Author: earthfirst

Call out for support for forest occupation in Belgiu,

Since the first of Juli we (an action group from the Dutch Earth First!) have occu­pied a for­est in Wilrijk, s

Since the first of Juli we (an action group from the Dutch Earth First!) have occu­pied a for­est in Wilrijk, south of Antwerp in Bel­gium. So far there’s been no talk about evic­tion but this is about to change. The legal pro­ce­dures keep­ing the own­er from being allowed to cut are almost fin­ished.

 

Sep­tem­ber 15th till Ocot­ber 15th are the only weeks they are allowed to cut the for­est (this is to ‘pro­tect’ the bats and birds in the for­est), so we real­ly need peo­ple to come and help us pre­pare for evic­tion! Lots of work to be done, both on the ground and in the trees.

 

We expect the chance of evic­tion will be the great­est from Sep­tem­ber 12th till Sep­tem­ber 20th. So the more peo­ple in the for­est the bet­ter!

 

adress: fotografielaan 7, wilrijk

train to antwerp cen­tral

from roo­sevelt­plaats bus 500 to boom

get off close to the piz­za­hut (ask bus­driv­er)

walk to the piz­za­hut, go right, at the end of the road (cows) go right, first left, you’ll see the ban­ners

you can con­tact us at: steungroep.groenoord@gmail.com

for more info: www.groenoord.be / www.facebook.com/steungroep.groenoord

0032485507274

 

The area has been mapped as a for­est since 1771 and is an eco­log­i­cal­ly very valu­able oak for­est which is a habi­tat for lots of birds and endan­gered bat species. The for­est is a so called wrong­ly zoned for­est, it’s been zoned as an indus­tri­al area since 2005. Flan­ders (the dutch speak­ing part of Bel­gium) is the sec­ond poor­est region in Europe when it comes to forests, only 8 % of the land if for­est. About a third of those forests are wrong­ly zoned which means they are often threat­ened. Most of these forests are cut with­out any­one ever know­ing. So we are not just fight­ing for this spe­cif­ic for­est, we are fight­ing for a more just for­est pol­i­cy in Flan­ders.

 

The own­er wants to cut the for­est to build an office and stor­age space, but it is not clear if they have some­one to rent it yet. Their old part­ner end­ed the con­tract because the plans were delayed.

 

There’s heaps of emp­ty office build­ings in Flan­ders. With­in a minute’s walk from the for­est there’s 4 emp­ty build­ings that could be ren­o­vat­ed or bro­ken down to make space for a new build­ing. Yet they still want to cut the for­est.

 

Because they have nev­er done prop­er geo­log­i­cal stud­ies there’s big prob­lems with the water in the area. The water can’t go any­where so part of the for­est is often under water, which has killed a lot of the trees. Mea­sures need to be tak­en to ensure the sur­vival of the for­est.

 

When­ev­er cut­ting forests in Flan­ders, they talk about com­pen­sa­tion. Which is bull­shit. You can’t just cut a for­est here and plant a new one some­where else.

 

NO COMPROMISE IN DEFENSE OF MOTHER EARTH

 

Help us defend the trees!

 

Monday Montana Megaload Uprising!

539635_600999956589448_1570557651_n

539635_600999956589448_1570557651_n

11.8.13 — Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide (WIRT) offers its hum­ble grat­i­tude for all of the coura­geous Nez Perce trib­al mem­bers and region­al sup­port­ers who so suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed and scut­tled the Omega Mor­gan plan to move a 644,000-pound evap­o­ra­tor to Alber­ta tar sands oper­a­tions through the wild rivers, forests, and canyons of the Nez Perce home­land.  After cross­ing Ida­ho over four nights and meet­ing the most pas­sion­ate resis­tance ever wit­nessed by such an indus­tri­al con­voy, the mega­load reached High­way 12 mile­post 4, just over Lolo Pass in Mon­tana, at 5:30 am on Fri­day morn­ing, August 8.  Ide­al­ly, the Ida­ho Rivers United/Nez Perce injunc­tion request­ed on Thurs­day may take effect this week for the Lochsa-Clear­wa­ter wild and scenic riv­er cor­ri­dor in Ida­ho.  We have heard that anoth­er eight loads are now head­ed down the Wash­ing­ton coast toward the Port of Wilma, so we are call­ing on all West Coast/Columbia Riv­er activists to report their obser­va­tions of these ship­ments.

