Author: earthfirst

anti- Fracking protesters shut down the country’s only hydrolic fracturing rig — again!

1.12.11

1.12.11

Activists set­tle in for long-term occu­pa­tion of tox­ic new indus­try which threat­ens the West Coun­try

The con­tro­ver­sial pro­posed Frack­ing site in Hes­keth Bank, Lan­cashire was shut down this morn­ing as 8 Bris­tol cyclists stormed the drilling rig. Three of the cli­mate jus­tice cam­paign­ers from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide scaled the Cuadrilla Resources equip­ment with sup­plies and have declared their inten­tion to stop work for sev­er­al days.

The drilling rig is the only oper­a­tion of it’s kind work­ing in the coun­try, after a sim­i­lar explorato­ry site in Black­pool was shut down in the spring because it induced two earth­quakes in the area. [1]

Liz Sparks, a spokesper­son for Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, explained the poten­tial dan­gers of frack­ing in the South West:

“Large parts of Wales, Devon, Som­er­set and Dor­est are poten­tial­ly under threat from this des­per­ate new tech­nol­o­gy, which involves extract­ing the gas in shale rock through Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing, (or frack­ing) [2]. Huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals are forced into the ground at high pres­sure, a large pro­por­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. This flu­id also leach­es arsenic out of rocks, cre­at­ing a dan­ger­ous cock­tail that’s dif­fi­cult to dis­pose of. In the Unit­ed states numer­ous spills of these flu­ids have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed irri­ga­tion water, effect­ing food sup­plies, and the health of sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.” [3]

The same site was occu­pied last month by anoth­er group- “Frack Off”, and local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance across the coun­try is gain­ing ground. [4]

Paul Williams, who works in a Bris­tol Library, was among the pro­tes­tors. He com­ment­ed:

“Peo­ple sim­ply aren’t going to stand by and let this crazy extreme sneak into our land­scape. We’ve been inspired by the remark­able work of our neigh­bours in Wales. Glam­or­gan coun­ty coun­cil recent­ly vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly against an appli­ca­tion to Frack the area.[5] This deci­sion was influ­enced by Welsh Water’s sub­mis­sion that reserve ground­wa­ter sites are at risk of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. We can stop this before it starts if we act now. If you want earth­quakes, run­away cli­mate change, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water, and a threat to agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion then Frack­ing’s the way for­ward. If you want ener­gy secu­ri­ty and more jobs per kilo­watt hour, go with renew­ables [6]. It’s a no brain­er.”

The indus­try is quick to point to the US expe­ri­ence of frack­ing, but their safe­ty record there is on increas­ing­ly shaky ground. New York State has just insti­tut­ed a mora­to­ri­um against frack­ing, as has Que­bec, Cana­da. France has banned it out­right, as has New Jer­sey in the US. [7]

Twit­ter: Fol­low the action on twit­ter: https://twitter.com/#!/BrisRisingTide (Bris­Ris­ingTide)

Pho­tos and videos updat­ed in real-time on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/71113300@N08/ (Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide)

For more info see: www.frack-off.org
And www.risingtide.org.uk/bristol

Xstrata mining stormed by Occupy London protestors + global anti-Xstrata protests

30.11.11

30.11.11

An action took place in Lon­don against a union-bust­ing earth-trash­ing Swiss/British coal and met­al min­ing com­pa­ny — for a selec­tion of the glob­al protests against them, see below the main arti­cle.  There’s var­i­ous footage: 1 | 2 | 3  | 4 | 5. Part of the N30 mass strike (time­line). 

#Occu­pyL­SX had announced an action at 3pm at Pic­cadil­ly Cir­cus. They set off with the sam­ba band and min­utes lat­er a flare was set off inside Pan­ton House, Hay­mar­ket, whilst a ban­ner was hung from the roof. Out­side pro­tes­tors chal­lenged some plain­clothes cops in the crowd, after which a ‘bub­ble’ or ket­tle was set up, appar­ent­ly with more plain clothes cops trapped inside it.

Occu­py Lon­don – part of the glob­al move­ment for social and eco­nom­ic jus­tice – today high­light­ed the cor­po­rate greed endem­ic in the UK and called for a change with­in soci­ety.

