Author: earthfirst

Take the Flour Back — a mass action against Genetically Modified wheat

Take the flour back!
Sunday 27th May 2012

Public day of action against the Rothamsted genetically modified wheat trial.

 

Take the flour back!
Sunday 27th May 2012

Public day of action against the Rothamsted genetically modified wheat trial.

 

Bak­ers, farm­ers, grow­ers, allot­ment hold­ers, sci­en­tists, bee­keep­ers, and peo­ple who eat food are turn­ing out to voice their oppo­si­tion to GM crops com­ing back to the UK.
Meet Sun­day 27th May, at 12 noon, in Rotham­st­ed, Harp­en­den, Herts. Or take your own action in your own way, at your own time. Togeth­er we can stop this tri­al.

Cow genes on toast anyone? No thanks!

What’s up with the tri­al?

It could be dangerous

This tri­al is test­ing a brand-new syn­thet­i­cal­ly-con­struct­ed ‘fake’ gene that is ‘most sim­i­lar to one found in a cow’. This is the first use of syn­thet­ic genes in the UK, and a con­cern­ing use of ani­mal genes in plants.

It’s not wanted

Even Amer­i­ca has aban­doned attempts to com­mer­cialise GM wheat because there is no mar­ket for it. Biotech com­pa­ny BASF recent­ly backed out of Europe because no-one want­ed to buy GM food.

Once it flowers, it’s here to stay

The tri­al is hap­pen­ing in the open air, mean­ing that when it starts to flower it can cross con­t­a­m­i­nate oth­er wheat crops and wild grass­es. This is a real threat. In Cana­da there is no organ­ic oilseed rape left because all the farms have been cross-con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with GM rape.

Reclaim the Fields Spring Gathering 2012 — details & updates

@ The Wilder­ness Cen­tre, Mitcheldean, For­est of Dean, Glouces­ter­shire, GL17 0HA

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

Pre-Gath­er­ing Help need­ed:

@ The Wilder­ness Cen­tre, Mitcheldean, For­est of Dean, Glouces­ter­shire, GL17 0HA

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

Pre-Gath­er­ing Help need­ed:

Any­one inter­est­ed in help­ing out with the running/ set­ting up of the event, should come to the Wilder­ness asap. If you’re inter­est­ed in giv­ing a talk, or demon­strat­ing a skill — get in con­tact, or just show up and arrange to use one of the “spaces” avail­able with one of the Pro­tect The Wilder­ness Crew.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes:

Thurs­day 8th:

*Intro­duc­tion to Reclaim the Fields — where we’ve come from and recent action, includ­ing feed­back from the Euro­pean Gath­er­ing.
* Wilder­ness Cen­tre intro­duc­tion & house­keep­ing
*Open Intro­duc­tions; intro­duce your self & your projects & con­tin­ue net­work­ing with our notice­board

The remain­der of the day is designed around open spaces, giv­ing peo­ple a chance to work & com­mu­ni­cate around these sug­ges­tions so far:

*WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
*Seed Sov­er­eign­ty & grow­er-to-grow­er seed dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works
*Car­rots ses­sion e.g. RTF inter­nal structure/sharing work­loads
*Using the food sov­er­eign­ty prin­ci­ples as a strate­gic frame­work — (in a UK con­text)
*How to organ­ise & main­tain effec­tive land occu­pa­tions
*Com­post­ing gen­der
*Plan­ning for Inter­na­tion­al Peas­ants Day of Strug­gle on April 17th
*Legal options for access­ing land
*Pro­tect­ing bee pop­u­la­tions

Fri­day 9th:

*Ses­sion on gen­er­al Reclaim the Fields strat­e­gy and focus­es for 2012
Work­shops and talks:
*An intro­duc­tion to land rights
*His­to­ry of Land rights strug­gles in the For­est of Dean

Fol­lowed by a con­sen­sus based gueril­la gar­den­ing action… remains open to sug­ges­tions!
(ideas so far…)
*Food for­est, in an aban­doned quar­ry
*Care home for the elder­ly
* Clear-felled Forestry land
* Vic­to­ri­an walled gar­den

Sat­ur­day 10th:

Pro­tect The Wilder­ness open skill-share day!
Seed swap, Com­mu­ni­ty bring and share.
Gar­den­ing the organ­ic com­mu­ni­ty gar­den, and walled gar­den.
Music and feast­ing!

