Above photo: Protest in Sacramento, California during a meeting of the WTO’s Agricultural Ministers, hosted by the USDA in June 2003 in preparation for the WTO summit in Cancun that fall. Global Justice Ecology Project co-founder Orin Langelle joined allies at this WTO miniterial to organize protests against the development of dangerous and uncontrollable genetically engineered trees. Photo: Langelle/GJEP
I am writing today with a brief but positive update regarding the folks who were arrested during the protests of the Tree Biotechnology 2013 Conference in Asheville, NC last May.
They have finally had their day in court with very positive outcomes! Will Bennington of Global Justice Ecology Project had his charges dropped. Others got time served for their few hours in jail, with no fines–just some lawyer’s and court fees.
Of the outcome, Eric, one of the legal support people said, “I was really surprised how well this turned out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such light sentencing, especially when time served was such a short time.”
There was tremendous public support for our protests while we were in Asheville, and these court outcomes seem to reflect that. You can read the heartfelt court statement by farmer and grandfather Steve Norris under his photo below.
We are now heading back to the Southeast for a roadshow through the communities threatened by GE trees. We have launched a crowdraising campaign to help fund this endeavor, which is now over 50% funded. But we only have a few weeks left to make our goal. Please send a gift today.
Steve Norris disrupts the opening day of the Tree Biotechnology 2013 conference. Shortly after Steve stood up, one of the organizers of the conference tore his sign in half. Photo: Petermann/GJEP
For his court appearance, Steve Norris, the 70 year old grandfather and farmer arrested for disrupting the opening day of the conference, wrote the following statement:
THE LORAX, DR KING, GENETICALLY ENGINEERED TREES AND MY GRANDCHILDREN
Many of us who are parents and grandparents have read Dr Seuss’ The Lorax to our children, or grandchildren. Some of us are the children of parents who read it to us.
No one can read the Lorax without wondering what the final words of this wonderful story mean for us personally. After the Truffula trees have all been cut down to manufacture un-needed Thneeds, after the Swomee-Swans have all gone extinct, after the Brown Bar-ba-loots and the Humming Fish have disappeared, the old Once-ler ponders aloud the last warning of the lifted Lorax:
“UNLESS SOMEONE LIKE YOU CARES A WHOLE AWFUL LOT, NOTHING’S GOING TO GET BETTER. IT’S NOT. “
I too have often pondered these words, and this spring after hearing about the possibilities that our native Appalachian forests could be destroyed by profit making companies, a few of us decided to take action.
Asheville citizens take part in the largest yet protest against GE trees outside of the Tree Biotechnology 2013 Conference in May. Photo: PhotoLangelle.org
There are several corporations, like ArborGen, that are now applying for permits to plant forests of genetically engineered trees. These trees would be fast growing, commercially desirable and possibly extremely profitable. There are already test sites in the Appalachians where these trees are being grown, but which are being kept secret to prevent outsiders from entering or finding out more about them.
If this technology is allowed to proceed, these trees may, like kudzu, be a threat to our native forests. Not only might native species be cut down to make way for these genetically engineered mutants. But, in the same way that GMO corn and soy have already infected non-GMO and organic farms, genes from these new forests might very well work there way into existing forests and, like kudzu, bittersweet, and multiflora rose, take over.
This constitutes an extreme danger not only to our trees, but to the beauty and viability of our natural surroundings, to the animals who depend on native tree species for food and shelter, and ultimately to our human way of life.
So when I heard in May that the International Tree Biotechnology 2013 Conference was to be held in Asheville at the end of May, I met with other concerned citizens of the Asheville area to figure out what the Lorax might have us do. We knew that UNLESS we did something to publicize and dramatize this potential ecological disaster, our Appalachians might end up like the forests of Truffula Trees whose destruction Dr Seuss described almost a half-century ago.
>In pondering the Lorax’s words, we figured that maybe Dr Martin Luther King’s might help. After all 2013 is the 50th anniversary of his March on Washington, and in August three former presidents and many other dignitaries were planning to be in Washington to celebrate his legacy. Perhaps he too, as well as the Lorax, had something to teach us:
After all, Dr King wrote, we must “in nonviolent direct action . . .bring to the surface the tension that is alive; . . bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened in all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.” (from Letter from a Birmingham Jail).
An activist who took nonviolent direct action to blockade a Tree Biotechnology 2013 conference bus headed to a fancy dinner at the Biltmore Estate is arrested and carried away. Photo: photolangelle.org
So some of us attended the tree conference, and, like the Lorax, attempted to speak for the ancient pines and oak and poplars and hemlocks in our forests who have no voices of their own. Of course, most of those who ran the conference, like the Once-ler Family corporation in Dr Seuss’ book, did not want to hear from the trees, whose voices they probably cannot hear anyway; nor did they want to hear from us. We did this action nonviolently and as respectfully as we could, knowing that we probably would not be welcomed.
In truth some participants in the conference were interested in why we were there, and wanted actually to listen to the trees as best they could and engage us in conversation. But the powers that be clearly did not like our participation. We were arrested, taken to jail, and brought to trial.
At my trial I once again tried to speak for the trees. I actually planned to read from the Lorax. But the judge warned me that she could only consider narrow interpretations of the trespass laws she claimed we had broken, and would not listen to our reasonings. So instead of speaking for the trees, I spoke for my children, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren (I am 70 years old), and my steadfast passionate determination to ensure that they inherit a planet as beautiful and fertile and diverse as the one I inherited from my ancestors.
So even though I was prevented from speaking for the trees, I think the Lorax, and Dr King both might have approved anyway. “For UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
You, too can be part of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees. Our crowdfunding campaign has raised over 50% of our $15,000 goal! But we only have a few weeks left. We need your gift today. For more details on the plans of the campaign, watch the video below:’
