Wellbeing 2024 summer gathering

Dur­ing the gath­er­ing, the well­be­ing group will work to hold and attempt to resolve dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions that may arise. The group works on a loose rota, meet­ing every day to dis­cuss any issues that come up.

The well­be­ing group may be able to help peo­ple nav­i­gate con­cerns that arise or trig­gers that hap­pen dur­ing the gath­er­ing. They may also be able to medi­ate and help shift ten­sion between peo­ple.

Please not that the well­be­ing group and the EF! gath­er­ing col­lec­tive are NOT author­i­ties at the gath­er­ing and can­not resolve long-stand­ing prob­lems between peo­ple.

Every­one at the gath­er­ing is crew and every­one should take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the well-being of the gath­er­ing and every­one at it. Although the well being team is not open to peo­ple join­ing dur­ing the gath­er­ing, please get in touch if you’d like to help out in future.

Travel info 2024 summer gathering

This year’s gath­er­ing will take place at the beau­ti­ful Crabap­ple coop­er­a­tive near Shrews­bury.

PARKING & SHUTTLE INFO BELOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE!

The address is

Berring­ton Hall
Berring­ton
Shrews­bury
SY5 6HA

The near­est train sta­tion is in Shrews­bury, just under five miles away. From there, you can either walk, cycle, take a bus, or get a lift in our shut­tle­bus. More info on the shut­tle­bus will be added short­ly. The near­est bus stop is called “Junc­tion”, 0.8 miles away on bus line 540, or “Berring­ton Junc­tion”, 0.9 miles away, on bus line 436.

There’s no need to pre-reg­is­ter or give any details — just show up.. There are no tick­ets and we ask for dona­tions (if you can) to cov­er run­ning costs (eg food, fuel, buy­ing access kit, van hire) at the wel­come desk.

Public Transport

The near­est train sta­tion is Shrews­bury, which is less than half an hour cycle from the site and has hourly bus­es from the sta­tion that take you to with­in a 20 minute walk of the site. We will be organ­is­ing shut­tles between shrews­bury and the site, as well as some cycling con­voys! There is use­ful infor­ma­tion about pub­lic trans­port to and from the site here: https://1drv.ms/w/s!ApQ_j7pcP9d_jhgS-x24z9w5BF56?e=4I7QFs
There is a group chat for co-ordi­nat­ing pub­lic trans­port to and from the site here:https://signal.group/#CjQKIN-Q_j4AYK8uOHcAQic5XZLSncBpIyEF_oez_-6_SZZxEhBLDUOqBtmzt7PCWSybssqa
If you have a vehi­cle and are able to help us with organ­is­ing shut­tles, please get in touch on earthfirstuk@riseup.net

Wheelchair accessible shuttles & taxis

We have access to a wheel­chair acces­si­ble shut­tle vehi­cle — please email us (earthfirstuk@riseup.net) to agree a time for this, or ring the site phone (this doc­u­ment will be updat­ed with the phone num­ber once we have it)
There are a few wheel­chair acces­si­ble taxi com­pa­nies that oper­ates around Shrews­bury. Their web­sites are below.
Wheel­chair acces­si­ble taxis:  Dellstaxis.co.uk/wheelchair-taxis
A2onA2onetaxisshrewsbury.co.uk

 

Parking

There is very VERY lim­it­ed park­ing on site — we have space for around 7–8 addi­tion­al vehi­cles. If you need to come in a vehicle/have access needs please email us. We rec­om­mend get­ting pub­lic trans­port if you are able to. If you need to bring a vehi­cle and don’t need to be on site, please park in Shrews­bury or Berring­ton.
Some options:
- You could look for a lay-by in the gen­er­al area your­self
- You could park in paid park­ing (info here) in Shrews­bury and then take the bus or shut­tle.
- You could park in Berring­ton

 

Shuttle

Do you need a shut­tle from the train sta­tion? We will have a reg­u­lar shut­tle from Shrews­bury train sta­tion to site:

Fri­day 4pm, 6pm, 8pm

From site to Shrews­bury:

Sun­day 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, 9pm

Mon­day 10am, 11am, 12am, 1am

Arriv­ing on Wednes­day, Thurs­day or Fri­day morn­ing? No prob­lem, give us a call on the site phone (at least a cou­ple of hours in advance please!!!) and we will arrange a ride, either from the train sta­tion or the bus stop.

