earthfirst – Page 50 – Earth First!

Anonymous Liberators Free 2,400 Minks from Fur Farm in Idaho

The American Mink is native to North America, and can survive in the wild after release from captivity

“On the evening of July 28, 2013, friends of wildlife entered the Burley, Idaho, mink farm of Fur Commission USA Board Member Cindy Moyle, compromised the perimeter fencing, and set up roving surveillance of the on-site night watchman. We then liberated the entirety of her breeding stock into the wild, emptying over twenty-five percent of this wildlife prison.

Illuminated in the moonlight, 2400 of these wild creatures climbed out of the cages where they had passed their entire lives in isolated darkness, to feel the grass under their feet for the first time. Their initial timidity quickly became a cacophony of gleeful squealing, playing, cavorting, and swimming in the creek that runs directly behind the Moyle property. They will live out their new lives along the Snake River watershed.

Cindy Moyle is a current Board Member, and former Treasurer, of the Fur Commission USA. After the recent leadership shuffling in FCUSA, we felt that the Moyle Mink Ranch would be perfect to test out the efficacy of FCUSA’s new emphasis on farm security.The Moyles are a mink dynasty in Idaho, operating up to eight farms, their own in-house feed operation, and a tannery. Those doubtful of our resourcefulness and guile have in the past called the Moyle farms impenetrable. Indeed, this is the first time that anyone has attempted action against one of them.

Having now had the pleasure of testing them ourselves, we wholeheartedly approve of the new FCUSA security guidelines. We are happy to see FCUSA members increasing their overhead on security – it means they are only that much closer to bankruptcy when we raid their farms. In the case of the Moyles, the breeding records we destroyed represent over thirty years of painstaking genetic selection. There will be no recovering these genetic lines.

Aside from their operations harming helpless animals, the Moyles have also been federally investigated for exploiting undocumented workers and trafficking endangered species. Mike Moyle, ex-mink farmer and the current Idaho House Majority Leader, has used his political position to block Idaho neighborhoods from being able to declare his family’s foul and fly- infested prisons to be public nuisances.

The fur industry will no doubt propagate falsehoods regarding this act of kindness.

They will claim that we are terrorists. We say that if peacefully opening cages is an act of terrorism, then the word has no meaning. It is appropriately applied to the mass imprisonment and killing of wild animals.

They will claim that these mink are domesticated animals and will starve. Documentation on the success of farm-bred mink in the wild is extensive, so we will add only our experience watching these naturally aquatic animals, who had spent their entire lives in cages, head instinctively for water and begin to swim and hunt.

They will claim that conditions on mink farms are humane. We ask why, then, they try only to hide those farms from the public, pushing for legislation to criminalize the taking of photographs. The mink that we freed from the Moyles lived in intensive confinement in their own waste. Their suffering was plain to the eye, and their yearning for freedom plain to the soul.

They will say that our raid may inspire copycat actions. We say that it undoubtedly will. It is a glorious thing that we live in a world where individuals regularly demonstrate the ultimate act of compassion – risking their freedom for the freedom of others.

They will say that we will not stop short of the complete and total end of the killing of animals for their fur. On this point we are in total agreement.

We act with love in our hearts.”

All-Night Anti-Shale Gas Truck Seizure, Road Block, Ends Peacefully – Canada

Last night, July 27th, about 35 anti-shale gas activists blockaded a 20 ton truck, subcontracted to SWN Resources Canada, for over 8 hours. The truck, filled with helicopter bags – each containing dozens of geophones – was attempting to exit southward along Irving Road, a back road west of highway 126 in New Brunswick. The truck, as well as eight other equipment trucks subcontracted to SWN, were conducting seismic testing in the hopes of finding shale gas deposits along a 35.9 kilometer north-south line known as ‘Line 5′. All the equipment and workers were halted until about 3:30am Atlantic Time.

