earthfirst – Page 52 – Earth First!

Flotilla Protests Development in Manatee County

Residents opposed to the proposed Long Bar Pointe development project gathered in boats on Sarasota Bay to protest losing the last piece of undeveloped shoreline in Manatee County.

Dozens of protestors gathered on a flotilla of boats, kayaks, paddle boards and jet skis in Sarasota Bay Saturday afternoon.

“This is tipping point for Manatee County, we got to make a decision which way we go,” protestor Jaime Canfield said. “Do we want to follow the rest of Florida and develop the coast or do we preserve it.”

Canfield is opposed to an ambitious project that threatens to remove mangroves and sea grass in Sarasota Bay to make way for a marina and five-star resort-style development. The project is proposed for an area that parallels El Conquistador Parkway where 75th Street West intersects with 53rd Avenue West that has long been agricultural.

Currently a project including condos and single family homes with docks is already approved but developers want to expand.

Developers behind the project — Carlos Beruff of Medallion Home and Larry Lieberman from the Barrington Group — however believe the project will be a welcome and much needed addition to Manatee County.

The new plans call for a mixed-use development — single- and multi-family units, hotel, marina, office and commercial space, and a conference center — on the 463.2 acres.

However nearly 295 acres is within the Coastal High Hazard zone, an area prone to flooding during storms. Because the land is vulnerable in a storm, developers must get the county to amend the comprehensive plan to allow for the more intense development.

Terri Wonder, one of the organizers of the protest thinks an amendment to the comprehensive plan is a terrible idea.

“We hope Carlos changes his mind now or before Aug. 6,” Wonder said. “If not, that the Manatee County Commission will not ratify his project.”

Wonder, a Bayshore, resident said she grew up on Siesta Key and saw how development changed the island. She moved to Bayshore Gardens to get back some of what she had lost and because Siesta Key became to pricey.

Many of the protestors including Wonder are concerned about the effects the proposed development will have on the bay, a breeding and feeding ground for dolphins and manatees.

The boaters gathered in a flotilla and shared banners and signs reading “Protect the bay” and “Save our Shore.” They even targeted the project’s financing, which is from Bain Capital.

“We want to preserve what is precious,” Wonder said. “Homeowners want to retire here and their children and grandchildren want to come here.”

Wonder fears that if the project is approved, development will reach a point of no return and that Manatee County will no longer represent the best of Florida.

“Well it’s interesting because last night we held a meeting at the El Conquistador Country Club and we received a tremendously positive reaction from people that would be thrilled that there would be some place to go, eat and enjoy the water,” Lieberman said. “They were thrilled that there would be a revitalization of Manatee County.”

Liberman says one of the project’s environmental experts was at meeting to explain how the project intends to have zero negative impact to the environment.

“I know there are a lot of people that are protesting, but these people have not seen the plan. They have not talked to the expert environmentalist who have guaranteed us that this would have a positive environmental impact on the environment and Sarasota Bay,” Lieberman said. “They are out there protesting and they don’t know the facts and that is dangerous.”

Longtime Bayshore resident Richard Nelson looked to the Sarasota side of the bay Saturday afternoon and then around him, fearful of the changes that could come.

“Look at this, they all want it to look like that,” Nelson said. “That actually looks more like the Bronx.”

Nelson moved to Florida from New York City nearly 23 years ago, and he says he hasn’t regretted it for a day.

“We have to try and preserve everything we got,” Nelson said. “You have to fight for it or else they are just going to try and do whatever they want.”

UK Coal win the battle but not the war… campaigners fight on

Today (Friday 19th July 2013) it has been announced that UK Coal will be allowed to have a re-run of the Inspector’s inquiry into the bitterly disputed application to mine at Bradley, Co. Durham. Last time round the Inspector's Inquiry took three weeks. Local residents still don't know the fate of the valley they love. Campaigners await new inquiry dates.

Six years ago the local community began to fight the coal companies plans to extract 556,000 tonnes of coal. Today the Judge is allowing that battle to re-run. For more information about the campaign and the history of the application see here.

Local resident Carol Rocke said “I am dismayed and saddened by the decision, it’s such a waste of public money to re-run the arguments. The interested and active parties in the community are up for the fight, we wont let this valley go.” The Pont Valley Network has gone from strength to strength increasing the amount of activities in the valley, there are now more reasons why this application shouldn't be given the go-ahead.

