According to local organizer Ethan Abbott, Denver's version was among "the seven or eight biggest in the world," with participants marching and gathering at an affiliated festival that celebrated life sans GMOs. Photos and details below.
"It went great," Abbott says about the event. "We had some excellent speakers," including Max Blesch, the son of a Vietnam-era victim of Agent Orange (another Monsanto product), plus a local doctor who discussed the importance of eating healthy food and a representative of Rocky Mountain Bee, who "talked about how Monsanto's chemicals are harming the honeybee population, leading to some of the colony abandonment that's been happening.
"The rally went from 11 a.m. to 1:30, with all of us marching down the 16th Street Mall and coming back up 15th Street," Abbott notes. "And we also had a healthy family festival across the street at Lincoln Park -- booths with people teaching families how to be healthy, people selling non-GMO jellies and tamales, a community gardens booth and a lot more. Of all the 485 locations worldwide, Denver's was the only one that had a festival like that."One person on hand to protest the event estimates the crowd in the low hundreds, but Abbott, a member of the national leadership team for March Against Monsanto, disagrees, estimating the total at 1,500-2,000 over the course of the day. "We were easily one of the top ten worldwide," he maintains. And he's eager to follow up with more related happenings.
"We're going to be doing a festival in December in northern Colorado, at a location we're going to determine soon," he allows, "and another March Against Monsanto on May 24 of next year. It'll be another worldwide protest -- probably in Denver and 400 other locations."
Look below to see Ambrose Cruz's photos of the main march courtesy of the March Against Monsanto Denver Facebook page as shared by Occupy Denver Facebook.
Continue for more photos from Denver's March Against Monsanto on Saturday. Continue for more photos from Denver's March Against Monsanto on Saturday. Continue for more photos from Denver's March Against Monsanto on Saturday.More from The Latest Word archive circa May: "Photos: Monsanto protest at Colorado State Capitol."
