Author: earthfirst

Mainshill Solidarity Camp evicted – not an end, but a beginning

30th Jan­u­ary 2010
Yes­ter­day was the fifth and final day of the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp – the last two arrests as the final occu­piers were dragged out of the rapid­ly shrink­ing Wood. A total of 45 arrests were made over the course of the evic­tion with close to 70 peo­ple tak­ing part and sup­port­ing the camp.

30th Jan­u­ary 2010
Yes­ter­day was the fifth and final day of the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp – the last two arrests as the final occu­piers were dragged out of the rapid­ly shrink­ing Wood. A total of 45 arrests were made over the course of the evic­tion with close to 70 peo­ple tak­ing part and sup­port­ing the camp.

All five days saw the vio­lence inflict­ed by the state on those who try to cre­ate pos­i­tive change, and the col­lu­sion between the courts, police and cor­po­ra­tions. But they also saw hero­ic acts of defi­ance, with peo­ple fight­ing off bailiffs until hav­ing their hands and feet cable-tied togeth­er and sup­port­ers main­tain­ing a 24-hour vig­il through­out the evic­tion.

This evic­tion is not an end, but the begin­ning of a cam­paign of com­mu­ni­ty-based rad­i­cal direct action sweep­ing Scotland’s cen­tral belt which can only grow in strength. From actions to stop work on open­cast sites and the shut­ting down of a major coal rail ter­mi­nal for a day (which hap­pened for a third time on Wednes­day), to com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and sol­i­dar­i­ty result­ing in a sev­en-month occu­pa­tion and a pos­i­tive change in direc­tion for rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ism in Scot­land.

But where can we go next? We’ve hit these cap­i­tal­ists and mon­ey-grab­bers where it hurts most – in the pock­et – and we can’t wait to hear how much it has cost them in total. Over 30 direct actions have tak­en place over the past 12 months, and that’s not includ­ing the evic­tion. Machines have been trashed, health stud­ies pub­lished and bonds been made with those affect­ed by heavy indus­try and the caus­es of cli­mate change. We’ve dug tun­nels, defend­ed trees and climbed onto dig­gers.

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has now been evict­ed, but the strug­gle con­tin­ues!

mainshill@riseup.net
http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/

Update from the ongoing Mainshill eviction, day 4

The ongo­ing evic­tion of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered its fourth day with the strug­gle to clear the sycamores con­tin­u­ing.

Yes­ter­day the bat­tle for the sycamores had start­ed with the removal of the skyraft, and one pro­tes­tor being hauled out of a tree.

Snow and Anarchy at MainshillThe ongo­ing evic­tion of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered its fourth day with the strug­gle to clear the sycamores con­tin­u­ing.

Yes­ter­day the bat­tle for the sycamores had start­ed with the removal of the skyraft, and one pro­tes­tor being hauled out of a tree.

Tree­hous­es were destroyed and the remain­ing anti-coal activists were left with­out tarps, bed­ding or in some cas­es, a way down the tree.

Dur­ing the course of today, five oth­er peo­ple were evict­ed from the sycamores.

The hid­den tree­top camp known as ‘Ewok Vil­lage’ was cleared as well with climbers tack­ling some tough defences.

In all, there were nine arrests.

A huge amount of heavy machin­ery has been moved onto site, so oppor­tu­ni­ties for actions to stop work on site are lit­er­al­ly every­where.

“The fight isn’t over yet”, said the almost infa­mous Bar­ry Cad­er, recent­ly released on bail.

Update from day 3 Mainshill eviction

Sev­en more pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed today, Wednes­day 27th Jan­u­ary, in the third day of resis­tance against the evic­tion of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

Up a tree at MainshillSev­en more pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed today, Wednes­day 27th Jan­u­ary, in the third day of resis­tance against the evic­tion of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

As the tac­tics of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team grew increas­ing­ly aggres­sive and cav­a­lier, spir­its on site remained strong. Climbers attempt­ed to evict the stand of sycamores but were met with deter­mined resis­tance and suc­ceed­ed in only remov­ing one pro­tes­tor. Branch­es have been stripped from the remain­ing trees and tree­hous­es destroyed. The coal activists have been left with­out bed­ding or tarps for the night.

Bull­doz­ers destroyed trees with­in 50metres of a hid­den tree­top camp as the locked-on pro­tes­tors screamed and whis­tled to try and reveal them­selves and stop work. The dis­cov­ery of this fur­ther site has delayed the end of the evic­tion and rais­es doubts about the com­pe­ten­cy of the NET. A search heli­copter had made sev­er­al pass­es over the area but seem­ing­ly failed to find any­thing, despite hov­er­ing over their exact loca­tion for sev­er­al min­utes. As the bull­doz­ers neared the tree­hous­es, sup­port folk out­side site begged the NET to stop the work to secure the area and ensure the safe­ty of those locked-on. Their whis­tles could clear­ly be heard from the front of site but the NET were stub­born in their refusal to accept the pos­si­ble pres­ence of anoth­er occu­pa­tion. Work was final­ly stopped metres from the tree­hous­es. The climb­ing team expect to start try­ing to clear the area, known as ‘Ewok Vil­lage’ tomor­row.

A tree­house, the net, and a skyraft were cleared of occu­pants. Tun­nel teams con­tin­ue to work through the night to clear the under­ground defences.

The 26 peo­ple held and charged over the last two days have all been released on bail, and are charged with either breach of the peace or sec­tion 68(1) of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994.

In sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, Raven­struther coal rail ter­mi­nal was shut down for up to five hours this morn­ing as a pro­tes­tor locked on to a dig­ger.

It is still easy to get onto site so come down and sup­port the Main­shill crew from the inside or do some sup­port work from the out­side.

