Author: earthfirst

GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST VEDANTA RESOURCES PLC

GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST VEDANTA RESOURCES PLC (27 JULY)

VENUE/TIME:- AGM OF VEDANTA RESOURCES PLC, THE LINCOLN CENTRE, 18 LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, LONDON, WC2A 3ED, (near­est Tube- Hol­born)
27 JULY 2009, 2.00 pm onwards

STOP THE CULTURAL GENOCIDE, ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION, HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION, DEADLY POLLUTION

GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST VEDANTA RESOURCES PLC (27 JULY)

VENUE/TIME:- AGM OF VEDANTA RESOURCES PLC, THE LINCOLN CENTRE, 18 LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, LONDON, WC2A 3ED, (near­est Tube- Hol­born)
27 JULY 2009, 2.00 pm onwards

STOP THE CULTURAL GENOCIDE, ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION, HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION, DEADLY POLLUTION
The Glob­al Cam­paign against Vedan­ta Resources plc will be protest­ing inside and out­side the Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing of Vedan­ta Resources plc at Lin­coln Cen­tre, 18 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Lon­don, WC2A 3ED on 27 July 2009 from 2.00 pm onwards. Simul­ta­ne­ous protests will be held world­wide on 27 July, in the east­ern Indi­an state of Oris­sa and oth­er parts of India and a series of demon­stra­tions, pub­lic meet­ings and ral­lies will be held in Oris­sa, Kolkata, Mum­bai and oth­er cities from 27 July onwards.
Vedan­ta Resources is a multi­na­tion­al min­ing com­pa­ny, list­ed on the Lon­don Stock Exchange whose spec­tac­u­lar rise involves vio­lat­ing Envi­ron­men­tal Laws, Human Rights Abuse, Finan­cial scams & Polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion in Zam­bia, Arme­nia, India and oth­er coun­tries where it exploits poor­ly reg­u­lat­ed min­ing enclaves. Recent­ly Vedan­ta has announced plans to start min­ing in the Niyam­giri hills of Oris­sa, India from Octo­ber 2009 and it aims to increase oper­a­tions by 6 fold by 2011. Vedanta’s min­ing in Oris­sa will have a dev­as­tat­ing impact on the frag­ile Ecosys­tem of this fer­tile and vital­ly impor­tant forest­ed moun­tain­ous region and the state of Oris­sa in gen­er­al. It will lead to a Cul­tur­al Geno­cide of the ancient trib­al civ­i­liza­tion of the Don­gria Kondh and Majhi Kondh tribes, who have lived eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able & self suf­fi­cient lives for cen­turies in these moun­tains. Vedanta’s min­ing will also lead to severe­ly tox­ic pol­lu­tion, dis­eases, ter­mi­nal ill­ness­es, destruc­tion of endan­gered wildlife, dam­age to the wild ele­phant pop­u­la­tion, dev­as­ta­tion of crops and arable land and the poi­son­ing and dry­ing up of rivers and streams, which will have cat­a­stroph­ic effects on tens of thou­sands of peo­ple for whom these rivers are cru­cial life­lines in Kala­han­di, one of the most drought prone regions of India.
The Glob­al Cam­paign against Vedan­ta Resources plc is spread over sev­er­al coun­tries and includes over 150 sol­i­dar­i­ty groups, Grass­roots move­ments, NGOs, activists, intel­lec­tu­als, aca­d­e­mics, stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als.
WE DEMAND THE FOLLOWING:-
1. Vedan­ta should IMMEDIATELY ABANDON PLANS for min­ing Baux­ite in the Niyam­giri hills of Oris­sa.
2. PARLIAMENTARY INVESTIGATIONS in the UK and in India into Vedanta’s oper­a­tions in India and around the world.
3. Vedan­ta, a UK based com­pa­ny, MUST BE MADE ACCOUNTABLE for the social, envi­ron­men­tal and health reper­cus­sions suf­fered by local com­mu­ni­ties around the world as a result of Vedanta’s cal­lous min­ing activ­i­ties. Those who have been affect­ed and abused by Vedanta’s activ­i­ties MUST BE ENABLED to seek jus­tice in their home coun­tries and/or in the UK.
4. Vedan­ta Ltd, Reg­u­la­tors, the UK Gov­ern­ment and Gov­ern­ments of the min­ing enclaves MUST IMPLEMENT MORE EFFECTIVE CONTROLS on Vedanta’s oper­a­tions.
5. Vedanta’s Share­hold­ers and oth­er investors must be MADE FULLY AWARE of the true nature of this min­ing com­pa­ny they are invest­ing in so that they can make a bet­ter informed deci­sion on whether to WITHDRAW THEIR INVESTMENTS from this crim­i­nal­ly destruc­tive min­ing com­pa­ny.

BACKGROUND TO WHY VEDANTA RESOURCES PLC MUST BE STOPPED
After a high­ly con­tro­ver­sial legal case last­ing 3 years at The Supreme Court of India, which wit­nessed some out­ra­geous dis­tor­tion of facts and a major mis­car­riage of jus­tice, in April 2009 the Indi­an Gov­ern­ment gave clear­ance to Vedan­ta to mine Baux­ite in the Niyam­giri hills of Oris­sa for the next 25 years. Vedan­ta plans to start min­ing Baux­ite in Octo­ber 2009 and aims to increase by 6 fold by 2011.
CRITICAL REASONS WHY WE MUST NOT LET VEDANTA COMMENCE MINING ACTIVITIES IN NIYAMGIRI and leave behind a trail of ter­ri­ble ENVIRONMENTAL and HUMAN DEVASTATION includes the fol­low­ing:-
· Vedanta’s min­ing activ­i­ties will have a cat­a­stroph­ic effect on the frag­ile Ecosys­tem of Oris­sa with over a thou­sand hectares of prime Ever­green ‘Reserve Forests’ being wiped out, rivers being poi­soned, ground water lev­els falling. Already Vedanta’s Refin­ery, which has been built on trib­al land in Lan­ji­garh, is crit­i­cal­ly pol­lut­ing. Major rivers of Oris­sa, includ­ing Riv­er Bansad­hara, has already been pol­lut­ed at its source. Tox­ic wastes have ruined fer­tile agri­cul­tur­al lands, pol­lut­ed air, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed drink­ing & bathing water, & caused severe ill­ness­es in peo­ple & wildlife. Min­ing will com­pound these effects.
· Hun­dreds of the local indige­nous pop­u­la­tion have been killed in work and road acci­dent in and around this Refin­ery because of Vedanta’s crim­i­nal neg­li­gence. The Com­mu­ni­ty has been vio­lent­ly split and is ter­rorised by thugs in Vedanta’s pay.
· Niyam Don­gar is the most dense­ly forest­ed moun­tain in the Niyam­giri range. It is home to the ancient civ­i­liza­tion of the Don­gria Kondh tribe, who have pre­served their sacred moun­tain, pre­vent­ed defor­esta­tion, lived eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able & self suf­fi­cient lives for cen­turies.
· Cul­tur­al Geno­cide is immi­nent with Mass Unem­ploy­ment and Des­ti­tu­tion as farm­ers, fish­er­men and for­est dwellers will be dis­placed and aban­doned in shan­ty-towns. Del­i­cate social struc­ture will be torn apart with the col­lapse of tra­di­tion­al Eco­nom­ic sys­tems, Kin­ship sys­tem, Egal­i­tar­i­an pow­er struc­tures and Reli­gious val­ues. Already dis­place­ment and the inva­sion by an alien indus­try has led to a sharp rise in ille­gal liquor shops, fraud­u­lent schemes, drunk­en vio­lence, wife beat­ings, sui­cides, pros­ti­tu­tion & seri­ous frac­tures in the com­mu­ni­ty. Cul­tur­al Geno­cide will also affect Majhi Kondh tribe and will cul­mi­nate in the destruc­tion of Niyam Don­gar, the most sacred moun­tain of the Kondh tribe and their Lord of Law. The Kondhs per­ceive the moun­tains and the forests as their Gods. So their destruc­tion is both an envi­ron­men­tal and a cul­tur­al atroc­i­ty.
· These Baux­ite-capped moun­tains are the rea­son for the region’s excep­tion­al fer­til­i­ty and bio-diver­si­ty. Baux­ite, which con­tains the Alu­mini­um ore, soaks up rain­wa­ter, holds this water and releas­es it to numer­ous peren­ni­al streams and rivers, which are essen­tial Life­lines in Kala­han­di, one of the most drought prone regions of India. Remov­ing this Baux­ite will be cat­a­stroph­ic for the frag­ile ecosys­tem, endan­gered wildlife and for tens of thou­sands of peo­ple who rely on these rivers.
· If min­ing starts on Niyam­giri, at least 50 oth­er major moun­tains are next in line! Already trib­al peo­ple and ‘Dal­its’ (Untouch­ables) have move­ments to pro­tect Bapla Mali, Mali Par­bat, Deo Mali, Gand­hamar­dan and oth­er moun­tains in Oris­sa and Andhra Pradesh. BHP­Bil­li­ton, Alcoa, Rio Tin­to, Jin­dal & Dubai-based com­pa­nies are poised to set up Baux­ite mines.
· In Dec 2000 police opened fire on trib­al cam­paign­ers, killing three at the Utkal project. While an Inquiry into the police fir­ing was hold­ing up this project Vedan­ta made its move, build­ing its refin­ery before apply­ing for per­mis­sion to mine! Vedan­ta has repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ed Gov­ern­ment Pol­lu­tion Guide­lines, ille­gal­ly occu­pied vil­lage land, crim­i­nal­ly start­ed con­struc­tion work with­out Envi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance, dumped tox­ic pol­lu­tants into rivers and cleared ‘Reserve For­est’ land despite valiant efforts by vil­lagers to pro­tect their forests.
· Moun­tains of North Oris­sa are some of the last pock­ets of wild ele­phants in East­ern India. These majes­tic ani­mals are being threat­ened by the ram­pant min­ing. Mag­nif­i­cent wildlife, forests, some of the high­est water­falls in India and many trib­al cul­tures are in seri­ous dan­ger of being wiped out for­ev­er.

