Conference for Beginners
We arrived for my first Friends of the Earth Conference at the heavily landscaped
Sussex campus just in time for lunch, which was just as well, because I was hungry
after a long minibus journey. Hiring a minibus to travel to Brighton (and Hoveactually)
had the added advantage of giving us the opportunity to get to know FOE members
from elsewhere in the region. These links have had positive consequences, from
joint campaigning projects to an invitation to a party - which will doubtless
lead to further joint campaigning projects, which may well lead to further parties...!
Although the conference itself later turned out to be relaxed and reasonably
easygoing, we had barely enough time to eat before rushing off to our first workshops.
I attended an informative discussion of the conflicting interest groups that
drive our food supply - agribusiness, farmers small and large, government, supermarkets
and of course, us the consumers. We reconvened to listen to Caroline Lucas, then
to Charles Secrett, Executive Director. Charles' speech was realistic in its assessment
of how much needs to be done and introduced one of the main conference themes:
how best to shape Friends of the Earth to play a central role in the environmental
movement over the next 5 years. He paid particular attention to the links between
environmental degradation and social inequity, locally and globally, and stressed
that FOE needs to be more inclusive, moving away from the image of white, middle-class
liberals.
Saturday was concerned with FOE's consultation exercise: the recent logo change
was a symptom of a more far-reaching review of Friends of the Earth's structures
and priorities. We began with speeches about the directions FOE could take, including
a well received one from Birmingham FOE's esteemed Chair, Tracey Fletcher. The
day's workshops were concerned with getting attendees to supply ideas to be developed
as the core of changes in organisation and focus. This was extremely hard, engaging
us at local level in broader strategies we rarely consider. It's difficult for
local groups to involve themselves in European legislature, but too often local
campaigns fight individual developments better neutralised by a change at a national
or European level. On the other hand, it's successful local campaigns that generate
interest, allowing us to educate and involve people in a tangible way. As a fairly
new campaigner, it was hard for me know FOE's changed over the last three years
and how best to improve e fficiency, the other theme of the conference, although
I tried not to let ignorance stand in my way.
That apart, Saturday also saw a great local campaigns review leading to the presentation
of an award for most successful local campaign group. Although it went to Glossop
Friends of the Earth, for blowing the gaffe on UK energy/acid rain policy to
the European government, the best presentation was by our friends from Rugby
& Coventry, giving a hilarious account of their successful battle against the
Ryton GM trials. We closed off with the (I am assured) traditional party, staggering
off to meet, chat and drink with all our fellow campaigners till far too late.
Sunday morning brought with it the conference motions, & I left my democratic
mandate in Karen's capable hands: another hour or so of sleep seemed like a much
wiser use of my time. I was up for a fascinating workshop about devolution,
led by members of groups from the UK's devolved countries. It left me with a much
clearer understanding of the problems and possibilities facing Wales, Scotland
and Northern Ireland, as well as pointing the way for the growth of Regional
Assemblies; FOE campaigners can expect to hear more about these bodies. The conference
closed with a review of FOE's campaigning year: a heartening account of several
areas where we've made a real contribution to an environmentally sound future,
and a road map for the coming campaigning year. A coffee, final goodbyes, and
we were back in the minibus for the 4 hour drive back to Birmingham, via a fine,
fine curry.
All in all, the conference was a fantastic experience. I can't decide whether
I was disappointed or relieved by the apparent normality of most of my fellow
delegates. What I did do was return with a sharpened sense of purpose, a sheaf
of new ideas, and a sense of a shared, national community which can succeed in
its aims.
Jeremy Beacock
Supermarket Checkout
Attendees to the food campaign workshop were confronted with a dilemma- should
FOE's food campaigners adopt a 'get tough' approach of exposing the iniquities of
the supermarkets or engage constructively with major retailers in a bid to influence
policy?
Chaired by Food team members Sandra Bell and Carol Kearney, the lively debate
divided delegates on the issue, but condemnation of the supermarket hegemony
was unanimous, with the transfer of funds from local economies to the stock exchange
and shareholders cited as particularly damaging. Furthermore, the major chains' reluctance
to locate in poor areas leaves much to be desired, not to mention their policies
on employment, pesticides and treatment of farmers.
No-one in the group could claim they never shopped at any of the big name retailers
(and if we can't say this there can be very few people who can) so the discussion
focused on ways to redress the balance between local centres and supermarkets
by, for example, divorcing the big out-of-town stores from their car parks and
tightening the proposed Code of Practice for supermarkets. FOE's supermarket league
table was criticised for only taking into account the stores' policies on high
profile matters such as GMOs, pesticide residues and organics while ignoring
wider issues of local food policy and corporate ethics (Asda, owned by US multinational
Wallmart, was second from the top!).
At the end of the debate a vote was taken to either 1) discontinue working with
and highlighting the good practice of supermarkets; 2) highlighting the unsustainability
of supermarkets while still distinguishing between them; or 3) accepting that
supermarkets are the present and future of food retailing and working with them.
Predictably, everyone went for 2 - but with most leaning towards the first.
James Botham
John Preedy Memorial Lecture
This year's lecture, given by Green MEP Dr. Caroline Lucas, called for the emphasis
of environmental campaigns to be placed on redressing the balance of power between
global corporations and Government, rather than on responding to growing corporate
influence with corporate campaigning. Dr. Lucas highlighted the active role our
elected representatives have played in the transfer of power to the World Trade
Organisation (WTO), exploding the myth of globalisation as an unstoppable force
of 'progress'. She quoted ISEC's blunt definition of globalisation: "Globalisation
n. 1. the process by which governments sign away the rights of their citizens
in favour of speculative investors and transnational corporations. 2. the erosion
of wages, social welfare standards and environmental regulations for the sake
of international trade. 3. the imposition world-wide of a consumer monoculture.
Widely but falsely believed to be irreversible. See also financial meltdown,
casino economy, Third World debt and race to the bottom."
The overbearing legislative, executive and judicial powers of the WTO allow this
undemocratic and unaccountable body to invent laws, implement those laws and
penalise countries who fail to observe them. The challenge for campaigners is
to reinforce government at all levels and arrest the perilous "race to the bottom" effect
of international competition. A good starting point, said Dr. Lucas, is the global
food trade, characterised by unsustainable transport of food and livestock and
the decline of local economies. 42% of rural parishes have no shop and 45% no
daily bus service. 20,000 jobs were lost in agriculture in 1999 alone and MAFF
accepts and even recommends that a further 50,000 will be lost by 2005. The Meat
and Livestock Commission agrees.
Dr. Lucas also stressed the importance of joint initiatives and cross-group activities,
and the need to connect in the public's mind 'remote' environmental issues such
as climate change and unsustainable farming with their consequences for people
'on the ground' (flooding and foot and mouth disease respectively).
Karen Leach