Author: earthfirst

Today, the police sur­round­ed Mid­dle site. Mid­dle Site is more heav­i­ly estab­lished than the pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en down top site, hav­ing quite a few peo­ple up in the trees The baliffs arrest­ed two of the pro­test­ers, and have promised to con­tin­ue. Help is need­ed — come on down to Dalkei­th!

Addi­tion­al info to that on http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/?q=node/117

Inter­na­tion­al Invite:
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South Flori­da is an acces­si­ble loca­tion for inter­na­tion­al trav­el, and is a social hotspot of cur­rent glob­al com­merce and pol­i­tics. For sev­er­al years, the glob­al­iza­tion move­ment has influ­enced (and been influ­enced by) EF! But rarely has it been pos­si­ble to dia­logue with eco-rad­i­cals in oth­er parts of the world, espe­cial­ly the major­i­ty world move­ments who have been inspir­ing direct action efforts with­in the U.S. empire. For these rea­sons, the invi­ta­tion is being put out to help bring folks from oth­er coun­tries’ rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ments and indige­nous strug­gles here for the OC and Win­ter Ren­dezvous (this means visa assis­tance and some extra fundrais­ing, so if you can be
of any help in those areas, please con­tact us ASAP!)

Organ­is­ers’ con­fer­ence 15–17th Feb­ru­ary:
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— Last year’s OC seems to have been a more reflec­tive, inner-growth and recov­ery focused con­fer­ence. So we are propos­ing this year we reach towards the oth­er end of the spec­trum and be ori­ent­ed towards move­ment strat­e­gy and vision on the broad­er scale; tak­ing a look at glob­al ecol­o­gy and inter­na­tion­al move­ments on the front­lines.

- Reports from the Earth First! Jour­nal- this is a stan­dard sub­ject of EF! gath­er­ings, but there are some recent hap­pen­ings in the eco-rad­i­cal pub­lish­ing world that might make for inter­est­ing discussions/proposal. For exam­ple, two promi­nent move­ment pub­li­ca­tions, Wild Earth and Do or Die have ceased pro­duc­tion, while new­er projects, such as Green Anar­chy, have grown in cir­cu­la­tion and recog­ni­tion. Does this influ­ence where the EF!J should place the focus of its con­tent?

- Eval­u­at­ing strate­gies, tools and tac­tics- in the past year and a half an article/proposal “Down with Empire, Up with Spring” (from the UK-based Do or Die, Issue 10) has been cir­cu­lat­ing the eco-anar­chist net­works. Essen­tial­ly, it is pro­mot­ing the Hotspot The­o­ry as a glob­al eco-defense/indige­nous sol­i­dar­i­ty strat­e­gy and a SHAC style tac­ti­cal approach for its grass­roots appli­ca­tion. Is it the most coher­ent vision of move­ment direc­tion since EF! first pro­mot­ed wilder­ness cor­ri­dors for North Amer­i­can bio­di­ver­si­ty restora­tion over 20 years ago or is it too rigid, lofty and spoiled with corporate/NGO influ­ence?

- Exam­in­ing our visions and aspi­ra­tions- for the dura­tion of EF!, the per­spec­tives of deep ecol­o­gy have been a dri­ving and uni­fy­ing fac­tor of the move­ment. In the past few years, an anar­chis­tic world­view has had a growth spurt with­in EF! Cer­tain ele­ments of anar­chy have, of course, been there all along, but most would agree that there is a shift of some sort that appears to be occur­ring. In cer­tain ways it is as cul­tur­al as it is ide­o­log­i­cal. The ‘green anar­chy’ ten­den­cy seems to still reflect the prin­ci­ples of deep ecol­o­gy but also bring some of its own aspi­ra­tions and visions of a future world and how we might get there. Is the grow­ing ener­gy around the Fer­al Visions/Green Anar­chy gath­er­ings evi­dence of this shift? What, if any­thing, does that mean for EF! as a ‘move­ment’?

- Review of State Repres­sion- how has new anti-ter­ror­ist leg­is­la­tion of the past sev­er­al years impact­ed EF! and relat­ed groups? How have folks been effec­tive in fight­ing back?

- Anti-oppres­sion check-in- How have racism, sex­ism, xeno­pho­bia, homo­pho­bia, and oth­er oppres­sive ten­den­cies been man­i­fest­ing them­selves in our orga­niz­ing & direct action efforts? How are peo­ple chal­leng­ing them suc­cess­ful­ly? Are there still anti-immi­grant sen­ti­ments in our midst? How can we expose them and send ’em on their way for good?

- Bioregional/international roundup- what are peo­ple up to with­in the EF! net­work, the envi­ron­men­tal direct action move­ment and it’s extend­ed webs of affin­i­ty with­in the full ‘activist’ spec­trum from local grass­roots com­mu­ni­ty groups to glob­al autonomous social move­ments? How do we fit into the big­ger pic­ture? Whose cam­paigns could use some extra hands, who has hands to spare? We can also expect a direct update from the Alter­na­tive Social Forum in Venezuela.

Win­ter Ren­dezvous! feb 17–19
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This is a time to kick back, enjoy each oth­ers com­pa­ny, inform & inspire each oth­er with our skillshares/workshops, eat damn good food and rev­el in the good times so that we can more clear­ly know what kind of rela­tion­ships with peo­ple and with the land that we are fight­ing for in our day-to-day lives.

At recent EF! gath­er­ings there has been a lull in musi­cian par­tic­i­pa­tion, so tell your friends to bring their songs and instru­ments. This year we will be hon­ored with a per­for­mance by Sobre­vivien­cia, a Guatemalan indige­nous Mayan rock band. We are also hop­ing that some of the new­er gen­er­a­tion of rad­i­cal folkies that have been rous­ing the rab­ble in the streets will come ser­e­nade us in the swamps too.

Fri­day night will be the annu­al ‘Night To Howl!’ gath­er­ing of the War­rior Poets Soci­ety, so bring poems, songs and sto­ries to share.

