Category: Genetics

Reclaim the Fields Spring Gathering 2012 — details & updates

@ The Wilder­ness Cen­tre, Mitcheldean, For­est of Dean, Glouces­ter­shire, GL17 0HA

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

Pre-Gath­er­ing Help need­ed:

@ The Wilder­ness Cen­tre, Mitcheldean, For­est of Dean, Glouces­ter­shire, GL17 0HA

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

Pre-Gath­er­ing Help need­ed:

Any­one inter­est­ed in help­ing out with the running/ set­ting up of the event, should come to the Wilder­ness asap. If you’re inter­est­ed in giv­ing a talk, or demon­strat­ing a skill — get in con­tact, or just show up and arrange to use one of the “spaces” avail­able with one of the Pro­tect The Wilder­ness Crew.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes:

Thurs­day 8th:

*Intro­duc­tion to Reclaim the Fields — where we’ve come from and recent action, includ­ing feed­back from the Euro­pean Gath­er­ing.
* Wilder­ness Cen­tre intro­duc­tion & house­keep­ing
*Open Intro­duc­tions; intro­duce your self & your projects & con­tin­ue net­work­ing with our notice­board

The remain­der of the day is designed around open spaces, giv­ing peo­ple a chance to work & com­mu­ni­cate around these sug­ges­tions so far:

*WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
*Seed Sov­er­eign­ty & grow­er-to-grow­er seed dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works
*Car­rots ses­sion e.g. RTF inter­nal structure/sharing work­loads
*Using the food sov­er­eign­ty prin­ci­ples as a strate­gic frame­work — (in a UK con­text)
*How to organ­ise & main­tain effec­tive land occu­pa­tions
*Com­post­ing gen­der
*Plan­ning for Inter­na­tion­al Peas­ants Day of Strug­gle on April 17th
*Legal options for access­ing land
*Pro­tect­ing bee pop­u­la­tions

Fri­day 9th:

*Ses­sion on gen­er­al Reclaim the Fields strat­e­gy and focus­es for 2012
Work­shops and talks:
*An intro­duc­tion to land rights
*His­to­ry of Land rights strug­gles in the For­est of Dean

Fol­lowed by a con­sen­sus based gueril­la gar­den­ing action… remains open to sug­ges­tions!
(ideas so far…)
*Food for­est, in an aban­doned quar­ry
*Care home for the elder­ly
* Clear-felled Forestry land
* Vic­to­ri­an walled gar­den

Sat­ur­day 10th:

Pro­tect The Wilder­ness open skill-share day!
Seed swap, Com­mu­ni­ty bring and share.
Gar­den­ing the organ­ic com­mu­ni­ty gar­den, and walled gar­den.
Music and feast­ing!

Not for­get­ting gar­den­ing, char­coal burn­ing, bak­ing in the cob oven, seed­bomb mak­ing, cob­bing the round-house, and chop­ping wood through-out!

£5 sug­gest­ed dona­tion per day, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Items to bring:
Warm clothes, two sets (if you mind being mud­dy)
bed­ding, camp­ing mats
tools for g‑gardening [spades, forks, mat­tocks, bill­hooks]
Instru­ments, danc­ing shoes,
seeds for seed­bombs,
home-grown veg, pick­les, jams, whole foods

More info about the Wilder­ness Cen­tre: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064
Who to con­tact for more infor­ma­tion: use the RTF UK email list or email frankynecklace@yahoo.co.uk

Gourds work be done,

Pro­tect The Wilder­ness,
Reclaim the Fields!

Monsanto takes double hit in January — who’s next?

Monsanto Admits Defeat in France, Biotech Corn Contaminates

26/1/12

Monsanto Admits Defeat in France, Biotech Corn Contaminates

26/1/12

France has held firm in its oppo­si­tion to Monsanto’s genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied MON 810 maize – and the agri-chem­i­cal multi­na­tion­al has admit­ted defeat.

Mon­san­to had been putting legal pres­sure on the French gov­ern­ment to lift its 2008 cul­ti­va­tion ban on MON 810, first­ly with a suc­cess­ful appeal to the Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice, then with a fol­low-up case heard in France’s own high­est court, the Coun­cil of State.

But despite both these insti­tu­tions rul­ing that the ban was “insuf­fi­cient­ly jus­ti­fied in law”, the French Gov­ern­ment, backed by Pres­i­dent Sarkozy, has insist­ed that it will still not allow cul­ti­va­tion of the biotech maize.

Now Mon­san­to has announced that it would not be sell­ing seeds for MON810 in France this year.

France’s stand – and Monsanto’s capit­u­la­tion – has been warm­ly wel­comed by anti-GM lob­by­ists GM Freeze, whose cam­paign direc­tor Pete Riley said: “The deci­sion by Mon­san­to not to mar­ket MON810 seeds in France in 2012 is yet anoth­er sign that Mon­san­to has failed to con­vince the pub­lic or pol­i­cy mak­ers that there is any ben­e­fit to grow­ing to grow­ing GM crops.

“This needs to be acknowl­edged by indus­try and politi­cians and there should be a big shift to agri­cul­tur­al research and devel­op­ment which address­es the future sus­tain­abil­i­ty of farm­ing in Europe. EU pol­i­cy needs to for­get about the bot­tom line of biotech cor­po­ra­tions and focus on devel­op­ing agro-eco­log­i­cal farm­ing which pro­vides for the needs of farm­ers, con­sumers, the envi­ron­ment and future gen­er­a­tions.”

Five oth­er EU coun­tries – Ger­many, Greece, Aus­tria, Lux­em­bourg and Hun­gary – have cur­rent bans on MON810 cul­ti­va­tion in place, and the issue has recent­ly been com­pli­cat­ed by anoth­er Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice rul­ing requir­ing hon­ey con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with GM pollen to be ful­ly autho­rised as a nov­el prod­uct and labelled as such before it can be sold.

