BFOE Goes to Holland – Day 3

Day 3 was the day for the big ideas and the involvement of some of the heads of FoE Europe. From the UK, Andy Adkins (the executive director of England, Wales and Northern Ireland) was there, as were Mike Childs (Head of Climate), Sarah Jane Clifton (International Climate Campaigner) and Helen Wolfson (International Coordinator).

The event was labelled as a pre-conference before the FoE Europe AGM the following day and explored the theme "North and South: how do we connect in a united struggle for a sustainable world?".

First of all, there was a recorded presentation from Duncan McClaren (described as a man with a big brain and head of FoE Scotland at the moment) on the need for urgent transformation and presenting some of the things that FoE needs to think about in achieving this transformation. This was really thought-provoking and set the tone for the day very well, although we all recognised the need to go from this theoretical framework to more practical applications. I will provide a link to the presentation when I get it.

After that we heard evidence from Eric Doo on the impact of what Shell is doing in Nigeria and the need to tackle this internationally. FoE Europe produced an excellent “erratum” to the Shell annual report highlighting what need to be done. There was also information on what the legal and financial teams have been doing to combat the power of corporations in Europe.

Corporate Power and the link to people's daily lives was the theme of the next part and we heard some fascinating stories from Holland on ensuring that their council was keeping their promises on using FSC timber. We also heard the story from Croatia of how they mobilised thousands of people to try and fight off the council destroying a pedestrianised public square to build a car park for a new shopping access – they lost, but the campaigning was remarkable and the precedent has changed the political landscape there now.

Finally, there were workshops on working together locally, across Europe and internationally. I was part of the team explaining what we'd done with the food chain campaign in the UK, giving the lowdown on how that has encouraged us to take more local action, such as our Meat Free Mondays campaign and work on grow-sites.

Over in Europe there seems to be a lot more concentration on fighting bad corporate practices than we have here in the UK, which is a shame, but we realise that resources are stretched at the moment and we are fighting some really important campaigns to change the legislative framework in the UK as well as doing things locally. Hopefully, we will keep up contacts better with what we can do to fight corporations who really are putting back the fight against environmental degradation.

BFOE Goes to Holland – Day 2

It was a beautiful sunny day In Wijk aan Zee as this gathering of 25 activists from Holland, the UK, Croatia and Spain gathered to share stories, ideas and expertise. Some were feeling the effects of long journeys to get there, but we were eased into the day with some lunch and then an introductory session to get to know each other.

After that we each did a presentation on how our groups are organised, what we work on and the things we're most proud of. It was fascinating to see how many different things all the groups worked on, but also how many of the same things. For example, we've just launched the close the door campaign in Birmingham, but there was a group from Holland who've already run this campaign successfully so it was good to learn about their experiences with it. Likewise, there were other groups who've done Buy Nothing Day and Car Free Day events.

What shone through was the passion that all these people have, whether working on local transport campaigns, getting FSC timber products into local building projects, campaigning against big corporations, or protecting local spaces for people against development.

After that there was an open space session when anyone could propose topics they wanted to talk about and people could go and talk about whichever one interested them most. The sessions were on the following topics; fundraising, recruiting and keeping members, campaigns ideas, online-activism and developing better international links. The discussions were all held outside in the beautiful sunshine to compensate for the fact that, although the discussions were fascinating and the learning possibilities great, the beach would have been the perfect place for many people to be.

A feedback session at the end allowed us all to focus on what we'd learnt through the day and then it was time to continue the discussions over a delicious vegetarian meal, drinks and walks over the dunes to the beach (finally).

We hope to keep up the contacts that we made through this event and keep learning from all the incredibly knowledgable and devoted people in the European network of Friends of the Earth.

BFoE goes to Holland – day 1

Last month I got a very exciting invitation; to go to a Friends of the Earth Holland (Mileudefensie) conference for the weekend and meet activists from all over the Europe. I asked a few of our other more experienced campaigners to see if they wanted to go, but when nobody else was available Hil (my partner) and I were delighted to accept the offer.

So, on Friday, four of us set off from Birmingham New Street (the others being our 6-month old baby, Fred and Tim Atkinson, the network developer for FoE in the Midlands). Being Friends of the Earth, there was no question of us flying, so it was train down the Euston, Eurostar to Brussels, train to Amsterdam, another local train to Beverwijk and then a short bus ride to Wijk aan Zee where the conference is being held.

The journey was pretty easy, if rather long with all the connections working (although 2 of the lifts didn't – at New Street to get onto the platform and at Beverwijk to get off the platform, making it a little difficult with Fred's buggy). Luckily for us, little Fred likes train travel, as he's already had experience of going on a 5-hour trip to Wales by train, so his first trip abroad was taken in his stride and even though we arrived long after his bed time (it was nearly 10.30pm) he remained good natured throughout.

Tim went off to set up his tent with Job from Mileudefensie (who joined us on the train in Haarlem), but we opted for comfort staying in a lovely B&B where they even offered us a beer when we arrived - most welcome.

We had a comfortable night's sleep and now feel fresh and ready for the first day of this gathering of European activists. The only disturbance being that we seem to be under the flight path to Schiphol. I wonder if that is just unavoidable around this area, as in many parts of Europe which are blighted by aviation noise.