(this blurb is what some of us used when we produced some EF! Action Updates in Oz, and the only defining statement of Earth First! in the United Kingdom.)
This means that anybody, including you as an individual or part of a group, can use the name Earth First! as a banner, and it will generally mean those things to people. Earth First! groups are traditionally autonomous. I might try and put some more brief history up soon, but if you have any questions you could email them...
(For
links to EF! in other countries (it exists in 13,
we think) check out a UK
Earth First! Homepage)
This
page exists to promote EF! kinda stuff in Australia, and will continue
to be updated with more contacts as they are created. It's also a way into
the international EF! and similar networks.
On the page, you can find a bit about...
Some EF! Contacts in Australia
International Links for Action
Internation Days of Action: J18, N30, Mayday...September 2000
Something Groovy for Women to Check Out
OLD: The six Australian EF! Action Updates that got produced in 97/98 will find their way onto this page eventually...yeah yeah. Maybe. Anyone got a scanner?
NEW:
The people at Albury Earth First!
are putting together a journal in the style of the American "Live Wild
or Die" and welcome help, contributions, and ideas.
There are people who are interested in doing EF! stuff in most states and most capital cities. If you want their contact details passed on to you, then email us. Please include permission for your email contact to be passed on to others as well if that's ok.
For an
active group in New South Wales,
email Albury Earth First!
or there's
someone who would like to discuss EF! ideas and maybe starting up a group
in the South
Sydney/`Wollongong area
For a bush-based group in Queensland, email EF! in Dalby
If you live nearer Brisbane, you can contact Andrew, who's interested in investigating/taking action on local environmental issues, and who's being a Brisbane EF! contact point
And there's someone in Tasmania who's being a Tasmanian EF! contact point
If you
want to be on this page as an EF! contact in your area (or already are
a group or whatever), we would love you to email
us with your contact details immediately!
From March 99 and still current: Chris is an English bloke who has been involved in anti-roads site occupations in various parts of the UK. He is wandering round Australia currently, and would like to visit/get involved with some Oz campaigns, particularly to do with forests, or simply visit nice people. Email this page if you want to invite him anywhere or recommend anything particularly...we'll forward messages.
July 99 - Oct 4: Selena is currently in North Queensland, and will be travelling further down the East Coast of Australia, looking to find out about & get involved in actions. Email Selena
May 2000:
Maeve
is an Australian-born Earth First! activist who lives in the UK, but is
in Brisbane for this month. She is possibly available for talks on UK activism
in general, EF! in the UK, or genetix campaigning in the UK. Email Maeve
AUSTRALIA
* Go look at, link up with, and contribute to www.active.org.au...an online forum for social change news and action of any kind, from reconciliation to cycling, currently covering Sydney, Melbourne and Newcastle, but planning to add further places...
* Right near us there's a war going on. They tell you about East Timor but not about West Papua - the indigenous Liberation Army of the Free West Papua Movement are daily resisting Indonesian occupation - and Australian solidarity links are needed, so if you are one or want to be one, please email the UK OPM Support Group
* Reclaim the Streets - here's Sydney RTS - hooray!.. but I know there've been at least two RTS events in Brisbane, and elsewhere...web pages please folks! Also you can check out the UK Reclaim the Streets page for some international links, RTS philosophy & some groovy graphics
* Find out where Australia's "organised coincidence" Critical Mass Cycles (blades, skates, walks) occur nearest you, and link to international Critical Mass information worldwide.
* Check out Annarres Books which has both great political literature, and details of Australian anarchist groups and other web sites
* Look at the web page for the Byron-Bay based, but internationally known, Seed Savers' Network - seed diversity is under threat from transnational control and patenting - we gotta do something quick
* anyone know of a squatting web page in Australia?...in the meantime, go and see what happened when Leeds Earth First! people helped squat an empty church to turn it into a free social centre, at A-Spire Cafe...
* And here's a door into the Australian Genetix Test-Crop Register - find out what and where those scary genetix crops are...
Now, clearly more stuff needs to go here, so please email
and say what Australian links should go on. For a start, any more EF! groups?
Then, whoever/whatever else feels they fit the bill as described at the
top of the page. This space is NOT for organisations, but rather for autonomous
independent and definitely radical groups/actions etc.
No-one will tell you what to do for these days, it's up to you and your friends to act on whatever you feel passionate about - see the following web sites for inspiration and ideas - or even create your own - then get together, get informed, imagine, and go for it.
