As elite sport resumes amidst the pandemic, the Royal Commission into Australia’s summer fires continues. So it seemed a good time to re-post this conversation with Dr Sheila Nguyen - to celebrate the return of top level sport, and to remember the rest of what sport can and needs to be in these times.
This Black Summer in Australia saw a national T20 cricket match cancelled due to smoke, international tennis players choking on the pollution, and sports facilities burned down around the country. A few weeks ago, Australia’s Federal Opposition leader Anthony Albanese tweeted: “It’s Australian Open time. The eyes of the world are on us. The world is seeing air so toxic that players are collapsing and others are needing medical treatment. We can’t just sit by and accept this as the new normal. We need climate action – now.”
Leaving aside the apparent contradictions in some of Mr Albanese’s other statements, this one well reflects our reality. And while fundraising by elite sport for communities most directly affected by the fires has been brilliant, and sport has been such an effective advocate in other areas of cultural life, the climate and extinction crises continue to threaten the places we love, and the things we love doing, including sport. So what role can sport play in reversing the trajectory of these crises, and furthering regenerative change?
Dr Sheila Nguyen has been working at bringing together sports from around the country over the last decade or so to explore just that. Sheila is co-founder and Executive Director of the Sports Environment Alliance. Its members range from the biggest clubs in the land, to the smallest - from the reigning Australian Rules premiers the Richmond Tigers Football Club, to the Swamp Rats cricket club, along with local governments and others with responsibilities around sport. It goes by the hashtag #noplanetnoplay.
Sheila was among the 2019 Australian Financial Review Top 100 Women of Influence, and is about to head to London next month to co-chair and MC the UN’s Sport for Climate Action’s Sport Positive event at Wembley Stadium. But as a lonely, overweight daughter of Vietnamese refugees, none of this seemed likely. Until sport changed her life.
Updates: Malcolm Speed finished his term as Chair of the Alliance soon after this conversation in January 2020. And the March Wembley event was postponed due to the COVID-19 shut-down.
Title slide: The Sydney Cricket Ground covered in bushfire smoke in the summer of 2019-20 (AAP).
Music:
The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra
Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode.
Find more:
Sports Environment Alliance.
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