Home | 5th July 1996 | Issue 80Street Party

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! IT'S YER WHISTLE BLOWIN'

SchNEWS Special Report: Forest Gardening

WHAT YOU LOOKIN' AT?

Granada local TV news have a weekly 'crime watch' spot. This week it came live from the Police and Security Expo at the G-Mex exhibition centre; where we were informed the police forces of the nation and some 'overseas' visitors were inspecting the latest tools in the fight against crime.

We were told that they included everything from CCTV equipment to Virtual Reality shooting ranges. Sadly, the Expo wasn't open to the public. Had it been, the good people of Manchester (still a bit nervous of things that go bang) would have been in for a bit of a shock. The TV presenter had failed to mention the following items pedalled by exhibitors at the Expo: riot control grenade launchers; leg cuffs; Howitzer laser rangefinders; PARALYSER tear gas; computerised battle management systems; armoured vehicles; pump-action shotguns capable of firing grenades, tear gas or shot shells; assorted miniature surveillance equipment; a complete 'Criminal Justice System' (?) courtesy of GEC Marconi; and best of all, a range of Masonic regalia and leatherware.

The exhibitors at the Expo are a mixed bunch. Thames Valley Police are plugging 'Countrywatch', their mass surveillance operation which tracks the movements of ravers, travellers and eco-protesters. German arms manufacturers Heckler And Koch, a British Aerospace subsidiary, are selling pistols and machine guns at the Expo. Not only have H & K previously supplies arms to some of the dodgiest governments around, including Thailand and Indonesia, but are also allegedly negotiating a deal for the sale of 350,000 assault rifles to Turkey. As luck would have it, there is a delegation of visitors from Turkey at the Expo. Other wholesome entrepreneurs in town include Hiatt's, leading manufacturer of handcuffs, chains and manacles. They aren't selling leg cuffs this week because they are illegal in Britain. Instead they are selling 'Deluxe' handcuffs, 15% larger than ordinary cuffs, and thereby are suitable for arms so wide that could be classified as legs.

A small demonstration outside the Expo on Wednesday were told to move on under threat of arrest. A large space of unoccupied tarmac outside the G-Mex was private property, apparently, and the demo was told to move onto the pavement 20 yards from the entrance. Later that afternoon Tim, an activist from Manchester Campaign Against The Arms Trade, blagged his way in with a local radio reporter. A brief stop at the Heckler and Koch stall ("sorry, we don't know anything about that") was followed by an aborted visit to Hiatt's. The security manager of G-Mex recognised him from the morning demo and told him "I'd kick your fucking head in" before throwing Tim and the reporter out of the building.

The Expo raises some terrifying issues. It is organised by ACPO, the top brass coppers. Presumably they are unconcerned by the overlap between the arms trade, the private security industry and public policing. How many of the advances in high tech policing are brought about by manufacturers flogging their wares regardless of issues of civil rights or basic morality? But, most worrying of all, was the signing off line from the Granada News reporter.

"And perhaps we shall be seeing some of these gadgets helping in the war against crime on the streets of our cities."

Street spy cameras are the most obvious sign of the surveillance web enmeshing Britain. Simon Davies, of Privacy International, reckons that the awareness of privacy invasion is at the same level now that the environmental movement was twenty years ago. SchNEWS doesn't want to scare you, but.... More than a million people in the UK are employed full-time in the business of collecting our personal information. The average British adult is identified on 200 files.

In ten years:* The DVLA and the police will have constructed a database containing the digitised face prints of most of the population. How? The new photo drivers' licences and benefit claimants ID cards will be digital.

* Most public areas will be under the gaze of high-tech surveillance cameras. The images will be routinely matched with digitised facial images stored in police computers.

* The two smart cards you use several times a day will act as a real-time tracking mechanism, following your movements and monitoring your transactions with banks, retailers, petrol stations and toll gates.

* All government computer systems will have been linked through a national data matching scheme that commenced in 1992. An offence committed against one government agency (eg Social Security) will cause a domino effect that disturbs - or even suspends - your relationship with other government agencies.

"The dossier of private information is the badge of the totalitarian state"- Lord Browne Wilkinson.

* In Australia a plan to install video cameras at motorway intersections was greeting with demonstrations. In China, pro-democracy students who marched on Tianaman Square disabled the city's surveillance cameras before taking to the streets. In California, cameras have been placed in bullet-proof casings because people are shooting at them.

* Baltimore prison officials are using supermarket style bar codes to process inmates, thus reducing the processing time of inmates.