SEPTEMBER
2000 IN OZ - ARE YOU READY?
the
following blurb came from A-INFOS News...
In September the World Economic Forum will hold the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit, "Asia/Pacific in the 21st Century: Leveraging the new drivers of growth", in Melbourne. The Summit is jointly sponsored by the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Davos Connection (the Australian arm of the World Economic Forum) and will take place at the Crown Casino, September 11-13. Participants are being lured to the summit with opportunity to "meet key leaders from business, politics and academia at a time when the eyes of the world will be fixed on Australia, and they may coordinate their participation in the Summit with the Olympic Games."
The World Economic Forum is an organisation made up of the richest global companies in the world. For the past thirty years it has held regular summits and meetings aimed at "managing globalisation. Every February in the Swiss mountain resort town of Davos, over a thousand of the worlds CEO's meet along with a restricted list of politicians, academics and influential media who are invited along. Discussions range from how to manage the Asian economic crisis to surfing the internet revolution all with the aim of extending market and corporate power.
Like the World Trade Organisation the World Economic Forum is a means of promoting global policies aimed at weakening labour, removing environmental protection and intensifying the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. At Seattle last year and Davos in February this year, (and Mayday this year, everywhere! - ed.) coalitions of trade unions, environmentalists and human rights activists protested the global aims of the rich and powerful. In September this year such protest will continue. To ensure that we are able to organise a successful protest of the neo-liberal policies promoted by the World Economic Forum we need to be organised. You or any organisation should be involved in ensuring an alternative to the policies of global elites is heard.
Contact
the s11 alliance for more information
on Oz events!
For
signposts to similar actions internationally, try at UK
Reclaim the Streets
INTERNATIONAL
ACTION DAYS: THE STORY SO FAR...
* To
look at what happened on JUNE 18,
the first global day of action against
EVERYBODY who's doing us all over - and FOR
all the creative sustainable ways we can live together
- which about 40 countries participated in, join the Australian post-June
18 Discussion List with "subscribe j18 your-email-address" in the text
of your message. For news of what happened all round the world, see a June
18 webpage
* As for NOVEMBER 30 - J18 was too good not to be repeated - you can find out about this global day of transnational action at a November 30 webpage. The day coincided with the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle, and the parallel Festival of Resistance there from November 29 to December 3.
* But wait there's more - another huge transnational day of action just happened on MAY 1 2000...a day with a good tradition of people standing up for their rights... you can find out some of what happened at the Indymedia Page.
UK
"Earth First! Action Update" (monthly publication)
What UK activists have been getting
up to each month...what's coming up...and local UK contacts...plus "information
for action" features...can be ordered by post too...all @nti-copyright
so download and reproduce as you will
UK
"Do or Die: voices from Earth First!" (bi-yearly-ish journal)
Very cool, includes lots of international
stuff, including an amazing interview with an indigenous West Papuan about
the resistance to Indonesian occupation in the jungles of West Papua...plus
the usual debate, discussion, and information...journals can be ordered
for not much more than cost
Totnes
Genetix Direct Action Web Page
Anti-genetix campaigning.. peruse
this site for links, info, and ideas to kick off the action in Oz
"Road
Raging: Top Tips for Wrecking Road Building"
This is a book written by UK activists
involved in the Twyford and Newbury road protests, but useful for campaigning
generally. It's not being published anymore, so copies are very rare, but
a lot of it's on the web
Primal
Seeds Network
A new international network for
people and groups - from gardeners to farmers to activists to scientists
- who are challenging the threat of agribusiness and all its facets, and
taking action for a sustainable diverse future of growing. The handful
of people creating this website have been locked in their flat creating
it 24 hours a day for quite a while now, so it must be looking cool...
"http://squat.net"
An International Squatting On-Line Magazine
In various different languages
- with links to the movements for occupying free/empty buildings and space
in about 22 countries (it looks like virtually all of the Netherlands has
been squatted!)
A
- I N F O S News Service: News about, and of Interest to, Anarchists
Lots of different international
mailing lists in different languages. Go visit this page to find out which
you want to subscribe to - the mailing lists are well worth being on.
"www.agp.org/" - People's
Global Action (note - address
error now corrected)
People's Global Action (against "free" trade and the
World Trade Organisation) is an international banner for all of us fighting
the same fight...from the indigenous resistance movements to trade unions
to YOU...