Steward Community Woodland - That was the year that was.. 2001

Continuing the healthy tradition of using the end of the year as a time of reflection, here is my second annual report of the progress of the project. I have found putting this summary of our year together to be a very rewarding experience, it serves as a reminder of just how much we have done and how many challenges we have survived. Like last year, I have also included comments on some of the global events that I considered particular relevant or important, although those bits have been much less pleasant to research and write.

Whatever the weather
Rain took us into the year 2001, washing away our snow covered winter wonderland. However the wet start to the year was not indication of what was to come. We had a very dry year, with yet more weather records broken. After the exceptionally wet weather of the previous year it was a pleasant change but we got a little worried that our drinking water spring would dry up during the summer. We also found that irrigation in the growing area was quite a challenge as it's water supply did dry up. The dry year left our streams empty well into autumn and left us without hydro electric for longer than we expected.

Climate Compromised
Out in the big bad world, Bush refused to hold the USA to the Kyoto Climate Treaty and an international boycott of Esso began in protest at their role in lobbying against effective measures to curb climate change. In Bonn, international demonstrations failed to influence the COP 6.5 meeting which ended with a highly compromised agreement with massive concessions by world leaders to the interests of big business. To stabilise Carbon Dioxide at a safe level would require a 60 to 90 percent cut in carbon emissions from 1990 levels. However, the pathetic 5.2% cuts already agreed were reduced still further thanks to 'flexible mechanisms' that allow industrialised countries to trade CO2 emissions with poorer countries and avoid cutting their own emissions at all.

Out and about
We attended a couple of local climate change conferences, one at Plymouth University and the other at Torquay Museum, where we provided pedal power demonstrations and information. We returned for the second year to Tavistock for the annual 'Alternatives Fair' and in July we set up a demonstration bender at a wood fair in Okehampton. For the Moretons summer fair (one of the few rainy days in the summer) we also set up a demonstration bender within which people could shelter from the drizzle. We also did stuff for an event called 'Low impact settlements in Britain' which involved over a hundred people.

Ben and Merlin did a workshop on pedal power for teenagers in Totnes and went to Reading for the 5th pedal power convention where they shared ideas and experiences with those interested in DIY renewable energy systems. Some of us did more cycle stuff at an event called the ‘Wheel Thing’ in Bath. The North Tawton 'Midsummer Sunday Social' had us providing pedal power for the band.

We had expected to be doing loads of events during the summer but Foot & MAFF meant that many were cancelled. One event adversely affected by the restrictions was the South West Permaculture Convergence held at the Plants For A Future site in North Devon where we provided a marquee for workshops etc. We also facilitated a workshop on land groups at the Radical Routes winter gathering and at the first 'low impact forum' of the UK Eco-Village Network at which we also provided a renewable energy powered cinema .

High impact developments
A highly unsustainable fifth runway at Heathrow airport was given the go ahead after years of public inquiries and debate. Air travel is one of the fasting growing causes of air pollution and continues to enjoy the use of untaxed petroleum. Meanwhile a new nuclear reprocessing plant was also given the go ahead by the government. The nuclear industry has recently been increasing it's lobbying efforts in order to persuade politicians and the public that nukiller power offers a solution to climate change.
But it wasn't all bad news; the construction of a bypass around Hastings was dropped and it was finally confirmed that Rank had dropped plans to flatten a forest in Kent in order to provide parking and a plastic bubble wrapped holiday complex for those that can't handle the British weather. This news provided some personal satisfaction for some of the members of our group who had been part of the campaign to save the forest. Closer to home, there was a great deal of local controversy over permission given to a large new housing development on a green field site bordering Moretonhamstead..

