Author: earthfirst

Protest camp evicted & restarted

7th Feb 2013: Mov­ing Camp and Climb­ing Trees

We are in the process of mov­ing the camp to anoth­er loca­tion in the park.

There is a pro­test­er up in the trees which have ari­al walk ways to them.

7th Feb 2013: Mov­ing Camp and Climb­ing Trees

We are in the process of mov­ing the camp to anoth­er loca­tion in the park.

There is a pro­test­er up in the trees which have ari­al walk ways to them.

If you are will­ing and able to active­ly pro­tect oth­er trees by var­i­ous means, we do have food sup­plies and a lim­it­ed amount climb­ing gear for use. 

The police have sur­round­ed anoth­er area of trees which are about to be felled.

6/2/13, noon: URGENT: An evic­tion notice has been served to us on the camp which will be enforced in 45 min­utes at 12.00 We need peo­ple to come down to the camp as soon as pos­si­ble!
To show how many peo­ple in our com­mu­ni­ty object to what MCC are doing…
To make the evic­tion dif­fi­cult which will give us more time….
To help move things out of camp so res­i­dents won’t loose all of there grear they have kind­ly donat­ed, as the police can hold equip­ment ‘as evi­dence’.

http://savealexandraparkstrees.wordpress.com

Stop the Chop — Alexandra Park trees, Manchester

JOIN THE COMMUNITY PROTEST
SATURDAY 2nd FEB @ 1pm

JOIN THE COMMUNITY PROTEST
SATURDAY 2nd FEB @ 1pm
Protest Camp Open Now
We need YOU to help!

Peace­ful Protest @ Alexan­dra Park to stop the felling of 400 trees against strong pub­lic oppo­si­tion. As of Thurs 31st Jan, 2382 peo­ple have signed a peti­tion to oppose the scale of tree felling and wildlife habi­tat destruc­tion in the park, yet the coun­cil are ignor­ing pub­lic opin­ion. The meet­ing on 28/01 to dis­cuss these plans fur­ther was can­celled hours before tak­ing place & the works have steam­rolled ahead felling 53 trees so far. On 31/01, around 80 local peo­ple of all ages and back­grounds gath­ered in peace­ful protest, with BBC North­west cov­er­ing the sto­ry. For now, they have suc­ceed­ed in bring­ing tree felling works to a halt. But the destruc­tion starts again TODAY ! We need your help to save the remain­ing 347 trees & wildlife habi­tat areas!

Tell your fam­i­ly and friends, your neigh­bours and your com­mu­ni­ty. Bring ban­ners, bring good­will — togeth­er we can make our voic­es heard! PEOPLE OF MANCHESTER UNITE!

Meet near the park gates on Alexan­dra Rd South and Clare­mont Rd. 

PLEASE PROMOTE THIS PROTEST

www.savealexandraparkstrees.wordpress.com
Email: savealexandraparkstrees@hotmail.com
Twit­ter: @SaveAPTrees
Facebook.com/Save Alexan­dra Parks Trees
Action Group Tel: 07757 639 668

Decoy Pond camp evicted but the campaign continues! (31 Jan)

Decoy Pond camp – the third of three camps that had been erect­ed on the path of the planned Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) – was final­ly evict­ed yes­ter­day (Wednes­day 30 Jan).

Decoy Pond camp – the third of three camps that had been erect­ed on the path of the planned Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) – was final­ly evict­ed yes­ter­day (Wednes­day 30 Jan).

In the end it took scores of secu­ri­ty, bailiffs and police three days to evict all of the climbers – not to men­tion tun­nel­ers, peo­ple in tripods and folk locked-on on the ground! Denied food, water and med­i­cine by East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil, the activists in the trees also had to con­tend with tor­ren­tial rain and gusts of wind of up to 54mph (Met Office fig­ure for near­by Bat­tle)! See below for pho­tos and films from yes­ter­day (30 Jan). In total, 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed, and the CHD is now help­ing to assist those charged, as they go through the court process.

After 48 days of con­tin­u­ous protest (with 28 arrests) some of those involved will prob­a­bly now be tak­ing a short but much need­ed rest. Nonethe­less, the Cam­paign con­tin­ues, with four activists in Court this morn­ing (Thurs­day 31 Jan), more news expect­ed from the High Court on Fri­day, the “Grannies’ Dinghy” action in the Val­ley this Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary), and an oppor­tu­ni­ty for oppo­nents of the Road to get togeth­er to form groups and plan future activ­i­ties, this Sun­day (3 Feb­ru­ary: 4–6pm, The Roomz, 33–35 West­ern Road, St Leonards on Sea, TN37 6DJ).

