Issue 13 Summer 98 This newsletter is @nticopyright – (feel free to use information as part of the wider free real news distribution network).

Let’s Get Plotting..

The next national gathering of TLIO and its supporters will take place in Bristol from Friday 11th September to Sunday 13th or perhaps longer & will involve a land occupation centered around the allotment issue. Simply arrive in central Bristol and call the mobile now 0585 132080 or the office 01865 722016 and we will guide you to the promised land. This gathering will focus on the threat posed to. allotments nationally, showcasing positive and innovative allotment projects. At the event we will be launching a new allotment guide which will contain all the information needed to save and promote allotmenting. There will also be a load of practical workshops on guerilla gardening, willow, permaculture, tree grafting, cider making and so on.’ During the gathering we will be creating a free space for community cultivation and use. This is also a chance to get involved in our Diggers 350 actions that will happen in the spring of 99. On top of all this some gurt lush Bristol music and madness. So come along and sow some positivity, plant a few ideas and harvest some hope.

Diggers 350 – shaping the celebrations

There are three main aspects to the celebrations so far. 1. One-day Conference in Walton Church organised by Andrew Bradstock from Southampton University 2. Occupations and other direct action. 3. We are talking about a Diggers video (and the world 350 years on) being filmed this Autumn. BBC Timewatch are only interested in Cromwell tributes so we’ll have to do the job for them. Christmas Trees most welcome! (?-ed) Contact Tony on email or via the office.

Putting the genee back into the bottle

Saturday 23rd May saw the UK’s first occupation against the growing of genetically engineered (GE) crops. The occupation, in Kirby Bedon near Norwich, hoped to stay for a month on a field previously used by Novartis to test GE sugar beet. We say `previously’ `cos the beet mysteriously vanished some time before, just as GE crops have been doing around the country for the last few months. A week into the occupation there was a walk from the centre of Norwich to the `Crop’ Squat. About fifty people came for food, workshops, and to look at the gardens; while trying to get their heads around the reality of GE release sites on their doorsteps. The following week Mrs Mops Medicine Show, a world of wit and mutant veg, and loadsa media kept the occupants entertained, but sadly they were in court by June 5th to hear those familiar words: `get off my mate’s land’. Multinational chemical companies’ desire to control the global food chain for profit has huge implications for land rights everywhere. At a time when many UK farmers are looking to supply the increasing demand for organic food, species diversity and organic purity are being threatened by horizontal gene transfer.

Reports of reduced yield from GE crops and tolerance of herbicides and pesticides are already increasing, so it seems unlikely that GE technologies will reduce the pressures that agribusiness puts on land use. Already in this country, the GE industry represents a huge power working against the re-peopling of our country side.

The heaviest pressure will of course fall on the people of the Southern countries. Far from being a godsend to the starving millions, GE will bring about further impoverishment as the reliance on single crop species intensifies the possible levels of disaster while potentially posing a direct risk to the genetic makeup of local crop breeds. Suddenly we can see the return of the darkest days of the `Green Revolution’ – taking the livelihood away from the land and then the land away from the people.

Perhaps we need help from other sources. In Essex this week, the following notice was found in a field of GE oilseed rape: “People of Earth: Let it be known that we have decontaminated the genetically polluted site at Throws Farm in your Earth county called Essex (your ref.: 97/R13/7). We trust that we have not gone to this effort in vain and that you will learn from our warning and take heed. Your food evolved the way it did for a reason, meddle with it at your peril! EXTRA TERRESTRIAL PREVENTION UNIT PS Sorry about the crop circles, you don’t know how hard it is to park these things!”

To find your nearest GE site try www.foe.co.uk or the Biotechnology Unit, Department of the Environment 0171 890 5275: they are required by law to provide you with this information.