WORLDWIDE REACTIONS & MOVEMENTS
· In ear­ly 2009, in a breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful non-vio­lent protest over 10,000 vil­lagers and con­cerned cit­i­zens held hands to form a 17 kilo­me­tre human chain around the Niyam­giri hills.
· On July 9, 2009 Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al stat­ed that “The Indi­an Gov­ern­ment should imme­di­ate­ly with­draw the clear­ance grant­ed to a mas­sive min­ing project (Vedan­ta) that threat­ens the lives and liveli­hoods of a pro­tect­ed indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty liv­ing in the Niyam­giri hills.
· Vedan­ta has been black­list­ed by the Nor­we­gian Govt Pen­sion Fund, with its pen­sion fund invest­ments divest­ed in 2007 cit­ing “seri­ous mal­prac­tice and con­tra­ven­tions of envi­ron­ment norms and ethics by the Vedan­ta man­age­ment in the past wher­ev­er they oper­ate” and “human rights vio­la­tion”. Pro­ce­dur­al vio­la­tions in pro­cure­ment of envi­ron­ment and for­est clear­ance for min­ing were cit­ed. The Mar­tin Cur­rie Scot­tish Trust Fund also with­drew their £2.37m invest­ment in Vedan­ta in July 2008 on grounds of “envi­ron­men­tal and human rights vio­la­tion.”
· The Oris­sa State Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Board has issued more than 3 notices to Vedan­ta for vio­lat­ing pol­lu­tion norms at its Refin­ery and the CEC com­mit­tee of the Indi­an Supreme Court sub­mit­ted sev­er­al reports high­light­ing irreg­u­lar­i­ties and cor­rup­tion in Vedan­ta and rec­om­mend­ing that Envi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance for min­ing activ­i­ties should NOT be give. Both Vedanta’s par­ent com­pa­ny- Ster­lite and Vedanta’s sub­sidiary MALCO have been charged in court with the crim­i­nal vio­la­tion of Envi­ron­men­tal laws, cal­lous dump­ing of tox­ic wastes and ille­gal con­struc­tion.
· World­wide uproar fol­lowed Vedan­ta being award­ed the ‘Gold­en Pea­cock Award’ by the World Envi­ron­men­tal Foun­da­tion (WEF) in 2009. This same award was award­ed to Satyam Com­put­ers in Sep­tem­ber 2008 before being with­drawn in Jan­u­ary 2009 after senior man­age­ment and the founder chair­man were arrest­ed for fraud. Var­i­ous con­cerned cit­i­zens wrote a let­ter to the jurors of this ‘Gold­en Pea­cock Award’ voic­ing their con­cerns and expos­ing Vedanta’s activ­i­ties. In reply the jurors dis­so­ci­at­ed them­selves from Vedan­ta and said that the prize deci­sion was made before­hand by one Mr Mehra. Mr Mehra is a high­ly dubi­ous Lon­don based cor­po­rate guru of whom ‘The Observ­er’ released an arti­cle in May 2003 called ‘The Con­tra­dic­tions of Mad­hav Mehra’! Hun­dreds of organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als wrote to the jury of the ‘The Gold­en Pea­cock Award’ and demon­stra­tions were held at the Award cer­e­mo­ny in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Such was the pub­lic anger that even the Chief Min­is­ter of Himachal Pradesh and oth­er Gov­ern­ment offi­cials refused to par­tic­i­pate in this Award cer­e­mo­ny.
· In Viet­nam, the trib­al peo­ple of the Cen­tral High­lands are being invad­ed by the world’s top alu­mini­um com­pa­nies. Gen­er­al Vo Nguyen Giap – a war hero, now aged 97, who helped defeat the French and Amer­i­can inva­sions – is among a large group of the country’s lead­ing cit­i­zens who are oppos­ing this new inva­sion by min­ing com­pa­nies. Sci­en­tists are promi­nent in the cam­paign. In Peru’s Ama­zon region oppo­si­tion against oil extract­ing com­pa­nies gained world­wide atten­tion after a block­ade by about 30,000 peo­ple was met by severe police vio­lence on 5–6 June 2009, which killed at least 85 Indi­ans. In Nige­ria the assault on indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties involved the out­ra­geous ‘exe­cu­tion’ of writer and envi­ron­men­tal activist Ken Saro Wiwa, who was non-vio­lent­ly oppos­ing multi­na­tion­al oil com­pa­nies. In the Phillip­ines, Indone­sia, Malaysia, Brazil, Colum­bia, Ecuador, Bur­ma, Tibet etc min­ing, oil and log­ging com­pa­nies are destroy­ing for­est simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with the liveli­hood of the indige­nous peo­ples. Sci­en­tists believe that Swine Flu out­break in Mex­i­co could be due to the hor­ren­dous pol­lu­tion spread by the big meat com­pa­nies. In West­ern Aus­tralia, Erin Brock­ovich, the famous Envi­ron­men­tal lawyer is rep­re­sent­ing the local com­mu­ni­ty against Alu­mini­um giant Alcoa after an out­break of res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es.
· We need to under­stand that the Finan­cial Cri­sis, Glob­al Warm­ing & Pan­demics are linked to these exploitive indus­tries, which pol­lute cal­lous­ly, dev­as­tate crops and arable land, destroys com­mu­ni­ties & cul­tures, leads to the loss of rare ani­mals & med­i­c­i­nal plants, death of rivers, inflic­tion of sick­ness and ter­mi­nal dis­eases. All for the sake of a few greedy years of cor­po­rate prof­its. We need to join with the Grass­roots move­ments in India, Viet­nam, Peru and oth­er coun­tries in oppos­ing these mon­strous­ly destruc­tive cor­po­ra­tions and in choos­ing gen­uine­ly sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, which will be gen­uine­ly ben­e­fi­cial for the local com­mu­ni­ties and be eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able for many gen­er­a­tions to come.

CONTACT DETAILS:-
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST VEDANTA,
Samaren­dra Das- sdasorisa@hotmail.co.uk, sdasorisa@rediffmail.com
Felix Padel- felixorisa@yahoo.com
Chan­da Asani (Kashipur Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group)- chanda_asani@yahoo.co.uk
Sachin Masurkar (Kashipur Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group)- sachinam_sai@yahoo.co.in
Phone- (+ 91)9869324085
Agro­to­sh Mook­er­jee- whatculture@yahoo.co.uk
Phone- (+44) 07528435541
Miri­am Rose- welliebird7@hotmail.co.uk

Come visit Faslane Peace Camp this summer (stay forever…)

it’s sum­mer, come help stop the war machine!!

it’s sum­mer, come help stop the war machine!!

Has been a qui­et sum­mer so far up ere at peace camp. And we won­der­ing where you all are? Got a few res­i­dents off doing oth­er projects for a while, so some sol­i­dar­i­ty would be much appre­ci­at­ed. Even if you can only vis­it for a day or so. If you’ve not been before please vis­it. We can accom­mo­date you, help with actions, protests or even just come to chill.

Week­ly vig­il every wed at 4pm out­side north gate.

Work week­end com­ing soon.

01436820901

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Faslane Peace Camp is in dire need of peo­ple,

At the moment all res­i­dents except one are defend­ing land else­where in the coun­try the camp is being manned with only one res­i­dent who is quick­ly los­ing it!!

This is a call out for peo­ple to move here or vis­it as often as they can, we are afraid to say that if the camp stays prac­ti­cal­ly emp­ty for much longer we will have to close.

The main pur­pose as i can see it of the camp is to be a base for direct action against nuclear weapons and relat­ed issues, if the camp is not being used by peace activist for its intend­ed pur­pose i see lit­tle point in lots of time and ener­gy being spent.