You can expect to see some of the fol­low­ing top­ics pop up over the week­end:

• Fight­ing Gen­tri­fi­ca­tion
• Prob­ing the Tech-Night­mare: bio, nano, robo, cel­lu­lar, etc.
• Prim­i­tive Skill­shares
• Plant Walks
• Indige­nous Sol­i­dar­i­ty in North Amer­i­ca
• Coastal Ecol­o­gy Issues
• Cli­mate, Ener­gy and the Eco-Intifa­da
• Defend­ing Pacif­ic North­West Forests
• Moun­tain Top Removal
• Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­dens
• Earth & Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­er Sup­port
• Deep­er Effects of Civ­i­liza­tion on our Bod­ies & Com­mu­ni­ties;
• Mak­ing Your Own Home­brew

Spe­cial Work­shop on Sun­day Feb­ru­ary 19:
From Defen­sive to Offen­sive: Strate­gic Latin Amer­i­ca Sol­i­dar­i­ty

Details of this and more onhttp://www.earthfirst2006oc.info/

Pro­tes­tors are still in the trees and in the protest sites at Dalkei­th Coun­try Park. The evic­tion attempt start­ed Mon­day 16th ear­ly morn­ing, but as of 3pm Mon­day after­noon three of the four protest sites remain intact. “We urge sup­port­ers to come and join us,” one of the pro­tes­tors said. “It’s not too late to take a stand against this road mad­ness.”

Pro­tes­tors are oppos­ing the build­ing of the A68 bypass through the Park, just south of Edin­burgh. The author­i­ties said today they expect the evic­tion to take two weeks.
Ear­ly this morn­ing Police bailiffs raid­ed one of the sites, top site, and have estab­lished a secu­ri­ty cor­don around it. As of 3pm at least one pro­tes­tor remained in the trees at Top Site deter­mined to resist evic­tion and the cut­ting of the trees in this part of the Riv­er Esk wildlife cor­ri­dor in Mid­loth­i­an.

Police mobilised climbers and machin­ery to remove those in the trees. Two arrests were report­ed. Pro­tes­tors moved high into the trees to com­pli­cate the evic­tion process. They are filled with a pas­sion­ate desire to pro­tect these wood­lands against what is viewed as sense­less and inap­pro­pri­ate destruc­tion of a sig­nif­i­cant eco­log­i­cal habi­tat.

As of late Mon­day after­noon mid­dle site and bot­tom site of the protest were still intact, with demon­stra­tors still in all the occup­pied trees. More pro­tes­tors were walk­ing into the main bot­tom site where pro­tes­tors were still in con­trol of the camp. There was a police pres­ence but they were only mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion. Indy­media has no con­firmed news from the fourth site but it is believed to be intact.

A sup­port­er of the protest told Indy­media “We call on peo­ple to come to Dalkei­th Coun­try Park to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. We can­not let this sense­less prof­it-fuelled destruc­tion go ahead.” Pro­tes­tors are arrang­ing trans­port to the site from the For­est Cafe on Bris­to Place in near­by Edin­burgh. Oth­er pro­tes­tors are mak­ing their way from Edin­burgh by pub­lic trans­port, to join locals from Dalkei­th and area (trans­port info at end of arti­cle).

The first of the four protest sites at Dalkei­th Coun­try Park was estab­lished on the 31 Octo­ber 2005 due to infor­ma­tion that tree felling for the A68 bypass (to be con­struct­ed dur­ing the sum­mer of 2006) was to pro­ceed imme­di­ate­ly. Since that time, all areas in around the park where tree felling is nec­es­sary for the pro­posed bypass have seen the estab­lish­ment of protest sites to defend against this large-scale habi­tat destruc­tion.

The num­ber of peo­ple involved in protest­ing the rout­ing of the A68 Bypass through the coun­try park has increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the estab­lish­ment of the first protest site and includes strong sup­port from many peo­ple local to the Dalkei­th area.

Cam­paign­ers are adamant that before con­struc­tion on the A68 bypass con­tin­ues, a new Pub­lic Inquiry needs to occur. Since plan­ning per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the bypass in 1993, all infor­ma­tion regard­ing the need for its con­struc­tion is dat­ed from 1992 or ear­li­er. A prop­er Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment has nev­er been com­plet­ed, the last Pub­lic Inquiry was in 1992, and the need for this bypass has not prop­er­ly been reassessed since major changes to the trans­port infra­struc­ture of the area (the dualling of the A1, the build­ing of the A7 Dalkei­th bypass, and the poten­tial reopen­ing of the Bor­ders Rail Link). In 1999, the Strate­gic Road Review stat­ed that the A68 North­ern bypass should be held in abeyance until the com­ple­tion of the Mul­ti-Modal Trans­port study (to be com­plet­ed in 2006) which would con­sid­er the need for the bypass with regards to these change.

TRANSPORT TO DALKEITH COUNTRY PARK
Trans­port is being arranged from the For­est Cafe, Bris­to Place, near George IV Bridge, Edin­burgh, which is also act­ing as an info point in Edin­burgh. More info 077532 80009

You can also make your way there inde­pen­dent­ly, by Loth­i­an bus 3 and 3a from Edin­burgh, direc­tions below.

Dalkei­th Protest Site Phone: 07783904369

DIRECTIONS to the main Protest Site
(There are four sites in total)
Please bear in mind the police may be obstruct­ing access.

The site is in a stand of pines on the north side of the Riv­er Esk after the two branch­es have joined and near the cut for the over­head elec­tric lines.

Enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park at the north end- entrance off of the A6094 at Smeaton Lodge (between Dalkei­th and White­craig). Go past Home Farm towards the Riv­er Esk, after cross­ing the bridge the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left (note the site is not acces­si­ble for vehi­cles).

Alter­na­tive­ly, enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park from the main entrance off of the High Street in Dalkei­th. Straight ahead after you go through the gates, then stay on the road lead­ing to the right past the adven­ture play­ground, shop and cafe­te­ria; after pass­ing the graz­ing fields and pass­ing under three pow­er lines cut the road will split. There is a promi­nent Scots pine here. Take the left fork towards the Riv­er Esk. After a short dis­tance, again take the left fork when the road splits and go down the hill. After cross­ing the bridge, the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left. This is around 35–40 min­utes walk.

From Edin­burgh, Loth­i­an Bus­es 3 and 3a go to Dalkei­th, you can use a day tick­et for this jour­ney.

For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign to Save Dalkei­th Coun­try Park, vis­it www.save-dalkeith-park.org.uk/

DALKEITH COUNTRY PARK- ANTI A68 BYPASS PROTEST CAMPAIGN
PRESS STATEMENT- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 16 JANUARY 2006

Evic­tion of the four protest sites in Dalkei­th Coun­try Park against the con­struc­tion of the A68 Bypass and the destruc­tion of the Riv­er Esk wildlife cor­ri­dor began this morn­ing.

At around 4.30 a.m. this morn­ing evic­tion of the protest sites in Dalkei­th Coun­try Park began. Police bailiffs raid­ed one of the sites and have estab­lished a secu­ri­ty cor­don around it. Pro­tes­tors remain in the trees deter­mined to resist evic­tion and the cut­ting of the trees in this part of the Riv­er Esk wildlife cor­ri­dor.

