Our new cathedrals: spirituality and old-growth forests in Western Australia

Our new cathedrals: spirituality and old-growth forests in
Western Australia

David Worth, National Native Title Tribunal

This essay explores why two Western Australian (WA) social movement organisations

(SMOs) on opposite sides of the logging debate have continued to contest the forest policy

issue after thirty years.1 Implicit in this focus is an understanding that other major Australian

environmental debates were concluded more quickly.2 During my research I analysed census

data gathered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for the period 1971- 2001. I chose

this starting point as it coincided with an intensification of the debate over the appropriateness

of WA’s forest policy following the formation of the Campaign to Save Native Forests

(CSNF) in 1969 (Mills 1986, 229). This paper reports the findings from my research and

subsequent exploration of other data sets to investigate particular social and economic factors

about the people living in the south-west of Western Australia.

I utilise the New Social Movement (NSM) theoretical approach (Inglehart 1977; Maheu, ed.

1995; Melucci 1980) and propose that the demographic and economic factors identified from

the ABS data may provide an explanation for some of the change in public attitude toward the

logging of the remaining native forests in WA. The new public attitude became more obvious

in the late 1990s and assisted the anti-logging SMOs to achieve the end of logging after a 32-

year campaign. At the 2001 State election the Australian Labour Party gained power and

swiftly moved to stop the logging of old growth native forests (The West Australian 2001, 1).

I unexpectedly discovered that the level of reported religious affiliation had fallen

dramatically in the south-west of WA throughout the period of the anti-logging campaign. I

1 The debate over the logging and woodchipping of native forests in Australia has been traced by Dargavel
(1995) back to the seminal publication by the Routleys of The Fight for the Forests (1973).
2 For examples of particular Australian environmental campaigns, see Hutton and Connors (1999).

PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies Vol.3, no.1 January 2006
ISSN: 1449-2490
http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/portal

Worth Our new cathedrals

suggest that those West Australians who now report no religious affiliation fulfill their

spiritual needs by a greater connection to the aesthetic qualities offered by the natural

environment, particularly old-growth forests.

Theoretical framework

While some authors contest the nomenclature of ‘new’ (Cohen 1985, 663), most agree that

there is something worth studying about the range of social movements (such as peace, anti-

nuclear, gender and environmental) that have proliferated in developed Western societies

since the mid-1970s. Cohen identified the rapidity of their formation, their replication in

many Western countries, and their influence on political systems, as defining factors of these

movements. The New Social Movement literature assisted me in understanding how changes

in public values affected the external political and social environment in WA and in exploring

how the changes in values are linked to particular socio-demographic changes in WA.

The labeling of movements involved in campaigning on issues, such as the environment, as

‘new’ is often made against the approach to ‘older’ movements as movements of the working

class opposed to the power of ‘capital’ (Burgmann 1993, 5). Thus, the NSM approach defies

earlier Marxist class-based understandings of social movements, such as Burgmann’s, and

focused on factors that developed new values. Burgmann claims that NSMs are mainly

supported by people from the middle social class, and their activists and intellectual core

supporters were often well-educated public sector employees, such as teachers. Further, she

claims that the NSM support base consisted of social classes that were immune from the

commercial and economic pressures that were a characteristic of the older movements (1993,

1-6).

Berger et al. (1973, 170) highlight how the importance of ‘intellectuals’ or ‘elites’ derives

from their origins in a social class that acted as a ‘carrier group’ for new ideologies and values

in western societies. Likewise, Scott (1990, 138), while recognising that the new politics

appeal to more than class interests, state that NSMs ‘are typically either predominantly

movements of the educated middle classes, especially the “new middle class”, or of the most

educated/privileged section of the less privileged groups.’ The involvement of society’s well-

educated sector is an important point of focus in this paper.