Many more activ­i­ties and projects are also in the pipeline, so please sign the Pledge / like us on Face­book / fol­low us on Twit­ter (@combe_haven) / send a dona­tion (use the Pay­Pal but­tons on this site or send a cheque) and stay post­ed for more news on Phase 2. A luta con­tin­ua!

Anti-Surveillance Activists Begin Game to Destroy CCTV Cameras in Germany

The watch­ful eye of the Ger­man sur­veil­lance state may need some­thing of a patch soon as a rad­i­cal group of activists have launched a cam­paign to destroy as many CCTV sur­veil­lance cam­eras as pos­si­ble ahead of the 19 Feb­ru­ary Euro­pean Police Con­gress in Berlin.

The watch­ful eye of the Ger­man sur­veil­lance state may need some­thing of a patch soon as a rad­i­cal group of activists have launched a cam­paign to destroy as many CCTV sur­veil­lance cam­eras as pos­si­ble ahead of the 19 Feb­ru­ary Euro­pean Police Con­gress in Berlin.

The anti-sur­veil­lance activists have invit­ed their com­rades to join them in a game in which the only rules seem to be to destroy any and all CCTV cam­eras your “brigade” of cam­era smash­ers finds, and to not get caught doing it. The win­ning team of the “CamOver” game will be reward­ed with being “in the first line of the demon­stra­tion against the cops on 16 Feb­ru­ary,” and are remind­ed to “crouch down to avoid being hit by fly­ing cams.”

Cam Over

The game seems to be gath­er­ing play­ers as you can see in the above video. The blog host­ing the game, camover.blogsport.de, post­ed that two more cam­eras had been tak­en down on 14 Jan­u­ary by the “com­mand: Black Rab­bit of Death.”

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As a youth in a ski mask march­es down a Berlin U‑Bahn train, dressed head-to-toe in black, com­muters may feel their only pro­tec­tion is the ceil­ing-mount­ed CCTV cam­era near­by. But he is not inter­est­ed in steal­ing wal­lets or iPhones – he is after the cam­era itself. This is Camover, a new game being played across Berlin, which sees par­tic­i­pants trash­ing cam­eras in protest against the rise in close-cir­cuit tele­vi­sion across Ger­many.

The game is real-life Grand Theft Auto for those tired of being watched by the author­i­ties in Berlin; points are award­ed for the num­ber of cam­eras destroyed and bonus scores are giv­en for par­tic­u­lar­ly imag­i­na­tive modes of destruc­tion. Axes, ropes and pitch­forks are all encour­aged.

The rules of Camover are sim­ple: mobilise a crew and think of a name that starts with “com­mand”, “brigade” or “cell”, fol­lowed by the moniker of a his­tor­i­cal fig­ure (Van der Lubbe, a Dutch brick­lay­er con­vict­ed of set­ting fire to the Reich­stag in 1933, is one name being used). Then destroy as many CCTV cam­eras as you can. Con­ceal­ing your iden­ti­ty, while not essen­tial, is rec­om­mend­ed. Final­ly, video your trail of destruc­tion and post it on the game’s web­site – although even keep­ing track of the home­page can be a chal­lenge in itself, as it is con­tin­u­al­ly being shut down.

The use of sur­veil­lance cam­eras has become a thorny polit­i­cal issue in Ger­many. Inad­e­quate CCTV footage was high­light­ed in the inves­ti­ga­tion of a bomb scare in Bonn last Decem­ber (“Ger­mans con­sid­er Brit-style CCTV,” shout­ed Der Spiegel). This, along with the bru­tal killing of a man in Berlin’s busy Alexan­der­platz square in Octo­ber 2012 spurred the inte­ri­or min­is­ter, Hans-Peter Friedrich, to call for “effi­cient video sur­veil­lance and video record­ing in pub­lic areas”.