Police are now mobil­is­ing climbers and machin­ery to remove those in the trees. How­ev­er, pro­tes­tors have moved high into the trees to com­pli­cate the evic­tion process. They are filled with a pas­sion­ate desire to pro­tect these wood­lands against what is viewed as sense­less and inap­pro­pri­ate destruc­tion of a sig­nif­i­cant eco­log­i­cal habi­tat.

The first of the four protest sites at Dalkei­th Coun­try Park was estab­lished on the 31 Octo­ber 2005 in regards to infor­ma­tion that tree felling for the A68 bypass was to pro­ceed imme­di­ate­ly. Since that time, all areas in around the park where tree felling is nec­es­sary for the pro­posed bypass have seen the estab­lish­ment of protest sites to defend against this large-scale habi­tat destruc­tion. The num­ber of peo­ple involved in protest­ing the rout­ing of the A68 Bypass through the coun­try park has increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the estab­lish­ment of the first protest site and includes strong sup­port from many peo­ple local to the Dalkei­th area.

Cam­paign­ers are adamant that before con­struc­tion on the A68 bypass con­tin­ues, a new Pub­lic Inquiry needs to occur. Since plan­ning per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the bypass in 1993, all infor­ma­tion regard­ing the need for its con­struc­tion is dat­ed from 1992 or ear­li­er. A prop­er Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment has nev­er been com­plet­ed, the last Pub­lic Inquiry was in 1992, and the need for this bypass has not prop­er­ly been reassessed since major changes to the trans­port infra­struc­ture of the area (the dualling of the A1, the build­ing of the A7 Dalkei­th bypass, and the poten­tial reopen­ing of the Bor­ders Rail Link). In 1999, the Strate­gic Road Review stat­ed that the A68 North­ern bypass should be held in abeyance until the com­ple­tion of the Mul­ti-Modal Trans­port study (to be com­plet­ed in 2006) which would con­sid­er the need for the bypass with regards to these change.

10:30am
The police and bailiffs are work­ing on the Top Site. The sites at Bot­tom and Mid­dle still have every­one in place and are acces­si­ble. Please get along and sup­port if you can (and while you can).

2pm
The top site has been fenced off, and two peo­ple arrest­ed there so far, the oth­er two are freely access­able for now but it is said may be evict­ed Tues­day and Wednes­day.
At least one per­son is still to be tak­en from trees and at least one from a tun­nel, at top site.
Climbers are remov­ing struc­ture from trees.
There is a Scot­tish Exec­u­tive Press Offi­cer and a Police Press Offi­cer on site.

Update — Mon­day after­noon
Last info I have, they are still work­ing on top site. They have fenced in mid­dle site. Bot­tom site was still open and peo­ple there were call­ing for more sup­port. How­ev­er, they said that baliffs were on the way to bot­tom site to fence it off too.
How­ev­er, those going out have been stopped by police before reach­ing the park and are than escort­ed to the ‘view­ing area’ close to top site. Police have blocked peo­ple from enter­ing the park and from going to either bot­tom or mid­dle site.
Vans have been leav­ing reg­u­lar­ly from the For­est Cafe to take peo­ple to Dalkei­th. The evic­tion is far from over, and sup­port will still be cru­cial over the fol­low­ing days. Even if you can’t get into one of the sites, being there to view the evic­tion process and show sol­i­dar­i­ty is vital!

Cana­di­an Green­peace whal­ing activist, Texas Joe Con­stan­tine, was dragged over­board into the freez­ing Antarc­tic waters after the whal­ing har­poon was fired over his inflat­able and the har­poon rope became entan­gled in the craft. Con­stan­tine spent a few min­utes in the water in his sur­vival suit, before his com­pa­tri­ots could manou­ver their craft to pick him up. The har­poon killed the whale almost instant­ly after a chase last­ing an hour.

Green­peace entan­gled between whale and Japan­ese whal­ing ves­sel

The inci­dent hap­pened at 6pm on Sat­ur­day night while three activists in a Green­peace inflat­able were defend­ing a minke whale in the sights of the har­poon­ist on the Japan­ese whal­ing catch­er ship, Yushin Maru No2. The har­poon was shot per­ilous­ly close to the heads of the activists, with the grenade tipped har­poon explod­ing and killing the whale almost instant­ly. The har­poon rope came down upon the inflat­able get­ting stuck in the steer­ing con­trols. As the har­poon line was reeled in with the inflat­able trapped between the catch­er ship and the dead whale, the rope became taught and dragged Con­stan­tine into the icy blood stained ocean cling­ing to the har­poon line.

After let­ting go of the har­poon line, Con­si­dine float­ed in the blood soaked ocean near the whale while the inflat­able came round. He was dragged onboard, thank­ful for his sur­vival suit which pro­vides heat insu­la­tion and buoy­an­cy.

Many whales hit by the har­poon can take sev­er­al min­utes to die, and Green­peace has filmed whales that have tak­en more than half an hour to die after being har­pooned.

Lat­er Texas Joe Con­stan­tine described the inci­dent: “We were out defend­ing the whales. We have been out there for about an hour. I was dri­ving our boat and we were in a good posi­tion and the whaler fired its har­poon,” said Mr Con­stan­tine. “All of a sud­den the har­poon line came down on us trap­ping us between the whale and the catch­er. The line came tight at that point and threw me from the boat into the water. It was a few min­utes before our boat was able to come over and pick me up out of the water.”

Shane Rat­ten­bury from the Arc­tic Sun­rise said: “They had been run­ning the gaunt­let between the whale and the har­poon, using them­selves as a shield, when sud­den­ly the har­poon was fired over the top of the boat. It struck the whale and for­tu­nate­ly it died imme­di­ate­ly. We have seen some kills that go on for a long time, with the whale thrash­ing about, in which case the whole boat would have cap­sized. The har­poon cord lay across the inflat­able ves­sel.” There was no move­ment for a few sec­onds by the whalers or the activists. “I think we were all just stunned by how near a miss it was.” he said.

Shield­ing the whales from inflat­a­bles has proven a mixed suc­cess. Many whales escape the har­poon, but even­tu­al­ly the catch­er ship chas­es a whale, runs it into exhaus­tion, and kills it despite the efforts of the activists. Shane Rat­ten­bury said the tac­tics had been suc­cess­ful to a large extent in hin­der­ing the num­bers of whales killed “It’s not the per­fect tac­tic, but noth­ing was ever going to be. We’re doing our best down here but this hunt is not going to be entire­ly stopped by us being on the water. We need gov­ern­ments to bring pres­sure to bear on Japan and com­pa­nies that run the whal­ing fleet to decide not to do it any more.”