For info about the cam­paign see www.mainshill.noflag.org.uk

European protests to stop bulldozers on uncontacted tribe’s land

26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Pro­tes­tors gath­ered in Lon­don, Madrid and Paris today to oppose the destruc­tion of land belong­ing to one of the world’s last uncon­tact­ed tribes.

26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Pro­tes­tors gath­ered in Lon­don, Madrid and Paris today to oppose the destruc­tion of land belong­ing to one of the world’s last uncon­tact­ed tribes.

The pro­tes­tors stood out­side the Paraguayan embassies in Madrid and Lon­don hold­ing plac­ards read­ing, ‘Save the Ayoreo.’ The Ayoreo-Toto­biegosode are los­ing their for­est to a Brazil­ian com­pa­ny bull­doz­ing it to graze cat­tle for beef.

In Paris, a let­ter was hand­ed in to UNESCO’s head office express­ing their con­cern for the Toto­biegosode. The for­est being destroyed by the cat­tle-ranch­ers is part of a UNESCO ‘bios­phere reserve’, but despite pleas from the Toto­biegosode to stop the destruc­tion UNESCO has yet to respond.

The com­pa­ny, Yaguarete Pora S.A., recent­ly won Survival’s ‘Green­wash­ing Award 2010’ for its deci­sion to cre­ate a ‘nature reserve’ on the Totobiegosode’s land while destroy­ing thou­sands of hectares of their for­est. Yaguarete denies it is act­ing ille­gal­ly and claims the land it is destroy­ing does not belong to the Toto­biegosode, despite the fact that many stud­ies prove it belongs to them and a legal claim made by the Toto­biegosode is based on one of those stud­ies.

See the company’s defor­esta­tion plans.

Satel­lite pho­tos clear­ly show the destruc­tion of the Totobiegosode’s for­est. They are the only uncon­tact­ed tribe in the world los­ing their land to beef.

Sur­vival direc­tor, Stephen Cor­ry, said today, ‘Peo­ple all over the world are begin­ning to wake up to what is hap­pen­ing to the Toto­biegosode. Paraguay risks being more famous for this tragedy than any­thing else.’

2 anti-nuke protests against new build plans

Anti-nuclear activists dis­rupt Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee
27.1.2010

Nukes not the answerAnti-nuclear activists dis­rupt Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee
27.1.2010

This morn­ing in West­min­ster, dur­ing the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee on the pro­posed nuclear and oth­er ener­gy Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments, two anti-nuclear activists stood and unfurled a ban­ner in the cen­tre of the com­mit­tee room read­ing “Local Democ­ra­cy Dumped.” The ban­ner also fea­tured radi­a­tion sym­bols and drums of radioac­tive waste. A third activist hand­ed out brief­in­gs on why they believe nuclear pow­er is unac­cept­able and an inap­pro­pri­ate tech­nol­o­gy for tack­ing cli­mate change. The three activists were tak­en away and detained inside the House of Com­mons, along with a forth man who was tak­ing pho­tographs. The four were held for over two hours for alleged breach­es of the House reg­u­la­tions, before being released and banned from the Par­lia­men­tary estate for the rest of the day.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of ener­gy giants EDF, E.ON and RWE npow­er and of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Elec­tric­i­ty Pro­duc­ers were giv­ing evi­dence before the com­mit­tee of MPs. The pro­test­ers were high­light­ing the lack of local democ­ra­cy asso­ci­at­ed with the new fast-track plan­ning process, which will be used to silence dis­sent­ing local voic­es on major infra­struc­ture projects such as new nuclear pow­er sta­tions and nuclear waste dumps.

Yes­ter­day the four protest­ed with oth­ers out­side the Nuclear New Build Con­fer­ence at Char­ing Cross Hotel (see below)

Nuclear Peo­ple Pow­er / No New Nuclear
http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com

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Lon­don Con­fer­ence Protest Expos­es Nuclear Green­wash
26.1.2010

A group of nine anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers staged a two-hour protest out­side the Nuclear New Build Con­fer­ence in cen­tral Lon­don this morn­ing in protest at indus­try attempts to paint nuclear pow­er as a “green” tech­nol­o­gy and win pub­lic sup­port for new nuclear reac­tors.

Stand­ing out­side the Guo­man Hotel adja­cent to Char­ing Cross rail­way sta­tion in the morn­ing rush hour dressed in white over­alls and masks, the pro­test­ers dis­played a large ban­ner read­ing “Nuclear Pow­er is Not the Answer to Cli­mate Chaos”, hand­ed out leaflets and detailed brief­in­gs explain­ing why they believe nuclear pow­er to be a false solu­tion to cli­mate change and detail­ing oth­er prob­lems with this form of ener­gy. Dur­ing the demon­stra­tion, the con­fer­ence’s keynote speak­er, for­mer ener­gy min­is­ter Mal­colm Wicks MP, exchanged views on nuclear pow­er and ener­gy pol­i­cy with one of the cam­paign­ers.

The Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change is cur­rent­ly under­tak­ing a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on its draft nuclear Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ment (NPS). Once this is approved, deci­sions on new nuclear reac­tors will be left to an unelect­ed quan­go called the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion, with no fur­ther oppor­tu­ni­ty for local objec­tions to be heard.
The Gov­ern­ment is keen to push through a new gen­er­a­tion of cost­ly and high­ly con­tro­ver­sial nuclear reac­tors, despite wide­spread oppo­si­tion and the lack of any long-term solu­tion for over 50 years’ worth of high lev­el radioac­tive waste from exist­ing reac­tors. Cam­paign­ers are con­cerned that the high cost of build­ing new reac­tors would divert essen­tial invest­ment from renew­able and decen­tralised ener­gy and ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures. They say that new reac­tors take too long to build and would not in any case make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion towards meet­ing the UK’s car­bon emis­sion reduc­tion tar­gets. They also remain con­cerned about the health effects of radioac­tive emis­sions, such as the can­cer and leukaemia clus­ters found near nuclear pow­er sta­tions, as indi­cat­ed by the 2007 Ger­man-gov­ern­ment spon­sored KiKK study, and the risk of a ter­ror­ist attack or cat­a­stroph­ic Cher­nobyl-type reac­tor melt­down. A for­mer direc­tor of the Fors­mark nuclear plant in Swe­den said of an inci­dent at the site in 2006: “It was pure luck that there was not a melt­down.”