For those who oppose CCTV, peti­tions and let­ters only go so far in the Ger­man cap­i­tal. A group of 40 pro­test­ers walked the streets of Berlin for 1984 Action Day (protests against CCTV cam­eras and oth­er sur­veil­lance, named after the nov­el by George Orwell) in June and pres­sure group Con­trol Berlin has screened short films doc­u­ment­ing CCTV’s rise. But Camover’s direct-action approach revolves around a small but com­mit­ted group who call them­selves “work­less peo­ple – we are shoplifters, graf­fi­ti sprayers, home­less and squat­ters”. They claim to have snuffed out as many as 50 cam­eras since the game began a few weeks ago.

“We thought it would moti­vate inac­tive peo­ple out there if we made a video-invi­ta­tion to this real­i­ty-game,” the cre­ator of Camover (who want­ed to remain anony­mous) told me. “Although we call it a game, we are quite seri­ous about it: our aim is to destroy as many cam­eras as pos­si­ble and to have an influ­ence on video sur­veil­lance in our cities.”

The win­ner of the game does not get a tro­phy or a year’s sup­ply of spray paint. The com­pe­ti­tion ends on 19 Feb­ru­ary, to coin­cide with the start of the Euro­pean Police Con­gress. The prize, says Camover, is to be in the front­line of a protest that will take place three days ear­li­er, on 16 Feb­ru­ary. The loca­tion has yet to be con­firmed, but Camover advis­es any­one who turns up to “crouch to avoid the fly­ing cam­eras”.

 

Day 48 (30 Jan): Decoy Pond Camp eviction continues!

[Update, 10.43am: First arrest of the day report­ed as cam­paign­er removed from tree.]

[Update, 10.43am: First arrest of the day report­ed as cam­paign­er removed from tree.]

30 Jan: Day 48 of the cur­rent phase of Combe Haven protests has begun with activists still in the trees at Decoy Pond Camp (see here for maps and direc­tions). The evic­tion con­tin­ues! East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil are still insist­ing that no food, water, blan­kets or med­i­cines be allowed up to the peo­ple high-up in the trees, who faced gusts of wind of up to 54mph last night.

Mean­while, local grand­moth­ers are mobil­is­ing to bring inflat­able dinghies to the flood­ed val­ley ths Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary) for an aquat­ic demon­stra­tion of their sup­port for the peace­ful protests.

Five peo­ple were arrest­ed yes­ter­day, bring­ing the total num­ber of arrests so far to 26. All have now been released: one was cau­tioned, and the remain­ing four have been charged.

As we not­ed at the time of the evic­tion of “Base Camp”: This is only the end of the begin­ning for the protests against the Bex­hill Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR)!

If you can’t make it down to the Val­ley this week then please sign the Pledge / like us on Face­book / fol­low us on Twit­ter (@combe_haven) / send a dona­tion (use the Pay­Pal but­tons on this site or send a cheque) and stay post­ed for news on Phase 2!

Two short films from yesterday’s evic­tion:

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Press Infor­ma­tion Note
Combe Haven Defend­ers [1]
30 Jan­u­ary 2013

EVICTION OF HASTINGS ANTI-ROAD CAMP ENTERS THIRD DAY
Local grand­moth­ers to show sup­port with “Grannies’ Dinghy” action this Sat­ur­day (2 Feb)

30 Jan­u­ary, 8.15am: At least four activists are still in the tree­tops of the third [2] anti-road camp along the route of the pro­posed Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) this morn­ing, as local grand­moth­ers mobilise to bring inflat­able dinghies to the flood­ed val­ley ths Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary) for an aquat­ic demon­stra­tion of their sup­port for the peace­ful protests.

Cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly peace­ful­ly resist­ing the evic­tion of the Camp, which is locat­ed just west of Upper Wilt­ing Farm in Crowhurst (TN38 8EG) [3]. East Sus­sex Coun­cil have denied food and water to the pro­test­ers – who have faced heavy rain and gusts of up to 54mph, fifty-feet up in the trees – since Mon­day morn­ing [4].

Local grand­moth­ers will be assem­bling with inflat­able dinghies at 12.45pm this Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary) at the Plough Inn in Crowhurst (TN33 9AW), from where they plan to mount an aquat­ic demon­stra­tion against the Road in the near­by flood­ed fields – fields through which the Road is sup­posed to pass [5]. An ear­li­er action (“Grannies’ Tree”) was repro­duced in both the Dai­ly Mail and Dai­ly Tele­graph.

The £100m Road project is one of over forty “zom­bie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resus­ci­tat­ed as part of as part of Britain’s largest road-build­ing pro­gramme in 25 years [6,7].