Planning pains
Early in the year we instructed a solicitor to lodge an appeal against the DNPA's decision not to grant us permission to live here. At the deadline for letters of support there had been 29 supporting letters and only 5 objecting. The public inquiry happened at the beginning of August. Three days later and six thousand pounds left owing, it was all over. Almost everyone who attended seemed to think we would win but we didn't. It was the press that informed us we had lost when they contacted us to get our reaction to the bad news. There was the usual surge of media interest and we did a couple of pieces for local TV, papers and the Big Issue as well as national coverage in the Guardian and Schnews. We consulted with our solicitor about further avenues of appeal and got on with our lives. Before the end of the year we lodged an appeal against the DNPAs enforcement notice which is now ongoing.

Planning Reforms
With the Confederation of British Industry 'lobbying' it's friends in high places, it is not too surprising that the government pressed ahead this year with changes to the planning system that will to make it harder to object to things such as motorways, airports and nuclear power stations. Under new proposals ministers will have the right to give the go ahead for controversial projects with little parliamentary debate. And who is behind these proposals? The Campaign for Planning Sanity has promised: "We will fight these proposals at the ballot box, in the courts, on the streets, and in the trees and tunnels." (0161 959 0999, www.onlincam.freeserve.co.uk)

Media Moguls
We continued throughout the year to expand our website and produce our newsletter 'Word From The Wood'. Proposals for a new supermarket in nearby Bovey Tracey made our spring newsletter, focusing on food and farming, particularly relevant. While recognising the importance of creating our own media and the inherent flaws in the mainstream media, we took the opportunity to be involved in a television documentary focusing on housing and planning controversy's in Moretonhampstead. A film crew from Carlton visited in May and June to film an interview and some background footage for ‘How Green is our Valley’ which was shown at the end of July (the day before the start of our public inquiry).

Racial Hatred & Party Politics
Politicians and some sections of the media continued to exploit and encourage resentments felt by some people who feel their own needs are being ignored in favour of people from other racial backgrounds. The result has been a summer of riots in a number of northern towns with large ethnic populations and the highest ever votes for fascists parties in parliamentary elections. BNP party leader Nick Griffin commented "The asylum seeker issue has been great for us. We have had phenomenal growth in membership. It's been quite fun to watch government ministers and the Tories play the race card in far cruder terms than we would ever use, but pretend not to. This issue legitimises us.".

The general election itself saw one of this countries lowest ever turnouts. Another sign of growing disillusionment with our 'democratic' system - or just voter apathy?. Proportional representation, direct demoracy - can government be reformed or is it inherently corrupt? Many people are certainly rejecting electrorial politics and instead working for change through grassroot direct action.

Forests and gardening
With our twelve month survey period over in April, we put together our business and management plans and made them public in the summer. In June we held our first course in conjunction with the Small Woods Association and in July we held our first open day at the woods. The event was well attended and the day before we provided a display in town at the community club for those who could not make it to the woods.

We created some new paths and opened our initial woodland walk to the public in June. Work has continued with the of control of the sycamore and laurel. An area of ash and sycamore above the settlement area was coppiced for firewood and construction material. In the area below the glade we felled a number of larch to open the area up, providing light for our future forest garden. We also submitted an application under the woodland grant scheme which should come through early in the new year.

We expanded the size of our growing area early in the year and added a terraced kitchen garden complete with herb spiral. The dry summer and our poor irrigation system left us with pathetic carrot and tomato crops but everything else did okay. While we did manage to grow more than last year, we are still a very long way from producing a substantial proportion of our food needs. Our organic bounty included sorrel, lettuce, cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, spinach, turnips, parsnip, runner beans, sweetpeas, artichokes and masses of potatoes.

Farming in Crisis
When Foot & Mouth struck, the government's handling of the situation turned a common cold into a deadly disease for millions of animals, small farmers and the rural tourist industry. The crisis placed the future of farming high on everyone's agenda and there was plenty of talk about the importance of promoting local food, organics and sustainable agriculture as a whole. A community in North Devon took direct action to stop the burial and burning of slaughtered animals near their homes (which was being carried out despite being considered illegal by the Environment Agency).
We attended a conference called 'On Fertile Ground' which bought campaigners and farmers together to discuss issues including farm gate prices, subsidies, supermarkets, globalisation, food miles, farmers markets, and community support agriculture. The conference initiated a joint campaign on the subject of farm gate prices which helped to increase public awareness of the role of supermarkets, globalisation and free-trade in the decline of fortunes for small farmers.

