FELIX THE PROTECTOR

Hi. I'm Felix and I protect endangered species.

[felixtheprotector]

What's Happening In The Amazon And How Can We Help? Sabotage, embargoes, boycotts, international pressure and indigenous peoples are all part of the solution.

Global forest fires have been on the rise across the Canary islands, central and southern Africa and various South American countries this dry season. None, however, have become as politicised as those in the Brazilian Amazon. Some disbelief in the events was fuelled by old photographs of forest fires in other parts of the world that circulated on social media. Nevertheless, the ashes over Sao Paulo at 3 PM on 19 August as a result of the fires, although dubbed "fake news” by environment minister Ricardo Salles, was nonetheless captured and recorded by some of the city's 12 million inhabitants.

According to Brazil's Institutional Security Cabinet and retired military commander of the Amazon region, General Augusto Heleno, this year's Amazon deforestation rates published by INPE (the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research) have been manipulated.

In order to gauge the gravity of the situation, I spoke to biology professor Domingos Rodrigues from the Federal University of the Mato Grosso.

How much of what the media is saying is true and how much is false? In other words, how much do we need to worry?

“As far as deforestation is concerned, roughly 80% of what the media is saying is true" says Rodrigues. "DETER is a fast updating alert platform of changes in forest cover in the Amazon conducted by INPE. It was created to aid the IBAMA (Brazil’s Environment Ministry) in monitoring and controlling deforestation. The figures are then confirmed by a system called PRODES. So far, all the deforestation alerts this year have been confirmed by PRODES. Yes, we do need to be worried because the increase in deforestation is a reality and the Brazilian government is dismantling the relevant bodies that monitor it, such as IBAMA.”

Who's doing what?

“It’s tense here" according to indigenous activist Mayalu Txucarramãe from Mato Grosso. "Many of us are being attacked on social media and at work. Davi Kopenawa Yanomami is receiving death threats". Yanomami, a veteran indigenous activist, is this year's winner of the Right Livelihood Award. Txucarramãe and her brother Matsi Waura are both members of the Raoni Institute, a local foundation that executes projects in the Xingú indigenous territory. Matsi Waura stated that "deforestation has increased, crime has increased and the mortality rate of indigenous leaders and environmentalists has increased. We are occupying the streets in protest and some political parties and movements are making international complaints against the measures of the current government. But we need more pressure".

What can we do?

International Pressure

On August 23 the Brazilian government declared that it would send troops to assist fire brigades in the Amazon, “but only because of national and international pressure” says Matsi, “so keep demanding international intervention from your countries”.

Rodrigues: "The fires are being controlled primarily by State governments via specialised fire brigades. IBAMA is mobilising but its hands are tied because the federal government has reduced its teams in the Amazon, however the government recently requested help from the army and the national security forces to help control the fires by investigating and attempting to penalise criminal fire outbreaks. This was thanks to international pressure."

Support Local and Indigenous Groups

Mayalu: "Inside the Capot-Jarina indigenous territory, the Raoni Institute is maintaining a base on the reserve’s margins to limit the entry of trespassers and is collaborating with the State fire brigades on standby in the village of Piaraçu in order to put out accidental fires".

Raoni himself has recently been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Winning the prize may result in much needed funding for the Raoni Institute and its projects and will help to highlight the role of indigenous people. In June this year, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro described the chief as 'unrepresentative of the Brazilian people' and during his address to the United Nations on September 24, accused him of monopolising on his activism. In the wake of this publicity, support for Raoni and indigenous people has increased but indigenous people continue to face prejudice in Brazil.

Sign the petition to support Raoni in his Nobel Peace Prize 2020 nomination.

[Raoni Metuktire. Photo: Ricardi Stuckert]

The indigenous are not the only groups you can support. Rodrigues: "You should support universities and State government fire control agencies such as IBAMA, and the State Environmental and Water Resources Secretariats. These institutions are effective in controlling fires and educating people on how to prevent them and on their negative impact on forests, the climate and humans in terms of respiratory problems."