New Internationalist 293 carries an in-depth look at GE: to order it ring: 01992 822899 to get down to action contact: Genetic Engineering Network PO BOX 9656, London, N4 4JY tel; 0181374 9516 web; www.dmac.co.uklgen.html or www.envirolink.org/orgs/shag/genetix.html

The Luton Trespass

“Why settle for a house when you can have an elegant estate, especially one with the size and scope of Luton Hoo ?… The £39.5 million property also features seven entrance lodges, 35 additional houses and cottages, a pheasant shoot, stables and a working farm?” From the 14th annual ultimate gift guide – Tel Knight Frank International (0171 6298171) On the 28th March, around 100 happy campers payed a weekend visit to Lady Lucy Phillips’s 1500 acre estate on the edge of Luton. Unfortunately Lucy was unable to accompany us on our tour of the grounds, however one of her few remaining staff took great plea sure in escorting us back to the camp via some of the beautiful formal gardens surrounding the mansion. Highlights of the weekend included excellent food, workshops and an open air gig by Mark Thomas on the now famous Inheritance Tax scam.

AND …In a reply to a query about the tax status of her house and grounds Lady Lucy replied… “Simply to state that the estate is not subject to any conditional exemption from Inheritance Tax rules.”

Does this include the house? If not it means we should be able to pay it a visit along with 5 other properties in Bedfordshire which are as yet unidentified. To find out how, check out the Tip off a Toff website at http://www.channel4.co/news/dispatches/crack.html

Greene King Brewery Boycott & Land Occupation

The campaign against the proposed new access road across the ancient Butts Water Meadows to the Greene King depot at Bury St Edmunds continues despite the council giving conditional support for the proposal. An occupation of the meadows has now been established (the Water Meadows Defence Campaign). Lend them your support: funds, ideas, etc or even better turn up and join in. They can be contacted at: The Millenium Dome, Water Meadows Defence Camp, Cullum Road, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 or 01359 240365 o r TLIO Linda Joslin, 20 Essex Avenue, Sudbury, C010 6YZ. This issue is involving a wide range of local people and nature conservation groups; people are urged to boycott Greene King pubs and products, do this – but also let Greene King know what you think of `em! Contact: Joe Scanlan, of Spring Lane Wildlife Trust, Bury St Edmunds for more information of the campaign.

Of Monuments and Markets

English Heritage seem to be a bit confused about their dual role as guardians and financial beneficiaries of our national heritage.

In East Sussex there is a typical tale unfolding at Battle Abbey. Here English Heritage want to build a tea room, shop and visitor centre on the site of a 19th century walled garden: a relatively recent and hence `less archaeologically sensitive’ area. This view takes no account of EH’s own guidelines that there should not be development in registered historic landscapes. In addition, the facilities will require a new service road which will necessitate the removal of trees and cut across the battlefield.

English Heritage sources indicate that there is a split between the conservation side of the organisation and the managers of the properties who want to make money out of visitors, and do not need to consult their conservation colleagues. The policy of `leave as found’ which is meant to inform conservation does not seem to extend to commercially viable monuments where the secondary spend can be screwed out of the punter.

I am sure that Sir Jocelyn Stevens, the Chairman of English Heritage, would be interested to hear our views on this one. It shouldn’t happen. So don’t let it!

Of Gatherings…

The site of the first reference to market gardening in written English history… and now the TLIO Spring Land Gathering `98. Our original site had been ploughed up, so we decided a mini trespass on college land in central Oxford was needed. The proposals for a `core group’ to push forward TLIO campaigns and to take responsibility for the campaign/network between National gatherings were thrashed out in a steamy yurt. This group now meets five or six times a year, and is self-selecting. Details of the meetings are sent out to Local Group contacts and anybody else who wants a day to day input into TLIO. The next meeting will be in Bristol on 8th August: contact the office for details.

Heather has resigned as TLIO administrator: the job had become very stressful and TLIO clearly did not have the structure to employ somebody in this role. It was decided that the core group would take on the responsibilities which previously fell on the head of one person, and try to work towards a situation where the campaign was run by activists collectively and voluntarily.

We agreed that the Luton Hoo trespass went well, but with little impact. The real strengths of TLIO at present are local group actions. Two major national events are being planned: a series of events around the 350th anniversary of the Diggers next April and this year’s September Gathering in Bristol which will be far more a action-based than previous ones. Simon Fairlie and Richard Moyse led off discussions around the consultation documents they have been working on: before we reclaim the commons we have to reclaim common sense!

