CPRE’s environmental credentials

After my last post I thought I’d go back and scrutinise the list of other Wave participants more closely. One name which I was most surprised to see was the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England.
The reason I was surprised was because  I’d always had the CPRE down as an organisation of tory village folk who get upset when they can’t shoot foxes anymore or when someone puts an ‘ugly’ wind turbine in a field nearby.
In fact I was a little repulsed about marching alongside such people, and my suspicions aren’t unfounded either. There’s plenty of evidence showing reactionary CPRE groups opposing wind farms.

And that’s where my prejudices end, after a little research the CPRE has done some excellent things in the past. To name a few: protecting hedgerows, attempting to reduce litter in rural areas, pushing for rural affordable housing, encouraging brownfield building and protecting green belts.

There’s even a debate between the brilliant George Monbiot and Shaun Spiers (CEO of CPRE) in which Shaun tries to clarify his organisation’s stance towards wind farms. He does well defending himself and since that debate CPRE has campaigned against open-cast mining. But the issue remains that CPRE does oppose wind farms whenever they come up on the grounds that they ‘don’t look nice’. That argument in itself is false because I personally think they look great: they’re tall, majestic structures and if I had my way they would be painted like totem poles.
And again maybe I’m one of a kind because I have a fascination with almost all industrial landscapes which puts me at odds with the CPRE who want to keep the countryside natural. Except they ignore that the countryside must be industrialised in order to protect it.

I went to a Communist Party meeting on thursday and one comrade used the metaphor of a road to illustrate how to distinguish between the good side and bad. He was using it in the context of the Green Party which I thought was horribly unfair because it discredits the whole eco-socialist movement. But the idea is still sound: there comes a point where something crosses the road to the opposite camp. And I draw that line at opposing wind farms.

P.S. The image I used up there was my sprayed stencil of an image which first appeared on the front page of the January 2009 edition of the New Internationalist. I’m very proud of it.