Find and support indigenous networks in your country and abroad. Learn what their demands are and advocate for them.

Support in-country politicians who promote indigenous land rights and demand that your government put pressure on the Brazilian government to enact this type of legislation.

Apply pressure on the Brazilian government to operationalise zoning and community participation legislation.

Sabotage

Remember when Utah Phillips said “the earth is not dying. It is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses”? Well the same goes for the corporations linked to the destruction of the Amazon.

The thumbnail below is taken from this well researched article that details the main companies linked to Amazon destruction. Some of these have plants all over the world, such as Brazil’s JBS S.A., the world’s largest meat company which has plants in the US.

The headquarters for each of the above companies can be found on Google maps or the companies’ websites, namely in the jobs section.

Locate worldwide headquarters of each of these companies;

Trespass and protest at company premises or outside headquarters;

Confront CEOs at their homes or at work;

In some cases, cause damage to private property (ideally to machinery related to deforestation, transportation and communications or simply to the premises) in order to pose an ongoing threat to their business.

Organise and find groups that do any or all of the above.

Note: Aggression does not equal violence. People are very quick to differentiate between violence and nonviolence and in doing so, highly underestimate the importante of aggression. Violence implies the physical abuse or potential injury of another person, unlike any of the above-mentioned forms of aggression.  

DON’T Sign Mercosur

As the world’s leading exporter of beef, leather, and soybeans (these being the leading causes of Amazon forest cover loss), Brazil is highly vulnerable to trade embargoes. Brazil exported $13.6 billion in agricultural products to the EU last year.

Mercosur is a trade deal with Brazil which, among other trade deals, is not cohesive with the statements made by European politicians in the wake of the Amazon fires. France has already refused to sign Mercosur. The rest of Europe must follow suit.

Demand that your government drop Mercosur;

Organise demonstrations or join groups that campaign against it and target politicians;

Lobby the negotiators of Mercosur in your country in writing and in public confrontation.

Boycott

"In Brasil, the mining, farming and energy industries threaten our forest” says Chief Raoni. “Big land owners cut down trees in order to grow crops and spray pesticides, polluting the rivers which we drink water from. Europeans must boycott their products and eat foods produced on their own soil. I hope you will help me in this struggle”.

Single out Brazilian imports and protest at supermarkets to demand that they drop these products; namely beef and soy.  

Although your purse is not a tool for change, make sure that you accompany your boycott of goods linked to deforestation with consuming home-grown foods. And if that's too expensive, should you still be eating meat if you care about the planet?

Technology

A chip containing GPS, 4G and data storage has been developed that is capable of deactivating machinery linked to deforestation upon entering protected areas. Using its GPS and caché of protected area coordinates, the system detects the exact location of vehicles and a notification is sent to the operator. If the operator advances, the vehicle can be switched off.

If enough brands and manufacturers incorporate this technology into their future products, the chip would be able to deactivate them in protected areas and halt deforestation.

Share the campaign as widely as possible

Promote it via social media

Tag brands and manufacturers; namely: Caterpillar, Komatsu, Hitachi CM, Volvo CE, Liebherr, XCMG, Doosan Infracore, Sany, John Deere and JCB.  

Legal Instruments

If you haven’t done so already:

Sign the global petition to make environmental destruction a war crime.

Promote the Law of Ecocide publicly and via social media and share the petition.

Although international laws carry very little weight before governments like Brazil that wish to exercise their sovereignty over things like the Amazon, this law could condemn the actual companies as opposed to governments.

Ultimately, this is what needs to happen but it is only possible if we correctly identify those accountable for the maximum losses and attempt to hit them where it hurts. This is something we can do right now. Meanwhile we must also highlight those who are a part of the solution and demand that their rights and ability to continue providing solutions be respected and their voices heard.