“Before this hap­pened, we had pre­vent­ed them from killing this whale for about an hour,” Mr Rat­ten­bury said. “Ten­sions have been ris­ing the last few weeks and the fleet is frus­trat­ed at not get­ting clear shots at their tar­gets. Yes­ter­day took it to a new lev­el. We are very con­cerned about that.”

Insti­tute of Cetacean Research (ICR) Direc­tor Gen­er­al Dr. Hiroshi Hatana­ka accused Green­peace of “dan­ger­ous risks to main­tain media inter­est.” He said “Our har­poon­er had a clear shot and took it. The strike was per­fect and the whale was
killed instant­ly. The fact that the rope fell onto their inflat­able and one of the activists fell into the water is entire­ly their fault. We are also con­cerned that they tried to cut the line because it makes it more dan­ger­ous for them.”

Green­peace Aus­tralia CEO, Steve Shall­horn, said the inci­dent high­light­ed the need for more pres­sure on the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment to recall their whal­ing fleet: “It’s way past time for John Howard and the world’s anti-whal­ing nations to demand that Japan gets its whal­ing fleet out of the South­ern Ocean whale sanc­tu­ary. Green­peace will keep up our inter­ven­tion, but it will take strong inter­na­tion­al pres­sure to make Japan hon­our the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion ban on whal­ing in this sanctuary.â€?

=======================
Andrew, onboard the Esper­an­za, asks in his blog of 14 Jan­u­ary, “Would you kill, to kill a whale”

“I’m ask­ing a seri­ous ques­tion here of the whalers. “Would you kill a per­son to kill a whale?” Because that is what it is down to here in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary. The reports and video from the Arc­tic Sun­rise boat crew makes that abun­dant­ly clear. Mean­while, out in the Bil­ly G. we had our own close fir­ing — not as men­ac­ing as the behav­iour the Arc­tic Sun­rise folks saw, but still irre­spon­si­bly close.

“I’ve nev­er seen any­thing like this. It’s my third trip to down here, and I can only attribute the whalers’ behav­iour to two things — the fact that they’ve more than dou­bled the num­ber of whales they want to kill, and that we’re being more effec­tive then ever before at non-vio­lent­ly pro­tect­ing these whales from the har­poon.

“It’s worth point­ing out that as Green­peace activists we’ve cho­sen to use peace­ful tac­tics — to not put the whalers’ safe­ty at risk, no mat­ter what. We also each choose to put our­selves in harms way. But the whaler with the gun also has to make a choice about whether to pull that trig­ger. For the safe­ty of my crew­mates — I hope he does­n’t make the wrong one.

“If you know any­one work­ing on the whal­ing ships, maybe ask them to ask them­selves, “If you don’t shoot, what is the worst that could hap­pen? If you do pull that trig­ger, what is the worst pos­si­ble out­come then? Which would you rather live with?”
=======================

The inci­dent with Con­stan­tine being dragged into the freez­ing water result­ed in activists reassess­ing their tac­tics, tak­ing the Sun­day morn­ing “off as a cool­ing down peri­od.”, accord­ing to Andrew from the Esper­an­za. This allowed Green­peace to do repair work on their inflat­a­bles. In the after­noon “the Yushin already had a whale along­side, but it was search­ing for a sec­ond. Nathan start­ed up the pump [on the Bil­ly G], cre­at­ing an arti­fi­cial show­er to make whale spot­ting dif­fi­cult. It was a bright sun­ny day, and the whalers weren’t real­ly appro­pri­ate­ly dressed for the occa­sion. As the Bil­ly G. came clos­er, the crow’s nest and fly­ing bridge emp­tied. Soon all the whalers had gone inside.” said Andrew on his blog.

The inci­dent hap­pened off the Maw­son coast in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry, 2000 nau­ti­cal miles south-west of Perth. The Fish­eries Agency of Japan claims it is con­duct­ing a sci­en­tif­ic research pro­gramme. Green­peace and Sea Shep­herd say the hunt is noth­ing more than com­mer­cial whal­ing in dis­guise. After the whales have been mea­sured and weighed by the sci­en­tists, the whales are cut up and boxed for the mar­ket.

Sources:
http://greenpeace.org.au/media/press_details.php?site_id=8&news_id=1902
Har­poon knocks Green­peace activist over­board — Green­peace Aus­tralia, 15 Jan 2006

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3541116a7693,00.html
Man over­board in lat­est whal­ing clash — Stuff, 15 Jan 2006

http://www.icrwhale.org/eng-index.htm
Insti­tute of Cetacean Research (ICR)

http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/01/would_you_ki…
Would you kill, to kill a whale — by Andrew, onboard the Esper­an­za, Ocean Defend­ers Blog, 14 Jan­u­ary 2006

http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/01/our_new_best…
Our new best friends — by Andrew, onboard the Esper­an­za, Ocean Defend­ers Blog, 15 Jan­u­ary 2006

http://tvyil.greenpeaceweb.org/default.asp?loadfilm=59&loadcat=10
Green­peace Video: Between the whale and the har­poon — Short clip from activist Texas describ­ing inci­dent in which a har­poon line and his boat got into a tan­gle.

Dear friends ELP has five lots of news for you today:

1 (USA) Three new eco-pris­on­ers
2 (Italy) Mar­co Mar­torana under house arrest
3) (Britain) Jan Lawrence released
4 (USA) Mes­sage from Kevin Tubbs sup­port cam­paign
5 (USA) More mail restric­tions for the 7th Decem­ber arrestees.

1) ELP has just learnt about the arrests of three peo­ple in Amer­i­ca who have been accused of plan­ning to car­ry out Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front activ­i­ty. As we under­stand it, they have not been accused of actu­al­ly doing any­thing, just accused of “plan­ning” to do some­thing. (Does this sound famil­iar to any­one?)

The news of the arrests has lit­er­al­ly only just come in so we have very lit­tle details, how­ev­er below is a main­stream media arti­cle which reports the arrests.

Please send urgent let­ters of sup­port to:

LAUREN WEINER X‑4198634 BKGF
Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail
651 “I” Street
Sacra­men­to, CA 95814
USA

ZACHARY JENSON X‑4198632 BKGM
Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail
651 “I” Street
Sacra­men­to, CA 95814
USA

ERIC MCDAVID X‑2972521 BKGM
Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail
651 “I” Street
Sacra­men­to, CA 95814
USA

If any­one has oth­er fur­ther infor­ma­tion about Lau­ren, Zachary or Eric or their alleged offences please do get in con­tact. And here is that main­stream media arti­cle we promised you:

FBI Arrests 3 Sus­pect­ed ELF Mem­bers In Auburn, Foils Plot To Blow Up Cell Tow­ers And Pow­er Plants

(CBS 13) SACRAMENTO The F.B.I. has foiled an alleged plot to blow up cell tow­ers, pow­er plants and U.S. For­est Ser­vice sites by arrest­ing three sus­pect­ed ELF mem­bers in Plac­er Coun­ty.