About 60 pro­tes­tors gained entry into the offices of min­ing com­pa­ny Xstra­ta, a ‘lead­ing light’ of the FTSE 100 and British indus­try to high­light the fact that CEO Mick Davies was the high­est com­pen­sat­ed CEO of all the FTSE 100 com­pa­nies in the last year, when his com­pa­nies had loss­es and the econ­o­my col­lapsed. He received £18,426,105 for his efforts. [1]

This comes in a year when the aver­age pay rise of exec­u­tives across FTSE 100 com­pa­nies was 43%, with ‘top’ direc­tors at 49%. [2]

Led by a sam­ba band to the build­ing from Pic­cadil­ly Cir­cus, the pro­test­ers entered the HQ at 25–7 Hay­mar­ket, Lon­don, with the pro­test­ers chant­i­ng against the cor­po­rate greed of Mick and oth­er exec­u­tives, in sup­port of all those strik­ing for fair pen­sions for all today. The pro­tes­tors also unfurled a ban­ner say­ing “All pow­er to the 99%” from the roof top.

There are cur­rent­ly about 20 pro­test­ers inside – being held down on knees, of which many are women. There are a few hun­dred peo­ple ket­tled out­side.

The pro­test­ers today are mak­ing the con­nec­tion between the slash­ing of pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor pen­sions, while sup­posed ‘top’ exec­u­tives cash in by increas­ing their own pay lev­els, leav­ing many with­out pen­sions. These CEOs like Mick Davies lav­ish­ly secure their own futures while ignor­ing the secu­ri­ty and well­be­ing of their own work­ers.

Mines have closed in Aus­tralia, South Africa and Spain with­in the last decade result­ing in hun­dreds of work­ers in the last decade being laid off.

Karen Lin­coln, sup­port­er of Occu­py Lon­don said: “Mick Davies is a prime exam­ple of the greedy 1 per cent, lin­ing their own pock­ets while deny­ing work­ers pen­sions. In this time when the gov­ern­ment enforces aus­ter­i­ty on the 99 per cent, these exec­u­tives are prof­it­ing. The rest of us are hav­ing our pen­sions cuts, health ser­vice torn apart and youth cen­tres shut down.

“We refuse to stand by and let this hap­pen. We call on oth­ers to join us in the fight for a more just soci­ety. Today we have tak­en this to one of the offices of the 1 per cent. This is only the begin­ning. Come and join us on 15th Decem­ber for Occu­py Every­where.”

Occu­py Lon­don will unveil details of Occu­py Every­where soon. Be ready.

Notes

[1] Accord­ing to the Income Data Ser­vices, Mick Davies from Xstra­ta (min­ing com­pa­ny) was the high­est paid exec­u­tive in the FTSE 100. His com­pa­ny has recent­ly tak­en severe hits as FTSE 100 com­pa­nies face drop in val­ue (£104 bil­lion off FTSE 100 com­pa­nies). He was paid £18,426,105. LONDON OFFICE: Reg­is­tered Office, 4th Floor 25/27 Hay­mar­ket, Lon­don SW1Y 4EN

High­est paid exec­u­tives in the FTSE 100:

1. Mick Davies, Xstra­ta, £18,426,105

2. Bart Becht, Reckitt Benkiser, £17,879,000

3. Michael Spencer, ICAP £13,419,619

4. Sir Ter­ry Leahy, Tesco £12,038,303

5. Tom Albanese, Rio Tin­to £11,623,162

6. Sir Mar­tin Sor­rell, WPP Group £8,949,985

7. Todd Kozel, Gulf Key­stone Petro­le­um £8,913,223

8. Don Robert, Exper­ian £8,601,984

9. Edward Bon­ham Carter, Jupiter Fund Man­age­ment £8,003,641

10. Dame Mar­jorie Scardi­no, Pear­son £8,003,641

[2]  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/business-as-usual-top-directors-get-49-per-cent-pay-rise-2376929.html

[3] Face­book page for Occu­py London’s Stock Exchange site just by St Paul’s (Occu­pyL­SX) is  https://www.facebook.com/occupylondon. Over­all Occu­py Lon­don twit­ter Occu­py Lon­don­hastag is #occu­py­lon­don. Occu­pyL­SX Twit­ter is  https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyLSX ; hashtag#occupylsx. Twit­ter for the new Fins­bury Square site is  https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyFS; hastag #occu­pyfs. Twit­ter for Bank of Ideas is  http://twitter.com/bankofideas and face­book is  http://facebook.com/bankofideaslondon

——

What hap­pened next (& pho­tos) — ejec­tion, ket­tling (with new added ‘info screens’), arrests and arrestee-coach block­ing. 