[felixtheprotector]

With 100+ #environmentalists killed a year, #NGOs need to step up and speak out. Most independent #climate #activists risk their lives but our voices often go unheard. We want to be taken seriously so we are setting the challenge for participants to share their experience. Felix and Rodrigo are two #grassroots environmentalists from England and Paraguay. Felix has been building a grassroots turtle #conservation programme in #CostaRica and Rodrigo has worked to replicate the park ranger model from neighbouring countries in Paraguay's national parks. We are both working towards restoring conservation efforts in these two countries where we feel it is lacking and overcoming communication barriers within the activist community. Join us at #COY13 on Nov 03 to discuss solutions for a united front line movement. #latinamerica #extinction #thedefenders #environmentalism #paraguay #colombia #brazil #ecuador #amazon #peru #deforestation #globalwarming #climateaction #climateyouth (at Bonn, Germany)

[felixtheprotector]

You are a Hero! x

So sweet of you!

[felixtheprotector]

Veganism: Is It Enough?

Some certainly call it far fetched. But do far fetched and effective have the same connotations? This is not a debate on the health benefits or potential risks of a non meat and dairy diet but an assessment of the diet's effectiveness as an act of compassion, justice and sustainability.

I endorse and encourage veganism, however as an ecologist I am tolerant of the reality that soil, being composed of dead animals, renders the consumption of all crops a contribution to a life/death cycle. Pick what you will off the vegetable aisles but you'll never break that cycle. You just have to be humble to it and accept that somewhere down the line you are a part of it. Vegansim per sé is an ersatz term.

But there's one problem. That cycle has long been disfigured and abused by humans by means of non natural selection, our sterile environment, sedentary urban lifestyles and the advent of factory farming. To consider the role of humans in the food chain today as balanced would be delusional. Lierre Kieth who is a founding member of the Deep Green Resistance nails the history of agriculture in a couple of sentences defining agriculture as that which props up civilization, the leading cause of desertification, topsoil degradation, the sixth mass extinction in recorded natural history and runaway global warming.

These are things our Neanderthal ancestors would never have needed to worry about however the chances of mankind returning to a hunter gatherer lifestyle are slim considering that the cultivator lifestyle has been at large for over 10 000 years and resulted in the creation of farms, houses, cites and endless forms of human to human and human to non human interaction including concepts such as possession and ownership, rivalry and war.

It was at the time of reaching the top of the food chain and consuming large mammals that humans became humans, developed an indoor or in-cave lifestyle, along with it painting and draughtsmanship, oral communication and subsequently language and numerous concepts, fictions and faiths. I look at religion, art and language as the peaceful products of our genetic evolution despite the way in which religion is framed today as a causing factor of war. War itself is part of our genetic evolution... and it is all because of agriculture and the struggle for land on which to cultivate and resources with which to do so.

Fast forward to today and there are seven billion humans and well over half of them living in cities. Since supermarkets, we in the first world no longer have a relationship with our food and the more our population grows and the more animals are reared in intensive ever more urban conditions, the more detached we become from the animals. The Department of Labor in the United States considers farming a statistically insignificant occupation, less than 2% of the American population live on farms and cities are expanding worldwide. This is why we do not question the source of our food or have a relationship with our food.

A good indicator by which to measure whether or not an animal product merits the label "organic" is to judge whether or not the animal product supports life or destroys life. By eating this food are you yourself creating a hierarchy, or are you joining a web? All products are animal products but the scale on which they are produced has gone from supporting the cycle of life to destroying the cycle of life. Not only that but supermarkets and supply chains don't sell liver, brain, tongue or bone marrow. These are the animal products with which our ancestors nourished themselves and that the hunter gatherers of Africa, Asia and South America today would consider nutrient dense and naturally, these are the parts that we don't eat anymore. So to cut it out makes perfect sense. If you can't do it right, don't do it at all and if it doesn't nourish, what's the point?