Activists had originally negotiated with RCMP for a 3 hour work stoppage, in homage to the Ghost Dance that the Sundancers in Elsipogtog were undertaking yesterday evening. Elsipogtog War Chief John Levi, himself a Sundancer, was absent from the blockade. In his stead, Jason Okay, District War Chief, and ‘Seven’, the Mi’kmaq territory War Chief, had come to the assistance of the anti-shale gas movement.

The 3 hour work stoppage was meant to occur at the end of the workday. It would appear that RCMP had agreed to this temporary block.

However, when the 20 ton truck was first blocked at about 5pm – in front of an already heavy police presence – the RCMP immediately blocked in the activists who surrounded the truck. At the time there were about 35 activists at the scene, and word began to trickle in to those encamped that an RCMP roadblock at the entrance to Irving Road – about 16 kilometers to the south – was not allowing anyone to pass. This was apparently counter to the original agreement, and began what was to be a standoff that continued until the early morning hours.

RCMP and the ‘Elsipogtog Peacekeepers’ – a group of three individuals on Elsipogtog Band payroll who ostensibly serve as a neutral party – did not seem able or desirous of undoing the police roadblock that was refusing all entry. The activists requests were initially straightforward, only asking that anyone wishing to attend their ceremony be allowed to drive the 16 kilometer distance. The activists also specifically requested a drum leader and a pipe carrier to assist them. Social media sources continued to note that a sizable line of cars was still being refused entry.

Tensions further increased at about 7:30pm when Annie Clair, also known as ‘Pochahontas’ to the anti-shale gas activists, climbed atop the roof of the seized truck and chained and padlocked herself to a spare tire mounting welded to the roof. She was quickly joined by two other activists, one of whom also chained herself to the roof while the other locked herself to a helicopter bag filled with geo-phones.

Clair, who only days before had tied herself to helicopter bags and had halted work at a helicopter launching site, was defiant in her message to the gathered police force, noting that if they were going to shoot her, to go ahead.

RCMP and the Peacekeepers again continued to ‘negotiate’, but did not seem able to relay the message to the RCMP blockade that the first step towards resolving the standoff was to allow traffic to flow freely. Activists, for their part, remained adamant that the 3 hours they were promised for ceremony would only begin once the RCMP blockade was removed and their supporters could join them. As the hours of standoff continued, and food and water were denied to the activists, RCMP marched in formation through the blockade with numerous boxes of pizza and cases of water.

Eventually, one of the Elsipogtog Elders – also a clan mother – begged Clair to unchain herself and descend from the truck roof. With social media now reaching something of a frenzied pitch – and stories of dozens of police cruisers and paddy wagons waiting for the activists, Clair complied. Indeed, the activists were now visibly blocked in by numerous police trucks and cruisers. Infrared lights shone from some of the RCMP cars and a large spotlight was erected shining directly onto the activists’ makeshift encampment.

RCMP negotiators noted that they would not arrest anyone that night, but made no guarantees that future days might not see activists picked off one by one in house arrests. As has been the case since early June when active protests began against shale gas exploration in Kent County, yesterday police made no secret of their heavy surveillance of the action. At 3:30am, as activists moved their trucks and cars off the road, it became clear that an entire SWN work crew had been stopped. With a heavy police escort, eight SWN trucks emerged from a side road and quickly sped past the gathered crowd. With no equipment or SWN workers left to guard, the RCMP quickly left the scene as well.

Portland Activists Blockade Columbia River in Symbolic Protest Against Fossil Fuel Shipments

28th July 2013

In a day-long affair involving hundreds of activists, the Portland Rising Tide and 350.org collaboration, Summer Heat, went off yesterday without a hitch.

Activists congregated in the morning at the Vancouver Landing in Vancouver, Washington, where the port authorities recently OKed a terminal to ship hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil carried on trains from the Bakken Shale.