——-

Oct.’07: Xstra­ta, crit­i­cized heav­i­ly by a grow­ing num­ber of Chileans oppos­ing the Swiss min­ing company’s plan to build a large hydro­elec­tric dam in north­ern Patag­o­nia (Region XI), is no stranger to con­tro­ver­sy – espe­cial­ly when it comes to rivers.  More

Oct.’06: THE tra­di­tion­al Abo­rig­i­nal own­ers of land near the Gulf of Car­pen­taria are trav­el­ling to Dar­win to protest against the min­ing com­pa­ny Xstrata’s deci­sion to expand a zinc and lead mine by divert­ing the McArthur Riv­er. More

Jan.’08: Com­mu­nist rebels have attacked a $2 bil­lion cop­per and gold mine owned by Xstra­ta in the Philip­pines. More

May ’11: Peru — Xstra­ta halts activ­i­ties at Las Bam­bas due to protests  More

Nov.’11: Work­ers of the min­ing group Xstra­ta are to demon­strate in Johan­nes­burg on Tues­day to demand the right to take part in indus­tri­al action.…“This march will be tak­ing place amid the impromp­tu arrest of Num­sa mem­bers by [the] SA Police Ser­vice under the instruc­tion of one of Xstrata’s key exec­u­tives.” More

Nov.’11: Vehi­cles torched in job protest at Xstra­ta mine More

 

anti-nuke Castor transport protests in France and Germany

27 Novem­ber 2011

Ger­man pro­test­ers block rail track

27 Novem­ber 2011

Ger­man pro­test­ers block rail track

HUNDREDS of riot cops with heli­copter sup­port have cleared the way for the Cas­tor nuclear waste train in Ger­many.

This video (& lots of links to oth­er footage) from graswurzel.tv (grass roots tv) shows how activists approached the rail­way line through woods, before evad­ing police to stage a mas­sive occu­pa­tion of the track num­ner­ing up to 5,000 peo­ple.

More than 1,000 peo­ple were arrest­ed for refus­ing to leave and police also clashed with two groups of pro­test­ers that hurled stones and fire­works, say cor­po­rate media.

There were clash­es in France last week (see below) when pro­test­ers man­aged to sab­o­tage the line and torch a police vehi­cle.

The ship­ment paused overnight south of Ham­burg and is expect­ed to reach its des­ti­na­tion with con­sid­er­able delay on Mon­day.

—

23 Novem­ber 2011

Pro­test­ers bat­tle French riot cops

ANTI-NUCLEAR pro­test­ers bat­tled with riot police in France in a bid to stop a train of nuclear waste head­ing for Ger­many.

The author­i­ties used tear gas and brute force, but the envi­ron­men­tal­ists man­aged to sab­o­tage part of the rail­way and torch a police vehi­cle.  

The French state is refus­ing to end its nuclear oper­a­tions, even after the Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter and the hor­rif­ic after-effects.

The ship­ment from the French nuclear giant Are­va’s repro­cess­ing plant at La Hague is the last planned to Ger­many.

Sim­i­lar protests are expect­ed along the whole route — the last con­voy in 2010 was blocked for three hours in Caen and one night in Ger­many.

Video

http://vastminority.blogspot.com

Italy: more NO TAV protests planned for December

More ini­tia­tives being planned by the NO TAV move­ment against a high speed rail line being built in the Susa Val­ley (Pied­mont).

More ini­tia­tives being planned by the NO TAV move­ment against a high speed rail line being built in the Susa Val­ley (Pied­mont).

On Novem­ber 24, the NO TAV move­ment held a pub­lic assem­bly in Bus­soleno to dis­cuss and plan December’s ini­tia­tives and protests. For more than 3 hours par­tic­i­pants debat­ed and exchanged views on the present state of the NO TAV strug­gle and future ini­tia­tives. More protests are planned in par­tic­u­lar around the date of Decem­ber 8, anniver­sary of the great vic­to­ry of Venaus in 2005*. In 2005, the media pres­sure and the mobil­i­sa­tions were enough to make a very clum­sy and churl­ish gov­ern­ment yield. Today, the big dif­fer­ence is that the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic lob­by behind the TAV project, after years of study­ing and observ­ing the NO TAV move­ment, is much more ruth­less. The cur­rent mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion in the Susa Val­ley doesn’t excel in speed (to this date, no build­ing has com­menced, and the exca­va­tion sites are still occu­pied by the NO TAV), but it’s cer­tain­ly deter­mined: the for­ti­fied fences around the exca­va­tion sites have become a sym­bol­ic show of strength. Decem­ber 8 2011 comes after 6 months of resis­tance in the area, where the con­flict between the local NO TAV activists and the mil­i­tary is felt every­day.