Besides some fats, the nutrients humans require from animal products are barely present in the animal products of today. Put simply, eating chickens injected with chlorine or cows fed on fossil fuels, nitrogen, antibiotics and subsidised grain does not make you healthy. This is evident from the prevalence of obesity and cancer in humans as just two examples of illnesses that would have been unheard of prior to 10 000 years ago and that have risen in cases along with the expansion of fossil fuel based agriculture. 

Similarly, eating genetically modified fruit and veg sprayed with neonicotinoids and organophosphates has not made the vegan population the happy, body building crowd you see on Instagram. We call this the Green Revolution. Whether you do or don’t eat meat, humans are sick and the only thing it comes down to is the fact that we allow subsidy farming to exist and that no one has heard of the Green Revolution and no, that's not a positive term. 

You may be wondering why no one questions it. We fail to question the seemingly sacrosanct model that is agriculture because we are all under the impression that it feeds us. But we must question it in order to abolish it and this is not a far fetched call. The first steps required are reform and I'm not talking about Stalinised agrarian reform or GMOs or anything like that. I'm talking about taking permaculture to a new level where we no longer buy food from the corner but grow it on our roofs. Everyone's roofs. I'm talking about doing it underground like in Clapham Junction. Or under the sea like Nemo's Garden in Savona, Italy. I'm talking about restoring the prairies of Europe and North America and the rainforests of South America and South East Asia because North Africa and the Middle East are unrecoverable deserts again thanks to a prehistoric status quo whereby people are forced to militarise against one another in competition for ever expanding patches of land on which to cultivate.  

Veganism and permaculture are consumer based solutions and alternatives to cattle rearing. Alternatives are beautiful and so is advocating them but lifestyle and dietary adjustments are the easy way out. There's a lot more that needs to be done. As far as compassion goes I think people who oppose veganism are massively in denial but I also think it needs to go further than supermarket aisles.

In Britain we have taken to the streets to demand a commitment to zero fossil fuels from two governments over the past four years by means of four consecutive People's Climate marches and endless divestment campaigns aimed at our government and the private sector. We as a population have proven just how "over it" we are but since when has this mattered to the industry that keeps churning out crude oil and fracking out shale? Now take that reality and turn your attention to factory farming which is in itself dependent on the fossil fuel industry. This is not a cry of despair. To base one's hopes on others is an act of despair. This is a call to sabotage.

The boycott is based on a "hit em where it hurts" mentality. Or at least it used to be. Today it's more of a feel better about yourself approach which is entirely internalising and a means to withdraw from the fight itself. The boycott in its original form not only lacks the momentum of the powerful industries it claims to target today such as factory farming but the actual thought process behind the boycott has softened over the years. The question we need to ask ourselves is, "is it direct action?". When I decide to take action "am I engaging with the issue or am I walking away from it?"

It is easy to opt out of a system without attempting to dismantle it. I can go to the pub for dinner and order a mushroom burger while my five friends order hamburgers. Better yet, you can invite me to dinner and prepare a spaghetti bolognese with meatballs for my family but serve me an alternative with tofu. But what are you actually achieving? Well I'll tell you what you've achieved. You've increased the amount of food by providing not just one option but two options, therefore doubling your overall consumption and forgetting that planting soy is responsible for immeasurable habitat loss in South America, Asia and what's left of North America.

Radical environmentalism, a school of philosophy to which I pertain, requires you to be analytical and decisive and leads us away from oversimplifying our actions. What we in the environmental movement have suffered ever since Al Gore released An Inconvenient Truth is the oversimplification of our actions. That is to say the pragmatism of our actions and how realistic they are. Until the Deep Green Resistance was published in 2011 no one actually analysed how we could render our actions more decisive in taking down these industries. But we can. And we must analyse this in order to face extinction with all the tools we have and not just a bunch of ideologies based on what we buy because the one thing we cannot buy is time.

