Author: earthfirst

Mining applications ‘frozen’ after protest in Philippines

24 June 2010
Six hun­dred indige­nous peo­ple and farm­ers took to the streets on Palawan Island in the Philip­pines on June 7, to protest against plans to mine nick­el on their land.

Palawan climber24 June 2010
Six hun­dred indige­nous peo­ple and farm­ers took to the streets on Palawan Island in the Philip­pines on June 7, to protest against plans to mine nick­el on their land.

The demon­stra­tors called upon the provin­cial gov­ern­ment to pre­vent the com­pa­nies Macro Asia and Ipil­ian Nick­el Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (INC) from min­ing in the UNESCO World Bios­phere Reserve, which is their home. They also expressed their anger at news that Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny MBMI has been grant­ed ini­tial approval to mine.

As a result of nego­ti­a­tions with pro­test­ers, the provin­cial gov­ern­ment agreed that its endorse­ments of both Macro Asia and INC’s plans required fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. The com­pa­nies’ appli­ca­tions have been ‘frozen’ until all issues are clar­i­fied.

The pro­tes­tors called their demon­stra­tion a ‘Kara­ban’ ral­ly; Kara­ban is the indige­nous Palawan’s word for the bam­boo quiver that con­tains darts for their blow­pipes. It is a sym­bol of their iden­ti­ty, and sig­ni­fies, they say, that they are will­ing to take ‘what­ev­er action is nec­es­sary’ to stop the min­ing com­pa­nies enter­ing their tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries

Indige­nous spokesper­son for ALDAW (Ances­tral Land/Domain Watch) Arti­so Man­dawa, said, ‘Min­ing is not devel­op­ment, it cre­ates con­flict among peo­ple, and it destroys our cul­ture by bring­ing for­eign val­ues to our com­mu­ni­ty. Some of my peo­ple still have lim­it­ed con­tact with the out­side and are not even reg­is­tered in the nation­al and provin­cial cen­sus. They are the first inhab­i­tants to arrive on this island and yet, for the gov­ern­ment, they appear not to exist.’

Maman Tuwa, an elder of the iso­lat­ed Palawan tribe from Mt Gan­tong, fears that min­ing will destroy his com­mu­ni­ty. ‘If our moun­tains are defor­est­ed, how are we going to sur­vive? What are we going to plant if the soil of the uplands will be washed down to the low­lands? How are we going to feed our chil­dren? We’ll sure­ly die’.

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said, ‘We wel­come the deci­sion to freeze the min­ing appli­ca­tions on the land of the Palawan trib­al peo­ple, and we urge the Philip­pine gov­ern­ment to ensure that no min­ing takes place on their land with­out their gen­uine free, pri­or and informed con­sent. We also call upon Pres­i­dent-elect Benig­no Aquino III, to revoke the 1995 Min­ing Act which has been so dis­as­trous for the indige­nous peo­ples of the Philip­pines.’

The Outdoor Skillshare a success

23rd June 2010
Over a hun­dred peo­ple came togeth­er last week­end for the Out­door Skill­share. Held at Talamh Hous­ing Coop in South Lanark­shire, the week­end aimed to bring peo­ple togeth­er to share the skills need­ed to occu­py land and defend it from evic­tion. Work­shops cov­ered var­ied top­ics includ­ing cook­ing for the mass­es, dig­ging tun­nels, radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion and climb­ing trees.

23rd June 2010
Over a hun­dred peo­ple came togeth­er last week­end for the Out­door Skill­share. Held at Talamh Hous­ing Coop in South Lanark­shire, the week­end aimed to bring peo­ple togeth­er to share the skills need­ed to occu­py land and defend it from evic­tion. Work­shops cov­ered var­ied top­ics includ­ing cook­ing for the mass­es, dig­ging tun­nels, radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion and climb­ing trees.

The week­end also had ses­sions on skill-shar­ing and run­ning work­shops to share the skills to facil­i­tate par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shops. It is hopped that more skill-shar­ing and events of this type will hap­pen across the UK in the future.

Lewis from Leeds who trav­elled up for the week­end said: “It was a real­ly amaz­ing event and I real­ly learned a lot. I’d nev­er put on a har­ness or cooked on a giant gas burn­er before so it was a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to prac­tise these things. I real­ly feel like all of us who came to this week­end will be able to go to a protest camp and actu­al­ly chip in.”

Lau­ra, part of the group that organ­ised the event said: “We were sur­prised at the num­ber of peo­ple who came and the atmos­phere and peo­ples atti­tude was amaz­ing. Peo­ple organ­ised spon­ta­neous ses­sions and those of us giv­ing work­shops learned new ways of doing things. It was such a great week­end and I hope we get a chance to do it again.”

The tem­po­rary camp over looked the for­mer site of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, now a func­tion­ing open cast mine, and was sur­round­ed by Bro­ken Cross and Poniel open cast coal mines. South Lanark­shire has been blight­ed by open cast coal mines for decades and has also been a hive of resis­tance by the com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal­ists. Over the week­end peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ties vis­it­ed the event, includ­ing some local young peo­ple who took part in the kids climb­ing work­shop.

out­doorskill­share [at] riseup.net
http://outdoorskillshare.noflag.org.uk

Greenwash spill at the BP-sponsored National Portrait Gallery

On Tues­day night (22 June 2010) at 6.07 PM the Lon­don brigade of the Green­wash Guer­ril­las got a call from a pan­icked pedes­tri­an out­side the Nation­al Por­trait Gallery.

