Gloucester’s John Watts is passionate about providing his family a future with a healthy, clean environment.
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This passion combined with his concerns about environmental and social justice, drove his involvement in the fight against AGL’s Gloucester Gas Project in the Gloucester basin.
John and his wife, Sue built a house in Gloucester in 2011, the same year AGL was given approval to drill 110 gas wells in the first stage of a 330 well gas field in the basin.
At that time, John was only coming to Gloucester on weekends while he continued to work as a barrister in Sydney and he said he really had no idea what was going on with the gas project.
In 2013, he meet Julie Lyford and she asked him to attend an AGL community meeting so he could see what the project was all about. It was at this stage that he was asked to get involved in the fight against the project - and that he did.
John became a vocal member of Groundswell Gloucester, a not-for-profit organisation formed by a group of residents who wanted to have the final say in the political decisions which determine the economic, social and environmental future of the Gloucester basin.
Now, two years after AGL announced it was abandoning the Gloucester Gas Project, John has written and published a book about his journey in the fight against the project, a fight that attracted nation-wide media attention.
He began in July 2017 and in six months he had written the book, had it professionally edited and self-published, officially launching the book on April 5 at The Gloucester Bookshop with an additional launch on April 11 at Parliament House in Sydney.
More than 70 people attended each event, with Sydney Morning Herald environmental editor, Peter Hannam and Newcastle Herald senior journalist, Joanne McCarthy both speaking at the Sydney launch. Peter wrote the book’s foreword and Joanne provided a write up on its back cover.
In this armchair, fireside story “The Town That Said No To AGL”, John reflects on his experiences since joining Groundswell Gloucester and what he learned about the process of a major resource project.
“I wanted to give an inside view into how the process works,” he said.
“I wanted to show what it was like to be a member of a community being forced to fight a big company.”
For more information about the book visit, http://thetownthatsaidnotoagl.com/
Copies of the book are for sale for $25 at The Gloucester Bookshop and Gloucester Health Foods, or via email order through gloucesterbookorders@gmail.com with an additional $9 postage.