As individuals we do not have the capacity to overthrow factory farming without engaging in sabotage which is a risk to our security but a risk activists are willing to take. It is hard to support an underground resistance group without going undercover yourself. Similarly we cannot battle extinction when adhering to a system that perpetuates it. We may have to get our hands dirty and we may have to forego our own safety. Or maybe if we've got a bit of money to spare, we can help out someone else that's already forgoing their safety. So we ask ourselves... what can we do about the disappearing species?

We can focus on numbers. We can try and replenish their colonies. We can conduct rescue programmes to increase their populations. We can also be more radical and indeed we must. We can stand in the way of their perpetrators. We don't even need to break the law to sabotage the meat and dairy industry's unscientific culling of badgers in Britain. It's legal to stand in the way of the gunmen and it's effective. They cannot shoot badgers when there are people on the paths but there's one problem. There aren't enough people on those paths. So what are you waiting for? Refraining from eating animals is a commitment but protecting animals is a vocation.

In light of this I would like to introduce CoalitionWILD, a group of over forty field activists which I recently joined, each of whom are in some way tackling extinction in different parts of the world.

I firmly believe that it is commencing acts that is going to contribute to salvaging what's left of our planet and not simply refraining from acts of consumption. Two hundred species will have gone extinct by the end of today. The same thing happened yesterday. Refraining from acts of consumption or the "boycott" as we know it, is unlikely to keep up with the pace of extinction.

[felixtheprotector]

Imagine se no seu aniversário alguém te falasse que o seu povo tinha que sumir. Acho que eu ia jogar a toalha com a vida. A Mayalú não fez isso. Ela é uma jovem líder e super amiga do Xingú que ontem fez trinta anos. A semana passada também foi divulgado que nove reservas na Amazônia vão ser extinguidas e exploradas pela mineração sem o consentimento dos indígenas que moram lá. Onde que eles vão ficar? Como vai sobreviver a cultura deles? O que vai acontecer com aqueles que resistem?  Já tem muitos índios que mudaram para a cidade por causa da supressão dos direitos deles à terra. Mayalú e os seus irmões fizeram um movimento chamado o Movimento Mebengokrê Nyre para ajudar os índios vulneráveis às influências da cultura dos brancos. Os povos indígenas da Amazônia são as vítimas de muitos escândalos da corrupção brasileira que abre as portas aos garimpeiros, aos ruralistas e às empresas canadenses de mineração. Em fim eu não sei qual é pior. A industria mineira canadense ou a indiferença dos evangélicos brasileiros e o seu Presidente golpista Michel Temer.  #ForaTemer #COP23 #nãovamosnoscalar Amo você Mayalú. Lindona!! http://bit.ly/2vqfYvM #direitoshumanos #direitosindige as #meioambiente #mudançasclimáticas #amazônia #desmatamento #política #climate #socialjustice #climatejustice #climatechange #globalwarming #indigenousrights #deforestation #Amazon #REDD #environment #politics #carbon #mining (at Xingu Indigenous Park)

[felixtheprotector]

Between April and June this year I hiked infamous drug trails from Panama to the southern border of Costa Rica every night by myself in search of what? Sea turtles. 

Believe it or not, sea turtles are a surprisingly controversial bounty for poachers in Central America and I have spent years travelling back and forth to isolated, cut off communities in Limón learning about the war between poachers and conservationists and trying to find a solution. 

Take a glance at a typical night in the life of a marine animal activist.