Please remem­ber there are fre­quent bus­es from just around the cor­ner of the train sta­tion, 2 pounds, info here.

If you get stuck, call the site phone 07780 996042

 

Accessibility 2024 summer gathering

File:Wheelchair rugby pictogram (Paralympics).svg

Camp­ing in a field and attend­ing meetings/workshops can pose par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges for peo­ple who use wheel­chairs, have oth­er mobil­i­ty needs or are hear­ing impaired (have oth­er acces­si­bil­i­ty needs). The gath­er­ing will include pri­or­i­ty camp­ing areas, lev­el access toi­lets, and acces­si­bil­i­ty mat­ting, but please let us know if there is more we can do to make the gath­er­ing work for your phys­i­cal needs. Sim­i­lar­ly if you have any oth­er kinds of acces­si­bil­i­ty needs, relat­ed to men­tal health for exam­ple, then do let us know. We’ll do our best to pro­vide infor­ma­tion and to meet people’s needs, but as access is a prac­tice, not a des­ti­na­tion, we invite peo­ple to let us know about ways we can improve. The rev­o­lu­tion must be acces­si­ble!

Our detailed acces­si­bil­i­ty doc­u­ment can be found here.

 

Whether you’re brand new to EF! or have been coming for decades — join us to celebrate the 30th ever EF! summer gathering in the UK!

Exciting update: workshop blurbs online now!

 

💜 We are very excit­ed to announce the 30th ever Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing in the UK! From 25th-29th July at Crabap­ple, a gor­geous com­mu­ni­ty orchard in Shrews­bury in the West Mid­lands. We invite you to five days of work­shops, skill shares, sol­i­dar­i­ty, social­is­ing, and con­spir­ing the destruc­tion of cap­i­tal­ism, patri­archy, and all the forces of dom­i­na­tion of humans and nature ✊ Trav­el info here, acces­si­bil­i­ty info here, info about well­be­ing here.

🌈 It’s a space for rad­i­cal thinkers, rebel­lious souls, and curi­ous minds, bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to strength­en and spread the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal resis­tance move­ment across these north­ern isles that we call home. Join us! ☺️

🌱 Learn about cur­rent and past envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles here and around the world, about (anti-)repression and move­ment vic­to­ries, green anar­chism and bio­cen­trism, queer ecol­o­gy and anti-colo­nial land jus­tice. Or get your hands dirty in some of our more prac­ti­cal work­shops, from direct action, skills to solar pow­er, night nav­i­ga­tion, tech secu­ri­ty and more. Or just relax and enjoy the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ings and let loose on the dance floor! 🪩🕺

🥕 There will be three veg­an meals a day, cooked by the won­der­ful Eat­First! col­lectve, dona­tion-based. 🍝

🫖 Tea, cof­fee, cake and a tug shop will be pro­vid­ed by the amaz­ing Veg­gies col­lec­tive ☕

🎲 There will be a kids’ space and pro­gramme too!

🚽 We’ll have com­post toi­lets and even show­ers this year 🚿😯

🐥 Are you new to EF!, have nev­er been, maybe feel­ing a bit ner­vous? No wor­ries, there are won­der­ful humans who will show you around, explain how things work, and sit down and have a cup of tea with!

🌳 Do you want to share sto­ries from the past three decades of EF! in the UK, offer a work­shop, or help out with the kids’ space? Ques­tions on acces­si­bil­i­ty, trans­port (there will be a shut­tle ser­vice from Shrews­bury train sta­tion) or food? Get in touch! earthfirstuk@riseup.net

🦮🐕‍🦺🐕 Dogs 🐕 🐕‍🦺🦮 We have now reached our capac­i­ty for dogs at the gath­er­ing. We have a lim­it on the num­ber of dogs we can accom­mo­date this year because the site is a sen­si­tive habi­tat with nest­ing barn owls, fledg­ling birds and small mam­mals liv­ing in the fields and woods. 🦮 If you have an assis­tance dog that you need to bring to the gath­er­ing then please do email us before the gath­er­ing to reg­is­ter your dog with: earthfirstuk@riseup.net

🔥 Bring your friends, com­rades, ener­gy and ideas, and please spread the word! 📢

