Statement on Animal Agriculture at Brithdir Mawr

Earth First! has had a long­stand­ing pol­i­cy of not hold­ing the gath­er­ing on sites with any ani­mal agri­cul­ture. This is a key polit­i­cal stance we have tak­en and con­tin­ue to hold.

This year we’re host­ed by the Brithdir Mawr Com­mu­ni­ty, who keep ani­mals for milk, eggs and meat. Specif­i­cal­ly there 4 bat­tery res­cue hens whos’ eggs get eat­en, a res­cue cock­er­el, 2 hors­es being trained to work and 7 goats who are milked. There have been male goats slaugh­tered for meat and in the past they have kept pigs, sheep and ducks.

We did not appre­ci­ate that this was sit­u­a­tion at Brithdir Mawr when we decid­ed on the site and had under­stood some­thing dif­fer­ent from our con­ver­sa­tions with them. We’re sor­ry that this mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion hap­pened between us and our hosts. We were excit­ed (and still are) for the chance to bring the sum­mer gath­er­ing to Wales and to sup­port a com­mu­ni­ty fac­ing evic­tion from a landown­er who wish­es to turn the land into a “heal­ing retreat cen­tre”. We should have been more care­ful.

The gath­er­ing is going ahead as planned. How­ev­er, we feel that we need­ed to let peo­ple know before­hand so you can make an informed deci­sion. We care deeply about Earth First!‘s and EF!er’s ani­mal lib­er­a­tion prin­ci­ples and can appre­ci­ate that attend­ing this year will be a dif­fi­cult choice for some. We hope that you will come, but can under­stand if you choose not to.

After some con­sid­er­a­tion, the ani­mal lib­er­a­tion stream has decid­ed they will still attend, in order to keep the ani­mal lib­er­a­tion line at EF! strong. In their words, the gath­er­ing will be what we make of it.

Hope to see you all there! Love and rage,

EF! gath­er­ings col­lec­tive