The cur­rent peace campers are tired and unable to con­tin­ue with the upkeep of the entire site with­out new ener­gy. Please make your con­tri­bu­tion to the 27 year old site, none of us want to see the end of such a his­toric place.

Cambridge Activists slow down Tesco’s Building work

22.07.2009
Cam­bridge activists sab­o­tage machin­ery in a bid to slow down the build­ing work of a new Tescos’s on Mill Road

22.07.2009
Cam­bridge activists sab­o­tage machin­ery in a bid to slow down the build­ing work of a new Tescos’s on Mill Road

Last night local activists sab­o­taged a dig­ger being used by Tesco’s who have start­ed work on a new store on Mill Road in Cam­bridge. A selec­tion of glues was used to dis­able machin­ery and door­locks. Reports from an eye­wit­ness saw the dig­ger being trans­port­ed away this morn­ing.

Tesco’s, true to form are using heavy hand­ed tech­niques. They have announced open­ing dates, com­menced works with­out hav­ing the nec­es­sary per­mis­sions to do so. They have no deliv­ery access and do not have an alco­hol license. This is designed to intim­i­date local cam­paign­ers and the coun­cil.

Last nights action was not aimed at work­ers from the hire com­pa­ny or the peo­ple work­ing on the site but to send a strong mes­sage to Tescos.

One activist said:
“we’ve no quar­rel with the peo­ple being paid to work on the site, they’re just doing a job and we under­stand their need to get paid for their jobs.HOWEVER we pub­licly invite them to help us to give them a well earned break, by let­ting us know how we can best slow down the work!”

Save Vestas — Defend Jobs, Save the Planet — Support the Occupation — UPDATE below: arrests, cops starving them out…

Work­ers at the Ves­tas Wind Tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight have JUST NOW occu­pied their fac­to­ry. They are fight­ing for 600 jobs and the future of the plan­et. They need help now.

PLEASE TEXT AND CALL EVERYONE YOU KNOW.

Vestas OccupationWork­ers at the Ves­tas Wind Tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight have JUST NOW occu­pied their fac­to­ry. They are fight­ing for 600 jobs and the future of the plan­et. They need help now.

PLEASE TEXT AND CALL EVERYONE YOU KNOW.

There is a large pick­et of sup­port start­ing out­side the fac­to­ry. This will be cru­cial in giv­ing peo­ple con­fi­dence inside. We want hun­dreds of peo­ple by morn­ing.
If you are not work­ing, come now, by car, bus or train.
If you are on the South Coast and work­ing, come for the night and go to work exhaust­ed and proud.

If you can’t come, call up friends and offer to pay the fare or petrol mon­ey for some­one else to come down. Or part of the fare.
Don’t just call the envi­ron­men­tal and union activists you know. Call your friends and ask them who they know. Call your brother’s friends or your children’s friends. Text every­one. Get your friends call­ing and tex­ting.

WE WANT HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE NOW. SAVE THE JOBS — SAVE THE PLANET.

The work­ers want Gor­don Brown to step in as if it was a trou­bled bank and save the jobs and keep mak­ing wind tur­bine blades. They gave the bankers tril­lions. They say they care about cli­mate change. He has talked about cre­at­ing 40,000 “Green Jobs”, the first step should be pro­tect­ing these 600.

The work­ers will need sol­i­dar­i­ty — dona­tions of mon­ey, food and oth­er assis­tance. In the first instance please send mes­sages of sol­i­dar­i­ty to savevestas@gmail.com

We will sug­gest oth­er forms of sol­i­dar­i­ty soon. Do this now. Reach for your phone.

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How to get there, and more info at:

http://savevestas.wordpress.com/

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A pro­test­er claims the 30 demon­stra­tors at a sit-in at the Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight have been told they will be sacked.

Dan­ish com­pa­ny Ves­tas Windsys­tems plans to make 625 work­ers redun­dant at the end of July, despite ris­ing prof­its.

One of the pro­test­ers, who occu­pied the New­port site on Mon­day, said man­agers gave them until 2230 BST on Tues­day to end their action or face the sack.

Ves­tas said con­sul­ta­tion on the site was on-going and would not com­ment.

The work­er, who did not want to be named, said: “We have been told we will be sacked.

“We were giv­en the choice to leave by 2230 BST last night and keep our redun­dan­cy pack­age and walk out with no charges.

“Obvi­ous­ly we have stayed in. We did­n’t want it to come to this.

“We want the com­pa­ny to explore the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment tak­ing the site over and improv­ing the redun­dan­cy pack­age.”

The cam­paign­ers have called on Ed Miliband, the ener­gy and cli­mate change sec­re­tary, to trav­el to the island and speak to them.

Luke, one of the pro­test­ers, said: “We’re pre­pared to stay here for as long as it takes.”

About 200 work­ers staged a protest out­side the fac­to­ry on Tues­day after being turned away when they arrived for work.

They were also joined by cli­mate change pro­test­ers who are sup­port­ing them.

Police said Ves­tas has start­ed legal action to gain an injunc­tion which would remove the pro­test­ers.

The com­pa­ny said the fac­to­ry was being closed next week due to reduced demand for wind tur­bines in north­ern Europe

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Update, 22nd July: ARRESTS AT VESTAS + FOOD IN

At 5.10am this morn­ing, a cli­mate activist at the protest out­side the Ves­tas plant attempt­ed to take a bag of food to the occu­py­ing work­ers by means of a rope which the work­ers had low­ered from the bal­cony. The activist was grabbed by 5 police offi­cers and arrest­ed. On his release he obtained the police report of his arrest, which stat­ed that the rea­son for his arrest was that, as his bring­ing food to the occu­piers had the stat­ed inten­tion of pro­long­ing the protest, it was facil­i­tat­ing a breach of the peace – clear­ly ludi­crous as the police have them­selves admit­ted that the protest is not breach­ing the peace.

At 1248, a large num­ber of pro­tes­tors walked through the line of police hold­ing food in their hands which they threw up to the bal­cony. The police pushed some of the pro­tes­tors and attempt­ed to obstruct the line but did not offer sub­stan­tial resis­tance. One pro­tes­tor was harassed by a secu­ri­ty guard, and asked a police offi­cer, whose num­ber was 24266, if he intend­ed to do any­thing about it; the offi­cer said he didn’t. Anoth­er pro­tes­tor saw a police offi­cer grab­bing the arm of an activist as he attempt­ed to throw food to the bal­cony – the activist told the police offi­cer that this con­sti­tut­ed harass­ment, the police offi­cer took no notice.

A sec­ond cli­mate activist was arrest­ed and tak­en through the front doors of the fac­to­ry. Lat­er, a sergeant whose num­ber was 3027 came out and said that no-one had been arrest­ed for car­ry­ing food, but that one activist had been arrest­ed for assault. Oth­er pro­tes­tors present have com­ment­ed that as the activist in ques­tion, who has not giv­en per­mis­sion for his name to be released, is a chris­t­ian paci­fist, this seems unlike­ly.

Secu­ri­ty have start­ed putting up a fence around the site, with pro­tes­tors out­side attempt­ing to get a sec­ond food-car­ry­ing walk-in past the police before its com­ple­tion. There are cur­rent­ly around 50 pro­tes­tors out­side the fac­to­ry, over 30 of them Ves­tas work­ers, and sources say they expect num­bers to increase dras­ti­cal­ly around 6pm when the protest starts.

North Carolina: ELF Vandalizes Home of Bank of America Director

“North Car­oli­na:
Steve Jones, a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors for Bank Of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States’ pri­ma­ry investor in moun­tain top removal coal min­ing, had his house vis­it­ed twice dur­ing the night recent­ly.

“North Car­oli­na:
Steve Jones, a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors for Bank Of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States’ pri­ma­ry investor in moun­tain top removal coal min­ing, had his house vis­it­ed twice dur­ing the night recent­ly.

On the eve of the Sum­mer Sol­stice, we vis­it­ed him the first time, smash­ing the front win­dow on the cute lamp in his dri­ve­way and leav­ing a stick­er on the post to let him know why we’d vis­it­ed. Also on this night we glued the locks and put stick­ers on a Bank Of Amer­i­ca branch in his town. 2 weeks lat­er, on the eve of the full moon we returned to his house and smashed to bits the rest of the lamp and splat­tered black paint all over the sign with his address/mail box and steps/walkway.

Ani­mal rights activists have long used red paint to mark mur­der­ers of many sorts; we chose black paint because it is black like the coal sludge that cov­ers Ten­nessee, mak­ing the earth tox­ic in a dis­as­ter said to be worse than the Exxon Valdez spill. This dis­as­ter was uncom­mon only in that it got press cov­er­age.

It is black like the water that comes out of the taps when peo­ple in effect­ed com­mu­ni­ties turn on their taps for water. And it is black like your heart. For the kids, for the bears, for the moun­tains, for the wolves, for the fish, for our moth­er, We will be back. ELF.”