The Pont Valley Network have been fighting this application for 6 years. Now the whole appeal to the original planning application will have to go back to an Inspector’s inquiry, which will cost the council large amounts in legal bills. This is particularly selfish of UK Coal at a time of council cut backs and the arguments have already been made.

Eleanor Baylis, from The Coal Action Network says, “Today's decision about the Bradley opencast application in Co. Durham is a disappointing one. It means that the community which first won the planning hearing in February 2011 still has no knowledge of whether a place they know and love will be destroyed. Desperate UK Coal clearly have no respect for how this affects local people. However, it does not mean that the area will be mined. It means that there will be another Inspector's inquiry with a different Inspector. The new Inspector will decide for themselves whether the community are correct and that the mine will not overall benefit the area.

UK Coal cannot honour its obligations to it's miners and so the Pension Protection Fund has had to bail it out. Beyond the situation around Daw Mill Colliery, where miners lost 10% of their pensions, nothing seems to have changed. UK Coal are clearly not a company to be trusted to in anyway restore sites, other sites remain barren years after so called restoration. Surely no-one wants to be a neighbour to a company which fails to pay its workers pensions and creditors. Lets hope that the next Inspector agrees with the first, as it is clear to everyone else that UK Coal's plans are bad for the area.”

Mapuche, Human Rights Activists Slam Argentina’s Chevron Deal

18 July 2013 The Argentine government’s long-sought deal with Chevron Corp.

18 July 2013 The Argentine government’s long-sought deal with Chevron Corp. to exploit shale oil reserves in Patagonia was strongly criticized Wednesday by Mapuche Indians, human rights activists, environmentalists and leftists who called it a sellout to the U.S. that could drain and pollute the nation’s resources.

The $1.5 billion joint venture with Chevron was made public in a brief announcement by the state-owned YPF oil company Tuesday night. President Cristina Fernandez said the deal will promote energy independence for Argentina, but many of her one-time allies warned that it would do the opposite.

“It’s an irresponsibility and a lack of consciousness that the national government hands over these resources to Chevron,” said Nilo Cayuqueo, who leads a Mapuche community in Neuquen province, where the Vaca Muerta shale oil basin is. “We’re talking about money here, nothing else. They don’t talk about the environment, or of future generations.”

Mapuches say the land belongs to them and contend they weren’t consulted about the deal in violation of international treaties covering indigenous peoples. YPF denied that claim Tuesday.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, an Argentine rights activist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, said the deal would hurt the country.

“We Argentines,” he said, “are giving our resources to the United States and converting YPF into a highly polluting company that will use this method known as fracking,” which requires millions of gallons of fresh water pumped at high pressure to extract oil and natural gas from otherwise unproductive wells deep underground in shale deposits.

Perez Esquivel said he would file suit demanding to see environmental impact studies and try to block the oil development. But he said he had little hope of success since the court system recently overturned an injunction seizing any Chevron profits in Argentina if the company didn’t pay a $19 billion damage judgment won by plaintiffs in Ecuador, where the Texaco oil company since bought by Chevron was judged to have contaminated parts of the Amazon.

The deal reached with Chevron is the biggest foreign investment that Argentina has attracted since expropriating YPF from control of the Spanish company Grupo Repsol last year. Repsol is demanding $10 billion in compensation and threatens to sue any oil company that takes over the wells.

Protest call out! Vedanta AGM, 1st August, London.

1st August, 2pm. The London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, W1K 6JP.

Please spread the word and join us for this year's Vedanta AGM demo (flyer attached). Affinity group actions/street theatre/banners etc encouraged.

1st August, 2pm. The London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, W1K 6JP.

Please spread the word and join us for this year's Vedanta AGM demo (flyer attached). Affinity group actions/street theatre/banners etc encouraged. This will be an international day of action and is usually well covered in Indian and UK newspapers.

We will bring the defiant energy of the Dongria Kond tribe to London, as they fight the final stages of their 10 years battle for survival against Vedanta’s planned mega mine.

Parallel demonstrations are already planned in Odisha and Delhi in India on this international day of action.

Bring drums, placards, banners and lots of energy!

JOIN OUR GRASSROOTS SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT TO STOP THIS KILLER CORPORATE!

Vedanta Resources is a FTSE 100 British-Indian mining company guilty of thousands of deaths, environmental devastation, anti union action, corruption and disdain for life on earth. They have become one of the most hated and contentious companies in the world.

In Odisha, India they are trying to mine a mountain inhabited by an ancient tribe – the Dongria Kond – who have successfully fought them off for more than 10 years. Their fight is in its final stages, and we need to mobilise all our energy to ensure Vedanta is kicked out of the Niyamgiri mountains forever.