The core group makes financial decisions, clarifies priorities, and works as an expertise base for TLIO’s pub lic/activist information service. This last function has been fulfilled by people taking on the role of TLIO spokesperson (see box).

At the first core group meeting at Tinkers Bubble, it was decided that TLIO would pay Jon Halle and Lilia Patterson to work one day in the office a week each, until the September TLIO gathering – to continue their work of keeping the office staffed. Building on Heather’s work, we are opening up our networks: `filing’ documents on the Int ernet, and nurturing the growth of landrights activism.

Expenses are now available for people to travel to Oxford and work in the TLIO office: on ongoing campaigns or your own new ideas.

Defining Rural Sustainability

Rural Planning Group Consultation Fifteen Criteria for Sustainable Developments in the Countryside together with Three Model Policies for Local Plans. The consultation draft is available on the TLIO website at www.oneworld.org/tlio/research/ defining.html. All comments in to Simon Fairlie by the end of July please at: Tinkers’ Bubble, Little Norton, nr Yeovil, Somerset, TA14. Simon Fairlie (author of Low-Impact Development and a Somerset low-impact dweller) and the Rural Planning Group have produced a consultation document on rural planning called Defining Rural Sustainability. It is aimed at planners and those trying to get planning permission for low-impact development. Hard copies: £3.00 from Simon Fairlie Tinkers Bubble, Little Norton, Norton-Sub-Hamden, Somerset, TA14 or http://Www.oneworld.orgltliolresearrhldefin ing. html.

Right to Roam

Following the discussion at the April TLIO Gathering, Richard Moyse has put together a TLIO reponse to the government’s consultation docume nt on the Right to Roam, available from the TLIO office. The following conclusions are examples from the text; “under existing legislation and access schemes, and with the assistance of four countryside projects (with a total full-time staff of around a dozen), just one-fifth of one percent of the county of Kent is now accessible to the public at a cost to the public purse of over £155,000 over the next five years…” “In Sweden, there is a right of access for all people to almost all land. However, walkers in that country will avoid passing too close to a private dwelling, or interfering with farming or other activities, simply through the application of common courtesy and respect. If we find we need to legislate for such good manners in this country, then this surely indicates that the mass of people have been excluded from the land for too long..” “Farmers and other landowners refer to themselves as `custodians of the land’; let them be so, but let them also realise on whose behalf they hold custody of the land. With the changes we suggest, the proposed legislation on access to the open countryside will .serve to start closing the ,gaps between town and country, landed and landless, and to begin the long cl imb to a fairer and more equitable society.”

Allotments: the bad news

The pending government report on The Future of Allotments was due out last week but still not available at time of going to press. There is probably not going to be much to shout about in the new report, as, by the looks of the government’s submission to the Select Committee on the Future of Allotments, they are considering placing the power for the disposal of allotments firmly in the hands of Local Government, as the bodies who know most about local community needs.

We haven’t really seen many good guys in Local Authorities but then central government hasn’t been so cool either, passing the disposal of more than 50 sites in the last year alone. So it will be down to a new breed of allotment activists to pick up our spades and dig in for victory, remembering how the struggle against the last of the enclosures lead to our last remaining cultivable common land – allotments. We need masses of active, politically aware people at a local level, linking up across the country. This is why our next convergence in Bristol will be themed around allotments. We are now working on a TLIO allotments handbook: How To FIGHT To KEEP THE PLOT. Contact TLIO, or come to Bristol in September. Allotment publication of the month: City Fields and Country Gardens, edited by David Crouch and Martin Stott (Five leaves, Nottingham). It’s a collection of essays from an allotment column in the Guardian in the seventies and eighties – and, no, it’s not about peas and the spacing of turnips, but issues of landrights relating to allotments, compared to international examples of community gardening and land reclamation. Mouth watering stuff!

Unowned Land Register

The Register of Unowned Land is beginning to expose sites that have slipped through the ownership net. Thanks to those who have already entrusted us with details of probable unowned land, please keep sending them in. A suggestion at the last National Gathering was that we set up a charitable Land Trust to look after and register this land. The prime objective of our trust would be to consult and implement community wishes for land – the Easter Garden Trust currently being set up may prove to provide a model.