— And from ear­li­er in the month: Mon­san­to attacked by Anony­mous hack­ers! In a thread of hack events from the Anony­mous group, the most recent tar­get has been Monsanto.com. Anony­mous, which briefly knocked the FBI and Jus­tice Depart­ment web­sites offline as well as Music Indus­try web­sites in retal­i­a­tion for the US shut­down of file-shar­ing site Megau­pload, is a shad­owy group of amaz­ing inter­na­tion­al hack­ers. Anony­mous Mes­sage To Mon­san­to: We fight for farm­ers! – Video Tran­script (Cross-Post­ed from Organ­ic Com­mon Sense): “To the free-think­ing cit­i­zens of the world: Anony­mous stands with the farm­ers and food orga­ni­za­tions denounc­ing the prac­tices of Mon­san­to We applaud the brav­ery of the orga­ni­za­tions and cit­i­zens who are stand­ing up to Mon­san­to, and we stand unit­ed with you against this oppres­sive cor­po­rate abuse. Mon­san­to is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the world with chem­i­cals and genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food crops for prof­it while claim­ing to feed the hun­gry and pro­tect the envi­ron­ment. Anony­mous is every­one, Any­one who can not stand for injus­tice and decides to do some­thing about it, We are all over the Earth and here to stay. To Mon­san­to, we demand you STOP the fol­low­ing: * Con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the glob­al food chain with GMO’s. * Intim­i­dat­ing small farm­ers with bul­ly­ing and law­suits. * Prop­a­gat­ing the use of destruc­tive pes­ti­cides and her­bi­cides across the globe. * Using “Ter­mi­na­tor Tech­nol­o­gy”, which ren­ders plants ster­ile. * Attempt­ing to hijack UN cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions for your own fis­cal ben­e­fit. * Reduc­ing farm­land to desert through mono­cul­ture and the use of syn­thet­ic fer­til­iz­ers. * Inspir­ing sui­cides of hun­dreds of thou­sands of Indi­an farm­ers. * Caus­ing birth defects by con­tin­u­ing to pro­duce the pes­ti­cide “Round-up” * Attempt­ing to bribe foriegn offi­cials * Infil­trat­ing anti-GMO groups Mon­san­to, these crimes will not go unpun­ished. Anony­mous will not spare you nor any­one in sup­port of your oppres­sive ille­gal busi­ness prac­tices. AGRA, a great exam­ple: In 2006, AGRA, Alliance for a Green Rev­o­lu­tion in Africa, was estab­lished with fund­ing from Bill Gates and The Rock­e­feller Foun­da­tion. Among the oth­er found­ing mem­bers of, AGRA, we find: Mon­san­to, Novar­tis, Sanofi-Aven­tis, Glax­o­SmithK­line, Proc­ter and Gam­ble, Mer­ck, Mosa­ic, Pfiz­er, Sum­it­o­mo Chem­i­cal and Yara. The fact that these cor­po­ra­tions are either chem­i­cal or phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers is no coin­ci­dence. The peo­ple of the world see you, Mon­san­to. Anony­mous sees you. Seeds of Oppor­tunism, Cli­mate change offers these busi­ness­es a per­fect excuse to prey on the poor­est coun­tries by swoop­ing in to “res­cue” the farm­ers and peo­ple with their GMO crops and chem­i­cal pes­ti­cides. These cor­po­ra­tions erad­i­cate the tra­di­tion­al ways of the country’s agri­cul­ture for the sake of enor­mous prof­its. The intro­duc­tion of GMOs dras­ti­cal­ly affects a local farm­ers income, as the price of chem­i­cals required for GMOs and seeds from Mon­san­to crip­ples the farmer’s mea­ger prof­it mar­gins. There are even many cas­es of Mon­san­to suing small farm­ers after pollen from their GMO crops acci­den­tal­ly cross with the farmer’s crops. Because Mon­san­to has a patent on theri brand of seed, they claim the farmer is in vio­la­tion of patent laws. These dis­gust­ing and inhu­mane prac­tices will not be tol­er­at­ed. Anony­mous urges all con­cerned cit­i­zens to stand up for these farm­ers, stand up for the future of your own food. Protest, orga­nize, spread info to your friends! SAY NO TO POISONOUS CHEMICALS IN YOUR FOOD! SAY NO TO GMO! SAY NO TO MONSANTO! We are Anony­mous We are legion We do not for­give We do not for­get Expect us” Glob­al Jus­tice Ecol­o­gy Project, an anti-biotech group found­ed by Earth First! activists, also not­ed in a post on the attack that Mon­san­to was also one of the orig­i­nal founders of the GE tree com­pa­ny Arbor­Gen. The Pres­i­dent and CEO of Arbor­Gen, Bar­bara Wells, led Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready soy divi­sion in Brazil. GMO soy in Brazil and oth­er parts of Latin Amer­i­ca has tak­en over vast swaths of Ama­zon and oth­er for­est land, and has dis­placed or poi­soned many com­mu­ni­ties there. Find out more about their cam­paign against Arbor­Gen here. We fight for farm­ers video — http://youtu.be/Q1A-DYK4M4Q DOS attack on Mon­san­to — http://youtu.be/3XutsnEe4VY

Earth First! Winter Moot, what to expect

This years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

This years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

The Moot 2012 col­lec­tive has felt that at pre­vi­ous EF! Gath­er­ings groups have pri­mar­i­ly attend­ed to recruit for their respec­tive cam­paigns. Yet those who attend EF! Gath­er­ings are pre­dom­i­nant­ly already active, mak­ing them good places for net­work­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly for out­right recruit­ment. We recog­nise the effort gath­er­ing organ­is­ers put into plan­ning agen­das but often the more dis­cur­sive aspects of the gath­er­ings focus on larg­er, abstract ques­tions and debates have often been framed by self-appoint­ed experts. We feel that these dis­cus­sions inef­fec­tive­ly attempt to find answers or reach con­sen­sus where this is inap­pro­pri­ate.

For exam­ple at the first EF! Gath­er­ing 20 years ago the ques­tion was asked: ‘What is EF!?’ 20 years lat­er in 2011 at the last Moot the same ques­tion was still being asked …

The answer is EF! is what we make it, and this year we are going to make it a space in which we can approach our cam­paigns both crit­i­cal­ly and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly by ask­ing more spe­cif­ic and prac­ti­cal ques­tions. Our activism should be con­stant­ly evolv­ing not stuck in a rut ask­ing the same ques­tions again and again.

The agen­da will be designed to ask ques­tions around four key issues: the tac­tics we use; the strate­gies that we employ in our cam­paigns; com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty; and sus­tain­able activism. There will be no attempt to reach con­clu­sions or con­sen­sus espe­cial­ly about what EF! is. Instead we want to have dis­cus­sions that lead to new ideas that could evolve ongo­ing cam­paigns or give cre­ative inspi­ra­tion to ones that are just get­ting start­ed.

A free space will be pro­vid­ed in which cam­paigns will be able to hold meet­ings and have fur­ther dis­cus­sions if they wish, and there will also be some space giv­en for cam­paign updates with an empha­sis on hon­est analy­sis rather than pro­mo­tion.

For updates and more info check the web­site or email us.

EF!WM Crew
e-mail: efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk
Home­page: http://earthfirstgathering.org.uk

More nails in the GM coffin — bye bye BASF / amaranth fights back against GM menace / Take the Flour Back

18 Jan­u­ary 2012

BASF, the last firm still devel­op­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in Ger­many is stop­ping its work, admit­ting defeat in the face of wide­spread Euro­pean oppo­si­tion to to the idea.

18 Jan­u­ary 2012

BASF, the last firm still devel­op­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in Ger­many is stop­ping its work, admit­ting defeat in the face of wide­spread Euro­pean oppo­si­tion to to the idea.

This fol­lows deci­sions by Bay­er and Syn­gen­ta to stop their genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) crop work in Ger­many over the last few years.