The FBI made the arrests this morn­ing after a long inves­ti­ga­tion. 20-year-old Zachary Jen­son of Mon­roe, Wash­ing­ton, 20-year-old Lau­ren Wein­er of Philadel­phia and 28-year-old Eric Tay­lor McDavid of Foresthill, Cal­i­for­nia were tak­en into cus­tody in a shop­ping cen­ter park­ing lot in Auburn. The FBI says the three were act­ing on behalf of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front.

The FBI says the arrests were based on evi­dence that the three were plot­ting to use explo­sives to blow up sev­er­al sites. Their alleged tar­gets includ­ed facil­i­ties owned by the Unit­ed State For­est Ser­vice, cell tow­ers and pow­er plants. Although, the FBI says they do not believe there was any imme­di­ate dan­ger to the pub­lic.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment calls the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front an envi­ron­men­tal ter­ror­ist group with no known leader. They have claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for dozens of attacks that have caused an esti­mat­ed $40 mil­lion in dam­age.

This is not the first ELF arrest in Plac­er Coun­ty. In Feb­ru­ary of last year, 21-year-old Ryan Lewis of New­cas­tle was arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with a series of explo­sive devices found at sev­er­al Plac­er Coun­ty sites. The FBI says he also was act­ing on behalf of the ELF.

2) Despite the bad news of the above arrests, ELP does have some good news. Ital­ian anar­chist Mar­co Mar­torana has been released from prison under house arrest.

3) Stay­ing with the good news. British ani­mal rights activist Jan Lawrence has been released from prison under the elec­tron­ic tag­ging sys­tem.

4) ELP has received the fol­low­ing mailout from Kevin Tubbs sup­port cam­paign.…

Hi Every­one,

Just want­ed to send out an update on Kevin Tubbs. Kevin is still being housed at the Lane Coun­ty Jail in Eugene, Ore­gon. He is await­ing trans­port to the fed­er­al deten­tion cen­ter in Sheri­dan, Ore­gon, but we have no way of know­ing when this will hap­pen. This may be as soon as next week, or may be in a cou­ple of months. In the mean­time, all of the let­ters of sup­port from peo­ple are real­ly keep­ing Kev­in’s spir­its up. He tries very hard to respond to each per­son that he receives a let­ter from. Jail is a very cold and lone­ly place, and mail call is the high­light of the day. Check out all of Lane Coun­ty Jail’s rules of cor­re­spon­dence. He can receive let­ters and cards as long as there is no glit­ter, stick­ers, sta­ples, any­thing taped or glued down, etc.… Envelopes are with­held from him so please remem­ber to also write your return address on the let­ter itself. (But a return address label stuck on the let­ter will be reject­ed)

Kevin turns 37 this com­ing Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 18th. Please take the time to send Kevin a birth­day greet­ing! It real­ly means a lot to him. We would love to flood him with cards and let­ters from friends and strangers. It will only take a minute and it will mean so much to him! Let­ters can be sent to:

Kevin Tubbs #1213751
Lane Coun­ty Jail
101 West 5th Ave
Eugene, OR 97401
USA

As soon as we have a new address for him we will post it to his sup­port web­site, www.supportkevintubbs.org . Please con­tin­ue to check the web­site for updates.

Kevin can use sup­port in the form of books, let­ters and mon­ey. Right now, we are hold­ing off on send­ing him a lot of books, because if and when he is trans­ferred, he will not be able to take any per­son­al belong­ings with him. We will post a read­ing wish list to his web­site soon.

Any dona­tions of sup­port can be sent to: Kevin Tubbs Sup­port Fund c/o PO BOX 3025 Eugene, OR 97403. Checks or mon­ey orders can be made out to Kevin Tubbs. A con­trib­u­to­ry account has also been set up at Ore­gon Com­mu­ni­ty Cred­it Union and dona­tions can be deposit­ed direct­ly into the account that is held in trust for him. Kevin has a large fam­i­ly of res­cued cats and dogs and is very con­cerned about being unable to pro­vide for their long-term care. Any dona­tions of sup­port are great­ly appre­ci­at­ed.

You can also con­tribute to Kev­in’s com­mis­sary fund at the jail so he can buy paper, postage and oth­er neces­si­ties. You must send mon­ey orders only, with his full name and pris­on­er ID num­ber on the mon­ey order, mailed in a sep­a­rate enve­lope from any card or let­ter to the same address as above.

We will send out anoth­er update as soon as he has been trans­ferred and has a new address. Thanks for all of your sup­port,

Friends and Fam­i­ly of Kevin Tubbs

5) As men­tioned above, there are some very strict restric­tions on what can and can not be sent to the pris­on­ers, arrest­ed on the 7th of Decem­ber 2005, who are held at Lane Coun­ty Jail. Anoth­er “rule” the jail has come up with is that NOTHING may be attached to the enve­lope oth­er than stamps and address labels. Any let­ter which is sent to the prison which con­tains any­thing else attached to the enve­lope will be reject­ed, this includes Air Mail stick­ers! Just recent­ly British ELP had copies of our newslet­ter, Spir­it of Free­dom, reject­ed by the prison because they arrived in envelopes that had Air Mail stick­ers on them! If you are writ­ing to the 7th of Decem­ber pris­on­ers from out­side Amer­i­ca and send­ing your let­ter by Air Mail please do not use an Air Mail stick­er, but instead just man­u­al­ly write Air Mail where the stick­er should be. ELP will nat­u­ral­ly keep you informed as to all the crazy rules Lane Coun­ty Jail is com­ing up with.

