Cultivating Murder

• Nature
• murder
• Injustice
• environment
• planet
• Farm
• Murderer
• Agriculture
• crime
• farmers
• Environmental protection

It was a brutal killing. On the 29th July, 2014, Australian state environment officer, Glen Turner, and his colleague stopped to take photos of some logged trees in a field. The land was owned by farmer, Ian Turnbull, who had already been prosecuted for illegal land clearing. Without warning, Turnbull appeared and started firing at them, shooting Turner twice. For more than 20 minutes, the environmental officers crouched behind their vehicle, setting off an emergency beacon and ringing emergency services to get help, while Turnbull continued to threaten them. When Turner ran for cover in nearby trees, Turnbull shot him in the back and left him to die. What made Turnbull, one of the region’s wealthiest farmers, react so violently to the environmental officers? CULTIVATING MURDER examines at the consequences of the killing and the tensions between farmers and environmentalists over land clearing.