Not for­get­ting gar­den­ing, char­coal burn­ing, bak­ing in the cob oven, seed­bomb mak­ing, cob­bing the round-house, and chop­ping wood through-out!

£5 sug­gest­ed dona­tion per day, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Items to bring:
Warm clothes, two sets (if you mind being mud­dy)
bed­ding, camp­ing mats
tools for g‑gardening [spades, forks, mat­tocks, bill­hooks]
Instru­ments, danc­ing shoes,
seeds for seed­bombs,
home-grown veg, pick­les, jams, whole foods

More info about the Wilder­ness Cen­tre: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064
Who to con­tact for more infor­ma­tion: use the RTF UK email list or email frankynecklace@yahoo.co.uk

Gourds work be done,

Pro­tect The Wilder­ness,
Reclaim the Fields!

Russian Green Resistance strikes against deforestation

24.02.2012 – The group of rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ists “Green Resis­tance” has burned down a bull­doz­er involved in defor­esta­tion in Podol­sk dis­trict of Moscow region. In their com­mu­niqué com­rades call every­body who cares about nature to join their activ­i­ty of pro-nature direct action and sab­o­tage.

24.02.2012 – The group of rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ists “Green Resis­tance” has burned down a bull­doz­er involved in defor­esta­tion in Podol­sk dis­trict of Moscow region. In their com­mu­niqué com­rades call every­body who cares about nature to join their activ­i­ty of pro-nature direct action and sab­o­tage.

Sizewell Camp 2012

Skill Share, Net­work­ing and Protest
Pow­er for the Peo­ple — Not Prof­its for the Few

Fri­day 20th (from 6pm) – Sun­day 22nd April

Skill Share, Net­work­ing and Protest
Pow­er for the Peo­ple — Not Prof­its for the Few

Fri­day 20th (from 6pm) – Sun­day 22nd April

Spend a sun­ny week­end camp­ing on the beach at Sizewell and learn­ing about the wor­ry­ing plans for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion at the site. Come and show your oppo­si­tion to nuclear pow­er and your sup­port for alter­na­tive, sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tions. The week­end includes a protest at the nuclear pow­er sta­tion entrance, work­shops and skill shares, wood­land and beach walks, deli­cious veg­an grub, and net­work­ing. Now is the time to take action against nuclear new build – come join us to say ‘Nuclear Pow­er? –
No Thanks!’

The Camp — Fri­day 20th — Sun­day 22nd April 2012

Demon­stra­tion, Sat­ur­day 21st April, 12noon, at the entrance to Sizewell A and B
A demon­stra­tion out­side the gates of Sizewell, oppos­ing nuclear pow­er and nuclear new build, and sup­port­ing sus­tain­able alter­na­tives.

Work­shops and Walks
Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, at the Camp

A num­ber of work­shops have been pro­posed, includ­ing: ‘Nuclear Pow­er — A Ratio­nal Response to Cli­mate Change and Ener­gy Secu­ri­ty?’, ‘Nuclear Physics for Begin­ners’, ‘Extreme Ener­gy — Scrap­ing the Bot­tom of the Bar­rel’, ‘Alter­na­tive Ener­gy’, as well as guid­ed walks along the beach and into the woods EdF intends to destroy.

Cher­nobyl Remem­brance
Sun­day 22nd, 1pm at the Camp

Please let us know (con­tact details below) if you are think­ing of com­ing, so we have an idea of num­bers for cater­ing, etc.