🚐 Please note that (depend­ing on the weath­er) we might have very lim­it­ed park­ing space and CANNOT guar­an­tee that you can bring your car or live-in vehi­cle onto the site. If you need your vehi­cle for acces­si­bil­i­ty rea­sons, you will be pri­ori­tised — please send us an email! 🚗

 

Pricing info

  • How much mon­ey?
EF is as DIY as it gets, and doing it our­selves also means fund­ing it our­selves. No one prof­its off of EF. No one gets paid.
EF gath­er­ings always run on a dona­tion basis, and no one is turned away for lack of funds. As a rough esti­mate, we ask that on aver­age peo­ple pay £8 per day for food (three meals) and around £20 for the camp, depend­ing on what you can afford.
The total expense of the gath­er­ings is hard to say accu­rate­ly before­hand, we esti­mate that it’s around 20 pounds per per­son (assum­ing there will be around 300 peo­ple) plus food.
At the wel­come desk you will be able to donate what­ev­er feels right, based on ‘sol­i­dar­i­ty pric­ing’:
    
  • Sol­i­dar­i­ty pric­ing: Have more, pay more. Have less, pay less.
Here’s a lit­tle guide to help you judge how much you can afford com­pared to oth­ers, it’s not just about income, oth­er fac­tors are impor­tant. Class, wealth, and expe­ri­ences of sys­temic oppres­sion all play a part. Remem­ber, it’s just a guide, an imper­fect way to cre­ate a more eco­nom­i­cal­ly lib­er­at­ing mod­el while we work to smash cap­i­tal­ism and cre­ate dif­fer­ent eco­nom­ic sys­tems.
  • Some fac­tors that MIGHT allow you to afford more:
- Hav­ing above aver­age income
- Own­ing land or prop­er­ty
- Being like­ly to inher­it prop­er­ty or wealth
- Hav­ing sig­nif­i­cant wealth, sav­ings, or invest­ments
- Being eas­i­ly able to meet basic needs and able to afford lux­u­ries (hol­i­days, take­away)
- Hav­ing recog­nised edu­ca­tion­al back­ground and qual­i­fi­ca­tions (‘good’ schools, degrees, post­grad etc.) 
- Being eas­i­ly able to get well-paid work
- Hav­ing a safe­ty net or strong social sup­port net­works (e.g. a par­ents’ house to retreat to, friends with mon­ey etc.)
  • Some fac­tors that MIGHT reduce how much you can afford:
- Earn­ing less than aver­age income
- Sup­port­ing depen­dents or hav­ing car­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties (chil­dren, rel­a­tives, part­ners etc.)
- Hav­ing dis­abil­i­ties or long term ill-health
- Reg­u­lar­ly being in con­tact with state/institutional vio­lence
- Pre­car­i­ous migra­tion sta­tus (eg being a refugee, asy­lum seek­er, or per­son with­out papers)
- Being unable to legal­ly work
- Expe­ri­enc­ing finan­cial dis­tress (eg. unex­pect­ed court fees, los­ing a job, sud­den rent increas­es)
- Expe­ri­enc­ing sys­temic oppres­sion due to things such as race, class, gen­der, neu­ro­di­ver­si­ty, sex­u­al­i­ty.
No one is turned away for lack of funds, please don’t let cost put you off attend­ing!
We all have dif­fer­ent rela­tion­ships to mon­ey and we encour­age every­one to be hon­est with them­selves. The emo­tions that come up when we talk about what we can afford can often cloud our judge­ment. Cap­i­tal­ism breeds a cul­ture of scarci­ty — for some this feels like emo­tion­al insta­bil­i­ty and uncer­tain­ty, and for oth­ers this looks like mate­r­i­al pover­ty and a lack of resources. It is impos­si­ble to talk about things like class, mon­ey, wealth, or income with­out think­ing about sys­temic oppres­sions like racism or ableism and yes, it’s com­pli­cat­ed, but let’s do the best we can.
There are lots of hid­den costs involved with gath­er­ings like EF. Some stuff can’t be found in bins or bor­rowed and, while we try to keep costs down, there is equip­ment we would like to pur­chase to make sum­mer camps like EF more acces­si­ble in the future (eg track mat­ting for wheel­chair acces­si­bil­i­ty, a minibus, light­ing, solar pan­els.) By donat­ing more gen­er­ous­ly you are help­ing achieve this!

2024 summer gathering

30th ever EarthFirst! summer gathering in the UK!