The assem­bly opt­ed for a dou­ble-protest day: a protest will take place around the fenced areas, while anoth­er group will be march­ing from Susa to the head­quar­ters of Sitaf. Sitaf is a part­ly pub­lic com­pa­ny that man­ages one of the motor­ways from Turin and that de fac­to assist­ed the mil­i­tari­sa­tion of the Val­ley by pro­vid­ing a cor­ri­dor and tech­ni­cal help to the troops trans­ferred from Turin.

Mean­while, a few nights after the assem­bly, some NO TAV witch­es held a night-time coven, armed with very dan­ger­ous seca­teurs to cut the fence down. My favourite chant: “My nan was a par­ti­san and she taught me that cut­ting down fences isn’t a crime” 🙂 There was some ten­sion when the secu­ri­ty forces start­ed mea­sur­ing the length of the cut in the fence with their batons (??!!), but they then left, and the witch­es cir­cle end­ed unharmed. Watch the video:

* On 5/6 Decem­ber 2005 the police and secu­ri­ty forces vio­lent­ly evict­ed one of the per­ma­nent look­out posts in Venaus, injur­ing about 20 pro­test­ers. On the 8th the NO TAV had a mas­sive march from Susa to Venaus and man­aged to estab­lish a new look­out post. Fol­low­ing the clash­es and pres­sure from the NO TAV move­ment, the gov­ern­ment decid­ed to put the works on hold.

Sources: arti­cles from www.notav.info, no 1 and no2.

 
italycalling.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/no-tav-more-protests-planned-for-december/

Ministry blocks anti-tar sands law, so we block ministry’s front door

28.11.11

28.11.11

This morn­ing, 50 activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port with two immo­bilised cars parked in front of the entrance. Why? Because our gov­ern­ment is try­ing to scup­per EU leg­is­la­tion that will block tar sands oil — the dirt­i­est, most pol­lut­ing form of oil there is — from being sold at UK petrol pumps.

Min­ing for tar sands is wreck­ing the Cana­di­an bore­al for­est, destroy­ing the home­lands of indige­nous peo­ple, and accel­er­at­ing dan­ger­ous cli­mate change.

So why then is the Depart­ment for Trans­port try­ing to sab­o­tage leg­is­la­tion that would block tar sands oil from Euro­pean petrol pumps? Looks like they’ve been lob­bied hard by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and big oil.

 

Consumer Culture Brought to Its Knees in Bradford — Buy Nothing/Steal Something Day

In one sweep­ing stroke the false con­scious­ness of con­sump­tion was served a mor­tal blow in the streets of Brad­ford today. As the world­wide rip­ples of Buy Noth­ing Day crashed upon the shore of BD1, multi­na­tion­al cap­i­tal trem­bled in it’s blood­stained boots.

In one sweep­ing stroke the false con­scious­ness of con­sump­tion was served a mor­tal blow in the streets of Brad­ford today. As the world­wide rip­ples of Buy Noth­ing Day crashed upon the shore of BD1, multi­na­tion­al cap­i­tal trem­bled in it’s blood­stained boots.

The 26th of Novem­ber has been known by some as Buy Noth­ing Day for twen­ty years. A day to cel­e­brate the mad­ness of our self-con­sump­tion and to plead for the soul of our civil­i­sa­tion, Buy Noth­ing Day is about touch­ing peo­ple. Inspir­ing a thought, a doubt, a scrunched up brow, a gob of spit in the face maybe, but a reac­tion.
Today the hardy shop­pers of driz­z­ley Brad­ford met friend­ly faces, offer­ing a smile, a song, a book and a drink. No mon­ey accept­ed.
Shiv­er­ing souls warmed their long neglect­ed cock­les with some fine rebel cof­fee, lov­ing­ly grown by Zap­atista coop­er­a­tives in Mex­i­co.
Con­fu­sion reigned as peo­ple won­dered, “why is this stuff free?”. The answer: “why not?“
We can’t buy hap­pi­ness, even dodgy sci­ence has shown that pay­ing for expe­ri­ence rather than things is more sat­is­fy­ing. Our habits of pur­chas­ing anti­dotes to alien­ation are seem­ing­ly fur­ther­ing our descent into dis­s­ap­point­ment, and so we fill our lives with shiny things while we deplete our plan­et of nec­es­sary sur­vival items like air and water, and thus end­ing poten­tial for japes and jig­gery-pok­ery.
Luck­i­ly, a col­lec­tion of peo­ple put an end to this cycle of deprav­i­ty by hav­ing some stalls in the sog­gy streets. A free shop was erect­ed and peo­ple played songs, out­side a mon­u­ment to failed cap­i­tal­ism, an emp­ty shop. (The sweet irony of protest­ing against con­sump­tion in a half-vacat­ed city cen­tre was not lost). A wor­thy tar­get was found, and Star­bucks was pick­et­ed by free shop­pers and Zap­atista sup­port­ers, high­light­ing their bul­ly­ing tac­tics towards small farm­ers and their own work­ers. Their dubi­ous involve­ment with green­wash front Con­ser­va­tion Inter­na­tion­al was blown wide open (see this http://londonmexicosolidarity.org/content/chiapas-coffee-starbucks-and-conservation-international or http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/starbucks.cfm) and peo­ple com­plained that their inde­pen­dent cafes were being suf­fo­cat­ed by this silky sham sofa swarm­ing of ster­ile Star­bucks, with one inde­pen­dent observ­er com­ment­ing “I don’t know why peo­ple go there, their cof­fee’s shit.” The York­shire Zap­atis­tas were on hand to offer some free cof­fee, and a taste of auton­o­my to curi­ous peo­ple, and many fruit­ful dis­cus­sions were had.
So is this the end of the con­sumerist mod­el?