Com­mu­nique from the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front Press Office. Click here for the press release.

Eco-arsonists for the liberation of the Earth in Mexico

13th June — 13th July

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More
EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City
EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

13th June — 13th July

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More
EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City
EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More

Com­mu­nique:

“Week­ly Report of eco-arsonists.mexico

Com­mu­nique:
Sat­ur­day, June 13th, fol­low­ing the call to action, attacks against the own­ers of cap­i­tal began. Sat­ur­day, the 13th the win­dow of a bank belong­ing to Sco­tia­bank was stoned, caus­ing mobi­liza­tion by the police in Tlal­pan when the alarm was acti­vat­ed. Sun­day, June 14th an incen­di­ary device was placed at the ATM of a Banamex locat­ed in Mil­pa Alta, which was foiled by the police, how­ev­er in this dis­trict where noth­ing has hap­pened before they no longer sleep in peace; para­noia has been cre­at­ed since sim­i­lar attacks were car­ried out against a BBVA in recent days caus­ing a huge impact on the dis­gust­ing author­i­ties in this com­mu­ni­ty; the police at the ser­vice of the rich did­n’t delay, since then a patrol has been guard­ing the entrance of the BBVA and its sur­round­ings; so as a response anoth­er incen­di­ary device was placed in the hood of a PGJ [Procu­raduría Gen­er­al de Jus­ti­cia] patrol car out­side the dis­trict com­mand head­quar­ters. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it was detect­ed and the action was inter­rupt­ed, but although the goal of burn­ing the patrol was not achieved, pan­ic was cre­at­ed and there is chaos in the streets of this com­mu­ni­ty; where what that they were not expect­ing has hap­pened; now their para­noia will not allow them to sleep. Wednes­day night, June 17, the Tlal­pan road­way was illu­mi­nat­ed with the abo­li­tion­ist fire of eco-arson­ists; the ATM of a BBVA out­side the entrances to the metro was left unus­able when an incen­di­ary device was left. On the same night, near the Metro Chaba­cano there was a sec­ond fire at a Sco­tia­bank ATM; the third attack was at a Banamex near Tax­queña where an explo­sive device was placed at the ATM. The same night a false bomb was left in anoth­er Banamex in Xochim­il­co. On that night it was once again demon­strat­ed that we are every­where, and now we are dogs infect­ed with rage. Thurs­day, June 18, a Banamex ATM in Ciu­dad Neza was burned by an incen­di­ary device; a threat­en­ing note was left on a sheet of paper, demand­ing free­dom for Amadeu Castel­las and claim­ing the action.
We will not stop our­selves, they will not stop us, we will con­tin­ue attack­ing the sym­bols of cap­i­tal­ism, the mur­der­er, tor­tur­er, spon­sor of the destruc­tion of the earth, there will be no turn­ing back; for each banker we have an incen­di­ary device, for each jail­er a bomb; that their mon­ey burns in flames of the abo­li­tion­ist fire of the eco-arson­ists.

We are your worst ene­my, your num­ber one ene­my!

We will be the dog that barks and that bites you!”

»

EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City

Com­mu­nique:

“INCENDIARY ATTACKS ON CARS IN MEXICO

Sat­ur­day, July 4, around 11:30 at night in a place in the south of Mex­i­co City where things seemed to be calm, where there was peace and order on the streets, all those who are our ene­mies had slept qui­et­ly for quite some time yet now they do not; those who passed by in their lux­u­ry cars on the nau­se­at­ing black­top now may not do so; those who have left their con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing cars out­side their homes with­out wor­ry that some eco-arson­ist would attack, now they can be wor­ried because as night fell on Sat­ur­day, July 4, a day before the elec­tions in Mex­i­co we entered the house of a wealthy destroy­er of the earth and we placed an incen­di­ary device at two of his lux­u­ry cars and we stealth­ily slipped away with­out a trace oth­er than the abo­li­tion­ist fire. As expect­ed the police, at the sound of their mas­ter’s voice, act­ed imme­di­ate­ly, imple­ment­ing a mobi­liza­tion in the streets in search of the eco-arson­ists and once again we made a mock­ery of them. We passed before their faces and they could­n’t imag­ine even if they want­ed to that we were their ene­mies, twen­ty min­utes lat­er the fire­fight­ers extin­guished the fire but the cars were already burned.

We will con­tin­ue attack­ing with­out mer­cy! We will not let them sleep in peace!

We will not stop until we see civ­i­liza­tion burned!

ECO-ARSONISTS FOR THE LIBERATION OF THE EARTH (EpLT)”

»

EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

Com­mu­nique:

“INCENDIARY ATTACK AT DISTRICT OFFICE IN MEXICO

On Mon­day night, July 13, at 12:30 we decid­ed to attack the offices of a dis­trict in the south­west of Mex­i­co City. These offices are respon­si­ble for admin­is­ter­ing and orga­niz­ing the pol­lu­tion and destruc­tion of the wood­lands in this com­mu­ni­ty for the Sabri­tas com­pa­ny, pro­duc­ers of trans­genic veg­eta­bles used in junk food. This com­pa­ny has plant­ed fields near the com­mu­nal wood­lands. An incen­di­ary device was left at the door of the build­ing, work­ing suc­cess­ful­ly with­out leav­ing any trace; the abo­li­tion­ist fire con­sumed almost the entire wood­en door, leav­ing the roof and walls marked with black smoke. The author­i­ties have let pass unno­ticed all the actions that have been tak­en by the eco-arson­ists for the lib­er­a­tion of the earth; they know per­fect­ly well why we do it, that we have one objec­tive and that our sab­o­tages are not just an act of van­dal­ism. We will not stop attack­ing the destroy­ers of the earth!

For the lib­er­a­tion of the earth! Total destruc­tion of civ­i­liza­tion!

Eco-arson­ists for the lib­er­a­tion of the earth EpLT”

»

Source — http://www.elfpressoffice.org

Cambridge Social Centre — evicted & more info

18th July 2009
Last night a large num­ber of police with sev­er­al vehi­cles, riot gear, and dogs evict­ed the new­ly opened social cen­tre, on the pre­text of fire safe­ty. There were no arrests. The pub­lic meet­ing called for tonight will go ahead in a reduced for­mat out­side the bin­go hall.

18th July 2009
Last night a large num­ber of police with sev­er­al vehi­cles, riot gear, and dogs evict­ed the new­ly opened social cen­tre, on the pre­text of fire safe­ty. There were no arrests. The pub­lic meet­ing called for tonight will go ahead in a reduced for­mat out­side the bin­go hall.

Last night the 20 occu­pants of the old bin­go hall were evict­ed by around 50 police includ­ing tac­ti­cal units with riot gear, under the pre­text of fire reg­u­la­tions. Iron­i­cal­ly, the police inter­rupt­ed a meet­ing that had just secured 5 fire extin­guish­ers and was dis­cussing the open­ing up of the remain­ing fire exits in prepa­ra­tion for the planned pub­lic launch tomor­row.

The police ini­tial­ly said that they would not take action on the squat­ted build­ing, as squat­ting is a civ­il mat­ter between occu­pants and build­ing own­er. How­ev­er, the squat­ters gained a high­er pro­file through local media and out­reach work, pro­mot­ing anti-cap­i­tal­ism and social change, and organ­is­ing a pub­lic meet­ing and music event that was antic­i­pat­ed to draw large num­bers of peo­ple. Fol­low­ing this, the police threat­ened the occu­piers over two days, and final­ly moved to pro­tect prop­er­ty and the sta­tus quo, using any pos­si­ble excuse.

The fire offi­cer who accom­pa­nied the police said that the occu­piers would have to imme­di­ate­ly remove the met­al grills cov­er­ing fire doors to make the build­ing safe. This was planned for the fol­low­ing morn­ing, and the occu­piers and fire war­den agreed that this could hap­pen imme­di­ate­ly, how­ev­er the police accom­pa­ny­ing the fire offi­cer made it clear that this would imme­di­ate­ly lead to arrests for crim­i­nal dam­age. It was obvi­ous from the huge num­ber of police in atten­dance that the out­come was already set, and that the only result the police would tol­er­ate was evic­tion. Giv­en the recent rep­u­ta­tion of police actions against polit­i­cal pro­test­ers, the occu­piers left for the own safe­ty rather than keep the doors secured.

A state­ment from the occu­piers said:

“We expect that this build­ing in the cen­tre of our city will remain emp­ty for an indef­i­nite amount of time, as has the pre­vi­ous social cen­tre site on Mill Road, owned by Tesco, and an increas­ing num­ber of prop­er­ties in the area. At the same time, artists, musi­cians, com­mu­ni­ty groups and local peo­ple strug­gle to find spaces to meet, socialise and put on events.