[felixtheprotector]

Bepo Metuktire “Nossa organização é contra a instalação de hidrelétricas que afetam terras indígenas, porque precisamos ser ouvidos dentro da política brasileira”. Bepo também destacou o desrespeito à Convenção da OIT 169 sobre Povos Indígenas e Tribais, além de projetos que tramitam no Congresso, como a PEC 215, além de outros que tratam de modificações das regras de licenciamento ambiental. "We are against hydroelectrics that affect our land because Brazilian politics must recognize our rights" Bepo also highlighted the disrespect behind suits such as the OIT 169 convention and PEC 215 as ammendments to environmental licensing. #indigenous #rights #pachamama #mothernature #derechoshumanos #droitsdelhomme #humanrights #amnesty #direitoshumanos @amnestyinternational #natureza #naturaleza #nature #environment #environnement #meioambiente #medioambiente #belomonte #dams #hidroeletricas (em Teatro Experimental de Alta Floresta)

[felixtheprotector]

What would Brexit mean for transatlantic trade and agriculture in thirty years? The referendum from a deep green perspective.

The impact of Britain's potential departure form the EU will no doubt have a very wide scope. I only intend to cover two areas starting with the linear rationality on both sides of the referendum which prioritises market growth and commerce, (aka 'business as usual' paradigm). Secondly I will be focussing on agriculture as the number one most depended upon industry in Europe and leading cause of degradation. I can only talk about the future in terms of the inevitable changes we are currently witnessing with climate and resource degradation and attempt to then apply that future scenario to today's politics. My objective is not to envisage food or agricultural crises in thirty years’ time. In accepting that the scarcity of today's resources is most likely to have intensified, a practical suggestion would be to prepare for it. Strategies for this must be debated but the aim here is ultimately to cast an informed vote in June.

On the left of the 'leave' campaign there is a common priority that fits nicely within the environmental movement which is the localisation of markets and the reduction of global economies to more local and insular supply chains. Indeed it may be naïve to think that Britain's leaders may opt for this but if we want a shot at survival on this planet we need to revert to local economies whether we like it or not.

Prioritizing international trade is a step in the wrong direction if you’re one for supporting local business. Local economies may sound like an ideology but it is also strategic preparation for the inevitable collapse that our seemingly sacrosanct economic model faces.

For those unfamiliar with the term, “deep green” hereby refers to a school of thought that analyses the long term effects of human behaviour in relation to the environment according to up-to-date scientific data and predictions based on climate knowledge and our own anthropology. By long term I do not mean 2020-2030. Most of the predictions made are aimed at the run up to approximately 2050 and its aftermath.

Why do deep green ecologists choose to asses this timeframe? This is for a variety of reasons such as estimates by UK think tanks like Green House that by 2050 limits on extracting crude oil will have peaked by which time its respective industry can no longer prop up those economies subject to it nor facilitate the priorities outlined in the prevailing arguments of either side of the referendum relating to further extraction of fossils and GDP growth.

In the case of this referendum the focus is quite predictably and frustratingly in the wrong place. The prevailing rationality categorises trade as “common sense”. This type of thinking almost leads us to believe that only by means of exchanging goods can countries be expected to coexist. This is a narrow-minded principle that has failed to create a resilient international community out of Europe and will ultimately fail do so in a post-growth society when the production and transportation of said goods can no longer be facilitated. The inevitable is always worth bearing in mind.

Why do I have it in for trade? Let’s not pretend trade has ever really been about “selling French wine in Brazil or U.S. software in China.”

It was always about using these sweeping deals, as well as a range of other tools, to lock in a global policy framework that provided maximum freedom to multinational corporations to produce their goods as cheaply as possible and sell them with as few regulations as possible — while paying as little in taxes as possible.” (Klein 2015)

Besides the inevitable scares about trade, questions posed by the farming industry on the topic so far have been about future access to subsidies, future food pricing and scarily, future labelling and access to biotechnology. The latter two are the least predictable but I will address subsidies as I understand them and also the welfare of farmed animals.

Laura Sandys, South Thanet Tory constituent to have led the debates on EU live animal exports was recorded in 2012 stating, “As I started to see the trade first hand, I was extremely surprised that we in this country had so little power or control over the well-being of the animals bred here by UK farmers and exported to the continent.”