Accord­ing to the Mon­tana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and its issued mega­load per­mit, the mod­ule can­not trav­el in the state on Fri­days or Sat­ur­days and will move from its cur­rent loca­tion to the Bon­ner truck stop on Mon­day night, August 12.  North­ern Rock­ies Ris­ing Tide (NRRT), No Ship­ments Net­work, All Against the Haul, and oth­er anti-mega­load activists sent an alert and are orga­niz­ing a Mon­day night sol­i­dar­i­ty protest.  They coor­di­nat­ed an action plan­ning meet­ing on Sat­ur­day after­noon and are ask­ing that, if you can help with orga­niz­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Mon­day action, please con­tact NRRT as soon as pos­si­ble by email at northernrockiesrisingtide@gmail.com or through the phone num­ber post­ed in the con­tact sec­tion of the NRRT web­site.

Thanks to every­one in Ida­ho and Mon­tana for your ongo­ing cli­mate, tar sands, and indige­nous rights activism.  We urge brave, fel­low activists in Mon­tana to rise up against this esca­lat­ing Big Oil inva­sion.  WIRT will send you mega­load issue updates as time­ly as pos­si­ble from the road.

Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide

P.O. Box 9817, Moscow, Ida­ho 83843

WildIdahoRisingTide.org & on face­book and Twit­ter

208–301-8039

Arson at motorway construction site, Russia

August 10, 2013 — Rus­sia

anony­mous report, from From Rus­sia With Love:

August 10, 2013 — Rus­sia

anony­mous report, from From Rus­sia With Love:

“At the end of july 2013 near Maikop (resp. Adygeya) we car­ried out an eco­tage action at the high­way con­struc­tion site. We chose a moon­less night to reach the site of this hor­ren­dous rape of nature and chose our tar­gets: per­son­al belong­ings of slave-work­ers as well as cor­po­rate prop­er­ty. Hav­ing picked up a stone in the ditch near­by, we cracked open a win­dow and poured some gaso­line inside the mobile hous­ing unit (we made sure no work­ers were inside before the attack). The rest of gaso­line was poured on the wheels. In the next moment a flash of match send this shit to hell where it prop­er­ly belongs. We wish the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny to fol­low the vehi­cle there. Our with­draw­al was light­ed with flames (as usu­al). No guard turned up to stop us (as usu­al).

Do not wait for the opti­mal moment to present itself before you go on offen­sive. Only the state of per­ma­nent con­flict will make your per­son­al­i­ty strong. If you fol­low the track of bid­ing your time, hoard­ing mon­ey, buy­ing some sophis­ti­cat­ed stuff for the action – you’re sub­con­scious­ly with­draw­ing from the strug­gle. No cam­ou­flage or fan­cy boots will car­ry out the action for you (though they do help). All things are mere tools. Go out­side and fight now! Do not lis­ten to those who mur­mur: ‘now is not the time’! To hell with famous ide­ol­o­gists! To hell with ‘inap­pro­pri­ate anar­chy’! Anar­chy is here and now! To hell with union strug­gle! Work­ing class is dead just like the present day soci­ety. It’s rot­ten. It’s in decay. Yet we are sup­posed to com­mu­ni­cate with it just like Rus­sians are sup­posed to com­mu­ni­cate with Lenin. Do what you want the way you want it to be done. Fight for your own free­dom. Fight for your­selves. Fight for your broth­ers and sis­ters. Fight for the future of your chil­dren. Nobody will grant you free­dom unless you take it by force for your­selves. If now is not the time for you to step over ‘the law’, to look beyond the tem­plates of accept­ed ‘resis­tance’, then we bet you won’t find any courage inside when the civ­il war starts. We wish you luck.

CCF-Rus­sia, 2013”

Filipino Farmers Destroy Genetically Modified ‘Golden Rice’ Crops

GMO protester via Shutterstock

10th August 2013

GMO protester via Shutterstock

10th August 2013

A group of activist farm­ers in the Philip­pines stormed a gov­ern­ment research facil­i­ty and destroyed an area of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied rice crops the size of 10 foot­ball fields. Accord­ing to New Sci­en­tist, the farm­ers say that genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­ism (GMO) foods have not been estab­lished to be safe for con­sump­tion and that the real solu­tion to world hunger isn’t bio­log­i­cal­ly engi­neered plants, but a reduc­tion in world­wide rates of pover­ty.

