Cymru/South West England Winter Moot 2026

*New date: 27th-29th March — Join the Cymru/South West England EF! Winter Moot: Fighting Fascism in the Sticks!*

Hel­lo all,
We want to invite you to attend a region­al Earth First Win­ter Moot! This will be held in South Cym­ru, and is open to folks from the whole of Cym­ru and the South West of Eng­land.

IMPORTANT: You must fill out this form if you would like to attend as there are lim­it­ed spaces on this gath­er­ing! Be aware that fill­ing out the form doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly guar­an­tee a spot depend­ing on how many want to come. We hope we can have every­body! https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/btCL-QuLa3nsvCCFUPEtJJEFor0z0k0s2XWMRGp8ORg/

The recent rise of the far right and reform in the UK and Wales is some­thing many of us are active­ly resist­ing, and we want to host a gath­er­ing to share tac­tics, expe­ri­ence and resources to build our capc­i­ty in this fight. Fight­ing fas­cism in rur­al areas can often feel iso­lat­ing, so gath­er­ing togeth­er espe­cial­ly at this time of year feels very nec­es­sary. Although cen­tred around rur­al organ­i­sa­tions we invit­ed folks from urban areas to come along too to share skills and expe­ri­ence!

If you feel sim­i­lar­ly, we’d love for you to come along to par­tic­i­pate in work­shops, dis­cus­sions and build­ing com­mu­ni­ty with us. This moot is for those active­ly resist­ing fas­cism, or those want­i­ng to start organ­is­ing. It will be a more focused gath­er­ing than moots you may have been to before, so please only come if you are will­ing to engage in seri­ous dis­cus­sion and plan­ning.

We have lim­it­ed space for the week­end (around 30) so we ask that only 2 peo­ple come from any group or area to ensure we have enough folks from all over. We also expect peo­ple to stay for the whole week­end (Fri­day night — Sun­day mid­day) if at all pos­si­ble. The spe­cif­ic loca­tion will be dis­closed upon fill­ing out the form above. There will be some lifts going to the loca­tion from sta­tions, but we encour­age you to do the whole jour­ney on pub­lic trans­port if pos­si­ble. There will also be car park­ing and van space.

We will be ask­ing for pay what you can dona­tions to cov­er the run­ning cost of the week­end, this will also go towards pro­vid­ing some shared meals! No body will be turned away for lack of funds 🙂 Please dis­close aller­gens or dietary require­ments on the form.

If you have any acces­si­bil­i­ty require­ments or ques­tions please get in touch with us on: Efcymru@proton.me

Also of you have a rel­e­vant work­shop / dis­cus­sion you would like to deliv­er over the week­end please get in touch!
We hope to see you there! Love and rage

FYI: Earth First! is a non-hier­ar­chi­cal net­work which is involved in organ­is­ing direct action and eco­log­i­cal resis­tance. It has no lead­ers, fol­low­ers, or mem­ber­ship but is a ban­ner for those of us fight­ing for a bet­ter world to gath­er under. EF! has been organ­is­ing in the UK for over thir­ty years, hold­ing a larg­er gath­er­ing each sum­mer and meet­ing in the win­ter months for moots. The win­ter moots nor­mal­ly take a more focused approach to organ­is­ing in region­al areas or over cer­tain themes. They are a time to plot and plan for the year ahead!

Save the date: EF! Summer Gathering 2026 will be 12th-17th August!

Greet­ings all,

The 2026 Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing will be from Wednes­day 12th — Mon­day 17th August! Woohoo

Save the date, and let your mates know. We don’t have a region in mind yet, but will announce more info when we can. If you have any site sug­ges­tions, feel free to get in touch at earthfirstuk@proton.me (you can no longer reach us at earthfirstuk@riseup.net!)

In the mean­time, we hope to see you at the region­al win­ter moots which are being organ­ised around the coun­try as we speak. As dates and loca­tions are con­firmed we’ll post them in the web­site, but at a min­i­mum there will def­i­nite­ly be a moot, some­where, on the 6–8th Feb­ru­ary 2026.

Documentary: Indigenous Blockades in Quebec

Check out this new doc­u­men­tary about how indige­nous block­ades in Que­bec defeat­ed a project of law that would’ve hand­ed over the remain­ing forests of the province to the log­ging indus­try. The media is obscur­ing the fact that direct action got the goods, so we’re try­ing to get this out fast — boosts appre­ci­at­ed!

🔗 https://amplifierfilms.ca/blockade
🐘 https://kolektiva.social/@AmplifierFilms/115469694547959224
📺 https://youtu.be/ncX22hqe7Ac
📸 https://www.instagram.com/p/DQew1HnkgoT
📘 https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1ZWaYqgHvQ

Thanks for a Wonderful Gathering :)

Thank you to every­one who came to the 31st Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing at Brithdir Mawr in Pem­brokeshire! We had amaz­ing work­shops and deli­cious food. We talked about the future of Earth First! and the move­ments we’re a part of, as well as how to smash traps, climb trees, dance dan­ga, raise kids, care for our com­mu­ni­ties, and keep on fight­ing for green anar­chy. There was that per­fect com­bi­na­tion of old friends to catch up with, and new ones to make. We were sur­round­ed by nature, includ­ing a beau­ti­ful moun­tain which saw lots of walks up it, and a stun­ning beach which had at least one par­ty. We were joined by some very tal­ent­ed bands who per­formed some great gigs. We only had one lead acid bat­tery short cir­cuit, and even then it did­n’t real­ly catch fire.