“The ship that takes the animals across from Ramsgate to France is licensed in Latvia, but was designed as a roll-on, roll-off vessel for river crossings in Russia, not for crossing the channel. The transport licence holder has a licence in Holland. The drivers of the lorries do not need licences at all, but they do need to hold certificates of competence, which can be granted in any country, including those with different animal welfare priorities.”

What Sandys advocates here comes close to what my neighbours suffered on their farms at the start of the nineties whereby their flocks were no longer slaughtered humanely at home but were transported cross country to abattoirs in order to meet standards deemed ‘humane’ by 28 European governments whose standards are all different from one another.

The argument can easily go the other way. Maltese animal welfare standards may be poor but so are Britain’s at the best of times. When exempt from EU quotas, British farmers have in the past ramped up competition. What this goes to show is that a Brexit could just mean business as usual, if not business on steroids. Or should I say antibiotics?

In the wake of scrapping European milk quotas Phil Hogan, the Commissioner for Agriculture, declared “We’re going to take advantage of the opportunities that the abolition of milk quotas gives towards enhancing the potential of value-added processing which will create a lot of jobs and growth in rural areas. We have new market opportunities ... particularly in the Far East.”

George Lyon, Former MEP for Scotland expresses his concern for any weight the third sector may no longer carry outside the EU suggesting that NGOs combating low standards would be ignored by Cameron. Interestingly, one of Lyon’s allegations was that the right intended to phase out farmer support by 2013 later postponed to 2020. Either way, it is hard to tell whether the farmers are heavily subsidised National Farmer's Union members and estate owners with an already tight hold of Westminster or not.

On the contrary however, Lyon also makes the point that culled badgers, stalled pigs and caged hens all came under UK legislation. The pig industry shrunk because of a UK decision, he says but he then gives the example of Brazilian slaughterhouses shipping to the EU having to comply with EU standards, although undercover footage of non EU farms released by Compassion in World Farming in 2013 provided evidence that this is yet another fallacy.

It is also curious that Daniel Hannan, Secretary-General of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists should call out North America for its annual dish out of $29 billion in subsidies while declaring Common Agricultural Policy in Europe ‘our biggest trade block.’ Olga Kikou, European affairs manager for Compassion provides the following recap for newcomers to this debate:

“CAP has not produced the desired results in addressing the need for sustainability in our food and farming system. The expansion of monocultures in the countryside, the gradual loss of diverse landscapes, the dependence on chemical inputs for crop production, the decline of wildlife, air and water pollution, soil degradation, the overproduction of grains and an industrialised, intensive animal farming system linked to animal suffering, have all been the end result of policies that increased production through the adoption of a destructive model of farming. Subsidies led to overproduction and made animal products more readily available which also led to overconsumption.”

According to Professor Allan Buckwell in a recent presentation, “the referendum debate will expose, yet again, that current CAP is not well tuned to support environmentally sustainable and viable farming. The so-called ‘reformed EU’ will still have an insufficiently reformed agricultural policy.” Come Brexit, he argues “there is wide scope to improve the efficiency of use of fertilisers, crop protection products, energy and animal feed.”

“Who has led the lobbying for the UK government to overturn the EU ban on bee- threatening neonicotinoid pesticides?” questions naturalist and commenter John Ranson in an attempt to slam the National Farmers Union.

“Farmers and their Tory MP mouthpieces clamour for dredging to alleviate floods, impervious to the fact that it’s rarely the answer. The same farmers are given taxpayer subsidies to manage their land in ways that will almost guarantee future flooding. Grouse estate owners burn and drain the moors, causing flash floods to inundate the towns below. They do it in the hope of fattening the lucrative autumn bag, while at the same time their subsidy is nearly doubled. Local residents pay the price.”

Subsidies are not just given by the Tory government but to a large extent by the EU. Given their influence on Westminster it is unlikely much would change in the event of Brexit. A new 'Environmentalists for Europe' campaign provides a very tempting platform with the support of Caroline Lucas and naturalist Bill Oddie to convince young greens to want to stay.

