Ian Cohen

Green Fire Ian Cohen

"The Terania forest protest set a significant precedent. It gave voice with awesome power to the ideals and aspirations of a generation alienated from mainstream society. The green fire ignited in the rainforests of Terania continues to burn to this day."

Ian Cohen came to international attention in 1986 when he was photographed hanging onto the bow of a US nuclear-armed warship entering Sydney Harbour in protest against the nuclear arms race. In Green Fire, Cohen, the first Green member of the NSW Parliament, looks back over sixteen years of radical environmentalism. Cohen tells it as it was on the ground, at protests such as the 1982 Nightcap Forest campaign, the Franklin River blockade, Roxby Downs uranium mine protests, Daintree, the Chaeundi old growth forest campaign in northern NSW and the campaign to end French nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

Green Fire is a gripping, powerful and insightful account of the Australian environmental protest movement, a movement which has transformed Australian politics.