 

💜 We are very excit­ed to announce the 30th ever Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing in the UK! From 25th-29th July at Crabap­ple, a gor­geous com­mu­ni­ty orchard in Shrews­bury in the West Mid­lands. We invite you to five days of work­shops, skill shares, sol­i­dar­i­ty, social­is­ing, and con­spir­ing the destruc­tion of cap­i­tal­ism, patri­archy, and all the forces of dom­i­na­tion of humans and nature ✊

🌈 It’s a space for rad­i­cal thinkers, rebel­lious souls, and curi­ous minds, bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to strength­en and spread the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal resis­tance move­ment across these north­ern isles that we call home. Join us! ☺️

🌱 Learn about cur­rent and past envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles here and around the world, about (anti-)repression and move­ment vic­to­ries, green anar­chism and bio­cen­trism, queer ecol­o­gy and anti-colo­nial land jus­tice. Or get your hands dirty in some of our more prac­ti­cal work­shops, from direct action, skills to solar pow­er, night nav­i­ga­tion, tech secu­ri­ty and more. Or just relax and enjoy the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ings and let loose on the dance floor! 🪩🕺

🎲 🐕There will be a kids’ space and pro­gramme too!

🌳 Do you want to share sto­ries from the past three decades of EF! in the UK, offer a work­shop, or help out with the kids’ space? Ques­tions on acces­si­bil­i­ty, trans­port (there will be a shut­tle ser­vice from Shrews­bury train sta­tion) or food? Get in touch! earthfirstuk@riseup.net

🔥 Bring your friends, com­rades, ener­gy and ideas, and please spread the word! 📢

🦮🐕‍🦺🐕 Dogs 🐕 🐕‍🦺🦮 We have now reached our capac­i­ty for dogs at the gath­er­ing. We have a lim­it on the num­ber of dogs we can accom­mo­date this year because the site is a sen­si­tive habi­tat with nest­ing barn owls, fledg­ling birds and small mam­mals liv­ing in the fields and woods. 🦮 If you have an assis­tance dog that you need to bring to the gath­er­ing then please do email us before the gath­er­ing to reg­is­ter your dog with: earthfirstuk@riseup.net

Acces­si­bil­i­ty info here!

 

EF! Summer gathering 2023

Summer gathering 2023!

You’re all warm­ly invit­ed to the one and only Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing 2023!

For this year’s gath­er­ing we have squat­ted the site of the new coal pro­posed coal mine in White­haven, Cum­bria!

Leave the coal in the hole!

The pre­cise loca­tion for the site entrance is here: https://w3w.co/guilty.polygraph.scale

Near­est train sta­tions are Cor­kick­le or White­haven. It is a long walk from the sta­tion so let us know if you need a lift by call­ing the site phone 07592479185. Please call, don’t mes­sage!

Telegram lift share: https://t.me/+RbhnJUczz000YjM0 (self-organ­ised)

If you are trav­el­ing by road: A595, signed White­haven. Then turn R. (from N), or L. (from S), onto road signed: ‘St. Bees/Sandwith’ At B5345: turn L. onto St. Bees Road, then take first R. Sat­Nav: CA28 9QJ

If you need help with acces­si­bil­i­ty or any­thing else the site phone num­ber: 07592479185

We will also keep check­ing our email: earth­firstuk (at) riseup.net

There will be deli­cious food by Veg­gies kitchen, a kids’ space and an amaz­ing pro­gramme of work­shops. and dis­cus­sions Join us!

EF! summer gathering 2023

Summergathering 2023!

 

You’re all warm­ly invit­ed to the one and only Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing 2023! This year’s gath­er­ing will take place in the north of Eng­land, on a beau­ti­ful squat­ted piece of land. If you want to book train tick­ets, aim for Carlisle for now – a more spe­cif­ic loca­tion will be announced on th 29th. We’ll get going on the 29th, with set­up and work­shops. There will be deli­cious food by Veg­gies kitchen, a kids’ space and soooo many excit­ing work­shops. We can’t wait!

Please spread the word and get in touch if you can get there ear­ly to help us pre­pare the site <3

For work­shop offers and ques­tions about access­abil­i­ty and any­thing else – please email earth­firstuk (at) riseup.net!