“The Gold­en Rice is a poi­son,” said Willy Mar­bel­la to New Sci­en­tist. Mar­bel­la is a farmer and deputy sec­re­tary gen­er­al of a group of activists known as KMP — Kilu­sang Mag­bubukid ng Pilip­inas or Peas­ant Move­ment of the Philip­pines.

The farm­ers attacked the fields at the research facil­i­ty in Pili, Camarines Sur out of con­cern that their own crops could be pol­li­nat­ed and there­by con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by the GMO plants, pos­si­bly result­ing in a boy­cott of their prod­ucts like U.S. farm­ers of soft white wheat saw when a strain of Mon­san­to her­bi­cide-resis­tant wheat abrupt­ly appeared in an Ore­gon field. South Korea and Japan both halt­ed imports of U.S. wheat in the wake of the dis­cov­ery.

Gold­en Rice is a strain of rice that has been mod­i­fied by sci­en­tists to con­tain beta carotene, a source of vit­a­min A. An esti­mat­ed 2 mil­lion peo­ple die from vit­a­min A defi­cien­cy world­wide every year. Annu­al­ly, about 500,000 chil­dren — main­ly in the devel­op­ing world — go blind from lack of the nutri­ent.

Gold­en Rice advo­cates claim that replac­ing half of a child’s rice intake with Gold­en Rice pro­vides them with 60 per­cent of their dai­ly require­ment of vit­a­min A.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Inter­na­tion­al Rice Research Insti­tute (IRRI), a fer­vent­ly pro-Gold­en Rice orga­ni­za­tion, say that even though the GMO has yet to be approved for human con­sump­tion, research tri­als sug­gest that it’s safe, and that sci­en­tists can’t find out any­thing more if peo­ple destroy the test plants.

Fram­ing attacks on GMO crops as attacks on the effort to end world hunger, the IRRI issued a series of press releas­es since the action at Pili on Thurs­day decry­ing the farm­ers as ill-informed “van­dals.”

Anti-GMO activists say that too many stud­ies on the effects of GMOs are being under­tak­en by orga­ni­za­tions that have a stake in their suc­cess. They also say that Gold­en Rice is being used as a seem­ing innocu­ous “poster boy” crop to sell GMOs to an over­ly cred­u­lous pub­lic.

Beau Baconguis of Green­peace South­east Asia told New Sci­en­tist, “There is not enough safe­ty test­ing done on any GM crops.”

“I think that the farm­ers know what they want,” she said. “What they want is a safe envi­ron­ment that they can grow their crops in” with­out fear of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and a sub­se­quent boycott…This is play­ing with the lives of peo­ple when you are using Gold­en Rice to pro­mote more GMOs in our food.”

Watch a video state­ment about the inci­dent from the Inter­na­tion­al Rice Research Insti­tute, www.youtube.com/embed/uxa76CHDH5Y

http://earthfirstnews.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/bladerunner.jpg

Third Night of Protests and Blockades in Nez Perce Country, USA

8.8.13

Pro­tes­tors with the Nez Perce as well as Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide and Idle No More turned out for a third night of demon­stra­tions against the ille­gal megaload’s pas­sage through Nez Perce coun­try.

8.8.13

Pro­tes­tors with the Nez Perce as well as Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide and Idle No More turned out for a third night of demon­stra­tions against the ille­gal megaload’s pas­sage through Nez Perce coun­try.

Yesterday’s police was the largest yet, tak­ing the side of Omega Mor­gan rather than the law. Accord­ing to Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide, the police were “more force­ful this time. Using their cars and pha­lanx tac­tics they forced a way through the crowd and broke the block­ade faster than on oth­er nights. The mega­load took off and fled, tail between its legs, and pro­ceed­ed to break laws (AIDED by the cops!) and endan­ger peo­ple all the way to get itself off the Res. before stop­ping for the night, ter­ri­fied of fac­ing the Nimipu on yet anoth­er night.”

WIRT is call­ing on the US For­est Ser­vice to “step up to the plate with fed mar­shals, arrest the dri­ver, and impound the rig,” which is trav­el­ing with­out a per­mit. 

Oth­er native activists have sent mes­sages of sol­i­dar­i­ty to the Nez Perce, includ­ing mem­bers of the Tohono O’odham, Dine, and Mohawk. There is anoth­er block­ade planned for this evening.