Vedanta is now diversifying into oil and gas, and expanding into Africa, Sri Lanka and possibly even the Arctic. They currently operate in Zambia, South Africa, Liberia, Namibia, Australia, Sri Lanka, and across India.

Coverage of last year's AGM demo in the Guardian newspaper

Since last year’s AGM Vedanta are guilty of a major toxic gas leak affecting thousands of people at their Sterlite subsidiary copper smelter in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu. At their Jharsuguda Aluminium complex they released fly ash over farmland polluting rivers and villages. In Zambia they tried to fire 2000 workers from their Konkola Copper mines and smelter before being stopped by the Zambian Government. One Zambian employee was shot dead at the plant.

At Niyamgiri, Odisha, Vedanta with it’s cronies in the Odisha state government are trying to force their mega bauxite mine through at any cost. They are using police harassment, manipulation, threats and distortion of the legal system to prevent the Dongria Kond from voting against the project in the coming weeks. Forces have even opened fire on women and children threatening them not to oppose the mine. But the Dongria are stronger than ever and prepared to fight tooth and nail to save their mountain in these final stages.

Vedanta are supported by the British government, as well as our banks, pension funds and financial institutions. Vedanta is 64.9% owned by CEO Anil Agarwal and his family via various tax havens. Top shareholders include Standard Life, Blackrock inc. and JP Morgan – the same financiers of South African miner Lonmin who shot and killed 34 protesting mine workers in August 2012.

Last year's AGM demo

Foil Vedanta is a solidarity movement working directly with those affected by Vedanta in India and elsewhere. We are currently trying to get Vedanta de-listed from the London Stock Exchange.

Please join activists who will be rallying in Odisha, Goa and Delhi on 1^st August as part of an international day of action to stop this killer corporate and it’s supporters.

We will be rallying outside Vedanta’s Annual General Meeting in solidarity with the Dongria Kond tribe of Odisha.

Tanks Move in Around Earth’s Most Threatened Tribe

Brazil’s military has moved in to stop illegal logging around the land of Earth’s most threatened tribe.

Cross Posted from S

Brazil’s military has moved in to stop illegal logging around the land of Earth’s most threatened tribe.

Cross Posted from Survival International

Survival International has received reports that Brazil’s military has launched a major ground operation against illegal logging around the land of the Awá, Earth’s most threatened tribe.

Hundreds of soldiers, police officers and Environment Ministry special agents have flooded the area, backed up with tanks, helicopters and close to a hundred other vehicles, to halt the illegal deforestation which has already destroyed more than 30% of one of the Awá’s indigenous territories.

Since the operation reportedly started at the end of June, 2013, at least eight saw mills have been closed and other machinery has been confiscated and destroyed.

Little Butterfly, an Awá girl. The Awá have pleaded for all illegal invaders to be evicted from their forest.

The operation comes at a critical time for the Awá, one of the last nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes in the Brazilian Amazon, who are at risk of extinction if the destruction of their forest is not stopped as a matter of urgency.

But while the operation is making it more difficult for loggers to enter Awá territory and remove the valuable timber, the forces have not moved onto the Awá’s land itself – where illegal logging is taking place at an alarming rate and where quick action is crucial.

Amiri Awá told Survival, ‘The invaders must be made to leave our forest. We don’t want our forest to disappear. The loggers have already destroyed many areas.’

Tanks, helicopters and close to a hundred vehicles have been deployed to protect the forest.

Tens of thousands of people worldwide, including many celebrities, have joined Survival International’s campaign urging the Brazilian government to send forces into the Awá’s territories to evict the illegal invaders, stop the destruction of the Awá’s forest, prosecute the illegal loggers and prevent them from re-entering the area.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Brazil has taken a promising first step towards saving the world’s most threatened tribe, and it’s thanks to the many thousands of Awá supporters worldwide. This is proof that public opinion can effect change. However, the battle is not yet won: the authorities must not stop until all illegal invaders are gone.’