Hosting info sessions about free trade agreements, direct action, and infrastructure resistance, the event carried a festive air into the early afternoon. By 3pm, around 250 activists in more than 100 boats took to the river for a symbolic blockade and massed under the Columbia Bridge.

More activists gathered on the bridge, and three climbers repelled down with a long, transparent banner that read, “Coal, Oil, Gas: None Shall Pass.”

“It went as well as I thought it could have,” stated one Rising Tide activist to EF! News. Although the FBI had been snooping around in the weeks prior to the event, the crowd that came out to the protest showed that they will not be intimidated.

Police presence was relatively minimal at the protest compared to other Rising Tide and Occupy actions that have occurred. Nobody was arrested, and the message was sent: Expect Resistance.

Summer Heat was only a high point in what has been a long, hard, and in many ways successful struggle, which has seen three three proposed coal terminals shut down so far. Today, Portland Rising Tide looks invigorated, confident, and more dedicated than ever to the mission of stopping climate change.

Myanmar Activist Jailed 10 years For Anti-Mine Protest

Security forces move in to stop protesters plowing fields near the copper mine at Letpadaung Mountain in northern Burma's Sagaing division on April 25, 2013.

Security forces move in to stop protesters ploughing fields near the copper mine at Letpadaung Mountain in northern Burma’s Sagaing division on April 25, 2013.

28th July 2013

A court in central Myanmar has sentenced an activist to a decade in prison for “threatening national security” after he led a protest against a controversial China-backed copper mine which led to clashes with authorities, according to a fellow campaigner.

Judge Kaythi Hlaing of the Shwebo city court handed Aung Soe, an activist with Myanmar’s People’s Support Network, the 10-year sentence on Monday after convicting him on eight charges linked to the violence on April 25, Moe Moe, also of the activist’s group, told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

The group had backed hundreds of farmers protesting the alleged seizure of their land by Wan Bao Company, which runs the copper mine near Mount Letpadaung in northern Burma’s Sagaing division.

The clashes broke out after security forces moved in to stop the farmers from plowing their fields on the contested land. At least ten protesting farmers were injured, some of them reportedly with gunshot wounds, while 15 policemen were also wounded.

Aung Soe “was sentenced under eight charges, including for threatening religious purity and national security, and for illegal assembly,” Moe Moe said Tuesday.

“He was sentenced at the Shwebo court by the judge, Daw Kaythi Hlaing,” he said, using an honorific title.

Two residents of Setae village, near the Letpadaung copper mine, named Soe Thu and Maung San, were also sentenced for “violating orders” and “inciting riots,” Moe Moe added.

He did not say how long the two villagers were sentenced to prison.

Moe Moe said that Aung Soe’s lawyer will appeal his conviction.

Suspended operations

An inquiry commission in Myanmar ruled in March that the copper mine should be allowed to continue despite widespread objections.

But nearly four months later, operations at the facility remain suspended with protesting villagers refusing to accept compensation offers.

Operations at the mine have been suspended since November, when a brutal crackdown on protests against the mine prompted the government to set up the commission to look into the project’s viability.

The commission recommended that the project should be allowed to move ahead despite conceding that it brought only “slight” benefits to the nation.

Since then, villagers who are mostly farmers have staged regular protest against the mine, complaining that the compensation was not enough and calling for a complete halt to the project.

Some 15 protesters—both local residents and activists from Yangon—are wanted by the authorities over demonstrations against the mine in recent months.

Villagers have said that they do not want pollution from the mine to destroy the area and that authorities have confiscated some 8,000 acres (3,000 hectares) of farmland from 26 villages to make way for the mine.

Reported by Yadanar Oo for RFA’s Myanmar Service.

The Great Gas Gala – Day 4 In Pictures

28 July 2013

Update (11:30pm): 80 people staying at the camp tonight. Come down tomorrow bright and early to support the community against the fracking threat.

