Are you serious? The residents who found it "offensive to locals that the camp was held in their suburb when visitors were not invited", are completely wrong. The camp was an open event. There were numerous locals who decided to come down to the camp, whether it was just for a brief time to curb their curiosity. In addition to those completely false claims, are you honestly trying to accuse the protesters, the ones who had "hippies, tree-huggers, ferals" yelled at them, of maliciously destroying the surrounding environment?

Shame on those yokels from Helensburgh who threw eggs at the people seeking to do something about global warming. Why not join the rest of us in the 21st century?

..""a group of six "drunk" youths jumped on tents late on Friday night, "including one where a family with a three-year-old child was asleep". "While protesters from Climate Camp at Helensburgh peacefully protested ... some locals invaded the camp site and damaged protesters' tents," .. "" Unfortunate w3hen a bad apple gets into the barrell. I thought the Burgh had moved on from its Struggle Town image.

Locals complaining about the Climate Campers are just antagonistic whingers who are affiliated with the mine...there is more damage done to the local parks by the annual Helensburgh Fair, not to mention the coal dust from trucks that covers everything on the main street of Helensburgh!! I know of many locals who went to the camp out of interest and found it a friendly and informative place. What is offensive here is the secretive amount of money spent by the Gov't on Helicopters, Mounted Police, barricades, fencing etc. Why pay for the Coal mines dirty work? As for the statement "The mine keeps our town running," - an absolute myth, there are approx 8,000 people in Helensburgh, whilst the mine employs less than 100 locals.

..."Peabody spokeswoman said the company had paid for private security guards to protect the mine's assets, with the police's main role "to protect the community"....the community was never under any threat whatsoever from Camp Climate, the only threat to H'burgh community is from the mining company.....so who is going to protect the community from Peabody trucks and coal dust, who is going to protect our water supply from Peabody mining under our dams and rivers???

I was cranky about that tree burnt in the small fire in the carpark too: so I asked. The tree that Aboriginal people used in their sacred fire had been hacked before anyone arrived. They were sad the young sapling had been killed (probably by stupid boys, who are always there with their dirt bikes wrecking the park, but it could have been the gale-force winds), and decided to use it for their ceremony. Seemed like a good use of something destroyed by stupid people.

I wish climate camp was in town everyweekend. It means those drunken yobs go and harrass them lot rather than the rest of us. We need the riot police in town every week to protect us from these drunken youths roaming the streets. Having gone down for a walk to the camp and looking at the people there, i can tell you i would rather the climate lot be here, than the violent drunks we have to put up with. I dont care about the mine, most of the people who work there dont even live in this town. But those few bad eggs who were violent towards the protestors put shame on this community. Everyone has a right to protest and i commend the work of the climate camp for being so peaceful and friendly. Your welcome back to our town anytime.

The intention of Climate Camp 09 was to engage both the Helensburgh community and the wider public, in an open and honest debate about the implications of coal mining on the environment and its contribution to green house gas emissions. Locals who passed by our camp were invited to join in our workshops and events. Kids from the town were not turned away from our concerts and shared meals with us, even though we knew some of them may have been the ones responsible for the eggings and 2am disturbances of the night before. I applaud the patient and diligent efforts of Climate Camp participants to reach out to the Helensburgh community and beyond. Thanks for standing up with us for an alternative view to the 'business as usual' approach of government and industry, in demanding a safe future for everyone.

I'm a grandmother concerned for future generations, and I came early to Climate Camp. Early on the Friday morning, before most others had arrived, my friend was inspecting the broken sapling featured in your photograph as "evidence" of destruction by campers. One of the local blokes employed as a groundkeeper at the Helensburgh football fields came up and told her that local youths had destroyed the little tree before any campers arrived. It would be good to set the record straight. These young campers were not "dirty hippies" but idealistic and committed leaders, and would be the last to destroy trees.

A lot of this conversation is focusing on the negative incidents between a small minority of people (some of whom had quite legitimate grievances) but is ignoring all of the support that Climate Camp had from locals from Helensburgh and the Illawarra without whom the camp would have been a complete flop. I felt very welcomed by the majority of the town, who have been living with the impacts of mine dust and company neglect for many years. The few local kids who came to the camp to jump on tents and abuse people also had good points to make about how we can be too arrogant sometimes... eventually most of those kids joined in with music and hanging out at the camp together. I can't really blame them - it's not like the mine funds very many community activities. I was a bit disappointed that we called the police to protect ourselves, surely we can work things out without calling on the force. At the end of the day we've got a lot more in common than different because climate change and coal dust affects us all (including in Newcastle where I'm from). Thanks for welcoming us to Helensburgh for the weekend - feel free to come to exercise your protest rights in Newcastle anytime.