Author: earthfirst

Indigenous Communities in Oaxaca, Mexico Fight Corporate Wind Farms

More than five cen­turies after Colom­bus’ arrival in the Amer­i­c­as, the inva­sion of Euro­pean pow­ers con­tin­ues to threat­en tra­di­tion­al ways of life in indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Mex­i­co.  The con­flict against the cor­po­rate takeover of the ances­tral lands of the Huave, or Ikoots peo­ple, in the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec in Oax­a­ca is just one of the strug­gles con­tin­u­ous­ly being played out in the face of trans-nation­al devel­op­ment poli­cies such as Plan Puebla Pana­ma (now known as Proyec­to Mesoamer­i­ca).

The Ikoots peo­ple of Oax­a­ca have inhab­it­ed the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec for more than 3000 years, pre-dat­ing the bet­ter-known Zapotec cul­ture in Oax­a­ca.  They are a fish­ing soci­ety that depends on the ocean for their liveli­hood; the Ikoots peo­ples’ his­to­ry is so inte­grat­ed with the sea that they are also known as Mareños (“Ocean­ers”). Now Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties are strug­gling to defend their ances­tral lands from multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions who want to build wind tur­bines in the water along the coast, in the very ocean that has sup­port­ed their way of life for cen­turies.

In April of 2004, the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Ener­gy (DOE) and the US Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (USAID) spon­sored a study to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of wind projects in the state of Oax­a­ca, which found that the best area for wind project devel­op­ment was in the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec, in the heart of the ances­tral Ikoots ter­ri­to­ry. [1]  The pro­posed Par­que Eoli­co San Dion­i­sio (San Dion­i­sio Wind Park), a wind farm to be con­struct­ed in the ocean along the coast, would con­sist of 102 wind tur­bines in the water out­side the town of San Dion­i­sio del Mar (and 30 more out­side neigh­bor­ing San­ta Maria del Mar), two elec­tric trans­former sub­sta­tions, six access paths and addi­tion­al sup­port struc­tures. [2] It would take up 27 kilo­me­ters of coast­line.  The multi­na­tion­als imple­ment­ing the project have also informed the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment that they will need to install 5 moor­ing docks in the Lagu­na Supe­ri­or, a coastal lagoon that local com­mu­ni­ties heav­i­ly depend on for fish­ing. [3]

The con­struc­tion of wind tur­bines would have a dev­as­tat­ing effect on both Ikoots soci­ety and the envi­ron­ment.  The com­mu­ni­ty fears that the vibra­tion from the machines would destroy the aquat­ic life in the area, which is the eco­nom­ic basis of sur­vival for Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties such as San Dion­i­sio del Mar, San Mateo del Mar and San Fran­cis­co del Mar.  “This is the life of the poor: we fish so we can eat and have some­thing to sell, to have a bit of mon­ey.  They say that now that the wind project is here, they’ll give us mon­ey for our land and sea, but the mon­ey won’t last for­ev­er.  We don’t agree with this. How are we going to live?” says Lau­ra Celaya Altami­ra­no, a res­i­dent of Isla Pueblo Viejo and the wife of a fish­er­man. [4] The wind tur­bines also present a threat to migra­to­ry birds and would dam­age the ecosys­tems of the local man­grove swamps.  In addi­tion, the pro­posed con­struc­tion would des­e­crate Ikoots sacred ter­ri­to­ry, name­ly the Isla de San Dion­i­sio and the Bar­ra de San­ta Tere­sa (known by the Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties as Tileme).

The pro­posed loca­tion for the aquat­ic wind farm is San Dion­i­sio del Mar, a town of about 5000 res­i­dents.  The project in San Dion­i­sio is being imple­ment­ed by a con­sor­tium called Mareña Ren­ov­able, which con­sists of the glob­al invest­ment bank Mac­quar­ie, based in Aus­tralia; the Dutch invest­ment group PGGM; and the Mit­subishi Cor­po­ra­tion of Japan.  It includes tur­bines con­struct­ed by the Dan­ish Com­pa­ny Ves­tas Wind Sys­tems, and the involve­ment of two wind pow­er com­pa­nies:  Grupo Pre­neal of Spain, and DEMEX of Mex­i­co.  The project also has fund­ing from the Inter-Amer­i­can Devel­op­ment Bank. [5] The elec­tric­i­ty from the farm would be used to pow­er such cor­po­rate giants as FEMSA (based in Mex­i­co, the largest bev­er­age com­pa­ny in Latin Amer­i­ca), Coca-Cola, Heineken, and oth­er multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions. [6]

