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| "Downstream from Purdon Crossing", Phillip D Brown |
Residents are ready to stand up to the threats of developers and unsustainable practices in their community!
14-16 November 2008
Synergia Learning Ventures and South Yuba River Citizen's League hosted a Democracy School. Local resident Debra Weistar explains "I've seen the conservationist/activists in our area celebrate a victory that looks not like a victory, but a compromise... Activists in our area work on one threat at a time -- using expensive litigation to save one mountain, one meadow, one watershed at a time. I see the only chance for real change outside of conscious evolution is to make a fundamental change in the way we govern ourselves and the way we view nature so that rights are protected across the board and we get out of this piecemeal protection."
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| Woolman Students |
Thanks to the teachers at Woolman Semester, 25 students visited Global Exchange. Committed to earth stewardship, these students discussed their knowledge of corporate agriculture, GMO's and labor practices. We then talked about rights based organizing, and local control to affirm community desires surrounding the fragile sierra watershed. We look forward to the successful projects and organizing efforts of the Woolman students as they put into practice all that they are learning during their semester in Nevada City.
15-17 January 2009
At this year's 8th annual Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival in Nevada City, Shannon Biggs, Director of the Community Rights campaign, will be giving a presentation on community rights organizing. Included in the presentation will be a free showing of a film made by Jeremy Kagan around the struggle for community rights in Blaine Township in rural Pennsylvania, where citizens asserted their democratic right to protect themselves and their community against destructive corporate mining, by passing an ordinance that asserts the RIGHTS of the community to make local governing decisions and to subordinate corporations to local democratic control. For more information on the upcoming film festival, please visit their website!
Mt. Shasta
| Mt Shasta citizens assert their rights! |
Have a Facebook? JOIN THE "CITY OF MT. SHASTA COMMUNITY WATER RIGHTS AND SELF-GOVERNMENT ORDINANCE" group on Facebook to show your support and keep up to date with the campaign!
Watch this 2 minute clip to hear Shannon Biggs, Director of the Community Rights program, discuss the current campaign in Mt. Shasta!
Santa Cruz and Monterey
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| Santa Cruz, CA |
In addition to sharing rich environmental histories and stunning landscapes, Santa Cruz and Monterey were both subject to aerial application of a synthetic pheromone despite community protest. The synthetic pheromone was the state's response to the "threat" of the Light Brown Apple Moth and its potential harm to local agriculture. The aerial application of the pheromone did not just occur over agricultural land, but over residential areas as well. Citizen groups formed to protest the spraying, anti-spray petitions were signed, health complaints were documented post-spray and yet the state refuses to abort plans to continue spraying these communities and many others in California.
People Against Chemical Trespass (P.A.C.T.) Organizers in Santa Cruz have been working closely with Global Exchange's Shannon Biggs and Ben Price of the Legal Defense Fund on a campaign to pass a local ordinance against Bodily Chemical Trespass and Pesticides.
In November 2009, P.A.C.T., organized and hosted a 1-day Democracy School around pesticides and chemical trespass which was sold out! Please visit their website to sign an online petition in support of their ordinance!
Read what local media is saying about the ordinance.
Interested in hosting a discussion on rights-based organizing or passing an ordinance in your community? Start by attending a Democracy School. Visit the Democracy School Page
For more information or to inquire about a campaign where you live, contact Shannon Biggs, shannon@globalexchange.org or 415.575.5540