Feb 20, 2014

How a mining conflict led to the political emancipation of a community in Northern Greece.

#Skouries - a story of political emancipation

Author: Evi Papada  
 

skoyriesMining conflicts are increasingly surfacing globally due to complains over mines and pollution of water, soil and land occupied as well as over transport and waste disposal. The Skouries forest in Halkidiki has been at the center of a hot dispute between the mining company, Hellas Gold, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining giant Eldorado Gold and local communities. The company claims that an ambitious plan for mining of gold and copper in the area- including deforestation and open pit mining with excavation and everyday use of explosives- will benefit the region through the creation of some 5,000 direct and indirect jobs, while local residents argue that the planned investment will cause considerable damage to the environment and livelihoods, resulting to many more jobs losses in the existing sectors of the local economy (farming, pasture land, fisheries, beekeeping, food processing and tourism). The residents’ claims are supported by research conducted by various independent scientific institutions including the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Technical Chamber of Macedonia. In addition to legitimacy questions underpinning the transfer of mining rights from the Greek state to the aforementioned company [1], the Environmental Impact Assessment produced by El Dorado has been found to contain gross methodological discrepancies and whilst the public consultation process could be at best described as cosmetic [2].

Jan 30, 2014

From Fire to Autonomy: Zapatistas, 20 Years of Walking Slowly

Saturday, 25 January 2014 09:28  
By Andalusia Knoll and Itandehui Reyestruth-out.org

Note: truth-out does great work in sharing knowledge about the reasons we should not yet give up any struggle.  In this great piece one should not overlook this paragraph:
mandar obedenciedo
(command by obeying): to serve and not be served; represent and not supplant; build and not destroy; propose and not impose; and convince, not defeat, from below not above.

Speaking in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, on a cold drizzly New Year's Eve, the Zapatista Comandante Hortensia addressed the crowd: "Twenty-five or 30 years ago we were completely deceived, manipulated, subjugated, forgotten, drowned in ignorance and misery." She was communicating the official words of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on the 20th anniversary of their rebellion, when thousands of indigenous people rose up in arms, took over dozens of major towns and villages in this southern state, and declared "enough is enough, never again will there be a homeland that doesn't include us."
Comandante Hortensia went on to explain how over the past two decades, they have constructed their own autonomous government, complete with their own health and education system, based in the indigenous traditions of their ancestors. Despite the continual efforts of the "neoliberal bad government" to displace them from their land, the Zapatistas have successfully recuperated thousands of acres of land on which they have constructed communities that are governed "from the bottom up." Community members participate in rotating government positions that operate under the democratic principle of "mandar obedeciendo" (commanding by obeying).

Jan 28, 2014

ZAD, France: This is not a camp


Jan 27 2014


it's a pirate look-out
it’s a pirate look-out
Following various announcements for a possible start of construction of the Notre Dame des Landes airport, a series of articles were released in the press that pretty much regurgitated copy-pasted clichés. One of these articles caught our attention notably. In almost all the articles that would preach the possible eviction and the final catastrophe of ZAD we read “200 people, alter-globalists, continue to camp in ZAD.” The figure might seem rough. The term “alter-globalists” is not a term that the people who chose to fight against the airport and the world of “development” would embrace. But we don’t give a damn about that! For now we will hang on to the bad joke that describes what’s happening here as “camping”.

A good thing to grow on sunny dry warmer climates

Of all the grain crops, amaranth has to be the easiest to turn into something that you can eat.  If you have ever wondered how to add a cereal crop to your garden, consider amaranth.  This versatile, beautiful, and easy to grow plant can add another dimension to gardening.  Unlike wheat or oats, where you need to cut the stalks, thresh the grain and then grind it into flour, amaranth literally falls from the seed heads ready to eat.
I started this experiment last year with a small test crop just to get an idea of what to expect.  Andrew Still of the Seed Ambassadors spoke highly of amaranth and gave me a few seeds of Copperhead, an ornamental yet grain producing variety.  There are two or three species of grain amaranth, Amaranthus caudatus, and Amaranthus cruentus (Copperhead is this species) being the most important, each of which encompasses many varieties.  Most of the amaranth varieties have purple or red hues in the plant stalks and leaves as well as brilliantly colored flowers.  Copperhead is an exception with rust and copper tones in the stems and flowers.  The common commercial variety called Plainsman is a hybrid of two other species,  Amaranthus hypochondriacus, from Mexico and Amaranthus hybridus, from Pakistan.

Jan 4, 2014

Why Free? And why this manifesto may be of interest


We will refrain from an endless analysis and discussion of why this book, among zillions, may be of interest to us, but we have highlighted some key phrases that drew our attention.  It may be easy to bash the book or to praise it and we may do both in the future, but it may have to be done together with all of you who may have read it.  What's the value of us providing with a reason not to read it but remain confident that its criticism is as good as reading it yourselves?

Creative Commons LicenseThe Moneyless ManifestoBoth myself and my courageous publishers, Permanent Publications, have decided to publish a free online version of this book, and the normal paperback version under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license, for three reasons:
First, the ideas and practical tools contained within it should be free to whoever may find them useful, and not made falsely scarce by the mechanisms of the monetary economy.
Second, just as actions display our beliefs more honestly than our words, the ways in which ideas and practical tools are shared are at least as important as the words themselves. I wanted the medium to be fully aligned with the message.
Third, I wanted to release it under a Creative Commons licence because it felt fraudulent to have my name on the front of this book. As I said in the acknowledgements page of my last book, what are my words but “an accumulation of all that has come

Jan 2, 2014

Permaculture: Back to Basics?

Permaculture seems to have grown almost as many interpretations as there are practitioners. Patrick Whitefield talks to Simon Fairlie.


an occasional magazine about land rights

SF : A lot of “permaculture plots” are on a small  fiddly scale. The prevalence of herb spirals, mini-ponds, willow arbours and micro-coppices, along with ubiquitous “forest gardens” are charming, but are they really any more than a current fashion trend in “alternative” gardening? In some quarters, the perceived quaintness of Permaculture (PC) gardening prevents it from being regarded as a serious method of cultivation. Are these approaches actually permacultural and if so, is PC married to such methods? Or is there room for a more efficiency-based approach?

PW : Small scale is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact there’s plenty of evidence to show that small scale food production, including gardening, actually yields more food than large scale. It may produce less per person employed and certainly produces less financial return, but on average it does produce more food per hectare.1