Sev­en peo­ple have been arrest­ed since Mon­day, includ­ing Natal­ie Hyn­de, daugh­ter of pop singer Chrissie Hyn­de [4]. The peace­ful protests against the Road– which have now been run­ning con­tin­u­ous­ly for 48 days, with 26 arrests – have seized nation­al atten­tion over the past sev­en weeks [8].

Adri­an Hop­kins of the Combe Haven Defend­ers said: “Resis­tance has been grow­ing to this awful scheme as each day pass­es and more peo­ple become inspired by the action so far tak­en to pro­tect the beau­ti­ful Combe Haven val­ley. This is only the begin­ning of a sus­tained cam­paign of peace­ful resis­tance to this envi­ron­men­tal­ly dis­as­trous white-ele­phant project.”

NOTES
[1] http://www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] The first camp was estab­lished on 21 Decem­ber. Two oth­er camps along the route, ‘Three Oaks’ and ‘Adams Farm’, have already been evict­ed, on 14 Jan and 16–17 Jan respec­tive­ly, result­ing in sev­en arrests.
[3] For maps and direc­tions see http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/camp-groundrules-directions/
[4] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/29-jan-escc-still-denying-food-blankets-to-activists-facing-44mph-gusts/
[5] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/sat-19-jan-grannies-photoshoot‑2/
[6] See ‘Con­tro­ver­sial ‘zom­bie roads’ scheme to be resus­ci­tat­ed’, Guardian, 10 Octo­ber 2012, http://tinyurl.com/zombieroads
[7] http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report
[8] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/recent-media-coverage/

Tar Sands Blockade Activists Forced to Settle Lawsuit But Will Continue to Fight

TransCanada Claimed $5 Million in Damages

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 25th, a group of activists agreed to a se

TransCanada Claimed $5 Million in Damages

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 25th, a group of activists agreed to a set­tle­ment in TransCanada’s law­suit against Tar Sands Block­ade, Ris­ing Tide North Texas, Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca, and nine­teen indi­vid­u­als. The SLAPP suit (Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion) alleged that direct action against Key­stone XL has cost Tran­sCana­da $5 mil­lion. This con­tra­dicts fre­quent pub­lic state­ments by TransCanada’s spokes­peo­ple that block­aders were not imped­ing con­struc­tion in any mean­ing­ful way.

The eight Tex­ans who came to court to defend them­selves on Fri­day, some of whom had not been active­ly involved with Tar Sands Block­ade since protests in August, were threat­ened with los­ing their homes and life’s sav­ings if the law­suit went for­ward. In order to pro­tect the liveli­hoods and depen­dents of brave activists like Tam­mie Car­son, who locked her­self to a truck car­ry­ing Key­stone XL pipe, the activists agreed to set­tle the law­suit. The cor­po­ra­tion will not seek the $5 mil­lion in finan­cial dam­ages, and the named defen­dants and orga­ni­za­tions agreed to not tres­pass on Key­stone XL prop­er­ty in Texas and Okla­homa or face addi­tion­al charges.

Despite this legal set­back, mem­bers of Tar Sands Block­ade are as deter­mined as ever to stop Key­stone XL. The sus­tained direct action cam­paign will con­tin­ue. Here’s a chronol­o­gy of all the direct actions tak­en since August 2012.

Defen­dants made the fol­low­ing state­ments in response to the set­tle­ment:

Tam­mie Car­son, a life­long Tex­an, grand­moth­er, and defen­dant from Arling­ton, TX, said:

“I took action for my grand­kids’ future. I couldn’t sit idly by and watch as a multi­na­tion­al cor­po­rate bul­ly abused emi­nent domain to build a dirty and dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline right through Tex­ans’ back­yards. I had no choice but to set­tle or lose my home and every­thing I’ve worked for my entire life.”

 

Ram­sey Sprague, Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son, and defen­dant from Fort Worth, TX, said:

“Tran­sCana­da is dead wrong if they think a civ­il law­suit against a hand­ful of Tex­ans is going to stop a grass­roots civ­il dis­obe­di­ence move­ment. This is noth­ing more than anoth­er exam­ple of Tran­sCana­da repress­ing dis­sent and bul­ly­ing Tex­ans who are defend­ing their homes and futures from tox­ic tar sands.”

