Front Line Action on Coal’s Leard Blockade is the first coal mine blockade camp in Australia. And the longest. Starting in August 2012, over 3 years, hundreds of people made history by visiting the the Blockade campsite and participated in a variety of activities to show opposition to the destructive Whitehaven coal mine.

This week, Dirt Radio looks back on the Blockade and Front Line Action on Coal's critical role in mobilizing and sustaining the campaign. Then we look forward to the next big grassroots coal battle - the mega-Shenwua mine project in NSW. The plan is to construct an open cut mine to extract 10 million tonnes of coal a year from the slopes adjoining the Liverpool Plains, an area known for its fertile and highly valuable black agricultural soils.