Also just to let peo­ple know, ELP has dis­cov­ered that Lane Coun­ty Jail is NOT allow­ing the 7th of Decem­ber pris­on­ers to write to over­seas sup­port­ers. There­fore if you live out­side of Amer­i­ca and have not received a reply to your let­ter of sup­port, please don’t feel dis­ap­point­ed. Your let­ter was very much appre­ci­at­ed. Its just the pris­on­er isn’t allowed to reply to you. How­ev­er please don’t let the fact the pris­on­er can not reply to your let­ter stop you from writ­ing again. As men­tioned above, the pris­on­ers love receiv­ing your let­ters and as Kev­in’s sup­port cam­paign men­tions, for many pris­on­ers the high­light of their day is when the mail arrives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Prison is a weapon used by the State to crush indi­vid­u­als who step out of line” (Michael Collins — for­mer May­day 2000 pris­on­er)

Sup­port All Ani­mal & Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
BM Box 2407, Lon­don, WC1N 3XX, Eng­land
E‑Mail ELP4321@hotmail.com
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Poland
c/o E‑Mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Bel­gium Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
E‑Mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ital­ian Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
E‑Mail italianelp@yahoo.com
www.italianelp.net

North Amer­i­can Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
E‑Mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turkey Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
E‑Mail yesilansari@yahoo.com
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

On Sat­ur­day 7th Jan­u­ary around 60 peo­ple gath­ered at Mid­dle Oak to remem­ber the resis­tance against the New­bury Bypass (A34), and reveal the huge traf­fic growth that’s come since.

It’s ten years on Mon­day since the destruc­tion of around 10,000 trees began in ernest, or rather should have done — back then pro­tes­tors scored an ear­ly vic­to­ry by blockad­ing the entrance to the secu­ri­ty com­pound with scaf­fold­ing tripods, thus ensur­ing no vehi­cles could leave. The start of work her­ald­ed the most full-on phase of the ‘3rd Bat­tle of New­bury’, Britain’s biggest ever road protest, which saw over thir­ty dif­fer­ent tree camps set up to oppose the road and around one thou­sand arrests.

This after­noon, peo­ple met at Mid­dle Oak (one of the few trees to remain enroute — now sur­round­ed on all sides by roads) where a memo­r­i­al tree was plant­ed and the huge list of the var­i­ous dif­fer­ent camps that resist­ed the road were read out — from Gotan to Rick­ety Bridge, from Tot Hill to Mary Hare — and a good few I nev­er heard of at the time. There was a bunch of media in atten­dance, and time for chat­ting with old friends. Folks then walked along some of the route over towards Cas­tle Don­ning­ton for a can­dle lit vig­il and more sloe gin, dam­son wine, choco­late and more gack.

Ten years on and the same issues are still there. Research over recent years and in par­tic­u­lar last year has shown that the Bypass has fuelled traf­fic growth of almost 50% (com­pared with a nation­al aver­age of 5%). Fig­ures also show that local con­ges­tion is as bad at rush hour as it was before the build­ing of the bypass — and that the new road encour­aged more traf­fic.

Rebec­ca Lush from Road Block said in a state­ment:

“In 1995 we pre­dict­ed the road would bring only short term relief, but even we did not antic­i­pate that the traf­fic would rise again so quick­ly. Ten years on we are sad to see New­bury is still grid locked at rush hour, but has sac­ri­ficed its beau­ti­ful pris­tine coun­try­side for­ev­er. The lessons must be learned, that build­ing more roads gen­er­ates more traf­fic. How­ev­er the gov­ern­ment is still build­ing roads and encour­ag­ing traf­fic growth. More roads mean more traf­fic, which means more cli­mate change. We must change direc­tion, and New­bury is an exam­ple of a failed twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry trans­port pol­i­cy that must nev­er be repeat­ed”.

The A34 New­bury Bypass was Britain’s most con­tro­ver­sial road-build­ing project. Local cam­paign­ers bat­tled against the road through­out the 1980s, their efforts cul­mi­nat­ing in a pub­lic inquiry in 1988 (with a minor fol­low-up inquiry in 1992). When the pub­lic inquiry found in favour of the road, there fol­lowed a spec­tac­u­lar cam­paign from 1994 to 1998 that took in every form of protest, from mass let­ter writ­ing and Euro­pean lob­by­ing to mass non-vio­lent direct action and prop­er­ty dam­age.

The build­ing of the road saw four Sites of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est dam­aged or destroyed at Snelsmore Com­mon, the Riv­er Ken­net, the Riv­er Lam­bourn and the Ken­net Flood Plains (pre­vi­ous­ly home to the Desmoulin’s Whorl Snail, dis­cov­ered dur­ing the con­struc­tion of the road); as well as this the road con­struc­tion also dam­aged the site of the First Bat­tle of New­bury in the Eng­lish Civ­il War in 1643, and the North Wes­sex Downs Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.

Oppo­si­tion to new road build­ing, air­port expan­sion and cli­mate change con­tin­ues today, both in the Uk and beyond — for more info see:

Road Block:
http://www.roadblock.org.uk

Road Alert:
http://www.roadalert.org.uk

—————————-

NEWBURY LINKS:

New­bury Bypass Resis­tance Archive:
http://www.antiroads.org.uk/newbury/factfile.html

SchNEWS on Start of Bypass Destruc­tion 1995:
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news56.htm

New­bury Bypass Mon­i­tor­ing Project:
http://www.newburyproject.org.uk

West Berk­shire Dis­trict Coun­cil’s New­bury Move­ment Study (pub­lished 2005):
http://www.westberks.gov.uk/WestBerkshire/transport.nsf/pages/NewburyM11…

New­bury Bypass on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbury_bypass

Road Rag­ing: A Man­u­al for Resist­ing Road Build­ing:
http://www.eco-action.org/rr/

—————————-

Just a few great names of the many to remem­ber… Mary Hare — Gotan — Snelsmore — Ken­net — Red­dings Copse — Sheep Dip — Heart­b’k Hotel — Horse Shoe — Bagn­or — Mid­dle Oak — Granny Ash — Rick­ety Bridge — Tot Hill — Vic­tor Char­lie — Enborne St — Enborne Row — The Chase — Birth­day Par­ty — Sky­ward — Castle­wood — PP3 — Bab­ble Brook — Sea View — Man­ic Shire — Yip!

A for­est that has to be cut down for NATO-planes, is already for more then a month occu­pied. AWAC-planes are ter­ror­is­ing the local peo­ple for over 25 years. But cur­rent­ly a minor­i­ty of politi­cians and police (yes they are a minor­i­ty) are try­ing to take over the for­est and chop it down.

Back­ground:
For 25 years the inhab­i­tants of Schin­veld and Brun­ssum in Dutch Lim­burg are organ­is­ing actions against the prensence of the AWACS, these tremen­dous­ly noisy planes cause noise nui­sance, pol­lu­tion and health prob­lems for the locals since those planes have been banned from fly­ing in the Unit­ed States for exact­ly those rea­sons.