Ger­man chem­i­cal giant BASF has announced that it will halt the devel­op­ment or com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) crops in Europe, and move its biotech R&D oper­a­tions to the US. The firm cit­ed con­sumer and polit­i­cal resis­tance to trans­genic plants in Europe for its deci­sion. 

BASF will now con­cen­trate its plant biotech­nol­o­gy activ­i­ties in North and South Amer­i­ca, and the head­quar­ters of BASF Plant Sci­ence will be moved from Lim­burg­er­hof, Ger­many, to Raleigh, North Car­oli­na, US. BASF expects that this will result in the loss of 140 jobs in Europe.

‘We are con­vinced that plant biotech­nol­o­gy is a key tech­nol­o­gy for the 21st cen­tu­ry,’ said Ste­fan Mar­ci­nows­ki, a mem­ber of BAS­F’s exec­u­tive board. ‘How­ev­er, there is still a lack of accep­tance for this tech­nol­o­gy in many parts of Europe — from the major­i­ty of con­sumers, farm­ers and politi­cians. There­fore, it does not make busi­ness sense to con­tin­ue invest­ing in prod­ucts exclu­sive­ly for cul­ti­va­tion in this mar­ket.’ 

BAS­F’s deci­sion was met with warn­ings from indus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives and lob­by­ists, but cel­e­bra­tion by oth­ers, includ­ing envi­ron­men­tal advo­cates and at least one for­mer indus­try insid­er. 

Present­ly, only two GM crops are autho­rised for cul­ti­va­tion in the EU: MON810 maize, made by US-based Mon­san­to, and BAS­F’s Amflo­ra pota­to. MON810 is only approved for sale as an ani­mal feed and starch from Amflo­ra is used in indus­tri­al process­es.

Mau­rice Moloney, the chief exec­u­tive of Rotham­st­ed Research in the UK, which has been engaged in GM work, said that mov­ing the focus of crop sci­ence even fur­ther away from Europe is ‘deeply regret­table’. Such a move will ‘make inno­v­a­tive new tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to GM, less avail­able to Euro­pean pro­duc­ers and con­sumers and car­ries the risk of deny­ing them access to crops and foods with health and envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits,’ he added. 

BAS­F’s deci­sion is like­ly to adverse­ly affect Europe’s eco­nom­ic growth and food sup­ply, Moloney warned. ‘It is iron­ic that much of the sci­ence that cre­at­ed mod­ern biotech­nol­o­gy came from Europe and yet Euro­peans have been deprived of the envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits such as the reduc­tion of the use of pes­ti­cides and improved soil qual­i­ty as well as the more obvi­ous eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits of cheap­er food and agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts,’ he said. 

In addi­tion, Alan Dewar, an inde­pen­dent ento­mol­o­gist who directs Dewar Crop Pro­tec­tion and used to be head of ento­mol­o­gy at a divi­sion of Rotham­st­ed Research, called BAS­F’s deci­sion to quit Europe ‘indica­tive of the ever increas­ing iso­la­tion that Euro­pean sci­en­tists find them­selves in’. Dewar high­light­ed ‘inad­e­quate sen­tences’ hand­ed down by judges in sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries to pro­tes­tors who have been ‘caught red-hand­ed’ destroy­ing GM field tri­als, say­ing it is not sur­pris­ing that biotech crop research has stalled in Europe. 

But Igna­cio Chapela, a micro­bial ecol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley and senior researcher with the Cen­tre for Biosafe­ty in Nor­way, says that genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms have been over­hyped and that the indus­try needs to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly trimmed down. 

‘The size of the GMO mar­ket should be much small­er, but it is being pro­mot­ed very strong­ly with the full force of the US gov­ern­ment,’ Chapela says, who for­mer­ly worked for Swiss firm San­doz, Sygen­ta’s pre­de­ces­sor, devel­op­ing new agri­chem­i­cals. He says much pub­li­cised claims that GM crops would cut lev­els of her­bi­cides and insec­ti­cides in the food chain have failed to mate­ri­alise and, in fact, many of these prod­ucts have led to more of both. 

The envi­ron­men­tal group Friends of the Earth (FoE) Europe also cel­e­brat­ed BAS­F’s announce­ment. ‘This is anoth­er nail in the cof­fin for genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied foods in Europe,’ said Adri­an Bebb, agro­fu­els cam­paign coor­di­na­tor for FoE Europe. ‘This is a good day for con­sumers and farm­ers and opens the door for the Euro­pean Union to shift Europe to green­er and more pub­licly accept­able farm­ing.’

How­ev­er, is this a real vic­to­ry or a sleight of hand?  Read more

——

Ama­ranth, the Inca sacred plant, attacks GM soya crop

5,000 hectares trashed, 50,000 threat­ened! 

It first hap­pened in 2004, when a farmer in Atlanta in the US found ama­ranth that had spread to his fields was resis­tant to Roundup — the her­bi­cide much GM was bred to resist.  But since then, the ‘weed’ has spread wide­ly, and accord­ing to the UK’s Cen­tre for Ecol­o­gy and Hydrol­o­gy there has been gene trans­fer. 

[note: this is an old arti­cle, excerpt tak­en from here.  There have been a rash recent­ly of arti­cles about GM repost­ed from the last years, that pur­port to be from 2012; this arti­cle about ama­ranth was not pre­vi­ous­ly cov­ered on this site, hence it’s brief repost­ing]

——

Past action against BAS­F’s UK HQ

Future action this May against GM wheat tri­al

Earth First! Winter Moot 2012 — 24–26th February 2012. Updated: location & what to expect

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

See earthfirstgathering.org.uk for fur­ther infor­ma­tion about loca­tion,  pro­gramme and con­tact details

Update:

Where — this years Earth First Win­ter Moot will take place in Gle­spin Vil­lage Hall, South Lanark­shire. Gle­spin is a small vil­lage about 14 miles south of Lanark, and 35 miles south of Glas­gow. South Lanark­shire also has many beau­ti­ful areas with rivers, hills, forests and peat bogs.  Full direc­tions

What to expect — this years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

The Moot 2012 col­lec­tive has felt that at pre­vi­ous EF! Gath­er­ings groups have pri­mar­i­ly attend­ed to recruit for their respec­tive cam­paigns. Yet those who attend EF! Gath­er­ings are pre­dom­i­nant­ly already active, mak­ing them good places for net­work­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly for out­right recruit­ment. We recog­nise the effort gath­er­ing organ­is­ers put into plan­ning agen­das but often the more dis­cur­sive aspects of the gath­er­ings focus on larg­er,  abstract ques­tions and debates have often been framed by self-appoint­ed experts. We feel that these dis­cus­sions inef­fec­tive­ly attempt to find answers or reach con­sen­sus where this is inap­pro­pri­ate.

