Author: earthfirst

Another Director Resigns from ‘Bridge Across the Bay Co’

Prof. Bill Davies has announced his res­ig­na­tion from the noto­ri­ous ‘Bridge Across the Bay Com­pa­ny’ after protests last week at the Lan­cast­er Enivi­ron­ment Cen­tre.

Lan­cast­er Earth First! have been informed that Pro­fes­sor Bill Davies, who was one of the direc­tors for the com­pa­ny inves­ti­gat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of build­ing an 11mile bridge across More­cambe Bay from Heysham to Bar­row has sent an email explain­ing that he is no longer a direc­tor of the com­pa­ny.

Vis­it Lancasteraction.co.uk for lat­est updates…
earthfirst@lancasteraction.co.uk

Protesters Storm the Stage of the “Champion Canterbury Awards”, Aotearoa/New Zealand

About 20 pro­test­ers made quite a ruckus at Thurs­day’s “Cham­pi­on Can­ter­bury Awards” in Christchurch.

Atten­dees to the awards, includ­ing Helen Clark and the Christchurch may­or, were greet­ed with drums, chants, heck­les (‘Why don’t you get a real job?’ was a favourite) and ban­ners.

There were three key tar­gets of the awards: Sol­id Ener­gy for plan­ning to dec­i­mate Hap­py Val­ley on the West Coast with their pro­posed Cyprus Mine; Crop & Food who are cur­rent­ly test­ing ’roundup-ready’ GE onions; and the Can­cer Soci­ety who spend a mas­sive amount of their bud­get on vivi­sec­tion.

Pro­test­ers dressed in $2‑shop suits man­aged to get into the con­fer­ence, despite the heavy police pres­ence, enjoyed a few glass­es of com­pli­men­ta­ry wine and stormed the stage just pri­or to the award cer­e­mo­ny begin­ning. They had ample time to chant, scream and explain what they were opposed to. They also car­ried a ban­ner that read “Don’t Award the Cap­i­tal­ist Hoard”.

The police that were out­side intim­i­dat­ing the pro­test­ers pan­icked and quick­ly turned to race inside but ran straight passed the three pro­test­ers as they casu­al­ly made their own way out.

No arrests result­ed, though numer­ous peo­ple were threat­ened.

Helen Clark was report­ed as say­ing that she thought she was in for a night of “The­atre­s­ports” before she realised it was “just the local anar­chists”.

The Christchurch Press report­ed the events in a cou­ple of columns. They tried to defend them­selves as the pri­ma­ry spon­sors of the event but, instead, summed up the pro­test­ers stand­point with accu­ra­cy unusu­al in main­stream media.

“[The awards] are an unabashed cel­e­bra­tion of the virtues of cap­i­tal­ism… A tiny band of pro­test­ers called them­selves “anti-cap­i­tal­ists” … deplored the hon­our­ing of those who “exploit­ed” or made prof­its from the com­mu­ni­ty, ani­mals and the envi­ron­ment.”

The pro­test­ers also staged their own “Cor­po­rate Backscratch Awards” out­side, with awards like ‘eco-ter­ror­ist’ for Sol­id Ener­gy, ‘bio-haz­ard’ for Crop and Food and ‘ani­mal tor­ture’ for the Can­cer Soci­ety.

None of the camps were will­ing to accept their awards on the night, so were vis­it­ed Fri­day morn­ing where they were delight­ed to see the pro­test­ers again and grate­ful­ly accept­ed the awards.

Save Happy Valley campaigners hunger strike and occupy mine site (New Zealand/Aotearoa)

Save Happy Valley treesit

Two South Island stu­dents began a hunger strike today in protest of the pro­posed“Cypress” mine in Hap­py Val­ley. The stu­dents will con­fine them­selves to a small plat­form sus­pend­ed from a tree on the road to Stock­ton, near Gran­i­ty on the West Coast.

“What we are doing may seem dan­ger­ous, but the dan­gers posed by the Cypress Mine are far greater. We want to illus­trate the hunger and suf­fer­ing that glob­al cli­mate change will cause, to empathise with those who have no voice in the world.” stat­ed Fiona Gib­son, one of the hunger strik­ers.

A num­ber of pro­tes­tors from around New Zealand have also occu­pied the site of the pro­posed mine for the sec­ond time.

The pro­posed mine will extract 500,000 tonnes of coal from the mine each year for 10 years, most­ly for export. Pro­tes­tors say the mine will cause mas­sive loss of veg­e­ta­tion, and destroy habi­tat for endan­gered insects and kiwi. [ Read more ]

Talking CCTV cameras nicked wholesale, in Wakefield!

Thieves broke into Busi­ness Homes’ new busi­ness park in Wake­field last week and stole the 60 cam­eras and sen­sors that made up its “state of the art secu­ri­ty sys­tem”.

The theft was par­tic­u­lar­ly embar­rass­ing giv­en that two of the site’s occu­pants are HM Inspec­torate of Con­stab­u­lary and HM Pris­ons Ser­vice.

“This was a seri­ous­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed sys­tem,” insists direc­tor Simon Houl­ston, prompt­ing me to ask how the bur­glars did away with it.

