DIRECT ACTION OPPOSES DEFORESTATION AS YEAR COMES TO A CLOSE ~ Gabriel Fonten ~ On 17 December the Ada’itsx / Fairy Creek Blockade released footage of the latest raids by Canadian police, who arrested activists camped in the Walbran Valley in British Columbia. The activists, who have continued to blockade logging roads despite the damage to their camp by police and harsh weather, stand as the most recent iteration of a 30 year long campaign to defend Canada’s old-growth forests in the region. The existing old-growth forest represents just 3% of what existed pre-colonisation and protects some of Canada’s richest biodiversity and endangered species. On the other side of the world in Australia, South West Forest Defenders ended the year with a victory, successfully forcing the cancellation of planned burns of Mt Clare, Nornalup and Coalmine/Knoll Tingle forest blocks for 2025/26. Their campaign parallels activists in Canada in many ways: both came to the fore in the 1990s, oppose the ruthless expansion of the logging industry in their regions, and have used similar tactics such as blockades, tree-sitting, and mass civil disobedience. Both have also put forward an alternative understanding of the forests to the capitalists and politicians they oppose, emphasising shared responsibility, intertwinement, and indigenous rights to the land that are incompatible with its current exploitation. Image: South West Forest Defenders of Facebook Crucial to both is also their sustained efforts, including when victories are achieved. In both cases, the Australian and Canadian governments have compromised with the activists by creating national parks, delaying logging operations, and cancelling burn plans. Yet campaigns have been ready to continue when these protections ultimately give way to industry pressure once more. In both cases this has led to decades of continued struggle, to both win protections and ensure their enforcement. In the Canadian case, where mass civil disobedience had been a crucial tactic, this has meant that the campaign to defend Fairy Creek holds the record for the highest number of arrests in Canadian history. In an interview with Canada’s National Observer one organiser at the Fairy Creek blockade stated that “Blockading is not a marathon; it’s a relay. We just hope people will be here to pick up the baton”. Both campaigns stand as a testament to the resilience and longevity needed to stave off the relentless exploitation of the environment in a capitalist world, even when the pockets of old-growth forests still left are tiny compared to the expanses already stripped bare. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top image: Fairy Creek Blockade on Facebook (not AI) The post Forest defence in Canada and Australia appeared first on Freedom News.

GOVERNMENT AND CORPORATE CONTROL HAVE HOLLOWED OUT RURAL LIFE IN GREECE AND INTERNATIONALLY—BUT AN ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN, COMMONS-BASED ALTERNATIVE IS POSSIBLE ~ from Babylonia ~ The myth that the state serves the public interest is collapsing from every direction. It collapses in transport, where “safety” was measured in deaths at Tempi. It collapses in healthcare, which operates in a permanent state of crisis. It collapses in energy, surrendered to monopolies. It collapses in housing, which has been transformed from a social right into an investment product. And today it collapses in the most brutal way in agricultural production. The image of farmers on the roads is the visible outcome of a system in which political party, state, and capitalist elites manage public resources as their own property, transferring the cost of crises onto those who have no institutional power whatsoever. The scandal at OPEKEPE and the intervention of the European Public Prosecutor did not merely expose corrupt practices. They revealed the way agricultural policy has been transformed into a field of clientelist networks, political cover, and economic plunder. At the very moment when intermediaries, “insiders,” and business circles were siphoning off EU funds, thousands of real producers became fully dependent on a flow of money controlled by mechanisms to which they have no access. When this system stalls, production freezes—not because farmers are not producing. The payment crisis is a structural feature of a state that functions as an intermediary between European funds and domestic power networks. Controls, necessary for the most basic restoration of legality, are turned into weapons of mass punishment against the weakest. Corruption remains systemic, while “clean-up” is applied horizontally at the expense of those with the least power. Within this framework, the farmer is presented either as an “entrepreneur” who must adapt or as a “subsidized” actor whose legitimacy exists only through dependence on the system. In reality, however, the farmer functions as a bearer of risk. They assume the climatic, economic, and social cost of production, while the critical decisions regarding prices, inputs—water, energy, fertilizers, seeds—the value of land and products are made by multinationals, banks, concentrated trade and distribution networks, and the state mechanisms that serve them. When this regime is shaken, the state stands against society. As the climate crisis and resource scarcity erode the stability of the capitalist model, the state becomes more authoritarian, more disciplinary, more aggressive toward society. It does not