This win­ter, we want to have region­al win­ter moots all over the coun­try. If no-ones doing it in your area, maybe you could! Or if they already are, then why not join in. Hope­ful­ly enough places organ­ise one that we won’t need to have an offi­cial nation­al moot; but we will make sure some­thing hap­pens 6–8th Feb­ru­ary 2026, be it a local group or a nation­al moot. Hope to see you all soon!

Sessions Preview for the Summer Gathering

With just 2 days to go until the 31st Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing begins in Pem­brokeshire, here’s a sneak peek of some of the ses­sions to look for­ward to!

Are we doing it all wrong? An exploration into prefigurative politics, vanguardism and making change in a complex dynamic system.

This will be a talk and open dis­cus­sion that explores the the­o­ries of mak­ing change par­tic­u­lar­ly  emer­gence, real­ism, pre­fig­u­ra­tive pol­i­tics those that cham­pi­on it and its crit­ics who pro­pose more tra­di­tion­al left­ist strate­gies for mak­ing change. It will explore some his­tor­i­cal events and oth­er resis­tance move­ments that used these strate­gies and dis­cuss the ben­e­fits and draw backs of each.
It will also  explore our own hearts and  minds in why we make the deci­sions we do, our moti­va­tions and maybe how and why things look the way they do on the envi­ron­men­tal left and left more gen­er­al­ly. The aim is to have the audi­ence par­tic­i­pat­ing with their own knowl­edge lived expe­ri­ence of activism and liv­ing in a sys­tem we don’t want to be a part of to have a rich dis­cus­sion where hope­ful­ly we all go away hav­ing learned some­thing even if all the ideas of the host are total non­sense.

Campaigns Round-up

A series short (15–20min) pre­sen­ta­tions from var­i­ous cam­paign groups and what they’re about. Come along to find out what cam­paign are cur­rent­ly active, what they’re fight­ing for/against and how to get involved!

If you have a cam­paign or group you’d like to talk about, please let some­one on the wel­come desk know and will fit you in.

Climbing for Beginners

Learn how to safe­ly access trees and high struc­tures. In this begin­ner-friend­ly work­shop we’ll show you how to ascend and descend a rope. All equip­ment is pro­vid­ed.

NOTE: Climb­ing is an inher­ent­ly haz­ardous activ­i­ty. Please do not attend if you are not in a calm head­space or are under the influ­ence of drugs or alco­hol. Ages 16+ only.

Conflict and Community Care

An open dis­cus­sion around con­flict and com­mu­ni­ty care, facil­i­tat­ed by the Star­ling col­lec­tive. What even is trans­for­ma­tive jus­tice, and what about when someone’s real­ly being a dick? How do we deal with con­flict, and how do we wish we dealt with con­flict? What does com­mu­ni­ty care look like? We have lots of thoughts and no con­crete answers; let’s build col­lec­tive care col­lec­tive­ly.

Connecting conversations across EF!s

At many pre­vi­ous EF! gath­er­ings, we’ve had strat­e­gy ses­sions to think about the cur­rent and future of EF! as a move­ment. At the last win­ter moot, we spoke about the strate­gies and resources we can build to sup­port rad­i­cal action, and eco­log­i­cal direct action in defense of the earth as a nec­es­sar­i­ly cen­tral focus. We want­ed to pro­vide a space to pick up these threads, catch up with each oth­er, and think about what comes next. All wel­come, even if you’ve nev­er been to EF! before, or missed the win­ter moot.

Danga
Dan­ga is a com­bi­na­tion of Dance and Yoga. It’s a chance to come out of your com­fort zone and explore things about your­self that you did­n’t know about, and it’s a way of team build­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills with peo­ple you haven’t met before. Ses­sion will start with some med­i­ta­tion.
EF! winter moot: in city near you?
Earth First! also organ­is­es a meet-up in the win­ter, the moot. Last win­ter there were a cou­ple of moots in dif­fer­ent places. We want to see if we can con­tin­ue the mul­ti­ply­ing moot trend and get a few region­al moots to hap­pen this year! Come along to the work­shop if you’re inter­est­ed, it will also be a chance to meet EF peo­ple in you local area and have a chat about dis­cus­sion themes and keep­ing con­ver­sa­tions going between regions
Gwersyll Greddfu / Climate Camp Cymru

Dych­welodd Gwer­syll Greddfu Cym­ru llynedd am y tro cyntaf ers 15 mlynedd. Dyn ni’n gwei­thio gydag ymgyr­choedd lle­ol i godi gwyd­nwch ac i sefyll yn erbyn dat­bly­giadau sydd dim yn gyna­li­ad­wy. Mae’r sgwrs yma yn gyfle da i ddys­gu mwy am y gwaith dyn ni wedi bod yn gwneud, i fyfyrio ar y gwer­syll y llynedd, ac i fod yn rhan o’r tîm sy’n tre­fnu ein gwer­syll nesaf.