We are now also looking for squattable land – and land that we can occupy in a confrontational way. Anyone with details of a site they think would be appropriate for a permanent land occupation do please send in a map, with some explanatory notes to the TLIO register address: Tony Gosling c/o 10 Highwood Close, Orpington, Kent, BR6 8HT.

In Brief

Scholarships available for activists on courses in Bioethics and activist techniques to be held at Schumacher College in Spring 1999: 01803 865934 schumcoll@gn.apc.org www.gn.apc.org/schumacher college

Peter Cadogan has written in to correct the claim in issue 12 that Greenham Common was `the original university of NVDA’. “NVDA had a double, overlapping origin (with proto-origins going back for centuries): The Direct Action Committee 1957-61 and the Committee of 100 (1960-68)… The sad thing is that the history of the two outfits is so complicated and controversial that no one has ever presumed to write it! It is virtually unknown to today’s young engaged in NVDA. Pity!” let’s hope he writes it then himself, eh! © TAT News, the publication of McGrath & Co Solicitors Travellers Advice team, carries reports on news and issues affecting travellers from a legal point of view. Contact: 0121 6432 4121. TLIO has recently updated its list of legal contacts who can be reached through us. We have specialists in all aspects of Land Rights.

Beg To Differ: Shock horror – series on TV worth watching! It’s about a Big Issue vendor who’s trying to find somewhere to bed down for the night, legally, without being moved on. The show throws up some of the big questions about this lack of a sense of belonging that goes with exclusive ownership of land. Watch out for an appearance by Bristol TLIO campaigners. Series starts on Monday 15th June for 6 weeks on (the UK’s Public Service broadcaster!) Channel 4.

A Campaign group is looking for information on abuse or contacts regarding planning/ development/ land use/ mineral extraction/ environment/ farming/ agribusiness/ rural deprivation/ access in Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk. Contact TLIO office to spill the beans.

Ecovillage Network UK: Information service TLIO and Ecovillage Network UK in Bristol announce a service to help everyone make the jump to full on ecological living. You may like to visit some eco-projects, join a farming community or set up your own. Whatever you need you’ll find it here. The list includes existing and planned ecovillage projects, planning advice, the best publications and ways to get hold of land. If there’s any contact the list doesn’t provide then get in touch with the EVN-UK office and we will put you in touch with the right people. Website: wwwgaia.orgluk Email: evnuk@gaia.org Telephone 0117 922 4391

After last issue’s report about the windmill, we have been informed that the windmill on the bus is still working and that actually i t was the one off the round house and not off the gantry which was destroyed during the eviction.

Unfortunately, the owner of the bus is now victim of a smear campaign accusing him of being a child molester. Since this is blatantly untrue, would any mothers who remember Dice George looking after their children during the Wandsworth occupation step forward and testify. please contact: dice george on 07970 378 572

Campaign Update

Spring Common, Huntingdon: the campaign to save the common and its archaeological and everyday glories continues: on 17 May locals had a `beating the bounds’: ancient deliniation of the public right. Contact June Cruse 01480 451812

Private waterways? DETR Minister Angela Eagle has been discussing with British Waterways and the Treasury ways of raising extra cash from canals, with sell-offs likely to be the most financially appealing choice. Now is the time to write to: Angela Eagle MP , DETR, Eland House, Bresenden Place, LONDON SW1 E 5DU.

URGENT: The Wrong Houses are being built in the Wrong Places! URGENT (Urban. Regeneration and Greenfield Environment Network) is campaigning for sustainable social housing and urban regeneration, in response to the national `housing crisis’ that threatens m any greenfield sites while elsewhere homes stand empty. Those involved come from a wide spectrum of campaign backgrounds from EF! to CPRE. To get on the network and receive the newsletter (issue 2 out now), send a cheque for £10 payable to URGENT to: Box HN, 111 Magdalen Road, Oxford OX4 IRQ. 07000 785202 + info@urgent.org.uk + www.urgent.org.uk. URGENT’s next network meeting: Sat 26th Sep, 1 – 5pm, Birmingham FoE Warehouse, 54 Allison Street, Digbeth, Biriningham.