Inglehart’s (1977, 28) empirical analysis of surveys in the early 1970s in six European

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Community countries led him to propose that individuals brought up in western countries

under conditions of peace and relative prosperity since World War II (such as Australia)

would be most likely to have ‘postmaterial’ values. According to Inglehart, the shift in values

away from ‘materialist’ concerns about economics and physical security caused ‘the decline

of elite-directed political mobilisation and the rise of elite-challenging issue orientated

groups’ (1977, 28). In Inglehart’s view, policy formation on many issues (such as the

environment) has thus moved from that led by mainstream political parties, with their

traditional allegiance to labour (in Australia the Australian Labor Party, ALP) or capital (the

Liberal Party/National Party Coalition), to a situation whereby NSMs construct new policy

ideas and approaches. In other words, Inglehart suggests that changing values within a society

facilitate the emergence of new social advocacy organisations that, in turn, shape new

government policies as the policy elite respond to these new pressures.

Pakulski and Crook (1998, 5) cite other researchers’ concerns with Inglehart’s reliance on

value categories, as well as his inability to explain how new individual values translate into a

coherent environment movement. However, Gundelach (1984, 1049) supports Inglehart’s

ideas of postmaterial values and develops them further by arguing that ‘new’ movements have

common features and are related to the transition from an industrial society to a post-

industrial one. Inglehart and Abramson (1995, 3) conclude that the major long-term force

driving the increase in postmaterial values was generational replacement. They report that

about 40 percent of the adult European population was replaced between 1970 and 1990, and

argue that these older people were replaced with younger people with more postmaterial

values. I utilise this idea of different generational values to understand changes in the south-

west of WA.

Research setting

The Federal Government’s Resource Assessment Commission (RAC) conducted research in

1991 that is unique in that it is the only research that has utilised Inglehart’s framework in an

Australian setting. In a national poll conducted during its inquiry into the Australian forest

industry, the RAC (1991, 1) found that the majority of Australians were in favour of the

halting of logging in National Estate forests, even if it caused economic hardship. They also

found that the poll respondents most frequently nominated ‘the environment’ as a national

problem, surpassing economic issues such as unemployment and interest rates. A multivariate

analysis of their survey data indicated that involvement in social movements and personality

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values were the strongest predictors of individual attitudes towards the forests. These results

(RAC 1991, 8) also confirmed Inglehart’s earlier findings (1977, 28) that people aged over 55

years have a far less postmaterial orientation than younger age groups. One critical outcome

of the RAC’s research in relation to attitudes to environmental issues was that it found that

opposition to using native forests for economic purposes (e.g. logging and woodchipping) was

strongly related to three factors: socio-economic status, such as having a university degree;

being female; and having visited a native forest in the previous year (RAC, 1991, 44).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has been tracking Australian environmental

attitudes every two years since 1992 with similarly worded questions to those asked by the

RAC. Its latest report provides data over a range of issues and finds that Australians with a

higher weekly household income have greater concern for environmental problems than other

socioeconomic groups. In line with the RAC poll, the survey found that concern for

environmental problems increases with education levels: 70 percent of people with skilled

vocational training expressed environmental concern, and this figure rises to 90 percent for

people with postgraduate university degrees (2001, 20). Both of these findings from the ABS

support Inglehart’s findings that income and education levels predict postmaterial attitudes

toward the environment.

Quekett (2000, 20) suggests that WA people were ‘the most environmentally-aware people in

Australia.’ Table 1 presents data from the 2001 Australian Election Survey to show that

higher percentages of WA electors agree that environmental issues are extremely important to

them.

Table 1: State Ranking of the Importance of Protecting the Environment

WA SA VIC ACT NSW TAS QLD NT
Extremely Important 49% 49% 48% 47% 46% 45% 42% 67%
Quite Important 45% 41% 43% 45 % 45% 40% 48% 17%
Not Important 6% 10% 9% 7% 9% 16% 11% 17%

(ANU 2002)3

3 The wording of the question was: “Here is a list of important issues that were discussed during the election
campaign. When you were deciding about how to vote, how important was each of these issues to you
personally? Environment”. These results include the responses from only 6 voters from the Northern Territory.
That NT sample was only 15 people.

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The total population in WA in 2000 was about 1.89 million people, with most (1.39 million)

residing in the capital city of Perth and its surrounding suburbs (ABS 2002). Approximately

19,000 people lived in the south-west region that contains most of WA’s remaining native

forests—the small area bounded by the coast and an imaginary line between Busselton in the

west and Albany in the south (see the map below). The data reported below examines some of

the changes that occurred to population, education, religious affiliation and industry in the

south-west region of WA during the period 1971-2001. In particular, it focuses on three local

government areas (LGAs) about 400km south of Perth. These are: Manjimup, which contains

the majority of WA’s native forest reserves, and the Denmark LGA to the east and the

Augusta-Margaret River LGA to the west.