Lau­ren Regan, an attor­ney with the Civ­il Lib­er­ties Defense Cen­ter and one of the legal coor­di­na­tors for the Tar Sands Block­ade made the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“The SLAPP suit (Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion) filed against the peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions that are fight­ing against TransCanada’s uneth­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive pipeline will nev­er stop the people’s resis­tance to the XL Pipeline. Tran­sCana­da has repeat­ed­ly attempt­ed to vio­late the law and bul­ly the peo­ple of Texas: through cor­po­rate cor­rup­tion and lies, they obtained “com­mon car­ri­er” sta­tus in Texas in order to steal pri­vate prop­er­ty from low income and hard work­ing Tex­ans; they have attempt­ed to bring the full weight of the police state upon non­vi­o­lent activists in an attempt to crush their peace­ful resistance–using mace, tasers, and phys­i­cal bru­tal­i­ty.

Despite phys­i­cal harm, lengthy incar­cer­a­tions, felony charges, and now civ­il law­suits to restrict their right to protest, the peo­ple have not been deterred and have only been embold­ened in the face of Transcanada’s attempt at repres­sion and bul­ly­ing. At each attempt by Tran­sCana­da to chill the cit­i­zens’ rights to protest the XL Pipeline, the people’s lawyers will stand up to defend them in the Court’s. For every pro­tes­tor that is jailed or beat­en, ten more arrive to take that person’s place. For every home­own­er who has had their land stolen, and dan­ger­ous tar sands oil now threat­ens their health and envi­ron­ment, peo­ple from around the coun­try will band togeth­er to pro­tect the next threat­ened com­mu­ni­ty through a vari­ety of non­vi­o­lent tools. Resis­tance is Fer­tile. The sur­vival of the plan­et in the face of glob­al cli­mate change deserves noth­ing less.”

Treesit in California Against CalTrans Bypass

A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal groups staged a protest Mon­day morn­ing along High­way 101 to protest the con­struc­tion of the high­way bypass around Willits.

Dozens of pro­tes­tors from Earth First! joined with a new­ly formed Willits group called Save our Lit­tle Lake Val­ley in an effort to stop the planned tree cut­ting along the bypass foot­print. In addi­tion to pick­et signs, a local woman is now liv­ing on a plat­form nes­tled in top of one of the trees slat­ed for removal. Pick­eters on the ground vowed to sup­port her tree sit­ting protest for as long as it takes.

“Cal­Trans did not cut today, it was def­i­nite­ly a vic­to­ry,” says orga­niz­er Sarah Grusky of Save our Lit­tle Lake Val­ley. “We plan to hold vig­ils as often as pos­si­ble to keep a look­out.”

Cal­Trans has been work­ing for the past few weeks, plac­ing mark­ers along the project right of way prepar­ing for the con­trac­tor to begin work. The first sig­nif­i­cant work sched­uled for the con­trac­tor is to cut the trees along the bypass route to pre­vent migra­to­ry birds from nest­ing in them. Tree cut­ting is expect­ed to start with­in two to three weeks accord­ing to Cal­Trans spokesman Phil Fris­bie.

Cal­Trans award­ed the $108 mil­lion con­struc­tion project to the part­ner­ship of DeSil­va Gates Con­struc­tion and Flat­iron West Incor­po­rat­ed late last year with the expec­ta­tion most of the heavy con­struc­tion work would not start until 2013 after the sea­son­al rains sub­sided.

A law­suit filed by The Cen­ter for Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty, Sier­ra Club, Willits Envi­ron­men­tal Cen­ter and the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter in May 2012 is seek­ing to delay the project until a more thor­ough exam­i­na­tion of alter­na­tives is con­duct­ed. The Cal­i­for­nia Farm Bureau joined the law­suit in August 2012. In Novem­ber a fed­er­al judge denied the groups’ request for an injunc­tion aimed at stop­ping con­struc­tion until the law­suit issues were set­tled. The tri­al date is sched­uled for June 7.

While the courts set­tle the over­all legal­i­ty of Cal­Trans bypass design, some area activists are con­cerned about the dam­age being done in the mean­time. Pro­tes­tors brought infor­ma­tion­al signs and held them up to wave at trav­el­ers along the east side of High­way 101 south of Walk­er Road aimed at stop­ping any con­struc­tion through peace­ful protest.