Cli­mate Camp returned to Cym­ru last year for the first time in 15 years. We work with local cam­paigns to build resilience and stand against unsus­tain­able devel­op­ments. This talk is a good chance learn more about the work we’ve been doing, reflect on last year, and get involved with our upcom­ing camp.

How to Love Your Bike

A hands-on work­shop on clean­ing your bike, look­ing after your chain, and diag­nos­ing mechan­i­cal prob­lems. Bring your bike if you’ve got on with you or lis­ten in to the work­shop if you don’t.

It takes a village…

Dis­cus­sion on rais­ing chil­dren. What chal­lenges face those car­ing for chil­dren in our move­ments and beyond? How do we act col­lec­tive­ly to sup­port each oth­er through these? Do we need to change some of the ways we organ­ise to be more inclu­sive of peo­ple who care for chil­dren? Cir­cle dis­cus­sion facil­i­tat­ed by Star­lings.

Kill the Cop in Your Pocket — Smartphones and Activism

There is no way to com­plete­ly secure-proof your smart­phone against your adver­saries, but we can make it more dif­fi­cult to them. Let’s talk secu­ri­ty and pri­va­cy, when to leave your phone at home and what we can do to make sure that if you need your smart­phone, you’re keep­ing your­self and your friends safe.

Tech secu­ri­ty is com­mu­ni­ty self defence!

Know Your Rights

Green and Black Cross’s ‘Know Your Rights’ work­shop aims to give you the knowl­edge to com­bat repres­sive police tac­tics com­mon­ly used against pro­test­ers. Police offi­cers often rely on the lack of legal under­stand­ing of those par­tic­i­pat­ing in protest. This inter­ac­tive ses­sion will give you the tools to take action more con­fi­dent­ly. We will cov­er our Key Mes­sages, police tac­tics and the role of pri­vate secu­ri­ty, stop and search, what hap­pens when you’re arrest­ed, laws com­mon­ly used against pro­test­ers, and a new sec­tion about pro­scrip­tion & the ter­ror­ism act. There is also space to ask ques­tions. Please note that this work­shop is only rel­e­vant to Eng­land & Wales as the law is dif­fer­ent else­where.

Practical First Aid for Protests and Direct Action

Going through the basics of first aid with a focus on direct action. Come and learn how to pro­tect and care for your com­rades against the vio­lent forces of fas­cists and the state; includ­ing splint­ing bro­ken bones, treat­ing pep­per spray and inter­act­ing with the emer­gency ser­vices. No pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence required.

Reclaiming Identity

“It’s time to be bru­tal­ly hon­est about some­thing that’s been hap­pen­ing on the left: we have absorbed the tenets of lib­er­al iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics. We have nur­tured a cul­ture that’s deeply indi­vid­u­al­is­tic, where to be seen as a vic­tim, to be able to claim a mar­gin­alised iden­ti­ty posi­tion, gives you social cap­i­tal.”

This quote from Ash Sarkar’s Minor­i­ty Rule paints a pic­ture of how lib­er­al iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics have infil­trat­ed our move­ments. Race, class, gen­der and oth­er aspects of iden­ti­ty are cen­tral to rad­i­cal pol­i­tics. How­ev­er, dis­cours­es around iden­ti­ty have become dom­i­nat­ed by a lib­er­al fram­ing. Crit­i­cal dis­cus­sion is sub­dued due to a cul­ture of con­for­mi­ty. Impor­tant insights or con­cepts, such as ‘lived expe­ri­ence’, are twist­ed and uncrit­i­cal­ly applied, even­tu­al­ly becom­ing unchal­lenge­able dog­mas to be wield­ed against each oth­er. Ulti­mate­ly a lib­er­al approach to iden­ti­ty under­mines sol­i­dar­i­ty, and moves us away from rather than towards rev­o­lu­tion­ary change.

The work­shop will address some chal­leng­ing and com­plex issues, and so we ask that those attend­ing come with a com­mit­ment to con­struc­tive, crit­i­cal dis­cus­sion among com­rades.

If you’d like to do a bit of prep before the work­shop, read over the 1st chap­ter of Minor­i­ty Rule. It’s fair­ly short and works well for a read­ing group.

Resisting green capitalism in Barroso and beyond

True mob­sters do not get their hands dirty, they are pro­tect­ed by a state struc­ture in a pact of high-risk invest­ments to main­tain a colo­nial extrac­tivist sys­tem. Their intru­sive machin­ery rav­ages moun­tains into craters, clear-cuts forests into deserts and con­t­a­m­i­nates pure, wild waters. In Bar­roso, in the north of the Iber­ian penin­su­la, machines have invad­ed pri­vate and com­mon lands, propos­ing an open-pit lithi­um min­ing project — despite the pop­u­la­tion of this ter­ri­to­ry resist­ing for the past sev­en years.

This con­ver­sa­tion on ways of resist­ing extrac­tivism, refus­ing sac­ri­fice zones local­ly and glob­al­ly, and cel­e­brat­ing us as an alter­na­tive to extrac­tivist vio­lence is brought by Dis­graça — an anar­chist social cen­tre cur­rent­ly in the process of col­lec­tive­ly buy­ing the space that has been active­ly sup­port­ing the strug­gle in Bar­roso.