protect production; it protects its institutional architecture, redistributes losses, and thus reveals the real political dead end. The question that therefore arises is who controls agricultural production, for whom, and under what terms—and whether, at this point, that control can remain in the hands of state and capitalist elites in a world of ecological collapse and social disintegration. THE HISTORICAL TRAJECTORY OF THE CAP The crisis of the agricultural sector in Greece is neither temporary nor the result of “poor implementation.” It is the outcome of a long historical trajectory of political choices implemented with the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as their central axis. To understand today’s suffocation of the agricultural sector—economic, environmental, and social—we must view the CAP not as a technical tool for regulating production, but as a mechanism of political management and social consensus on a European scale. Historically, it was constructed to absorb crises, yet it ends up reproducing them in new forms. The climate crisis does not create this dead end; it multiplies it and makes it visible. The CAP was established in the early 1960s, within the framework of the Treaty of Rome, as a response to food security as a post-war European imperative. The stakes were clear and deeply state-centric. Agriculture was treated as a strategic security sector, on par with energy and industry. The goal was to increase production, stabilise markets, and secure farmers’ incomes through guaranteed prices and common market organisation mechanisms. In this context, the farmer was conceived more as a link in a system of mass production, while power was concentrated in planning and regulation. Already in the 1970s, with the Mansholt Plan, it became clear that the CAP did not merely aim to support existing agricultural structures, but to deeply restructure them. The pursuit of larger holdings, production concentration, and increased productivity marked the first systematic attempt to transform agriculture into a high-efficiency agro-industrial system. The emerging crisis was no longer one of scarcity, but of mismatch between traditional rural societies and a model of intensified production that required capital, technology, and scale. In the 1980s, a fundamental contradiction of the early CAP became visible. The very system designed to increase agricultural production began producing more than could be consumed or absorbed. Overproduction was not a sign of success, but a problem. Massive surpluses—known as “butter mountains” and “wine lakes”—turned agricultural policy into an issue of public cost and social legitimacy. Instead of changing the model, production continued to be centrally and hierarchically regulated through new control mechanisms such as quotas and product withdrawals. In 1992, the CAP entered a new phase with the so-called McSharry reform. This was not merely a technical adjustment, but a response to a deeper political crisis. Intensive agriculture had already caused serious environmental impacts, the cost of the policy was being socially contested, and international trade pressures made the previous model difficult to defend. To preserve it, the CAP changed its discourse. Support for farmers was no longer directly linked to product prices, but to income, and agriculture was redefined as “multifunctional.” It was now expected not only to produce food, but also to maintain landscapes, ecosystems, and social cohesion in rural areas. This expansion, however, was largely rhetorical. Power remained concentrated in European institutions, states, and technocratic mechanisms interacting with markets, input companies, and commercial networks, excluding producers from any substantive participation in decision-making. Policy increasingly took the form of technocratic management. Every social or environmental demand was translated into indicators, measures, controls, and eligibility regimes, turning consensus into a matter of compliance rather than democratic choice. With Agenda 2000, the CAP attempted to show that it concerned not only production quantity, but rural development as a whole. The so-called second pillar was introduced, ostensibly addressing local development, social cohesion, and rural infrastructure. Nevertheless, the architecture of the policy remained largely unchanged. The main flows of resources and power continued to be centrally determined, while local communities were called upon to “adapt” within predefined frameworks of administrative compliance rather than democratic planning. The period from the early 2000s to 2020 marked a deeper shift in the CAP—what can be described as the CAP of discipline. Subsidies were decoupled from production and presented as tools of modernization and competitiveness. This choice aimed to limit overproduction without changing the dominant model and to align the CAP with international trade and market rules. In practice, economic and climatic risk was transferred almost entirely to the producer. Prices were left to the market, losses were not collectively offset, and support was granted only under conditions of compliance. Income no longer depended on what and how one produces, but on whether the farmer complies with an increasingly complex web of rules, controls, and administrative requirements. Political conflict over production, prices, and markets was depoliticized and replaced by bureaucratic surveillance. Within this framework, the