A total dis­re­gard for the envi­ron­ment and the liveli­hoods of local peo­ple is par for the course when multi­na­tion­als step in to take over com­mu­nal lands for prof­it.  In the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec, wind pow­er com­pa­nies have been exploit­ing local com­mu­ni­ties for years, pres­sur­ing farm­ers (most with lit­tle for­mal edu­ca­tion) to sign con­tracts they often don’t under­stand in order to give up their rights to land that has been held com­mu­nal­ly for gen­er­a­tions. “Oax­a­ca is the cen­ter of com­mu­nal landown­er­ship. There is prob­a­bly no worse place to make a land deal in Mex­i­co,” says Ben Cokelet, founder of the Project on Orga­niz­ing, Devel­op­ment, Edu­ca­tion, and Research.[7] Devel­op­ers held meet­ings with locals in which mod­el wind­mills the size of din­ner plat­ters were shown; they were led to believe they could con­tin­ue farm­ing around them. Lat­er they were shocked to see 15-to-20-sto­ry tur­bines con­struct­ed, tak­ing up acres of their land.  Devel­op­ers pay the farm­ers a pit­tance in exchange for their land, often pay­ing only 1/5th of what they would pay for sim­i­lar land in the US, or 1/7th of what they would pay the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment for the same land.  And, in a move that exac­er­bates ten­sion in the com­mu­ni­ty, local lead­ers are giv­en bet­ter deals for their land in order to make the process more appeal­ing to the rest of the pop­u­la­tion: “The first guy or two that bites gets [$8] per square meter. That’s a hun­dred times bet­ter con­tract than the oth­er peo­ple,” says Cokelet. “But the 98 per­cent of farm­ers who sign after­wards sign on for rock-bot­tom prices. Those one or two peo­ple who bite – they don’t bite because they’re lucky. They bite because they know some­one. And their job … is to sell it to all their neigh­bors.” [8]

There are cur­rent­ly 14 wind farms built on land in the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec, with 4 under con­struc­tion in 2012 and 3 more sched­uled for 2013. [9]  Accord­ing to the Declaración de San Dion­i­sio del Mar, released on Sep­tem­ber 17 by the indige­nous rights orga­ni­za­tion UCIZONI (La Unión de Comu­nidades de la Zona Norte del Ist­mo — The Union of Com­mu­ni­ties in the North Zone of the Isth­mus), the com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the 14 exist­ing wind farms have not ben­e­fit­ed from low­er elec­tric­i­ty rates; rather, the inten­tion of the farms is clear­ly to serve the inter­ests of transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions such as Coca-Cola, Wal­mart, Nes­tle, Bim­bo and oth­ers. [10] The wind tur­bines in San Dion­i­sio are the first pro­posed tur­bines to be built in the sea.  Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties would not even ben­e­fit from the jobs cre­at­ed by the wind tur­bines; the con­struc­tion and main­te­nance of the wind tur­bines would most cer­tain­ly be giv­en to employ­ees of the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions fund­ing the project, not to local fish­er­men.

The Ikoots com­mu­ni­ty of San Dion­i­sio del Mar did not con­sent to this project, nor were they even informed that it was under con­sid­er­a­tion.  The Inter­na­tion­al Labour Orga­ni­za­tion, a Unit­ed Nations agency deal­ing with labor rights, specif­i­cal­ly states in its Con­ven­tion 169 (Con­ven­tion on Indige­nous and Trib­al Peo­ples) that “spe­cial mea­sures… be adopt­ed to safe­guard the per­sons, insti­tu­tions, prop­er­ty, labour, cul­tures and envi­ron­ment of these [indige­nous] peo­ples. In addi­tion, the Con­ven­tion stip­u­lates that these spe­cial mea­sures should not go against the free wish­es of indige­nous peo­ples.” Mex­i­co rat­i­fied this con­ven­tion in 1990. [11] In this case, there was no pub­lic forum or announce­ment regard­ing the con­struc­tion of the wind farms.