Stencils as a Direct Action Tool

Sten­cil graf­fi­ti has been used by activists and resis­tance move­ments for decades dat­ing back to WWII, From The White Rose paint­ing anti-nazi slo­gans in Ger­many to Argen­tin­ian stu­dents paint­ing sten­cils against the mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship dur­ing the late 1970s and ear­ly 1980s. We will dis­cuss the advan­tages of typo­graph­ic and icon­ic sten­cils as a direct action tool and how to design, cut and paint them along­side oth­er graf­fi­ti tech­niques

Solidarity in a time of Genocide

Read­ings from rad­i­cal Pales­tin­ian women and how to sup­port the Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Move­ment  in the West Bank

As we gath­er at Earth First, Israel’s geno­cide in Gaza is ongo­ing and esca­lat­ing. Mean­while, in the West Bank Israeli set­tlers are using vio­lence and intim­i­da­tion to forcibly dis­place entire rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and the Israeli army has dis­placed hun­dreds of thou­sands in the north­ern cities of Jenin and Tulka­rem.

The first half of this work­shop will hear sev­er­al read­ings from “Every­thing we thought was Beau­ti­ful” a new com­pi­la­tion of inter­views with rad­i­cal Pales­tin­ian women put togeth­er by UK writ­ers coop­er­a­tive Shoal Col­lec­tive. Their words include impas­sioned calls for sol­i­dar­i­ty.

In the sec­ond part of the work­shop we will hear first hand accounts from vol­un­teers with the Pales­tin­ian-led Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Move­ment (palsolidarity.org), who are pro­vid­ing an inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty pres­ence in com­mu­ni­ties fac­ing set­tler vio­lence in the Jor­dan Val­ley, All Khalil (Hebron) and Masafer Yat­ta. Find out how you can join our work in Pales­tine or sup­port from the UK.

Feel free to join for either Part 1, Part 2 or both

Taking Back Birth

Think­ing about birthing one day, or sup­port­ing some­one doing so? The anar­chist slo­gan “every­thing you have been told is wrong” may well apply! We’ll cov­er some basic but vital infor­ma­tion and answer
ques­tions. If you are a birth work­er or had a baby your­self your input is wel­comed. If you would like to talk through a chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence, please ask for some one-to-one time.

The Current Goings-On at Brithdir Mawr

Join mem­bers of Brithdir Mawr in a Q&A on the cur­rent goings-on and con­flict with our land­lord. Hear about the his­to­ry, the state of play, and pre­dic­tions of the future. Hear how you could help, and say what you think about it all.

Tour of Brithdir Mawr
Join mem­bers of the 30-year-old off-grid com­mu­ni­ty on a tour of house and gar­dens, hear some of the his­to­ry and see how day-to-day life is lived here.
Visible Mending

Bring your clothes that need repairs. there will be some mate­ri­als for vis­i­ble mend­ing, dec­o­ra­tive embroi­dery and patch­ing. bring your embroi­dery threads, hoops and nee­dles! We will repair our gar­ments and talk about how we can repair our plan­et.

What is the Problem with ‘Wellness’?

As our hosts are being evict­ed to make way for a retreat cen­tre, it is time for a con­ver­sa­tion on  ‘well­ness’.

This dis­cus­sion, con­vened by the Star­ling col­lec­tive, is a first step into exam­in­ing issues like: What does ‘well­ness’ mean and sym­bol­ise in mod­ern soci­ety, and in our com­mu­ni­ties? How can we be ‘well’ in the midst of the meta-crises, and is ‘well­ness’ even some­thing to strive for? How has ‘being well’ come to be locat­ed sole­ly in the indi­vid­ual, and how can we shift to col­lec­tive well­be­ing? And what are the his­tor­i­cal links between well­ness, social dar­win­ism, eugen­ics and the far right?

Working with our Enemies: Critical Solidarity in the War in Ukraine

Draw­ing from expe­ri­ence of work­ing along­side the mil­i­tary in Ukraine, we will explore ques­tions of how anar­chists can par­tic­i­pate in strug­gles where we find our­selves work­ing along­side our ene­mies. The work­shop will try to chal­lenge our ide­o­log­i­cal puri­ty and ask how crit­i­cal sol­i­dar­i­ty can be used in strug­gles, both glob­al and clos­er to home.

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

Access Statement for Summer Gathering 2025

Earth First! Access Statement Summer Gathering 2025

Intro

The Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing 2025 will be held at Brithdir Mawr, Pem­brokeshire, Wales. The clos­est train sta­tion is Fish­guard Har­bour or Fish­guard and Good­wick.

This access state­ment is a work-in-progress. If you have any spe­cif­ic ques­tions which are not cov­ered in this doc­u­ment, or any access needs or requests, please don’t hes­i­tate to email us. [earthfirstuk@riseup.net]

There will also be an drop-in ses­sion on Wednes­day 6th where folks are invit­ed to come along and chat to some­one from the acces­si­bil­i­ty work­ing group to ask any ques­tions r.e access and site lay­out, and to work out how we can sup­port each oth­er dur­ing the gath­er­ing  Also, if you’d like to get involved in the acces­si­bil­i­ty work­ing group, please come along to this ses­sion and make your­self known!