For exam­ple at the first EF! Gath­er­ing 20 years ago the ques­tion was asked: ‘What is EF!?’ 20 years lat­er in 2011 at the last Moot the same ques­tion was still being asked …

The answer is EF! is what we make it, and this year we are going to make it a space in which we can approach our cam­paigns both crit­i­cal­ly and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly by ask­ing more spe­cif­ic and prac­ti­cal ques­tions. Our activism should be con­stant­ly evolv­ing not stuck in a rut ask­ing the same ques­tions again and again.

The agen­da will be designed to ask ques­tions around four key issues: the tac­tics we use; the strate­gies that we employ in our cam­paigns; com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty; and sus­tain­able activism. There will be no attempt to reach con­clu­sions or con­sen­sus espe­cial­ly about what EF! is. Instead we want to have dis­cus­sions that lead to new ideas that could evolve ongo­ing cam­paigns or give cre­ative inspi­ra­tion to ones that are just get­ting start­ed.

A free space will be pro­vid­ed in which cam­paigns will be able to hold meet­ings and have fur­ther dis­cus­sions if they wish, and there will also be some space giv­en for cam­paign updates with an empha­sis on hon­est analy­sis rather than pro­mo­tion.

For updates and more info check the web­site or email us.

efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk

Spanish farmers sab GM maize

5.10.11

The fol­low­ing is a com­mu­nique cross post­ed from Afi­la­do Nues­tras Vidas:

Trans­la­tion by Lilac

5.10.11

The fol­low­ing is a com­mu­nique cross post­ed from Afi­la­do Nues­tras Vidas:

Trans­la­tion by Lilac

Dur­ing the sec­ond week of August 2011 an unknown num­ber of peo­ple have destroyed part of an exper­i­men­tal field of GM maize seeds owned by Pio­neer. The area locat­ed between the towns of Val­divia and Zur­baran had been request­ed by the com­pa­ny to be opened to the fol­low­ing GMO maize vari­eties: 1057, 59122 maize, NK603. This field is one of the three request­ed this year by Mon­san­to and Pio­neer com­pa­nies to exper­i­ment with trans­genic corn.

This action is a small response to the impo­si­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms (GMOs) by biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and the state. Since GM began to be exper­i­ment­ed, approved and mar­ket­ed heav­i­ly, its cre­ators and pro­mot­ers have stat­ed that GM would be able to end hunger or to safe­guard human health and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a clean­er and more effi­cient agri­cul­ture. Noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth.

These GMOs are imposed in a con­text of: large cor­po­ra­tions fight­ing for monop­oly con­trol of seeds and chem­i­cals, mono­cul­tures, genet­ic pol­lu­tion, the dis­ap­pear­ance of small and medi­um farm­ers, liq­ui­da­tion of local economies, the dis­ap­pear­ance of indige­nous vari­eties, large dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works, waste and water pol­lu­tion, the expul­sion of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

These GMOs are not com­pat­i­ble with oth­er forms of pro­duc­tion and social orga­ni­za­tion based on the recov­ery of tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­ture that meet the needs of the peo­ple, not mar­kets, and do not over­flow the bound­aries of ecosys­tems, cou­pled with the will to escape the illu­so­ry link between hap­pi­ness and con­sump­tion.

Mod­els are clear­ly need­ed in a hun­gry and warm­ing world due to the sub­mis­sion to the mar­ket and total­i­tar­i­an states. There­fore these GMOs do not come to ful­fill the ben­e­fits, but rep­re­sent anoth­er twist to the agro-indus­tri­al mod­el, which will, among oth­er things, com­plete­ly expro­pri­ate the people’s their abil­i­ty to feed them­selves. For the final deci­sion of the approval and mar­ket­ing of GMOs, the state cre­at­ed the Nation­al Biosafe­ty Com­mit­tee (NBC). 

    Inside there are sev­en rep­re­sen­ta­tive NBC sci­en­tists, many of them linked to the biotech indus­try and pro-GM lob­by. This body is for the indus­try, not biose­cu­ri­ty, as evi­denced by the grow­ing num­ber of genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in wheat and corn crops. In whole regions of the state, genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in crops such as the above named is inevitable.

    Out­side our bor­ders, these GMOs have been respon­si­ble for all types of dis­as­ters such as famine, defor­esta­tion, poi­son­ing, aller­gies and oth­er ill­ness­es due to con­sump­tion as well as a myr­i­ad of con­straints to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and farm­ers by biotech com­pa­nies, not to men­tion real mas­sacres caused by the man­u­fac­ture and use of chem­i­cals need­ed for this agro-indus­tri­al mod­el, of which GM is its ulti­mate expres­sion. To say GM is not say­ing “no!” to the evils and injus­tices that we have cit­ed;  “no!” to impos­ing: “no!” to the arti­fi­cial­i­ty of life; “no!” to the mad­ness of progress.

   The take action against GMOs is a legit­i­mate strug­gle of all peo­ple, symp­toms of com­mon sense and the need for pro­found social change, the result of being aware of the dan­ger to the Earth (and every­thing that gets penal­ized) in the hands of cap­i­tal­ism. Those who sow and reap trans­genic pro­motes resis­tance.

Farm­ers (campesin@s*) in Extremadu­ra in the strug­gle.
Extremadu­ra, Sep­tem­ber 2011
Indi­vid­ual farm­ers (campesin@s) in Extremadurs

*Translator’s note: Campesin@ is an untrans­lat­able word in Span­ish, which usu­al­ly con­notes small, com­mu­ni­ty based, sus­tain­able and sub­sis­tence farm­ers, although it can also be used in ref­er­ence to field work­ers under a giant cor­po­ra­tion like Chiq­ui­ta or Dole.

 

new EF! Action Update

In an end of the sum­mer com­pact EF!AU, find news about kick­ing shell in the teeth in Ross­port again and then some more, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty at Dale Farm, and anti-GM resis­tance — Spuds you Don’t Like demo in Eng­land, sab­o­tage in Ger­many, France and Scot­land.

In an end of the sum­mer com­pact EF!AU, find news about kick­ing shell in the teeth in Ross­port again and then some more, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty at Dale Farm, and anti-GM resis­tance — Spuds you Don’t Like demo in Eng­land, sab­o­tage in Ger­many, France and Scot­land.

On top of the usu­al con­tacts and dates, read about sol­i­dar­i­ty with jailed Swiss nan­otech activists, resis­tance against steel plants, mobile phone masts, min­ing and ener­gy projects here & across the world — stay angry and don’t car­ry on as usu­al!

The quar­ter­ly EF!AU, August 2011

Genetically Modified Papaya Farm Sabotaged in Hawaii

8.9.11

Accord­ing to Hawaii Coun­ty police, thou­sands of GE papaya trees were sab­o­taged last month, appar­ent­ly by machete on the Big Island.

8.9.11

Accord­ing to Hawaii Coun­ty police, thou­sands of GE papaya trees were sab­o­taged last month, appar­ent­ly by machete on the Big Island.

“It’s hard to imag­ine any­body putting that much effort into doing some­thing like that,” said Delan Per­ry, vice pres­i­dent of the Hawaii Papaya Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press. “It means some­body has to have pas­sion­ate rea­son.”