farmer was treated as administratively eligible or not. Production primarily served to keep them within the system, accepting individual risk and collectively accepting the depoliticization of agricultural production. The most recent phase of the CAP, for the period 2021–2027, explicitly incorporates the climate crisis into its discourse and tools. Eco-schemes, environmental commitments, and national strategic plans are presented as evidence of a new, “green” CAP. Yet environmental requirements increase without any substantive change in control over critical resources—water, land, energy, market access, and risk insurance. The climate crisis thus acts as a multiplier of all previous crises—of production, income, legitimacy, and resilience—revealing the limits of a system that reforms endlessly without redistributing power. The climate crisis, moreover, does not arrive in a neutral field. It enters an already unequal rural landscape. In Greece, extreme weather events, droughts, floods, and heatwaves disproportionately affect small and medium producers. As climatic risk increases, control over inputs remains concentrated, insurance is inadequate or expensive, compensation is delayed, and “adaptation” translates into new investments that producers must finance on their own. Thus, instead of becoming an opportunity for democratic redesign of production and common resources, the climate crisis tends to become a tool for accelerating concentration. Those who can bear the risk survive; the rest exit. WHY DOMINANT SOLUTIONS ARE INSUFFICIENT Dominant responses to the agricultural crisis appear under various names—technological modernisation, innovation, digitalisation, green transition, financial instruments—but share a common feature: they do not challenge the power structure within which agricultural production operates. Technology, for example, is presented as a neutral solution. In practice, however, the digitalisation of agriculture without data control turns the farmer into a passive information provider for third parties. Data on soil, crops, water, and climate are collected, analysed, and exploited by platforms, input companies, or financial actors, without producers having any meaningful say in their use. Knowledge is extracted from the field and reintroduced as a paid service. Similarly, innovation is promoted as a driver of transition without addressing ownership and control. When innovation is introduced as a package of technologies, certifications, and consulting services without collective ownership and management structures, producers are asked to “modernise” without co-shaping the tools that determine their production. Even cooperatives, often presented as an answer to individual weakness, are not guarantees of change. When they reproduce the same hierarchies they claim to oppose, they become subsidy management mechanisms or market intermediaries rather than tools of collective bargaining and political autonomy. The common limit of all these “solutions” is that they treat the agricultural crisis as a technical problem of efficiency, adaptation, or innovation. Yet, as the historical trajectory of the CAP shows, the crisis is primarily political. It concerns who controls resources, knowledge, value chains, and risk. As long as these questions remain off the table, every new solution—no matter how “green” or “smart”—will simply add another layer to a system that has already reached its limits. AN ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN AGRICULTURAL PERSPECTIVE The discussion of an anti-authoritarian perspective in agriculture and rural life is a political necessity. The climate crisis demands shifts in power. As long as fundamental control relations remain unchanged, every adaptation effort will translate into further burdens on the same subjects—small and medium producers and rural communities. Any planning must begin with the decentralisation of power and the return of control to producers themselves and local societies. At the core of this perspective lies collective control over critical means of production—seeds, storage, processing, and basic infrastructure. When these nodes remain fully privatised or controlled by a few powerful actors, producers are deprived of real bargaining power and trapped in relations of dependency. At the same time, rebuilding local and regional value chains is required as a political project to reduce dependence on concentrated and impersonal networks. Reconnecting production with processing and consumption at a regional scale strengthens producers’ negotiating position and creates conditions of collective resilience against increasingly unstable markets. Central to this vision are the commons. Water, land, knowledge, and data cannot be treated exclusively as commodities or investment assets, especially under conditions of climatic destabilisation. They are necessary commons, without which neither sustainable production nor social justice in rural areas is possible. Their management is not a technical issue, but a deeply political one, concerning who decides, for whom, and under what conditions. These are necessary conditions for moving forward to the questions of what crops we want to grow, by what criteria we decide, and what agricultural products we actually need. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine translation. Image: World Riots on Facebook The post Agriculture beyond the state and market appeared first on Freedom News.