 

 

 

 

What to expect when you arrive

A wel­come tent with peo­ple in to give you a warm wel­come and tell you about the site, where the loos are, where to camp, things you can get involved with straight away, and take dona­tions for the cost of the camp (£0–50), and the meals each day (£0–10/day). Depend­ing on how ear­ly you arrive, mar­quees will be ris­ing or risen for work­shop spaces, peo­ple will by scur­ry­ing about on mis­sions to build or clean com­post toi­lets, find that ham­mer that dis­ap­peared, paint­ing signs, chop­ping veg­eta­bles for the next meal, whis­per-plan­ning a secre­tive action, hav­ing loud polit­i­cal debates with some­one they’ve just met… or hav­ing some qui­et time with a book in a cor­ner of some mar­quee. No one is in charge. We are all crew here, putting col­lec­tive liv­ing into prac­tice, cre­at­ing a tiny tran­sient vision of the world we want to cre­ate and defend. The more you par­tic­i­pate in this camp, the more you will get out of it.

But what the f*** is it, really?

The EF! gath­er­ing is a gath­er­ing of like-mind­ed peo­ple inter­est­ed in eco­log­i­cal direct action, green anar­chy, and rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal pol­i­tics. It includes 6 days of camp­ing, 3 veg­an meals a day, a pro­gramme of work­shops and activ­i­ties and dis­cus­sions. There will be some music, danc­ing, and sto­ry­telling around the fire. We’ll have some spaces for com­mu­nal eat­ing and chill­ing, and to stay dry in case it rains. But feel free to bring addi­tion­al tarps! Don’t expect luxaries, but there will be com­post loos and some kind of wash­ing facil­i­ty. Remem­ber, this is a sqat­ted site, so there might be some police inter­ac­tion. If you have any con­cerns, get in touch!

What to bring

Bring your own cut­lery, a plate and a mug, and every­thing you might for a camp­ing trip, such as a tent, sleep­ing bag and mat, warm clothes, water­proofs, head­torch, and wellies!

Get in touch

The site phone will be on from the 29th, num­ber will be on here. More info will be post­ed on here soon. For any ques­tions, emails us at earth­firstuk (at) riseup.net

 

 

EF! Summer Gathering 2022

Prac­ti­cal info
Overview info
Anti-oppres­sion
Kids Space
 
 
 
Loca­tion infor­ma­tion:
 
Bridge Farm, next to Old Flaxmill, Flax­dray­ton Farm, South Pether­ton, TA13 5LR
 
https://maps.app.goo.gl/D1k9b24QXwAmKFLb9
 
The near­est train sta­tions are Yeovil Junc­tion, Crewk­erne and Cas­tle Cary. (Check for bus replace­ment on Sun­day if you’re bring­ing a bike)
 
Pub­lic trans­port info:
 

Train to Yeovil Pen Mill (on Bris­tol-Wey­mouth line) or Yeovil Junc­tion (Water­loo-Exeter line)

Num­ber 68 bus from both sta­tions to Yeovil bus sta­tion (Pen Mill is also easy walk­ing dis­tance from bus sta­tion, Junc­tion is 2 miles south of town), this bus is half-hourly except Sun­days when it does­n’t run

Num­ber 81 bus from Yeovil bus sta­tion to Nor­ton-sub-Ham­den, clos­est vil­lage to site (1 mile), runs hourly week­days, 2‑hourly Sat­ur­days, not at all Sun­days.

Nation­al Express in the­o­ry have a coach stop in Yeovil, but don’t seem to be run­ning any­thing there at present.

Berrys Coach­es run a ser­vice (Super­Fast 2) from Lon­don to Taunton serv­ing South Pether­ton, this has to be booked (and this does run Sun­days). You could then get the 68 bus from South Pether­ton to Nor­ton, or just walk it.

Please send a mes­sage to our site phone (07706 017355, after 5pm on 29th August) if you need a lift — there will be irreg­u­lar shut­tles from Crewk­erne sta­tion. Make sure to let us know plen­ty in advance (day before arrival ide­al­ly) so that we can make this hap­pen!

