Cambridge Ecology Feature Archive
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Britain is GMO free again
On the night of Friday the 6th of July, a group of activists converged on Britain's only GM trial site just outside Cambridge. They scaled the security fences and destroyed the crop of genetically modified potatoes.
This was the only crop of GM potatoes being grown in the UK, after the chemicals giant BASF abandoned plans for a GM potato trial in Yorkshire this year. There have been multiple protests at the Cambridge site [video] and at the Yorkshire site (where organic potatoes were planted [video]).
However BASF have permission lasting until 2011, so this may not be the end of the story ...
Background : GM back on agenda | sabotage promised | detailed talk report | audio interview re victory and protest 1st july
Campaign links : Mutatoes | Hedon Against GM | Cambridge GM Concern
Two Arrested at Cambridge GM potato picnic
7/7/07 Update: The field has been decontaminated!
Sunday July 1st. Fifty anti-GM campaigners take their protest directly to the test site in Girton near Cambridge. One protester is arrested scaling the fence erected to protect the GM potato crop and another is arrested later on for alleged criminal damage (they will be in court on Tuesday morning[ 1 | 2 ]). The crop are GM potatoes developed by BASF, who have already dropped their one other potato trial in the UK [ 1 | 2 ].
Detailed write up - video - Pictures [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ] Local media coverage - Criticism of tactics.
Background : GM back on agenda | sabotage promised | detailed talk report | audio interview re victory and protest 1st july
Campaign links : Mutatoes | Hedon Against GM | Cambridge GM Concern
Anti-GM Victory : One down, One to Go!
It seems there are not often victories to celebrate so it's strange when they occur seemingly unnoticed. That's exactly what's happened regarding the news that the chemicals giant, BASF have abandoned plans for a GM potato trial in Yorkshire this year, despite government consent.
Back in April there was an action in Hedon near Hull [1 | 2 ] to demonstrate public opposition to the first GM trials in the UK proposed in three years. Taking action before the trial began, the protesters planted their own organic spuds in what they thought was the field earmarked for the GM variety [1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6]. The aim was to invalidate the experiment before it was even started and while it turned out that they had picked the wrong field they did successful demonstrate that public opposition to GM crops is as strong and militant as ever [audio | video].
The planting of the other trial, located in Cambridge [1 | 2], went ahead despite local opposition and protests but campaigners say that it's not too late to drive home the message that "there is still no future for GM in the UK".
There is a national call out for a 'potato picnic' announced for Sunday 1st July near the site of the Cambridge trial. [flyer | directions]
Background : GM back on agenda | sabotage promised | detailed talk report | audio interview re victory and protest 1st july
Campaign links : Mutatoes | Hedon Against GM | Cambridge GM Concern
Full Story | 1 addition | 1 comment >>
Ready to remove a blight on our landscape?
UPDATED This month a controversial experimental genetically modified potato crop is due to be planted in the UK by the German chemical giant BASF (offshoot of the infamous AG Farben). DEFRA initially gave approval in December for BASF to undertake trials at two sites, one in Cambridgeshire (at the National Institute of Agriculture and Botany) and the other initially in Derbyshire - until the farmer pulled out.
The trials are the first GM crops to enter British soil in nearly 3 years, after public opposition forced a u-turn in government and corporate plans for patented crops. Although presented as an R&D trial into the effectiveness of an anti blight gene, they are widely considered to be trial of public opinion.
On 14th April in Cambridge a protest walk took place [photos 1, 2]. This was followed on the 21st by a rally in Hull. This event ended with the proposed trial being effectively sabotaged even before it had began when over a hundred people entered the site and planted several varieties of seed potatoes in the field making it impossible for a scientifically valid trial to take place there.
LINKS:
Cambridge 1 | 2 | 3 | grid reference
Hull 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | pics
Background GM - Back on the agenda? | Sabotage promised | New GM crop trials | London info night (Tues 17th)
Campaign sites mutatoes.org | hedonagainstgm.org.uk | Cambridge GM concern | myspace.com/gmfreepotatoes
Full Story | 1 addition | 6 comments >>
GM Potatoes - Blessing or Blight?
On Monday 2 April, Cambridge GM Concern organized a public meeting regarding the forthcoming NIAB/BASF trial of GM potatoes in the Cambridge area. Some fifty people turned up for the event, which featured three speakers, who had travelled up from London for the occasion: Michael Antoniou is a Reader in Molecular Genetics at Guy's Hospital Medical School, Helena Paul is the chair of GM Freeze, and Clare Oxborrow is from the Real Food Campaign organized by Friends of the Earth.
Meanwhile campaigners concerned about similar trials in Yorkshire are having a demo on the 21st of April and have set up the mutatoes website and a myspace page.