AGAINST A STATE THAT WILL NEVER RESOLVE CLIMATE CHAOS, AND ITS VIOLENCE WHICH FORCE CANNOT OVERTHROW TODAY, WHAT REMAINS FOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS? ~ Vincent Lucchese, Reporterre ~ The myth that the state serves the public interest is crumbling on all sides. Seeing the state stubbornly defend projects as economically and environmentally disastrous as the A69 motorway, and witnessing its police unleash violence against opponents of ecocidal private mega-reservoir projects, more and more environmental activists are becoming disillusioned. For citizens who are abruptly learning to “mourn the state,” a series of essays and books in recent months have contributed to dusting off this hypothesis: what if it were possible. At the heart of anarchist thinking for two centuries, this idea is making a strong comeback today, given the obvious impasse of other possible paths. On one hand, the reformist path, that is to say the social-democratic project of reforming capitalism from within to make it socially and environmentally viable, is ‘doubly dead, doubly zombie-like’, as Alessandro Pignocchi sums up in his fascinating Perspectives terrestres (Seuil, 2025). The author continues, the ecological crisis ‘sweeps away the philanthropic belief at the heart of the social democratic project’ of possible infinite economic growth which promised the elevation of all social classes within the capitalist regime. The realisation that this crisis is precisely caused by the economic structures that ensure the ruling class’s dominance is radicalising other social classes. The capitalist elite is tightening the screws to protect its faltering model, rendering any prospect of social-democratic compromise obsolete. On the other hand, the revolutionary perspective is hardly any better. Past experiences have revealed its two symmetrical pitfalls: overthrowing the ruling power requires comparable armed force, which if inadequate, risks being swept away as brutally as the Paris Commune was in 1871. When this proves sufficient, it threatens to lead to a ‘capture phenomenon’, meaning that the new power itself serves only its own particular interests, as was the case in the USSR, Maoist China, and after the Arab Spring. A STATE THAT CANNOT BE REFORMED OR OVERTHROWN The observation of this double impasse, of a state that can neither be reformed or overthrown, is shared by Irish philosopher John Holloway, whose latest book has just been translated into French: Penser l’espoir en des temps désespérés (Thinking Hope in Desperate Times, Libertalia, 2025). He adds this definitive analysis: the state is, by its very nature, at the service of capitalism, and trying to make it an ally is a complete waste of time. The modern state, he explains, survives only through the taxes it levies on capital accumulation. Its mission and survival are, therefore, intrinsically linked to capitalists’ insatiable quest for accumulation. John Holloway develops an argument that follows in the long tradition of analyses by thinkers of the “capitalist state”, which was already clearly summarised by the American sociologist Erik Olin Wright (Anti-Capitalist Strategies for the 21st Century, La Découverte, 2020). Historically, he explains, the state can be described as the institutional form that has been deployed to ensure the reproduction of capital: the “rule of law” guarantees the inviolability of private property — largely derived from the appropriation of commons, colonisation, and the exploitation of workers and nature — and its capitalist development within the market framework. The Paris Commune ended in the large-scale massacre of the Communards by the Versailles army. After Félix Philippoteaux (1815-1884), Public domain Furthermore, the mechanisms for recruiting state elites create a privileged caste and a convergence of interests between them and the capitalist elites, to the detriment of the general interest. It is an understatement to say that the political dynamics of recent years have provided fertile ground for this type of analysis. We are witnessing a rise in “illiberalism” in France and many other so-called democratic states, fuelled by media propaganda from far-right billionaires. Across the Atlantic, the capitalist barons of American tech are openly allying themselves with the proto-fascist power of Donald Trump. All of this supports the thesis that capitalist states are becoming more authoritarian as the scarcity of natural resources and crises caused by climate change make governing populations more uncertain. RETURN TO THE LOCAL So what can be done? These authors suggest competing with the state by building on local roots and local struggles. From a strategic perspective, this is first and foremost a quest for autonomy: developing local subsistence agriculture and reclaiming technical know-how to reduce dependence on the state is a prerequisite for resisting it. ‘Material autonomy and political autonomy