* Wanna find out more? Read SIMON DAVIES - BIG BROTHER - Britain's web of surveillance and the new technological order. Published by Pan £9.99

OPEN CAST HORROR

More action in South Wales where Celtic Energy want to lay waste to 880 acres of woodland and meadows at Selar Farm, Cymru and turn it into an open cast mine site. This will be visible from the moon! Workers are moving the slag heap from one side of the site to another. Only six protestors are there, and no security or police are present. Workers told the activists "We'll kick the shit out of you if you stop us from working". A Special Site of Scientific Interest water meadow that was 'relocated' last year (once home of the rare Marsh Fritillary butterfly) was filled in last week, in an admission of failure. Help! Call: 01685 873993.

SAVE YOUR ANGRY WORDS AND PLANT A THOUSAND TREES

DON'T DEPORT OUR NATASHA!

Hundreds of school kids from Forest Gate Community School in Newham have taken to the streets with banners reading "Stop Deporting" and "We Want Her To Stay" to stop the deportation of one of their schoolmates, 12 year old Natasha Matambele.

Natasha and her family fled to Britain from Angola five years ago after facing persecution - and in Natasha's father case imprisonment and torture - for belonging to the Bakongo minority. Angola's Civil War has been raging for 20 years, with the deaths of over 500,000 people. The health system has collapsed and the country has the highest infant mortality rate in the world - a fifth of the population have fled, mainly to neighbouring countries. Kerry Gray, one of Natasha's teachers, said, "Natasha arrived here five years ago traumatised by the events in her country. She is now a happy, healthy girl thriving in a secure and caring environment. Why must Natasha and her family be forced to go back to the conditions they were so desperate to escape from?"

The Home Office has treated the family with the usual generosity and humanity it reserves for refugees, especially Black ones... they kept the Matambele family waiting years for a decision on their asylum claim only to tell them they were to be deported. The government's racist attacks on asylum seeker recently led to an Appeal Court judge saying that the government had created a situation where people are "so destitute that to my mind no civilised nation can tolerate it".

The Refugee Council estimates that about 8,000 refugees have had their benefits stopped already - starved in Britain for fleeing torture and persecution abroad.

Many refugees across Britain face destitution and deportation for the crime of fleeing for their lives.

* The Friends of Natasha can be contacted at Form 7R, Forest Gate School, Forest Street, London E7 0HR.

INDIAN RESERVATIONS

Mobil has signed a contract allowing it to dig for oil in the Peruvian Amazon. The area they are exploring is 'the most biologically diverse region of the planet', and home to 19 different native Indian peoples - at least 3 of which are uncontacted. Oil prospecting involves detonating underground explosives and will severely disturb wildlife in the area, duly affecting the hunter/gatherer lifestyle most of these people live.

Write a polite letter of protest to: H.E. Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru, Palacio de Gobierno, Plaza de Armas, Lima 1, PERU.

RECLAIM THE STREETS

"Repetitive beats instead of the constant roar of engines. It is in the streets that power must be dissolved: for the streets, where daily life is endured, suffered and eroded, must be turned into the domain where daily life is enjoyed, created and nourished."

On Saturday 13th July a street in London will be transformed - yep, it's time for Street Party III. There will be music, art, magic, poetry, food, sunbathing, volleyball, clowns, acrobats, street theatre, trapeze, debates, children's area, info-stalls, an instant beach and a prize for the best fancy dress...

Reclaim The Streets (RTS) is about setting our own agenda and moving debate beyond the anti-roads protest. It's about highlighting the social, as well as the environmental, costs of the "car system". It's about reclaiming the right for our kids to play in the street and for all of us to meet, chat and relax without getting mown down or choking to death!. It's about challenging the destruction, selfishness and pollution that car culture causes. It's about uniting as individuals and gaining strength in our collective action. So there! LABOUR PARTY? CONSERVATIVE PARTY? FUCK THAT! WE WANT A STREET PARTY....

Meet 12 noon, Saturday 13 July, Broadgate, next to Liverpool St Station
Reclaim the Streets 01712814621
* If you get nicked on the day ring Legal, Defence & Monitoring Group 01718376687

ALF SUPPORTERS TO COURT

Dave Hammond and Robin Webb from the ALF supporters group are in Lewes Crown Court next Wednesday 10th July at 10am. They are defending charges of an alleged shot gun found in a car boot, and possession of said shot gun without a licence. Rather than turning up to support them, why not show your support by helping to achieve justice for animals ... in whatever constructive manner seems fitting. They are looking at a sentence of three years.