Delivering the answer to GM spuds in Norwich

Sat­ur­day 23rd July saw grow­ers and sup­port­ers from all over the UK and beyond descend on Nor­wich to help deliv­er 40 box­es of organ­ic blight-resis­tant pota­toes to the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry to high­light the re-emer­gence of open-air field test­ing, and the £1.7 mil­lion of pub­lic mon­ey being spent in the hunt for a GM blight-res

Sat­ur­day 23rd July saw grow­ers and sup­port­ers from all over the UK and beyond descend on Nor­wich to help deliv­er 40 box­es of organ­ic blight-resis­tant pota­toes to the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry to high­light the re-emer­gence of open-air field test­ing, and the £1.7 mil­lion of pub­lic mon­ey being spent in the hunt for a GM blight-resis­tant spud. Folk came from Wales, France, Lon­don, Devon, Lan­cast­er, Man­ches­ter, Dorset, Liv­er­pool, Bris­tol, York­shire, Bun­gay and Nor­wich itself. You can see pho­tos of the event by click­ing on http://www.flickr.com/photos/chickenpea111/sets/72157627303039592/
Back­ing from celebri­ty food­ie Anto­nio Car­luc­cio, com­bined with grass­roots organ­is­ing and the sheer absur­di­ty of the GM research, meant that the event got exten­sive press cov­er­age (see the links below).

Most of the speech­es were con­duct­ed in the city cen­tre, next to the farm­ers’ mar­ket, and fea­tured the head of pol­i­cy at the Soil Asso­ci­a­tion, the Direc­tor of GM Freeze and a selec­tion of farm­ers, who explained why GM is a risky, expen­sive and out­dat­ed tech­nol­o­gy, which is still fail­ing to deliv­er com­mer­cial crops of any ben­e­fit to farm­ers or con­sumers. Peter Lund­gren, a con­ven­tion­al farmer from Lin­colnshire, described the ongo­ing research as “flog­ging a dead horse”. “Why are we throw­ing good mon­ey after bad when we already have six vari­eties of blight resis­tant pota­toes in the mar­ket­place avail­able for grow­ers? The GM indus­try makes a great effort to sug­gest that exist­ing vari­eties don’t taste good.” “Look” he said, point­ing to the chil­dren in the crowd tuck­ing into hot blight-resis­tant pota­toes being served by the local Green­house café. “That’s the real test.” The crowd of grow­ers, coun­cil­lors, senior cit­i­zens and kids then head­ed out to the John Innes Cen­tre to deliv­er the organ­ic spuds under the watch­ful gaze of sev­er­al vans of riot cops and a police heli­copter.

Prof. Jonathan Jones (or JJ to us…) Field notes from close quar­ters.

The most unusu­al aspect of the demo which fol­lowed was the inti­mate approach adopt­ed by the Sains­bury’s lab researchers. Nor­mal­ly indus­try sci­en­tists are more than coy about engag­ing with crit­ics. Stop GM attempt­ed to organ­ise a stan­dard pub­lic debate in Bramham near Leeds Uni­ver­si­ty a cou­ple of months ago. The vil­lage is next to the only oth­er open-air tri­al site in the coun­try at Leeds Uni­ver­si­ty, but Prof. Atkin­son refused to attend, say­ing that he did­n’t believe adver­sar­i­al debates inform the pub­lic.

Up until 6 days before the Nor­wich ral­ly Jones was issu­ing threats against any­one attempt­ing to make a deliv­ery to his door and refus­ing our offer of a mod­est plat­form. So it was curi­ous that JJ brought not only a small army of secu­ri­ty, but also what appeared to be a not insignif­i­cant part of his research team, his PA, and his wife to the par­ty out­side the Sains­bury Lab gates, who all min­gled with the crowd and attempt­ed to engage in a vari­ety of ways. Jones gave us some use­ful insights into what to expect from the indus­try when cor­nered. The intro to his speech actu­al­ly includ­ed a sub­stan­tial ‘I used to sub­scribe to the Ecol­o­gist in the 70’s you know’ sec­tion. He also talked a lot about the sup­port he had from local farm­ers, none of whom were actu­al­ly in atten­dance, and he didn’t acknowl­edge viable alter­na­tives to GM, oth­er than to say that the pota­toes that had been deliv­ered were “not pop­u­lar with con­sumers” (Unlike, say, GM foods — the only prod­uct ever to be uni­ver­sal­ly banned by super­mar­kets from their own lines in response to mass con­sumer oppo­si­tion). He attempt­ed through­out to paint him­self as a cham­pi­on of impar­tial pub­lic sci­ence ded­i­cat­ed to reduc­ing chem­i­cal use, reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions and feed­ing the world. This from a man who’s oth­er day job is that of co-founder of Mendel Bio-tech­nol­o­gy. This is tak­en from their web­site: “Mendel is ded­i­cat­ed to being a pre­mier biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny serv­ing large agri­cul­tur­al com­pa­nies with new genet­ic and chem­i­cal solu­tions and to becom­ing the lead­ing seed com­pa­ny serv­ing the bioen­er­gy indus­try.” Those chem­i­cal solu­tions and large agri­cul­tur­al com­pa­nies he so care­ful­ly aligned him­self against in Sat­ur­day’s speech? Mendel has three strate­gic part­ners: Mon­san­to (the largest), BP and Bay­er Crop Sci­ence.

JJ defend­ing his Mon­san­to links in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/18/gm-scientist-defends-monsanto-links

For more on Jones and his com­mer­cial bio-tech and lob­by group links see: http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Jonathan_Jones

Jones is also on the board of direc­tors of the ISAAA, a GM indus­try lob­by group.
ISAAA’s annu­al review of GM crops is often used to pro­mote the tech­nol­o­gy, as no one else is putting sim­i­lar data out.

The ral­ly was fol­lowed by some fine shapes being thrown around the camp­fire at the excel­lent after-par­ty, and day of grass­roots organ­is­ing where we gath­ered inspi­ra­tion from our amaz­ing French friends and fur­ther evolved cam­paign ideas start­ed at Gath­er­ing Momen­tum in Jan­u­ary. Watch out for our stall and work­shops at the Green Gath­er­ing in Chep­stow this week­end. Drop in and say hel­lo if you’re pass­ing. For more infor­ma­tion about non-GM blight-resis­tant pota­toes see www.savari-trust.org

A sum­ma­ry of some of the news cov­er­age-

TV -

ITN : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REZwCEZqoSU&feature=player_embedded
BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-14277147
Radio: BBC Nor­folk:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00hxv3f

Press –

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2011/07/25/127998/Campaigners-protest-against-GM-spuds.htm

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/health/anti_gm_protesters_descend_on_john_innes_centre_in_norwich_1_972864

http://www.newmarketjournal.co.uk/news/regional/protesters_meet_gm_crop_scientists_1_2896750http://www.southnorwichnews.co.uk/news/rally-heads-for-research-park/

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/latest-news/norwich-protest-over-gm-potatoes/40434.article

JJ also got a pre-emp­tive piece in the on-line Guardian. For those who aren’t aware, the Guardian has start­ed receiv­ing Gates Foun­da­tion fund­ing. The Microsoft billionaire’s fond­ness for biotech appears to have ren­dered sev­er­al pre­vi­ous­ly impar­tial organ­i­sa­tions slight­ly blink­ered in their engage­ment with GM issues. Whilst some of the media cov­er­age is undoubt­ed­ly unbal­anced, the Sains­bury lab­o­ra­to­ry do a lot of PR any­way, and this ral­ly is the first time in many years that they have been forced to defend rather than just pro­mote their work. At their site they seem to have expend­ed a fair bit of ener­gy in defence as well, with a con­ve­nient con­t­a­m­i­na­tion con­tain­ing ‘tent’ over the tri­al site, and earth bar­ri­cades at every entrance.