Video — www.youtube.com/embed/dx-1olN5O6I

Girona, Spain: Call for camping against the M.A.T. power line

 

 

WHAT IS THE M.A.T.?
The very high ten­sion pow­er line (M.A.T.) is an elec­tric motor­way which trans­ports at least 400,000 volts. It is being con­struct­ed in order to con­nect Euro­pean States to each oth­er and also Europe with Africa. It is nec­es­sary in order to sell and dis­trib­ute excess ener­gy pro­duced by nuclear pow­er plants and the so-called alter­na­tive sources of ener­gy. At the same time, it is the net­work which cap­i­tal­ism needs in order to sup­ply the elec­tric­i­ty nec­es­sary for oth­er projects and infra­struc­tures of death and destruc­tion, such as high-speed rail­way lines. Those respon­si­ble for all this are always the same ones and the con­struc­tion com­pa­nies in ques­tion are direct­ly involved in oth­er projects which are destroy­ing lands around the world; com­pa­nies like Vin­ci stand­ing out in Europe and Ende­sa in South Amer­i­ca.

 

WHY THIS CAMP?
So that the last deci­sive sec­tion for the con­nec­tion between France and Cat­alo­nia can not be con­struct­ed. So that the ener­gy com­ing from 6 French nuclear pow­er plants does not cross this land or any oth­er. So as to treat the strug­gle against the M.A.T. as a start­ing point for ques­tion­ing our way of liv­ing, which is main­ly imposed by the dom­i­na­tion of Progress. So as to cre­ate on the affect­ed land a space for meet­ing, infor­ma­tion, agi­ta­tion and action.

WHY HERE AND WHY NOW?
After more than 10 years of strug­gle, we are at a deci­sive moment. In Sep­tem­ber expro­pri­a­tions are expect­ed to begin, direct­ed against own­ers who have refused to sign the sale of land need­ed for the con­struc­tion of the M.A.T.’s last pylons in Girona.

It is because of all of this that we are invit­ing you to par­tic­i­pate active­ly in the camp, in order to share, strug­gle and resist in a self-run space, with­out lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives. We want to cre­ate moments of exchange and con­nec­tion between var­i­ous strug­gles, because the M.A.T. affects us all and is not an iso­lat­ed strug­gle.

AGAINST PROGRESS, ITS INFRASTRUCTURES AND ITS DEFENDERS:
LET’S TAKE OUR LIVES BACK!

SEE YOU ON THE 23rd OF AUGUST, 2013 ON THE LANDS AROUND GIRONA

Bring every­thing that you need for camp­ing.
More infor­ma­tion and updates: Tor­res más altas han caí­do

http://torresmasaltashancaido.espivblogs.net/

Mul­ti-lin­gual print­able fliers on 325   http://325.nostate.net/?p=8417

eng­lish fli­er http://torresmasaltashancaido.espivblogs.net/files/2013/08/mat-ing-imp.pdf

more: eco-/strug­gle here

http://325.nostate.net/?cat=7

http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net

Chaos on the Clearwater River: Second Night of Megaload Blockades

 

 

7.8.13

One day after a three-hour block­ade involv­ing upwards of 150–200 peo­ple from the Nez Perce Nation, Idle No More, and Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide, more than 50 activists once again ded­i­cat­ed them­selves to stop­ping mega­load ship­ments through Ida­ho.

Omega Mor­gan, the com­pa­ny respon­si­ble for the trans­port of the 200-ton mega­load, has been warned by the For­est Ser­vice that the ship­ment is unau­tho­rized, and the Nez Perce tribe is seek­ing an injunc­tion. How­ev­er, Omega Mor­gan is try­ing to sneak the mega­load through against the law, so direct action must be tak­en.

The Nez Perce put out a call yes­ter­day for activists to join them in renewed efforts to stop the tar sands equip­ment from mov­ing through High­way 12. More than 50 pro­tes­tors came out. They were met by a force of 40–50 police offi­cers in a fleet of cars.

Police gave pro­test­ers 15 min­utes to speak out as they blocked the road­way, before being forced to move to the shoul­der. Some young activists decid­ed to main­tain the pres­ence of the block­ade by heav­ing boul­ders and large rocks into the streets, which held traf­fic up fur­ther.

Sev­er­al Nez Perce tribe-mem­bers were arrest­ed, adding to the 19 arrest­ed on Mon­day night (includ­ing the entire exec­u­tive com­mit­tee).