Maybe a Buy Noth­ing Christ­mas will ham­mer the final nails into the cof­fin.

—–

Back­ground:

No pur­chase nec­es­sary!

Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 26th is Buy Noth­ing Day (UK). It’s a day where you chal­lenge your­self, your fam­i­ly and friends to switch off from shop­ping and tune into life. The rules are sim­ple, for 24 hours you will detox from shop­ping and any­one can take part pro­vid­ed they spend a day with­out spend­ing!

Every­thing we buy has an impact on the envi­ron­ment, Buy Noth­ing Day high­lights the envi­ron­men­tal and eth­i­cal con­se­quences of con­sumerism. The devel­oped coun­tries — only 20% of the world pop­u­la­tion are con­sum­ing over 80% of the earth­’s nat­ur­al resources, caus­ing a dis­pro­por­tion­ate lev­el of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age, and an unfair dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth.

Peo­ple around the UK will make a pact with them­selves to take a break from con­sump­tion as a per­son­al exper­i­ment or pub­lic state­ment and the best thing is — IT’S FREE!!!

For a quick start to Buy Noth­ing Day read the FAQ page. If you want to take part in more active­ly, which is far more fun, then you may want to organ­ise an event — take a look at the TOOLKIT for info and ideas and check the EVENTS page. If there are no events near you — organ­ise one! Get social and fol­low Buy Noth­ing Day UK on TWITTER and FACEBOOK

Of course, Buy Noth­ing Day isn’t about chang­ing your lifestyle for just one day — we want it to be a last­ing rela­tion­ship with you con­sumer con­science — maybe a life chang­ing expe­ri­ence? We want peo­ple to make a com­mit­ment to con­sum­ing less, recy­cling more and chal­leng­ing com­pa­nies to clean up and be fair. The super­mar­ket or shop­ping mall might offer great choice, but this should­n’t be at the cost of the envi­ron­ment or devel­op­ing coun­tries.

Around the world: Adbusters.org | Argenti­na | Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina | Croa­t­ia | Den­mark | Fin­land | France
Hong Kong | Intl. BND | Japan | Nether­lands | New Zealand | Roma­nia | Swe­den | Uruguay

Buy Noth­ing Day Web­site

—–

Steal Something Day, a shameless 24-hour stealing spree!

Cri­tique and call-out

Stop Shell’s peat removal!

Fri­day 25th Novem­ber saw over 5 hours of Shel­l’s peat and stone haulage com­plete­ly blocked by cam­paign­ers, and no arrests were made. First thing in the morn­ing four cam­paign­ers had trucks blocked for over an hour and a half, and lat­er on one per­son climbed on top of a peat truck out­side Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery, remain­ing there for 3 and a half hours stop­ping all haulage.

At about 7.15am Fri­day 25th Novem­ber four peo­ple went out to Shel­l’s haulage route to stop work­ers from get­ting to the Augh­oose tun­nel­ing com­pound. A van full of work­ers was stopped, along with the first load of quar­ry trucks which came along about 10–15 min­utes lat­er.

A squad car with one gar­da was present, but he was unable to stop peo­ple from block­ing on his own. Even­tu­al­ly more gar­daí arrived so peo­ple stopped block­ing, and the trucks that had been stopped up all morn­ing start­ed mak­ing their way to the com­pound. No arrests made.

