Earth Matters Celebrates 1000 Episodes

3CR’s Earth Matters is celebrating 1000 episodes—that's over 1000 stories and 500 hours of radio from the frontlines of environmental struggles in Australia and around the world. From Jabiluka to Goolengook, from West Papua to Palestine, and everywhere in-between.

Earth Matters has been community radio's national environment show since 1996. It is also Australia's only national environment program. Gillian Blair, presenter of Green Connections on 3WAYFM, notes “the ABC no longer runs programs specifically about environmental issues and problems,” and says that Earth Matters “fills a need for information” Former Earth Matters producer Gab Reade echoes this, lamenting “there are so few platforms for discussion at an in-depth level about everything to do with the environment,” making Earth Matters “a really unique forum for that.”

Community radio is at its best when it provides a platform for voices and issues that are denied access to the mainstream media, and when we dig beneath the surface to explore the issues behind the headlines. Earth Matters' founding producer Juliet Fox reflects on her time reporting from the frontlines of protests, “a lot of that really felt like bearing witness [...] because often there was no other media there”. Juliet also points to one of the unique strengths of community radio and what makes Earth Matters unique, “those moments of being able to go to different places and participate in that campaign, but participate as a community radio broadcaster.”

Community radio champions an alternate approach to what 'mass media' can be: a mass media of hundreds of thousands of volunteers making radio for their communities. In this regard, Juliet Fox believes Earth Matters has been “a fantastic contribution to the environmental movement and community radio broadcasting.” This reciprocal relationship between movements and community radio leads to capacity building for both, as Gab Read notes, “it also increases people's media skills. There’s probably been about fifteen producers involved since the show started in '96. So when I look at those names and what they're doing now, they're still contributing to a dialogue around environmental sustainability, in many different and diverse ways.”

So what can you expect from our 1000th show? We'll hear from five former producers - Juliet Fox, Indira Naryan, Gab Reade, Nicky Stott and Helen Gwilliam - about who they are, some of their proudest moments and what they think the program contributes to environmental and social justice movements. We'll also hear excerpts from some of their favourite shows and hear the voices of some of the many great environmental defenders that have appeared on the last 999 episodes of Earth Matters.

This special episode of Earth Matters, broadcast September 11th and is available via podcast now.

For CRN subscribers:

• Earth Matters plays Fridays from 16:04 to 16:32 EST, and is available for DDN capture
• Program website
• For more information contact CRN staff on 02 9310 2999 or email [email protected].

Not a CRN subscriber, but want to find out more about getting content like this for your station? Read more here.