The cam­paign con­tin­ues — come and get involved. Con­tact info@stopgm.org.uk

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update 2011

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop.

If you can come down to help set up please do, we start on August the 5th, if you can stay a few days after the gath­er­ing to help bring it all do that’d also be grand.

Site phone num­ber 1 is 07551689365 or try num­ber 2 on 07866797016.

Here’s a detailed map

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And here’s the work­shop sched­ule:

Wednes­day

11:30–1

Nation­al Bargee Trav­ellers Asso­ci­a­tion

Infor­ma­tion and dis­cus­sion ses­sion on the cur­rent strug­gle of trav­el­ling boat dwellers to keep their homes in the face of harass­ment and unlaw­ful enforce­ment by British Water­ways. Come along if you live on a boat, or if you want to know how you can help the boat­ing com­mu­ni­ty fight back!

Frack-Off! An intro­duc­tion to the threat of hydraulic frac­tur­ing.

Frack­ing is a night­mare! Tox­ic and radioac­tive water pol­lu­tion. Tap water you can set on fire. Run­away cli­mate change. To pro­duce expen­sive gas that will soon run out. So why are we doing it? This will be a detailed prac­ti­cal, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop aimed at bring­ing peo­ple up to speed on the issue, the specifics of which areas of the UK are direct­ly under threat and par­tic­u­lar­ly, where to find organ­ised resis­tance.

Squat Electrics

Deal­ing with our shit- Men against the Patri­archy. An open dis­cus­sion on the ways in which men can unlearn the arse­hole patri­ar­chal behav­iours they’ve picked up by being alive in this soci­ety, and rein­force with­in the rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ment.

2–4

Pop­u­lar Edu­ca­tion & Train­ing

Skill-share for Train­ers! Inter­est­ed in pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion & train­ing? Come learn & share pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion exer­cis­es & games designed for group par­tic­i­pa­tion and hor­i­zon­tal learn­ing. Find what col­lec­tives are work­ing in the UK (& beyond!) and the work they are doing.

Oh Fuck it’s the Apoc­a­lypse

work­ing on the basis that the col­lapse of indus­tri­al soci­ety is fair­ly immi­nent, and that we need to plan for it. To this end we’re look­ing at sus­tain­able liv­ing, per­ma­cul­ture, etc, with a sur­vival­ist angle; at ways to sur­vive a col­lapse and build a more sane soci­ety from the ruins; and dis­cussing how this analy­sis affects our oth­er activism and pri­or­i­ties. We’re a bit like Tran­si­tion Towns with an Edge and a Clue.

Using Radios- A begin­ners guide to using radios dur­ing actions.

Set­ting up a Tri­pod- Nev­er put up a tri­pod before, want a use one on an action. Here’s your chance to find out how.

4–6

Squatting,Direct Action and New Laws

Film: ‘Gasland’

When a doc­u­men­tary film-mak­er is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-coun­try odyssey uncov­er­ing a trail of secrets, lies and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. A recent­ly drilled near­by Penn­syl­va­nia town reports that res­i­dents are able to light their drink­ing water on fire. This is a US doc­u­men­tary, how­ev­er shale extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ is now head­ing to the UK.

Tin­kers Bub­ble

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Thurs­day

10–1130

Intro to Con­sen­sus

Con­sen­sus is wide­ly regard­ed as one of the most empow­er­ing and cre­ative ways of mak­ing deci­sions in a non-hier­ar­chi­cal group, but it isn’t always easy. This par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop pro­vides an intro­duc­tion or refresh­er to what it’s all about and how to make it work.

Rec­c­ing

Struc­tured and facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion to share skills and tips for suc­cess­ful rec­cies for action. Includ­ing a check-list of what to find out, inter­net and phone search­es, site vis­its, tricks and dis­guis­es for get­ting info, secu­ri­ty tips etc.

Intro to EF!

Lon­don Olympics

Resist­ing the Lon­don 2012 Olympics (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Counter Olympics Net­work)
What can we do to resist the Olympics in Lon­don next year? Peo­ple are aware of the prob­lems with the games — sur­veil­lance, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, pri­vati­sa­tion, job inse­cu­ri­ty etc and the ben­e­fits to cor­po­ra­tions. Come and dis­cuss these and how we can resist, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from peo­ple who have resist­ed oth­er Olympics.

How to plan a kick ass action:

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

1130–1300

Bank­ing & finance

Lock­ing on

Prac­ti­cal work­shop for learn­ing dif­fer­ent lock-on tech­niques for block­ades and oth­er actions. Arm-tubes, d‑locks, chains, hand­cuffs, super­glue and more!

20 years of EF! Look­ing for­ward

Fight Frack­ing

Shale gas extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ has been pol­lut­ing drink­ing water and the cli­mate in the US, where it has caused numer­ous health prob­lems. It’s been blamed for mini-earth­quakes in Black­pool and there are plans for projects across the UK, includ­ing in South Wales, Lan­cashire, Som­er­set, Kent, Sur­rey and Scot­land. Join an open dis­cus­sion & plan­ning ses­sion on how we can resist these projects.

Infil­tra­tion- Activist Trau­ma

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Deal­ing with Con­flict

An intro­duc­tion to under­stand­ing and deal­ing effec­tive­ly with dis­agree­ment and con­flict in our groups. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Intro to Anar­chy

Smash Edo

Anti-cuts and Against Aus­ter­i­ty

An open dis­cus­sion on how we’re cur­rent­ly work­ing against the cuts, what are we learn­ing about the sit­u­a­tion, what is prov­ing to be effec­tive, do we need to unlearn cer­tain behav­iours that have dom­i­nat­ed activist cir­cles in order to broad­en and con­nect the resis­tances cur­rent­ly occur­ring.

Men­tal Health

4pm- 6pm

Action Plan­ning for a kick ass action

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

Self-Defence for Paci­fists

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

Shell to Sea

Trou­ble Shoot­ing in meet­ings

A work­shop on trou­bleshoot­ing and improv­ing your meet­ings.