Western Australia’s South-West Local Government Areas

Research results
Population Changes

Table 2 (below) identifies the static nature of population growth within the Manjimup LGA

over the 1971-2001 period compared with the LGAs on either side of it. The lower population

growth rate of 15 percent over the 30 year period for Manjimup can be explained by two

factors: the greater use of technology in lieu of labour in logging forests; and the overall

declining output of the WA timber industry. The higher growth rate of the Augusta-Margaret

River LGA to the west (320 percent) can be explained by the dramatic growth of new

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industries in that region (e.g. the tourist, mining and vineyard industries, described in more

detail below). Table 2 indicates that all three LGAs suffered a slight population slump in the

early 1970s and their later population growth seems to coincide with the period after the first

vineyards were established in the region in 1968 (Zekulich 2002, 12).

Table 2. South-West Regional Population Growth (1971-2001)

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

19
71

19
76

19
81

19
86

19
91

19
96

20
01

Year

P
op

ul
at

io
n

Manjimup
A-Margaret River
Denmark

(ABS 1976; ABS 1986; ABS 1996; ABS 2002)

The higher population growth in the Denmark and Margaret River LGAs seems to be due to

people migrating to these regions rather than from internal population growth. This is shown

in Table 3 (below), which compares the numbers of people born in each LGA in 1971 and the

number in the corresponding 30-34 age group in 2001. This table shows that in 2001 there

were less people in the latter age group in Manjimup than were born in 1971, while this

cohort has nearly tripled in the Augusta-Margaret River LGA due to migration. Migration to

these areas can be explained by a number of factors, including the greater number of Perth

people retiring to live in the south-west, a beautiful region that is close to both the coast and

the remaining native forests. Additionally, younger and better-educated people were attracted

by new employment opportunities in the new industries in the region. The economic growth

over the period 1970-2000 has seen the coastal region between Bunbury and Augusta host a

new range of industries, services and employment opportunities. Table 4 (below) compares

the population distribution for all three south-west LGAs, and shows a higher percentage of

the population in the Margaret River LGA for people in the prime employment age cohort

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(30-50 years). This migration to the Margaret River and Denmark LGAs will have brought

people with higher education levels, such as professional support service staff (e.g. doctors,

teachers, government staff and managers). Such people are likely to be more supportive of

postmaterial values toward the environment (Burgmann 1993; Scott 1990).

Table 3. LGA Comparison of Population Cohorts (1971-2001)

Local Government

Area

No. of People in 0-4

Age Group (1971)

No. of People in 30-34

Age Group (2001)

% of Original 1971

Pop. Group in 2001

Manjimup 968 670 69%
Denmark 145 271 187%
Augusta-Margaret
River

286 804 281%

(ABS 1971; ABS 2002)

Table 4. LGA Population distribution (1996)

0.000

0.020

0.040

0.060

0.080

0.100

0.120

0_
4

5_
9

10
_1

15
_1

20
_2

25
_2

30
_3

35
_3

40
_4

45
_4

50
_5

55
_5

60
_6

65
_6

70
_O

ve
r

Age Groups

%
o

f P
op

Manjimup
Den.
MR

(ABS 1996)

Education

Authors writing about NSMs have found an association between education levels and

attitudes supportive of these NSMs (Burgmann 1993; Crook & Pakulski 1995). Table 5

(below) identifies an increase in university qualifications4 for all three south-west LGAs over

the last 30 years. In 1971Manjimup had a similar level of residents with university

4 These ABS education figures include people with bachelor degrees, postgraduate diplomas and higher degrees
(eg PhDs).

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qualifications compared to the Margaret River LGA and twice that of the Denmark LGA. By

2001 it had less than 6 percent of its residents with university qualifications while the two

LGAs on either side had nearly 50 percent more.