“Cal­trans has not con­sid­ered the many oth­er viable and sen­si­ble solu­tions to Will­lits’ traf­fic prob­lems devel­oped by the peo­ple,” said War­bler, a Lit­tle Lake Val­ley farmer occu­py­ing the tree. “This Bypass will not improve local traf­fic and will cre­ate no per­ma­nent jobs, but it will per­ma­nent­ly scar the Lit­tle Lake Val­ley. The Army Corp of Engi­neers is man­dat­ed to choose the least harm­ful alter­na­tive and the Bypass as planned isn’t it.”

War­bler is 24-years-old and has been liv­ing and work­ing in the Willits val­ley for the past four years. This is her first tree sit. She vol­un­teered for this role when plan­ning for the protests began last year. She received tree climb­ing instruc­tions from Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers who also helped her get set­tled into the tree locat­ed at the south end of the new planned bypass not far from the cur­rent High­way 101. She has tarps to pro­tect her­self from rain and two sleep­ing bags to keep warm.

When asked how long she planned to stay in the tree she said, “that depends on Cal­Trans and local author­i­ties.”

Updates from the trees: Hastings Link Road protests

 

 

An activist high in the tress at Decoy Pond camp. 28-01-2013. Photo: Adrian Arbib. www.arbib.org

 

 

An activist high in the tress at Decoy Pond camp. 28-01-2013. Photo: Adrian Arbib. www.arbib.org

Day 47 (Jan 29): Decoy Pond Camp evic­tion con­tin­ues

[Update, 10am, Tues 29 Jan: A con­cert­ed move is report­ed­ly being made on all of the tree­hous­es, with lots of climb­ing spe­cial­ists in the trees.]

The evic­tion of the third camp (Decoy Pond Camp – see here for maps and direc­tions) along the route of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) con­tin­ues today (Tues 29 Jan – the 47th day of con­tin­u­ous protests in the val­ley) with activists still locked-on up trees, after spend­ing a night in cold & wet con­di­tions, fac­ing gusts of up to 44mph (which are no joke when you’re 50 foot up a tree!).

Of the two peo­ple arrest­ed yes­ter­day: one has been cau­tioned and released, and the oth­er is appear­ing in court this morn­ing.

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Update, 6.30pm Mon 28 Jan: Climb­ing team & bailiffs have now left Decoy Pond camp for the day, leav­ing secu­ri­ty guards & fenc­ing behind. Two arrests have been report­ed. No-one yet removed from the trees. Hot food and more tar­pau­lins need­ed this evening (Mon 28 Jan). Evic­tion to con­tin­ue tomor­row (Tues 29 Jan).

Can you come tonight to climb into site and help defend the trees tomor­row? Trans­port from Brighton, Lewes, Bex­hill & Hast­ings. Details 07766 335506
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The evic­tion of the third camp (Decoy Pond Camp – see here for maps and direc­tions) along the route of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) began around 8.40am this morn­ing. As at t 12.30pm there were some 70+ secu­ri­ty per­sonnnel on the site, as well as a con­sid­er­able num­ber of activists lock-on up the trees – includ­ing at least one at the top of a fifty-foot tree. The first arrest was report­ed around 12.20pm.

As we not­ed at the time of the evic­tion of “Base Camp”: This is only the end of the begin­ning for the protests against the Bex­hill Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR)!
If you can’t make it down to the Val­ley this week then please sign the Pledge / like us on Face­book / fol­low us on Twit­ter (@combe_haven) / send a dona­tion (use the Pay­Pal but­tons on this site or send a cheque) and stay post­ed for news on Phase 2!

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Press Infor­ma­tion Note
Combe Haven Defend­ers [1]
28 Jan­u­ary 2013

EVICTION OF 3RD HASTINGS ANTI-ROAD CAMP BEGINS
Cam­paign­ers peace­ful­ly resist­ing £100m project in tun­nels and trees

28 Jan­u­ary, 9.45am: The evic­tion of the third [2] anti-road camp along the route of the pro­posed Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) has begun this morn­ing, Mon­day 28 Jan­u­ary. Cam­paign­ers are  cur­rent­ly peace­ful­ly resist­ing the evic­tion of the Camp, which is locat­ed just west of Upper Wilt­ing Farm in Crowhurst (TN38 8EG), locked-on up trees and down tun­nels [3].

The peace­ful protests against the Road– which have been run­ning since 14 Decem­ber, with 19 arrests – have seized nation­al atten­tion over the past month [4].