SchNEWS IN BRIEF

The 10th edition of the Animals Contacts Directory is now out. With up to 5,000 entries it is the most comprehensive and up to date animal rights resource available. Copies cost £4/£3 unwaged/volunteer activists. From Veggies Catering Campaign, 180 Mansfield Rd., Nottingham, NG1 3HW 0115 958 5666

*** People are needed to help establish a 'Land Is Ours' type community in York. The old Naburn hospital site has been derelict for many years and is one of the few remaining wooded green spaces left in the area. Developers want to build an out of town shopping centre, locals have other plans - "we aim to set up permaculture gardens, kids play space, run workshops ... and generally highlight sustainable alternative uses for the land" Get in touch thru York Leaf c/o Peace Centre, Clifford St., York

*** The eco-bardic Space Goats have sent us their tribaladelic new tape '13 moons in motion'. Get yer pixie music magic - available for £5 from Mandila, PO Box 344, London SE19 1EQ

*** There's a JobSeekers Allowance Awareness Day on Saturday July 13th at Kidderminster Market Tavern. For a quid you can see Danbert Nobacon from Chumbawamba, DJs from Pop Will Eat Itself and Ned's Atomic Dustbin, some local bands, alternative puppet show, food, cheap bar and information. More info 01562 825868 .... Meanwhile a woman in a Colne job centre who asked to work with animals was duly found a job in... wait for it... an abattoir!

*** Staying on the same tip, there's gonna be an anti JobSeekers Allowance free festival in Plymouth's Central Park on the 13th and 14th with local bands, theatre, circus, info, food and Beer...

* * * There will be a procession in Bath on 13th July to mark the opening of the Batheaston By-pass Meet 2pm at the Environment Centre, followed by a wake in Alice Park 01225 448556

***A senior Indian leader has spoken out against elaborate security measures for politicians "Getting killed in public life is no big deal and should be accepted as an occupational hazard" said George Fernandes, president of the Samata Party. A fiery socialist who led a campaign to drive Coca-Cola out of India in 1977, he added "No one is begging you to enter public life. Big shots are big shots by quirks of fate or accidents of birth."

*** Interested in working on a low-impact, housing, environmental and community project in Brighton. ALIVE (Alternative, Low-Impact, Village, Enterprise) are holding a meeting at 6 pm at The Prince Albert (downstairs), Trafalgar Street, Brighton. New people and ideas are welcome.

And Finally

Keith Flett, Socialist Gardener of note, recommends the following horticultural practices:* Resist the temptation to destroy any weeds you may find growing in the garden. They are a spontaneous sign of the upsurge of the class struggle that will come when Blair is elected.

* Ponds, rockeries, bird tables and all so called garden ornaments are signs of false consciousness. Away with them.

* Resist any tendency towards using a watering can in the garden, this is a sign of unconscious Blairism. If you must use water, use a Jack Straw high pressure water cannon which sweeps away all in its path.

Contact Keith for more Green (Red) fingered tips on 0171 829 3097.

disclaimer
The SchNEWS warns all readers not to attend any illegal gatherings or take part in any criminal activities. Always stay within the law. In fact, please sit at home, watch TV, and go on endless shopping sprees filling your lives and homes with endless consumer crap ... you will then feel content. Honest.

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Next Justice? meeting: Wednesday July 17th 7.30pm Video on Ploughshares Hawk Jet Action @ Brighton Unemployed Centre, off Carlton Hill behind Amex

Cheers to the POLICE REVIEW keep those stories coming!

SchNEWS Special Report

FOREST GARDENING: a growing movement

Sometimes the world seems such a mad place, fighting against all the odds you can feel like burying your head in the sand. But solutions to the world's problems do exist and can be put into practice now. While SchNEWS might at times seem all doom and gloom, we thought it was time to report on one aspect of our lives where we can still have some control ... and if we are to stick two fingers up to our money-obsessed society, then surely we should be putting in place our visions of the future.

"We all have the forest in our blood. Deep down in the subconscious of each one of us race dim memories of a time when our ancestors were dependent on the wildwood and its inhabitants for the essentials of life - food, shelter, clothing and the soul food of beauty. Millions of people, when they can, seek solace in woodland areas away from the discords, artificiality, pollution and sheer ugliness of the urban environment. But, tragically, the numbers of such areas are declining throughout the world as civilisation, in its destructive march, fells more and more trees for motorways, airfields, housing and industrial estates, cornfields and cattle pastures, while exploiting the trees for timber and pulp. Such devastation, promoting the greenhouse effect and other severe environmental problems, threatens the very survival of humanity. Is there anything that we, the ordinary people, can do to reverse this suicidal trend?"