Pup­pet show

Per­for­mance and dis­cus­sion of a pup­pet show cel­e­brat­ing the his­to­ry of envi­ron­men­tal direct action in the UK.

——–

Fri­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Affin­i­ty groups

Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop explor­ing how and why work with oth­ers for action, includ­ing inspir­ing case stud­ies of suc­cess­ful autonomous actions.

Basic bike main­te­nance.

An infor­mal work­shop on brakes and gears, can also cov­er tru­ing wheels and look at oth­er repairs with no or few tools, by Bicy­col­o­gy.

Intro to EF!

Facil­i­tat­ing Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Work­shops

Have you got skills or infor­ma­tion you’d like to share? Or maybe you want to sup­port peo­ple to learn from each oth­er, or share expe­ri­ences? Devel­op skills, confidence& under­stand­ing to facil­i­tate fun, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry & dynam­ic work­shops.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty is a Weapon

1130–1pm

Intro to Direct Action

Direct action is about tak­ing things into our own hands instead of ask­ing the rich and pow­er­ful to do the right thing. Empow­er your­self to go out and make change hap­pen!

Intro to indus­tri­al Agri­cul­ture and GM

Anar­cho-Fem­i­nist

Black Fish

The Black Fish is a new­ly found­ed Euro­pean based con­ser­va­tion organ­i­sa­tion that takes action on the issues of whal­ing, indus­tri­al fish­ing and marine ani­mals in cap­tiv­i­ty. Using edu­ca­tion, inves­ti­ga­tion and non-vio­lent direct action, The Black Fish has set out on a mis­sion to change atti­tudes towards our pre­cious oceans and work to pro­tect the unique life with­in them.

2–4pm

Sus­tain­ing Resis­tance- A work­shop to explore how we can make our activism more sus­tain­able and effec­tive in the long term. Find­ing sources of per­son­al sup­port to help us stay inspired, nour­ished and cre­ative for the long haul and iden­ti­fy­ing how we can chal­lenge dam­ag­ing cul­tures of over­work and burnout in our activist groups.*

Doing Actions with­out get­ting caught

Prac­ti­cal work­shop cov­er­ing var­i­ous aspects of doing actions with­out get­ting caught, includ­ing get­ting to your tar­get with­out detec­tion both in the day and in the dark, foren­sics and dress sense, get­ting togeth­er mate­ri­als, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, get­ting away. Parts of the work­shop will involve phys­i­cal prac­tise, please wear suit­able clothes for crawl­ing through bush­es…

Women’s Self Defence

The lud­dites 200 year anniver­sary and tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics today

Cel­e­brat­ing the 200 Anniver­sary of the Lud­dite Upris­ings: Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­tics Then and Now (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Luddites200 Organ­is­ing Forum
In 1811-12 Arti­san cloth work­ers in the Mid­lands and North of Eng­land rose up against fac­to­ry own­ers who were impos­ing new machines and putting them out of work. Since the 1950s the Lud­dites have been paint­ed as fools opposed to all tech­nol­o­gy and progress, but in fact the Lud­dites were very selec­tive in their attacks, break­ing only machines they thought were ‘hurt­ful to Com­mon­al­i­ty’. What can the Lud­dites teach us about the ongo­ing use of tech­nol­o­gy to replace work­ers’ jobs, as well as issues like GM food and nuclear pow­er? Can we escape the myth that tech­nol­o­gy always brings progress?

Activist Trau­ma

4–6pm

Get­ting over Fences

Priv­i­lege and Oppres­sion

Pow­er and priv­i­lege play out con­tin­u­ous­ly in our group dynam­ics. This work­shop will explore the roles we each play as priv­i­leged and as oppressed in our move­ment and in wider soci­ety.

Dale Farm

this is the biggest unlaw­ful Trav­eller site in the UK. Res­i­dents own their land but have been repeat­ed­ly refused plan­ning
per­mis­sion and Basil­don Coun­cil have now gath­ered £18million in order to evict them. After years of fight­ing their evic­tion through the courts they have now been served their papers, and have until the 31st August to leave. this work­shop will out­line the his­to­ry of the cam­paign, dis­cuss plans for resist­ing the evic­tion and, if there is enough inter­est, organ­ise a work­ing par­ty to vis­it Dale Farm to help them pre­pare for evic­tion.

Coal Action Net­work

Intro to what’s hap­pened so far with CAN. Dis­cus­sions about what peo­ple would like from the network/website and where peo­ple think coal cam­paig­ing is going. How to get involved in CAN.

Tripods

Doing Actions with­out Get­ting caught part 2

We’ll be prac­tis­ing how to move in the dark with­out being spot­ted. Please wear dark clothes suit­able for crawl­ing through the bush­es and a torch if you can. Meet at 8.30 sharp at the gate tent. The prac­tise will fin­ish by 10pm.

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Sat­ur­day

10–1130

Facil­i­ta­tion

If you’ve nev­er facil­i­tat­ed a meet­ing before, or want to brush up your skills and gain con­fi­dence, this work­shop is for you.

Intro to EF!

Basic land nav­i­ga­tion

An intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion with map and a com­pass for total begin­ners or improvers. Please bring a com­pass if you have one . Also, an overview of very sim­ple route find­ing using the sun, stars and oth­er nat­ur­al signs.

Envi­ron­men­tal and Autonomous Edu­ca­tion for young peo­ple

A dis­cus­sion about var­i­ous alter­na­tive edu­ca­tion projects for young peo­ple, a space to share ideas, expe­ri­ences and rethink the ways in which we engage in these projects.

Coal Action Scot­land- What’s going on in the Val­leys at the moment and how can peo­ple get involved.

11.30am- 1.00pm

Build­ing Strong Groups- Share ideas and learn from oth­ers for mak­ing your group more acces­si­ble, inclu­sive and sus­tain­able.

Organ­is­ing the next win­ter moot and sum­mer gath­er­ing

Enjoyed this gath­er­ing? Thought this gath­er­ing was crap? Come along and start work­ing out how next years gath­er­ing could turn out.

Nutri­tion 101

May­day Indy­media

What is indy­media and how does it work? This work­shop, run by mem­bers of the col­lec­tive which looks after the indymedia.org.uk web­site, will attempt to answer your ques­tions about indy­media and will give you the infor­ma­tion you need to report your news effec­tive­ly on the uk site [and the local sites Birm­ing­ham, Sheffield and Oxford?], includ­ing writ­ing mid­dle col­umn fea­tures for the uk front page to give promi­nence to your cam­paigns and actions. Find out about the edi­to­r­i­al guide­lines and mod­er­a­tion, as well as how to raise queries and how to start up an indy­media col­lec­tive in your local area.

Rewil­d­ing

Facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Who Cares?

Open dis­cus­sion based around recent arti­cle pub­lished on Cease­fire enti­tled “Who Cares?” which talked about the fail­ures of the rad­i­cal move­ment with­in the UK to engage with child care in a way which relat­ed to anar­chist pol­i­tics.