Table 5. Level of University Qualifications in LGAs (1971-2001)

1971
Qualifications

2001
Qualifications

Region No. % No. %
Manjimup 56 0.6 572 5.7
Denmark 6 0.3 402 9.2

Augusta -Margaret
River

24 0.8 911 9.2

WA 12,728 1.2 174,001 9.4

Australia 177,639 2.0 1,918,913 10.1

(ABS 1971; ABS 2002)

Religion

An important demographic change is the reported religious affiliation of those living in all

three LGAs. In 1971 the south-west LGAs had a similar proportion of Christians and those

reporting no religious attachment to the figures for WA and Australia as a whole.5 However,

by 2001 all three south-west LGAs had fewer Christians and more people with no religious

attachment than either the WA or Australian average (Table 6, below). Manjimup, of the

south-west LGAs, was the closest to the national and state averages with 60 percent reporting

themselves as Christian compared to the state average of 63 percent. Table 7 (below) tracks

the changes in religious affiliation for the three south-west LGAs over the 30 year period.

This indicates that the changes in religious affiliation plateaued in 1996, but remain at very

high levels compared to other WA and Australian LGAs. The Denmark LGA has nearly twice

the national average of people reporting no religious affiliation.

5 Respondents are asked to identify their religion by the major beliefs (e.g. Christian, Buddhist) as well as ‘no
religion’ which includes Agnosticism, Atheism, Humanism and Rationalism.

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Table 6: Reported Religious Orientation (1971-2001)

1971 Christian Other Religion No Religion

Region % of Pop. % of Pop. % of Pop

Manjimup 7,685 88% 0.1% 595 7%
Denmark 1,518 85% 0.1% 131 7%

A-Margaret

River

2,650 85% 0.0% 254 8%

WA 869,878 84% 0.6% 90,361 9%

Australia 10,990,379 86% 0.8% 855,676 7%

2001 Christian Other Religion No Religion

Region % of Pop. % of Pop. % of Pop.

Manjimup 6,073 60% 0.5% 2,445 24%
Denmark 2,138 49% 1.4% 1,364 31%

A- Margaret

River
5,059 51% 1.0% 2,782 28%

WA 1,160,787 63% 2.2% 361,011 19%

Australia 12,764,342 67% 2.9% 2,905,993 15%

(ABS 1971; ABS 2002)

Table 7: Changes in religious affiliation (1971-2001)

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%

100%

D
en

m
ar

k
19

71
19

76
19

86
19

91
19

96
20

01
M

an
jim

up
1

97
1

19
76

19
86

19
91

19
96

20
01

M
ar

ga
re

t R
1

97
1

19
76

19
86

19
91

19
96

20
01

Christian
No religion

(Adapted from ABS 1971; ABS 1986; ABS 1996; ABS 2002)

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Industry changes in the south-west

By the end of the twentieth century, the export value of timber products (excluding

woodchips) had fallen dramatically to $19 million, or less than 0.1% of WA’s total exports

(ABS 1998, 309). At the beginning of the twentieth century timber exports represented about

10 to 12% of WA’s annual exports and in 1910 they were valued at $500 million in 2000

Australian dollar terms (Forestry Department 1969). Other export commodities developed in

the later part of the twentieth century, such as iron ore ($3,800 million per annum), petroleum

products ($3,800 million per annum) and natural gas ($1,900 million per annum), had annual

export values far greater than those for timber exports (ABS 2002, 13). Within the period

1920-70 timber had moved from being a critical WA export product to a peripheral one.

In contrast, tourism and vineyard industries have grown in significance. A report by the WA

Tourism Commission (2001) indicated that the value of domestic visitors to the south-west

region was as high as $422 million, with over 1.5 million domestic visitors staying

overnight.6. Importantly, in terms of my research, more than 76 percent of the visitors to the

south-west were from the Perth region with 90 percent travelling to the region by car (WATC

2001, 3). Nearly half of these domestic visitors to the region had an annual household income

of more than $52,000 per annum—substantially higher than the average annual income for

WA (WATC 2001, 5). These figures indicate the easy access and use of the south-west region

for holidays and recreation by middle class and wealthy people from Perth. Popular activities

enjoyed by these domestic visitors included visiting parks and the forest. This indicates a

strong attachment between Perth residents and the natural attractions of the south-west. The