“A com­mon prac­tice of for­eign busi­ness­es is to ‘buy’ [via bribes] the local PRI­ista author­i­ties,” says Car­los Beas Tor­res, a leader and co-founder of UCIZONI and a well-known activist for indige­nous rights. In 2004, Alvaro Sosa, the then-pres­i­dent of the “comis­ari­a­do de bienes comu­nales” (essen­tial­ly, the com­mis­sary for the ter­ri­to­ry held in com­mon by the com­mu­ni­ty), signed a pre­lim­i­nary con­tract rent­ing a sec­tion of land to the Span­ish cor­po­ra­tion Pre­neal with­out the knowl­edge of the town’s res­i­dents. The 30-year con­tract that gave the multi­na­tion­als access to 1643 hectares of land; Sosa did not inform the com­mu­ni­ty of this action and accept­ed bribes in exchange for his consent.[12]  The peo­ple of San Dion­i­sio del Mar did not find out about the exis­tence of this con­tract until late in 2011, when the munic­i­pal pres­i­dent, Miguel López Castel­lanos (a mem­ber of the Par­tido Rev­olu­cionario Insti­tu­cional, or PRI), again with­out con­sult­ing the com­mu­ni­ty gave his per­mis­sion for the con­sor­tium Mareña Ren­ov­ables to begin con­struc­tion of wind tur­bines in exchange for a pay­ment of between 14–20 mil­lion pesos (between $1–1.5 mil­lion USD). The multi­na­tion­als claim to have giv­en him 20 mil­lion pesos, but Lopez Castel­lanos only admits to receiv­ing 14 mil­lion pesos. [13]

Upon this dis­cov­ery, the res­i­dents of San Dion­i­sio held a pub­lic assem­bly where they demand­ed that the munic­i­pal pres­i­dent revoke his con­sent for the wind farm, which he refused to do. In Feb­ru­ary, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the com­mu­ni­ty met with DEMEX in Mex­i­co City to request that the con­tract process start over, but were turned down. [14] Thus the strug­gle for con­trol of the Ikoots’ ances­tral land began.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, an intense resis­tance move­ment against the wind farm has surged in San Dion­i­sio del Mar.  The towns­peo­ple have ini­ti­at­ed a legal bat­tle in the Tri­bunal Uni­tario Agrario (Agrar­i­an Uni­tary Tri­bunal), the gov­ern­ment agency in charge of set­tling agrar­i­an dis­putes, in an attempt to nul­li­fy the con­tract.  How­ev­er they are also tak­ing direct action in an attempt to defend their land.  In late Jan­u­ary 2012, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers took pos­ses­sion of the munic­i­pal palace in San Dion­i­sio in protest, eject­ing munic­i­pal pres­i­dent Miguel López Castel­lanos, cre­at­ing the Asam­blea Gen­er­al del Pueblo de San Dion­i­sio (Gen­er­al Assem­bly of the Peo­ple of San Dion­i­sio), and declar­ing them­selves in resistance.[15]  In April, the San Dion­i­sio com­mu­nal assem­bly pre­vent­ed employ­ees of the multi­na­tion­als from lay­ing out access roads in the Bar­ra de San­ta Tere­sa, and set up a per­ma­nent watch to make sure the con­trac­tors do not return. [16] In Sep­tem­ber, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers orga­nized a nation­al encuen­tro (or gath­er­ing) in San Dion­i­sio, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of around 300 peo­ple from 25 dif­fer­ent indige­nous and activist orga­ni­za­tions from 6 dif­fer­ent states in Mexico.[17]  The intent of the encuen­tro was not only to raise aware­ness on what was hap­pen­ing on Ikoots land, but also to cre­ate a large-scale nation­al plan of action to resist megapro­jects such as the wind farms. “It’s prac­ti­cal­ly a sec­ond Span­ish Con­quest; they’re com­ing again to snatch our land with a con­tract that is com­plete­ly advan­ta­geous, dra­con­ian and in vio­la­tion of our rights as indige­nous peo­ple,” says Jesús Gar­cía Sosa, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Asam­blea Gen­er­al. [18]