Daniel Vies­nik, 35, a Lon­don-based activist, said “The nuclear industry’s long his­to­ry of secre­cy, cov­er-ups and shod­dy and dan­ger­ous prac­tices stretch­es back over fifty years. It wants us to believe that a leop­ard can change its spots, but the only thing that real­ly seems to change is the indus­try’s PR tac­tics.”

Ian Mills, 44, a long-term anti-nuclear activist from Chip­pen­ham, Wilt­shire said, “Nuclear pow­er is a dirty, dan­ger­ous and expen­sive dis­trac­tion from the major invest­ment need­ed for a rad­i­cal tran­si­tion to a safe and sus­tain­able low-car­bon future and green indus­try, based on more mod­est con­sump­tion, ener­gy effi­cien­cy and con­ser­va­tion, and renew­able and decen­tralised ener­gy.”

Mell Har­ri­son, 38, East­ern Region CND’s cam­paigns offi­cer, who lives near Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Suf­folk, said: “It is frus­trat­ing that we are not includ­ed in the talks hap­pen­ing at the con­fer­ence, espe­cial­ly as the ener­gy needs of the UK con­cerns us all. A seat at the con­fer­ence costs over £1300 and the future costs if new nuclear goes ahead are far greater. Sure­ly now it is time for the nuclear indus­try to be open and account­able? But yet again as we have seen time and time again, all the ‘real’ talk goes on behind closed doors.’ Mell added ’ This protest is just the start- we need real solu­tions to cli­mate change — not nuclear green wash.’

Con­tact: vd2012-npp [at] yahoo.co.uk or mell­c­n­deast [at] cnduk.org
Tel: 07760 161 755 or 07506 234 091
http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com
Twit­ter: http://twitter.com/nukepeoplepower

Ravenstruther coal rail terminal shut down + Mainshill eviction continues, 3rd day…

A coal ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire was brought to a stand­still this morn­ing when a pro­tes­tor locked him­self to a piece of machin­ery.

At 9am this morn­ing (Wed 27th) a man climbed to the top of a dig­ger and locked him­self to it by his leg, effec­tive­ly shut­ting down Raven­struther coal rail ter­mi­nal.

Ravenstruther coal rail terminal shut downA coal ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire was brought to a stand­still this morn­ing when a pro­tes­tor locked him­self to a piece of machin­ery.

At 9am this morn­ing (Wed 27th) a man climbed to the top of a dig­ger and locked him­self to it by his leg, effec­tive­ly shut­ting down Raven­struther coal rail ter­mi­nal.

About 15 trucks full of coal are unable to access the ter­mi­nal and have been forced to dump their load, and the coal train that was being loaded has been stopped.

Raven­struther is where coal from the open-cast mines in South Lanark­shire is loaded onto trains and sent south to pow­er sta­tions such as Drax.

An hour after the action start­ed NETCU and 6 police offi­cers arrived.

This action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp which is in the third day of resist­ing evic­tion.

The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is approv­ing up to 33 new open cast coal sites. A pro­tes­tor from Main­shill said: “As Cli­mate Chaos grows expo­nen­tial­ly worse, it is becom­ing more and more impor­tant to resist and obstruct the ever enlarg­ing fos­sil fuel indus­try. We will do every­thing in our pow­er to make the extrac­tion, trans­port, and burn­ing of coal as finan­cial­ly unvi­able as pos­si­ble by con­tin­u­ing to fight against it at every step of the way, from the mines to the pow­er sta­tions.”

——–
Resisting bailiffs climbing into top branches at Mainshill
Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp:

The evic­tion is still ongo­ing. The site perime­ter can­not be secured so there is still mas­sive scope for resist­ing this evic­tion and Scot­tish Coals activ­i­ties gen­er­al­ly, get your­self up to Lanark­shire and get stuck in. Four peo­ple were arrest­ed from the camp this morn­ing (27th).

More infor­ma­tion about the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and how to get there is avail­able at www.mainshill.noflag.org.uk

First Nation pushes back against ‘Ring of Fire’ mine, rail project

26th Jan­u­ary 2010
A Thun­der Bay min­er­al sym­po­sium of the Matawa First Nations trib­al coun­cil in Feb­ru­ary could be a rau­cous affair.

Matawa camp26th Jan­u­ary 2010
A Thun­der Bay min­er­al sym­po­sium of the Matawa First Nations trib­al coun­cil in Feb­ru­ary could be a rau­cous affair.

The aggres­sive push by Cliffs Nat­ur­al Resources and Cana­da Chrome to devel­op a $1.5 bil­lion chromite deposit in the James Bay ‘Ring of Fire’ and ore haul rail­road has drawn heat from one remote com­mu­ni­ty.

Last week about 15 pro­test­ers from Marten Falls First Nation pitched tents last week at Kop­per and McFauld’s Lakes near the explo­ration camps of Noront Resources and Freewest Resources.

“We’re pre­pared to stay there as long as pos­si­ble,” said Chief Eli Moo­nias, who isn’t pleased that Cana­da Chrome has staked min­er­al claims along a 350-kilo­me­tre long pro­posed rail cor­ri­dor between McFauld’s Lake and the Town of Naki­na in north­west­ern, Ontario.

He’s angry the stak­ing was done in advance of the imple­men­ta­tion of the Ontar­i­o’s Far North Plan­ning Act and wants North­ern Devel­op­ment, Mines and Forestry Min­is­ter Michael Grav­elle to “claw back” those claims.