Lat­er that day at 3.30pm, three peo­ple stopped a peat truck out­side Gate 1 of Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery. See­ing as there were only three peo­ple to block the truck and gar­daí would sure­ly arrive soon to move peo­ple out of the road, one per­son climbed on top of the lor­ry to ensure all haulage would be stopped.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp mem­ber Grainne Clan­cy speaks, “We are doing all we can with the num­bers we have at the moment, but we real­ly need more peo­ple up here right now. Some­times there’s only a cou­ple of us block­ing, if we had even a few more peo­ple we could be doing a lot more to dis­rupt Shel­l’s peat removal”

She con­tin­ues, “There have been some actions like the last Bar­ret­t’s [quar­ry in Ban­gor] one, where secu­ri­ty could bare­ly han­dle us as it was, and with a cou­ple more peo­ple we would have been suc­cess­ful”

See report and pho­tos from Bar­ret­t’s quar­ry action here: http://shelltosea.com/content/shells-peat-haulage-has‑b…upted

On Fri­day the per­son remained on top of the truck for three and a half hours, until Shell stop work at 7pm. All Shell traf­fic was blocked but local traf­fic was still able to pass on the oth­er side of the road, aside from when gar­daí rather arbi­trar­i­ly claimed the entire road was blocked, turn­ing local traf­fic around.

At a lock-on protest ear­li­er in the week a gar­da was over­heard giv­ing orders to “shut the road down to local traf­fic, if they see a local in the lock-on they’ll be delight­ed,” appar­ent­ly try­ing to stop local traf­fic from see­ing one of their neigh­bours with an arm in the con­crete lock-on.

At the protest on Fri­day gar­daí were over­heard explain­ing to dri­vers that pro­test­ers have the entire road shut down, when clear­ly traf­fic could pass and it was actu­al­ly gar­daí shut­ting the road down. Even­tu­al­ly the gar­daí gave up block­ing the whole road and resumed direct­ing local traf­fic around the stopped lor­ry.

By 4.30pm a lot of locals had shown up with tea and snacks, and at least 20 peo­ple remained there for the ear­ly evening. At 7pm the per­son got down from the top of the peat truck and walked away, escap­ing arrest.

Grainne Clan­cy con­tin­ues, “Fri­day was great, but the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what we could do with a few more peo­ple is real­ly excit­ing. Shell are only allowed to use one haulage route, and with us block­ing it all the time they’ll hard­ly get any work done. Please come up to Mayo”

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is a wel­com­ing base for any­one inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the cam­paign or any­one inter­est­ed in tak­ing action against Shell. All are wel­come at any time, come vis­it and see what it’s about for your­self. And tak­ing action against shell does­n’t have to mean climb­ing on trucks or doing lock ons. Help is need­ed with tak­ing pho­tos and video, mak­ing din­ner, build­ing lock ons, chop­ping wood, and lots of oth­er things it takes to keep the camp run­ning smooth­ly.

The camp is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose, next to Augh­oose Church (between Pul­lath­omas and Bel­lan­aboy).

To ring for direc­tions, ques­tions or to let us know you’re com­ing: 085.114.1170 or email: rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com

Shell’s Peat Haulage Has Begun… And Been Disrupted !

Shell is remov­ing peat bog from the tun­nelling com­pound in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo, Ire­land, and replac­ing it with stone and grav­el from near­by quar­ries. The increased truck move­ments has not gone unchal­lenged.

 

Shell is remov­ing peat bog from the tun­nelling com­pound in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo, Ire­land, and replac­ing it with stone and grav­el from near­by quar­ries. The increased truck move­ments has not gone unchal­lenged.

 

Fol­low­ing the peat truck protest last Wednes­day that result­ed in 4 peo­ple being arrest­ed –  https://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/content/campaigners-block-shells-peat-haulage-morning-after-taisce-faces-local-community – protests have been hap­pen­ing almost every day.

On Sat­ur­day 19th Novem­ber, around 12pm, 4 peo­ple stopped peat and quar­ry trucks along the haulage route. By the time Gar­dai arrived, most of the work­ers in the com­pound had gone home and work had stopped for the day.