Bus times:

Hel­lo, here is the timetable for the 81 bus:

https://images.southwestcoaches.co.uk/images/pdfs/81service-public-sept2020.pdf

Also Yeovil sta­tions to bus sta­tion:
http://wyndham.gettingaroundsomerset.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Service-68-June-2018-Bus-Timetable.pdf

 
Call­ing all defend­ers of the wild! You are warm­ly invit­ed to five days of work­shops, skill shares, plot­ting and plan­ning, sol­i­dar­i­ty and social­is­ing in a beau­ti­ful camp out. This year’s Earth First! Sum­mer gath­er­ing will be from Wednes­day 31st August till Mon­day 5th Sep­tem­ber and will host a nation-wide and inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns roundup, work­shops on organ­is­ing secure­ly, facil­i­ta­tion and prac­ti­cal Direct Action skills, avoid­ing burnout and more. The gath­er­ing is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet like-mind­ed peo­ple and form con­nec­tions with oth­ers fight­ing the good fight up and down the British Isles and beyond. So come along!
 
VENUE: near­est train sta­tions are Yeovil Junc­tion, Crewk­erne and Cas­tle Cary. You can get in touch via earthfirstuk@riseup.net.

 

  • www.earthfirst.uk
  • twitter.com/earthfirst_uk
  • FB: Earth­First UK
  • Ins­ta: Earth.FirstUK
What to bring: tent, sleep­ing bag+mat, cup, plate and cut­lery. Cash for cake and dona­tions. Your friends and com­rades. More info here.

What to expect when you arrive

A wel­come tent with peo­ple in to give you a warm wel­come and tell you about the site, where the loos are, where to camp, things you can get involved with straight away, and take dona­tions for the cost of the camp (£0–50), and the meals each day (£0–10/day). Depend­ing on how ear­ly you arrive, mar­quees will be ris­ing or risen for work­shop spaces, peo­ple will by scur­ry­ing about on mis­sions to build or clean com­post toi­lets, find that ham­mer that dis­ap­peared, paint­ing signs, chop­ping veg­eta­bles for the next meal, whis­per-plan­ning a secre­tive action, hav­ing loud polit­i­cal debates with some­one they’ve just met… or hav­ing some qui­et time with a book in a cor­ner of some mar­quee. No one is in charge. We are all crew here, putting col­lec­tive liv­ing into prac­tice, cre­at­ing a tiny tran­sient vision of the world we want to cre­ate and defend. The more you par­tic­i­pate in this camp, the more you will get out of it.

Get in touch

The site phone will be on from Mon­day 29th, 5pm: 07706 017355

Community and eco-anarchism

At this gath­er­ing we are work­ing towards a dif­fer­ent kind of liv­ing-togeth­er in nature – non-hier­ar­chi­cal­ly, low-impact and in sol­i­dar­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty. We want to chal­lenge the mul­ti­ple sys­tems of oppres­sion – patri­archy, white suprema­cy, trans­pho­bia, ableism, speciesism and oth­ers – and work towards new rela­tion­ships with the earth, non­hu­man nature and one anoth­er.

By demon­strat­ing green/e­co-anar­chist ways of organ­is­ing and liv­ing in order to con­front, halt and reverse eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion, we can build a cul­ture of active, non-hier­ar­chi­cal, grass­roots eco­log­i­cal resis­tance. EF! and Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Gath­er­ings pro­vides a plat­form for shar­ing infor­ma­tion, prac­ti­cal direct action and cam­paign­ing skills. In the next few days, we are also prac­tis­ing the kinds of skills that you may need when occu­py­ing land to defend the earth, and our­selves, against the kind of so-called devel­op­ment that involves extract­ing resources from the earth, cut­ting trees, con­struct­ing dams, killing non-human ani­mals, or build­ing large infra­struc­ture projects in the name of moder­ni­ty or progress. This involves keep­ing the site safe from the police by run­ning effec­tive gate pro­tec­tion, organ­is­ing kids’ spaces, mak­ing sure we are all fed healthy veg­an food, and learn­ing from each oth­er.

Rebel, rebel!

In recent years there has been an explo­sion of activ­i­ty in the cli­mate move­ment in the UK. It’s inspir­ing to see so many deter­mined to take action on cli­mate change and com­mit­ting them­selves to fierce­ly defend­ing nature. Extinc­tion Rebel­lion (XR) in par­tic­u­lar has brought in thou­sands of new peo­ple, shift­ed pub­lic opin­ion, and reignit­ed a move­ment. There has also been excit­ing move­ment with­in XR, increas­ing­ly tar­get­ing those in the cor­po­rate media and fos­sil indus­tries caus­ing the prob­lem rather than just creat­ing pub­lic dis­rup­tion.
But it seems that some impor­tant lessons from the past have been for­got­ten. We know some of you are think­ing and talk­ing about these things already and we hope what we’ve writ­ten is received as it is intend­ed, as some con­sid­ered reflec­tions from crit­i­cal friends:

