Earth First! International Winter Rendezvous in S. Florida (Feb ’06)

*please help spread this message and get in touch if you can assist in translating it to any other languages*
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Hey! y’all out there in the EF! net­work:
[for those already inhab­it­ing a low-land, near-equa­to­r­i­al biore­gion, please don’t mind the short PR rant below]

Is win­ter in your biore­gion a time of rest; a lull of activ­i­ty in accep­tance of nature’s cycles? Maybe Feb­ru­ary is the peak of a long and frigid sea­son that has you curi­ous about what your bare-skin looks like or what it was like to have full sen­sa­tion in your fin­gers and toes.

Down here in the swamps and beach­es of the trop­ic­s/­sub-trop­ics of south Flori­da things are a lit­tle dif­fer­ent: The ocean is per­fect swim­ming tem­per­a­ture; the com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens are in their full glo­ry; with the mos­qui­toes at bay, it’s per­fect weath­er for hikes through the pine flat­woods, cypress swamps and dwin­dling scrub lands; what’s left of local cit­rus trees offer a fresh-squeezed dai­ly immune-sys­tem boost; and our sea­son of kick­ing ass against devel­op­ers and ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists who are try­ing to turn this amaz­ing biore­gion into a sprawl­ing con­crete play­ground for the glob­al elite is just about to reach cli­max.

We’re invit­ing you out of hiber­na­tion and back out onto the front­lines! It’s that time of the year again, when the EF! net­work gath­ers up to hash out cru­cial move­ment deci­sions & direc­tion, par­ty their brains into mush and then invig­o­rate the host­ing biore­gion with some badass action(s). So, start mak­ing your trav­el plans & affin­i­ty group schemes, it’s time for anoth­er.

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Earth First! Orga­niz­ers’ Conference/Winter Ren­dezvous
Feb. 15th — 20th 2006 Palm Beach Coun­ty, South Flori­da
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Loca­tion- The swamps of the Ever­glades’ north­west­ern bor­der, along the Hun­gry­land Slough. The OC meet­ings will be the 15th ‑17th held at the Ever­glades Youth Camp inside the J.W. Cor­bett Wildlife Man­age­ment Area, which has full facil­i­ties (includ­ing cab­in options, a swim­ming hole and, uh alli­ga­tors). Fri­day night will be the annu­al ‘Night To Howl!’ gath­er­ing of the War­rior Poets Soci­ety, so bring poems, songs and sto­ries to share. The week­end will con­tin­ue on a prim­i­tive camp­site as the win­ter ren­dezvous and fies­ta. Bring your work­shops, music, and hik­ing gear and plan on stick­ing around, poten­tial­ly, for a fol­low­ing week of actions.

OC Con­tent- The usu­al sub­ject mat­ter will be on the table: reports from the Jour­nal; eval­u­at­ing strat­e­gy, tools & tac­tics; exam­in­ing our visions & aspi­ra­tions; where we’ve been, where we’re going; state repres­sion review; anti-oppres­sion check-in; and biore­gion­al round-ups. We also hope to offer some extra atten­tion this year to the ques­tion of sol­i­dar­i­ty beyond bor­ders (nation­al and cul­tur­al), and per­haps strate­gize a bit on an inter­na­tion­al lev­el. We will also be seek­ing trans­la­tion assis­tence for this effort.

Inter­na­tion­al Invite- South Flori­da is an acces­si­ble loca­tion for inter­na­tion­al trav­el, and is a social hotspot of cur­rent glob­al com­merce and pol­i­tics. For sev­er­al years, the glob­al­iza­tion move­ment has influ­enced (and been influ­enced by) EF! But rarely has it been pos­si­ble to dia­logue with eco-rad­i­cals in oth­er parts of the world, espe­cial­ly the major­i­ty world move­ments who have been inspir­ing direct action efforts with­in the U.S. empire. For these rea­sons, the invi­ta­tion is being put out to help bring folks from oth­er coun­tries’ rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ments and indige­nous strug­gles here for the OC and Win­ter Ren­dezvous (this means visa assis­tance and some extra fundrais­ing, so if you can be of any help in those areas, please con­tact us ASAP!)

Local Cam­paign- In the wake of a mon­u­men­tal court vic­to­ry against the Army Corps of Engi­neers, the bat­tle against Scripps Flori­da Biotech Research Park is heat­ing up to be one of the largest, broad­est and most suc­cess­ful cam­paigns in this region’s eco-activist his­to­ry. Mas­sive land scan­dals, cor­po­rate biotech night­mare, bio-haz­ardous waste issues, bio-prospect­ing in the major­i­ty world, bru­tal ani­mal research… and an active con­struc­tion site (still in oper­a­tion as of this email, despite ille­gal per­mit­ting and more pend­ing law­suits) all with­in a mile of our love­ly camp in the swamp.

The Details- We are request­ing a $25–50 dona­tion to cov­er costs of gath­er­ing, and poten­tial extra trav­el com­pen­sa­tion (for folks from our inter­na­tion­al tribe). If you’re biore­gion knows it will need assis­tance, please get in touch ASAP. Also, we want to encour­age peo­ple to bust out that old stack of jour­nals and review the past years’ OC write-ups before com­ing down. If you don’t have access to some EF!er’s archives in your area, get in touch and we’ll send the last copies of the past sev­er­al years of post-OC arti­cles so all are a bit clos­er to the same page. Bring basic camp­ing gear, includ­ing your own kitchen uten­sils. Please noti­fy the plan­ning com­mit­tee if you will be need­ing child­care or have any oth­er spe­cial needs.

EF!OC 2006 comite: p.o. box 961, lake worth, fl 33460 (561) 547‑6686

p.s. it’s still ear­ly. this info is sub­ject to change.

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www.earthfirstjournal.org
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