Peo­ple are also need­ed to help with camp set up on Fri­day, and ‘tat down’ — tak­ing down the camp — on Mon­day morn­ing, so please let us know if you are able to help out with either of those.

Email: camp [at] sizewellcamp.org.uk
Web: http://sizewellcamp.org.uk
Phone: 07894467356

Earth First! makes a mess of SITLA tar sands plans in Utah

Yes­ter­day, Feb­ru­ary 20, the Earth First! 2012 Orga­niz­ers Con­fer­ence & Win­ter Ren­dezvous cul­mi­nat­ed in a row­dy demon­stra­tion out­side the School and Insti­tu­tion­al Trust Lands Admin­is­tra­tion (SITLA) offices in down­town Salt Lake City. Earth First! activists staged their protest with local orga­niz­ers from Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance and Canyon Coun­try Ris­ing Tide.

Yes­ter­day, Feb­ru­ary 20, the Earth First! 2012 Orga­niz­ers Con­fer­ence & Win­ter Ren­dezvous cul­mi­nat­ed in a row­dy demon­stra­tion out­side the School and Insti­tu­tion­al Trust Lands Admin­is­tra­tion (SITLA) offices in down­town Salt Lake City. Earth First! activists staged their protest with local orga­niz­ers from Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance and Canyon Coun­try Ris­ing Tide. The offices were closed for Pres­i­dents’ Day, but a clear (and messy) mes­sage was left at the doorstep—a mock oil spill accom­pa­nied by a mur­al read­ing “Hey SITLA: Tar Sands Out­ta Utah!” 

The project would lease school trust lands for tar sands extrac­tion in the Book Cliffs area, direct­ly impact­ing PR Springs, a site which is also uti­lized for camp­ing and recre­ation.

“Destruc­tion of edu­ca­tion trust lands through tar sands min­ing is con­trary to the man­date of this agency, which requires them to main­tain the land for the long term,” said Mark Pur­dy of Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance.

An arti­cle in the Desert News stat­ed: “The pro­posed min­ing oper­a­tion would occu­py a 213-acre site in the East Tava­putts Plateau strad­dling the bor­ders of Uin­tah and Grand coun­ties.  An ore pro­cess­ing facil­i­ty would accom­mo­date up to 3,500 tons of ore per day in the pro­duc­tion of bitu­men. The extrac­tion process would require 1.5 bar­rels to 2 bar­rels of water per bar­rel of bitu­men pro­duced… The com­pa­ny will have to post a recla­ma­tion bond of near­ly $1.7 mil­lion before any work is allowed to begin at the site.

Anoth­er com­pa­ny, MCW Ener­gy, is propos­ing a pilot project to test its pro­pri­etary sol­vent in the extrac­tion of bitu­men on 1,000 stock­piled tons of tar sands 3 miles west of Ver­nal in Uin­tah Coun­ty.

Oppo­nents have appealed per­mits issued relat­ed to the PR Springs project, with hear­ings set for next month.”

“oil spill” at SIT­LA’s doorstep (non-tox­ic, maybe even edi­ble…)

Utah was cho­sen specif­i­cal­ly as the site of the annu­al Earth First! win­ter gath­er­ing to high­light resis­tance to these tar sands pro­pos­al, as well as lend sup­port to the coura­geous actions of peo­ple like Tim DeChristo­pher who was sen­tenced to a two-years in prison for his effec­tive sab­o­tage of an oil and gas auc­tion on Utah’s pub­lic lands. 

Along with DeChristo­pher, two oth­er eco­log­i­cal and ani­mal lib­er­a­tion activists from Utah, Jor­dan Hal­l­i­day and Wal­ter Bond, are also cur­rent­ly fac­ing time behind bars for their involve­ment with direct action efforts in the state. Con­tacts for these and oth­er eco-pris­on­ers can be found at the Earth First! Journal’s pris­on­er sup­port page.