If you have any oth­er ques­tions or requests through­out the gath­er­ing, or are unable to make it to the drop-in, chat to the friend­ly folk on wel­come desk.

This page is organ­ised into 5 main sec­tions:

  1. How it works has basic info about EF! and how gath­er­ings are run.
  2. Before the gath­er­ing has impor­tant info about trav­el­ling to the gath­er­ing.
  3. Phys­i­cal access describes the site and work­shop spaces.
  4. Dur­ing the gath­er­ing has var­i­ous points of infor­ma­tion about things like our arrange­ments for food and well­be­ing, COVID, dogs, and oth­er use­ful stuff.
  5. Kit list

We wel­come feed­back about how the gath­er­ing can be more acces­si­ble, equal­ly if you have an offer­ing to make the gath­er­ing more acces­si­ble, please get in touch.


How it works!

Earth First! Gath­er­ings are a place for our move­ments and peo­ple to come togeth­er, meet one anoth­er, learn from one anoth­er, eat togeth­er, dance togeth­er, share ideas, knowl­edge and resources, and prac­tice build­ing the world we’d like to bring forth. They hap­pen twice a year, although the Win­ter Moot tends to be calmer and small­er, allow­ing us to hun­ker down and reflect togeth­er.

We oper­ate under an umbrel­la of shared val­ues and under­stand­ings relat­ed to green anar­chism. Large­ly, this means that we work to dis­rupt and over­turn hier­ar­chies of pow­er, envi­sion­ing and build­ing ways that we can exist togeth­er beyond hier­ar­chi­cal struc­tures, and that we are com­mit­ted to an eco­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion. We are anti-cap­i­tal­ist, against all forms of oppres­sion, and believe that the earth and all its beings exist in their own right, out­side of their val­ue to us as humans.

This year, the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Gath­er­ing will be hap­pen­ing along­side Earth First!, bring­ing anti-speciesism direct­ly into con­ver­sa­tions at EF!. We will share the site and learn togeth­er how to bring into prac­tice a new world in which we are all free. 

Cru­cial­ly, we are all human (if you’re read­ing this at least!) and none of us are ide­o­log­i­cal­ly pris­tine. Earth First! is a space of shar­ing knowl­edge and learn­ing from one anoth­er. Respect­ful curios­i­ty and dis­cus­sion are wel­come here; big­otry and dic­ta­tor­ship are not.

We are all crew!

Earth First! gath­er­ings strive to oper­ate under anar­chist prin­ci­ples, and as a result we are all crew! 

What do we mean by this?

Earth First! and its gath­er­ings belong to all those of us who feel aligned to its prin­ci­ples. No one is paid to be here; no one is ‘in charge’. All of the work which goes into the gath­er­ings are done by peo­ple just like you! 

There are work­ing groups who work togeth­er to put on the gath­er­ing, as well as a large num­ber of peo­ple offer­ing work­shops, kitchen roles and well­be­ing sup­port across the few days. If you’d like to be involved in any of the above, talk to some­one in the rel­e­vant group!

Dur­ing the gath­er­ing itself, there are still many jobs to be done! Whether that’s help­ing out in the kitchen, clean­ing or tidy­ing the site or facil­i­ties, time­keep­ing, fix­ing some­thing or just gen­er­al­ly help­ing things run smooth­ly; every­one is need­ed to help the gath­er­ings come togeth­er. If you see a job that needs doing, do it! If you’re not sure how, grab a friend or chat to some­one who might know (such as some­one on the Wel­come Desk).

We are active­ly try­ing to move away from the idea of a ‘ser­vice econ­o­my’ — the notion that a small group are ‘putting on an event’ and a larg­er group are ‘attend­ing the event’. At Earth First!, we are all putting on an event and we are all attend­ing an event. We do this togeth­er, in what­ev­er ways we are each able, and sup­port one anoth­er to do what we can.

We are all crew!


Before the Gathering

There’s no need to pre-reg­is­ter or tell us that you’re com­ing — just show up!

Welcome Desk

Upon your arrival, please head to the wel­come desk where you’ll be greet­ed by the love­ly peo­ple who’ll give you key infor­ma­tion like where to camp, where the toi­lets are, what time you’ll be fed and also answer any ques­tions you might have. Impor­tant­ly, it’s the wel­come desk who count num­bers for food, so if you don’t go via the wel­come desk and let them know how long you’re stay­ing, you won’t be count­ed into num­bers for meals!

There will be print­ed pro­grammes con­tain­ing lots of the infor­ma­tion in this doc­u­ment as well as oth­er impor­tant things like the anti-oppres­sion state­ment and a blank timetable. Because the sched­ule of work­shops is sub­ject to change, these will be writ­ten up on a board, so you can fill in your own sched­ule in your pro­gramme.

There will be a board with a list of tasks that need doing that you can sign up to at the wel­come desk too. We know some folks find it eas­i­er to socialise and set­tle in if theres a task to do!

At the wel­come desk you may want to men­tion if you have any access needs and who­ev­er is at the desk will point you towards some­one who can help you. There will be some folks avail­able at the wel­come desk who can show you around the site.

