IT TOOK centuries for the notion of terra nullius (empty lands) to
disappear from the colonial imagination. “Empty”, to colonists, meant “no
Europeans here yet”. Shockingly, the idea is back in a big way.

In Biopiracy, Vandana Shiva argues the intellectual property rights
established under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade are the secular
version of the papal blessings showered on Columbus before he set out. As Shiva
sees it, we are entering an era every bit as far-reaching and destructive as
physical colonisation. The new conquistadors hold similarly racist attitudes,
ignoring ways of life that don’t fit into their view of the world. Until an
organism can be bought, sold or otherwise exploited in the Western way, it is
deemed to have no value.

Vagaries of the patenting system allow a plant to be “colonised” even if it
has a history of community use. Shiva cites the case of the neem tree. The
generations who refined the growing and use of neem are invisible to the patent
authorities. They recognise only the reductionist tinkerings of multinationals
exploiting the tree’s antibacterial and biopesticidal properties.

Shiva raises a cry for resistance. She argues patenting will lead to the
homogeneity of life. Resisting biopiracy is a struggle to conserve cultural and
biological diversity. Diversity can be maintained by implementing collective
intellectual property rights, a system based upon “biodemocracy”.

At the moment, this conflict is taking strange forms. Sheep have been left
like unwanted kittens at the doors of animal shelters—pawns in the
increasingly fierce debate about animals in intensive farming. Meanwhile,
supermarket chains swallow ever more land round towns, forcing local shops to
close.

The Town and Country Forum meetings, which began in 1995, have been a focus
for some of the most eloquent voices in the countryside conflicts. Now these
views have been gathered into Town and Country (edited by Anthony
Barnett and philosopher Roger Scruton, Jonathan Cape, ÂŁ10, ISBN
0224052500). Some of the contributors seek to justify more capital-intensive,
socially divisive intervention, but Robin Page and George Monbiot, in
particular, propose solutions both realistic and socially just.

Town and Country lays bare the causes of dislocation. While many of
the big landowners contest “right to roam” legislation, they simultaneously
extract massive subsidies from the taxpayer to perpetuate
agribusiness, which swiftly erodes the social and ecological diversity of the
countryside. Page sees this as crucial, calling for an effort to put the
“culture” back into agriculture.

This important book is enraging and enlightening. While divided by their
views, the polemicists unite in demanding that something more lasting than a
rally is needed to redress the balance between town and country.

While the basic section on how to organise a campaign is valuable, the more
detailed chapters are going to be the most useful. Sections on European law, the
finer points of pollution regulation and how to take your own complaint to
court, nestle comfortably with information for those who find themselves on the
receiving end of the law: a guide to what arrested protesters might face. This
in itself is rather alarming as it highlights the dramatic erosion, in recent
years, of the right to protest.

The power of the book comes in a large part from the status of the writers.
It is not a book written by activists who have mugged up on the law, it is a
book written by some of the most experienced lawyers in the country. And it is
no impenetrable legal tome—it is vital tool. For anyone planning to take
on corporate Goliaths, this is as close to a sling and stone as you will get.
And as a friend who works for a leading environmental pressure group exclaimed
on seeing a copy of Environmental Action, “I wish I had been given this
book when I started work at Friends of the Earth.”

They have been fighting hard to prevent any serious action being taken at
Kyoto. Using their immense financial muscle, they are working to undermine the
successes of the environmental movement. By coopting a handful of dissident
scientists, these corporations and their front groups create the impression that
the apparently hardening certainties of global climate change are foundering in
a sea of unknowns—despite the consensus among the 2500 climate scientists
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In her excellent Global Spin (Green Books, ÂŁ10.95, ISBN
1870098676), Sharon Beder traces the rise of this backlash: the funding of
think-tanks, the promotion of the “Wise Use” Movement and the creation of an
artificial grass-roots movement sometimes dubbed “astro turf”. But perhaps the
most insidious technique outlined in Global Spin is the use of the law
against individuals who voice their concerns. While more than 90 per cent of
those sued are vindicated, the Strategic lawsuits against public participation,
SLAPPs, are an effective way to remove individuals and groups from a
campaign.

Much of Beder’s book paints a gloomy picture for the green community. But
there is cheer to be found. Frank Mankiewicz, head of one of the world’s largest
PR firms, is quoted: “The big corporations, our clients, are scared shitless of
the environmental movement.” Maybe Kyoto will see the David of green concern get
one over on the Goliath of the corporate lobby.

The trail of destruction is so calamitous that Harvey, the agricultural story
editor of BBC Radio 4’s soap opera, The Archers, has launched a
no-holds barred attack on subsidies, surprising in its vehemence. It is not a
random rant, but is based on well-documented research.

Eroded soil, polluted rivers, ripped-up hedges —all contribute to the
new silence in the countryside, as biodiversity is discarded for short-term,
subsidy-driven profit. And it isn’t free. Not only does the consumer pay the
ÂŁ10 billion in taxes that makes the ravage possible, but we also have our
food transmuted from the recognisable into the contaminated and processed.

This farcical, and awful, situation is not treated with unrelieved gloom.
Harvey argues strongly for a solution, namely the immediate cessation of
subsidies—it worked in New Zealand, why not in Britain?—and a return
to a less intensive form of agriculture.

One of the results of the intensification of agriculture has been the
dislocation of human communities. The rise of the industrial farm has driven out
the family farm. And the rest of us are only allowed access to a pathetic
remainder.

These issues are discussed in another perceptive analysis of the countryside,
Low Impact Development by Simon Fairlie (Jon Carpenter, ÂŁ10, ISBN
1 897766 25 4). Although both books paint a bleak picture of the present, they
also provide us with a mechanism for change. We can challenge the status quo.
And as Harvey and Fairlie insist, it is our duty to do so.