...and what an intense and open-minding experience it was!
On the way to Madrid, we not only had our RE-PEAT hats on also but we also joined-up with the #railtotheCOP people, who were focused on creating awareness about sustainable travel (it really should have been #bustotheCOP because we didn’t actually take the train…). The journey from Amsterdam was indeed long, but in the end, it turned out to be pretty fun - we had almost an entire flixbus with the amount of people that were travelling together!
“2019 we strike, 2020 we rebel”
Our main aims when we got to Madrid were to take part in the numerous actions that were organised around the city, as well as engage in peatland conversations whenever possible and with whomever available. Once we arrived, one of the things we took part in was the social summit, the Cumbre Social por el Clima, which had been organised by activists from all over Spain and featured contributions from all over the world. This social summit functioned as a kind of parallel grassroots gathering to the big top-down COP25 events (Conference of the Parties, 25). We were even given a space in the program, and had our first official RE-PEAT presentation!
Here is a picture of Bethany in front of the room where we presented…
We also managed to spread around our Zines that we hand-made with a lot of love and a bit of struggle (formatting can seem easier than what it actually is).
Creatures of the BOG!
During the week we were in Madrid, we joined many different workshops and actions, including the big rally on the December 6th organized by Fridays for Future and XR. It was really empowering to be among so many people working towards bringing about positive change in the world
The sign I made for the rally… (not proud of the aesthetic!)
Something that really inspired me was that I got the chance to meet so many people from all over the world that I would never have met otherwise, including some indigenous people from Brazil, Panama, Colombia, and Canada (among others). Hearing their stories and struggles, feeling their zealousness and perspective was extremely powerful.
Bethany managed to get herself a pass to enter the blue zone of the COP25 and went to a peatland session that was hosted by the Indonesian Pavilion and featured a number of experts on the topic. The session was on how science can be brought to policy through South-South and Triangular Cooperation with regard to peatlands. Hans Joosten from the Greifswald Mire Center, Mark Reed from Newcastle University and Diana Kopansky were among those who spoke, and each spoke of the importance of cross-country cooperation, the involvement of many different stakeholders and finding new and innovative ways to find solutions to our peatland problems. We are very excited to get involved in this respect!
