Yesterday I acted as legal support for a bunch of Greenpeace active supporters from around the country who came together, along with some Greenpeace climbers, to take our message to Nestle at their HQ in sunny Croydon to stop using palm oil bought from a horrible company called Sinar Mas. Sinar Mas get their palm oil by destroying the rainforest and then planting palm tree plantations in its place.
So we took some orang utan suits and had orang utan acting lessons from Bob the night before and then the next morning the activists (legal support are not around for all this - how can we get them out of jail if we are also in jail?) walked the short distance from their base to the Nestle building. What an amazing mix of people - dreadlocked young people and silver haired older people, respectable looking people and hippies - the range was amazing and shows the wide base of people across the country who are prepared to get out there and bear witness to the planets destruction.
There were orang utans in a "corridor of anticipation" from East Croydon train station to the Nestle building, subverted street adverts and two huge billboards next to the station (see the picture) were also subverted with adverts saying "give us a break" with a blood red picture of an orang utans face and the logo of Kit Kat subverted to say Killer. The climbers hung a banner off the front of the building, orang utans went into the building to put more subvertising in the glass front of the building and there were orang utans riding the trams of Croydon during the morning. As we wandered round Croydon it made us feel very proud to be part of this action and Greenpeace.
The message was to the employees of Nestle. Do you know what your company is involved in? What was sad though was how few people noticed the adverts. Are you all blind? No wonder so much environmental destruction goes on unnoticed if people don't even notice a blood red billboard that is right in their face. As someone said. Saving the planet is not a spectator sport.
Nestle got very angry very quickly and one woman executive in the foyer was literally screaming "get them out of the building". The police however were very laid back and a lot of the credit for this must go to Luke the actions coordinator who managed to convince them to reduce the number of policemen and women from 15 down to 5 by the end of the action.
We were expecting arrests - for the people who did the billboards and of course the climbers, but some nifty negotiations by Luke and the laid back attitude of the police meant that no arrests were made. As legal we are not supposed to go anywhere near the action but once Luke had told us the no arrests agreement we did wander down and have a look but by then it was almost over and the climbers were taking down their banner with the police taking details of the climbers inside the Nestle building rather than taking them across the road to the police station. I think they did this to keep Nestle happy who by this time were demanding that the climbers be nailed to the walls and threatening them that if they ever came near the building again they would be instantly arrested. So they weren't happy then.
Luke however was very happy. He was happy with the result - Nestle really got the message, happy with the lack of arrests (thank you Croydon police and belated happy St Patrick's day to the Irish policeman), happy with having such a committed bunch of active supporters from the local groups and happy that all his months of planning and worrying were all over with a successful action that was mirrored in other countries around the world - oh I forgot to mention that actions also took place in other countries. Comments from the police - "I'll never eat anothe Kit Kat" and "those billboards by the station - genius". Genius indeed.
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