Know your rights: Legal and arrest work­shop

Cov­ers basic law for activists and the arrest process. If you’ve
nev­er been nicked before or you want to brush up on your knowl­edge, this is for you. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Anti-Nuclear- Cam­paign update and info ses­sion

Using Radios

Sav­ing Ice­land and Samaren­dra Das: The Glob­al Crimes of the Alu­mini­um Car­tel

Behind the shin­ing image of alu­mini­um is a dark side of envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phes, the arms indus­try and cul­tur­al geno­cide. A joint pre­sen­ta­tion by Sav­ing Ice­land and Indi­an author/activist Samaren­dra Das. It will include cur­rent threats to the Ice­landic high­lands, one of Europe’s last great wilder­ness­es, the his­to­ry and future of the cam­paign and the fal­lac­i­es of hydro and geot­her­mal ener­gy. Samaren­dra Das will speak about the present strug­gle of Adi­va­sis against com­pa­nies such as Vedan­ta and the real facts behind the alu­mini­um indus­try.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Self-Defence

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

‘The True Cost of Coal’

The Bee­hive Design Col­lec­tive (part of the Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca Net­work) cre­ate portable murals of col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly pro­duced illus­tra­tions with an amaz­ing­ly engag­ing cen­tral nar­ra­tive. ‘The True Cost of Coal’ will take you on an inter­ac­tive visu­al tour of the con­nec­tions between Coal Min­ing, Cli­mate Change, the Ever Expand­ing Cap­i­tal­ist Econ­o­my, and the Strug­gle for Jus­tice in Appalachia, North Amer­i­ca and through­out the world.

GM Cam­paign- Cam­paign update and info share.

Com­mu­ni­ty Defence: Build­ing our own Exarchia’s

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Sun­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Region­al Meet­ings

Dsei

DSEi is the worlds largest Arms Fair, as many EFers know. This year it’s from Sep­tem­ber 13–18. It’s not sim­ply about the arms trade. It’s about pub­lic ser­vices “cuts”: the envi­ron­ment: bank­ing and investors: the con­flicts in the Mid­dle East and North Africa. Not to men­tion the bor­ders that stop peo­ple flee­ing con­flict There’s a call for a mass block­ade of the DLR on the Tues­day. Pre­vi­ous Days of Action- and oth­er days in the week ‑have includ­ed street par­ties, Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides, die-ins, mock sales of “arms”, legs and even a tank; splash­ing fake blood across the entrances, engag­ing with arms deal­ers on the trains and plat­forms, invad­ing the car park and rail entrance, block­ing the roads, lock­ing on to the trains, even swim­ming in the dock! And vis­it­ing the investors offices of course. And in ther run-up- your local arms fac­to­ry. Will be talk­ing about all this — Not to men­tion that vis­it to your local arms fac­to­ry!

11.30am- 1.00pm

Action Update

Gath­er­ings Col­lec­tive

Basic Plant I‑d

Dis­cus­sion about Veg­an­ism

Direct Action Train­ing

Come and get active in this inter­ac­tive and hope­ful­ly fun work­shop where we’ll be look­ing at some fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks for tak­ing non-vio­lent direct action to fight suf­fer­ing, and prac­tis­ing dif­fer­ent non-vio­lent ech­niques to hold occu­pa­tions, block­ade, break out of ket­tles, de-arrest peo­ple, and to deal with oth­er police tac­tics, like snatch squads, hors­es and dogs. We’ll also give lots of oth­er tips for deal­ing with pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions and for affin­i­ty group actions, includ­ing some key legal infor­ma­tion which you should know when you’re tak­ing action, and some tips about deal­ing with the media. And we’ll look at some of the val­ues and atti­tudes which are key to tak­ing NVDA, like non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing and con­sen­sus (and oth­ers). We’ll hope­ful­ly be able to adjust the work­shop to cov­er what you want, and to answer all your ques­tions.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Gath­er­ing Feed­back Show

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Kids’ space and activ­i­ties

If you do not have a kid, we might still need your help, so read
on.……

The kids’ space is designed as a place where chil­dren and those car­ing for them can relax, play and eat. The space con­tains books, toys and craft mate­ri­als.

The kids’ space is NOT a creche and does­n’t have staff or facil­i­ties to care for chil­dren.

Par­ents and car­ers are respect­ful­ly remind­ed that they will need to col­lect chil­dren at meal times/breaks and that they much keep adults in the kids space informed of where they can be found; please also fill in the forms in the kids kitchen regard­ing food aller­gies etc.

If you do not have a child at the gath­er­ing, but would like to help in kids space, please talk to the col­lec­tive. Help with read­ing sto­ries, play­ing games, art and crafts always wel­come.

Kid’s kitchen

This pro­vides meals suit­able for and at appro­pri­ate times for chil­dren. Kids meal tick­ets cost £2 or £3 a day for 2 meals (the low­er rate is for tod­dlers); please buy these at the gate tent. This is the first time we have sold kids meal tick­ets and hope­ful­ly this will cov­er the cost of meals, but we may need to ask for help if this is not enough to cov­er our costs.

Even those with­out chil­dren can help by with cook­ing and wash­ing up in the kids space, please vol­un­teer if you can.

Games and activ­i­ties

Dur­ing the morn­ing (approx 10 am ‑noon) there will be activ­i­ties and work­shops for kids in one of the work­shop spaces.

In the after­noon (after lunch), there will be games in the top mead­ow for chil­dren and adults togeth­er. Again, any help with these very wel­come — just ask the collective/kids space crew.

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Pub­lic Trans­port

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .

We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). !

Wheel­chair users intend­ing to use Diss sta­tion will need to book assis­tance with the train oper­a­tor. There are no lifts so sta­tion staff have to assist mobil­i­ty impaired cus­tomers across the track. Appar­ent­ly the sta­tion is not manned 24 hours a day and the gate for the cross­ing is kept locked — so do phone and book to be sure .We have been told the bus ser­vice includes some low-floor bus­es with easy access for pushchairs, peo­ple with mobil­i­ty impair­ments etc.

Hitch to Nor­wich or Diss; from Nor­wich hitch south on the A140 to Dick­le­burgh. It is then a 3 ‑4 mile walk or hitch to the site; on the Dick­le­burgh bypass (don’t go into Dick­le­burgh vil­lage) is a right turn to Shim­pling and Burston; fol­low this road through Burston vil­lage, past the vil­lage green and out of the vil­lage. There is a sharp left turn, then down a hill to a sharp right turn. Site is on the right just over a lit­tle brick bridge.

From Diss either walk or bus, or car­ry on up the A140 to the turn­ing on the Dick­le­burgh junc­tion as above (only this time the junc­tion is on the left).

[some even more detailed info includ­ing post-code, from pre­vi­ous year, at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html]

efsummergathering2011@riseup.net