Moo­nias said his com­mu­ni­ty of 300 was not con­sult­ed by Cana­da Chrome and claims the McFauld’s Lake deposits and most of the pro­posed rail­road cor­ri­dor falls with­in Marten Falls’ tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry.

We don’t like this under­hand­ed busi­ness,” said Moo­nias. “They should have come to the com­mu­ni­ty to do that.”

Moo­nias said he told min­istry offi­cials in Decem­ber he want­ed a com­mu­ni­ty-based land use plan that will include their 10-year-old strat­e­gy for an access road run­ning into the James Bay Low­lands and even­tu­al­ly link­ing up with Attawapiskat on the coast.

Moo­nias said his com­mu­ni­ty’s posi­tion is to sup­port the mine pro­vid­ed their cor­ri­dor plan is adopt­ed, but Cana­da Chrome has large­ly ignored this.

He said the min­ing com­pa­nies and Queen’s Park must address a list of con­cerns and wants an agree­ment signed with the min­ing com­pa­nies before the protest camps are pulled out.

Cana­da Chrome, a sub­sidiary of KWG Resources has been deal­ing with the Matawa First Nation, a trib­al coun­cil rep­re­sent­ing nine area com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing Marten Falls.

But Moo­nias said the coun­cil does­n’t speak for his com­mu­ni­ty.
“They’ve got noth­ing to do with tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries. What hap­pens there is our busi­ness.”
KWG Resources and Cana­da Chrome pres­i­dent and CEO Frank Smeenk chalked up the protest to an inter­nal squab­ble inside the coun­cil.

“We were giv­en to under­stand that we were to fol­low a pro­to­col by the nine mem­bers of Matawa Coun­cil,” said Smeenk, refer­ring to the Matawa Inter­im Min­er­al Mea­sures pro­to­col. “Now we are to under­stand that’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly the case.”

Moo­nias said he nev­er agreed to any such pro­to­col.

“I nev­er heard of it. I’ve got noth­ing to do with that.”

Smeenk said it’s obvi­ous Marten Falls wants to be con­sult­ed with sep­a­rate­ly.

“Eli’s try­ing to get atten­tion to a cause and one of those is one that pre-dates all of us, a plan for a win­ter road.”

Smeenk said he met Moo­nias in Thun­der Bay this month after hear­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty’s plan to block­ade of airstrips at McFauld’s and Kop­per Lakes.

He said the protest may be a nego­ti­at­ing ploy to force the gov­ern­ment to re-open an ille­gal airstrip in the Ring of Fire along the Muketei Riv­er closed down last Novem­ber by the Min­istry of Nat­ur­al Resources.

Marten Falls had part­nered with Wilder­ness North Air to pro­vide a logis­tic sup­port base for the explo­ration efforts.

The MNR said the devel­op­ment of this airstrip was not autho­rized and a war­rant was autho­rized under the Pub­lic Lands Act pro­hibit­ing the use and occu­pa­tion of this airstrip. A restric­tion remains in place until a final deci­sion is made by the MNR regard­ing an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion and review of the airstrip pro­pos­al.

Smeenk said his com­pa­ny has no objec­tions to the airstrip being per­mit­ted for use.

Cana­da Chrome’s pro­posed rail route fol­lows glac­i­er eskers that run north-south through the swampy ter­rain between Naki­na and McFauld’s Lake.

“If God had a place for a rail­road to go that would be it,” said Smeenk.

With an adjoin­ing ser­vice road, Smeenk said near­by com­mu­ni­ties could access it with branch roads as well as run fibre optics and pow­er lines.

Moo­nias said he met pri­vate­ly with Smeenk in Thun­der Bay before Christ­mas to dis­cuss the trans­porta­tion cor­ri­dor and said the com­pa­ny pres­i­dent “made some over­tures.”

Last Sep­tem­ber, Marten Falls signed a com­pen­sa­tion agree­ment with Noront Resources for past explo­ration work already per­formed at their explo­ration camp. Moo­nias said it amount­ed to $2 per metre for holes already drilled, but added no agree­ments for future explo­ration work has been signed with Noront or any oth­er com­pa­ny.

Noront said in a Jan. 18 statement,despite the incon­ve­nience of a “logis­tics halt” at their ice airstrip” it was sup­port­ing the actions of Marten Falls.

Moo­nias said a meet­ing is sched­uled next week with gov­ern­ment offi­cials and some min­ing play­ers in Marten Falls.

He wants the min­ing com­pa­nies to use their win­ter toll roads to haul fuel and bulk items, and for the gov­ern­ment to allow them to fin­ish con­struc­tion of an airstrip to cre­ate a ser­vice hub for McFauld’s Lake.

“We’re say­ing let’s build this strip where the ground is good for the envi­ron­ment and let us build the camps there and do busi­ness.”

Moo­nias said some com­pa­nies had been land­ing on the par­tial­ly-com­plet­ed airstrip last fall. “We told the MNR about it and they shut it down. We’re try­ing to fin­ish that so we can start build­ing our camps there to do busi­ness.”
He also wants jobs and con­tracts to ser­vice these camps instead of the com­pa­nies bring­ing in out­side sup­pli­ers and sup­port per­son­nel.

Moo­nias also wants an envi­ron­men­tal clean-up and com­pen­sa­tion at McFauld’s Lake for raw sewage, grey water, fuel and chem­i­cal spills dumped by explo­ration com­pa­nies in the sum­mer of 2007.

Smeenk expressed con­fi­dence the issue could be resolved to ben­e­fit all and does­n’t sus­pect the protest will raise any red flags with Cliffs Nat­ur­al Resources.

“The First Nations just want to fig­ure out how to get our atten­tion.”

He said it may involve com­mu­ni­ty own­er­ship of the enter­prise and did­n’t rule out a First Nation equi­ty stake in the project.