The resis­tance move­ment con­tin­ues to grow despite threats and intim­i­da­tion, as well as actu­al phys­i­cal attacks on com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers com­mit­ted by oppos­ing polit­i­cal fac­tions. The gen­er­al con­sen­sus is that these fac­tions are being paid by the multi­na­tion­als involved to ham­per resis­tance to the devel­op­ment project. On August 25, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Asam­blea Gen­er­al named Moisés Juárez Muriel was bru­tal­ly attacked while walk­ing home in the evening by two men who beat him with stones. He was tak­en by two com­pañeros in resis­tance to the IMSS-Com­pla­mar clin­ic, where he was refused treat­ment because the clin­ic was under con­trol of the munic­i­pal pres­i­dent. [19] In mid-Sep­tem­ber, imme­di­ate­ly after the con­clu­sion of the encuen­tro in sup­port of the Ikoots com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in resis­tance, a group of heav­i­ly armed indi­vid­u­als sur­round­ed the munic­i­pal palace that the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers were occu­py­ing, point­ing guns at and intim­i­dat­ing the peo­ple who were guard­ing the build­ing. [20]

Resis­tance move­ment lead­ers have also received pub­lic death threats from polit­i­cal par­ties and anony­mous sources. On Octo­ber 6, a group of PRI agi­ta­tors marched through San Dion­i­sio, mak­ing spe­cif­ic death threats against Bet­ti­na Cruz Velazquez, a well-known human rights activist and founder of the Asam­blea de los Pueb­los Indí­ge­nas del Ist­mo de Tehuan­te­pec en Defen­sa de la Tier­ra y el Ter­ri­to­rio (Assem­bly of Indige­nous Peo­ples of the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec in Defense of Land and Ter­ri­to­ry). Cruz Velazquez is deeply involved in the resis­tance move­ment against the wind project. Human rights groups in Mex­i­co have for­mal­ly asked the gov­er­nor of Oax­a­ca, Gabi­no Cué Mon­teagu­do, to guar­an­tee her safe­ty.  [21] Car­los Beas Tor­res of UCIZONI has received threat­en­ing phone calls for his pub­lic stance in oppo­si­tion of the project. [22]

In some cas­es, attempts to stop resis­tance sup­port have led to clashess. In mid-Octo­ber, two orga­ni­za­tions, El Frente por la Defen­sa de la Tier­ra (The Front for the Defense of the Earth) and UCIZONI sent a car­a­van of sup­port attempt­ing to bring food and sup­plies to the com­mu­ni­ty in resis­tance in San Dion­i­sio. A block­ade was set up by armed PRI­ista sym­pa­thiz­ers of the munic­i­pal pres­i­dent, Miguel López Castel­lanos, to keep the car­a­van from pass­ing. [23] A vio­lent con­fronta­tion ensued.

“The store own­ers in San Dion­i­sio belong to the PRI and refuse to sell food to the peo­ple resist­ing the wind project,” says Car­los Alber­to Ocaña, whose father (a native of San Dion­i­sio) was the dri­ver of the first truck in the sup­ply car­a­van. “When the car­a­van approached the town, it was stopped by a block­ade of about 70 peo­ple. They had guns, machetes, and gaso­line for set­ting the cars on fire.  My father was in the first truck with five oth­er peo­ple. They PRI­is­tas in the block­ade pulled them out of the truck and start­ed beat­ing them.” The police even­tu­al­ly arrived, but the car­a­van was unable to pass the bar­ri­cade to reach San Dion­i­sio and even­tu­al­ly it was forced to turn back with­out deliv­er­ing the sup­plies.

