Protesters seize site of Wales’ first Climate Camp

12.8.2009
At 7.30am this morn­ing, around 60 pro­test­ers set up the site of Wales’ first Cli­mate Camp on the edge of Merthyr Tyd­fil, next to the con­tro­ver­sial Ffos-y-Fran open­cast coal mine.

The Camp, which runs until 16 August, aims to high­light the hypocrisy in gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of claim­ing to act on cli­mate change while expand­ing coal min­ing. Coal is the most car­bon-inten­sive fuel, and campers argue it should be left in the ground to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.

Campers also aim to build a strong grass­roots move­ment against the caus­es of cli­mate change in Wales. They are invit­ing any­one con­cerned about cli­mate change to come for sev­er­al days of fam­i­ly-friend­ly dis­cus­sions, work­shops and sus­tain­able liv­ing.

The protest site is only 36 metres away from the edge of the mine – the same dis­tance as sev­er­al homes. This prox­im­i­ty is despite con­tin­u­ing local oppo­si­tion to the noise, dust and fumes from the 1,000 acre site. A report fund­ed by the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment in June 2007 [1] expressed con­cern about the health effects of air pol­lu­tion and dust par­ti­cles.

Local cam­paign groups such as Res­i­dents Against Ffos-y-Fran (RAFF) have long been ignored by plan­ners and gov­ern­ment.

Camper Jill Lloyd said: “We need work that does not destroy lives or trash the plan­et, and we urgent­ly need green-col­lar jobs for Merthyr. Wales could soon be self-suf­fi­cient in clean ener­gy but if we keep min­ing fos­sil fuels such as coal, we will cause death and hard­ship for mil­lions of peo­ple around the world. To stop dev­as­tat­ing cli­mate change we must leave coal in the ground.”

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[1] The 2007 Health Impact Report can be found at http://www.stopffosyfran.co.uk/files/Final%20report%20June%2007.pdf

A map to the site is avail­able at www.climatecampcymru.org