When asked if the Ontario gov­ern­ment was active­ly involved help­ing in medi­at­ing the dis­pute, Smeenk paused and said he found he found MNDMF and MNR staff to be “exceed­ing­ly help­ful and care­ful of every­one’s rights.”

Anne-Marie Flana­gan, spokes­woman for Michael Grav­elle, said the min­istry is talk­ing with all the par­ties toward resolv­ing a “com­pli­cat­ed sit­u­a­tion” that involves the MNR, the air strip and how peo­ple in the Far North can all ben­e­fit.

“We’re look­ing into the whole sit­u­a­tion because this is some­thing that’s going to have to be sort­ed out big time and rather quick­ly when you look at what Cliffs is doing.

“There has to be rea­son­able deci­sions by the First Nation about what they want to go ahead with and how they want to do it.”

Grav­elle is sched­uled to deliv­er a speech Feb. 10 at the sym­po­sium.

Ontar­i­o’s new­ly revised Min­ing Act includes a dis­pute res­o­lu­tion mech­a­nism for issues between First Nations and min­ing com­pa­nies, but the details of how it is sup­posed to work has yet to be defined since the gov­ern­ment is con­duct­ing anoth­er round of pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion.

Police clash with protesters in China in land dispute

26th Jan­u­ary 2010
Author­i­ties in the south­west­ern Chi­nese region of Guangxi have sealed off a vil­lage and ordered a news black­out fol­low­ing vio­lent clash­es between local res­i­dents and police in a land dis­pute.

Land protesters in Pingle26th Jan­u­ary 2010
Author­i­ties in the south­west­ern Chi­nese region of Guangxi have sealed off a vil­lage and ordered a news black­out fol­low­ing vio­lent clash­es between local res­i­dents and police in a land dis­pute.

“The vil­lagers put up some reports about what hap­pened on the Inter­net, but they were tak­en down by the author­i­ties very quick­ly,” said a res­i­dent of Ton­gle town­ship near the scenic tourist city of Guilin.

“Right now the author­i­ties have total­ly sealed off the area. The vil­lagers are using text mes­sag­ing to exchange news,” said Zhang, adding that he had been warned by oth­er vil­lagers that the police were still detain­ing peo­ple.

Zhang said riot police fired tear gas and used elec­tric shock batons on elder­ly pro­test­ers try­ing to pre­vent the takeover of their farm­land for devel­op­ment.

“Things got very seri­ous at the scene,” he said. “The peo­ple try­ing to pro­tect the land were all elder­ly, women, and chil­dren. How could they resist?”

“They were attacked by the riot police first, and a lot of those injured were then tak­en away by police.”

Pho­tos post­ed online of the clash­es showed crowds of peo­ple, many of them elder­ly, some of whom had sus­tained injuries to their arms and legs. Some showed peo­ple ban­daged, and still bleed­ing from head injuries.

‘Han­dled accord­ing to law’

An employ­ee who answered the phone at the Pin­gle coun­ty gov­ern­ment, which over­sees Ton­gle vil­lage, said the author­i­ties had already issued the legal­ly required amount of com­pen­sa­tion to the vil­lagers.

“Our lead­ers here have already dealt with this sit­u­a­tion,” the employ­ee said. “Every­thing we did went through the munic­i­pal lev­el author­i­ties for approval, and the entire affair was han­dled accord­ing to law.”

An offi­cial who answered the phone at the Guilin munic­i­pal pol­i­tics and law com­mit­tee con­firmed the clash­es had tak­en place as part of a land dis­pute.

“There was a land dis­pute there. But I haven’t got time to explain the details to you.”

An offi­cial who answered the phone at the Guilin munic­i­pal pub­lic secu­ri­ty depart­ment declined to com­ment on the inci­dent.

How­ev­er, an offi­cer at the Ton­gle vil­lage police sta­tion said: “We are cur­rent­ly deal­ing with this issue. If you want to know more, you’ll have to go to the [coun­ty lev­el] pub­lic secu­ri­ty depart­ment.”

Cut off

Local res­i­dents said around 700 riot police were dis­patched to the vil­lage, and that the com­mu­ni­ty was still cut off from the out­side world.

An engi­neer sur­named Li at the Ton­gle Vil­lage Trans­former Sta­tion said police had sealed off sev­er­al entrances to the vil­lage, and blocked roads in the area.

“Right now, vehi­cles from out­side can’t get into Ton­gle vil­lage. The roads have all been sealed off by the author­i­ties,” Li said.

“They have blocked the exit for the vil­lage on the Cha­jiang Bridge high­way.”

The dis­pute flared after vil­lagers saw offi­cials begin to move in to begin work last Tues­day on a plot of around 1,000 mu (67 hectares) of land in the vil­lage, which was req­ui­si­tioned more than two years ago by the Pin­gle coun­ty gov­ern­ment for rede­vel­op­ment.

Local res­i­dents were angry because the author­i­ties had sold the land for 10 times the amount of the com­pen­sa­tion doled out to vil­lagers, and because they have been promised 20,000–30,000 yuan (U.S. $4,394) per mu but have yet to receive it.

An open let­ter post­ed online by vil­lagers cit­ed guide­lines issued by the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, which “states clear­ly that it is not per­mit­ted to take pos­ses­sion of the land before the com­pen­sa­tion has been paid.”

Rur­al com­mu­ni­ties ‘dis­em­pow­ered’

Yao Lifa, a civ­il rights activist from the cen­tral province of Hubei, said such land dis­putes involv­ing vio­lence between police and local res­i­dents are increas­ing­ly com­mon.

“Chi­na rur­al com­mu­ni­ties have been a dis­em­pow­ered seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion all through the past 60 years of Com­mu­nist Par­ty rule in Chi­na,” Yao said.

He cit­ed com­ments made pub­licly by cab­i­net-lev­el offi­cial Cheng Xiwen, who said that around 80 per­cent of land dis­putes across Chi­na were the result of ille­gal actions by gov­ern­ment offi­cials.