ELF target car dealer, Germany

July 17, 2013 – Germany

reported anonymously:

July 17, 2013 – Germany

reported anonymously:

"The last night we visited a Ford store in Berlin, we left a package with a fake bomb and a message 'This sick infatuation with life's destruction, this grotesque embodiment of decay, a new world will rise from this disfunction, when the institutions of oppression are laid to waste' and wrote ELF in one of their vans. This multinational is nothing more than another symbol of our disgusting civilization, with their oil, wars, destruction of the planet and animals habitats, enslavement of human-animals and pure capitalism. For Walter Bond, Marie Mason and all the victims of The Green Scare

-Animal and Earth Liberation"

New Blockades in Guangdong, Third Major Protest This Week

17 July 2013 Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have promised to halt production at two factories near Sihui city after demonstrators blocked the gates, clashing with workers in the third mass e

Local residents said vehicles continued to come in and out of the main gates of an ink-making plant and a print factory on Tuesday, however, raising suspicions that production may still be going on.

The promise from local government officials came after hundreds of residents of Sihui’s Baisha village converged on the Nanyue Screen Printing Factory and the Precision Ink. Co. Ltd. plant, which they claim are polluting the local environment.

“We blocked up their gates using cement,” one protester surnamed Lu said on Tuesday.”We demanded that the workers on the production floor stop work, but they closed the door on us and wouldn’t let us in.”

“A group of people got overexcited and forced their way onto the shop floor, and got into a fight with some of the workers there,” Lu said. ”A number of villagers were injured in the fight, and had to be taken to hospital.”

Mounting anger

A second Baisha resident surnamed Liang said anger had been mounting over alleged pollution from both factories among local people for a number of years.

“In recent years, people have been getting sick, and it’s getting worse and worse,” Liang said. “A lot of villagers have developed respiratory diseases like asthma and pneumonia.”
“A lot of people have constant sore throats and inflammation, too, while some of the older people in the village have lung cancer,” he said.

“The kids all have upper respiratory tract inflammation, asthma and even pneumonia.”
Lu said villagers were still suspicious that the promise to halt production hadn’t been carried out, because both factories provided high levels of income to local government through taxation

“These two factories are class A taxpayers to the Sihui municipal goverment,” he said. “They are very large, and they pay huge amounts in taxes.”

“They are big customers around these parts, and they hire a lot of workers, so of course the government is going to be on their side.”

‘Running normally’

An employee who answered the phone at the neighborhood committee of the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Sihui’s Chengzhong district declined to comment. “I don’t know about this,” the employee said.

Repeated calls to the district environmental protection department went unanswered during office hours on Tuesday.

An employee who answered the phone at the Nanyue Screen Printing Co. said administrative staff were operating normally on Tuesday, but declined to comment on the protest, or on the reported halt in production.

“We are all at work, and things are running normally,” the employee said, in reference to the office staff. “I don’t really know about it, because the top-level leadership is dealing with it.”

Third protest

The Sihui confrontation on Monday marks the third mass environmental protest in Guangdong this week.

On the same day, thousands of people marched in Huadu district of the provincial capital Guangzhou in protest over plans to build a waste incinerator plant on their doorstep.
And the Huadu protest came just one day after residents of Jiangmen won an apparent concession from local officials, who said they would cancel plans to build a nuclear fuel processing plant near the city after three days of demonstrations.

Worsening levels of air and water pollution, as well as disputes over the effects of heavy metals from mining and industry, have forced ordinary Chinese to become increasingly involved in environmental protection and protest.

Honduran Army Kills Indigenous Leader of COPINH Who Resisted Dam in Rio Blanco

16 July 2013 On Monday July 15th, while the Lenca community of Rio Blanco, in Honduras, marked 106 days of resistance to the building of Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam, the Army indiscriminately shot at the demonstrators killing one of the l

Tomas was a Lenca indigenous leader who was part of his community’s Indigenous and Auxiliary Council and of the National Council of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).

The Honduran activist was shot dead while he was walking with other community members to the project’s facilities owned by Desa and Sinohydro companies, while his son, who was seriously injured by a high-calibre bullet, is in hospital and his life is in danger, Berta Caceres, leader of COPINH, told Real World Radio.

Berta described the act as “a desperate and criminal reaction” by the companies that want to build a dam on River Gualcaeque, seriously affecting the communities living there. The Honduran army supports the companies, said Berta, and they even pay for the transportation and maintenance of troops deployed by the Honduran government in Tegucigalpa in Rio Blanco.

On Monday night, COPINH reported of more military troops being deployed in Zacapa, Santa Barbara, and there were fears of new shootings against civilians during the wake of the murdered indigenous leader.

“The community is outraged. We are in great sorrow, also because we believe we have to continue our struggle”, said Berta during a phone interview. “As the elections approach (in November) they want to teach COPINH a lesson”, she explained and said the community decided to continue occupying the access to the dam.