BP Portrait Gallery greenwash guerrillasOn Tues­day night (22 June 2010) at 6.07 PM the Lon­don brigade of the Green­wash Guer­ril­las got a call from a pan­icked pedes­tri­an out­side the Nation­al Por­trait Gallery. It seemed that the prize­giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny for BP Por­trait Award was about to start, and tox­ic green­wash had begun to gush uncon­trol­lably from the gallery’s front doors.

Arriv­ing on the scene, armed with the lat­est in green­wash detect­ing equip­ment and wear­ing pro­tec­tive bio­haz­ard suits, the Guer­ril­las
imme­di­ate­ly iden­ti­fied sev­er­al sources of the leak. Green­wash lev­els appeared to be the strongest any­where a bright green BP logo was to be
found: from the mas­sive ban­ners fronting either side of the grand entrance, to the micro­scop­ic embroi­dery on a secu­ri­ty guard’s lapel. The
Guer­ril­las were giv­en the run-around by gallery secu­ri­ty and the Met­ro­pol­i­tan police, who escort­ed Britain’s cul­tur­al estab­lish­ment into
the awards cer­e­mo­ny first at the front, then around the side, then back at the front entrance again. By 7 PM, every­one had con­vened at the front entrance, and the Guer­ril­las set to work to con­tain the leak, quar­an­tine the area, and warn atten­dees against enter­ing the build­ing.

Many clean-up efforts were tried, from throw­ing golf balls and old tires at the leak to try­ing to plug it with mud, but for some rea­son the spill just kept gush­ing. Mean­while, some Guer­ril­las attempt­ed to arm the atten­dees – most of whom, inex­plic­a­bly, were deter­mined to enter the
con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed build­ing – with infor­ma­tion about BP, oil indus­try spon­sor­ship of the arts, and the best way to pro­tect them­selves from
green­wash.

Despite the best efforts of the Guer­ril­las, green­wash unfor­tu­nate­ly con­tin­ues to spew forth from the BP-spon­sored Nation­al Por­trait Gallery
and count­less oth­er oil-spon­sored arts insti­tu­tions across Lon­don. But resis­tance is grow­ing, and this sum­mer might just be remem­bered as the
tip­ping point in the cam­paign to free art from oil.

More info:
http://www.risingtide.org.uk
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
BP’s spon­sor­ship of the Nation­al Por­trait Award is green­wash – a way of clean­ing up BP’s tat­tered pub­lic image and cov­er­ing up its shock­ing
envi­ron­men­tal and human rights record.

Green­wash is as tox­ic as oil. With it, BP buys our approval, and hopes we’ll for­get about the gush­er in the Gulf, the 300 000 lives already lost each year due to cli­mate change, and the fact that the com­pa­ny is poised to enter the Cana­di­an tar sands – the most destruc­tive project on earth.

Every pound the Nation­al Por­trait Gallery accepts from BP is taint­ed. In response to chang­ing pub­lic opin­ion, cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions even­tu­al­ly
decid­ed that it was no longer in their best inter­ests to take mon­ey from the tobac­co indus­try. It’s high time we kicked Big Oil out of our
gal­leries too.

Check out a bril­liant video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-adx5mS2klA

london@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk

Protest against BP — This Saturday 26/06 1pm at Tottenham Hale BP Garage, London

Against cli­mate crimes in the name of prof­it and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers exploit­ed by giant cor­po­ra­tion BP, come and protest this Sat­ur­day 26 June, 1pm at Tot­ten­ham Hale BP garage.

Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group have organ­ised a protest against giant cor­po­ra­tion BP this Sat­ur­day 26 June, from 1pm at Tot­ten­ham Hale BP Garage (map here: http://tiny.cc/28p38)

Against cli­mate crimes in the name of prof­it and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers exploit­ed by giant cor­po­ra­tion BP, come and protest this Sat­ur­day 26 June, 1pm at Tot­ten­ham Hale BP garage.

Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group have organ­ised a protest against giant cor­po­ra­tion BP this Sat­ur­day 26 June, from 1pm at Tot­ten­ham Hale BP Garage (map here: http://tiny.cc/28p38)

We aim to draw atten­tion to the many cli­mate crimes BP is respon­si­ble for, all in the name of prof­it, show sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers exploit­ed by the cor­po­ra­tion and encour­age peo­ple to build col­lec­tive and local alter­na­tives to the cli­mate cri­sis.

See the text of the leaflet below.
An on-line ver­sion is avail­able here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4403399/BP_Protest.pdf

Please cir­cu­late wide­ly, come along, bring ban­ners, plac­ards, etc…

—–

BP – Guilty of Cli­mate Crimes!

Called by Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group as part of Haringey Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Month

The dan­ger­ous greed of BP has seen them trash­ing the plan­et in pur­suit of prof­it – across the world, BP is guilty of cli­mate crimes that should all be front page news.

The Gulf of Mex­i­co: BP’s faulty drilling results in one of the worst oil spills in his­to­ry, killing work­ers, endan­ger­ing wildlife across the region and leav­ing a mas­sive clean-up oper­a­tion.

Cana­da: Extrac­tion of mil­lions of bar­rels of tar sands oil, pro­duc­ing 3–5 times the green­house gas­es of con­ven­tion­al oil, caus­ing mass defor­esta­tion and pol­lut­ing indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

Colom­bia In Jan­u­ary, indus­tri­al action organ­ised by trade union­ists in the region of Casanare was severe­ly repressed by BP, with the help of a spe­cial police force known for anti-work­er vio­lence.

Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline: This crude oil pipeline, run­ning through Turkey, Geor­gia and Azer­bai­jan, was financed by BP, vis­i­bly scar­ring the land­scape and wreck­ing areas of great nat­ur­al beau­ty, includ­ing nat­ur­al spring water reserves.