Update (7:00pm): Green and Black Cross ‘Know Your Rights’ workshop at camp now. If you’re can’t attend, do your homework here: http://greatgasgala.org.uk/know-your-rights/

Update (2:50pm): Cops throwing their weight around. Trying to force people t move a couple of feet for no particular reason, but nothing major.

Update (2:00pm): Blockade continuing to grow. About 80 people now. Locals bring down food to feed everyone

Update (12:45pm): Today the camp is mostly building showers & a toilet – relaxed & enjoying the sun

Update (12:00pm): Community blockade still going strong. Camp growing with 30 people staying overnight and more streaming in now. Check of the camp wish list if you are coming down.

Camp At The Community Fracking Blockade In Balcombe

Family At The Community Fracking Blockade In Balcombe

Camp At The Community Fracking Blockade In Balcombe

Balcombe Resident Reading Sunday Papers At The Camp

Anti-Fracking Scarecrow Doing Its Job In Balcombe

Rebel Clowns Target Fracking in Scotland

27 July 2013 Yesterday morning a hoard of clowns descended on the government Directorate for Planning and Environmental Affairs to deliver a special anti-fracking message to the powers that be.

Frack your own back garden

Dirty Dangerous Disastor

At 8.30am yesterday morning, anti-fracking activists gathered for a clowning action at the Directorate for Planning and Environmental Affairs (DPEA) in Falkirk. Dressed in colourful clown costumes a group of 17 activists mocked the dangers of fracking with ridiculous play. Clowns burst in to the car park with music, banners and a fracking tower as bemused workers looked on. Games continued to the to town centre to raise awareness among the public.

A spokesperson for the actions said “we are here today to highlight the absurdity of going down yet another route of non-renewable energy that is a short term and dangerous solution to a long term energy/carbon problem with it's own set of potentially devastating environmental consequences.

“Despite mounting evidence of the dangers of fracking contaminating local water supplies releasing high carbon methane gas and risk of catastrophic explosions, the government is committed to giving fracking multi-nationals the green light, placing profit over local opposition and the potential for environmental destruction.

“We are here to show those making the decision about DART Energy’s application to frack in the Falkirk and other areas, that opposition to these irresponsible operations is mounting. We are here in support of local opposition to the plans and ongoing international opposition to fracking elsewhere.” (1)

The DPEA was targeted as clown investigations uncovered evidence that the decision on what happens next with the fracking plans in Scotland’s central belt will be taken there by government civil servants(2). This follows DART Energy’s appeal to the Scottish government when Falkirk and Stirling councils failed to make the decision due to resistance from local communities, and a lack of credible information on health and environmental concerns(3).

The action happened amid growing concerns over both the Westminster and Holyrood governments' current favouring of short sighted, lucrative non-renewable energy plans, despite their alleged commitments to cutting carbon and pursuing renewable energy resources. Last week George Osbourne announced tax breaks for fracking firms operating within the UK (of 50% more than other energy companies(4). This break was championed by Lynton Crosby, the Conservative Party Chief Strategist and the man responsible for promoting shale gas fracking in Australia. Crosby's PR firm “Crosby Textor” also represents the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association, of which DART is a subsidiary.

This action was organised by Reclaim the Fields and continuity factions of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. Anti-frackilicious!

NOTES

1. http://frack-off.org.uk/

2. http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/cgc/pnas2011.pdf

3. http://www.dpea.scotland.gov.uk/CaseDetails.aspx?id=qA355856

4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/19/david-cameron-fracking-lynton-crosby

All-Night Anti-Shale Gas Truck Seizure, Road Block, Ends Peacefully Despite RCMP Negotiation Failure

Last night, July 27th,

The 3 hour work stoppage was meant to occur at the end of the workday. It would appear that RCMP had agreed to this temporary block.

The Great Gas Gala – Day 3 In Pictures

27 July 2013

Update (4:30pm): Community blockade now has a pool table. Relaxed atmosphere now Caudrilla have been stopped for rest of the day. Join us!