Yes­ter­day, direc­tors and senior cam­paign­ers from six major envi­ron­men­tal and trans­port NGOs, includ­ing the RSPB, Green­peace and the Cam­paign to Pro­tect Rur­al Eng­land, vis­it­ed the Camp, con­demn­ing the £100m Road project [5], one of over forty “zom­bie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resus­ci­tat­ed as part of as part of Britain’s largest road-build­ing pro­gramme in 25 years [6, 7].

Andy Atkins, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Friends of the Earth, said “’This road shouldn’’t have been approved. It will lead to more pol­lu­tion, dam­age the envi­ron­ment and do lit­tle to boost the local econ­o­my. Reviv­ing dis­cred­it­ed road schemes like this won’t solve our eco­nom­ic and trans­port prob­lems, it will sim­ply shift traf­fic else­where. Trans­port pol­i­cy must change direc­tion. We need clean­er cars and safe, effi­cient and afford­able alter­na­tives.’” [5]

Adri­an Hop­kins of the Combe Haven Defend­ers said: “Resis­tance has been grow­ing to this awful scheme as each day pass­es and more peo­ple become inspired by the action so far tak­en to pro­tect the beau­ti­ful Combe Haven val­ley. This is only the begin­ning of a sus­tained cam­paign of peace­ful resis­tance to this envi­ron­men­tal­ly dis­as­trous white-ele­phant project.”

NOTES
[1] www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] The first camp was estab­lished on 21 Decem­ber. Two oth­er camps along the route, ‘Three Oaks’ and ‘Adams Farm’, have already been evict­ed, on 14 Jan and 16–17 Jan respec­tive­ly, result­ing in sev­en arrests that will all go to court lat­er this week.
[3] For maps and direc­tions see http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/camp-groundrules-directions/
[4] See http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/recent-media-coverage/
[5] See http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/green-and-conservation-groups-ceos-visit-camp-condemn-link-road-plans/
[6] See ‘Con­tro­ver­sial ‘zom­bie roads’ scheme to be resus­ci­tat­ed’, Guardian, 10 Octo­ber 2012, http://tinyurl.com/zombieroads
[7] http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report

URGENT APPEAL – Defend Combe Haven, Resist the Eviction!

Camp Decoy, the last of three camps stand­ing in the way of the pro­posed Bex­hill – Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR), faces evic­tion next Mon­day (28 Jan). If you have ever thought you might come and take a stand against this hor­ri­fy­ing scheme, now’s the time.

Camp Decoy, the last of three camps stand­ing in the way of the pro­posed Bex­hill – Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR), faces evic­tion next Mon­day (28 Jan). If you have ever thought you might come and take a stand against this hor­ri­fy­ing scheme, now’s the time.

We need to do absolute­ly every­thing we can to peace­ful­ly resist this evic­tion. We have been tru­ly hum­bled over the last few weeks by the lev­el of sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty, and from well-wish­ers far and wide.  But now we need peo­ple, lots of peo­ple, to stand togeth­er and say: “Enough is enough, it’s time to pro­tect the coun­try­side”.

See here for maps and direc­tions from the near­est train sta­tion (Crowhurst).

Combe Haven is the first of 190 sites at risk of new road devel­op­ment.  If we allow this one, the oth­ers will fol­low and pre­cious habi­tats all over the coun­try will be lost for­ev­er.

Here’s how you can help resist the evic­tion of Camp Decoy:

1. Share this far and wide.  Face­book, Twit­ter, Email.  Phone your friends.  Phone your local radio sta­tion!  Tell every­one at work, at school, at col­lege, and down the pub.

2.Donate! Use the donate but­ton on the Combe Haven Defend­ers web-site, or send them a cheque. Every lit­tle helps: just £6 buys enough rope to secure a plat­form; £12 buys a lock to secure some­one to it.

3.Most impor­tant­ly – Come to Combe Haven and help to peace­ful­ly defend Camp Decoy!

CATCH THE COMBE HAVEN BUS!

Decoy Wood is the last remain­ing piece of wood­land in the way of the BHLR.  Wait a week or two and it may be gone. If live in Eng­land, Wales or Scot­land and you can get 20 peo­ple from your com­mu­ni­ty to come, we will pro­vide you with your very own Combe Haven Bus, for free!