In relat­ed news, an anony­mous com­mu­nique enti­tled Eco-Sab­o­tage Ends Tar Sand Extrac­tion was also received the pre­vi­ous night, appar­ent­ly sent back from the future, stat­ing: “…The Book Cliffs, where Spot­ted Owls screech and Elk reign, were under attack… Eco-War­riors worked under the ris­ing sun. We have Molo­toved their min­ing equip­ment. We have Mon­key-Wrenched their machines. We have sawed their bull­doz­ers to pieces. There are no longer any func­tion­al drilling tools in the Book Cliffs.

A major blow has been dealt to the oil extrac­tion infra­struc­ture. The PR Springs Mine Project is at its knees. Take Warn­ing. Oil will nev­er be piped through the West. Utah will nev­er be mined. The mines of Alber­ta will cease.

Image from the futur­is­tic com­mu­nique dis­trib­uted at the protest

No longer will our wild places fuel this mil­i­ta­rized cul­ture. Your machines are bound to rust. Tar Sand Extrac­tion Prof­i­teers, SITLA, CEO’s Glen D. Snar and Mr. Cuth­bert; We are com­ing for you. This is just the begin­ning…”

The min­ing equip­ment is not actu­al­ly present on-site yet, just in case that was unclear.

National anti-Fracking Gathering

Sat­ur­day 17th March,

Sat­ur­day 17th March,
Methodist Cen­tral Hall, Old­ham Street, Man­ches­ter.  Map and Direc­tions here.
Organ­ised by Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change with REAF, The Vale Says No, Frack Off and No Frack­ing in Sus­sex.

11.00 am to 6.00 pm
Come and meet peo­ple from groups all around the coun­try (and beyond) cam­paign­ing against ‘hydraulic frac­tur­ing’ or “fracking”.(find out more about frack­ing here)
The event will include:
Open­ing ple­nary includ­ing pre­sen­taion from the Tyn­dal Cen­tre, speak­er from ‘Frack Off’ and oth­er speak­ers tba (watch this space)

Region­al report ses­sion from local anti-frack­ing cam­paign groups all around the coun­try.
2 Ses­sions of work­shops on all you need to know about frack­ing, tar­get­ed advice on how to run a local cam­paign, anti-frack­ing Direct action .…and more (watch this space for more details about spe­cif­ic work­shops…)
Dis­cus­sion on what we can do to form a broad-based Nation­al anti-frack­ing Coali­tion or umbrel­la group (with the local grass-roots res­i­dents groups at its core)

Extra time for the meet­ing to take things for­ward as it sees fit.….
Lets get togeth­er to stop frack­ing in the UK NOW, before it gets a hold and becomes unstop­pable!
 Put  the 17th March in your diary now !
www.campaigncc.org/nationalantifrackingmeeting

Longest Tree Sit in Tasmanian History Stays Strong

19.2.12

TODAY marks the begin­ning of a glob­al 24 hours of action in sup­port of Miran­da Gib­son, who has now bro­ken the Tas­man­ian record for the longest time spent at the top of a tree.

19.2.12

TODAY marks the begin­ning of a glob­al 24 hours of action in sup­port of Miran­da Gib­son, who has now bro­ken the Tas­man­ian record for the longest time spent at the top of a tree.

Miran­da has been on a plat­form 60m above the ground for 52 days and will remain there to high­light the ongo­ing destruc­tion of Tasmania’s forests.

Her tree sit, known as The Observ­er Tree, has received inter­na­tion­al atten­tion over the past 52 days as she uses solar pow­er and inter­net access to bring Tasmania’s spec­tac­u­lar forests into people’s homes all around the world.

The Observ­er Tree is call­ing on the Japan­ese cus­tomers of log­ging cor­po­ra­tion Ta Ann to cease pur­chas­ing wood com­ing from Tasmania’s high con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests.

Yes­ter­day the Bellin­gen Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre ini­ti­at­ed a ral­ly in sup­port of Miran­da and also to raise aware­ness about the loss of habi­tat local­ly.