Costs

Earth First! runs on dona­tions and we ask those who can to give towards run­ning costs. We’d love to be liv­ing in a post-mon­ey soci­ety, but at the moment we rely on these dona­tions to cov­er food at the gath­er­ing, and oth­er costs such as buy­ing and trans­port­ing kit.

Please bring cash! There will be a sug­gest­ed dona­tions guide at the Wel­come Desk; this will be about £5 per day for food, plus a flat £10–50 for the site costs. If you are able to give more, please do (for exam­ple if you have reg­u­lar dis­pos­able income or come from a finan­cial­ly com­fort­able back­ground or are gonna inher­it loads of dosh).

Equal­ly, if you would strug­gle to pay the sug­gest­ed dona­tion price, do not feel pres­sure to do so; we firm­ly believe it is up to those who have more access to wealth to pay the way for those who do not.

Getting to the Gathering

The clos­est train sta­tion is Fish­guard & Good­wick.

There will hope­ful­ly be shut­tles from Fish­guard to the EF! Site (assum­ing some car dri­vers offer to do this) or alter­nate­ly you could get the bus part of the way then walk, or cycle. More trav­el infor­ma­tion is avail­able here

If you have a vehi­cle and are able to help us with shut­tling, please get in touch. [earthfirstuk@riseup.net]

There is also a sig­nal group chat for co-ordi­nat­ing trav­el (e.g. lift-shares or pub­lic trans­port bud­dies) to and from the site. Please email us to join.

** Will there be park­ing on site??

Lim­it­ed park­ing — please don’t bring a car unless you real­ly need to, please don’t bring a car with emp­ty seats or leave with emp­ty seats!

**Bik­ing?

The cycle from the train sta­tion to Brithdir Mawr is about an hour, or you can get a bus part of the way (to the Gold­en Lion Hotel in New­port) and then walk 40mins

** Will there be a wheel­chair acces­si­ble shut­tle this year?

Cur­rent­ly we don’t have this sort­ed, if you can offer this then please get in touch.


Site and Physical Access

Terrain

The gath­er­ing will be held across two large adjoin­ing fields. Both fields are gen­tly sloped, with some flat­ter ground towards one end. One of the fields is quite uneven / bumpy.

Key infra­struc­ture (the work­shop tents, toi­lets, water point, eat­ing area) will be on the flat­ter part, and there will also be some camp­ing space here for those who need it, although we expect most peo­ple will be camped fur­ther down the field. We will be ask­ing peo­ple to self-allo­cate camp­ing space depend­ing on their own needs, please ask peo­ple if you’re unsure or need help find­ing a spot to camp.

We will also have access to some wood­ed area for ham­mocks.

We have 120m of rub­berised track mat­ting, which will be around the main area, con­nect­ing essen­tial infra­struc­ture.

Water

The site is usu­al­ly spring-fed, and there are two taps on site. This spring is shared with neigh­bours so we will also be bring­ing our own IBC full of water, to ensure there will be enough water for us all through­out the gath­er­ing. Please be mind­ful how much water you’re using and don’t skimp on hand­wash­ing!!

If you are trav­el­ling by vehi­cle, you could also bring water to reduce the strain we will be putting on the spring.

Don’t for­get to bring a water bot­tle!

Toilets, Sinks & Showers

We will be bring our own com­post toi­lets which will have sev­er­al steps.  We will also bring an acces­si­ble toi­let of our own; this will be a chair with a toi­let seat in a 3x3m gaze­bo, on a flat part of the site con­nect­ed to the acces­si­ble track­way.

There are two plumbed-in sinks on the site, which are fed by the spring.

All facil­i­ties are gen­der neu­tral and we are all respon­si­ble for keep­ing them clean and tidy.

Workshop Spaces

The work­shops will be held in large mar­quees on the field. There will be paths and track-mat­ting between these. We will be able to open the sides of the mar­quees to allow for bet­ter ven­ti­la­tion, or to make more space for wheel­chair users to get through.

Dur­ing work­shops, you are free to do what you need in order to be engaged and / or com­fort­able! Stim­ming, stretch­ing, mov­ing around, tak­ing notes, fid­get toys and what­ev­er else are all wel­come. You are also free to leave and come back as you wish.

Fires

Don’t start them! If you are trav­el­ling by vehi­cle please bring fire­wood if you can so we can have a com­mu­nal fire in the evening.

Parking and Vehicles

There is a grav­el road lead­ing into the site, which leads into a grav­el carpark and one of the fields. If you park in the field and get stuck it will be real­ly annoy­ing and time con­sum­ing to push you out!

Accommodation

We will be camp­ing and you will need to bring a tent, sleep­ing bag, roll mat and what­ev­er else you may need to be com­fy.

If camp­ing is a bar­ri­er to you com­ing, or you will be unable to bring the kit you need, get in touch with us and we will see if we can link you up with some­one who could lend you kit/we can help you find alter­na­tive acco­mo­da­tion.

Kitchen

The kitchen will be a ‘camp kitchen’ set-up. It will be close to the work­shops spaces, and con­nect­ed by track mat­ting.

Tell the wel­come desk if you have any aller­gies. Aller­gens will be list­ed next to the food at meal­times.

There will be plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to help in the kitchen, for exam­ple chop­ping veg or wash­ing up, and this is a great way to get involved in the gath­er­ing if you’re not sure what oth­er jobs to do! Sign-up for kitchen shifts will hap­pen in the morn­ing meet­ing.