“The peo­ple have no pow­er to over­see the gov­ern­ment,” Yao said.

“Offi­cial and com­mer­cial inter­ests nowa­days are the same thing, com­bin­ing forces in an alliance which has a huge amount of pow­er.”

“There is no evil that they will not stoop to.”

He called on cen­tral gov­ern­ment offi­cials to take note of events in Guilin and help pro­tect the vil­lagers’ rights and inter­ests.

Land dis­putes have spread across Chi­na in recent years, with local peo­ple often com­plain­ing that they receive only min­i­mal com­pen­sa­tion when the gov­ern­ment sells tracts to devel­op­ers in lucra­tive prop­er­ty deals.

Attempts to occu­py dis­put­ed land fre­quent­ly result in vio­lent clash­es, as police and armed gangs are brought in to enforce the will of local offi­cials.

Forced eviction of Mainshill Solidarity Camp under way — updates

Update, 6pm, Tues­day 26th:

This morn­ing the tun­nel team suc­ceed­ed in clear­ing the expand­ing foam blockad­ing the first door, insert­ed a cam­era into the tun­nel, and removed one per­son.

Update, 6pm, Tues­day 26th:

This morn­ing the tun­nel team suc­ceed­ed in clear­ing the expand­ing foam blockad­ing the first door, insert­ed a cam­era into the tun­nel, and removed one per­son.
A pro­tes­tor out­side site was arrest­ed for breach of the peace.
The mul­ti­lay­ered defence known as ‘the fort’ took all day to evict, with climbers bring­ing down the final two occu­pants as dusk fell.
Three more pro­tes­tors held a pine plan­ta­tion all day before being removed, with one man still occu­py­ing a tree there as the climb­ing team left for the night.
Although exact num­bers aren’t avail­able, there are still many pro­tes­tors locked-on in the canopy.
The tun­nel team will be work­ing through the night again, but there are plen­ty of ways on to site for those wish­ing to help resist the evic­tion from the inside, and oth­er roles for any­one want­i­ng to sup­port site from the out­side. A total of 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed today.

Update, 9am, Tues­day 26th:
Bailiffs & police worked through the night with only a two hour break — get up there today if you can.

Update, 4pm, Mon­day 25th:
19 arrests so far, of 60 peo­ple stay­ing on site over week­end. Flood­lights up around site, though camp is not secure.
The two main bar­ri­cades, the bunker, and the ‘buck­fast’ com­mu­nal were JCB-ed, with the under­ground lock-ons in the bunker prov­ing a chal­lenge for the bailiffs.
Three tree­hous­es at ‘buck­fast’ gave the climb­ing team a run for their mon­ey, as pro­tes­tors occu­pied walk­ways and climbed into the very high­est branch­es of the trees.
Behind one of the bar­ri­cades a dou­ble-lay­ered tri­pod with a prism shaped skyraft hang­ing from its apex cost the NET anoth­er three or four hours. It was even­tu­al­ly defeat­ed when they built their own walk­way above the raft, attached ropes around it, cut the ropes which were sus­pend­ing it, and low­ered it to the ground. In a spec­tac­u­lar fit of risky behav­iour, the NET then took down the dou­ble-lay­ered tri­pod struc­ture by kick­ing it.
A tree­house above a bunker, and the bunker itself (posi­tioned above a tun­nel) last­ed anoth­er three hours. The tun­nel team worked all night but only man­aged to expose the entrance to the tun­nel.

Twit­ter
The peo­ple car­ry­ing out the evic­tion — the ‘nation­al evic­tion team’.
Oth­er con­trac­tors at Main­shill — dirty hands list
—-
25.1.2010
This morn­ing at 08:30am around 25 pri­vate bailiffs, sup­port­ed by 10 police, began their dawn assault to evict the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in South Lanark­shire.

The bailiffs are act­ing on behalf of landown­er Lord Home (1) who is set to prof­it from allow­ing Scot­tish Coal to extract 1.7 mil­lion tonnes of coal from Main­shill Wood near the vil­lage of Dou­glas. Despite the for­mi­da­ble police and bailiff oper­a­tion, camp mem­bers are stay­ing put down their tun­nels and behind their bar­ri­cades, for­ti­fied tow­ers and tree hous­es. Num­bers at the camp have swelled over the week­end with peo­ple arriv­ing from across the coun­try. The evic­tion could take weeks and cost the land own­er mil­lions (2) and it is hoped that the delay to the mine and the price of evic­tion will deter those who want to devel­op new coal projects in the UK.

The camp was occu­pied 7 months ago in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in the Dou­glas Val­ley who have been fight­ing the plans for ten years. As such it was well received with many sup­plies donat­ed by the camp’s neigh­bours includ­ing a full Christ­mas din­ner. The set­ting up of the camp has her­ald­ed a cam­paign of direct action against the min­ing of Main­shill, a nec­es­sary step after the 650 let­ters of objec­tion to the mine were dis­re­gard­ed when South Lanark­shire Coun­cil which grant­ed per­mis­sion to the appli­ca­tion.

The com­mu­ni­ties have been blight­ed by the detri­men­tal health impacts of the 4 exist­ing open casts in the imme­di­ate area (3). Har­ry Thomp­son, for­mer chair­man of the Dou­glas Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil (4), said:
“Despite mas­sive com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to the mine at Main­shill, Scot­tish Coal and South Lanark­shire Coun­cil con­tin­ue to dis­re­gard the inter­ests of those liv­ing in prox­im­i­ty to the mines. The par­tic­u­late mat­ter released in the open cast min­ing process in this area has caused unusu­al­ly high rates of can­cer and lung dis­ease. Grant­i­ng per­mis­sion to a new mine 1000 metres from the local hos­pi­tal is the final straw”.