We believe that local com­mu­ni­ties, rather than wealthy inter­ests, should deter­mine what the build­ings and spaces in the local area are used for. We will be going ahead with the planned pub­lic meet­ing at 7.30 pm, in the street out­side the bin­go hall, where we will be dis­cussing the repres­sion we have faced, free spaces, and our plans for the future.”

cambridgefreespaces@listst.riseup.net
http://cambridgefreespaces.wordpress.com

—–

17.7.09
Cam­bridge BINGO! Social Cen­tre

Update on what’s going on at the occu­pied Bin­go Hall Social Cen­tre, Hob­son Street, Cam­bridge.

Cam­bridge Social Cen­tre opens in old Gala Bin­go Hall!

Mem­bers of the Cam­bridge Action Net­work have occu­pied the old Gala bin­go hall on Hob­son Street, behind Water­stones book shop. The cen­tre is now open to the pub­lic to use for events such as films, music, work­shops, art, dis­cus­sions and meet­ings. Every­one is wel­come (dur­ing rea­son­able wak­ing hours!)

We’re cur­rent­ly work­ing to clean the space up, make it nice, and get hold of fur­ni­ture, and we’d love you to join us. We organ­ise by con­sen­sus – no-one is in charge, and every­one involved has an equal say. This is every­one’s space – let’s make it bril­liant!

We’ve done this because we believe that local com­mu­ni­ties should have con­trol of local spaces, and be able to use them for what­ev­er they see fit. Emp­ty, unused build­ings are a dis­grace in a soci­ety where get­ting access to space is so dif­fi­cult. A direct exam­ple of this is in Mill Road, where a live­ly social cen­tre was closed by Tesco last year, leav­ing an emp­ty build­ing ever since.

There will be an offi­cial open­ing event on Sat­ur­day 18th July at 7.30 pm, where you are invit­ed to come along, enjoy the new social cen­tre, and see how you can use the space and get involved.

There will be a open mic event in the evening show­cas­ing local acts. Bring your own refresh­ments. Come on down!

Want to put on events or get involved? Get in touch in per­son or:

phone: 01223 356630

web: www.cambridgefreespaces.wordpress.com

email: cambridgefreespaces@lists.riseup.net

UPCOMING EVENTS from 17th JULY 2009:

Dai­ly (most days): 5.30pm POLITICAL DISCUSSION TIME — top­ics are decid­ed dai­ly by those present with some radical/social/political issues sug­gest­ed in the diary already.

Dai­ly (most days): 7:30pm PUBLIC MEETING — to dis­cuss the space/use of the space/arising issues

Fri­day, 17th July – after the pub­lic meet­ing – OPEN JAMMING SESSION

Sat­ur­day, 18th July – after the pub­lic meet­ing – OPEN POETRY & ACCOUSTIC MUSIC/LIVE BANDS (dona­tions at the door for cli­mate camp)

AND MUCH MORE COMING SOON…

EARTH FIRST! @ DEMOCRATIC PARTY, ROME

ACTIVISTS OF EF! ROME YESTERDAY PROTEST IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BEFORE BIG CONFERENCE OF SEGRETARY. LOT OF MEDIA IMPACT.
NEWS IN ITALIAN FROM OUR BLOG EF! ITALY

HOka hey! broth­ers and sis­ter!

******************************************************************************************
FUORI PROGRAMMA ALLA FESTA DEL PD
da agen­zia ADNKRONOS

ACTIVISTS OF EF! ROME YESTERDAY PROTEST IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BEFORE BIG CONFERENCE OF SEGRETARY. LOT OF MEDIA IMPACT.
NEWS IN ITALIAN FROM OUR BLOG EF! ITALY

HOka hey! broth­ers and sis­ter!

******************************************************************************************
FUORI PROGRAMMA ALLA FESTA DEL PD
da agen­zia ADNKRONOS

Roma, 16 lug. (Adnkro­nos) — Fuori pro­gram­ma alla fes­ta del Pd a Roma per unain­cur­sione ‘ecol­o­gista’ sul pal­co in cui il can­dida­to alla seg­rete­ria Pier­Lui­gi Bersani sta­va per iniziare il suo inter­ven­to. Alcu­ni ragazz­i­ambi­en­tal­isti han­no con­seg­na­to una let­tera a Bersani (che avreb­bero volu­to­leg­gere ma l’or­ga­niz­zazione del­la fes­ta ha ritenu­to che non fos­se il caso)nella quale si denun­cia la scarsa atten­zione all’am­bi­ente del­la fes­tade­mo­c­ra­t­i­ca di Roma. “Cer­to ambi­en­tal­is­mo pro­duce solo rifiu­ti ‑dice­Mas­si­mo, uno dei ragazzi che han­no insce­na­to la protes­ta- perche’ non e’pos­si­bile che ad una man­i­fes­tazione del genere non si fac­cia la rac­coltad­if­feren­zi­a­ta”. Dopo che i ragazzi sono sta­ti fat­ti scen­dere dal pal­co Bersani ha volu­to­co­munque subito rispon­dere alla loro sol­lecitazione: “si crit­i­ca lo scar­soe­col­o­gis­mo di ques­ta fes­ta ed io rispon­do che si puo’ sem­pre fare di meglioe ricor­do che i gov­erni di cen­trosin­is­tra sono sta­ti quel­li che per prim­i­han­no pos­to le tem­atiche ambi­en­tali tra le pri­ori­ta’ delle azioni digov­er­no”. (Mon/Ct/Adnkronos) 16-LUG-09 21:24

PD: BERSANI CONTESTATO DA AMBIENTALISTI A FESTA DE L’UNITA’ DI ROMA
da Agen­zia IRIS

ROMA, 16 LUG — Pier­lui­gi Bersani, ospite al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty di Roma, è sta­to con­tes­ta­to da alcu­ni ragazzi di un movi­men­to ecol­o­gista, Earth First Roma. “Si può sem­pre far meglio, tutte le critiche sono accetta­bili ma voglio ricor­dare che quan­do erava­mo al gov­er­no abbi­amo fat­to i prim­is­si­mi pas­si per accen­dere il motore verde nel­l’e­cono­mia ital­iana. La legge per i pan­nel­li foto­voltaici l’ab­bi­amo fat­ta noi. Bisogna fare di più per­ché ques­ta è la fron­tiera per rilan­cia­re l’e­cono­mia” risponde Bersani.

RAGAZZI CONSEGNANO UNA LETTERA DI CRITICHE AL CANDIDATO SEGRETARIO
da APCOM (nel­la foto lo striscione espos­to)

Pic­co­lo fuori pro­gram­ma alla fes­ta del Pd a Roma dove ques­ta sera viene inter­vis­ta­to Pier­lui­gi Bersani. Quan­do il can­dida­to alla seg­rete­ria prende pos­to sul pal­co alcu­ni ragazzi di un movi­men­to ecol­o­gista che si chia­ma Earth First! Roma, cer­cano di pren­dere la paro­la per denun­cia­re lo scar­so ecol­o­gis­mo del­la fes­ta, espo­nen­do un cartel­lo con la scrit­ta ‘Cer­to ambi­en­tal­is­mo pro­duce solo rifiu­ti’. Mas­si­mo spie­ga che non c’era alcun inten­to vio­len­to nel­l’inizia­ti­va ma solo il deside­rio di con­seg­nare una let­tera a Bersani per denun­cia­re il fat­to che “alla fes­ta del Pd non c’è la rac­col­ta dif­feren­zi­a­ta, non si usano prodot­ti rici­clati, non ci sono pan­nel­li foto­voltaici”. Bersani dal pal­co spie­ga e risponde: “Si può sem­pre far meglio, tutte le critiche sono accetta­bili ma voglio ricor­dare che quan­do erava­mo al gov­er­no abbi­amo fat­to i prim­is­si­mi pas­si per accen­dere il motore verde nel­l’e­cono­mia ital­iana. La legge per i pan­nel­li foto­voltaici l’ab­bi­amo fat­ta noi. Bisogna fare di più per­ché ques­ta è la fron­tiera per rilan­cia­re l’e­cono­mia”.

More broken promises and lies as the fight to save Mainshill Wood continues.

The threat from Scot­tish Coal is grow­ing, just as the front line against new coal looks for­ward to its one month birth­day (com­plete with pic­nic). So get down here! Its now or nev­er!

The threat from Scot­tish Coal is grow­ing, just as the front line against new coal looks for­ward to its one month birth­day (com­plete with pic­nic). So get down here! Its now or nev­er! The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is extreme­ly grate­ful for the con­tin­u­ing sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty and will be cel­e­brat­ing its one month birth­day on Sun­day 19th July with a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic at 3pm to which every­one is wel­come.