On Mon­day the 21st , 8 peo­ple entered into Bar­ret­t’s Quar­ry in Ban­gor and tried to get onto dig­gers to stop work. One cam­paign­er reached one of the dig­gers, but was dragged down by secu­ri­ty before climb­ing on top. The IRMS secu­ri­ty grabbed every­one and held them down until they could drag them out of the quar­ry. This is the first time enter­ing Bar­ret’s Quar­ry that no-one suc­ceed­ed in get­ting on top of machin­ery. If there had been a cou­ple more peo­ple on the action, it may have suc­ceed­ed (i.e. come up to Mayo!)

On Tues­day 22nd Novem­ber around 12:15pm, 2 peo­ple locked their arms into a con­crete bar­rel; block­ing the main haulage route. This hap­pened after the week­ly Tues­day morn­ing protest with locals and sup­port­ers from 8 to 11am. The morn­ing was very effec­tive in its own right as over 20 peo­ple spread out along the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery road and stopped many of the peat and quar­ry trucks at sev­er­al points. The Gar­dai present were stretched in deal­ing with the sit­u­a­tion at hand.

The lock-on was put in place an hour after the end of the morn­ing protest. At one stage Gar­dai briefly attempt­ed to pull out one per­son­’s arm while they were scream­ing that they were locked into the bar­rel, which required some angry reminders from oth­ers present that cut­ting them out was going to be the only accept­able way. The lock-on was high­ly effec­tive and last­ed from 12:15pm until 5:30pm. There was local sup­port for a while before the Gar­dai pro­ceed­ed to close down the road. Up to 12 trucks were sat wait­ing in the Augh­oose com­pound and dig­gers and oth­er machin­ery there­fore had noth­ing to do. The 2 cam­paign­ers were arrest­ed and released lat­er that evening.

Also worth men­tion­ing were sev­er­al trucks being stopped or slowed down through­out the week for half an hour or so when the oppor­tu­ni­ty arose. No arrests were made on those occa­sions.

If you and/or your friends are inter­est­ed in com­ing down to the ongo­ing cam­paign and being almost cer­tain of halt­ing work for all or most part of the day, then now is the time !

Show your sup­port – the bat­tle goes on !

www.shelltosea.com

www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

Timber Barons are the 1%: Occupy Eugene Meets Forest Defence

18th Novem­ber 2011

18th Novem­ber 2011

Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers and marchers with Occu­py Eugene shut down Umpqua Bank yes­ter­day from noon to close.  Activists raised a ban­ner read­ing “Stumpqua funds clearcuts,” and soft block­ad­ed both cus­tomer entrances. Umpqua, which was the first stop in a series of N17 Occu­py Eugene bank clo­sures, chose to lock its doors rather than call on law enforce­ment.

Umpqua Bank has a long his­to­ry of pro­vid­ing low inter­est loans to Oregon’s tim­ber barons. The bank is most infa­mous­ly tied to Rose­burg For­est Prod­ucts’ sole own­er, Allyn Ford, who is also the chair­man of Umpqua Bank’s board of direc­tors. Over the last year RFP logged hun­dreds of acres of Cascadia’s ancient tem­per­ate rain­forests and laid off over 200 Ore­gon mill work­ers. In tar­get­ing Stumpqua, activists hope to thwart attempts of green and local wash­ing on the part of bank exec­u­tives.

After the Umpqua action, marchers pro­ceed­ed on to U.S. Bank, Bank of Amer­i­ca, and Chase. Between the three banks, law enforce­ment arrest­ed 17 activists for sim­i­lar soft block­ades.

East Gippsland forest protests & background

Logging East Gippsland old growth forests destroys wildlife refuge in a warming climate

17 Novem­ber 2011

Logging East Gippsland old growth forests destroys wildlife refuge in a warming climate

17 Novem­ber 2011

Envi­ron­men­tal activists have been out in old growth Forests in East Gipp­s­land this week attempt­ing to stop more rape of our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and pro­tect­ing impor­tant refu­gia habi­tats for endan­gered species. Log­ging oper­a­tions on Sur­vey Rd on the Erri­n­un­dra Plateau were halt­ed by a tree-sit attached to five log­ging machines and sus­pend­ed 40 metres up in the tree canopy.

“In the face of recent Bail­lieu gov­ern­ment moves to weak­en the Flo­ra and Fau­na Guar­an­tee Act, con­ser­va­tion­ists have again tak­en their mes­sage to log­ging sites where impor­tant wildlife habi­tat con­tin­ues to be logged for wood­chips”, said Ms Amelia Young, spokesper­son for the con­ser­va­tion­ists of the Goonger­ah Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre (GECO) (Face­book).