Not to men­tion com­mu­ni­ties across the world! While adding to the wealth of a few, BP is destroy­ing the com­mon wealthe of the many. We need to act local­ly to resist com­pa­nies like BP dic­tat­ing the way our economies are struc­tured – for prof­it and against the envi­ron­ment.

See over for how we can take action col­lec­tive­ly in our com­mu­ni­ties to fight cli­mate change and cre­ate a future sus­tain­able soci­ety.

——————————

Build­ing Alter­na­tives to the Cli­mate Cri­sis

Oppres­sive and destruc­tive cor­po­ra­tions like BP do not serve the gen­er­al inter­est. We need to end our depen­den­cy on oil and fos­sil fuels, which grad­u­al­ly destroys the plan­et and our lives, and aim for the devel­op­ment of renew­able ener­gy man­aged by the com­mu­ni­ty.

We can organ­ise local­ly and take back con­trol of our lives and envi­ron­ment by build­ing sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties for the ben­e­fit of all. Peo­ple in Haringey are get­ting togeth­er to form col­lec­tive, grass­roots alter­na­tives and solu­tions to the cli­mate cri­sis.

See below for how to get involved!

Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group

We are a group of local peo­ple who want to get rid of the cur­rent sys­tem which places prof­it and pow­er before people’s real needs. To do this, we believe we all need to get organ­ised, fight back and take over the deci­sion-mak­ing in com­mu­ni­ties and work­places. We sup­port and par­tic­i­pate in local cam­paigns, spread ideas and help cre­ate effec­tive oppo­si­tion to the pow­ers that be.

www.haringey.org.uk, email info@haringey.org.uk, write to PO Box 2474, Lon­don N8 or call 0845 223 5270

Sus­tain­able Haringey

An inde­pen­dent infor­mal net­work for every­body want­i­ng to make Haringey more sus­tain­able. It brings togeth­er groups and indi­vid­u­als already mak­ing pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions and wel­comes those who would like to find out how to do more. In June there are events hap­pen­ing across the bor­ough as part of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Month.

See www.sustainableharingey.org.uk for fur­ther details

Oil execs gather — we besiege ( + video link)

As oil exec­u­tives gath­ered at a Lon­don hotel for their annu­al strate­gis­ing con­fer­ence on Mon­day 21st June, up to 200 cli­mate activists crossed the riv­er from BP-spon­sored Tate Mod­ern to con­verge on the front entrance with a sam­ba band and a giant p

Drum it Out 1Drum it Out 2As oil exec­u­tives gath­ered at a Lon­don hotel for their annu­al strate­gis­ing con­fer­ence on Mon­day 21st June, up to 200 cli­mate activists crossed the riv­er from BP-spon­sored Tate Mod­ern to con­verge on the front entrance with a sam­ba band and a giant paper-mache oil-cov­ered seabird.

Titled “Drum It Out”, the protest also put the indus­try on tri­al before a Peo­ple’s Court which loud­ly found it guilty of crimes of pol­lu­tion, war crimes, cli­mate crime, and more.

The court heard live tes­ti­mo­ny by wit­ness­es not only from the Gulf, but from Nige­ria, Ghana, Colom­bia, Peru, from Iraq which has suf­fered the dev­as­ta­tion of a war for oil, from Cana­da where indige­nous peo­ple are resist­ing the Tar Sands oil project destroy­ing a land as large as Eng­land, and from Kenya and Chi­na which are suf­fer­ing droughts as a result of the chang­ing cli­mate. “The Gulf of Mex­i­co is not the only dis­as­ter,” the pro­test­ers said — “in fact it’s not even the largest, and in some places this destruc­tion of life has been going on for decades. The oil indus­try is not sus­tain­able. They think they rule the world, but they are fac­ing resis­tance every­where. They can­not come to this hotel and think they will car­ry on busi­ness as usu­al”.

A dead fish award was pre­sent­ed to Bloody Oil in its var­i­ous com­pa­ny guis­es, and a “fish” was deliv­ered to the hotel to be passed on to Con­gress del­e­gates.

Fol­low­ing the tri­al, the main and back entrance were besieged by the drum­ming crowd, with no injuries and no arrests. Two activists who had suc­ceed­ed in pen­e­trat­ing the build­ing were uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly eject­ed. The Drum Out will be fol­lowed this Sat­ur­day by a Teach In, at the School of Ori­en­tal and African Stud­ies, where cam­paign­ers will learn more about the ongo­ing resis­tance by work­ers and com­mu­ni­ties in oil regions, will link-up live with organ­is­ers in Ghana, and will dis­cuss how to work togeth­er to bring the indus­try down. One pro­test­er com­ment­ed, “If even half the mon­ey invest­ed in sub­si­dis­ing oil, clean­ing up its dis­as­ters and fund­ing its wars were devot­ed to alter­na­tive forms of ener­gy, peo­ple would­n’t be suf­fer­ing these out­rages, and the plan­et would be safe.”

london[at]climatecamp.org.uk

Watch the Video http://www.youandifilms.com/2010/06/bloody-oil-drum-em-out/

Camp for Climate Action 2010 — Break the Bank!

Sat­ur­day 21 August – Tues­day 24 August 2010
Edin­burgh, Scot­land

* Occu­py and set up the base­camp: 19–20 August
* Four days of train­ing and direct action: 21–24 August
* Day of action against RBS: 23 August
* Return base­camp to nature: 25 August

The Camp for Cli­mate Action is a grass­roots move­ment tak­ing direct

Sat­ur­day 21 August – Tues­day 24 August 2010
Edin­burgh, Scot­land

* Occu­py and set up the base­camp: 19–20 August
* Four days of train­ing and direct action: 21–24 August
* Day of action against RBS: 23 August
* Return base­camp to nature: 25 August

The Camp for Cli­mate Action is a grass­roots move­ment tak­ing direct
action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change. After mobil­is­ing and
help­ing stop the pro­posed third run­way at Heathrow and a new coal fired
pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth, we’re grow­ing into a mass move­ment to
reclaim our future from gov­ern­ment and prof­it-hun­gry cor­po­ra­tions.