27 July 2013

Update (4:30pm): Community blockade now has a pool table. Relaxed atmosphere now Caudrilla have been stopped for rest of the day. Join us!

Update (3:10pm): Community blockade still growing with about 200 people. Police have announced that because of community concerns there will be no more deliveries today! Seems like Cuadrilla have been breaking conditions of their planning permission with the vehicle delivery times. Don’t hold your breath for anyone to be arrested and tortured over that though.

Update (1:40pm): About 100 people at the community blockade. Large numbers of police in wedge formations being used to try to push fracking trucks through community resistance. Police helicopter overhead.

Update (1:20pm): West Sussex County Council Highways called to patch up road damage caused by the few trucks that have already made it onto site.

Update (1:00pm): Large numbers of police being used to force through Cuadrilla’s fracking trucks against will of community. Come lend your support if you can!

Update (12:40pm): Police trying to get another truck through. The community is resisting. Come support them if you can!

Update (12:00pm): Second arrest of the day! Do come down and support the community if you can!

Update (11:55am): Another truck is being stopped by the community blockade

Update (11:15am): Numbers building at the camp and the weather is good. Do come down and join if you can!

Update (10:00am): Reinforcements arrive on the bus from Brighton but more needed. Come on down!

Update (9:45am): One Sussex resident arrested after sitting in front of truck.

Update (9:35am): Road closed and police trying to escort truck through community blockade. Get down to help if you can!

Update (8:55am): Police numbers increasing. Get down to help if you can!

Update (8:45am): Truck turned away from fracking site! Come down and join the blockade!

Update (8:00am): Sussex residents blocking site entrance again! Come down if you can!

Update (7:30am): Camp still going strong. Come on down!

Community Blockade At Balcombe Now Has A Pool Table

Community Blockade At Balcombe Still Growing

Council Workers Patch Road Damage After Just a Few Fracking Trucks Have Gone In

Large Numbers Of Police Being Used Force Fracking Trucks Through Community Resistance

Police Guard Truck Load Of Fracking Chemicals

Community Blocks Fracking Truck From Entering Site

Police Try To Escort Another Truck Through The Community Blockade

Another Truck Blocked At Site Entrance

Numbers Building At The Camp And Weather Is Good

Kitchen At The Community Blockade In Balcombe

Toxic Cuadrilla Scarecrow At The Community Blockade

Bus Load Of People From Brighton Arrive To Help Their Neighbours

Police Attempt To Escort Truck Through Community Blockade

Five Police Vans Arrive At Fracking Site

Attempts To Halt Deliveries To Fracking Site Continuing

Occupy Firgrove: Destruction of the trees

26 July 2013 Wednesday morning, police, private security, fencers, tree surgeons, arrived to end the occupation of Firgrove Green and destroy the trees.

The planners lied, said the trees were in poor state of health. The trees had to go, as they showed the planners lied. Green space, the only green space in town, earmarked for destruction for an 80-bedroom Premier Inn hotel.

Green Frontage: The town has an abundance of green edges, including in those spaces adjacent to main roads. This characteristic is a positive asset for the town, and enhances environmental quality. — Supplementary Planning Guidance for Farnborough town centre

Last month a planning application was passed to demolish three local shops, and an Indian restaurant at Firgrove Parade in Farnborough. This would also render homeless the people living in the flats above, flats that are in very poor state of repair.

http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/tragedy-for-firgrove-parade/

The planning committee were told it was not of their concern they can go somewhere else, another town maybe.

Adjacent to the site a grassy green with trees, crossed by public footpaths. Used by local people for decades. It has proven popular in the last few weeks, as people seek out the shade of the trees.

Firgrove Green is the only green space in the town centre. It is earmarked for destruction for a 80-bedroom Premier Inn hotel.

This is what in Farnborough is jokingly called town centre regeneration, destroy green space, cut down trees, destroy local businesses. George Orwell would be proud of this use of newspeak.