On top of all this, NATO wants to destroy 20 hectares of for­est. Because the town coun­cil refused to deliv­er the nec­es­sary licens­es to cut down the for­est, a NIM­BY-pro­ce­dure was set up to take away the coun­cils deci­sion mak­ing pow­er. On august 3rd the min­is­ter of ter­ri­to­r­i­al infra­struc­ture deliv­ered an exemp­tion so the min­istry of defense can start cut­ting the trees. The coun­cil appealed that deci­sion with the supreme court (Raad van Sate) but lost the appeal on decem­ber 2nd for the 6 hectares of for­est that are the clos­est to the base. Thats why two days lat­er the for­est was occu­pied, the activists get an enour­mous sup­port from the locals.

The local may­or is in favor of cut­ting the for­est, but the rest of the coun­cil is doing their best to fight every deci­sion he takes. Polit­i­cal par­ties are final­ly after all these years stand­ing up against the NATO, hop­ing to prof­it from the enor­mous sup­port that local action­groups and Earth First get.Thanks to the great sup­port, the camp has built up a nice defense against the log­gers. How­ev­er tonight the police is prepar­ing every­thing to start the evici­tion. The gov­erne­ment plans to start log­ging on Mon­day morn­ing.

Ongo­ing: (top is newest)
Mon­day 9 Jan­u­ary 3:16 Riot police starts sweep­ing the for­est. Peo­ple are chaoticly run­ning around. After the first line of cops, are cops with dogs. The peo­ple in the tree huts are being left alone at the moment. It’ s unclear how many peo­ple are in lock-ons on the ground.
2:42 Ger­man police retreats, they only gave logis­tic sup­port 2:34 100 Ger­man cops are giv­ing sup­port to their Dutch col­legues
2:15 The tree camp is besieged by Dutch riot cops
2:10 Riot cops are enter­ing the for­est
1:49 20 vans of riot police arrived
1:38 Heli­copter is cir­cling above the camp

Sun­day, 8 Jan­u­ary
23:30 Riot police returned to their depar­ture place at the back side of the Maas­tricht-Aachen air­port.
23:15 At the Groenfront!website (Earth First) there were lots of mes­sages from peo­ple on their way to the for­est. At least 100 peo­ple.
23:06 Cops left from Roer­mond, there are only 6 vans left there.
22:30 A group from the fire departe­ment of Brun­ssum (near­by vil­lage) are in the for­est. They decid­ed to do so when the police request­ed their assis­tance to pro­vide light for the evic­tion, they refused.
22:10 There are still many peo­ple in the for­est, many activists, locals and some press teams.

An overview of the ear­li­er devel­op­ments might be post­ed lat­er, stay tuned…

Old­er newshttp://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/12/329845.htmloverview 13/12http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/01/330807.htmlgen­er­al

After three days of obstruct­ing the whale hunt by plac­ing inflat­able zodi­acs between whales and the har­poon, the Nis­shin Maru rammed the Green­peace ship, Arc­tic Sun­rise. The whalers are counter claim­ing their ship was rammed by Green­peace. The col­li­sion ocurred in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary. The Nis­shin Maru has con­tin­ued north at full speed, with the three con­ser­va­tion­ists ships in pur­suit.

Both sides have said that no one was hurt in the col­li­sion, although some dam­age was sus­tained above deck and to a mast on the Arc­tic Sun­rise.

Accord­ing to an ABC report, Shane Rat­ten­bury from Green­peace said that the Arc­tic Sun­rise had been observ­ing their activists onboard inflat­able zodi­acs as they paint­ed the words “whale meat from sanc­tu­ary” on the side of the Japan­ese sup­ply ves­sel, Ori­en­tal Blue­bird, short­ly before the col­lis­sion occurred. Accord­ing to Mr Rat­ten­bury, it appeared to be a delib­er­ate move by the Japan­ese Fac­to­ry ship.

“At the time we were over a kilo­me­tre from the Nis­shin Maru — it had been tied up with anoth­er ves­sel mak­ing trans­fers, it then pulled away, it had to come around the ves­sel that it had been trans­fer­ring from and had to head direct­ly toward the Arc­tic Sun­rise,” he said. “There were no oth­er ves­sels in the area and there was no rea­son to head towards us, the Arc­tic Sun­rise was vir­tu­al­ly stopped at the time.”

“There is no way to describe this as any­thing but a delib­er­ate ram­ming which placed the safe­ty of our ship and the lives of our crew in severe dan­ger.” said Rat­ten­bury. He said that the Nis­shin Maru is more than twice as long and six times heav­ier than the Arc­tic Sun­rise. The impact has left the Sun­rise “bat­tered and bruised” but with no crew mem­bers were injured.

A state­ment on the Insti­tute of Cetacean Research web­site by Direc­tor-Gen­er­al Hiroshi Hatana­ka said the Arc­tic Sun­rise’s bow hit the side of the Nis­shin-Maru twice. “The cap­tain of the Nis­shin-Maru con­firmed to ICR today that Green­peace had rammed our ves­sel, which has sus­tained some dam­age. Luck­i­ly, no crewmem­bers were injured.”

Dr Hatana­ka said the col­li­sion hap­pened when the Nis­shin-Maru was approach­ing the refu­el­ing ship, the Ori­en­tal Blue­bird. He called for “Green­peace and Sea Shep­herd should stop at once their dan­ger­ous and crim­i­nal actions.”

State­ments by both par­ties con­flict as to when the col­li­sion occurred and who caused the col­li­sion, but the video of the inci­dent on the Green­peace site clear­ly shows the Nis­shin Maru cut­ing across the path of the Arc­tic Sun­rise in breach of the col­li­sion avoid­ance rules at sea.

On the Green­peace Ocean Defend­ers Blog, Shane said:

“One minute the Nis­shin Maru was tied up with the re-sup­ply ves­sel, offload­ing whale meat, the next it was head­ing straight for us. I was on the phone at the time, when sud­den­ly Arne (the cap­tain) said, “they are com­ing straight at us”. I looked around and saw the Nis­shin Maru bear­ing down. It was very sur­re­al, their ship is so large com­pared to ours. Then it looked like we were going to miss. I went back to the phone inter­view I was doing, only to be dis­tract­ed again by Arne sound­ing the ships horn. The next part was like it was in slow motion, the Nis­shin Maru com­ing towards us, their crew hang­ing over the rails watch­ing, until sud­den­ly there was a loud bang, and our lit­tle ship shook. Then a sec­ond bang, as their stern swung around and caught us again. And then the strangest part — as their stern slid past, I looked up and saw that a man was stand­ing at one of their water can­nons, and as he passed by, he turned the water can­non straight at us, pour­ing water at the bridge of our ship.”

“So was it delib­er­ate? I have no doubt. The Nis­shin Maru turned a big cir­cle to come around to where we were. When they start­ed, the re-sup­ply ves­sel was between us and them — they had to come around it to get to us. Why else would you make such a manoeu­vre? And the guy with the water can­non — sure­ly that was pre­med­i­tat­ed, and it was cer­tain­ly an act of aggres­sion.”