“There are cam­eras hooked up to a cen­tral office in Black­burn,” he says. “If the men watch­ing the screens see a bur­glar they send a mes­sage out on loud­speak­ers to the office warn­ing them to leave.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in this case the thieves just did­n’t lis­ten. “One oth­er per­son did, though. The old lady next door lat­er told us she had heard the voice of God, last night, telling her, in a strong Lan­cashire accent, to leave the vicin­i­ty as soon as pos­si­ble.”

(from The Tele­graph)

56 windows broken in “goodbye” Bayer action, North Yorkshire

A (belat­ed) action report from the Stop Bay­er GM cam­paign.

The Bay­er Crop­science build­ing at North New­balds had all 56 of it’s win­dows bro­ken. The mes­sage “No GM — Not Now, Not Ever” was spray­paint­ed on a wall. The win­dows were dou­bleglazed so although only the out­er panes were smashed the whole lot will prob­a­bly have to be replaced. One win­dow had both panes bro­ken and a litre of white gloss paint was thrown through to add to the dis­rup­tion and expense. Let Bay­er be aware — if they become the main GM offend­er again, we’ll be back.

This was one of 4 actions against Bay­er that hap­pened over the last month as a warn­ing to Bay­er to stay out of GM crops.
The 4 actions were the clos­ing of a suc­ces­ful cam­paign using direct action against Bay­er AG — who WERE the major GM play­ers in the UK and are still major the world over. This cam­paign saw over 50 var­ied and diverse actions in a few months, part of a 17 year his­to­ry of direct action against GM crops the world over.
See www.stopbayergm.org for par­tic­u­lars of the oth­er Bay­er actions.

2 more Bayer actions

There have been reports of more actions to send notice to Bay­er, just before their AGM, that if they DO con­tin­ue to push GM crops in the UK they will be hit again.

Here are the first 2 reports in.

Date: Thurs­day 22 April 2004

On the night of Thurs­day 22nd April, New­bury town cen­tre sur­round­ing Bay­er Plc’s UK head­quar­ters was fly­post­ed and stick­ered with ‘Don’t Buy Bay­er’ stick­ers to let them know that although the cam­paign is end­ing, they are being watched and any fur­ther attempts to grow GM in the UK will be met with direct action.

The poster read as fol­lows:

BAYER OUT OF BIOTECH!

Bay­er were push­ing for GM Maize to be the first GM crop com­mer­cialised in the UK, but thanks to a cam­paign of direct action and sab­o­tage and years of GM field tri­als being trashed, they have aban­doned their plans to grow the Maize and will not car­ry out any fur­ther tests of GM crops.

AND STAY OUT

This is a vic­to­ry for direct action and if Bay­er try to intro­duce GM crops in the future they will be met with increased resis­tance.

NO GM!

Date: 29th April 2004

Bay­er’s whol­ly owned sub­sidary, HC Star­ck, was vis­it­ed on Thurs­day night for a quick spray­paint­ing. THe mes­sage Bay­er — STAY out of GM was spray­paint­ed on the front wall as a gen­tle reminder that if they do intend to ever plant in the UK we will tar­get them once more!

Another Bayer Stay Out Action, Essex

Two Bay­er facil­i­ties in Essex were hit in a night-time raid by anti-GM activists in the ear­ly hours of Fri­day 23rd April 2004.

As part of the send-off to Bay­er after their deci­sion to pull out of GM crop tri­als in the UK, locks were glued, win­dows smashed and slo­gans paint­ed at two sep­a­rate instal­la­tions belong­ing to Bay­er Diag­nos­tics in Hal­stead, Essex.

The mes­sage of the graf­fit­ti was loud and clear: “BAYER OUT OF GM — AND STAY OUT!!” Bay­er be warned: you know what to expect if you attempt to pur­sue GM in the UK in the future…

see mani­la indy­media for a report of a Bay­er action in the Philip­pines.
also see www.boycottbayer.org

Bye Bay­er
e‑mail: contact@stopbayergm.org
Home­page: http://www.stopbayergm.org

Genetix Update issue 26 out now

8 pages of news of GM actions and cam­paign­ing in the UK and beyond.

UK news
Amaiz­ing Grace — Bay­er aban­don Chardon LL
Wot no tri­als — only one UK GM field tri­al in 2004
Off with their heads — Bay­er sack bio­science boss­es
Whine and Cheese par­ties (a Super­mar­ket spe­cial) — reports on super­mar­ket actions, stop­ping GM ani­mal feed and spot­ting new­ly labelled GM foods
British Biopira­cy — Eng­lish Nature to allow bio­prospect­ing in UK nature reserves

Inter­na­tion­al news from
Aus­tralia (Bon­za no canola!), New Zealand, US, Cana­da, India, Phillip­ines and the CBD in Malaysia

pdf down­load: http://www.geneticsaction.org.uk/news/XUpdate/GUissue26.pdf
txt down­load: http://www.geneticsaction.org.uk/news/XUpdate/GUissue26.txt

More infor­ma­tion on the Genetix Update, the Genetix Update archive and how to sub­scribe to the paper ver­sion of the update go to http://www.geneticsaction.org.uk/news/genetixupdate.htm

Linslade anti-bypass protest need people; plus injunction details

Linslade anti-bypass protest site near lon­don (leighton buzzard/milton keynes) urgent­ly need peo­ple. They have start­ed cut­ting trees and a site has been estab­lised.