Aerial Blockade Halts Enbridge’s Pipeline 6B, USA

7.8.13

UPDATE:
10:40 AM
Police had intend­ed to tie life-line off to two back­hoes. After some uncer­tain­ty, both pieces of equip­ment drove off with­out attempt­ing it.

7.8.13

UPDATE:
10:40 AM
Police had intend­ed to tie life-line off to two back­hoes. After some uncer­tain­ty, both pieces of equip­ment drove off with­out attempt­ing it.

UPDATE:
10:04 AM
Police have threat­ened to taze Felix and use dogs to attack folks on the ground sup­port­ing them. Please call the Cass Coun­ty Sheri­effs Depart­ment and let them know peo­ple are watch­ing. (269) 445‑8644

UPDATE:
9:28 AM
Police offi­cer throws large log up at Felix.

UPDATE:
9:20 AM
After turn­ing back work­ers and their equip­ment for the last sev­er­al hours, police have arrived on scene and threat­ened to cut Felix’s life-line.

MICATSblockade

from MI-CATS

This morn­ing, Michi­gan Coali­tion Against Tar Sands (MI-CATS) is tak­ing direct action in the Crane Pond State Game Area to halt expan­sion of Cana­di­an cor­po­ra­tion Enbridge Energy’s tar sands pipeline 6B. Enbridge’s claim that they have restored the Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er after the 2010 spill holds no mer­it, nor does it jus­ti­fy expand­ing the pipeline. Tar sands can­not be cleaned up; this mate­r­i­al is thick and heavy, it sinks in water, and clings to sur­faces. Expand­ing the pipeline increas­es the risk of anoth­er dis­as­ter for all of life and future gen­er­a­tions.

Felix of the uncon­fined Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er basin climbed into the trees ear­ly this morn­ing to halt the expan­sion of Enbridge’s tar sands pipeline 6B. A rope tra­verse, span­ning a por­tion of where con­struc­tion is tak­ing place, is the sole line that holds the plat­form they are sit­ting on up in the air. If it were cut and/or tam­pered with by police or work­ers they could fall from the tree, result­ing in seri­ous injury, pos­si­bly even death.

Our friend, Felix, sit­ting high up in the canopy to halt the con­struc­tion of Enbridge Line 6B

“Tar sands pipeline 6B is pump­ing a dan­ger­ous con­coc­tion which fuels glob­al cap­i­tal­ism. This pipeline is Canada’s promise that indus­tri­al­ized cap­i­tal­ism will con­tin­ue to exploit and oppress the peo­ple of the world and the envi­ron­ment. Cap­i­tal­ism guar­an­tees the con­tin­ued destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. It enables the rul­ing class to exploit the world’s resources and force the rest of the pop­u­la­tion to labor for the rul­ing class­es prof­its. Addi­tion­al­ly, we are way beyond the verge of cli­mate cri­sis. It is of utmost impor­tance that car­bon emis­sions stop imme­di­ate­ly. Tar sands infra­struc­ture is one exam­ple of indus­tries at the root of the oil addic­tion. By tak­ing action at the root of the prob­lem, we endeav­or to stop the symp­toms of the prob­lem. If we halt all car­bon emis­sions into the atmos­phere and remem­ber how to live in har­mo­ny with the earth, there might be hope for life as we humans have known it for a few hun­dred thou­sand years.”

MI CATS asserts that direct action tac­tics, includ­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, are now nec­es­sary as Enbridge’s dom­i­nant pres­ence in our bio-region has allowed no room for any con­struc­tive alter­na­tives. After three long years of bla­tant lies and omis­sions, Enbridge has the audac­i­ty to triple the capac­i­ty of the same pipeline that poured an eco­log­i­cal­ly abra­sive sludge into the Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er. This cat­a­stro­phe was the largest inland oil spill this con­ti­nent has ever expe­ri­enced. While the Kala­ma­zoo spill was the largest, it is one of many dev­as­ta­tions brought on by Enbridge. Enbridge’s insid­i­ous busi­ness prac­tices caused more than 800 pipeline spills between 1999 and 2010; that is more than one tar sands spill a week.