Construction and consumption
During the year the Longhouse was greatly improved when we put in some huge double glazed windows along it's entire length which means it no longer gets dark in there two hours before it does outside. We also built a new double chambered compost toilet to replace the original structure from which we had been evicted by a nesting bird. We built a sand and gravel filter early in the year for our drinking water supply. The kitchen itself benefited from the addition of a second hand Rayburn oven and towards the end of the year we started a revamp that included a new frame, improved seating arrangements and yet more windows.

Our ongoing attempts to reduce consumption and waste continued, we bought hardly any new items and our use of recycled and reclaimed materials increased as we discovered more sources for materials. Our van use stayed low and although it was slightly higher than last year, it is still below 10,000 miles per year. We also managed to keep our expenses low, with one notable exception, a massive bill for accounting at the end of the year.

Globalisation & Death
With the prospect of a mass anti-capitalist movement forming out of the successes of the last few years, the powers-that-be said it was 'time to get tough'. At the EU summit, demonstrators were either arrested en masse or attacked with police batons, dogs and horses. Police fired into crowds injuring three people, one critically.

In Genoa, police used tear gas, water cannons, tanks and guns. Carlo Giuliani was shot dead. Later, in an attempt to destroy video evidence of police violence and the use of agent provocateurs, police attacked the temporary Independent Media Centre. Kicked and beaten, 93 people were arrested - 31 of these being taken straight to hospital. One eyewitness said, "It was just endless, I really thought I was dying. It's a horrible thing when you feel your bones breaking inside you. And after a while I just tried to keep one eye open, trying to stay alive. I finally blacked out and couldn't remember anything else till I woke up in hospital.". One officer later broke ranks and told the Italian daily 'La Republicca' what happened to the people taken to 'holding centers', "They lined them up and banged their heads against the walls. They urinated on one person. They beat people if they didn't sing Facetta Nera [A Fascist hymn]. One girl was vomiting blood but the chief of the squad just looked on. They threatened to rape girls with their batons."

What happened in Genoa is horrific but is sadly not unusual. In Brazil, a member of the landless workers union, Movimiento Sem Terra, was shot by soldiers when travelling to a protest. In June, three students were shot dead and 17 wounded protesting against the IMF and World Bank in Papua New Guinea. Also in June, Severo Mamani, was shot dead at a Bolivian peasant workers protest. They blocked roads to demand better services, land rights and an end to exploitation - the army replied with guns.

All the worlds a stage
In a year filled with death and destruction we took the time to express our creativity. Pete did loads of performances with the Moretones (Moretonhampstead's mens singing group). In June the rest of us provided backing vocals while Pete played guitar and sang some of his own songs at Moretons Music Day.

In August we all took to the streets with a DIY quad, a trike, a tandem and a tiger striped bicycle - our entry in Moreton's carnival. We won first prize in our class, although it must be said that we were the only entry. The high light of the year was without doubt Moretons first cabaret in November. We did an 'Eco-Village People' medley and ended with something completely different. We enjoyed it so much that a week later we did it all again at the ToGG cabaret in Totnes.

Still NO to GMOs
It was another year of creative destruction in the campaign against GM. Eleven of the years twelve winter oilseed rape trials were pulled up by concerned citizens. There were mass public rallies and picnics at farm scale trial sites and a fair few of them were also damaged or destroyed. Many people who were arrested found their charges dropped or were found not guilty as the public still strongly supports direct action. Yet in many ways the GM issue seems to have become a forgotten issue. Commercialisation is just around the corner (possibly sometime in 2002) and GM is still getting into the food chain through meat and dairy thanks to the continued use of GM crops in animal feed.