At the planning meeting, the committee was whipped into line by the head of planning. The committee was told the trees were in a poor state of health. And just in case they had not got the message, they were told there were no planning grounds to reject the application, and if they did, it would be lost at appeal.

Surprise, surprise, the trees are in a healthy state, nothing like they were described to the planning committee.

Two weeks ago, tree surgeons arrived to cut down the trees. Local people alerted to what was happening descended on the site. The tree surgeons managed to cut down three trees, an apple and two flowering cherries. All three healthy trees. Even the tree surgeons tasked to cut down the trees, were forced to admit, these were healthy trees.

http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/activists-save-trees-at-firgrove-parade/

Since then, the local community has been on high alert. They suspected the greedy developer Bride Hall would not give up. They were proven correct.

On Sunday, Knight Security started trying to remove cars under the false threat people would be fined. This could only mean one thing, Bride Hall wanted to bring in a lorry to fence the site, possibly even bring in a bulldozer or a digger to trash the site.

Before 7pm Wednesday morning, Knight Security turned up mob handed. But they were too late, local people were already on the green. A large number of police turned up, including riot police. The police were filming protesters, protesters filming the police.

The tree surgeons turned up. They drove a truck at high speed onto the site, putting protesters at serious risk of injury, and stopped very close to protesters. Fencers turned up and started to fence in the protesters. Passers by, so angry at what they saw happening, joined the protesters on the site.

A woman claiming to be an agent acting for the developer, ordered everyone off site. She refused to identify who she was. Inspector Justin Browne of Hampshire Police, then asked everyone to leave. If they refused, he would have arrested and charged for aggravated trespass. At this point, everyone decided to leave, as nothing was going to be served by being arrested. Everyone though still remained but outside the fenced off area. A group of kids outside the fenced off area, on a public right of way, were threatened with arrest. A report in the Farnborough News that protesters were evicted from the site not true.

A public right of way was unlawfully blocked. The police were asked to deal with this. They refused.

Bride Hall has not yet been issued with planning consent, and yet they have started work by clearing the site and fencing it off. In a press release, they said they would not be starting work until 2014. They told the local rag, they would not be starting for three years.

http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/firgrove-parade-bride-hall-press-release/

Why start now? It can only be to destroy the evidence of healthy trees on the site.

Keith Holland, head of planning at the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor, was asked to serve enforcement action, as no planning consent had been issued to Bride Hall.

His response:

'Having visited the site earlier today, I saw no sign of any development commencing on site. Temporary fencing had been erected to secure the site for health and safety reasons, whilst contractors removed trees from the site. The trees are on private land and are not covered by a tree preservation order. The removal of the trees does not constitute the start of development and no planning breach has occurred, as far as I could see.'

He claims not part of the work. The plans show a 80-bedroom Premier Inn hotel on the green where the trees are growing. Or is Keith Holland agreeing with the protesters, that this work was to destroy the evidence that he blatantly lied to the committee?

He also states no TPOS on the trees. And why are there no TPOs? Because the local tree officer who seems incapable of differentiating a healthy tree from an unhealthy tree, refused to serve TPOs. And who does the tree officer work for? Why none other than the head of planning. And like his boss, he is a liar. He claimed in an e-mail, a copy of which was sent to his boss, he could not serve TPOs as planning consent had been issued. Planning consent has not been issued,

Thus we go round and round in circles.

He also contradicts the temporary borough solicitor Jeremy Rosen who wrote:

'Your request for an emergency Tree Preservation Order is noted. However, I have to inform you that the Council has no intention of making any such TPO.

The reason for this is that the proposed works to the trees have already been considered by the Council’s Development Control Committee as part of the wider planning application for the redevelopment of Firgove Parade. As you know, the Committee resolved to grant consent to the proposed development, which includes the removal of the existing trees.