This year we’re tar­get­ing the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, and their glob­al
head­quar­ters in Edin­burgh.

Last year RBS were bailed out with £50 bil­lion of pub­lic mon­ey. This
bank is one of the world’s largest investors in oil, gas and coal. From
tar sands extrac­tion in Cana­da to coal infra­struc­ture here in the UK,
we’re pay­ing to trash our future. These projects are not just caus­ing
cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, but destroy­ing the lives and liveli­hoods of
peo­ple across the globe. Mean­while, we’re told there is no mon­ey left
and we should be braced for decades of pub­lic sec­tors cuts.

Eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion is built into the mechan­ics of the finan­cial
sys­tem, with com­mu­ni­ties dis­en­fran­chised from their own futures. This is
why, in August, peo­ple from across the UK will be con­verg­ing to take
back the pow­er and Break the Bank!

Our sus­tain­able and col­lec­tive­ly-organ­ised base­camp will give you the
chance to learn, train up, and meet like mind­ed indi­vid­u­als. Excit­ing
action plans are cur­rent­ly in the plot­ting stages, so watch this space.

The Camp for Cli­mate Action is made up of peo­ple like you — check out
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk to find out how to get involved.

———————————————————————

SPREAD THE WORD
— Please for­ward this email!
— Invite your friends to the face­book event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=134368843242381
— All-new fly­ers and stick­ers for the camp are here:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010/rbs-flyers-and-stickers
— The just-out ‘Nev­er Mind the Bankers’ RBS news­pa­per is here:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010/never-mind-the-bankers

COME TO THE NEXT UK GATHERING
— The next plan­ning gath­er­ing for this sum­mer’s camp will be in
Edin­burgh from 3–4 July. Gath­er­ings are a chance to make deci­sions about
the camp and get involved in the work­ing groups that make the camp
hap­pen. Every­one’s wel­come — full info here:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/get-involved/national-gatherings/next

COME TO THE RBS TEACH-IN
— Tool up on RBS at our teach-in in Leeds on 17 July:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010/rbs-teach-in-17-july

GET INVOLVED IN YOUR LOCAL GROUP
— We’ve got groups and neigh­bour­hoods around the coun­try. Details here:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/get-involved/local-groups

GET IN TOUCH WITH WORKING GROUPS
— Work­ing groups are the way we organ­ise things, and they need you.
Details here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/get-involved/working-groups

QUESTIONS?
— Try info@climatecamp.org.uk or process@climatecamp.org.uk

Sea Shepherd Attacked in Libyan Waters again (+ eye-witness account)

19th June 2010

Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, the Steve Irwin, was attacked today in Libyan waters as it attempt­ed to free Bluefin from cages. Their Oper­a­tion Blue Rage has gone swim­ming­ly until now, and the Steve Irwin is cur­rent­ly head­ing up to Inter­na­tion­al waters.

19th June 2010

Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, the Steve Irwin, was attacked today in Libyan waters as it attempt­ed to free Bluefin from cages. Their Oper­a­tion Blue Rage has gone swim­ming­ly until now, and the Steve Irwin is cur­rent­ly head­ing up to Inter­na­tion­al waters.

This lat­est attack is omi­nous, con­sid­er­ing Cap­tain Bethune’s recent tri­al in Japan. Bethune was found guilty of sev­er­al charges after he board­ed the ship of a cap­tain respon­si­ble for ram­ming and sink­ing a Sea Shep­herd ves­sel under his com­mand.

To make mat­ters worse, for­mer allies with the WWF and Green­peace have turned tail on the inter­na­tion­al whal­ing ban that has been in effect for over two decades, leav­ing Sea Shep­herd, which employs direct action on the side of Inter­na­tion­al law by using aggres­sive meth­ods to deter whal­ing ves­sels, in the lurch.

Steve Irwin Attacked in Libyan Waters
Oper­a­tion Blue Rage: Day Twelve of the Mediter­ranean Patrol

Sat­ur­day, June 19th, 2010
Loca­tion: Off the Coast of Libya

At 0900 Hours the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin moved into Libyan waters to inspect the remain­ing cage being towed by the Ital­ian ves­sel Cesare Rus­ti­co. With the Sea Shep­herd heli­copter over­head, our inflat­able Delta boat and dive team approached the cage.

The Cesare Rus­ti­co dropped the tow line and turned to defend the cage. At the same time the fish­ing ves­sels the Tagreft and the Rab­bah 1060, along with the trawler Mis­urate 96, moved in quick­ly to defend their ille­gal catch of Bluefin.

Imme­di­ate­ly and with­out warn­ing, the Steve Irwin was attacked with a bar­rage of flares aimed at the wheel­house and the crew on deck. The Cesare Rus­ti­co issued a May Day dis­tress sig­nal say­ing they were under attack by the Steve Irwin even though the our crew had mere­ly approached the cage to inspect the catch. Most wor­ry­ing was the fact that the Sea Shep­herd heli­copter pilot­ed by Chris Ault­man was paint­ed by the Libyan air­borne radar sys­tem.

At that point, in the inter­est of safe­ty, I ordered the Delta inflat­able and heli­copter to return to the Steve Irwin. We then retreat­ed to a safe dis­tance away from the waters claimed by Libya. The two ves­sels Tagreft and the Rab­bah 1060 pur­sued and con­tin­ued to fire flares at the us. We were able to lose them quick­ly.