On Octo­ber 17 and 18, mem­bers of the Asam­blea Gen­er­al of San Dion­i­sio, UCIZONI, la Asam­blea de Pueb­los Indí­ge­nas del Ist­mo en Defen­sa de la Tier­ra y el Ter­ri­to­rio, la Alian­za Mex­i­cana por la Autode­ter­mi­nación de los Pueb­los (Mex­i­can Allaince for the Self-Deter­mi­na­tion of the Peo­ple, AMAP), and a half dozen oth­er groups held protests in Mex­i­co City. They held ral­lies in front of the Inter­amer­i­can Devel­op­ment Bank, Mit­subishi, Coca-Cola, Ves­tas, and the Dan­ish embassy. Their goal was twofold: to impede the con­struc­tion of the wind park in San Dion­i­sio, but also to pub­licly denounce the envi­ron­men­tal and cul­tur­al dam­age that threat­ens the Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties of the Isth­mus. They were received and allowed to present writ­ten com­plaints at the Inter­amer­i­can Devel­op­ment Bank, Ves­tas, and the Dan­ish embassy.  oca-Cola-FEM­SA refused to meet with them. [24] As of this writ­ing, the Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties’ strug­gle against cor­po­rate takeover con­tin­ues; in Novem­ber rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the com­mu­ni­ty will trav­el to the Nether­lands, with the sup­port of Dutch unions, to present a let­ter of protest in per­son to the Dutch invest­ment com­pa­ny PGGM.  In the words of Asam­blea Gen­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jesús Gar­cía Sosa, “We will not allow that busi­ness and gov­ern­ment to yet again dis­place us from our ter­ri­to­ry, which sym­bol­izes our very life, our moth­er, our father; we can’t sell it to them or put a price on it, much less in exchange for projects of death and plun­der.” [25]

On Octo­ber 30th, Pres­i­dent Felipe Calderon Hino­josa, who was in Oax­a­ca to inau­gu­rate a new high­way, also trav­elled to inau­gu­rate the Piedra Larga Wind Park. Calderon salut­ed the project, cit­ing it as a solu­tion to pover­ty and cli­mate change, and men­tion­ing the “addi­tion­al income” the res­i­dents of the town Unión Hidal­go would receive for allow­ing the tur­bines to be installed on their com­mu­nal land.

Mean­while, 300 meters out­side the park, theirn entrance blocked by nation­al police, near­ly 200 peo­ple from dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties in the region includ­ing San Mateo del Mar, San Dion­i­sio del Mar, San Fran­cis­co del Mar, Unión Hidal­go, Juchitán, San­ta María Xadani and the UCIZONI, protest­ed the park’s open­ing. [26]

FOOTNOTES

1. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Oct. 14 2012.

2. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

3. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Apr. 21 2012.

4. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

5. Recharge News, Mar. 12 2012.

6. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Apr. 23 2012.

7. Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, Jan. 26 2012.

8. Ibid

9. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Oct. 11 2012.

10. UCIZONI state­ment, Sept. 17 2012.

11. Inter­na­tion­al Labor Orga­ni­za­tion Con­ven­tion 169.

12. La Jor­na­da, Aug. 23 2012.

13. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

14. Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, Feb. 28 2012.

15. El Sol del Ist­mo, Jan. 30 2012.

16. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Apr. 21 2012.

17. Des­per­tar de Oax­a­ca, Sept. 28 2012.

18. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

19. Qua­dratin Oax­a­ca, Oct. 9 2012.

20. Ibid.

21. E‑Oaxaca, Oct. 15 2012.

22. Qua­dratin Oax­a­ca, Oct. 9 2012

23. E‑Oaxaca, Oct. 11 2012.

24. La Jor­na­da, Oct. 17 2012:

25. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

26. Eco Noti­cias Huat­ul­co. Oct 30, 2012.

Hambach Forest anti-open cast camp prepares for eviction (Germany)

The Ham­bach For­est has been occu­pied for half an year now. The for­est will get cleared to make way for the coal-open-cast-mine “Ham­bach­er Tage­bau”. This is togeth­er with two more open-cast-mines in the region and the pow­er plants that burns the coal, europes biggest pro­duc­er of CO2. They have already start­ed to cut the for­est, and the evic­tion of the camp can hap­pen any day. So read this anti-evic­tion-guide and see what you can do!