reinforce each other,’ summarises Pignocchi. For him, ‘liberating territories is therefore the first condition’ for moving towards what he calls ‘terrestrial perspectives’. Namely, a political project based on local autonomy and the renewal of ties with non-human living beings. The virtues of this approach are its broad potential to mobilise people in a unifying struggle based on love for the land, the rediscovery of powerful and joyful emotions in connection with living things, and values of respect, care and coexistence between species and between humans. It places the dynamic at the opposite end of the spectrum from reactionary localism. In practice, this strategy works and is even becoming increasingly widespread. This is what journalist Juliette Duquesne recounts in her comprehensive investigation, Autonomes et solidaires pour le vivant, S’organiser sans l’autorité de l’État (Le Bord de l’eau, 2025). From the French ZADs (Zone à Défendre) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes (Loire-Atlantique) and Les Lentillères (Dijon) to the long-term experience of Longo Maï, the Zapatistas of Chiapas in Mexico and the Kurds of Rojava, among others, she has documented and examined numerous experiences of struggle. Her proposition: the conditions for victory are complex and constantly need to be reinvented, but it is possible to organise without the state. Historically, anarchism has already proven its organisational viability on a large scale, she points out, recalling the little-known Spanish experiment of 1936, ‘often forgotten in history books because it was denigrated by capitalists and communists’. From July 1936 to spring 1937, Juliette Duquesne summarises, 3 million people in Catalonia and Aragon reinvented collective life without a state: collectivised economic activities, self-managed education and health systems, communities with local currencies, and others abolishing money altogether. A cultural, social, anarcho-syndicalist and political context unique to Spain at that time allowed for this profusion of experimentation, before the civil war and then Francoism brought this adventure to a tragic end. Among the lesser-known achievements, the Makhnovshchina, the anarchist Ukraine between 1917 and 1921, is also worth mentioning. The victories of the ‘Black Army’, a peasant and worker guerrilla force, against reactionary forces enabled the establishment of agricultural communes throughout the country. A lack of military resources and Soviet repression brought this large-scale libertarian and egalitarian experiment to an end. Anita Garbín Alonso, anti-fascist and anarchist militiawoman in Barcelona in 1936. Antoni Campañà i Bandranas, Public domain Ecological and social emancipation may work locally, but can it be generalised? ‘Imagining that we can stop the ravages of accumulation by multiplying the number of ZADs is probably no more serious than thinking we can stop global warming by accumulating small gestures,’ noted The Earth Uprisings (Les Soulèvements de la Terre) in their strategic work Premières secousses (First Shocks, La Fabrique, 2024). ” ‘Unless, perhaps,‘ they continue, ’we connect the dots.‘ This is the idea towards which all the authors mentioned converge: the “territories liberated” from the state, even partially, if they multiply and unite, could reach a critical mass sufficient to compete with, or at least undermine, the sovereign authority of the state. KAIROS For Alessandro Pignocchi, it is a question of ‘piercing’ the state with autonomous territories, of ‘gradually building something parallel to capitalism’, united within a ‘terrestrial internationalism’. Juliette Duquesne writes that ‘contagion must spread through capillary action’ so that ‘the state and capitalism become increasingly marginalised’ until they reach a ‘threshold’ that allows for a turning point. In other words: the exit from capitalism and the entry into a true democracy. Obviously, the state will not allow itself to be attacked without reacting: the fierce repression of the ZADs at Notre-Dame-des-Landes is a prime example. But, paradoxically, it is also proof that victory is possible if anarchist activists know how to seize the kairos, that is, take advantage of favourable circumstances. This is the other essential strategic lever. Pignocchi, Duquesne and Wright agree with the conclusion reached by the Earth Uprisings: achieving autonomy outside the state requires allies within the state. It is necessary to hybridise the state, rely on civil servants or elected officials who sympathise with the cause, and take advantage of the electoral victories of the least hostile political forces to gain the advantage in the conquest of territories. The task, however, seems monumental. It may well inspire scepticism given that the eco-anarchist and sustainable overthrow of a capitalist state has never historically taken place. To avoid the pitfall of discouragement, John Holloway emphasises that