The Cap­tain of the Cesare Rus­ti­co radioed the Tagreft and Rab­bah 1060 to, “do what­ev­er you can to dam­age them so they will nev­er return.”

The Cap­tain of the Cesare Rus­ti­co said that the Libyan Navy was with­in a few miles and clos­ing in. How­ev­er there were no Libyan naval ves­sels with­in thir­ty miles on the radar.

Yes­ter­day the Steve Irwin request­ed the assis­tance of the Green­peace ship Arc­tic Sun­rise to lib­er­ate the esti­mat­ed 800 Bluefin tuna in this cage but they declined to assist. A con­tact with­in Green­peace informed us that under no cir­cum­stances was Green­peace to enter waters claimed by Libya..

The Steve Irwin is now head­ing towards Cyprus and Turkey in search of Bluefin poach­ers.

—-

This is an eye­wit­ness account from an action by the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, which set out onto the Mediter­ranean Sea last month in search of bluefin tuna poach­ers. As one of the most valu­able fish in the world, the bluefin pop­u­la­tions in the Mediter­ranean region have been reduced by over 85% in the last 50 years due to relent­less indus­tri­al over­fish­ing. Crew mem­ber Wietse van der Werf reports.

It is night when we enter Libyan waters. Every­one on the ship is excit­ed, yet some­what anx­ious about what is com­ing. We are the first to enter these waters in search of ille­gal bluefin tuna fish­ing. Nei­ther observers from the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for the Con­ser­va­tion of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which ‘man­ages’ the fish­ery, nor French or Mal­tese navy ves­sels oper­ate here. We are deter­mined to find a float­ing cage full of ille­gal­ly caught bluefin tuna, by now an endan­gered fish, and release them.

Our heli­copter has been out for some time when it spots a tar­get. Two tugs, tow­ing a cage each, both full of tuna and head­ed for the tuna fat­ten­ing farms in Mal­ta. Down in the engine room we work to get the ship the extra thrust it needs to arrive at the tar­get as soon as pos­si­ble. Hav­ing a quick look up on deck, I can spot two ves­sels on the hori­zon. Around here you don’t have to look far to find ille­gal fish­ing.

Clos­er to the ves­sels we request per­mis­sion to inspect the fish. Only a cer­tain per­cent­age of under­sized fish, known as juve­niles, are allowed. This is often where the vio­la­tions occur. Our request is refused. The fish­er­men state that the fish were caught on the last day of the allowed fish­ing sea­son and that the cage con­tains the catch from eight dif­fer­ent fish­ing ships. The sto­ry does­n’t add up. The bad weath­er con­di­tions in the fish­ing grounds we have wit­nessed in the last few days, which make fish­ing vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble, and the rel­a­tive­ly short dis­tance the boats are from the fish­ing grounds make us high­ly sus­pi­cious of their sto­ry.

The engine room phone rings. ‘Hold on, we’re putting the bow over the cage to see what’s inside’. We hold on and feel a shud­der going through the ship as we park it against the cage. At that moment one of the fish­ing ves­sels, Rosaria Tuna, moves at speed towards us. Unhin­dered by our larg­er size, it smash­es its bow into our port side. With a loud bang, steel bends and paint flakes off. One of the fish­er­men threat­ens us by swing­ing a pole with a large hook on its end across the deck. We respond by drop­ping a few bot­tles of rot­ten but­ter on their deck and they retreat. By now our ship is nosed in the pen and when it’s clear that there are many tuna inside, our divers get ready for a clos­er inspec­tion.

We move away from the pen and to our dis­be­lief the Rosaria Tuna starts mov­ing away from the scene. Once we have moved about a mile off and our divers are ready we turn and re-approach. This is our chance. With Rosaria Tuna mov­ing off in the dis­tance and the oth­er tug­boat Cesare Rus­ti­co stand­ing by, our divers jump in the pen. Mean­while the oth­er tug has turned and approach­es at full speed. The divers report back that they can see a large num­ber of juve­niles inside. We decide to inter­vene. The divers descend and start cut­ting the net. With­in min­utes the gigan­tic net is start­ing to move and the first tuna are curi­ous­ly mov­ing out through the new open­ing. As we stand on the bow we can see a few fish swim­ming away from the cage, then more and more until it is entire­ly emp­ty. Eight hun­dred fish escape.

Every­one on the ship is in a state of eupho­ria. High fives, hugs and smiles all around. It is the first time any­one has man­aged to free bluefin tuna out of one of the numer­ous float­ing cages in the Mediter­ranean. With a mar­ket val­ue exceed­ing sev­en fig­ures, this is a big deal. As the tug is get­ting close to our star­board side and our divers are back in the inflat­able boat, we turn sharply and start head­ing off. Repeat­ed MAYDAY calls from the dumb­found­ed fish­er­men come through the radio as we haul up our lit­tle boat and head north at full speed. With­in the hour rumours are cir­cu­lat­ing that the Libyan navy is on its way, but with us near­ly out of their waters there is lit­tle they can do. On the Libyan front it stays qui­et. Per­haps the coun­try isn’t will­ing to give atten­tion to our action because they don’t want the world to see that they have let poach­ers oper­ate with­in their waters unhin­dered for so long. A sur­veil­lance plane cir­cles over us the next day as we con­tin­ue on a steady course back to land.

