July 26, 1991.
Dear friends,
Here's what happened in London on the 25th July, the deadline given by
the Malaysian authorities for the tribal people to dismantle their
blockades.
London Rainforest Action Group/Earth First! set out to hit the
Malaysian Tourist Board in Trafalgar Square. We had wanted to climb the
front of the building and suspend ourselves in harnesses. However, this
would have needed some form of pneumatic hoist/cherry picker to get
onto the roof. These cost at least 300 pounds to hire, not to mention
finding someone with a HGV license. Not being Greenpeace, we had to
abandon this idea. Energy levels were very low after the G7 actions and
chasing up attention for coverage of the full issues.
So, we decided to set up the "Alternative" Malaysian Tourist Board
outside. Demonstrators stood outside with "Welcome to Sarawak" posters
with the worst atrocity pictures we could find (not many of them were
Sarawak. Still, all this rainforest stuff looks the same to me!)
At the same time a flat backed truck circled the square with banners
reading "SARAWAK RAINFOREST WORLD TOUR". The previous night night we
had built a plywood rainforest from Meranti ply out of building skips-
complete with a Meranti orangutan and parrot perched on a "Sustainable
Resources" stamp from the back of the plywood. So this went on the back
of the truck, driven by Tim, totally confused by the traffic. I sat on
the back behind a desk with a megaphone and gave the rave which went
something like:
"Sarawak Rainforest is on a world tour- don't go to Sarawak to see the
rainforest, go and see it in your local timber yard, in your council
tip, your front door. See the homes of 40,000 year old tribal cultures
at your local DIY store. Sarawak rainforest is propping up a bar in
Tokyo, in a speaker cabinet in Hamburg, motorway extension in Essex -
it is not in Sarawak- why, because it's emigrating. 13square kilometres
every day is upping roots and emigrating to satisfy our insatiable
greed....etc. make it up...Polly the Parrot knows it's sustainable,
that's why it's all going to be finished in 7 years. "
Ness sat on the back of the truck and handed out bits of Meranti to
passers by saying "have a bit of rainforest".
Anyway, we kept this up for about 20 minutes before the cops pulled
us over and told us to piss off unless we could register at the local 373
police station. In the course of hunting for the cop shop the top of
one of the palm trees fell off and landed in the middle of the Mall
right in front of the Household Cavalry on its way to Buckingham
Palace- so we cleared out fast. The truck idea definitely worked and we
are talking of doing a roving tropical timber rave through London where
we keep moving so we can't be stopped.
As usual the media had no interest at all- no one turned up. This
total lack of media interest is really getting irritating. It makes us
wonder what the fuck we have to do to get coverage. Still, at least we
did something.
Love,
George Marshall,
London Rainforest Action Group.