“This site on Sur­vey Road is anoth­er con­tro­ver­sial log­ging coupe, in pre­cious, ancient for­est right on the bor­der of the nation­al park. Forests on and around the nation­al park have been iden­ti­fied as key refu­gia – a safe place — for threat­ened wildlife; that they con­tin­ue in 2011 to be tar­get­ed for short-term log­ging projects, is inex­cus­able.”

“The future of the log­ging indus­try lies in sourc­ing saw and pulp logs from plan­ta­tions. Gov­ern­ment assis­tance should be pro­cured imme­di­ate­ly to sup­port the indus­try to make this tran­si­tion out of our pub­licly owned high-con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests.”

“With waratahs in flower, indi­vid­ual trees expect­ed to be in excess of 500 years old and endan­gered spot-tailed quolls detect­ed in the area, there’s no ques­tion this old-growth for­est is worth more stand­ing”, con­clud­ed Ms Young.

Both sides of tra­di­tion­al pol­i­tics have sup­port­ed the log­ging of old growth forests, even though native old growth forests are so impor­tant to pre­serve for a raft of rea­sons that rise above the eco­nom­ic exploita­tion for wood pulp and tim­ber:

Ear­li­er this month the State Gov­ern­ment qui­et­ly announced Log­ging con­trac­tors will be able to seek exemp­tions from state envi­ron­ment laws pro­tect­ing endan­gered species under pro­posed changes by the Bail­lieu state gov­ern­ment. The Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and Envi­ron­ment would be able to exempt a log­ging project from the require­ments of the Flo­ra and Fau­na Guar­an­tee Act. Good­bye endan­gered species habi­tat!

The Supreme Court of Vic­to­ria last year banned Vic­Forests from log­ging old-growth for­est at Brown Moun­tain in East Gipp­s­land after activists released a video of a long-foot­ed potoroo filmed in a log­ging coupe on Brown Moun­tain.

More recent­ly, the Vic­to­ri­an Supreme Court has stopped log­ging of old growth forests at Sylvia Creek in Vic­to­ri­a’s cen­tral high­lands because it threat­ens the habi­tat of the endan­gered Lead­beat­er’s Pos­sum. A court injunc­tion present­ly pre­vents log­ging old growth forests in this area till 2012, while the case is heard. The changes by the State Gov­ern­ment seek to under­mine the Supreme Court rul­ings to pro­tect endan­gered species.

The Wilder­ness Soci­ety has attacked the Bail­lieu Gov­ern­ment for under­min­ing Vic­to­ri­a’s envi­ron­men­tal laws.

“Decades of over­log­ging and three major fire events in Vic­to­ri­a’s forests have pushed many species clos­er to extinc­tion. Our unique wildlife, includ­ing Vic­to­ri­a’s endan­gered fau­nal emblem, the Lead­beat­er’s Pos­sum, need their native for­est homes pro­tect­ed, not betrayed to the Bail­lieu gov­ern­ment bull­doz­ers. It is not too late to turn this deci­sion around.” says the Wilder­ness soci­ety.

The State Gov­ern­ment has no elec­toral man­date for mak­ing these changes. Lib­er­al MP Mary Wooldridge told an envi­ron­ment forum held at Mel­bourne Town Hall on 18 Novem­ber 2010 dur­ing the Vic­to­ri­an state elec­tion cam­paign, of the impor­tance of pro­tect­ing for­est that con­tains threat­ened species such as Lead­beat­ers Pos­sum.

“Some con­cerns we can address are issues about pre log­ging assess­ments and mak­ing sure the areas we are log­ging don’t have pro­tect­ed species or dif­fer­ent issues with the Lead­bet­ter’s pos­sum in rela­tion to in terms of the catch­ment areas. Mak­ing sure we are doing those assess­ments, mak­ing sure if areas are logged they don’t have those assets, insur­ing those assess­ments are done and those areas are pro­tect­ed before hand.” said Mary Wooldridge MP.

It seems this is just anoth­er bro­ken promise from a Gov­ern­ment march­ing back­wards on cli­mate and the envi­ron­ment, as well as gen­er­al social con­di­tions in pub­lic hos­pi­tals and health, and in edu­ca­tion in Vic­to­ria.

Back­ground: Coalition’s 2km wind farm veto sets a risky prece­dent | Retreat­ing on cli­mate pol­i­cy — Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment stops dis­cus­sions on Hazel­wood clo­sure | Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment needs to come clean on plan to achieve 20 per­cent emis­sions cut by 2020

Image Source: GECO — Log­ging machin­ery, awe­some cabling and trees that once stood tall — Sur­vey Rd block­ade Novem­ber 2011