Min­ing in the Dou­glas Val­ley is intend­ed to feed Britain’s increas­ing reliance on coal as an ener­gy source. Coal tak­en from the pro­posed mine at Main­shill will result in the release of 3.4 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere if burned. If this and the oth­er 18 pro­posed mines in Scot­land go ahead it will be a mas­sive con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change, and pre­vent Scotland’s cli­mate bill from suc­ceed­ing.

With the recent fail­ure of the UN Frame­work on Cli­mate Change in Copen­hagen to reach a deal, com­mu­ni­ties world­wide will con­tin­ue to be dis­placed and suf­fer from the min­ing and com­bus­tion of coal. One camper, Anna Key, expressed her deter­mi­na­tion to cre­ate pos­i­tive change in the face of redun­dant polit­i­cal process­es:
“I can’t do any­thing direct­ly about the ocean becom­ing more acidic or melt­ing ice­bergs but those things will only con­tin­ue if we keep burn­ing fos­sil fuels and accept­ing a cul­ture that insists on the pur­suit of prof­it through the exploita­tion of peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. By act­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ty strug­gles we can stop this — there’s noth­ing else to be doing but dig­ging up roads and build­ing bar­ri­cades.”

Those occu­py­ing the site have vowed to stay as long as pos­si­ble, and resist any attempts to remove them. Doug Well, who is resist­ing evic­tion in a for­ti­fied tun­nel, said:
“We’ve been here for so long now, and we real­ly don’t want to leave. If this mine goes ahead it real­ly will be a tragedy for the local peo­ple and for the cli­mate. I’m going to do every­thing I can to make it as hard as pos­si­ble for them to remove me.”

The evic­tion will take a few days, and there is still lots to do. The camp still needs your sup­port, so try and make it to Main­shill if you can. Con­tact site phone 07806926040 .

For inter­views from the camp includ­ing peo­ple in defences please ring: 07500163480
Web­site: http://www.mainshill.noflag.net

Notes:

(1) Lord Home is Chair­man of Coutt’s bank, the cor­po­rate wing of RBS, and is cur­rent­ly being inves­ti­gat­ed for alleged fraud. See http://www.nowpublic.com/world/coutts-bank-chairman-lord-home-named-carr…
(2) A protest camp at Dalkei­th in 2006 cost £1.9 mil­lion and took 11 days to evict.
(3) Infor­ma­tion on the health impacts of open cast mines can be found in the Dou­glas­dale Edi­tion of the Coal Health Study online: http://coalhealthstudy.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/douglasdale_v42.pdf
(4) The Dou­glas Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil has been staunch­ly against the open cast and has sup­port­ed the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp since the start, http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info.

http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?page_id=415
http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info/index.asp?pageid=60854 (includ­ing maps of Main­shill mine pro­pos­al and oth­er open­cast sites near­by)

Stalled Korean Mining Operations Face Fresh Protests

Jan 21, 2010 — The Indi­an government’s grant of the final envi­ron­men­tal clear­ance to a Kore­an giant firm, allow­ing it to acquire 3,000 acres of ‘for­est lands’ in the east­ern state of Oris­sa, has prompt­ed a fresh spate of protests from more than 4,000 fam­i­lies that will be affect­ed by a pro­posed min­ing project.

Jan 21, 2010 — The Indi­an government’s grant of the final envi­ron­men­tal clear­ance to a Kore­an giant firm, allow­ing it to acquire 3,000 acres of ‘for­est lands’ in the east­ern state of Oris­sa, has prompt­ed a fresh spate of protests from more than 4,000 fam­i­lies that will be affect­ed by a pro­posed min­ing project.

Pohang Steel Com­pa­ny (POSCO) has been try­ing to set up oper­a­tions in Oris­sa since 2005, which have been stalled since then due to a rash of some­times vio­lent protest move­ments, promi­nent among them being Posco Pratirodh San­gram Sami­ti (PPSS or Com­mit­tee for Resis­tance against POSCO), against the company’s land acqui­si­tions for the project.

The PPSS held its lat­est protest on Jan. 13 after the steel­mak­er obtained the much await­ed clear­ance ear­ly this month. The group is com­posed of local indige­nous or trib­al folk whose com­bined pop­u­la­tion is esti­mat­ed at 22,000.

In June 2005 the state gov­ern­ment and POSCO signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing allow­ing the com­pa­ny to set up a steel plant .

POSCO, which has the largest for­eign direct invest­ment in India so far, at 51,000 crores (11 bil­lion U.S. dol­lars), plans to build a 12-mil­lion-tonne steel plant with a ‘cap­tive’ port in Jagats­ingh­pur dis­trict of Oris­sa, an inte­grat­ed town­ship with water sup­ply infra­struc­ture from two impor­tant bar­rages. The project is expect­ed to gen­er­ate some 45,000 jobs.

India’s gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy on min­ing, cau­tious till 1997, was amend­ed in 2006 to allow full direct invest­ment by for­eign com­pa­nies. It was seen as a means to ‘devel­op­ing’ the coun­try.

Since then, inter­na­tion­al firms like De Beers and Bro­ken Hill Prop­er­ties, both with con­tro­ver­sial human rights and envi­ron­men­tal com­pa­ny prac­tice records in coun­tries like South Africa and Papua New Guinea respec­tive­ly, have acquired huge prospect­ing rights in Oris­sa as well as Mad­hya Pradesh state in cen­tral India.

Along­side China’s demand for iron and steel, fuelled by its furi­ous pace of devel­op­ment , iron ore pro­duc­tion in India jumped from 59 met­ric tonnes in 1993–94 to 154 mil­lion tonnes (mt) in 2005-06, baux­ite from 5 mt to 12 mt in the same peri­od, while coal-pro­duc­tion increased from 267 mt to 437 mt.

