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‘I asked myself ‘why?’ Who are these people? And why do they do this to us? Why do they kill my people? Why
do they rape my aunties?’ Benny Wenda
Benny Wenda of the Free West Papua Campaign spoke to us last night. Benny is a tribal leader from West Papua who is campaigning against land grabbing in his country. He talked movingly about how major companies. supported by the Indonesian government and military, are raping his land and cutting down the forest to grow palm oil and how people are displaced. It is always moving to meet someone who has given up so much for their people, but Benny’s story moved me particularly as his family has been destroyed and a silent genocide is happening so that we can have palm oil in our biscuits and margerine.
Benny lives here in Oxford and Friends of the Earth International are supporting him, along with our local MP Andrew Smith. Please help by clicking the link above and taking action.
Laugh or the Polar Bear Gets It
Friends of the Earth are running a comedy benefit gig at the Hammersmith Apollo on Friday 18 November. Big names confirmed so far include Dan Antopolski, Simon Day, Justin Edwards as Jeremy Lion, Richard Herring, Josie Long, Francesca Martinez, Lucy Porter and Rob Rouse, with music from special guest Badly Drawn Boy. A number of us are thinking of going as a group – if you are interested, please contact Fiona (stalls@oxfoe.co.uk).
and before that there is a food campaign event in Trafalgar Square:
FoE are supporting an event in London on 18 November called Feeding the 5000, from 12 noon to 2.00pm in Trafalgar Square. It involves a free lunch made entirely from fresh ingredients that would otherwise go to waste.
Here are Tim and Fiona and family at Elders Stubbs Festival on Saturday. This is one of the most fun events of the year. Most of the people who come are ‘green’ so we can sit back and chat to the other folk there and do some networking.
Thanks to Tim and his nephew, Ben, we raised some money for our campaigns in the winter. We are keen to get new members to help us to campaign, so please come along to our meetings and find out what’s going on. We are running campaigns on Food and Energy at the moment, plus a local transport campaign.
- MOOving at the Farmers Market
The day after the gig, Glyn dressed as a cow to pose with local organic farmer Matt from North Aston Organics and a banner saying “I’m voting for rainforest-free food” at the East Oxford Farmers’ Market. Matt has stopped using soya to feed his cattle and I’m hoping to get him to contribute something to this blog explaining why – but here’s my attempt:
It’s not something that everybody knows, but animals in British factory farms are fed soy grown by destroying forests and other natural habitats in South America. Friends of the Earth has introduced a Sustainable Livestock Bill and is campaigning for MPs to vote for it in Parliament on Friday 12 November. Hundreds of local people have been putting their hooves down for rainforest-free food over the last couple of years.
It’s great that Andrew Smith will be supporting the local appetite for planet-friendly food and farming by voting for a strong new law that supports British farmers to feed animals a home-grown diet and will be joining us for a photo opportunity next Saturday, 6 November, to show his support for a new law to halt the environmental damage being caused by factory farming.
We’ll be staging the stunt at East Oxford Farmers’ Market to highlight the hidden chain linking meat and dairy from British factory farms to wildlife and rainforest destruction in South America – and to raise awareness of the MOOvement for rainforest-free food – www.jointheMOOvement.com.
At last it was the day of the gig, despite being absolutely terrified that no one would turn up we walked up to the bus stop and set out for the Bully. Those of you who came will know what a great night we had. Mundane Sands kicked off with some folk rock music, getting us all dancing! They were followed by Gunning for Tamar who were LOUD for us old folk, but who cares on a Friday night at the Bully. The headliners were Vixens - sadly no lady foxes – but even louder music and even greater enjoyment. By this time I had retreated to the box office and was describing myself as groovy granny.
The picture, taken by Karl, shows our Food Campaigner James Blair regaling the crowd with details of our campaign. Thanks very much to James who is leaving us to take on a job with the Soil Association in London.
You’ll be pleased to know that we made a profit! Hooray! And met some wonderful people. Hopefully we have made some new friends who will come to our meetings and become a part of our group – which is even better than money.
We must remember to thank those who did all the work – particularly Tim and Fiona who both have busy lives, but find time to organise socials and fundraising – and Glyn who contributed time and experience. Thanks to all three and of course to the bands who gave their time for free – hopefully you will all be attending their gigs and buying their cds in the future.
‘Food Inc.’ is a must-watch for anyone concerned about the state of agriculture in the developed world. Although the film focuses on the dirty world of US industrial food production, its message is applicable to our situation in the UK. I guarantee you won’t feel the same about your non-organic burger.
OxFOE campaigners will be there en force at 18:30 Tuesday evening at the Phoenix Picture House. Come along!
In the lead up to the general election, a coalition of Greenpeace, Oxfam, WWF, RSPB, Christian Aid, the 
World Development Movement, People and Planet, Tearfund and the Green Alliance are cooperating to raise the political profile of climate change with politicians. This is going to focus on marginal constituencies, which around here means Oxford East.
The objective is to get as many people in the constituency as possible to ask their candidates `climate questions’ in the run up to the election. To help to do this we will be organising a Climate Question Time event with Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPC). To make this as successful as possible, we want to build a local coalition of groups/networks and organise publicity, as inventively as possible, around it.
Please spread this news to any climate-interested networks you have locally as soon as you can. Julia Spragg of the Oxford Greenpeace group is acting as local contact for ACQ (jspragg@nildram.co.uk). Please encourage others to get in touch if they would like to get involved.
Climate Question Time
Wednesday 21 April, 7.30pm, Oxford Town Hall
This will be a hustings meeting with Parliamentary candidates for Oxford East.
Ask the Climate Question!
