Alexander Reid Ross_ Biodiversity Versus Biotech
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Transcript of Alexander Reid Ross_ Biodiversity Versus Biotech
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8/3/2019 Alexander Reid Ross_ Biodiversity Versus Biotech
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Biodiversity Versus Biotech
By ALEXANDER REID ROSS
There are many different campaigns to preserve biodiversity here on Earth,and they all seemed to come together when two spunky Florida Atlantic
University alumnus decided to climb a tree and fight for 700 acres of
endangered Florida forest. While the activists remain perched in their tree,
protecting a hand-made, 12x8 banner reading Protect This Forest!, the
Scripps Research Institute undergoes the final stages in the process to gainpermission to slash and burn some of the purest Florida pinelands in South
Florida.
Called the Briger Forest, this rare pine flatwoods ecosystem straddles the
I-95 amidst the gaping sprawl of Miami. In spite of its precarious situation, it
is one of the last habitats of endangered hand fern and gopher tortoise left
in the USA, and the FAU graduates, who are also members of the radical
environmental group, Everglades Earth First!, intend to keep it that way.
Since their campaign got off its feet (and into the trees), the Briger Forest
has come to represent open space, a side of Florida relatively unscathed by
development, versus the selling off of nature, piece by piece, to companies
that wish to control our way of life, our land and our species.
The fight against Scripps has a history down in the muggy, mosquito infested
land of Southern Florida. Three years ago, Scripps tried to clear out orange
grove land to open up a lab in 19,191-acre Mecca Farms, West Palm Beach.With their sights set on a biotech city consisting of 11,000 homes, research
labs and spin-off shopping franchises, Scripps failed to navigate the political
terrain of farmers, locals, and activists, in particular, the scrappy direct
action-oriented Everglades Earth First!, and their biotech city idea was shot
down in court.
In efforts to ameliorate the debt that the State of Florida incurred to Scripps
during the loss, Scripps was allowed to purchase a piece of property
alongside the campus of FAU, where they have since erected the
contemporary Bauhaus-style, concrete-glass-and-brick monstrosity that is
now the largest biotech facility in Florida. Their dream of a Scripps City has
now led them onto new grounds the neighboring Briger Forest, where FAU
and the State of Florida promises to fund their wild exploits out of taxpayer
dollars. There they will be allowed to pursue animal testing on primates as
well as rodents, cats and dogs using government funds and University
assistance.
Recently, the National Institute of Health gave Scripps $3.45 million to
collaborate with Novartis Pharma AG on a project called, National
Cooperative Drug Discovery Group for the Treatment of Mood Disorders or
Nicotine Addiction". In an ironic twist worthy ofA Brave New World, Scripps
boasts on its website that this new research may generate new models of
depression. With its reputation for funding the notorious animal testing lab,
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), the name Novartis indicates that the
network of international animal cruelty is, indeed, sadly spreading.
Extensive research done by rigorous activists has uncovered scientists
working in the area, who have sourced their primates through the infamous
company, Primate Products, whose brutal methods were uncovered in leaked
photos last Summer. Scipps, itself, has been sited by the Food and Drug
Administration for cruel practices used on chimpanzees undergoing testing
for Hepatitis C and the street drug, Ecstasy. Furthermore, their ongoingcollaborative relationship with the notoriously corrupt and paranoid
multinational seed company Monsanto, raises questions about a third party
the possible use of private security firms like Blackwater to investigate
environmental activists. But the reach of Scripps goes far deeper than
biotech alone.
The Scripps family is well connected. H.W. Scripps Company was started by
its namesake with $10,000 way back, about a century ago, and has become
the ninth largest mass-media conglomerate in the US with ties to a myriad
of newspapers as well as television networks and other forms of media. In
2006, news broke that a journalist working for the Scripps Howard Media
Service received $60,000 from Monsanto in exchange for pro-biotech
articles, revealing the depth of informal relationships between the
newspaper conglomerate and animal testing as well as GM products in
ander Reid Ross: Biodiversity Versus Biotech http://www.counterpunch.org/ross0222
06-Mar-11
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8/3/2019 Alexander Reid Ross_ Biodiversity Versus Biotech
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general.
More revealingly, H.W. Scripps owns the Home and Garden cable TV station,
with 85 million subscribers, along with a shop at home network and the Food
Network, while being ensconced in the interests of the largest seed and
pharmaceutical corporations in the world. From the animal testing labs to
Monsanto and Novaris to your television set in one great whirlwind. This is,
of course, not to mention the Scripps family's ties to hospitals and
permanent cosmetics companies. (According to one website, A 'Wellness
Day' will be coming to a Scripps Hospital near you.)
To round out the portrait of monopolization and graft, H.W. Scripps owns a
small conglomerate of at least six newspapers in South East Florida one ofwhich, the Jupiter Courier, is the weekly rag that serves the same city where
all this is taking place: Jupiter, Florida. Suffice it to say, until the treesit
came up, coverage of Scripps had been one dimensional to say the least, but
the reigns of human nature are starting to slip from the grasp of industry.
Risking SLAPP suits and charges under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act,
activists maintained a 56-hour vigil outside of the Scripps Research Institute
with rotating protests in solidarity with the treesit. The combination of
on-the-ground direct action, media work, letter writing, and months of
grassroots organizing has paid off with surprisingly good coverage from local
television stations and newspapers that are not in line with the Scripps
family. Scripps has even dug themselves into a little hole in the eyes of the
public by reneging on their promise to employ locals to staff their lab, so the
campaign is likely to generate support from more diverse sectors of society
than it otherwise would.
Although Scripps employees are up to their necks in Greenwashing, joining
international symposiums on biodiversity while animals from all around the
world are dieing in their labs, the public is becoming increasingly savvy in
avoiding the quagmire of public relations and lies upholding their logic.
Recognizing the urgent need to reclaim urbanizing spaces from miserablist
biopolitics, Everglades Earth First! and other activists are taking a stand
against development by occupying the last bits of wild heritage left through
peaceful methods and holding onto it, quite literally, for dear life.
Alexander Reid Ross writes for the Earth First! Journal
For more information on this subject, visit evergladesearthfirst.org, or email
ander Reid Ross: Biodiversity Versus Biotech http://www.counterpunch.org/ross0222
06-Mar-11