Sunday, 7th June 1998: an occupation started at the site of a proposed luxury private flat development (of up to 66 bedrooms) within the Bushey Royal Park. The E-team have set up tree platforms at the “Enclosure”, near the Football Pitch, Hampton Hill Gate; local residents are also camping out. Contact Natasha on 0181-979 0361.

Befriend a Mutant Operator. As part of their new `open’ publicity drive, genetics giants Monsanto have set up a freephone number 0800 092 0401. It is staffed by biotech professionals who must be won over from the side of darkness. (Whatever you do – don’t call from a phonebox and leave it off the hook as this will cost Monsanto lots of money.) The RTS Genetics email list is a must if you are online: mail to putting `Subscribe Genetics’ in the subject box.

Road protest people wanted: for new contract on M60/M66 Manchester Ring Rd final section and Bingley bypass, Airedale; West Yorkshire. Contact Pete 01282 870919

Ashton Court, Bristol: The protest camp against the expansion of a quarry into a wildflower meadow has been getting a lot of aggro with security guards trashing benders and their inhabitants. Since the free Ashton Court Festival has also been refused its licence for this year, evictions are likely to be very soon. mobiles: 0467 430 211, or 07970 423 834

A new twist of the screw: Staffordshire Police posted notices on site at the protest camp against Britain’s first toll road: ” You should be aware that any digging or tunneling… are bound to be highly dangerous… Any person shown …to have incited, conspired towards or aided and abetted such works, would be liable to arrest and prosecution…” No Birmingham Relief Road Camapign 07970 301978

Squatting: In Oxford, a series of well-publicised squats has shamed the council into renovating some of their rotting stock for housing. This has culminated in a highprofile squat of the old LMS station in the city centre. You can’t miss it, just outside the existing railway sta tion: activists are protesting against the loss of a landmark building, a proposed new road and arms-deal-financed business school while showing  anyone who drops in how things could be different. In London, the Dick Whittington project is bringing the same wit and no-nonsense attitude to Harlesden. Jester Renegade, future mayor of London, and his crew have squatted a huge office and housing complex and are putting together campaigns and projects for real regeneration in the capital. With Bristol TLIO using squatting to save the Clifton Lido, we are seeing. the explicit politicisation of a form of resistance which has often stayed underground. The green belt is not the only place to fight new housing! The main resource for prospective squatters remains the Advisory Service for Squatters. TLIO has just restocked their endlessly useful Squatter’s handbook.

Local Groups:

The West Cornwall group is under way. We have had our second meeting now at the Green Centre in Falmouth at which the `Fal Housing Co-op’ was formally inaugerated. We are all aware how long a process it is, but the fund- and awarenessraising can take place alongside the rest of the TLIO activities. We have also decided on a plan of action for the group for the summer, starting with a fluffy in Penzance at the end of May to draw attention to a small piece of threatened land in the middle of the town: a local solicitors want to convert what looks like a lovely wild garden into a carpark for 20 cars. Bristol & Clifton Lido: The major campaign for 98 so far has been the Lido which has seen hundreds of local residents joining with TLIO to protest, picnic, street party and plan in order to retrieve a community site from the hands of `developers’. Residents have now formed a very strong local group to carry on the campaign leaving us to start up some more stuff elsewhere. Stop Press: The Lido has now been listed (Grade II) due to our campaign. This averts the immediate threat. Currently in Bristol we have a bus firm destroying a playing field, a mining organisation about to rip open our country park and Ikea tearing down a sports stadium, so we might be busy for a while yet. The threat to allotments continues. meetings: 3rd of July and 3rd of August Jaffa 0117 9667289.

