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Eco feminist killed by snake bite

Renowned Australian feminist and environmental activist Val Plumwood who survived a horrific crocodile attack more than 20 years ago has been killed by an apparent snake bite, a friend said yesterday. She was 68 years old. Plumwood's body was found on Saturday in the octagonal stone house where she lived alone near Braidwood in New South Wales, said friend Jane Salmon. Salmon said it appeared that a snake bite had killed her. State police Detective Sergeant David Kay declined to comment on the cause of death other than to say there were no suspicious circumstances. A coroner has yet to make an official finding on the cause.

Plumwood wrote the seminal environmental texts Feminism and the Mastery of Nature and Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis of Reason in 1993 and 2002, but she had been a leading campaigner against the logging of Australia's native forests and for the preservation of biodiversity since the 1960s.