Robert Hart, pioneer of Forest Gardening

The forests of the world are fast disappearing. In 'The End of Evolution', leading world ecologist Norman Myers tells us "If present rates of destruction continue tropical forests have at most a decade of life left." Forests not only produce oxygen, increase rainfall, provide shelter for wildlife & prevent soil erosion; they can also provide us with all (or most) of our basic needs - foods, drinks, medicines, fibres, fuels, building materials etc. So why not reforest the Earth, while producing useful resources at the same time?

Cross-section of Forest GardenFOREST GARDENING

A forest garden is a tiny imitation of a natural forest designed to achieve the utmost economy of space and labour. Like a natural woodland it has three layers of vegetation: trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants. Once established it requires minimal work and provides fruit, nuts, salads, herbs and other useful plants and fungi.

Many gardens contain the same thing as a forest garden, but usually each is grown separately as a orchard, soft fruit area, vegetable patch and herb bed. What distinguishes a forest garden is that all are grown together on the same piece of ground, one above the other. This makes much better use of available resources because more niches are filled. So the potential yield is clearly much greater.

A forest garden will almost certainly yield less top fruit than a simple orchard, less berries than a pure stand of soft fruit bushes, and less vegetables than a simple vegetable garden. But it will produce more in total than one of the single layer plantings.

"From a town patio to a large rural area, it's our chance to restore some balance to the Earth and restore our relationship with nature."

"Make medicine your food, and food your medicine."

There are three main products from a forest garden: fruit, nuts and leafy vegetables.

Shop-bought fruit may look brilliant, but that visual perfection is a sure sign that it has been sprayed over and over again to prevent the slightest blemish. A typical commercial orchard may have been sprayed 15 times or more during the growing season, including herbicides, insecticides and fungicides, and the fruit itself sprayed again in storage. Much of this spraying is purely cosmetic and has nothing to do with increasing yield.

The fruit we buy in shops is almost all imported. Even the apples and pears that used to be grown in Britain are now mostly from overseas. By the time the fruit gets to us what vitality it ever had in its chemically cultured orchard is largely gone. In the past anything that was edible and green, cultivated or wild, was liable to be included in salads. John Evelyn, writing in 1699 listed 73 plants that were commonly eaten raw in his day and added that many more could have been included. The level of diversity sounds remarkable. But it is our simplified twentieth-century diet which is unusual.

Wild plants are on average much higher in protein, vitamins and minerals than conventional vegetables. They may also contain a variety of organic substances which are good for our health in ways which present-day nutritional science is not aware of. Most of the produce of a forest garden, whether fruits nuts or salads, can be eaten raw. Most of us would probably benefit from having a higher proportion of raw food in our diets.

SOD WIMBLEDON - HERE'S THE TOP SEEDS!

THE EASY LIFE

According to Michael Guerra, his 10m x 4m garden in Herfordshire produces the annual equivalent of 15 tonnes of veg per acre - that's more productive than a field of wheat.Another reason for forest gardening is that once established it does not take much work:

"We are so used to the idea of ploughing or digging every piece of land on which we hope to grow some food that we think of it as the norm for productive land. But it never was the norm till we humans invented agriculture, and that, on the timescale of evolution, was an instant ago."

Food is one thing that we cannot do without, and one which many of us have some opportunity to produce for ourselves. We don't need to aim for total self-sufficiency, but every bit we grow means that much less passing through the destructive process of industrialised food production.

If you decide to grow your own be careful not to mimic the farming techniques that are so destructive. Patches of weeds? Before digging them up why not try to identify them to see if you can eat them or use them medicinally?

Gardening takes a lot of patience, knowledge and work. If you've never grown anything before why not get an allotment with a couple of friends? You'd probably be surprised how little allotments cost to rent (for example £9 a year in Brighton if your unemployed, £18 if you're working) Get in touch with your local Council to see what's available. And don't try and be too clever - just start with a few easy crops at first....

GLOBAL BENEFITS

Possibly the greatest single ecological problem we face is climate change caused by the greenhouse effect. This is no longer a threat but a reality; it has already started to disrupt world weather patterns. As it intensifies, not only will many species become extinct, but much of the worlds food producing capacity will be lost, as many present agricultural areas will become semi-desert. Growing new trees is one way to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

JUST DO IT...