INTERNATIONAL

INDIA – Neoliberalism is killing us

Hyderabad (India), 2nd May 1998 – Hundreds of thousands of peasants, agricultural labourers, tribal people and industrial workers from all over India took to the streets of Hyderabad to demand the immediate withdrawal of India from the World Trade Organisation. “This unaccountable and notoriously undemocratic body has the potential not only to suck the sweat and blood of the masses of two-thirds of the world, but has also starte d destroying our natural habitats and traditional agricultural and other knowledge systems… The WTO will kill us unless we kill it”. In Andhra Pradesh, the southern state of which Hyderabad is the capital, more than 600 peasant activists have been killed by the Indian army from 1992 to 1998, and more than 400 suicides have taken place in the last five months. According to the fifty activist groups represented in Hyderabad, these deaths are directly caused by the impact of WTO-imposed policies. for more info check out web page; http.-\\www.agp.org

USA – New York Gardens in Crisis

On April 24, 1998 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ordered the cancellation of all the leases on 741 Green Thumb community gardens in all five NYC boroughs – he then requested transfer of the land to the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD). The new edict targets nearly every garden in NYC, leaving only a handful of non-Green Thumb gardens and the 32 community gardens, which have either been transferred into parks already or purchased by land trusts. There are 30,000 community gardeners in New York City and 1/2 million residents who directly benefit and use the gardens in neighborhoods throughout the city and 14,000 truly vacant lots that can be used for housing without targeting the gardens. info: www.panix.com/~ blackout/out rageous.htmlaction: Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, City Hall, New York, NY 10007T.- 212/788-3000 Fax: 21214063587

BRAZIL

KMP  – May 22: Francisco de Assis Araujo, a co-ordinator of the Organisation of Indigenous Peoples was shot dead in his hometown. He had for 12 years led the fight for the demarcation of Indian territories in the north-east of the country and two other states. Araujo had lived with constant death threats from farmers occupying tribal land.

Although 68,000 acres were given to his tribe in 1995, farmers continue to farm and log on Indian land. Check out Survival International for superb coverage of international stories, often focusing on land issues, 0171-242 441 or http://www.survival.org.uk/

MST – “The most important social movement in the world.” (Noam Chomsky)

Simon Lewis reports from an MST settlement in Brazil:

“Visiting Giacomete some four months after the occupation started the initial chaotic scenes are now filled with tranquillity fused with boredom. The land is subtropical, cold at night in the winter, with steam rising in the morning, lifting off the camp like the insulation all should have, but few do… As far as the eye can see are neat rows of black bin-bag plastic houses secured with string or vines… The camp is run by an impressive system of direct participatory meetings.

The main problem is, of course, poverty. There is no work for 12,000 people in a field. The government knows this, using it to great effect. One tactic seems to be to starve the peasants out. As the peasants need money for food, when things get to such a desperate level they will be forced to leave to earn it… The result is devastating: in four months 12 children had died as a result of a mix of hunger, cold and disease. Their deaths lay firmly with the government… Activists in Brasil were genuinely enthused and excited (even though I was embarrassed) when I said we now, as of 1995, have a land rights campaign in the UK, and that there were people planning to live on their land and grow food, who were poor and not agribusiness. In times of suffering and doubt, this can really help those in the South `legitimise’ their struggle and take strength that they are part of something even bigger.”

MEXICO

– Chiapas, 11 May: 2000 indigenous people from 30 Zapatista communities marched to demand the release of their comrades who are held in custody after the eviction of the autonomous municipality, Tierra y Libertad, on May 1st. 300 police, backed by the Mexican army, smashed up buildings, terrified the inhabitants  and arrested 53 people.

10 June: Hundreds of soldiers, policemen and paramilitaries entered communities in Chiapas, to attack the support basis of the Zapatista army (EZLN), bombing, burning and torturing. The army shows intentions of extending its operations to other communities within Chiapas. This could be the last straw that would ignite open war. Only a quick and effective intervention from the international civil society (occupying Mexican embassies, writing protest letters, organising demonstrations, etc.) can stop the army’s criminal assault. Foreign observers are becoming more central to the struggle, much to the annoyance of Mexican authorities, who are currently deporting 80 Italians for breaking visa restrictions. For information on taking `peace keeping holidays’ in Chiapas: www.flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/solidaritydx.html or Chiapas Link, Box 19, 82 Colston St Bristol BSl 5BB

TLIO Research

It’s a while now since we had a formal research contact. We don’t underestimate the importance of good research, .at least two TV documentaries have used TLIO research as their lynchpin! If there is a controversy that you would like to delve into, get in touch. Whatever the research leads to, a campaign, an action or simply an article, you can be sure your time wi ll not be wasted. So whether you want to look into a pet subject or want suggestions from us do get in touch. The research list is kept up to date and always open to additions. Townies out to get the country folk? One project we are undertaking immediately is a look at the forces behind the Countryside Alliance. A genuine coming together of the countryside or public relations facade? Are country people being persuaded to support the Country Landowners Association and the hunting lobby on the sly? (see Jim Carey’s article in this summer’s Squall) If you have any thoughts that could contribute to our critical analysis or want to help research the agenda behind the `Alliance’, we want to hear from you. Contact Tony via the office.