Yet, this huge spi­ral­ing pro­duc­tion has con­tributed a mere 2.5 per­cent to the country’s gross domes­tic prod­uct in the last 10 years and yield­ed much small­er rev­enues for the gov­ern­ment than it should have, giv­en its panoram­ic increase, accord­ing to the Cen­tre for Sci­ence and Envi­ron­ment, a well respect­ed New Del­hi-based organ­i­sa­tion that is cam­paign­ing against exploita­tive min­ing.

The Oris­sa state government’s no-holds-barred entry to POSCO gives the com­pa­ny 600 mt of iron ore at half its mar­ket price, enabling it to make sig­nif­i­cant­ly hand­some prof­its. This was based on a study con­duct­ed by envi­ron­men­tal researcher and social activist Man­shi Ash­er of the Nation­al Cen­tre for Advo­ca­cy Stud­ies (NCAS), based in Pune dis­trict in Maha­rash­tra, locat­ed on the west­ern coast of India.

The gov­ern­ment, which also gives the com­pa­ny tax-free sta­tus and incen­tives, will sup­ply iron ore to POSCO at a dis­count of 2,000 rupees (approx­i­mate­ly 44 U.S. dol­lars) per tonne, and allow it to export high-qual­i­ty ore even while it imports low-alu­mi­na con­tent ore.

Brazil and Chi­na had ear­li­er turned down POSCO’s pro­posed deals due to the company’s refusal to buy iron ore at mar­ket prices. The com­pa­ny is now fac­ing protests in Uruguay over land acqui­si­tion for a car­bon seques­tra­tion project.

In Oris­sa, the com­pa­ny will also receive approx­i­mate­ly 150,000 mil­lion litres of water, affect­ing water sup­ply to the near­est city of Cut­tack and irri­ga­tion to four dis­tricts. It will like­wise get an unspec­i­fied num­ber of ‘cap­tive’ coal mines and over 6,000 acres of land (com­pris­ing the new­ly cleared for­est areas for the Kore­an firm), exclud­ing an unspec­i­fied acreage for estab­lish­ing trans­porta­tion, water and ‘any oth­er project-relat­ed infra­struc­ture facil­i­ties’, as per its agree­ment, accord­ing to Ash­er.

Offi­cial sta­tis­tics indi­cate that mere­ly 438 acres of the land involved is pri­vate, dis­plac­ing 471 fam­i­lies. Gov­ern­ment records, how­ev­er, do not reflect that most of the approx­i­mate­ly 3,000 acres of land belong­ing to the for­est depart­ment have been under cul­ti­va­tion for gen­er­a­tions, or used by com­mu­ni­ties for fod­der and non-tim­bre for­est pro­duce.

Repeat­ed calls by IPS to K.C. Sahu, who is in charge of min­ing oper­a­tions in POSCO’s Indi­an arm at Bhubanesh­war, drew no response.

There are also envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns over defor­esta­tion, destruc­tion of coastal and estu­ar­ine ecosys­tems includ­ing the destruc­tion of a nat­ur­al drainage sys­tem by the con­struc­tion of a cap­tive port.

The Garhir­matha tur­tle sanc­tu­ary in Oris­sa, home to hun­dreds of nest­ing Olive Rid­ley tur­tles every year, faces sig­nif­i­cant risk by the con­struc­tion of POSCO’s cap­tive port.

The PPSS is also wor­ried about the port affect­ing the liveli­hoods of near­ly 30,000 fish­er­folk.

“There are man­groves where the port is planned, and salt mounds that serve to stop sea­wa­ter flow­ing in,” says Prashant Paikare, spokesper­son of PPSS. ” What about nat­ur­al dis­as­ters because of their destruc­tion ?” he asks.

In 1999, a dev­as­tat­ing cyclone killed thou­sands and dis­placed as many on this coast­line, destroy­ing 275,000 homes.

Con­cerns about health also hound the project. Accord­ing to the NCAS study, the local trib­al pop­u­la­tion also faces seri­ous health prob­lems, espe­cial­ly among mine work­ers in the region. Many oth­ers, hav­ing lost their lands and forests, appear to have migrat­ed, with their where­abouts unknown.

“We will offer mass resis­tance,” warns Paikare. “We still don’t believe the reha­bil­i­ta­tion pack­age that the gov­ern­ment has said POSCO must ful­fill will take care of all the issues involved.”

POSCO has yet to announce the com­po­nents of the pack­age, but locals news reports said the com­pa­ny was will­ing to offer land to those who would be dis­placed by its project. No oth­er details were giv­en, how­ev­er.

Soon after the PPSS’s Jan. 13 protest, the gov­ern­ment of Oris­sa announced it was con­ven­ing a reha­bil­i­ta­tion and periph­ery devel­op­ment advi­so­ry com­mit­tee. Steel and mines state sec­re­tary A.M.R. Dal­wai said he would now focus on the reha­bil­i­ta­tion pack­age.

The Indi­an government’s envi­ron­men­tal approval to POSCO comes with 15 rid­ers, includ­ing com­pul­so­ry afforesta­tion; that lands remain with the gov­ern­ment and that no dam­age be caused to flo­ra and fau­na. It also spec­i­fies that the project can­not be under­tak­en with­out the con­sent of the trib­al com­mu­ni­ty liv­ing in the area.

The pro­posed min­ing site in Keon­jhar dis­trict, which will sup­ply POSCO its iron ore, is already reel­ing under the neg­a­tive effects of large-scale min­ing activ­i­ty.

Pro­tect­ed against land alien­ation under India’s con­sti­tu­tion because of its being a trib­al area, Keon­jhar still faces con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions by even state-run organ­i­sa­tions like the Oris­sa Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, tak­en to court for land ille­gal­i­ties.

“We can­not have devel­op­ment which is only about extrac­tion,” says activist Rose­mary Vish­wanath, believ­ing it impov­er­ish­es the affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties and destroys their cul­ture.