* Recommended reading 'How To Make A Forest Garden' by Patrick Whitefield
* 'Forest Gardening' by Robert Hart (Green Books)
* 'The Permaculture Plot' edited by Simon Pratt. Guide to permaculture/forest garden sites open to visitors in this country.
* 'The Salad Garden' by Joy Larkcom (Windward) mouth-watering encyclopaedia of salad plants, herbs, edible flowers, wild plants how to grow + prepare them..
* Permaculture Magazine £l excellent source of news + views + helpful tips, available from Permanent Publications. For example, did you know that beansprouts are the most vitamin and mineral -packed salad vegetables you can eat, and that they can easily be grown at home? See issue 9 for more details!

For a full list of relevant publications send a SAE to Permanent Publications, Hyden House, Little Hyden Lane, Clanfield, Hampshire, PO8 0RU (01705)59650.

Email permaculture@gn.apc.org (they've also got info for people who live in benders, trailers and trucks who don't stick around in places long enough for trees to bear fruit...)

If you live in the Brighton area

* Re-evolution are a workers co-op developing a model sustainable community farm at a 1.5 acre site at Moulescoomb Estate allotments off Natal Rd. Get involved 01273 388673
* Justice? have 3 allotments practising forest gardening (when we can afford the trees) open to everyone. Workdays Mondays 11 am onwards. Ring 01273 685913 for directions...

"Our patterns of consumption, transport and waste disposal all have direct and indirect impacts on wild plants and animals. In fact the need to create nature reserves is an admission that we have failed to keep the rest the land in a health condition, or our own appetites for material goods at a reasonable level."

Did you know there are more than 20,000 known species of edible plants in the world and yet fewer than 20 species of plants now supply about 90% of our food? As a result of this impoverishment we now have huge areas of land devoted to single crops and an increasing dependence upon chemical fertilisers, insecticides, fungicides and herbicides. With this comes the constant threat of new diseases or of chemical resistant insects evolving that could wreak havoc in such large areas of single crops.

Get Tooled Up...The Forest's Gardening!PLANTS FOR A FUTURE

Plants For A Future (PFAF) are a group of people based near Lostwithiel in Cornwall. SchNEWS and Conscious Cinema crew went to stay for a few days to check out what they were up to. Set up in 1989 in Cornwall by former London Bus driver Ken Fern. He told us: "I'd been growing traditional veg for a couple of years and found out what hard work it was. I was growing about an acre - it just tires you out. I was doing a full time job and trying to grow all this by hand - I thought there's got to be an easier way, then I came across a book by Robert Hart and James Sholto Douglas... so I started doing research on useful plants. We found over 6,000 useful species and we wanted to make those available to other people. So we decided to buy this land down here in Cornwall and start up PFAF".

The majority of plants grown are perennial - that is they will grow year after year, without the constant work of seed sowing, weeding, weeding and more weeding. It also means they will be a lot more resistant to the dreaded slug. They're currently growing 1,500 plants on the land. Aside from food some can supply medicines, oils, fibre, dyes, soap etc.

When we visited, the site was looking lush, but we were told it wasn't always so. "Six years ago it was a virtual ecodesert - there was no life soil in the soil, virtually no worms, no butterflies, bees or birds. Look at it now" said Phil. It was hard to imagine that just a few years previous it had been so barren. The previous farmer had tipped up all hedgerows that had made 13 small strips in order to make it more 'efficient' for ploughing. The result was disaster. In the first year after the hedges were removed, heavy rains washed hundreds of tons of soil and newly planted potatoes down the slope, flooding a nearby house, with some potatoes ending up in the stream half a mile away! Since then 20,000 trees have been planted, over half native trees that will give wind protection, halt soil erosion and create excellent wildlife habitats. The rest are traditional fruit crops such as apples and gooseberries plus 10 acres with other less well known hardy trees that will provide edible fruits, seeds, leaves etc.

Dawn emphasised that it wasn't just about setting up a little vegan community and saying 'we're alright jack.' "It's not about us being insular and living an idealistic lifestyle, its about promoting this lifestyle and saying that this is the way forward and saying that the farming that's used today is not sustainable at all - it's just taking and not giving back - this is about putting back in and re-establishing the wildlife. It gives me a lot of hope."

And of the future?

"I think the world is in a complete mess right now, but I don't think it's terminally injured. I think there's still hope - if people will adopt a low impact lifestyle, if people will take more responsibility for their own lives ... I think there are other possibilities, I think we offer one of those possibilities."

For copies of the Plants For A Future catalogue send a couple of stamps and SAE to The Field, Penpol, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0NG (01208) 873554/872963

 


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