West Australian Premier reported that by the late 1990s the tourism industry employed 7,000

people in the south-west, while the forestry industry employed just over 1,000.7

Similarly, in 2000 overseas grape export volumes from WA increased to more than 40 times

that of 1990 levels (ABS 2001b, 3). The export value of $31.1 million (DLGRD 2002, 13)

was twice that reported for timber exports in the same period (CALM 2000, 95). The

economic value to WA, however, is not limited to its overseas exports: interstate wine exports

in 2000 were valued at $72.3 million (DLGRD 2000, 13) and the wine industry also

contributed to the growth of the south-west tourism industry outlined above. The wine

6 Some people made more than one visit to the south-west and it was visited by 72,000 international visitors.
7 Hansard WA Legislative Assembly 4 May 1999, 7756/2.

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industry’s value to south-west regional economies is also important in terms of employment.

Wine-related employment is centred on the Margaret River LGA, which has nearly 50 percent

of the wine employees in the south-west.

Further data on key factors

The information gathered above indicates that the changes in anti-logging attitudes between

1971 and 2001 in the south-west LGAs can be explained by an influx of younger, better

educated people who came to work in the new non-forest-based industries. In terms of the

NSM literature, important factors are the high level of non-religious affiliation, gender, and

the education levels of these intra-state migrants. The falling level of no reported religious

affiliation in the south-west LGAs is unusual for the state. The only other LGAs in WA with

levels above 30% are in remote LGAs with smaller mining populations consisting of young

and well-educated men. I do not further discuss the importance of gender as a factor in the

development of new values toward the natural environment and participation in NSMs but

have done so elsewhere (Worth 2004).

Table 8: Concern for Logging, by Religious Affiliation

No Religion Catholic Anglican Uniting Orthodox Presbyterian

Not urgent 1 3.2% 5.0% 5.1% 9.6% 3.4% 8.3%

2 9.5% 14.0% 12.7% 9.0% 19.0% 15.5%
Fairly urgent 3 15.6% 27.7% 26.9% 28.8% 27.6% 26.2%
4 20.4% 20.0% 17.2% 23.1% 17.2% 16.7%
4 20.4% 20.0% 17.2% 23.1% 17.2% 16.7%
Very urgent 5 51.3% 33.3% 38.0% 29.5% 32.8% 33.3%

(ANU 2002) 8

The link I suggest between the absence of a religious affiliation and the development of new

attitudes to the logging of forests in WA is supported by the results obtained from the national

2001 Australian Election Study (Table 8). This shows that voters reporting no religious

affiliation have a far higher concern about the logging of native forests than do those with

various Christian religious affiliations. More than 86 percent of those surveyed with no

religious affiliation rank their concerns for the logging of forests as fairly or very urgent. This

8 The wording of the question was ‘In your opinion, how urgent are each of the following environmental
concerns in this country? Logging of forests.’

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survey also indicates that those with post-secondary education qualifications have a greater

concern for the logging of native forests than those without one (Table 9), supporting my

proposal that rising levels of higher education in WA also helps to explain the change in

values toward the logging of native forests in south-west LGAs between 1971-2001.

Table 9. Concern for Logging, by Education Qualification

Post-graduate Graduate Diploma Other None
Not urgent 1 1.7% 2.9% 4.9% 4.2% 7.8%
2 7.5% 15.0% 11.5% 14.1% 10.9%
Fairly urgent 3 27.0% 17.0% 21.3% 24.1% 28.1%
4 21.3% 24.8% 19.7% 20.5% 16.7%
Very urgent 5 42.5% 40.3% 42.6% 37.1% 36.4%

(ANU 2002)

There appears to be no research data about a person’s attitude to the environment and their

spiritual needs. I argue that those West Australians who report no religious affiliation have

their spiritual needs met by non-religious sources, such as the aesthetic qualities of the natural

environment in the south-west. The anti-logging SMOs seem to have recognised this and a

key part of their campaign was the use of images of old-growth forests in newspaper

advertisements, campaign posters and TV news stories. These images formed an important

part of their campaign to particularly reach West Australians who had not recently visited the

native forests in the south-west. For example, on 4 June 1998, a large colour photo of well-

known football coach Mick Malthouse beside the stump of a large karri tree that had been

logged, appeared on the front page of The West Australian. The accompanying story

announced his opposition to the logging of old-growth forests (Miller 1998, 1). This

photograph, placed in a prominent location in WA’s only daily newspaper, was an example of

Reich’s suggestion that new public attitudes can be altered by images rather than by reasoning

and the statement of facts (1988, 79). The effective use of images in environmental campaigns

in Australia dates back to the Franklin Dam campaign in Tasmania (The Wilderness Society

1983).