this capitalist state is a colossus with feet of clay. Throughout the lengthy and sometimes complex development of his work, the philosopher reinterprets Marxist theory on the internal contradictions of capitalism. Capitalism’s insatiable need for accumulation drives it to transform everything into commodities and, ultimately, into money. However, this need to exploit humans and nature ever more intensely is now coming up against physical limits, as evidenced by the ecological crisis. The fall of the Vendôme Column, bearing the statue of Napoleon I , during the Paris Commune, Lithograph from 1871, Public domain In recent decades the need for constant accumulation, vital to prevent the system from collapsing, has been partly met with empty promises. Unable to find sufficient human and natural ‘resources’ to exploit, explains the author, the elites have accumulated ‘fictitious capital’ through the massive issuance of money derived from the creation of debt. Capitalism today is in the same situation as the cartoon coyote, which has long since passed the edge of the cliff, is running over the void, and must keep running to avoid falling. The dismantling of social gains, police violence, open conflicts: everything is being done in a desperate attempt to coerce workers and increase profit margins. But our hope lies here, writes John Holloway: in the realisation that it is our refusal to accept absolute commodification, our desires overflowing with vitality, that is what holds back and frightens capitalism. Global finance, subject to increasingly intense “heart attacks”, such as the financial crisis of 2008, could well succumb definitively to the next one. He concludes: ‘We are not victims of the crisis but its protagonists: our resistance and rebellion, our insubordination and non-subordination, our refusal to be robots. This is what constantly upsets capital. In these desperate times, this is our hope.’ He calls for daring to embrace radical ambition: to think and act for a world without capital, and therefore without money. To those who see these projects as unrealistic or overly distant utopias, these contemporary anarchist authors concede that the path they are charting is far from clear and that their horizon is taking shape as they go. But their struggles, they argue, have the advantage of being very concrete, since each person must begin by taking action in their own territory to defend their forest, their dignity at work, or their drinking water, here and now. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine translation. Top photo: A pirate sheep as a shepherd’s mark, in a Longo Maï flock. Sébastien Thébault / Wikimedia Commons     The post Anarchism: Last hope for the Environment appeared first on Freedom News.

HIS COMPELLING AND REALISTIC REVOLUTIONARY VISION SHOWS THE PRECONDITIONS FOR A LIBERATED WORLD ~ John P Clark ~ Elisée Reclus (1830-1905) was one of the foremost geographers of his age, a major figure in anarchist political thought, and a lifelong revolutionary who played an active role in the Paris Commune and the First International. He was extraordinary for a nineteenth-century political thinker in having a deep lifelong commitment not only to social revolution, but also to radical ecology, to anti-patriarchy and the equality of women, to anti-racism and anti-colonialism, and to anti-speciesism and animal welfare. Reclus is most famous for his New Universal Geography, a massive twenty-volume, eighteen-thousand-page work that has been called the greatest individual achievement in the history of geography. Reclus is widely recognized as the founder of the field of social geography. His final work, Humanity and the Earth, wasan expansive thirty-five-hundred-page synthesis of geography, history, anthropology, philosophy, and social theory, and is his most enduring contribution to modern thought. Opening with the statement that “Humanity is Nature becoming self-conscious,” it is a sweeping account of the entire history of both humanity and the Earth, and of a common planetary destiny that is revealed through a deep understanding of the great course of geo-history. There are two dimensions to Reclus’ story of humanity and the Earth.  One is his depiction of the process of human self-realisation in dialectical interaction with nature. He shows how the natural milieu shapes human development, as humanity simultaneously contributes to the unfolding and flourishing of the natural world. He shows the content of geo-history to be a dialectic between the creative forces of freedom and the constraining forces of domination. His idea that all phenomena of history contain both progressive and regressive aspects, and that each tendency must be analysed carefully, is one of his most influential concepts. Reclus shows that historical progress has depended on the growth of mutual aid (l’entr’aide) and social cooperation—ideas that influenced his younger colleague Kropotkin greatly. Reclus contends that the full self-realisation of humanity-in-nature will depend on a social revolution that embodies mutualistic practices in a free, egalitarian, anarchist-communist society.  