A few hours after the incidents, COPINH had reported that since Friday 12, top executives of the company Desarrollo Energético Sociedad Anónima (DESA)- which is in charge of the project together with the original group Sinohydro – travelled to meet with local hitmen, who are responsible for direct threats against several members of the indigenous council, including Tomas Garcia.

Before they started shooting at civilians, the military made no attempt to talk with the activists, said Berta.

The leader of COPINH was illegally arrested in May and submitted to a trial for purportedly having an illegal weapon, something that the court could not prove and the case was finally dismissed.

The leader highlighted that in the new cases of repression against residents of the community of Rio Blanco, we urgently need international solidarity to report the civic and military authorities and both companies for murder.

“We are aware that we are confronted with an impunity strategy in a context that seems to be worsening”, said Berta. She said the communities’ determination to defend their territory is strengthened in these situations of state and private violence.

In fact, river Gualcarque is considered an essential part of the Lenca spirituality and the communities are confronting the business projects as a tribute to their culture’s symbolic figure: Lempira.

“We continue fighting, we are not afraid, we will not be prey to fear and we will continue this peaceful but strong battle for life”, she concluded.

Daniel McGowan Loses Lawsuit Against Bureau Of Prisons

16 Jult 2013 A federal court has dismissed an environmental activist’s claims against the U.S.

16 Jult 2013 A federal court has dismissed an environmental activist’s claims against the U.S. Bureau of Prisons over a restrictive prison wing he was housed in, but a lawsuit filed by other prisoners against the government over its restrictive communication management units continues.

Daniel McGowan, 39, served seven years in federal prison for arson connected with the Earth Liberation Front, four of them in the secretive communication management units, or CMUs, dubbed “Little Guantanamo” by critics.

Along with dozens of other mostly Muslim inmates, McGowan’s phone calls with the outside world and physical contact with his family were severely limited. Even after he was released to a halfway house, McGowan was briefly tossed back into prison this year for writing a Huffington Post blog entry detailing his case.

McGowan’s lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights had argued that his re-jailing proved he was still at risk for re-incarceration in the CMUs. But the judge overseeing the lawsuit disagreed, citing a 1990s-era law that severely restricts the rights of federal prisoners to challenge cruel and unusual punishment.

McGowan’s lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement that they were “deeply disappointed” by Senior Judge Barbara J. Rothstein’s decision, but that they would push on with the larger lawsuit.

Residents raise sinkhole warning signs over Shell tunnel

Yesterday (14th July), local residents and supporters raised signs on Sruwaddacon estuary, warning of the sinkholes that continue to appear over Shell's tunnel.

Yesterday (14th July), local residents and supporters raised signs on Sruwaddacon estuary, warning of the sinkholes that continue to appear over Shell's tunnel. Residents first noticed the sinkholes beginning to appear in the special area of conservation on the 20th May and numerous sinkholes have appeared along the tunnel route since then.

The warning signs which read "Danger Sinkholes: Keep Back" were erected in order to warn users of the estuary of presence of the sinkhole, which have been up to 8 foot deep. Residents were forced to put up the warning signs after both Mayo County Council and the Department of Energy & Natural Resources, despite being contacted, have failed to take any action.

The National Parks & Wildlife Service are also believed not to have investigated thus far the possible damage that may be occurring to the benthic life in the estuary, despite the area being both a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area.

Shell to Sea spokesperson Terence Conway stated "When Shell experts were giving evidence in the oral hearing, there wasn't a word about sinkholes and the bubbling up of possible contaminated material to the surface of the special area of conservation".[1]

Shell have previously sent up to 10 workers with shovels out on the estuary in a failed attempt to fill in the sinkholes.

Mr Conway continued "We can currently follow the path of the tunnel by the trail of sinkholes that have appeared on the strand. Failure to regulate has caused alot of suffering in Ireland, yet the Government are still allowing Shell to do whatever they want. The sinkholes are further proof that the Government continues to abandon their responsibility to regulate Shell."

Links

[1] YouTube Video: What's happening in Shell's Tunnel? – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hvz2l27Ooc

[2] Reports of sinkholes above Corrib tunnel investigated
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/reports-of-sinkholes-abo…54717

[3] Midwest Radio Clip about third sink-hole in Sruwaddacon estuary
http://www.shelltosea.com/content/midwest-radio-clip-ab…tuary

Bubbling in the water in the foreground while people raise warning signs in the background of photo