Green Battle Lines
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© 1993 P.R.O.B.E.Ltd.(Publications)
A registered non-profit charity dedicated to improving the environment.
Reg.No. 2468692
Excerpts from Green Battle Lines (G.B.L.) may be used for purposes of criticism or review on condition that all material is credited. No part otherwise may be reproduced without the express permission in writing of P. R.O. B. E. Ltd. Please contact us via our email probeonmedia@gmail.com for permission.
Editor: Laurie Jackson
Assistant Editor: Urmilla Sinha
Editorial Asst. : Neill Topley
Design: Nick Langley
Cover by Afra Kingdon
EDITOR' S NOTE
With the assistance of the distinguished American poet Laurence Ferlinghetti ; scientist and writer Dr. Erik Millstone and cartoonist Steve Bell the responsibility of having to choose the best work among such a range of high standard contributions was made less irksome in the shared decision-making and for this I give a very grateful thank you.
The work published though stemming from the P. R.O. B. E. national competition in the UK (The P.R.O.B.E. Green Prizes - 1991) -is not placed in any descending order of merit linked to the prizes or runners-up positions. For our purposes we believed it more important to present a wide variety of style, content and mood rather than a mere tabulation. May you find in the reading of 'Green Battle Lines' as much joy as we experienced in the preparation.
Printed on Recycled Paper.
'GREEN BATTLE LINES' or 'G.B.L.' as we later dubbed it, started out as a very modest notion to hold a poetry competition on green themes. Suggestions were later put forward to include prose writers and artists. This expansion effectively delayed the end result - the publication of the most original work in our view and the judges'.
One aspect of the 'PROBE GREEN PRIZES' was to increase public awareness of our campaigning organization; another to help our funds which in common with others in this area of activity is an essential lifeline.
As a director of P.R.O.B.E., I allowed myself to be persuaded into extending the range of the original concept - momentarily forgetting that the extra workload would land on my already sagging dining table (All flat surfaces having long since passed into multi-purpose usage).
My great fear was that creative environmentalists could be too often overwhelmed by a current mood of 'gloom and doom'. I am not alone in being desperately concerned for a balance to be seen between the many setbacks and tragedies in the green scenario and the element of optimism, which perhaps at present can only be fed by relatively minor yet symbolic victories.
Campaigners need to believe that one day the present uneven lines of battle will turn in favour of the Green movement. So, I especially cherish the examples in lighter mood contrasting with the more sombre yet just as honest tones in their way as the rest. Is the 'G.B.L.' cup a pessimistically half-empty one or an optimistic half-full? You must judge it for yourself. However, I hope most will find inspiration in these few pages to go on fighting for a more just and greener planet. The danger comes from the complacent rather than the extremists on both sides. May what follows here help to give us renewed spiritual strength to carry the battle into the entrenched camps of all those seeking to destroy what remains of our precious green world...
NOTES ON MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS
AFRA KINGDON - Poet; artist, currently enjoying motherhood with a few months old child in Botswana where her partner Paul began teaching in 1992. A dedicated animal lover, and willing campaigner for P.R.O.B.E.
DUNCAN LAMONT - A forestry graduate; he spent most of his working life in the rainforests of Africa and lectured in Newfoundland. Currently writing a book, and dodging as many humans as possible in the woodlands of Essex.
STEWART DAKERS - Self-taught artist/satirist. Includes In his background, waste management, nature conservancy with some time as countryside ranger in Surrey. Feels strong need of human obligation of proper stewardship of our planet and coherent and publicly accessible environment agenda, which avoids cover-ups, political manipulation and incorporates Third World viability.
MARY BOWES - writer/artist with two gifted children -one of whom also has contributed to G.B.L.(Green Battle Lines) here. Looks after five cats. one rescued at dead of night from a sadistic owner, and never lets up on its expressions of thanks.
GREG SPRUCE - cartoonist currently involved in carpentry where he makes every effort only to use wood from sustainable forests. Lives in South Devon but has travelled widely in Africa and the Middle East. Longs for the day when he can run a smallholding with penguins and elephants close-by.
NICK LANGLEY - at 19, he already showed talent as a cartoonist. At that time, he was studying Film Production at Canterbury and revelling in it.
THE EDITOR - Laurie Jackson. Founder of P. R.O. B. E., published poet and green campaigner. Journalistic background with theatre and opera between times including a stint at the Mermaid in London. Has spent much time in Spain, Israel and Holland most often rescuing animals in distress and sailing when possible for relaxation and getting close to dolphins...