Local res­i­dents awoke on Mon­day morn­ing to the news of yet anoth­er appli­ca­tion for an exten­sion at Poniel [1], a Scot­tish Coal mine in the Dou­glas Val­ley, some­thing that com­mu­ni­ties had been assured would not hap­pen, and which new plan­ning pol­i­cy guards against…Mainshill defences

Poniel Open Cast Coal site, a few hun­dred metres away from Main­shill, will be extend­ed by 100,000 tonnes over a six month peri­od. This bro­ken promise is yet anoth­er exam­ple of the dis­re­gard shown to com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment in the pur­suit of prof­it.

Across the val­ley at Main­shill, envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion and dis­as­trous health impacts will result from the open cast­ing of the 350ha site to extract 1.7million tonnes of coal which will cause 4.98million tonnes [2] of car­bon emis­sions when burnt, exclud­ing the huge emis­sions released through the extrac­tion process [3].

Rather than respond­ing to the objec­tions made against these plans, Dou­glas and Angus Estates and its own­er Lord Home (cur­rent­ly being inves­ti­gat­ed for alleged fraud [4]) pre­fer instead to make unfound­ed alle­ga­tions in a recent media state­ment against the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp [5] and con­tin­ue to deny com­mu­ni­ties, through sham con­sul­ta­tion, of their health, self deter­mi­na­tion and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice.

At the pub­lic hear­ing attend­ed by sev­er­al mem­bers of the camp who also live in the local com­mu­ni­ty, only two of the 700 peo­ple who object­ed were allowed to speak against the pro­pos­al. To pre­vent the cast­ing aside of these objec­tions and to obstruct the work already begun on site, the occu­pa­tion of Main­shill Woods through direct action has been under­tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Prepara­to­ry work for the mine such as the tree felling and bore sam­ple drilling work under­tak­en by Apex already has been glossed over by the Estate and con­tra­venes 7 con­di­tions of the plan­ning approval regard­ing stud­ies to ascer­tain the pres­ence of cer­tain endan­gered species such as bad­gers and bats, which the occu­piers know to be present on site.

The Estate has mis­re­port­ed the unearthing of an 11KVA under­ground pow­er cable accus­ing the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp of almost caus­ing a “major dis­as­ter”. It was in fact Apex and Scot­tish Coal who endan­gered the lives of those on site and the local com­mu­ni­ty by dri­ving heavy machin­ery over the shal­low­ly buried and unmarked cable. Any heavy machin­ery could cause death to the occu­piers since the site is now com­pre­hen­sive­ly defend­ed with tree­hous­es and tun­nels.

The Estate and Scot­tish Coal’s per­sis­tent prof­i­teer­ing from coal has been defend­ed with ref­er­ence to car­bon cap­ture and stor­age tech­nol­o­gy, how­ev­er even the indus­try says that CCS is 20 years away. Only a small per­cent­age of emis­sions can be cap­tured using CCS tech­nol­o­gy at present [6]. CCS is a smoke­screen for min­ing new coal, and evades the dra­mat­ic reduc­tion in con­sump­tion inte­grat­ed with localised renew­able solu­tions and col­lec­tive com­mu­ni­ty action which is required giv­en cur­rent sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus regard­ing cli­mate change.

The com­mu­nites which would suf­fer the envi­ron­men­tal injus­tice and neg­a­tive health impacts result­ing from coal extrac­tion should have con­trol over their local envi­ron­ment. If the plan­ning sys­tem con­tin­ues to side with the coal indus­try, futher direct action will be the only rea­son­able response.

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion please see: http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk or phone
the site for inter­views on 07806926040

Notes to Edi­tors
[1]
http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info/news.asp?intent=viewstory&newsid=18504
[2] Car­bon com­bines with oxy­gen in the atmos­phere dur­ing com­bus­tion,
pro­duc­ing car­bon diox­ide, with an atom­ic weight of (12 + 16 x 2 = 44
kg/kmol). The CO2 released to air for each kilo­gram of incin­er­at­ed coal is
there­fore 2.93kg.
[3] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826520.100-capturing-carbon.html
[4]
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/coutts-bank-chairman-lord-home-named-carroll-trust-case‑0
[5] The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has been occu­py­ing Main­shill Woods since
18/6/09 in order to resist Scot­tish Coal’s plans to devel­op a new open
cast coal mine.
[6] Cor­po­rate­Watch Tech­nofix­es Report down­load­able at
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3126

The View from the Trees — spring & summer in Cascadia, USA,

Hum­boldt Earth First! Canopy Com­mu­nique #1
Cut­ten, South Cas­ca­dia, the McK­ay Tract canopy. The land­scape unfolds below us as a patch­work quilt of war. Look­ing west, one sees the sub­urb, progress enact­ing its will upon the occu­pied coun­try­side. More devel­op­ment is planned, but it is not yet hap­pen­ing. We have pri­mar­i­ly met friend­ly peo­ple who live here, and enjoy hang­ing out in the for­est. We asked them if they want their sub­urb to grow, to con­tin­ue to “devel­op,” and they emphat­i­cal­ly do not.

Cascadia forest blockadeHum­boldt Earth First! Canopy Com­mu­nique #1
Cut­ten, South Cas­ca­dia, the McK­ay Tract canopy. The land­scape unfolds below us as a patch­work quilt of war. Look­ing west, one sees the sub­urb, progress enact­ing its will upon the occu­pied coun­try­side. More devel­op­ment is planned, but it is not yet hap­pen­ing. We have pri­mar­i­ly met friend­ly peo­ple who live here, and enjoy hang­ing out in the for­est. We asked them if they want their sub­urb to grow, to con­tin­ue to “devel­op,” and they emphat­i­cal­ly do not.

Among the sec­ond- and third-growth trees to the south lay a few erro­neous mini-man­sions encroach­ing upon the land­scape, with stumps in their yards wider than any of the three SUVs in their dri­ve­ways. The res­i­dents enjoy a qui­et life until one of them starts run­ning pow­er­tools.

We look east and see the tops of enor­mous old-growth red­woods tow­er­ing above the hun­dred-year-old sec­ond growth. Some friends live here, includ­ing spot­ted owls, ospreys, turkey vul­tures, black bears, newts, voles, fly­ing squir­rels and arbo­re­al humans.

To the north lies a clearcut. Three years ago, Green Dia­mond (GD), for­mer­ly Simp­son Tim­ber Com­pa­ny, came in and cut down every last tree in the unit, leav­ing a few huge burned-out snags. Pam­pas grass and milk­weed grow to human height in the trees’ absence, but this area is dry and get­ting dry­er.

They plant­ed a few baby conifers, red­woods and oth­ers after they cut. Those trees are now three years old, mean­ing they can cut a cou­ple more units and then start re-zon­ing the land from tim­ber­land to res­i­den­tial. More mini-man­sions are planned. So it goes.…

How­ev­er our for­est friends dis­agree with these plans. They want to live, and our solu­tion is to live with them. For the past sev­er­al months, we’ve been occu­py­ing two tree vil­lages in the McK­ay, tying in as many giant trees as pos­si­ble with tra­vers­es to pro­tect them with our own bod­ies from being cut down. Tree-sit­ting has been used to defend forests in Hum­boldt for decades, and tra­vers­es enable a few humans to defend a large num­ber of trees with­out leav­ing the canopy.

We chose this grove because the trees stand direct­ly against the march of Leviathan in the form of sub­ur­ban devel­op­ment, and the neigh­bors (in house down below) stand with us, and give us love and sup­port. The oth­er grove, (also slat­ed to be clearcut), fea­tures an osprey nest, at least one spot­ted owl nest, flocks of turkey vul­tures cir­cling over­head, a trail and camp­site used fre­quent­ly by bears, and a creek that serves as water­shed for the Hum­boldt Bay’s health­i­est pop­u­la­tion of Coho salmon. These crit­ters have also shown much love to the treesit­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fly­ing squir­rels who share our food at night and the owls who hang out, pro­vide moral sup­port and watch us climb.

GD, is now the most-active transna­tion­al tim­ber cor­po­ra­tion remain­ing in Hum­boldt. They have clearcuts sched­uled every year across the North­west, and have large­ly escaped pub­lic scruti­ny by a process of 21st-cen­tu­ry green­wash­ing and alliances with the state. For exam­ple, the GD Habi­tat Con­ser­va­tion Plan for spot­ted owls gives the owls a vague, con­stant­ly shift­ing zone of “habi­tat” on GD land and a few remain­ing “wildlife trees”, usu­al­ly of low mon­e­tary val­ue, on land that they clearcut. In return, GD gets a bunch of “inci­den­tal take” per­mits for owls, which is a license to kill them at will. The GD plan for the McK­ay Tract is clearcut­ting, fol­lowed by res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment to dou­ble the size of Cut­ten, Cal­i­for­nia, adding more res­i­dents to the near city of Eure­ka.