Arne, the Cap­tain of the Arc­tic Sun­rise, claimed the Nis­shin Maru Cap­tain was sole­ly respon­si­ble for the col­li­sion and is in breach of the col­li­sion avoid­ance rules at sea. “The ship that has the oth­er one on the star­board side has to give way. The Arc­tic Sun­rise was on the star­board side of the Nis­shan Maru. There­fore I main­tained my course and speed.”

The day was also marked by the arrival on the scene of the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel, the Far­ley Mowat.

The pre­vi­ous two days have been marked by Green­peace activists obstruct­ing the whale hunt by plac­ing their zodi­acs between the whales and the har­poon. Green­peace have fit­ted fire hoses to their zodi­acs to spray a shield of sea­wa­ter to obstruct the sights of the har­poon­er.

=== Mer­cy Shot ===

On Fri­day Jan­u­ary 6, Green­peace were put in the posi­tion of assist­ing the mer­cy killing of a whale. The whale had been hit and was mor­tal­ly wound­ed, but the har­poon had not set. Blood was gush­ing out of the whale. The Green­peace activists in their Zodi­acs fell to the back of the Yushin Maru No. 2, well out of its way — hop­ing the whalers would end the ani­mal’s suf­fer­ing.

A sec­ond har­poon shot missed, with the whale some­how escap­ing the pur­suit. A sec­ond whal­ing hunter ship, the Kyo Maru, joined the first in the search as well as the Green­peace ships and heli­copter. Accord­ing to Andrew on board the Esper­an­za “For a brief twist­ed peri­od we found our­selves on the same side, both Green­peace and whalers work­ing togeth­er — maybe for dif­fer­ent rea­sons, but I would like to think that they also regret­ted the ani­mal’s pain.”

The Cap­tain of the Esper­an­za final­ly locat­ed the whale and “called the whalers on the radio to tell them (in no uncer­tain terms) where to find it, and to fin­ish it.” wrote Andrew.

The third har­poon set, and then a crew­man aboard the whaler used a rifle to end the whales mis­ery. The dra­ma took near­ly 30 min­utes to play out.

=== Japan­ese Whalers cry foul over Sea Shep­herd activists ===

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel, the Far­ley Mowat, caught up with the whal­ing fleet and the Japan­ese Fac­to­ry ship, the Nis­shin Maru on the 8 Decem­ber, 36 nau­ti­cal miles inside the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry. The Nis­shin Maru had just detached from the sup­ply ship Ori­en­tal Blue­bird, turned a full 360 degrees and rammed the Green­peace ship Arc­tic Sun­rise. Three inflat­a­bles and a heli­copter had been despatched from the Far­ley Mowat at some dis­tance away. Accord­ing to a news release from the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, when the Far­ley Mowat was less than one mile from the Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship, the whalers began to run at full speed north­ward.

Green­peace Activists had suc­ceed­ed in paint­ing on the side of the Ori­en­tal Blue­bird the words “whale meat from sanc­tu­ary”, and on the stern the words “whale meat”.

As the Nis­shin Maru left the scene of the col­li­sion with the Green­peace ship, Arc­tic Sun­rise, crew mem­bers of the Sea Shep­herd in inflat­a­bles threw a foul­ing line as the Nis­shin Maru whal­ing fac­to­ry ship sped past, in the hope of entan­gling the ships pro­pel­lor.

Accord­ing to the Sea Shep­herd web­site, the Far­ley Mowat is chas­ing the Nis­shin Maru but but can­not match the speed of the fac­to­ry ship. While the Nis­shin Maru is under way at speed no whales can be trans­ferred from the har­poon ves­sels. Dead whales need to be trans­ferred to the fac­to­ry ship with­in 32 hours. The two Green­peace ships are also shad­ow­ing the fac­to­ry ship. Thus the whale hunt con­tin­ues to be dis­rupt­ed.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son report­ed from onboard the Far­ley Mowat, chas­ing the Nis­shin Maru: “They have been run­ning all day and they have not been whal­ing. The whalers are now 17 miles out­side of the Aus­tralia Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry. We ordered them to leave, and they left.”

Accord­ing to Sea Shep­herd the fac­to­ry ship appeared to be off-load­ing whale meat to the Pana­man­ian reg­is­tered sup­ply ship, Ori­en­tal Blue­bird. Paul Wat­son said : “There are sushi bars in Tokyo in des­per­ate need of these ‘research mate­ri­als’. It appears they can’t wait for the whal­ing fleet to return in March.”

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety says the Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tion is in vio­la­tion of many inter­na­tion­al laws and reg­u­la­tions, includ­ing:

* Vio­lat­ing the South­ern Ocean Sanc­tu­ary.
* They are vio­lat­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion (IWC) mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing.
* They are tar­get­ing endan­gered fin and hump­back whales that are pro­tect­ed under the Con­ven­tion on Inter­na­tion­al Trade in Endan­gered Species of Wild Fau­na and Flo­ra. (CITES).
* The Japan­ese are also in vio­la­tion of the Aus­tralian laws pro­tect­ing the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.
* They are vio­lat­ing the IWC mora­to­ri­um on the use of fac­to­ry ships to process any pro­tect­ed stock which includes the whales they are hunt­ing – minke and fin whales.

See Also:

* Green­peace Ocean Defend­ers Blog
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/
* Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety
http://www.seashepherd.org/index.html
* Insti­tute of Cetacean Research web­site
http://www.icrwhale.org/eng-index.htm

Sources:

1. Japan­ese whal­ing ship col­lides with Green­peace boat — ABC, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006. 5:19pm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1543643.htm

2. Whalers ram Green­peace ship (Video) State­ment from Green­peace, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/whalers-ram-ship-111

3. Their des­per­ate Mea­sures by Shane aboard the Arc­tic Sun­rise, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/01/their_desper…

4. Arc­tic Sun­rise rammed by whaler’s fac­to­ry ship by Andrew, onboard the Esper­an­za, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/01/arctic_sunri…

5. Mer­cy Shot — by Andrew, onboard the Esper­an­za, Jan­u­ary 6, 2006
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/01/mercy_shot.html

6. Insti­tute of Cetacean Research state­ment (PDF), Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://www.icrwhale.org/eng/060108Release.pdf

7. Sea Shep­herd scares off Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet — News release Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://www.world-wire.com/news/0107060001.html

8. No Whales Will Be Killed While the Chase is On — News Release from Sea Shep­herd, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_060107_2.html