Moreover, he holds that the fate of the Earth will hinge on humanity’s ability to establish social institutions and practices that express a deep concern for the natural world and for all living beings on the planet. The other side of Reclus’ world-historical narrative focuses on the long history of domination. He engages in an extensive critique of the centralised bureaucratic state and industrial capitalism, but he does not see other forms of domination as subordinate spheres. He was a radical feminist and a vehement enemy of male dominance, and a fervent opponent of all forms of racism and of Eurocentric denigration of indigenous cultures. He was an early critic of the ecological devastation resulting from ruthless industrialisation and technological rationalisation, and he decried the destruction of ancient forests as early as the 1860’s.  Furthermore,  he was a tireless advocate of ethical vegetarianism and of the humane treatment of animals. Reclus presents one of the most compelling, and arguably one of the most realistic, revolutionary visions of the preconditions for a liberated world of freedom and solidarity. Specifically, he discusses five levels of social ecological practice that must all be addressed by the revolutionary movement.  The first level is the primary community (perhaps a kind of affinity group) that is the focus of personal, moral, and psychological transformation. In an 1895 letter, he says that anarchists must “work to free themselves personally from all preconceived or imposed ideas, and gradually gather around themselves friends who live and act in the same way. It is step by step, through small, loving, and intelligent associations, that the great fraternal society will be formed.” All these qualities (small scale, a pervasive ethos of love, and the nurturing of active, engaged intelligence) are necessary for such associations to carry out their basic transformative role. The second, and politically most crucial, level of social organisation for Reclus, was the autonomous commune, which he describes in an 1871 letter as “at once the triumph of the Workers’ Republic and the inauguration of the Communal Federation.”  He was convinced that a radicalised version of the aspirations of the Paris Commune (a powerful reality in the radical imaginary of his age) should be the primary form of political organisation. The commune would practice radical direct democracy. The power of the people could be delegated, but never merely represented or alienated from the base. For larger purposes, the commune would act in solidarity with all other communes through free federation.   The third key level of social organisation for Reclus, inspired by his many years of engagement in the global labour struggle, is that of the Workers’ International, which would act democratically through its local sections. Reclus believed that to succeed, the revolution must bring together people not only as members of the local community, but also at the level of the whole of humanity, united and mobilised as workers and producers. The International was also a powerful force in the radical social imaginary of the time. The fourth level of association is the Universal Republic, which will also be a global expression of the values of human community and solidarity. This great Republic (another idea that inspired revolutionaries of the age) was to be based on the free federation of autonomous communes across the planet, and on every level, from the local, to the regional, to the global. Reclus acknowledged that our community is a more-than-human one. Thus, he recognised a fifth level of association, in which we express our unity and solidarity with the Earth, and our sense of responsibility for all of life on Earth. This is the level of the entire Earth Community. At this level, a global unity-in-diversity already exists implicitly, but we must be educated to realise the ways that we fit into the great interconnection of all beings, and to act accordingly. Reclus was a dedicated and engaged revolutionary who worked tirelessly for revolutionary social transformation, for which he suffered imprisonment in at least fourteen different prisons and spent many years in forced exile. He was a person of extraordinary  humility, great generosity, and love and compassion—not only for his fellow humans, but also for other sentient beings. He deserves recognition (which he would never have sought) as one of the foremost thinkers in the history of anarchism. His work in social geography and related subjects, running to over 25,000 pages of published works, is by far the greatest achievement in the history of social ecological thought. The post Elisée Reclus: 5 levels of social-ecological practice appeared first on Freedom News.