Thousands join International Day against Climate Change
December 3rd was propagated as the International Day against Climate Change. Worldwide, demonstrations and protests had been announced to coincide with the meeting of the World Leaders in Montreal. Thousands marched today as London's contribution to the International Day of Climate Protest. A wholly peaceful demonstration wound its way from Lincoln's Inn Fields, via Thames Embankment, Parliament Square (where there was a brief sit down) and Downing Street to - astonishingly - the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Bulldoze Prescott's plans not Linslade's countryside
Update (03/03/05): The authorities were left looking rather silly when the protest camp disappeared under cover of darkness, the night before a massive eviction was staged. A demo is planned for 9:15am this Saturday (5th March) at Wing Hill Roundabout, near Linslade. Local residents near Linslade in Bedfordshire have been disrupting work on the Stoke Hammond to Linslade Bypass, a new £50m road which is the first part of John Prescott's "development" plans for the region, including a massive expansion of Luton airport. The 5 mile planned route cuts across some beautiful open countryside and includes the destruction of several groups of trees.
[ Main Campaign Website (with latest updates) | Road Alert | Road Block ]
Report on Cambridge Forum 'The Rise and Rise of Corporate Power'
This is a report on the Cambridge Forum from 19 October 2004 on the Rise and Rise of Corporate Power. The discussion was held in the CB1 Cafe on Mill Road on Tuesday, 19 October 2004 from 8 pm to 10:30 pm. About thirty people listened to the three speakers. Before the forum started, two people from the audience recounted their experience at the European Social Forum which just took place in London the weekend prior.Windbags Against Windfarms
A proposed wind farm near Boxworth, West of Cambridge, is going forwards as Your Energy has submitted a full planning proposal. The proposal is for 16 wind turbines on farmland next to the A14, that could "provide enough energy to supply 20,000 homes - 37 per cent of the domestic need for South Cambridgeshire" according to a Cambridge Evening News article. The proposals are being opposed by the MP for South Cambridgeshire, Conservative Andrew Lansley, who has either been convinced by the myths of local and national opposition groups, or is merely following the Tory party line.
A local group, Stop Cambridge Wind Farms, has appeared to propagate the same misinformation as a national anti-wind farm group, Country Guardian. The Guardian (Newspaper) reported that Country Guardian "strongly denies accusations of having close links with the nuclear industry (its chair is Sir Bernard Ingham, who is a paid lobbyist for British Nuclear Fuels)".These links obviously make its denial very hard to swallow.
Because wind farms have proved so surprisingly controversial groups have appeared to balance the debate, including the British Wind Energy Association, and Yes 2 Wind, a coalition between Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and WWF. These provide answers to all the common misconceptions. There is also a campaign called Embrace the Wind which asks people to register their names if they support wind power.
Read more on Indymedia: Cambridgeshire FOR Windfarms | Wind Farms v Nuclear | Against wind farms? | and more...
Funny Weather
Have you noticed that we don't seem to get seasons any more, just weather ...
Does it make you wonder what's going on? It's July, and we have cold nights, storms, showers. Is it just more bad weather, or is it another sign of climate change?
Hold on a minute. Wasn't this whole global warming thing meant to lead to long hot summers? Vineyards and orange groves in the south of england. No one said anything about storms ...
Sorry to disillusion you, but as the temperature rises, there is more and more energy in the global weather system. And more energy leads to more extreme weather - high winds, heavy downpours and severe storms.
Get involved [ Rising Tide | Stop Esso | No New Oil ]
Clash over Baku-Ceyhan: P+P vs. BP
This Monday, activists from the campaign group People and Planet infiltrated a BP careers presentation being held in the Crowne Plaza hotel to protest against the company’s involvement in the controversial Baku-Ceyhan pipeline project. Posing as potential applicants, the activists entered the meeting room and started to mingle in the crowd, taking advantage of the tables of free food and drink BP was so kind as to provide.
Transport is always on the agenda
Three campaigns in Cambridge are constantly working to prove that traffic jams are not the only form of collective action that can be taken in relation to transport. The relatively new but rapidly growing CAST.IRON group is working to restore regular, timetabled rail services to the Cambridge-St Ives Line. Apparently fed up with the initial lack of interest of those "in charge" (Network Rail, Strategic Rail Authority, Office of the Rail Regulator) they are now mobilizing amongst people in Cambridgeshire to build Britain's First Community Commuter Railway.At the same time Transport 2000 works for policies that give greater priority to the environment, saving lives and conserving natural resources. The current campaign focuses on the proposal to dual the A428 westward from Cambridge, which could worsen traffic problems in Cambridge.
The oldest, but still very active, is the Cambridge Cycling Campaign gives a voice and power to the cycling community in Cambridge (i.e. most of us!) The campaign believes that cycling means reduced congestion, less pollution and better health and is not afraid of telling everyone every Saturday noon in Cambridge Market Square or through actions.
[CAST.IRON | Transport 2000 | Cambridge Cycling Campaign]