Look at www.roadalert.org.uk for more infor­ma­tion.

Before you come please call vic­to­ria har­vey 01525 385097 or 07815 817108 AND some­one from the site 07868740689, 07854631024, 07799816888.

We real­ly need you, the site is get­ting quite sort­ed but more pro­tes­tors will be a very wel­come relief.

I don’t have time to go into great detail about the protest but you can get this off road alert. We are abot 30 miles south of lon­don, near leighton buz­zard and mil­ton keynes.

There is an injunc­tion against any­one who goes to the site to protest against the road (per­sons unknown!) This goes to the high court tomor­row (tues­day 8th feb­ru­ary), it used to cov­er the pub­lic road­way but we won the right to stand there. There are peo­ple squat­ting in the zone with the injunc­tion on it.

I’m very sor­ry about the lack of detail, time is very lim­it­ed, please look on the protest web­site, road­alert and tele­phone us.

We need you. You can help!!!

www.linsladeprotest.org.uk

 

 

Bucks Coun­ty Coun­cil applied for the catch-all secret Injunc­tion ban­ning ‘Per­sons Unknown’ from any form of protest at the site of the road, at a secret hear­ing on Fri­day 28th Jan­u­ary, with­out pro­test­ers being able to chal­lenge it. It banned any form of protest. There was a Hear­ing today, Tues­day 1st Feb­ru­ary, at the High Court in Lon­don, and a com­pro­mise was reached.

The terms of the Injunc­tion have been changed. I haven’t seen the injunc­tion, but I under­stand it now allows observ­ing and protest­ing on the foot­paths and B4032 road — so the local protests against the road can con­tin­ue on the B4032. Locals are also very con­cerned that they are not allowed close enough to get evi­dence of alleged breach­es of the Habi­tats Direc­tives, as they are felling trees with bat roosts in, with­out Ecol­o­gists on site, or licences from DEFRA.

The way they got the orig­i­nal Injunc­tion was appalling, and shows their atti­tude to free speech. It was served at the camp at 7pm, so no one could seek legal advice over the week­end (no-one knew the impli­ca­tions of it, so that is why there has been a silence over the last cou­ple of days!). They applied for a secret hear­ing and a fast track process and were grant­ed that. Any­one wish­ing to con­test the Injunc­tion was giv­en until 4pm on Mon­day 31st Jan­u­ary to seek Legal Advice and file a Defence (7 work­ing hours!).

Direct action is still pos­si­ble! Today cam­paign­ers hung a ban­ner say­ing “Chal­lenge Car Cul­ture” oppo­site the Ayles­bury HQ of Buck­ing­hamshire Coun­ty Coun­cil. This occurred at the same time as Gar­rett Emmer­son, Head of Trans­porta­tion, was hav­ing meet­ings with Bed­ford­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil about the Bypass! See  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/02/304619.html

Bilston Glen Protest Site update, spring 2004

Here’s a short update from our camp:

Here at Bil­ston Glen Anti-Bypass Protest Site we get more sort­ed for every day that pass­es by. More defences are com­ing up con­stant­ly and the stan­dard of the camp is steadi­ly improv­ing. We have a new kitchen, a new info-space, a well sort­ed and cosy com­mu­nal, a new guest house and a new show­er. We’re cur­rent­ly build­ing a huge com­mu­nal tree-house and some oth­er tree-hous­es are also under­way. For three months we’ve been orga­niz­ing “Sun­day Free Cafes” (open days) the first sun­day every month, which we intend to con­tin­ue with. Spring is here, the birds are singing and the leaves are com­ing out, we’re look­ing for­ward to the sum­mer. The 1–4 of July we’re invit­ing like-mind­ed for a green anar­chist gath­er­ing to dis­cuss how to fight the mega­ma­chine and learn prim­i­tive skills.

The plan­ning per­mis­sion for the road is still there. PPL, the com­pa­ny who where gonna finance the road have gone bust (way-hey!) though, so as it looks now it’s up to the local coun­cil to pay for the road. But PPL has been bought up by Bay­er, the enor­mous bio-tech mon­ster, so they might very well finance the road. Cen­tral gov­ern­ment mon­ey might also come in as Tony & co want to see the biggest bio-tech clus­ter in Europe here out­side of Edin­burgh, and a road for the trans­ports to and from it.

So we still want and need more peo­ple to fight against this part of the hor­ri­ble destruc­tion of our world. You and every­one else who sup­port us is very wel­come to join us!

Save Bil­ston Glen! No More Roads! For a life wild and free!

by Bamse, part of the Bil­ston Glen col­lec­tive

e‑mail: info@bilstonglen-abs.org.uk
Home­page: http://www.bilstonglen-abs.org.uk