You need to bring your own mug but not your own bowl/cuttlery/plate

Hygiene is real­ly impor­tant when we are eat­ing in big groups and hand wash­ing is manda­to­ry! Don’t be the per­son that gives us all dysen­try xx

Food will be served three times a day, and all food at the gath­er­ing will be veg­an (and there­fore free of the major aller­gens crus­taceans, milk, eggs, fish, and mol­luscs).

Because we won’t know how many peo­ple are attend­ing the gath­er­ing, meal­times might vary, but the aim is to serve break­fast between 8am and 9am (morn­ing meet­ing will be at 9am), lunch between 1pm and 2pm, and din­ner between 6pm and 8pm.

Food queues may be long — if you can’t stand for a long time then please push in the queue, or if you don’t feel com­fort­able doing tell some­one at the wel­come desk or in the kitchen and we will arrange some­one to bring you food or for you to skip the queue.

There will be a veg­an tuck shop run by Veg­gies and there will be teas and cof­fees avail­able through­out the gath­er­ing. This will be set up under sev­er­al gaze­bos. There will be pump-urns with hot water on 80cm high tables. You can vol­un­teer to keep this area clean and tidy and keep the urns topped up dur­ing the gath­er­ing.

There will be alco­holic drinks avail­able for cheap some evenings, and the mon­ey will go towards sup­port­ing the gath­er­ing. You are wel­come to bring your own snacks, as long as they are veg­an and don’t con­tain nuts. Please bring cash to pay for snacks and drinks!


During the Gathering

Quiet Space, Wellbeing and First Aid, and Caucus space

We will have a des­ig­nat­ed qui­et tent on site, which every­one is wel­come to use for qui­et reflec­tion, prayer or to take some time away from the parts of the gath­er­ing which can be loud or over­whelm­ing. Please be aware of keep­ing the noise lev­el low if you are near the qui­et tent. There will also be ear plugs avail­able from the well­be­ing tent.

There will be a tent or mar­quee space held by the well-being col­lec­tive. Any­one is wel­come to use this space if they are feel­ing over­whelmed, strug­gling, or just need a qui­et space to talk. The well-being col­lec­tive will not have a con­stant pres­ence in the well-being space, but will be roam­ing dur­ing the gath­er­ing incase you need — they will make them­selves known at the morn­ing meet­ing, or some­one at the wel­come desk can help you iden­ti­fy who they are!

The well­be­ing team can help you if you are feel­ing unwell, strug­gling to make friends, or need some­one to talk to but are not able to solve deep-seat­ed and long-term con­flicts between peo­ple. They can how­ev­er sup­port peo­ple to set bound­aries or com­mu­ni­cate needs to each oth­er. If you would like to con­tact the well­be­ing col­lec­tive before the gath­er­ing then please email us on earthfirstuk@riseup.net to be put in touch.

We’ll also have a space set up for cau­cus­es to use for shar­ing circles/caucus cir­cles — these are spaces where peo­ple of shared iden­ti­ties can get togeth­er to dis­cuss their expe­ri­ences in the gath­er­ing, the wider move­ment, and the world. If an issue aris­es, it can be help­ful to talk to peo­ple who have been through some­thing sim­i­lar. Any­one is wel­come to organ­ise a cir­cle and put it onto the pro­gramme. The well-being group can help facil­i­tate peo­ple form­ing shar­ing cir­cles, so feel free to get in touch with them if you’d like some assis­tance. There’s some guid­ance about what they typ­i­cal­ly look like here: https://pad.riseup.net/p/ef!sharingcircles.

There will be first aiders on site and a first aid kit avail­able at the wel­come desk and at the well­be­ing tent, and first aiders will be point­ed out dur­ing the morn­ing cir­cle each day.

These spaces will be in the main field with the work­shop spaces and will be sign­post­ed.

Kids’ Space

The kids’ space will be in a mar­quee, near to the oth­er work­shop spaces or in the woods. There will be activ­i­ties for kids includ­ing fire start­ing, wide games, singing, crafts, (though young peo­ple are wel­come at most oth­er work­shops!)

The kids’ space is not a creche and we encour­age par­ents and care­givers to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their kids and check in with them reg­u­lar­ly. The kids space is facil­i­tat­ed by a mixed gen­der group and is run by teach­ers, par­ents and non-par­ents. If you want to hang out with kids at the gath­er­ing, please email us or go to the kids space to sign up on the rota.

COVID

EF! Recog­nis­es that COVID-19 presents an ongo­ing dan­ger, par­tic­u­lar­ly at large in-per­son gath­er­ings. We are ask­ing that every­body takes a covid test before arriv­ing on-site, and does not attend if that test comes back pos­i­tive. We will have masks avail­able at the wel­come desk too — because the gath­er­ing is out­side the risk from COVID is reduced but we still encour­age EF!ers to take pre­cau­tions.

If you test pos­i­tive while at the site then we will not just kick you out. We will try to find some­one will­ing to dri­ve you home and/or space to self iso­late. If nec­es­sary, we will pay for trans­port and/or space to self iso­late. We will make sure you are fed and hydrat­ed!