BEC spokes­woman Car­o­line Joseph said Bellin­gen Shire res­i­dents were increas­ing­ly wor­ried about their own forests.

“The inten­si­ty of log­ging has increased local­ly as Forests NSW tries to keep up with its quo­tas,” Mrs Joseph said.

“Peo­ple can see that increase and are feel­ing con­cerned about this dra­mat­ic loss of habi­tat, espe­cial­ly for koalas.”

She said anoth­er habi­tat threat was to tracts of land zoned for devel­op­ment under old leg­is­la­tion.

“This land is not cov­ered by new­er envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion laws and is high­ly desir­able to devel­op­ers.”

Lebanese Activists Sit-in to Protest Environmental Destruction

19.2.12

Tripoli res­i­dents orga­nized a sit-in Wednes­day to protest against the recent felling of sev­er­al trees in the city and to demand answers on who was ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble for the deci­sion.

19.2.12

Tripoli res­i­dents orga­nized a sit-in Wednes­day to protest against the recent felling of sev­er­al trees in the city and to demand answers on who was ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble for the deci­sion.

Inhab­i­tants of the north­ern city’s Al-Mina sub­urb held Wednesday’s sit-in on the city’s main boule­vard. Pro­test­ers slammed the recent move, and also urged rel­e­vant author­i­ties to under­take the nec­es­sary actions to pre­vent sim­i­lar inci­dents from hap­pen­ing again in the future.

How­ev­er, the may­or of Al-Mina, Moham­mad Issa, said the trees had been felled fol­low­ing a peti­tion from oth­er res­i­dents, who had demand­ed the trees be cut down after an inci­dent two years ago in which a palm tree fell on a car and result­ed in the death of a young woman.

In com­pli­ance with the resident’s peti­tion, Issa said that 14 trees, none of which were old­er than 15 years, were cut down. The may­or also expressed his will­ing­ness to plant new trees to replace those which were cut down.

Res­i­dents described the felling of old trees as an envi­ron­men­tal mas­sacre. “Trees do not harm any­one; we need to pre­serve the green spaces in light of the grow­ing usage of con­crete,” said Zaki al-Zay­laa, an envi­ron­men­tal activist.

Zay­laa added that cut­ting down such trees was irre­spon­si­ble and ques­tioned who had the author­i­ty to decide when trees can be cut down as such. Zay­laa, a mem­ber of an envi­ron­men­tal com­mit­tee affil­i­at­ed to the munic­i­pal coun­cil, denied the com­mit­tee had any role in cut­ting down the trees.

Anti-Development Protest Gets Heated in Armenia

17 Feb­ru­ary 2012

Police used force on Fri­day against more than a dozen envi­ron­men­tal activists who were camped in a pub­lic park in down­town Yere­van to protest against the con­struc­tion of sev­er­al shops there.

17 Feb­ru­ary 2012

Police used force on Fri­day against more than a dozen envi­ron­men­tal activists who were camped in a pub­lic park in down­town Yere­van to protest against the con­struc­tion of sev­er­al shops there.

The Yere­van munic­i­pal­i­ty autho­rized the con­struc­tion after order­ing the shop own­ers to relo­cate their busi­ness­es from large kiosks that stood on a major street in the city cen­ter until last month. They were dis­man­tled along with hun­dreds of side­walk kiosks across the Armen­ian cap­i­tal.

Envi­ron­ment pro­tec­tion and oth­er civic groups con­demned the choice of a new loca­tion for the shops, say­ing that it would inflict fur­ther dam­age on Yerevan’s green areas that have shrunk sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the past decade. They also say that the munic­i­pal admin­is­tra­tion failed to fol­low all legal pro­ce­dures before issu­ing the con­struc­tion per­mit.