All pipelines leak. All mar­kets peak. Cap­i­tal­ism can rot in hell. Enbridge places prof­it before our fam­i­lies, the ecosys­tem, our grand­moth­ers, our dogs (yo what up Smokey*?), our grand­chil­dren and the future of life on this plan­et. The con­tin­u­a­tion of tar sands trans­porta­tion through pipelines like Line 6B risk more than just our own back­yards; every­thing in the industry’s wake is left defiled and in squalor. Our actions against Enbridge won’t stop until Enbridge stops par­tic­i­pat­ing in the resource extrac­tion indus­try. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all first peo­ples’ whose lands were forcibly tak­en from them, Idle No More, Fear­less Sum­mer, those work­ing to end cor­po­rate per­son­hood, all the species going extinct, those sick and dying thanks to the extrac­tion indus­try, and all folks fight­ing oppres­sion in order to live full and hap­py lives.

*Smokey was a dog who died as a result of the 2010 spill.

This is the third action MI-CATS has tak­en to stop con­struc­tion of Enbridge’s Pipeline 6B this sum­mer. On July 22nd they locked down to con­struc­tion equip­ment, and on June 24 an activist climbed deep inside a sec­tion of pipe, halt­ing work for the day.

Balcombe update days 12 & 13

Update (11am): Day 12 and block­ade still going strong. Cuadrilla need to get in a con­stant stream of trucks to keep drilling and the com­mu­ni­ty are mak­ing it as dif­fi­cult for them as pos­si­ble.

 

Update (11am): Day 12 and block­ade still going strong. Cuadrilla need to get in a con­stant stream of trucks to keep drilling and the com­mu­ni­ty are mak­ing it as dif­fi­cult for them as pos­si­ble.

 

Day 13

Update (9am): Day 13 and block­ade still going strong. A lot of peo­ple stayed overnight. Some peo­ple also head­ing down to Craw­ley Mag­is­trates Court for 9:30am to sup­port two Bal­combe Defend­ers charged as a result of block­ade. Come show your sup­port!

Blockade of Highway 12 to Stop Tar Sands Megaloads

6th August 2013

 

6th August 2013

 

Near­ly 150 mem­bers of the Nez Perce Nation were joined by Idle No More, Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide (WIRT), and oth­ers in a block­ade of High­way 12 in Ida­ho for three hours late last night to stop a mega­load car­ry­ing tar sands equip­ment.

While most peo­ple stood on the edges of the road to sup­port the block­aders, the man­i­fes­ta­tion includ­ed about 50 peo­ple on the High­way stop­ping traf­fic, and was the longest block­ade since the begin­ning of the mega­loads ship­ments.

The over­sized water evap­o­ra­tor had received one per­mit, but bypassed approval by  the U.S. For­est Ser­vice and Fed­er­al High­way Admin­is­tra­tion. The For­est Ser­vice even raised objec­tions, but the Ore­gon-based ship­per Omega Mor­gan tried to slip the mega­load through unno­ticed. Through the impor­tant activism of Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide and oth­ers, how­ev­er, the mega­load was locat­ed eas­i­ly and tracked. 

Judg­ing by its posi­tion, the mega­load is set to trav­el across Nez Perce ances­tral land and a Wild and Scenic Cor­ri­dor soon, so the trib­al mem­bers decid­ed to take direct action rather than sit around and wait for an injunc­tion.

209449919

In a news release, the Nez Perce stat­ed their oppo­si­tion “based on impacts to treaty-reserved resources, trib­al com­merce and gov­ern­men­tal func­tions, fed­er­al­ly-pro­tect­ed his­toric and cul­tur­al resources and Nez Perce nation­al land­marks locat­ed along U.S. 12, and trib­al mem­ber health and wel­fare,””

“I don’t look at this as a sym­bol­ic issue,” explained Silas Whit­man, chair­man of the Nez Perce Tribe. “Oth­er­wise, we’d just issue a press state­ment, put up a few signs and just let it go. No. We’ve run out of time and ini­tia­tives. So that leaves us with dis­obe­di­ence, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence.”

Whit­man was arrest­ed along with more than a dozen block­aders from Idle No More and WIRT after police broke through the block­ade by dri­ving a police car straight through the group of peo­ple. Police used the usu­al tac­tics to break up the block­ade, threat­en­ing peo­ple with mace, push­ing activists, sep­a­rat­ing par­ents from chil­dren, and so on.

Accord­ing to WIRT’s face­book page, “This block­ade last­ed longer than any oth­er region­al mega­load obstruc­tion since the first tar sands extrac­tion mod­ules rolled from Lewis­ton area ports on Feb­ru­ary 1, 2011. Peo­ple are talk­ing about fur­ther block­ades on upcom­ing nights, per­haps in Kami­ah.”

Stay tuned!