Smoking & vaping

Please ask con­sent before smok­ing around oth­er peo­ple at the gath­er­ing. Not every­one is com­fort­able to be around oth­ers who are smok­ing & vap­ing — for exam­ple some peo­ple have asth­ma or are try­ing to quit them­selves. If you want to smoke/vape dur­ing a work­shop you are attend­ing, please step out­side the mar­quee whilst you do so.

Dogs

Dogs are wel­come at the gath­er­ing, please keep dogs on leads.

Wifi, Phones & Electricity

There is no wifi at the gath­er­ing, and we encour­age every­one to leave their phone switched off and in their tent dur­ing work­shops. This is both for secu­ri­ty rea­sons and to enable us to con­nect more direct­ly with oth­ers at the gath­er­ing.

We won’t have mains pow­er and there­fore will unfor­tu­nate­ly not be able to offer charg­ing facil­i­ties except for nec­es­sary devices (e.g. assis­tive tech­nol­o­gy, elec­tric wheel­chairs).

We are work­ing on get­ting access to a fridge for stor­ing med­ica­tion that needs to be refrig­er­at­ed. We will update this doc­u­ment when we have con­firmed this. Please email us if you need access to a fridge

Wellbeing

In recog­ni­tion that the gath­er­ing may not be an easy ride for every­body — whether that’s because of low mood or ener­gy, con­flict with oth­er EF!ers, gen­er­al rage at the cisheteropa­tri­ar­chal colo­nial cap­i­tal­ist hellscape, or what­ev­er else — the well­be­ing col­lec­tive are on hand to offer sup­port. They are a small team of lov­ing peo­ple, like you engaged in eco­log­i­cal resis­tance, who can lend an ear and a cup­pa if you need some­one to talk to or decom­press with, be avail­able if you have requests or con­cerns regard­ing the well­be­ing of your­self or oth­ers, and help facil­i­tate peo­ple in con­flict to share space dur­ing the gath­er­ing.

On this, they are under no pre­tences that they can resolve long-stand­ing con­flict over the course of a week­end, nor is that their objec­tive; their aim is to ensure that every­body (as far as is pos­si­ble) feels com­fort­able at the gath­er­ing and is safe to attend. Please also reach out to us before the gath­er­ing if there is any­thing you’d like to raise in advance.

In their prac­tices, they are informed by the prin­ci­ples of trans­for­ma­tive jus­tice, and reject a can­cel cul­ture which dehu­man­is­es us all. With this in mind, we request that peo­ple talk to some­one from well­be­ing if you are expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ty or dis­com­fort with oth­ers at the gath­er­ing, so that they can sup­port you through it with­out hav­ing to involve large num­bers of oth­er atten­dees.

We also encour­age peo­ple to self-organ­ise sup­port where they feel it is nec­es­sary, or make sug­ges­tions to some­one from well­be­ing — for exam­ple, in the past, the well-being space has been used for inde­pen­dent trans cir­cles, and BIPOC cir­cles. Let the well­be­ing col­lec­tive know if you want to use the space for rea­sons such as this. They will make them­selves known in the morn­ing meet­ings.

Anti-Oppression Statement

Earth First! has an anti-oppres­sion state­ment which we ask every­one com­ing to the gath­er­ing to read and fol­low. You can read the anti-oppres­sion state­ment here: earthfirst.uk/solidarity-statement/

Have we missed something?

We know this state­ment might not have all of the infor­ma­tion every­one needs. We know some folks may have access needs that clash or things that aren’t achiev­able when we have lim­it­ed resources in a remote loca­tion. If we’ve missed some­thing, or you have spe­cif­ic needs or ques­tions, please get in touch.

Equal­ly, if you have skills, ideas, or equip­ment to offer which might help make this gath­er­ing (or future EF! gath­er­ings) more acces­si­ble, we’d love to hear from you too.

Con­tact us at earthfirstuk@riseup.net


What to bring with you

This list is incom­plete, everyone’s needs and car­ry­ing capac­i­ty are dif­fer­ent, hope­ful­ly it’s help­ful…

  • Tent, sleep­ing bag, roll mat
  • A cup
  • Toi­letries and med­ica­tion
  • Eye mask and earplugs
  • Spare jumpers and blan­kets
  • Spare clothes
  • Water­proofs
  • Sun cream and insect repel­lant (e.g. cin­tronel­la essen­tial oils)
  • Cash for snacks, dona­tions, teas/coffees, food, booze, merch & zines
  • Charged bat­tery pack
  • Fire­wood
  • Crafts
  • Musi­cal instru­ments
  • Water bot­tle

See you soon!! <3

Site Location for Summer Gathering 2025

We are very excit­ed to share with you that the 31st Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing will be host­ed by the won­der­ful Brithdir Mawr Hous­ing Co-op in Pem­brokeshire, Cym­ru!

The what3words for the entrance to the camp is unleashed.pancakes.bless.

The site phone num­ber is 07784944171 and will be checked from the morn­ing of Wednes­day 6th. You can mes­sage on Sig­nal, text or call.

More use­ful infor­ma­tion:
Access state­ment
What to expect at the gath­er­ing
Trav­el plan­ning guide
Ses­sions pre­view
State­ment on ani­mal agri­cul­ture at the site

See you all soon!