So far, no chain­saws have fall­en upon the McK­ay this year. How­ev­er, Sum­mer oper­at­ing sea­son is upon us, log­ging could begin any day of any week. Neigh­bors are con­tin­u­ing to raise their voic­es in sup­port. They hike, bike, and ride hors­es along the log­ging roads in sol­i­dar­i­ty with res­i­dents of the for­est. Treesit­ters are still need­ed to live in the canopy, pro­tect­ing this last refuge of wild crea­tures from the per­pet­u­al war that is human progress. Any­one wish­ing to spend part or all of the sum­mer up in trees is encour­aged to con­tact Earth First! Hum­boldt at (707) 834‑5170; www.efhumboldt.org.
“May the for­est bewitch you,” the canopy nin­jas of EF! Hum­boldt.

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Owl in Cascadia forest********News­flash­es:

Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer Con­tin­ues…
July 13th, 2009

The log­ging block­ade in Oregon’s Elliot State for­est was raid­ed by a report­ed 60+ police accom­pa­nied by a bull­doz­er. 27 peo­ple were arrest­ed. This marks only the begin­ning of Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer.

Mean­while, here in Hum­boldt we are steadi­ly con­tin­u­ing the occu­pa­tion of our local rain­for­est canopy to stop Green Dia­mond from log­ging 41 acres of Red­wood for­est over 100 years old. The grove is home to Spot­ted Owls, Osprey and Black Bears. It is a refuge that is sur­round­ed by young tree plan­ta­tions, clearcuts and sub­urbs.

We have set up mul­ti­ple tree-sits and a tra­verse rope net­work tying up a large area of for­est near the Spot­ted Owl nest. The ropes allow above ground trav­el and increase the effec­tive­ness of the tree-sits by link­ing many trees togeth­er.

So far the com­pa­ny has held off from log­ging though the plan has been approved for months. Green Dia­mond says they won’t send climbers up to take activists out of the trees because it’s “too dan­ger­ous”.

If you would like to live and work in the Red­wood for­est canopy or help sup­port our activ­i­ties please give us a call or write us an email.

contactefhum@gmail.com

707–834-5170

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Earth First! Block­ades Log­ging Road in Ore­gon
July 7th, 2009
Ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, a large team of activists (includ­ing Hum­boldt EF!ers) skill­ful­ly and valient­ly block­ad­ed a log­ging road to pro­tect over 70 acres of 100+ year old coastal for­est that was being cut down. This kicks off the “Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer” cam­paign to high­light ongo­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and shut down high­ly destruc­tive log­ging activ­i­ties in the Pacif­ic North­west. Some of our com­rades are locked to the van in the pic­ture as well as bar­rels full of con­crete that block the road. Oth­ers are perched high atop struc­tures that have sup­port ropes that are attached to the gate and to the over­turned van. Any attempt to move the van or gate and the struc­tures would col­lapse and harm the activists. They are still there and have put out the call for more to join the effort.

Here are some links to sto­ries about the ongo­ing action in Cas­ca­dia.

Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer Blog

FD’s Blog (more pic­tures)

News sto­ry 1

News sto­ry 2

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Green Dia­mond Threat­en­ing Tree-sit­ters With Extrac­tion
June 19th, 2009
Ear­ly this morn­ing, tree-sit­ters in the McK­ay Tract recieved threats from Green Dia­mond employ­ees. The GD employ­ees stat­ed that if the activists did not come down that GD would send climbers up to arrest them.

Yes­ter­day, at least 2 GD employ­ees spent near­ly the entire day on the ground around the tree-sits and attempt­ed to get ahold of a rope hang­ing from one of the sits. It was quick­ly pulled high­er by a sit­ter.

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Rainy Spring Days
May 15th, 2009

Update from the woods: There have been no signs of trucks or heavy machin­ery as of yet. Well timed spring rains are keep­ing the roads mud­dy and undriv­able. We are on the look­out for any signs of com­pa­ny activ­i­ty.

What we have seen late­ly are Spot­ted Owls, Osprey, large Black Bear tracks in the mud and a Green Dia­mond sur­vey­or. The wild­ness and beau­ty of this for­est is an inspi­ra­tion. The ongo­ing assis­tance from our local sup­port­ers is cru­cial, thanks for all the help!

If you would like to join us in the for­est or help from town please do, more tree-sit­ters and ground crew are always need­ed.

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Fly­ing Squir­rel Dis­cov­ers Tree-sit­ters
March 17th, 2009

This North­ern Fly­ing Squir­rel arrived at the tree-sits last week. It was the first of it’s species to be seen by activists liv­ing in the Red­wood canopy since the first tree-sit went up in August of last year. The squir­rels are noc­tur­nal and are some­times preyed upon by Spot­ted Owls. They mate in May and June and live in groups in the cav­i­ties of large trees. They have often been seen in the past in tree-sits in old-growth groves.

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Alert- GD Employ­ees In McK­ay Today
March 13th, 2009

Though log­ging hasn’t start­ed, Green Dia­mond is fre­quent­ly vis­it­ing the tree sits, some­times bring­ing sher­rifs along. Today, two activists were chased through the for­est by log­gers but safe­ly got away. Ground sup­port is on alert and tree-sit­ters are pre­pared to defend the tree-vil­lages in the event that log­ging begins. If you want to be part of our action alert list please let us know. You don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to tres­pass to sup­port the tree-sits. There are many things to do in town and one of the sits can be wit­nessed from North­ridge Rd. in Cut­ten, east of Eure­ka.

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McK­ay 09 Update: No Log­ging Yet
March 6th, 2009

Tree-sit­ters are main­tain­ing their vig­i­lance as log­ging could begin any day. More trees have been added to the tra­verse rope net­works, there are now over 20 Red­wood and Sit­ka Spruce trees being defend­ed. They range in age from 70 to over 100 years old. Tree-sit­ters are request­ing camp stoves with re-usable fuel bot­tles, large tarps, climb­ing gear, read­ing mate­r­i­al, and most impor­tant­ly- more peo­ple to join them in the defense of this for­est and our plan­et.

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EF! Hum­boldt Tree-sit Update
Feb­ru­ary 25th, 2009

* Spot­ted Owl nest­ing sea­son pro­tec­tions to begin on March 1st. Green Dia­mond can­not cut with­in 1/4 mile of the Owls nest until they deter­mine whether or not the Owls have suc­cess­ful­ly mat­ed. If they find that the Owls have mat­ed, the so called pro­tec­tion would only last for a mat­ter of months. If not, they can go ahead and log. Green Dia­monds find­ings will most like­ly be kept secret. The fox is guard­ing the hen house.
* Earth First!ers are occu­py­ing part of this ter­ri­to­ry to defend not only the Owls habi­tat but as much of this diverse eco-sys­tem as we can.
* The numer­ous activists occu­py­ing trees here are weath­er­ing the storms and con­tin­u­ing to expand the defend­ed areas.
* Uniden­ti­fied per­sons wear­ing hard hats have made mul­ti­ple threats to cut the trees down.
* The defense of this for­est con­tin­ues…

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More Eco-War­riors Ascend Threat­ened Red­woods in McK­ay Tract
Feb­ru­ary 19th, 2009

There are now two tree-sit vil­lages defend­ing areas of for­est in the threat­ened Red­wood groves of Ryan Creek. Green Dia­mond employ­ees and Hum­bldt Coun­ty Sher­iffs vis­it­ed both sites yes­ter­day and inspect­ed the sit­u­a­tion. Today, dif­fer­ent work­ers appear­ing to be log­gers vis­it­ed at least one site and also inspect­ed the tree-sits. This esca­la­tion of activ­i­ty by the com­pa­ny may indi­cate they are prepar­ing to log very soon.

There are mul­ti­ple tra­verse lines through­out both of the tree-sit areas. These are not always clear­ly vis­i­ble from the ground. Activists have put red DANGER tape around many of the trees that, if cut, pose a dead­ly threat to the tree-sit­ters.

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Arbo­re­al Pro­test­ers Occu­py Threat­ened Red­woods
Decem­ber 2nd, 2008

Tree-sit­ters unfurled a large 30 ft. wide ban­ner this morn­ing on the edge of the great Red­wood for­est, east of Eure­ka, Ca. The ban­ner reads “Hey Green Dia­mond, Stop Clear-cut­ting ‑Earth First!”. The sit­ters remain aloft and are occu­py­ing sev­er­al large sec­ond growth trees that are slat­ed for log­ging. We invite the pub­lic to come and see the threat­ened for­est for them­selves. (Direc­tions below).

The Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny plans to log 60 acres of large sec­ond growth and resid­ual old growth Red­woods here in the near future. The two groves rep­re­sent the old­est remain­ing for­est and best habi­tat for old-growth depen­dent species like the North­ern Spot­ted Owl. The owls are nest­ing in the oth­er grove where trees over 1,000 years old still stand. Green Dia­mond has a per­mit to destroy the habi­tat of this endan­gered species. The Green Dia­mond land is locat­ed in the “McK­ay Tract” and totals 7,200 acres. Near­ly the entire Tract (and the entire Cal­i­for­nia Red­wood range) has been clear-cut once already since the 1800’s and over half of the tract has been logged with­in the past 20 years. The McK­ay Tract encom­pass­es the Ryan Creek water­shed. Green Dia­mond also has plans for res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment here, threat­en­ing the health and sur­vival of the largest Coho Salmon pop­u­la­tion in the Hum­boldt Bay water­shed. We’ll have more info and updates on this in the near future.