Dozens of most­ly young activists have staged dai­ly sit-ins in the park since Mon­day, pre­vent­ing the con­struc­tion from going ahead. Their rep­re­sen­ta­tives met with Yere­van May­or Taron Markar­i­an ear­li­er this week to demand that he scrap the con­tro­ver­sial deci­sion. Markar­i­an reject­ed the demand.

Eye­wit­ness­es said riot police pushed a group of pro­test­ers away from the con­struc­tion site to allow work­ers to resume their work on Fri­day morn­ing. The site was cor­doned off by police offi­cers as the activists con­tin­ued to demon­strate near­by.

The pro­test­ers stood in the way of a heavy truck car­ry­ing con­crete for the builders. The truck dri­ver had to turn away and leave the scene after two young men lay on the ground in front of the vehi­cle.

The chief of Yerevan’s police depart­ment, Ners­es Nazar­i­an, arrived at the scene in the after­noon to urge the pro­test­ers not to inter­fere with the shop con­struc­tion. The head of the municipality’s legal depart­ment, Zaven Arake­lian, also addressed them, show­ing copies of doc­u­ments pur­port­ed­ly prov­ing the legal­i­ty of the con­struc­tion.

“All those deci­sions were made in breach of the law,” said Sona Ayvaz­ian, an anti-cor­rup­tion cam­paign­er also tak­ing part in the protest. “There­fore, they can­not be deemed legal.”

To check out the arti­cle online click here

Mass Action, Barricades and Lock Downs Fail to Halt Development for the Mega-Rich

18.2.12

City offi­cials said on Wednes­day morn­ing they were pleased with how the oper­a­tion in the Schloss­garten park went. They said 2,500 offi­cers had encoun­tered lit­tle vio­lence.

18.2.12

City offi­cials said on Wednes­day morn­ing they were pleased with how the oper­a­tion in the Schloss­garten park went. They said 2,500 offi­cers had encoun­tered lit­tle vio­lence.

But pro­test­ers, who were try­ing to pro­tect 176 trees that author­i­ties say need to be cut down or moved as part of the project, charged that police had been over­ly aggres­sive dur­ing the evic­tion and had even attacked peo­ple with batons.

A spokesman for the pro­test­ers, Matthias Her­rmann, called the oper­a­tion “hec­tic and esca­lat­ing.”

But a Stuttgart police spokesman said that there had been only “occa­sion­al baton use” when pro­test­ers attempt­ed to set up a bar­ri­cade. A 38-year-old man was arrest­ed after he alleged­ly set off fire­works near offi­cials, accord­ing to police.

Oth­er pro­test­ers had to be forcibly cut away after they chained them­selves to trees. Some used pal­lets to erect bar­ri­ers on access roads, police said. Two even encased their arms in con­crete and police were still fig­ur­ing out how to deal with them as of mid-morn­ing.

Stuttgart 21 is a mul­ti-bil­lion-euro project that aims to trans­form the Baden-Würt­tem­berg state cap­i­tal into a major Euro­pean trans­port hub by lay­ing 57 kilo­me­tres of new track and rebuild­ing the city’s main train sta­tion under­ground while turn­ing it around 90 degrees.

But many have baulked at the cost of the plan and what they say will be dam­age to the local envi­ron­ment. Vio­lent protests flared in 2010, but the gov­ern­ment has insist­ed that con­struc­tion must con­tin­ue. On Sun­day, pro­test­ers tried to mount heavy equip­ment to pre­vent the cut­ting down of trees but were removed by police in a pre­lude to Wednesday’s evic­tion.

At the park, pro­test­ers had set up dozens of tents and tree hous­es before the police oper­a­tion began at about 3 am. Offi­cers first asked pro­test­ers to leave on their own – which some did – before they began the evic­tion.

Stuttgart 21 project spokesman Wolf­gang Diet­rich said the police oper­a­tion had gone “very well” because pro­test­ers had, for the most part, abstained from vio­lence. Author­i­ties could begin felling trees as ear­ly as Wednes­day after­noon.