Coming and going
We had plenty of visitors throughout the year, mostly local but also from as far afield as Japan (doing research for the Japanese government apparently) and a large group of students from the Basque country who were visiting Moreton as part of an exchange project. We had visitors from other projects including; the Tran-send Trust; Rinky Dink; Tinkers Bubble; Brithdir Mawr ; Plymouth and Bristol permaculture groups. Somehow we also found time to do some visiting of our own. We dropped in on a number of projects, housing co-ops and communities while out and about, including Stepping Stones, Beech Hill and Little Ash Eco Farm. While visiting Cornerstone in Leeds we arranged for our newsletters to be printed by their workers co-op 'Footprint'.

Visitors Suzanne and her son Michael stayed for over three months and are now living in Moretonhampstead. Cheryll, one of our friends from Moreton who has been actively involved for a while, officially became a member this year. Lee, (Merlin and Devin's mother) resigned from the group with commitments in Essex. Kat also left the group during the summer to be nearer her partner Richard. On 25th December she gave birth to her first child, Kieran. Beccy is also expecting her first child in March 2002... as is Devin's partner Amanda sometime in the summer.

Living in community is not easy. It takes dedication, commitment and co-operation.We've had the inevitable personal conflicts and emotional issues but we are still all talking to each other. Our weekly meetings have helped to get stuff sorted out and while they tend to be rather long, we have generally managed to reach consensus. Honesty and good communication are vital and while we are certainly not free of interpersonal problems we haven't resorted to violence.

The first casualty of war
Ironically perhaps, when the twins towers were struck on September 11th, some of us were at a demonstration against an Arm's Fair in London's Docklands. Inside, all kinds of weapons and military equipment were being sold to oppressive governments from all around the world. In the days that followed, you can be sure that business was booming.

We could talk about the blatant hypocrisies of violent retaliation but the whole vicious circle is just too depressing. The fact that most Americans seemed to miss that the attacks were a retaliation against US foriegn poliy reveals their lack of understanding about America role in the world. They saw the attack as unprovoked, and so demanded 'justice' - in the form of military retaliation.

War is great for politicians and the media. With newspapers enjoying massive circulation explosions, they rarely bothered to report on the hundreds of demonstrations and vigils against the conflict. Politicians mouthed off and played the patriotism card "defend democracy, shop till they drop". Meanwhile the word 'terrorism' was used to justify draconian new legislation and further attacks on civil liberties. "If you're not with us, you're against us" - anyone questioning 'the war' or the measures taken to "ensure our security" were labelled as 'terrorists' or 'terrorist sympathisers'.

Then we had the continuing tit-for-tat in the middle east, yet another vicious circle of retaliation with Israeli tanks and helicopters against Palestinian rocks and suicide bombers. Hizbullah and Hamas were labelled terrorists, ignoring that fact that the armed invasion and occupation of the West Bank by Israel was condemned by the UN.

The year ended with India and Pakistan (both nuclear powers) also at the brink of armed conflict. It seems that war is an inevitable in a world full of massive inequalities and injustice exacerbated by global capitalism and 'free-trade'. There can never be peace without justice.

Lifes a party
In an attempt to stay sane in a crazy world we find opportunities to celebrate life. January is packed with birthdays for us, so we started 2001 with a joint celebration with loads of friends and not enough clothes. A couple of months latter, we had another fabulous party with an all acoustic mix of drumming, song and dancing to carry us into our second year in the wood. Dan's birthday was celebrated around the fire pit in June, while Pete's August birthday (which we had hoped could be a double celebration with an appeal victory) was a rather more subdued affair. Also in August we celebrated Morton's carnival week with our second annual campfire music evening. Around fifty people enjoyed free food, cider and plenty of music and song. The winter solstice gave us another excuse to invite around some friends for whom we fired up the hydro powered cinema and our new hot tub. We celebrated the end of the year and looked forward to another round of birthdays.

And so the cycle continues.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Regular visitors to our website can keep up to date with progress at the woods by reading our monthly online diary. And of course there's also our quarterly newsletter 'Word From The Wood'. Better still, come visit us and see for yourself.

A review of our first year is available here.