C. V. E. M.
Stewart Dakers
It has been the received wisdom over the past decades among those who manage and protect our precious countryside heritage that the only obstacle to success is the public. If it were not for the insatiable, uneducated and unreasonable appetite for rural experience on the part of homo sapiens, and particularly the sub-order "Urbanus", our land could be as peaceful and unsullied as in the golden centuries of Thomas Hardy. It is the man on the footpath, the car park, the heath, who is the menace to the integrity of our bucolic tradition.
However it appears that a small group of environmental activists have been discreetly working on a project that will preserve our rural facilities while offering the visitor limited access only - by his ability to pay. Although on the drawing board only at this stage, the idea has achieved considerable credibility among such major agencies as The National Trust, English Heritage, English Nature and Sainsburys; public trials are expected this summer in selected sites with the intention of full-scale implementation in 1992.
The developers conducted extensive research into visitor expectations, fed the responses into a computer program, added in the 'distance from car" factor and translated the whole into a series of rural experience modes (R.E.M.S). This process of critical environment expectation feedback (C.E.E.F.) has produced a solution to the conflict in the countryside of the utmost simplicity and incorporates a commercial growth capacity, which should attract some of the major multi-nationals.
The basic product is a booth, in design somewhere between those currently being introduced in Mexico City for the purchase of oxygen supplies and the new self-cleansing toilet dome. These eco-modules will be styled and designed in environmentally sound materials and colour; they will be handicap friendly, capable of taking up to six individuals at any one time, although models for school parties and football supporters are in the pipeline. Payment will be through coin-operated slots in the door, with optional periods of experience time; a clock on the outside of the booth will inform those waiting for rural experience how long they have to wait. Associated with this will be national networking and franchise arrangements for such facilities as car wash, catering, toilets, shopping - in fact the whole range of current rural industrial infrastructure but capable of massive expansion and diversification.
These modules will be situated throughout the country at places where visitor attendance causes no environmental damage - lay-bys, car parks, central reservations and hard shoulders are some of the current considerations. The effect will be to provide countryside visiting facilities of the highest quality without interfering with the countryside itself or its business.
The logistical and strategic advantages are therefore enormous. The modules enhance the rural visitor experience and incorporate almost limitless commercial options. In responding to the public need and the 'fun syndrome', the inventors have shown true imagination and sensitivity so that it is no exaggeration to suggest that the countryside visitor experience module (C.V.E.M.) is destined to save the planet and to do so with a smile, not a tear.
On entering the module the visitor will find a treadmill floor which can be set to move at whatever speed is required including an option for random pause and halt. At the press of a button the visitor can choose any landscape type of his choice, and this is not simply national; the rain forest can now truly be yours for the asking; the surround screen will contain an ever moving visual of the area chosen and at the same time the natural sounds and smells will flood the senses, with the option of an override system to alter the program to provide whatever mix the visitor might wish, for example a desert landscape could be accompanied with pig farm odours and jungle noises. It will be similarly possible to select weather conditions and to change them at will and the inventors have introduced 'real weather': temperature, precipitation, wind strengths are actually experienced in the mode selected; there is a choice of fifty thousand species of wildlife to appear on the landscape screen with a rarity option which will have a delay and camouflage features for the twitcher. Many other features have been hinted at and engineers are now seeking to introduce 'negative factors' which are essential parts of the Anglo-Saxon rural experience - mud, rutted surfaces, ground subsidence, barbed wire obstructions, thorn twigs and, apparently in the pipeline although some more sophisticated system is needed to supply them, work is being done on the runaway horse, canine assault and mess and lost child. With ingenuity, many of these features can be converted to provide simulation of the in-car rural experience familiar to O.A.P.s and courting couples.
As we go to press, an exciting new dimension has been added to the R.E.M. portfolio. The possibility of a domestic, or personal model of the module. This was in the frame from the outset; however priority was given to the communal version with an extensive range of built-in facilities. It was felt that any personalised version, even at the top end of the market, would have diverted the main thrust of research and development away from the extensive version into one containing a core vocabulary with add on options. Such complexity put this on the project back burner.
A sea of change has recently occurred with the European community in particular giving positive signals to funding agencies to move this option into the fast lane; the aims are ambitious, to achieve a one to ten households acquisition by the year 2010. The urgency being exhibited has given rise to rumours of a double or triple use, in order to service environmental protection and pollution control legislation, and confirmation has been obtained that oxygen provision and wheeled bin facilities are likely to be built in. We are entering the age of backyard environmentalism, the planet truly for the people.
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