It is necessary to introduce liberal opinion at this point too in order to refine our arguments and not be tempted by the homogeneity of opinion circulating Facebook and Twitter. In a referendum choice is limited to two options. It is necessary to assess where our arguments overlap with these in order to cast a sensible vote. What hasn’t been sufficiently addressed but which has been on Obama's agenda since 2014 is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its relevant implications.

Molly Scott Cato, Green Member of European Parliament for the South West is at the forefront of exposing threats akin to Philip Morris legislation cases against Uruguay and Occidental Petroleum’s case against Ecuador, each for defending their sovereignty. Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is the very agent within TTIP feared to protect corporate interests over the prior and informed consent of resource rich nations. ‘Poland’s healthcare system was recently forced to accept more privatisation as a result of an ISDS case’ writes Cato.

Labour MEP Clare Moody attempted to reassure the public following a renegotiation on TTIP’s content in 2015 that “the possibility for public authorities to favour local providers over distant ones and to include social and labour requirements in tenders” was recently adopted within the EU rules on procurement.

As for agriculture Scott Cato states that, “With trade agreements such as TPP and TTIP looming on the horizon, there is no doubt that nightmarish scenarios of enormous dairy farms will become real, as the scale of investment in dairy production continues to grow and new markets open up. At the same time, smaller-size family farms will be unable to cope, and agribusiness groups will take even more control of the sector.” (Kikou 2016)

The prospect of ‘harmonisation’ as drafted, means levelling EU standards with even lower U.S ones and it’s a no brainer that this will make trade easier and considering that trade is the number one priority, could this be the future that “in” campaigners are securing us? Unanswerable. The practical question however is can we fight this better in or out?

TTIP is written between the USA and the EU and not directly with Britain. Knowing however that Cameron bows to business such as shale gas companies like Cuadrilla, there is reason to anticipate TTIP’s full repercussions regardless of Britain’s position in Europe.

Furthermore Cameron’s animosity towards dispersed North Africans is living proof of his party’s exemption from EU protocol. Calais makes for a very poignant case study whereby Cameron’s decision to clamp down has deposited a responsibility on Natacha Bouchard Mayor of Calais and the French police, ultimately resulting in trauma for the victims inside the camp.

Not only that but Brussels has once again failed to enforce its own agenda in terms of the current relocation scheme. Border hotspots are a prime example of EU inefficiency hereby addressed by Francesco Maiani from the European University Institute.

“The situation is quickly degenerating in a chaotic and acrimonious chacun pour soi, where refugees are literally left out in the cold at the borders of e.g. Greece and Croatia. The very idea of common policies based on common rules, common interests, free travel, respect for refugee rights and solidarity (see Art. 77, 78 and 80 TFEU) is in tatters.

“Destination and transit states reacted with a flurry of unilateral responses ranging from the temporary reintroduction of checks at internal borders, to the erection of barbed wire fences, to the announcement of national ‘caps’ on the number of persons who would be admitted to claim asylum,” Britain proving to be no exception here.

Britain has an incurable bait of ingrained hegemony that cannot be counteracted either in or out of the European Union and Cameron's definition of "integration" is biased towards a fragile set of ideals he deems as British.

It acts as a buffer making our nation one of the most insular, not geographically but culturally. Why must we live in a Eurosceptic society whereby we judge a continent by how much we can financially benefit from it?

Should things continue the way they are going for the next thirty years it would seem tempting to turn over a new leaf. Although the referendum does provide that opportunity, there is the alternative outcome of exacerbating dangers such as industrial farming. As far as our fossil fuelled culture is concerned however, we are spiralling towards collapse within a very short time frame. The decisive factor is how long it takes for either of these outcomes to take us there.

[felixtheprotector]

What really happened in Paris?