We are not pawns for a personality cult

Cli­mate Change is urgent, and we need to take action now, but we also need to be in it for the long haul. Treat­ing peo­ple as dis­pos­able — get­ting arrest­ed for the sake of get­ting arrest­ed — and ignor­ing the threats of burnout means peo­ple will drop out and feel dis­card­ed. This is already hap­pen­ing. We want to build an inclu­sive, diverse, car­ing move­ment that treats every­one as valu­able, not for­got­ten once they have served their pur­pose in a strat­e­gy they have lit­tle say in. Non-hier­achi­cal organ­is­ing means mean­ing­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion for all, not unac­count­able lead­ers and unad­dressed invis­i­ble hier­ar­chies.   

FTP!

Cops are not your friends. The police defend the indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions that are destroy­ing the plan­et’s life sup­port sys­tems. Pris­ons and police are part of the prob­lem, not the solu­tion. They enforce a sys­tem that is eco­ci­dal and vio­lent in nature; they defend the right to degrade, pol­lute, con­trol, and exploit humans and nature. They are inher­ent­ly racist and sex­ist. They need to be abol­ished. These aren’t impos­si­ble dreams. Black fem­i­nists have long led the fight for abo­li­tion, and when the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment erupt­ed around the world, sud­den­ly peo­ple were open­ly dis­cussing police and prison abo­li­tion in the main­stream media.

It’s ALL about politics

Pol­i­tics isn’t about politi­cians and par­lia­ment, it’s about peo­ple try­ing to cre­ate the soci­ety they believe in. Cli­mate change is not ‘beyond pol­i­tics’, tak­ing action on cli­mate change is fun­da­men­tal­ly polit­i­cal. Issues such as race and class aren’t annoy­ing obsta­cles to a big­ger move­ment, they are essen­tial to build­ing effec­tive, endur­ing change. The dom­i­na­tion of humans and the dom­i­na­tion of nature are intrin­si­cal­ly linked, and we can’t end one while the oth­er con­tin­ues. De-politi­cis­ng cli­mate change not only ignores cap­i­tal­ism and oth­er root caus­es, it also means XR will con­tin­ue to be dom­i­nat­ed by white mid­dle class ‘envi­ron­men­tal­ists’.

Diversity of tactics

Civ­il dis­obe­di­ence is just one of many tac­tics, and not the only way to take action. You don’t have to put your­selves in the hands of the state. Eco­log­i­cal direct action is about doing it your­self, attack­ing those destroy­ing nature and inspir­ing oth­ers to fol­low suit, not lob­by­ing gov­ern­ment to act on your behalf. Polit­i­cal vio­lence should nev­er be resort­ed to light­ly, but dog­mat­ic paci­fi­cism pro­tects the state, the rich and the pow­er­ful. His­tor­i­cal strug­gles against slav­ery, feu­dal­ism, colo­nial­ism, patri­archy and fas­cism all involved vio­lence. Riots, revolts and rebel­lion against oppres­sion have their place and should be cel­e­brat­ed not reviled. Preach­ing non-vio­lence also ignores how the very idea of ‘vio­lence’ is used to repress and paci­fy resis­tance, and leads to self-polic­ing and author­i­tar­i­an­ism with­in our move­ments. A diver­si­ty of tac­tics means dif­fer­ent approach­es to work­ing togeth­er and rein­forc­ing each oth­er. In this way we can build towards rev­o­lu­tion­ary change.

Love and rage

Self-reflec­tion and crit­i­cal dis­cus­sion isn’t infight­ing and fac­tion­al­ism, it’s how to build strong, pow­er­ful move­ments that can bring about the unprecedent­ed changes cli­mate change requires. We’re not writ­ing these words to show our­selves as ‘more rad­i­cal than thou’ and we know that every­one goes through their own polit­i­cal jour­ney in life. But if any of what we’ve writ­ten speaks to you, come and talk to us, lets work out where we go next.
We’re ready. Instead of griev­ing for a dying plan­et, it’s time to step up and fight, for peo­ple and nature, with love and rage.
Your friends from the Earth­First! gath­er­ing col­lec­tive