Therefore, having followed the proper process, the Council has already decided to permit the removal of the existing trees. It would therefore be inappropriate and indeed preserve for the Council to now make a TPO which would effectively reverse its earlier decision regarding the trees and make it impossible to implement the planning permission.'

One says cutting down the trees nothing to do with the development. The other says TPOs cannot be served on the trees as would stop the development going ahead.

But this is what happens when you weave a web of lies, the web unravels and it is very difficult to keep your story straight.

The tree surgeons have cut all but two of the trees down.

They were expected to return in the morning, but no sign of them either yesterday or today.

Looking at the tree stumps and logs these were healthy trees that have been cut down.

One tree has been spared because it has a nesting pigeon. It is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, to disturb a nesting bird, its nest, its young or its eggs

Local people are extremely angry at what is happening. The one exception, a pathetic and rather unpleasant racist troll with an unhealthy interest in pictures of children, who if he keeps harassing people, under various fake IDs, will soon find himself served a Harassment Order. The only other, councillors and their officials who act in the interest of developers and Big Business, not the local community, local businesses.

The following night the Council met behind closed doors to discuss the Rushmoor Corruption Plan, oops sorry Rushmoor Corporate Plan, it states how much they value green space. There must be a hidden clause: Unless it is coveted by a developer, then our tree officer will condemn all healthy trees and we will rubber-stamp your planning application.

For the people of Farnborough, this was their Gezi Park moment, as in Istanbul, a green area in town, the only green area, being destroyed for development, by a corrupt council in bed with developers.

Local people are now calling for a boycott of Premier Inn and Costa, both owned by Whitbread.

trees in the morning

agent for Bride Hall ordering folk off the green

Right of Way Across Firgrove Illegally Blocked

they film us we film them

fencers at work

Healthy Trees Felled by Rushmoor Council Lies

massive support by passers by

camera shy Knight Security boss

cutting down trees

Wednesday morning, police, private security, fencers, tree surgeons, arrived to

dog left all day in cab of truck

Healthy Trees Felled by Rushmoor Council Lies

healthy trees reduced to a pile of logs

camera shy Knight security

Hundreds Halt Fracking Operations in Susex

In the early hours of the morning, anti-fracking activists and community members in Balcombe, Sussex, UK, successfully halted the first day of explorations for a new shale gas development by famed (infamous, rather) fracking company Cuadrilla. Over 250 people united in a powerful, peaceful, joyful blockade—that eventually convinced the trucks containing the initial fracking equipment to abandon the site.

This is community power at its best. Campaigners in Balcombe, just like those in frontline communities around the world (in the U.S., Indonesia, Argentina and elsewhere) had been calling attention to the dangers of fracking for over a year. This week, when Cuadrilla’s license for exploration and development was approved, activists quickly mobilized to organize a Great Gas Gala, inviting people in Sussex and neighboring areas to converge on Balcombe and oppose Cuadrilla’s efforts.

Yesterday’s protests are set in the context of a recent announcement by the UK government proposing a 50 percent tax cut for companies involved in shale gas extraction, the most generous tax regime for fracking in the whole world. The proposal is very much in line with the dreaded “dash for gas” that Chancellor George Osborne announced at last year’s unveiling of the budget.

It is in opposition to these efforts that groups like Frack Off, No Dash for Gas and many of our partners and allies around the country, are mobilizing public awareness and opposition, in a genuine effort to shift the power in our energy systems and put our communities and their people back in charge. The Global Power Shift UK team will be working in the upcoming months on helping build that large, inclusive movement—one that represents community interests, leverages our diversity and builds on our shared vision of a people-powered future that solves the climate crisis once and for all.

The fight in Balcombe is not over yet. Yesterday’s exploratory fracking attempt was the closest to London to date, where a lot of the finance for these operations comes from and where the tangled webs of power and influence are carefully threaded between consenting politicians and short-term profit oriented fossil fuel corporate executives. Impunity for them and their climate-wrecking efforts? No longer. Real resistance is brewing in their backyard.