With more than 85% of the Mediter­ranean bluefin tuna pop­u­la­tions killed off in the last 50 years, the stakes are high­er than ever. The spawn­ing bluefin tuna females could be wiped out as soon as 2012. Since the fail­ure to add the threat­ened fish to CITES (the UN threat­ened species list) due to intense lob­by­ing from Japan, the issue has been in a polit­i­cal dead­lock. The need for action is more acute than ever. The bluefin tuna stands as a sym­bol for the way in which we con­tin­ue to use the oceans as an inex­haustible resource with­out regard for the con­se­quences which inevitably lie ahead. The oceans are in cri­sis. As the most impor­tant life sup­port sys­tem on earth we sim­ply can­not afford to let it be dam­aged any fur­ther.

Steve Irwin Attacked in Libyan Waters

Steve Irwin Rammed by Bluefin Fish­ery Ves­sel;
Sea Shep­herd Crew Repel Vio­lent Assault by Fish­er­men;
Libyan Navy in Pur­suit of the Steve Irwin

Bluefin tuna nets - Blue Rage campaignCutting tuna netsBluefin tuna swim to freedomSteve Irwin Rammed by Bluefin Fish­ery Ves­sel;
Sea Shep­herd Crew Repel Vio­lent Assault by Fish­er­men;
Libyan Navy in Pur­suit of the Steve Irwin
Oper­a­tion Blue Rage: Day Ten of the Mediter­ranean Patrol

Thurs­day, June 17th, 2010
Loca­tion: Off the Coast of Libya

Report by Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, Steve Irwin

Sea Shepherd’s heli­copter recon­nais­sance flight this morn­ing found two fish­ing ves­sels. One was engaged in trans­fer­ring bluefin tuna into one of the two nets being towed by the oth­er ves­sel.

The bluefin fish­ery ves­sels were inside waters claimed by Libya and about 42 miles off the coast of North Africa.

At 1300 hours, the Steve Irwin came upon the Ital­ian ves­sel Cesare Rus­ti­co tow­ing two cages; one con­tained about 800 fish (the oth­er was emp­ty).

The Cap­tain of the Cesare Rus­ti­co said when ques­tioned that the tuna were caught on the morn­ing of the 14th by the Libyan ves­sel Tagreft. When we replied that the num­ber of tuna in the cage exceed­ed the quo­ta for the Tagreft, the Cap­tain said the cage also includ­ed tuna from sev­en oth­er Libyan sein­ers. All the catch­es were caught on the 14th, the last legal day, accord­ing to the Cap­tain. The oth­er sev­en sein­ers named were the Khand­heel 2, Hani­bal, Ozul 2, Almad­i­na, Mori­na, and Khaleej Elta­ha­di and one oth­er that he had no name for. The prob­lem with this expla­na­tion was that we had observed the Khand­heel 2 on the 13th and 14th of June, and it was not fish­ing. In addi­tion, weath­er con­di­tions for those two days made fish­ing vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble. The extreme­ly dif­fi­cult con­di­tions, cou­pled with the posi­tion of the cages only 40 miles off the Libyan coast, when they should have been mov­ing 25 miles a day, sug­gest­ed to us that the fish were fresh­ly caught with­in the last three days at the most.

Their state­ment that all the catch­es were caught on the 14th sound­ed much too con­ve­nient, so we asked to exam­ine the fish for juve­niles. We were refused. I then put the bow of the Steve Irwin onto the cage so we could look into the cage from the bow to exam­ine it fur­ther.

Sud­den­ly, the Mal­tese ves­sel Rosaria Tuna rammed the Steve Irwin on the aft port side and slid along­side the port rail, as a fish­er­man tried to vio­lent­ly gaff Sea Shep­herd crewmem­bers with a long, sharp-hooked pole.

The Steve Irwin crew retal­i­at­ed with 8 liters of rot­ten but­ter forc­ing the fish­ing ves­sel to retreat and to stand off.

At 1530 hours, the two fish­ing ves­sels cir­cled their cages defen­sive­ly and the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin stood off to noti­fy ICCAT (Inter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for the Con­ser­va­tion of Atlantic Tuna) of pos­si­ble vio­la­tions. They did not respond.

The Jean Char­cot, the ICCAT inspec­tion ves­sel will not ven­ture south of 33 Degrees 40 Min­utes North.

With two fish­ing ves­sels con­tain­ing angry Ital­ian crews, there were risks involved with get­ting into the water to assess the bluefin catch. But if the catch was ille­gal, Sea Shep­herd divers knew they must cut the nets and free the bluefin tuna.

Some­times it is nec­es­sary to do what needs to be done despite the risks. The risk of los­ing the bluefin tuna as a species is far more impor­tant than the risks to our own lives and free­dom.

And so we decid­ed to free the tuna.

At 1600 hours, a five-per­son dive crew entered one of two cages being towed by the Ital­ian fish­ing ves­sel Cesare Rus­ti­co.

As the Steve Irwin held off the Cesare Rus­ti­co and the sup­port ship Rosaria Tuna, the Sea Shep­herd crew dove into the net to iden­ti­fy the size, age, and quan­ti­ty of the bluefin tuna with­in. Once it was clear­ly estab­lished that the cage was over­stocked and that a high per­cent­age were juve­niles, Sea Shep­herd divers freed the 700–800 tuna.

It is our posi­tion that the bluefin tuna we freed from that cage held a large num­ber of juve­niles and that the fish were caught after the offi­cial clo­sure of the sea­son. It is also our posi­tion that the fish that we freed exceed­ed the quo­ta.

A large per­cent­age of the tuna were juve­niles and from the posi­tion of the cages and the fact that the entire Mediter­ranean bluefin tuna fish­ery closed at mid­night on June 14th, Sea Shep­herd is con­vinced that this catch was caught after June 14 and there­fore Sea Shep­herd holds the posi­tion that this oper­a­tion by these two ves­sels was ille­gal.*

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety is not a protest orga­ni­za­tion. Sea Shep­herd is an anti-poach­ing orga­ni­za­tion and these two sein­ers are poach­ers.