INSTEAD OF “GREEN SPACE” WE MUST BUILD ECOSYSTEMS IN OUR CITIES ~ Mathieu Perchat, from Le Mouton Noir ~ Vegetation in the city, often reduced to the term “green space”, evokes a more complex reality than that of a simple place of rest or walk. The term itself, “green space”, expresses the limitation of this concept: it does not designate a place in its own right, but a portion of territory planned according to criteria of utility rather than aesthetic or ecological ones. Green space, often reduced to a simple “green”, excludes art, or at least reduces it to a simple decorative packaging. By losing its name and its essence, the urban garden is emptied of any value other than that of hygiene. In this approach, lawns, gardens and planted paths, as well as street furniture, participate in the form of the city, but under a logic of health control, a hygienist policy. Air, water and vegetation are treated as abstractions, disregarding climatic and geographical diversity. For example, urban gardens become a tool for combating pests, such as rats. As a result, these spaces have no real connection with the larger ecosystem. Ecological criteria are neglected in favour of ornamental objectives; thus, the dryness of the soil and the effects of shade are neglected, accentuating the artificiality of plant choices. The most striking example is that of trees. They are mainly planted in cities for their aesthetic role, often reduced to a beautification function. For some decision-makers, this aestheticism is summed up in making public spaces more pleasant while contributing to the sanitation of municipalities. Beauty and hygiene are intertwined in this approach, where plants become a simple tool for fighting pests, such as rats. TOWARDS URBAN VEGETATION? It is urgent to rethink the role of vegetation in the city. Instead of being reduced to a utilitarian function, can it become an aesthetic and symbolic link between urbanized spaces and other ecosystems? The city of tomorrow should be a welcoming space for a plurality of living beings: humans, animals and plants. This need is all the more evident in the face of the impact of urban sprawl, which degrades nearby and distant ecosystems. Plants, in their landscaping potential, affect various scales: from individual balconies to entire cities. The articulation of these scales, both politically and ecologically, represents a fundamental challenge for rethinking urban planning. Plants are not simply a component of the landscape; they embody strong symbolic values, associated with the diversity of species, and offer unprecedented plasticity to urban planners and planning professionals. For residents, vegetation represents a local nature, essential to their well-being. It is a crucial resource for biodiversity, particularly in densely populated areas. The implementation of vegetation by municipalities and landlords is therefore part of a broader thinking about urban public space. But spontaneous vegetation, often perceived as uncontrolled, also contributes to shaping public space, by highlighting contrasts with planned vegetation. A sensory and ecological challenge The perception of urban vegetation is not limited to a simple visual appreciation. Odorus, colours, flavours and textures play a crucial role in our relationship with the environment. These aesthetic dimensions influence our behaviour towards the city and nature. Unfortunately, institutions in charge of urban ecology struggle to integrate this sensory and participatory biodiversity that residents create through their own practices. It is therefore essential to encourage policies that promote wildlife in the city. Vegetation should not be thought of solely through the prism of planning, but as a real vector of ecosystems and diversity. Residents, city dwellers and citizens: a plural relationship to urban space In this context, it is interesting to examine the different relationships that individuals have with urban green environments. Three main categories of populations emerge: * Residents, strongly attached to their housing, consider their home as a protective shelter, a place of sensations and materiality. They are particularly sensitive to living conditions in the city and directly perceive the benefits or inconveniences of urban vegetation. Their relationship to space is sensory, marked by a desire for comfort and harmony with their environment. * City dwellers mainly use the city through a utilitarian practice, often centred on the car and travel. Their perception of places is determined by their use: ease of travel, access to services and parking. This group of people largely rejects an aesthetic approach to the city, preferring immediate functionality. * Citizens are involved in the collective life of their neighbourhood. They favour public transportation and the efficiency of the metro, willingly mingling with the urban crowd. Their attachment to places is indirect, often mediated by human and social relationships. However, this group tends to forget that the city is also a biological and physical space, where biodiversity plays a key role. Conclusion: towards a reconciliation with urban nature Urban morphology constantly interferes with our desire to live. A few green islands, terraces or planted courtyards, break with a predominantly concrete urban landscape. However, these spaces remind us of the importance of nature in urban daily life. It is imperative to rethink our relationship with vegetation in the city, no longer as a simple tool for development or beautification, but as an essential component of our well-being, our sensitivity and our relationship with the world. The dialogue between ecology, aesthetics and politics must be intensified to create cities where nature finds its rightful place. The post Rethinking urban vegetation appeared first on Freedom News.