against their governments. In Australia, hundreds of protestors descended on the Port of Newcastle and the surrounding beach while in France farmers finally withdrew their blockade of the Port of Bordeaux while vowing to continue their demonstrations.

French farmers had been blockading the country’s seventh-busiest port and one of the largest grain terminals in the country to highlight their opposition to an EU trade deal. The deal calls for reducing tariffs on the South American trade bloc known as Mercosur. Farmers are protesting the increased competition and highlighting that it will reduce standards on the quality of products.

According to French authorities over 335 farmers and 186 agricultural machines participated in the demonstrations that stretched across seven regions in the southwest and south of France. The port of Bordeaux as well as distribution centers were among the targets with the farmers dumping tires and other debris on the access roads and parking their trucks.

 

 

The protests began Wednesday night, November 20, with the farmers calling for abandoning all the principles of the Mercosur agreement or renegotiating the agreement for better terms, despite it having never been officially ratified. The demonstrations were organized by a group calling itself Coordination Rural which said it would lead an agricultural revolt.

The farmers agreed to unblock the entrances to the Port of Bordeaux on Friday morning, November 22, and one of the key purchasing centers while vowing to continue the fight. They were also calling for actions in the Port of Rouen. In addition, another French union, Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d'Exploitants Agricoles (FNSEA), has called for additional actions Tuesday through Thursday next week.

Australian Climate Protestors

At the Port of Newcastle, the planned “People’s Blockade” went into full force on Friday and is scheduled to continue again on Saturday, November 23. Organizers in a group called Rising Tide have said it is their goal to blockade the port for 50 hours as part of a larger 10-day effort that is part demonstration and part festival. 

The group was emboldened when the New South Wales Supreme Court ruled late on Thursday that the government’s effort to set up a blockade zone around the port could not proceed. The court reaffirmed the right to peaceful protests while cautioning that that did not mean all efforts, especially endangering port operations, would be lawful.

The NSW Police Force issued a statement saying it would adopt “a zero-tolerance approach to actions which threaten public safety and the safe passage of vessels. For their own safety and that of the other users of the port, we request that people who still attend this event refrain from entering the harbor on kayaks or other vessels with the intention to obstruct other users of the port, or engage in other forms of civil disobedience.”

 

Police escorting a bulker after protestors attempted to block the Port of Newcastle (Ben Pennings on X/courtesy of Rising Tide)

 

Protestors turned out on Friday and promised to return Saturday to the Port of Newcastle (Rising Tide)

 

Despite the warning, the group released pictures showing a small flotilla of kayaks, canoes, and surfboards in the harbor while others encouraged them from the beach chanting “This is what democracy looks like.”

The group is demanding an end to coal exports, canceling all new fossil fuel projects, and the imposition of a 78 percent tax on profits from the export of fossil fuels to fund the industrial transition and compensate communities. 

Reports said the police were called out using their boats and jet skis to clear the protestors when they attempted to block the bulker Eternal Bliss (82,000 dwt registered in Singapore) as it was departing Newcastle for China yesterday, November 21. Today’s pictures showed the Hong Kong-registered bulker ITG Uming 3 (82,000 dwt) attempting to navigate inbound from China while the Liberia-registered bulker Mount Matterhorn (208,000 dwt) was departing for Japan. 

The mood was summed up by one of the protestors, an 84-year-old woman who told the media “Unless we take direction action, no one’s going to take any notice.” The group was vowing another day of protests on Saturday in the harbor.