S.A.G.E. Scarborough Against Genetic Engineering c/o 7 Palace Hill, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO11 1NL 01723 - 37 55 33/865 773/355 061 sage@envoy.dircon.co.uk NEWS RELEASE: 27/09/03 For Immediate Release Anti-GM Pilgrimage from Scarborough has begun Today, Martin Haggerty, a member of Scarborough Against Genetic Engineering (SAGE), began his walk from Scarborough to London which he describes as "a pilgrimage to a GM-free Britain". Members of SAGE, holding their familiar bright-yellow cloth banner and placards saying "GM-Free Britain: Now or Never", assembled in the gardens by Scarborough Town Hall to show their support to Martin and to wish him well on his journey. After delivering a short speech, he set off on his walk at 9.15 am, going along Filey Road as far as Cayton Bay, before cutting inland through Folkton and Flixton, then across the Wolds, via Fordon, Wold Newton, Thwing and Kilham, to his first night's stop at Nafferton, to be welcomed there by members of Driffield Against GM Crop Trials. Tomorrow he will walk from there to Hull, and on Monday morning cross the Humber Bridge into Lincolnshire. Martin's journey will take 16 days, as he follows an indirect route through East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, visiting fellow anti-GM campaigners and calling at a variety of meaningful places, such as farms where GM trial crops have been grown and the offices of biotech companies including Monsanto and Bayer Crop Science. At the end of his pilgrimage, he will take part in the Tractors and Trolleys Parade in central London on 13th October, an event organised by Friends of the Earth, the Genetic Engineering Network, GM-Free Cymru and Five Year Freeze. Several other members of SAGE will travel to London to join Martin on the parade. Martin Haggerty (41) has been campaigning against genetic engineering since 1998, the year he moved from London to Scarborough. Formed in February 1999, Scarborough Against Genetic Engineering (SAGE) has enjoyed enormous local support and been sufficiently active to become the best-known anti-GM group in Yorkshire. _____________________________ENDS________________________________ NOTES 1) A copy of Martin Haggerty's farewell speech accompanies this news release. 2) Martin's host for Saturday night is Dr Gwen Egginton: telephone 01377 - 255 362 or email . 3) Updates on Martin's progress may be obtained from Madeleine Parkyn of SAGE: telephone 01723 - 37 55 33 or email . 4) Information about the other anti-GM pilgrims and their shared purpose is available from their co-ordinator, Olaf Bayer: telephone 01865 - 243 095 (Monday-Friday, 10.00-17.00) or 01865 - 240 699 (other times) or email . 5) Further information about the Tractors and Trolleys Parade is available from Friends of the Earth's press office: telephone 020 - 7566 1649 or email . 6) Scarborough Against Genetic Engineering (SAGE) is an independent local grassroots campaign against the use of genetic engineering in food and farming. _________________________________________ Martin Haggerty: Farewell Speech in Scarborough, Saturday 27th September My walk is a personal act of witness in defence of human freedom and the environment; but I am only one of 20 people from different parts of England, Scotland and Wales, on a shared pilgrimage to a GM-free Britain. Even without leaving your home turf, you are participating in this pilgrimage, because whilst we people on the road are demonstrating our own commitment to the anti-GM campaign, we are also trying, by our routes and the people we are meeting along the way, to express and to celebrate the widespread and diverse community of resistance that has grown up across the land. There is no place for genetic engineering in our food or in our countryside. It is an entirely unnecessary technology, with no genuine benefits for ordinary people, yet it threatens unprecedented and serious harm to the environment and possibly risks to human health too. After exhaustive debate of this issue, the British people have rejected genetic engineering, and now we demand that our decision is heeded by the Government, by biotech companies, by farmers, by seed merchants and by food producers and retailers. We demand a GM-free Britain. This is not merely an aim, it is a goal, and I am just one of very many people who are determined to achieve it. Through this pilgrimage, I also wish to champion local distinctiveness and national diversity against the domination of transnational corporations and the homogenisation of our land, our farming, our food and our culture which they would force upon us. I shall carry your greetings to the members of Driffield Against GM Crop Trials who will meet me at Nafferton this evening, and thereafter your greetings and theirs to and from all the anti-GM campaigners along my route through Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, and into London. At the end of my journey, when I and the other green pilgrims, along with a host of other anti-GM campaigners, converge in central London for the Tractors and Trolleys Parade on 13th October, there should be a gathering - a fusion - of our energy and commitment; an experience of our deep collective strength, connecting with the shared resolution yet diverse personalities and experiences of our fellow campaigners across the land. The pilgrimages are only part of this, though perhaps they have a special symbolic value, and I feel privileged that I happen to be the first pilgrim setting off on the journey. I wish to thank my fellow members of SAGE for your enthusiastic encouragement over the past weeks and for coming along this morning to bid me farewell; but most of all, of course, thanks are due to Madeleine for her unstinting support and unfailing patience as I have prepared for this pilgrimage. Farewell.