These bus­es will bring peo­ple to Camp Decoy on Sat­ur­day, and on Sun­day we hope to pro­vide train­ing in tree-climb­ing, lock­ing-on, and a legal brief­ing.

We need every­one, whether it’s for peace­ful resis­tance, legal obser­va­tion or gen­er­al sup­port.  Whether you are will­ing to risk arrest or not – there’s a job for you!

The bus will return to your com­mu­ni­ty after a few days of action, depend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion on the ground.

For more infor­ma­tion about the Combe Haven Bus, please phone or text 07766 335506

Activists Disrupt Arch Coal Corporate HQ In St. Louis

  22nd Jan.  CREVE COEUR, MO —  Sev­en pro­test­ers affil­i­at­ed with the RAMPS cam­paign (Rad­i­cal Action for Moun­tain Peo­ples’ Sur­vival), MORE (Mis­souri­ans Orga­nizi

  22nd Jan.  CREVE COEUR, MO —  Sev­en pro­test­ers affil­i­at­ed with the RAMPS cam­paign (Rad­i­cal Action for Moun­tain Peo­ples’ Sur­vival), MORE (Mis­souri­ans Orga­niz­ing for Reform and Empow­er­ment) and Moun­tain Jus­tice are locked down to a 500-pound small pot­ted tree in Arch Coal’s third-floor head­quar­ters while a larg­er group is in the lob­by per­form­ing a song and dance.  Addi­tion­al­ly, a heli­um bal­loon ban­ner with the mes­sage “John Eaves Your Coal Com­pa­ny Kills”, direct­ed at the Arch Coal CEO was released in the Arch Coal head­quar­ters.

“We’re here to halt Arch’s oper­a­tions for as long as we can. These coal cor­po­ra­tions do not answer to com­mu­ni­ties, they only con­sume them.  We’re here to resist their unchecked pow­er,” explained Mar­garet Fet­zer, one of the pro­tes­tors.

Arch Coal, the sec­ond largest coal com­pa­ny in the U.S., oper­ates strip mines in Appalachia and in oth­er U.S. coal basins. Strip min­ing is an acute­ly destruc­tive and tox­ic method of min­ing coal, and resource extrac­tion dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly impacts mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties.

“From the Bat­tle of Blair Moun­tain to the cur­rent fight with the Patri­ot pen­sions, the peo­ple of cen­tral Appalachia have been fight­ing against the coal com­pa­nies for the past 125 years. The strug­gle con­tin­ues today as we take action to hold Arch Coal and oth­er coal com­pa­nies account­able for the dam­age that they do to peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties in Appalachia and around the world. Coal min­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly impacts indige­nous peo­ples, and we stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with dis­en­fran­chised peo­ple every­where,”  Dustin Steele of Min­go Coun­ty, W.Va. said.  Steele was one of the peo­ple locked in Arch’s office.

Min­go Coun­ty is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the pub­lic health cri­sis faced by com­mu­ni­ties over­bur­dened by strip min­ing.  A recent study of life expectan­cies placed Min­go Coun­ty in the bot­tom 1 per­cent out of 3,147 coun­ties nationwide.(1)

Arch’s strip mines not only poi­son com­mu­ni­ties, but also seek to erase the lega­cy of resis­tance to the coal com­pa­nies in Appalachia. Arch’s Adkins Fork Sur­face Mine is threat­en­ing to blast away Blair Mountain—the site of the sec­ond largest upris­ing in U.S. his­to­ry and a mile­stone in the long-stand­ing strug­gle between Appalachi­ans and the coal companies.(2)

The dev­as­ta­tion of Arch’s strip mines plague regions beyond Appalachia.  Arch’s oper­a­tion in the Pow­der Riv­er Basin is the “sin­gle largest coal min­ing com­plex in the world.(3)”  Pro­duc­ing 15 per­cent of the U.S. coal sup­ply, Arch is a major cul­prit of the cli­mate cri­sis.

NASA sci­en­tist James Hansen describes the burn­ing of coal as a lead­ing cause glob­al cli­mate change.(4)  The Mid­west region faces seri­ous pub­lic health impacts from cli­mate change due to “increased heat wave inten­si­ty and fre­quen­cy, degrad­ed air qual­i­ty, and reduced water quality(5),” accord­ing to recent­ly pub­lished data from the Nation­al Cli­mate Assess­ment.