Direc­tions:

From Arca­ta go South on 101.

Turn Left on Myr­tle Ave.

Turn Right on Har­ri­son.

Har­ri­son turns into Man­zani­ta.

Turn Left on Dol­beer St.

Turn Left onto Wal­nut Dri­ve at 3 the way inter­sec­tion.

Stay on Wal­nut and look for the big green water­tanks.

Short­ly after that turn Left onto North­ridge rd.

The for­est will be on your left and the big white ban­ner is vis­i­ble from the road.

Please be respect­ful to the neigh­bors, thanks.

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OwlMass Extinc­tion — It’s Real — Fight It!
Novem­ber 20th, 2008

Coho Salmon, Chi­nook Salmon, Mar­bled Mur­relets and North­ern Spot­ted Owls are just a few of the species that are rapid­ly declin­ing in our imme­di­ate area. Both North­ern Spot­ted Owls and Chi­nook Salmon are fac­ing assaults from Green Dia­mond, a com­pa­ny we have been build­ing a cam­paign against since this spring.

They have an upcom­ing log­ging oper­a­tion in the “McK­ay Tract”, direct­ly east of Eure­ka. Green Dia­mond is plan­ning to clear-cut Spot­ted Owl nest­ing groves after Feb­ru­ary 15th and is work­ing to get Hum­boldt Coun­ty plan­ners to set in stone plans for future devel­op­ment of the area. Please con­tact us to join mul­ti­lat­er­al grass­roots efforts in build­ing a coali­tion to advo­cate for pro­tec­tion of this area . EF! Hum­boldt is active­ly orga­niz­ing against the upcom­ing log­ging and hous­ing devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. We are seek­ing more par­tic­i­pants, any amount of time or mate­r­i­al con­tri­bu­tions are much appre­ci­at­ed.

Human beings are on the verge of caus­ing a mass extinc­tion of life on Earth. A major­i­ty of the world’s biol­o­gists now believe that if cur­rent trends con­tin­ue, half of all species of plants and ani­mals liv­ing today will be extinct in less than 100 years. The gen­er­al pub­lic, how­ev­er, is almost entire­ly unaware of this cri­sis. — Species Alliance

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Lat­est EF! Hum­boldt Action Press Release
August 25th, 2008

For Imme­di­ate Release: Mon­day, August 25th
con­tact: Jere­my Jensen (707) 834‑5170
Earth First! Turns Atten­tion To Green Dia­mond Resource Co.

Eure­ka, Ca.- A new Earth First! tree-sit in a Green Dia­mond Resource log­ging plan east of Eure­ka end­ed as sud­den­ly as it began.

With the new own­ers of the for­mer Pacif­ic Lum­ber Com­pa­ny pledg­ing to not log Old-Growth trees, a pro­pos­al by Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny to log Ancient Red­woods grabbed the atten­tion of Earth First! Hum­boldt.

Most of the trees range from 80–100 years old but in one of the two groves there are numer­ous scat­tered Old-Growth trees that were not cut dur­ing the orig­i­nal log­ging of the area in the late 1800’

s. The com­pa­ny is also propos­ing res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment in the same area under Option B of the Hum­boldt Coun­ty Gen­er­al Plan Update.

“Clearcut­ting and Old-Growth log­ging are crimes against nature and human­i­ty,” said Jere­my Jensen of EF! Hum­boldt, “Devel­op­ment is the nail in the cof­fin.”

Activists con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple search­es of the area and made sev­er­al dis­cov­er­ies. The loca­tions of sev­er­al Old-Growth red­woods that were slat­ed to be cut, and the pres­ence of at least three North­ern Spot­ted Owls in the threat­ened for­est.

Days after stealth­ily estab­lish­ing a tree-sit in a giant Old-Growth Red­wood that was clear­ly marked to be cut, the sit­ters wor­ried that they had been pre­ma­ture­ly dis­cov­ered when field sur­vey­ors were heard walk­ing around on the for­est floor.

Though no words were exchanged, a dan­gling clus­ter of white 5 gal­lon buck­ets made the tree-sit high­ly vis­i­ble.

Three days lat­er, a Green Dia­mond employ­ee returned to mark the occu­pied tree and at least two oth­er imper­iled Old-Growth Red­woods as “Wildlife Leave Trees”, seem­ing to indi­cate that they won’t be cut.

This sur­prised EF! Hum­boldt activists because the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Forestry had already approved the log­ging plan.

While the activists sus­pect­ed it was a decep­tive move to trick the tree-sit­ters into com­ing down, anoth­er piece of infor­ma­tion came to light.

An Earth First!er review­ing the log­ging plan doc­u­ment dis­cov­ered that GDRC would not be allowed to log the area until next Feb­ru­ary 19th at the ear­li­est. This is due to the fact that lum­ber com­pa­nies are required by Cal­i­for­nia law to allow trees in adja­cent clearcuts to reach three years of age before log­ging neigh­bor­ing forests.

The Earth First!ers decid­ed to remove the plat­form and gear from the tree, assess the new sit­u­a­tion and re-cal­i­brate the defen­sive strat­e­gy for the threat­ened groves.

“At least now they know we’re seri­ous,” said a tree-sit­ter by the name of “Cross­roads”.

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Very high tree platform in old growth RedwoodsBreak­ing News: EF!H Tree-sit in the McK­ay Tract
August 22nd, 2008

Earth First! tree-sit­ters have been dis­cov­ered in a gar­gan­tu­an Ancient Red­wood by a Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny employ­ee just east of Cut­ten in the “McK­ay Tract”. Green Dia­mond is plan­ning for res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment of large sec­tions of the McK­ay Tract after they log all they can. This is a clas­sic cut-and run strat­e­gy, make mon­ey by tak­ing the trees and then sell the land to devel­op­ers.

The Ancient Red­wood was locat­ed a few weeks ago by EF! Hum­boldt activists dur­ing explorato­ry search­es of the area, trig­gered when the plans to log two Red­wood groves in the Tract were made pub­lic. The tree bore the blue paint des­ig­nat­ing it for cut­ting and was quick­ly occu­pied. Most of the 60 acre log­ging plan is to be clear-cut under Green Dia­monds plan. The Green Dia­mond employ­ee has now report­ed­ly marked the tree as a “Wildlife Tree” and it’s pos­si­ble that it will not be cut. Strange­ly, this log­ging plan has already been approved and we are not assum­ing that the com­pa­ny is sin­cere­ly plan­ning to leave the tree.

This may be a tac­tic to get the sit­ters to come down. There was com­pa­ny activ­i­ty in the area sev­er­al days ago but no con­tact was made. The tree-sit may have been spot­ted at that time and this could be a direct response by the com­pa­ny.

The tree, named “Mil­len­nia” by activists, appears to be well over 200 ft. tall. It is count­less hun­dreds, if not over one thou­sand, years old.

The sit­ters vow to remain in the tree until it is def­i­nite­ly pro­tect­ed. Though the sit­ters occu­py only one giant tree, both of the groves are defac­to wildlife refuges and need be pro­tect­ed in their entire­ty. The mature stands har­bor many ani­mals that have no where else to go in the log­ging-rav­aged land­scape east of Eure­ka, Ca.

Dur­ing the ini­tial search of the area, the activists were vis­it­ed by a North­ern Spot­ted Owl. The Cal­i­for­nia Dept. of Forestry refus­es to pro­tect this area as Owl habi­tat even though the Spot­ted Owls are endan­gered and still in decline. We sus­pect that the Owls are nest­ing here because of the fre­quent vis­its from them, the large num­ber of owl pel­lets on the ground, and the fact that this is one of only 2 or 3 iso­lat­ed groves in the McK­ay Tract where dense stands of large trees remain stand­ing.

The grove where this tree stands is com­prised main­ly of 100 year old Red­woods that grew fol­low­ing the orig­i­nal log­ging of the area around the turn of the cen­tu­ry. This was one of the first places logged due to it’s close prox­im­i­ty to Hum­boldt Bay. The Ancient Red­woods that remain here were left stand­ing due to either an unde­sir­able shaped trunk, tree caves, or the steep­ness and insta­bil­i­ty of the ground around the tree.

The trees in the clear-cut­ting zone are not marked for log­ging, in those areas only the scat­tered trees to be left are giv­en a dis­tin­guish­ing mark. This tree is with­in a geo­log­i­cal­ly unsta­ble area next to a creek were the com­pa­ny is lim­it­ed to only selec­tion log­ging. This type of log­ging requires that the trees select­ed for the cut be marked.

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Looking up at a Redwood treeFor more info & pho­tos, vis­it http://efhumboldt.org