(please forward widely)
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GREENWASHING THE FTAA? - GRASSROOTS RESISTANCE TO CORPORATE 'ENVIRONMENTALISM'
**A Conference Presented by the Solidarity Network to Stop the FTAA (SNSF)**
Date: Evening, March 19, 2003
Location: McGill University, Leacock 26
Time: 6:30pm
Price: FREE TO ALL (any donations to defray expenses are appreciated)
The Solidarity Network to Stop the FTAA (SNSF) will be holding a conference entitled "Greenwashing the FTAA? - Grassroots Resistance to Corporate 'Environmentalism'" which will take place on the evening of Wednesday, March 19, 2003. "Greenwashing the FTAA?" will offer a corporate-free, people-powered forum to examine the environmental impacts of free trade from a grassroots level, to look at the problem of environmentalist agenda co-optation, and to explore avenues of resistance. The SNSF is a coalition of anti-FTAA activists mainly from the Montreal area.
The conference is being mounted in response to another conference happening in Montreal on March 17-18 entitled "Greening the FTAA?" (website: http://www.law.mcgill.ca/elmftaaconference/). The goal of that conference is, in the words of Environmental Law McGill (ELM) organizers: "to foster debate among all perspectives" - and the SNSF does not deny that valid efforts have been made to include critical voices. However trade and environment issues have become increasingly dominated by a corporate-friendly sustainable development (SD) agenda and the 'Greening' conference reflects this unfortunate reality. The SNSF conference seeks to counter this trend. The SNSF wishes to restore emphasis on the basic principle that environmental issues must be resolved by the people whose livelihoods are most affected - not by corporate and institutional elites who hold increasing sway within the SD agenda.
Optimally, we are hoping that those who have the wherewithal and the time will attend both conferences. Time permitting, a segment of the SNSF event will be devoted to an open discussion of different views regarding conference process and biases based on people's experiences.
Scheduled to speak at the SNSF Conference are:
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For further information on the SNSF "Greenwashing the FTAA?" conference, please contact:
Eric Squire
Organizer with the Solidarity Network to Stop the FTAA (SNSF - http://www.snsf-rscz.com)
ftaa-alert@angelfire.com
(450) 437-5044