A Sea Shep­herd cam­era­man filmed the release of the fish from the cen­tre of the cage and swim­mers con­firmed that all 700–800 tuna inside the enclo­sure were freed.

“They shot out of that net like race­hors­es,” said Cana­di­an cam­era­man Simon Ager.

After free­ing the bluefin tuna, the Steve Irwin head­ed north and out of the waters claimed by Libya. The Mal­tese media report­ed that Libya had dis­patched war­ships to pur­sue the Steve Irwin.

There are claims in the Mal­tese press that a bluefin tuna fish­er­man was injured by our actions. No one on the Steve Irwin, in the heli­copter, or in the Delta saw any inci­dent where a fish­er­man was injured. We saw one man dive into the water from the side of the cage. Then, we saw him get up and give us the rude Ital­ian arm sig­nal. Anoth­er fish­er­man slashed at the crew with a hook on the end of a long pole, and one of the ves­sels rammed us in the port stern area.

* Notes

Giv­en the very bad weath­er con­di­tions in the zone north of Tripoli until the clo­sure of the legal fish­ing sea­son on June 14th, it is impos­si­ble that this catch was tak­en dur­ing the legal sea­son. The tuna were caught post-clo­sure, dur­ing a peri­od of very calm weath­er that has pre­dom­i­nat­ed over the area since the 15th.

Legal Sea­son:
Wind speed 12th June: 20–35 knots / Seas 1–2 meters
Wind speed 13th June: 20–25 knots / Seas 1–2 meters
Wind speed 14th June: 10–20 knots / Seas 1–2 meters

Post clo­sure:
Wind speed 15th June: 10–15 knots / Seas 1 meter
Wind speed 16th June: 15 knots / Seas 1 meter Wind speed 17th June: 10 knots / Seas 1 meter

The Steve Irwin passed the Khan­deel 2 (one of the ves­sels on the BCD doc­u­ment read over the VHF radio) on the 13th at 1230 at 33*36 / 13*55, less than 20 miles from where we encoun­tered the cages towed by Cesare Rus­ti­co and Rosario Tuna on the 17th, and it was not fish­ing. The weath­er was rough.

Giv­en the loca­tion of the cap­ture, and the loca­tion of the tow ves­sel, it is impos­si­ble the catch was made 3 days ago. Head­ing towards Mal­ta with an aver­age 25 miles per day, the ves­sel and cage would have been much fur­ther north (the ves­sel was in very calm weath­er sit­ting still wait­ing a sec­ond ves­sel).

Vis­it our Oper­a­tion Blue Rage Cam­paign site — http://www.seashepherd.org/blue-rage/

Titnore developers back down — protest cancelled, meeting & walk

MORE good news in the bat­tle to Save Tit­nore Woods!

The would-be devel­op­ers have now announced they will NOT be appeal­ing against the his­toric refusal of their plans for 875 homes by Wor­thing coun­cil back in March.

Below is the Argus report.

MORE good news in the bat­tle to Save Tit­nore Woods!

The would-be devel­op­ers have now announced they will NOT be appeal­ing against the his­toric refusal of their plans for 875 homes by Wor­thing coun­cil back in March.

Below is the Argus report.

So is this it? Are Tit­nore Woods saved? Where next for the cam­paign and the camp? This will be the time­ly top­ic of dis­cus­sion at the next Wor­thing Alliance meet­ing, which is on Thurs­day June 24, 8pm, at The Jol­ly Brew­ers in Clifton Road, Wor­thing – not far from the main sta­tion.

As ever, all are wel­come!

Deci­sion on Tit­nore plans will not be appealed
Devel­op­ers will not appeal against a deci­sion to reject plans to build 875 homes which would have seen the destruc­tion of ancient wood­land.

Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil reject­ed pro­pos­als for a devel­op­ment at Tit­nore Woods, near Wor­thing, in March, because of its impact on wildlife.

Yes­ter­day the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium said it would not appeal and would now be look­ing at alter­na­tive plans on the out­skirts of Wor­thing.

Pro­test­ers set up camp in the tree­tops in Tit­nore Wood in May 2006.

The con­sor­tium first sub­mit­ted pro­pos­als in 2003 which includ­ed the straight­en­ing of Tit­nore Lane, with the loss of 275 trees.
They were lat­er changed to save 200 exist­ing trees, with 2,350 more being plant­ed across the site.
Speed man­age­ment mea­sures were also pro­posed rather than the straight­en­ing of Tit­nore Lane, with 20mph lim­its in the hous­ing areas.

But coun­cil­lors still feared the plans would cause unac­cept­able dam­age to ancient wood­land and overde­vel­op the site.

Yes­ter­day the con­sor­tium said it was work­ing on new pro­pos­als but would not appeal the council’s deci­sion.
It stat­ed: “We will not appeal against Wor­thing Coun­cil’s deci­sion to refuse plan­ning per­mis­sion for 875 homes.
“In a pos­i­tive response to the terms of this deci­sion the con­sor­tium has now elect­ed to progress alter­na­tive pro­pos­als over com­ing months which will very clear­ly exclude any pro­posed devel­op­ment of the west­ern area and any direct access to Tit­nore Lane.”
Coun­cil leader Paul Yal­lop said future devel­op­ment of the area was “up in the air” fol­low­ing a change in Gov­ern­ment.

The Con­ser­v­a­tives had pledged, pri­or to the gen­er­al elec­tion, to scrap hous­ing tar­gets which had meant 1,000 hous­es might still have to be built in West Dur­ring­ton.

