Environmental for Food Justice

GMO Myths and half-truths HEALTH RISKS ARE A MATTER OF UNCERTAINTY AND ONGOING SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY Devon G. Peña | Seattle, WA | October 15, 2013 My simple rule for food safety is: If you are unsure then don’t eat it. The logic behind this rule is sometimes called the “Precautionary Principle” – I will call it P 2 – and its intent is to place due value on the protection of public health and the environment. This ethical standard that has been widely adopted by many scientists , and public health agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including many who are concerned with the uncertainty surrounding the study of the risks of GMO foods. The question is: Are we as a society willing to commit to the side of safety until the scientific uncertainties about GMO food safety are resolved? The question is: Are we as a society willing to commit to the side of safety until the scientific uncertainties about GMO food safety are resolved? Or, will we risk sacrificing our health and that...

Romanian agro-pastoral community reclaims common lands THE RECOMMONIZATION OF PROPERTY IN EUROPE Devon G. Peña | Seattle, WA | October 20, 2013 As a co-inhabitant of the 80,000-acre common lands of the Sangre de Cristo land grant ( merced) in Colorado, I am directly and acutely aware of the importance that place-based cultures hold for the protection of closed access to ancestral landscapes. Tragically, many of these ancestral common lands have been lost due to forcible conversion to the public domain or the incessant enclosures of private property and capitalist mal development. There are thousands of place-based cultural heritage landscapes around the planet and in nearly every case a growing social movement seeking to restore the enclosed common[s]. These campaigns have predominantly been grounded in the struggles of indigenous peoples in the Americas, Africa, Australia, and Asia, and the European common property tradition has largely been eclipsed by privatization and the ecologic...