TLIO DIARY

You can also check out our new weekly-updated website events diary:-www.oneworld.org/tlio/eventsd.html ¨ Northern Green Gathering `98 date to be confirmed nr. Leeds. For the very first time, Northern Green Gathering will be happening! 5 days of green living, workshops, entertainments, in fact whatever you can think of! contact.j.l.stroud@leeds.ac.uk or Northern Green Gathering `98, The Crow, 535 Meanwood Road, Leeds LS6 4AW (0113) 224 9885

Saturday 4th July 12 noon Hand and Spear Firkin pub by Weybridge Station  Carpark for the next of the monthly Diggers’ meetings to plan for next April’s anniversary.

Sunday 5th July Mass Tresspass Walks – TLIO Southdowns ‘meet 12noon Brighton railway station for details ring: 01273 685 913

10-12 July Doncaster UK eco-centres conference contact Vanessa Timmer 01709 512000

8th August next TLIO steering group meeting: Bristol. contact office for details

Fri 7 – Sun 9 August West Country Activist Summer Gathering South Devon. A 3 day campaigners gathering, with lots. of practical workshops, information sharing and fun. £5 for the weekend: food £3/day. contact: 01626 363844

Sat 15th August Oxford Web Design Day The TLIO website is being updated all the time as more of our publications go up and the group of people working together on the site grows into a virtual army of webslaves. The events diary is now updated automatically each week from a list of events in the TLIO office. Steve Jones is running a practical web day to follow on from the web theory sessions he ran last year. The day will be about getting information up and online. If you have photos, articles or other info., in electronic or paper form, then contact the TLIO office to book a place. Anyone interested in helping update the site including typists and tra nscribers – is welcome.. www.oneworld.org/tlio Computer technology is one of the tools we can use to fight Goliath: take a look at http://www.mcspotlight. org. It also makes it easier to communicate between different regions and countries to organise amongst ourselves. If you have any ideas, queries, expertise or working old equipment, contact Jon at the TLIO office/mobile/email.

1-17th August ECOTOPIA 98 near Freiburg in Germany. A Europe-wide meeting of young environmental activists: techniques * action * culture exchange * networking * sustainable living For more information or to apply to come (we can only cope with a certain number!) please contact the office at: Ecotopia 98 UmProWe, Merzhauserstr15017, 79100 Freiburg, Germany, Tel. +49 (0)761 554083 umweltwerkstatt@3landbox.comlink.apc.org

28th to 31st August 1998 Exodus Collective Festival Somewhere in Bedfordshire. This is a chance for those who enjoy Exodus’ free parties to take a bit of time out to get to know each other. Contact 01582 583031

4 – 6 September 1998 How to Set up an EcoVillage Weekend Lancashire. Housing co-ops, business plans, problems with planning permission …advice from an thriving co-op. contact: Alex at Upstart Co-op 01654 712538

Sunday 20th September. International Access Day. Coordi nated by the Ramblers Association. Local groups of walkers are asked to organise a walk to highlight an aspect of public access to land for recreational walking. Get organised and participate. Further details from Nicky Warden: 0171 582 6878.

FESTIVALS We’ve already been to a few already this year but are also going to Glastonbury 26th – 28th of June. Buddhafield Summer Retreat 3rd – 2nd July. Ambient Green Picnic, Guildford Sat 11th July. Buddhafield Festival 15th – 19th July. Womad Reading 24th – 25th July. Big Green Gathering 29th of July 2nd of August. The 1st Natty Gathering 1st-28th of August. We may turn up at all sorts of other places as well so come and buy a good book or dodgy T-shirt or just blah and drink some tequila with us.