"The fertile lands of Otxantegi cannot remain under the cement, they must have a respiratory zone"
- On 13 April, a powerful programme has been prepared to celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of the Otxantegi Herri Lurra project in Berango. On 18 April, on the contrary, they will be threatened by the second attempt at eviction and invite the public to go and defend the project. We talked to one of them.
You have developed a powerful programme. In the morning, Amaia Pérez Orozco will offer the conference “Degrowth from Ecofeminism”. How does the Otxantegi Herri Lurra project relate to deceleration and how do they link it to ecofeminism?
In preparing the anniversary programming, it was taken into account that it was not merely a celebration, but that we should meet on the anniversary and strengthen the network, but also reflect on political work.
We are going to spend some time in the morning on declining, because we are in a very serious systemic crisis: we have energy problems, inflation, loss of biodiversity, climate emergency… All this is fostered in energy consumption and that energy consumption comes mainly from fossil fuels. Science has clearly said that the only option we have is slowing down, reducing that energy consumption. Amaia Pérez Orozco will be able to explain how to organize ourselves to face this situation: she is an economist and knows the forms of social organization. As society has to be transformed, our goal is to give them some clues to represent these new horizons.
In Uribe Kosta we walk against, a model of blind developmentalism, with a predominance of cement, under construction and construction. At Otxantegi we are clearly seeing this construction business. Policies are in one direction, promoting cement and the construction sector, which is contrary to the slowdown. The question of capital is to enrich a few to the detriment of current and future life. In this systemic crisis, not everyone has the same responsibility, all this developmentalism is to enrich a few.
What we claim is that these fertile soils cannot remain under the cement because they lose their fertility, but must have a respiratory zone. Ecofeminism offers us what kind of things can be done in these fertile lands: how to organize them sustainably, how to relate them...
Why did Otxantegi Herri Lurra launch?
Due to the situation of Uribe Kosta: urban speculation is very large, our region is the loleo of Bilbao. In recent decades, very soon, we have seen before our eyes how we lost our fertile lands and green areas.
Taking as a reference the experience of other projects that have existed in the region to cope with this flood of cement, for example in the Defense of the Land of Berango, we set ourselves in defense of the fertile soils, and to that struggle we added the idea of food sovereignty, starting the community garden.
What is the project today? What does it bring to the people?
It is a community garden which, in addition to defence, offers an alternative: food. It is also a meeting point, we have organised ourselves into working groups.
It offers the people a meeting space in which there have been solsticians, Black Night, workshops, auzolanes to work in the garden and recover the connection with the land, since in the life of most there is no direct contact with the land. We've done the corn cycle twice: sowing, caring, seeing grow, smoothing, smoking, taking it to the mill...
We also organised Bizimartxa to give importance to transport.
Families have approached many times. And it also provides a framework for militancy, it's a place for politicization, and that's important, it needs the popular movement.
In November, you succeeded in stopping the first attempt at eviction. The next eviction date is scheduled for 18 April. What is the point?
We call the emptying attempt for people to come the day. There will be two ways of solidarity: the external encounter is called and within we will also be willing to defend ourselves through the body, because life is at stake.
We have also used the legal route: allegations, have been preparing for the reparcelling of these lands for 20 years and in autumn we resorted to a plan based on the houses they want to build in Otxantegi.
We spoke at the time with the Aguirre Lipperheide family: at first there was a verbal agreement, then they put the complaint and the order of evacuation is a consequence of it.
With the Berango Municipal Government we have often tried mediation, but there are conflicting interests, the City Hall is protecting this terrifying family in the last decades. This road is closed, and when we've tried to do things in the village, we've also been hindered, for example, by not allowing us to put the txosna.
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