New Times, December 1999
Paul Anderson talks to Friends of the
Earth director Charles Secrett
“Two years ago, hardly anyone had heard of genetically modified
food in this country,” says Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth. “Today,
the controversy is raging throughout the media, the supermarkets are falling
over one another to declare themselves GM-free and the government is under
immense pressure not to allow GM crop cultivation.
“One of the main reasons for this is the work that Friends of the
Earth have put in. Of course, we’re not
alone in campaigning against GM food. But I think it’s fair to say that we’re
the people who have played the biggest part in raising the profile of the
issue.”
It is difficult to disagree with this assessment. The first
stirrings of public interest in GM foods can be traced to the beginning of last
year, when FoE campaigners alerted local newspapers of GM crop trial sites in
their areas. Subsequently, FoE has played a pivotal role both in getting
retailers to stop stocking GM produce and in making life difficult for the
government.
Earlier this year, FoE’s surveys of supermarkets’ policies on GM
food – identifying which chains stocked GM produce and which did not – were
seized upon by the press, and the blaze of publicity had the almost-immediate
effect of forcing previously GM-friendly retailers, notably Sainsbury’s, Tesco
and Marks & Spencer, to cease stocking GM produce. It was FoE that first
kicked up a fuss about the conflict of interest inherent in David Sainsbury’s
position as supermarket magnate and government
minister determining policy on GM crops. It was FoE that drew attention
to US President Bill Clinton putting pressure on Tony Blair in favour of GM
foods. And it was FoE that organised scientists to come out in support of Arpad
Pusztai, the researcher whose work on the effects of feeding GM potatoes to
rats has been a running story for the best part of a year.
“The GM campaign stems from a decision FoE made five years ago to
campaign on food, with the emphasis on appealing to consumers and putting
pressure on retailers and manufacturers,” says Ian Willmore, a former researcher
for environment minister Michael Meacher who is now one of FoE’s two press
officers. “We’ve done well for several reasons. We’ve done good research. We’ve
been able to get newspapers like the Mail
and the Express to take
an interest. And we’ve been able to play off the supermarkets against one
another.
“We’ve also been helped by our opponents. Blair’s appointment of
Jack Cunningham as the minister responsible for persuading the public on GM
foods was disastrous. And the big biotech companies have been incredibly
incompetent in getting their message across.”
Founded in 1969 in the United States and in 1971 in the United
Kingdom, FoE now has sections in 58 different countries, with an international
headquarters in Amsterdam. The section covering England, Wales and Northern
Ireland (FoE Scotland has been independent for five years) is one of the
biggest, with a total of 160,000 supporters, 90,000 of them regular financial
contributors, and 240 local groups. FoE EWNI had a turnover of about £5 million
last year, nearly all of it raised from individual donors. It now employs 100
staff, 80 of them in its London headquarters and the rest in regional offices.
The local groups and regional offices mean that FoE EWNI is able
to campaign effectively at constituency and local authority level as well as
nationally. This year, for example, local groups, supported by the regional
offices, have made a priority of pressing MPs – particularly Labour MPs – to
ask the government to include a Wildlife Bill in its legislative programme.
But it is on its national campaigning that FoE concentrates most
of its resources. The hub of its operation is its campaigns department, which
is divided into five teams dealing with different subject areas, along with a
parliamentary unit, a legal unit and a research unit.
The GM foods campaign is the responsibility of the food and
biotechnology team. Other teams cover a multitude of other campaigns on issues
as diverse as urban traffic reduction and global warming.
Insiders say that the sheer scope of FoE’s interests and internal
competition among campaigns for profile and resources sometimes makes it
difficult for the organisation to decide its priorities -though things are a
lot better now than they used to be. As director since 1994, Secrett has made a
priority of streamlining the way FoE works – most importantly by setting up a
communications department to coordinate media relations.
Secrett has also given FoE a much harder political edge than
before. Long before the 1997 general election, he made it clear that he would
pull no punches in criticising new Labour whenever it deserved it, and since
Tony Blair came to power FoE has been a constant thorn in new Labour’s side
-particularly on GM food, but also on nuclear power and transport policy.
It is plain to see that the government is irritated. During the
summer, Blair complained of the “tyranny of pressure groups like Friends of the
Earth” after it embarrassed the government for the umpteenth time on GM foods.
And last month, John Prescott, whose giant Department of Environment, Transport
and the Regions has been taken to task several times by FoE, lashed out at FoE
during a meeting of the Green Alliance, the umbrella organisation of
environmental pressure groups. “It is your right to criticise but some of you
should think about whether the way you do it helps achieve the environmental
change you want or hampers it,” he warned.
Prescott took particular exception to FoE’s scepticism about the
government’s actions on rural transport. “When we announced extra £150 million
for rural public transport, Friends of the Earth said it was not worth a wheel
nut on a bus,” he railed. “In fact is has provided 1,800 new services.”
Secrett is unrepentant about FoE’s stance. “Our impressive
campaign track record speaks for itself,” he says. “We’ll not sacrifice our
independence or effectiveness for anyone.
“Governments have to learn to live with informed criticism. Our
campaigns are based on facts and supported by the evidence. We praise ministers
when they deliver what they promise and what needs to be done. It’s bad news
for democracy when the most senior figures in government react this sensitively
and inappropriately.”