The ANU data above supports the argument that new spiritual values that encompass the

natural environment are also linked to the opposition to the logging of old-growth forests.

There needs to be more research undertaken to see how an attachment to the natural

environment might provide a person’s spiritual needs and how it might differ from just a new

aesthetic approach to the environment. A recent example from the UK supports the argument

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on the importance of an attachment to the natural environment rather than an industrial or

human-made structure. This example also provides some non-Australian evidence against the

argument that people support environmental causes because their higher levels of education

gives them a better understanding of the science behind the issues. Environmentalists have

been strong supporters of renewable energy but in this case from the UK they have joined the

campaign against the development of wind power. The Guardian noted the comments of one

green opponent of a new wind farm:

But it essentially comes down to this. The colour, shape, form and movement of the physical
infrastructure is obviously man-made. It introduces an angular, lined and discordant visual impact into a
landscape which is valued precisely because it is one of the few pieces left in the UK where such
development is noticeably absent. To make matters worse, the movement of the blades has the
additionally harmful impact of constantly drawing attention [to itself]. There is no condition which will
mitigate or limit the harm. (Ward 2005)

Conclusion

One clear finding reported in this paper has been the identification of major demographic

changes in the south-west LGAs on either side of the Manjimup LGA. Intra-state migration to

the south-west from Perth has included a generation of younger people with a university

education, without a religious affiliation and presumably new values in relation to the

remaining native old growth forests. A common comment from both the anti-logging and pro-

logging supporters I interviewed was a confirmation that the increase in population in the

south-west over the past two decades was associated with an increase in the number of anti-

logging local environment groups (e.g. the South Coast Environment Group). Data presented

from a national survey (ANU 2001) support my finding that people in the south-west with no

religious affiliation and a university education strongly supported opposition to the further

logging of native forests, rather than a more material approach to the natural environment.

These demographic changes in the south-west of WA have been associated with new

industries such as tourism, wine-growing and their related services industries, such as short-

stay accommodation. In line with Inglehart’s theories of social change, these industries are

associated with a post-industrial society. However, their location in a region with high

environmental values could also place them as ‘postmaterial’ industries in that people

watching whales, visiting vineyards and bushwalking through the old-growth forests are not

receiving material benefits from their efforts. A high proportion of those now living in the

south-west have no religious affiliation and I have argued that these new industries provide

them with experiences that meet their spiritual needs.

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Obviously, religious affiliation and spirituality are different, but related, concepts. The

information I have presented in regard to the recent development of a new anti-logging forest

policy in WA suggests that the relationship between levels of religious affiliation,

development of spiritual feelings, and new public values to native forests and the broader

natural environment, is worthy of more detailed research.

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PORTAL vol.3, no.1 January 2006 15

Our new cathedrals: spirituality and old-growth forests in W
Theoretical framework
While some authors contest the nomenclature of ‘new’ (Cohen
Research setting
The Federal Government’s Resource Assessment Commission (RAC
Population Changes
Table 2 (below) identifies the static nature of population g
Local Government Area
No. of People in 0-4 Age Group (1971)
No. of People in 30-34 Age Group (2001)
% of Original 1971 Pop. Group in 2001
Manjimup
968
670
69%
Denmark
145
271
187%
Augusta-Margaret River
RivRiver
286
804
281%
(ABS 1971; ABS 2002)
Christian
Other Religion
No Religion
Christian
Other Religion
No Religion

Industry changes in the south-west
By the end of the twentieth century, the export value of tim

Further data on key factors
The information gathered above indicates that the changes in
Conclusion
One clear finding reported in this paper has been the identi
Reference list