Coun Yal­lop said: “I am pleased to hear that the con­sor­tium is not appeal­ing.
“I am not sure where it is going to go from here because the Gov­ern­ment is scrap­ping tar­gets.
“It is dif­fi­cult to say what will hap­pen. We do have long wait­ing lists for hous­ing, but until it is a bit clear­er where Gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion is going I think it’s all up in the air.”

http://www.eco-action.org/porkbolter

—–

Tit­nore vic­to­ry means protest is off

THE Tit­nore on Tour cam­paign has achieved its aim of per­suad­ing the would-be devel­op­ers at Dur­ring­ton, West Sus­sex, not to appeal against the sur­prise coun­cil refusal of their plans.

And it only took one vis­it!

Because of this vic­to­ry the planned protest on Sat­ur­day June 26 out­side devel­op­er Per­sim­mon Homes’ region­al HQ in Fare­ham has been can­celled.

Please spread the word to any­one who might have been plan­ning to come.

We are not com­pla­cent and know there is still a threat to local green space, though it appears the wood­land may now be safe.

A spe­cial meet­ing is being held at 8pm on Thurs­day June 24 at The Jol­ly Brew­ers pub in Clifton Road, Wor­thing (not far from main sta­tion) to dis­cuss where the Tit­nore cam­paign goes next.

Any­one who cares about Tit­nore Woods is encour­aged to come along and have their say.

Mean­while, Sus­sex coun­try­side lovers are urged to sup­port new pres­sure group Wor­thing Down­lan­ders’ Mid­sum­mer cir­cu­lar walk from High­down to Patch­ing Hill on Sun­day June 20 with local his­to­ri­an Chris.

Meet High­down car park, up the hill from Gor­ing by Sea rail sta­tion, at 11am to return 3pm to 4pm. Pub lunch or pic­nic en route. Sug­gest­ed dona­tion £3. www.worthingdownlanders.org.uk

http://www.eco-action.org/porkbolter/Titnoretour.html

We broke open Breaky Bottom!

14.06.2010
A bunch of walk­ers from as far away as Dorset and the Chilterns walked the for­bid­den Access Land site of Breaky Bot­tom farm and vine­yard, near Rod­mell, East Sus­sex, on Sat­ur­day.

And they said “two fin­gers to the self­ish landown­er who wish­es to remove a right of access that has tak­en 130 years to secure”.

14.06.2010
A bunch of walk­ers from as far away as Dorset and the Chilterns walked the for­bid­den Access Land site of Breaky Bot­tom farm and vine­yard, near Rod­mell, East Sus­sex, on Sat­ur­day.

And they said “two fin­gers to the self­ish landown­er who wish­es to remove a right of access that has tak­en 130 years to secure”.

They had with them Kate Ash­brook, Gen. Sec. of the Open Spaces Soci­ety and doughty fight­er against Nicholas Hoogstraten’s foot­path stop­ping antics, and Mar­i­on Shoard, the author whose books high­light­ing the destruc­tion of the coun­try­side and the inequities of landown­er­ship have turned around the pol­i­tics of the coun­try­side in the last gen­er­a­tion. Six­ty walk­ers and their chil­dren, with folk from the Ram­blers Asso­ci­a­tion, *Red Rope, and The Land Is Ours, watched as we sym­bol­i­cal­ly fenced the steep slope of a tiny chalk pit which the landown­er has been using as his excuse for exclud­ing the pub­lic from this statu­to­ry Access Land site. We dec­o­rat­ed the new fence with our rib­bons, ban­ners and plac­ards.

Despite own­ing ‘the most fenced farm on the entire South Downs’, with every tiny pad­dock and vine row fenced or hedged, this landown­er so far refus­es to fence this chalk pit because its pres­ence as a safe­ty haz­ard con­sti­tutes the excuse he needs to secure a Restric­tion Order for­bid­ding us access to this ancient flow­ery pas­ture.

Kate Ash­brook in her speech said: “It is out­ra­geous that we are banned from this love­ly site. The Access Land on the Downs is piti­ful­ly sparse in any case. Breaky Bot­tom is the entry point to a delight­ful but very under-used part of the Downs, and is only a short dis­tance from the South Downs Way.

All the landown­er need­ed to do was to put about 70 metres of fencing[v]around the quar­ry to com­ply with the require­ments for mak­ing
Access Land safe for the pub­lic”.

Mar­i­on Shoard called for “a right of respect­ful access every­where in the coun­try­side, as already exists in Scotland[vi].”
Dave Bangs, of Action For Access, said “The landown­er wants his right to pri­va­cy, even though he already lives in one of the remotest and most under-vis­it­ed parts of the South Downs. Yet what about the rights to enjoy the coun­try­side and nature which all those mil­lions of us cooped up in our cities, towns and vil­lages need for our health and recre­ation ? Wealth and land own­er­ship should not be what deter­mines our right to enjoy the coun­try­side.”

Our cam­paign is deter­mined to return and return again to Breaky Bot­tom until we see Lewes Dis­trict Coun­cil and Nat­ur­al Eng­land secure the per­ma­nent fenc­ing of this lit­tle chalk pit and the con­se­quent re-open­ing of this site to pub­lic access.

——————————

The cam­paign for the right to roam has been going since the 1880–90s and the first Par­lia­men­tary Bill was put for­ward by James Bryce in 1884. In 2000 the CROW Act (Coun­try­side and Rights of Way Act) was passed, which gave walk­ers a lim­it­ed right of access over ‘moun­tain, moor, heath, down and com­mon’. In prac­tice the amount of Access Land on the South Downs increased by only 2 %. Breaky Bot­tom was one of the ‘pre­cious frag­ments’ of old Down­land which was giv­en this statu­to­ry right of access.

Action for Access
action4access@googlemail.com