 

Before the evic­tion

The clear­ing of the Ham­bach­er For­est hast already start­ed. The for­est is evic­tion threat. If you have time, it makes sense to come to the for­est and sup­port the activists local­ly in the pro­tec­tion of the for­est
Think about whether you and your group can spend a cou­ple of days in the for­est to sup­port the Hambach180 cam­paign. If you know when you come write an email to  hambacherforst@riseup.net You find the the fly­er of the cam­paign here
Use the Ushahi­di-Apps (Android/iPhone) for our Stop-RWE-Crowdmap, to keep you up to date and report of sol­i­dar­i­ty actions or the evic­tion of the spot!
Send your mobile phone num­ber to  hambacherforst@riseup.net to get on the sms evic­tion list. In case of exi­c­tion you will be informed direct­ly.
Pre­pare before­hand when and where you want to do sol­idary actions. Seek out places of RWE in you region, as on this map, which is still upgrad­ed piece by piece. Make a research by your­self!
Draw a ban­ner before­hand. Here are some items you can use on the ban­ner: Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt
There is a design for fly­ers you can spread on a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion: Demo-Infofly­er_Rück­seite

Maybe you make it to orga­nize an infor­ma­tion ses­sion in the short term. There is an ODP pre­sen­ta­tion Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt.odp or as PDF: Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt.pdf Here are some videos
At the end of the week there is most like­ly print­ed stick­ers and posters. There is a b/w mas­ter copy: Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt
Dis­trib­ute stick­ers and posters in your city!

Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions

Fol­low­ing is a list of planned sol­i­dar­i­ty actions on Day X:

Berlin:

14 clock, ral­ly in front of the Inter­na­tion­al Trade Cen­tre Berlin (S+U Friedrich­straße)
19 clock, spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion, meet­ing place in front of the church at Lausitzer Platz (U
Gör­l­itzer Bahn­hof)
Ham­burg:

17 clock, spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion in front of Café Knall­hart on Uni­ver­si­ty Cam­pus (Van Melle Park 9)
Cologne:

14 clock, cen­tral of RWE Pow­er AG, Stüttgen­weg 2, 50935 Cologne
Essen:

18 clock, Front-exit Cen­tral sta­tion Essen

more to fol­low! Orga­nize your­selves and inform us about it:  info@ausgeco2hlt.de

Dur­ing the evic­tion

Think about whether you can come as fast as pos­si­ble in the for­est. Find out about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion:  http://hambacherforst.blogsport.de,  https://stopprwe.crowdmap.com or phone: 01577–5440595
If you can‘t come into the for­est or the dis­tance is too large decen­tral­izes sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are impor­tant. Now it’s time for your pre­pared actions. Take pic­tures and write arti­cles on  http://de.indymedia.org,  http://linksunten.indymedia.org and  https://stopprwe.crowdmap.com , and send them to aus­ge­co2hlt-press coor­di­na­tion:  presse@ausgeco2hlt.de
If you use Twit­ter to report use the hash­tag #hfb
If you have rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion on the evic­tion dur­ing the evic­tion, such as Police clo­sures, spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tions etc, post them on  https://stopptrwe.crowdmap.com

After a sol­i­dar­i­ty action try as fast as pos­si­ble to come in the for­est or get informed what makes sense

In gen­er­al

In case you still get your pow­er from RWE or its sub­sidiaries: pow­er switch see i.e.  http://www.atomausstieg-selber-machen.de/
Orga­nize local events.
Estab­lish a local group which work on the top­ic coal, a decen­tral­ized, eco­log­i­cal and social ener­gy tran­si­tion or cli­mate jus­tice
Come to our meet­ings, see  http://ausgeco2hlt.de
Vis­it the Ham­bach­er Forst, i.e. with your polit­i­cal group
Orga­nize sol­i­dar­i­ty par­ties to raise mon­ey for anti-repres­sion costs. ausgeco2hlt will soon like­ly estab­lish a flow-bor­der legal sup­port fund for cli­mate jus­tice activists.
Donate to the for­est, the WAA or ausgeCO2hlt, or ask wealthy peo­ple you know.
Talk about the cam­paign, the for­rest, the move­ment etc. in your social media chan­nels and with your friends
Dis­trib­ute posters, stick­ers and more in your city. There are mas­ter copies: Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt
Link  http://hambacherforst.blogsport.de and  http://ausgeco2hlt.de

ZAD — Reoccupation Demonstration November 17th. (France)

Notre Dame des Lan­des
Fac­ing the evic­tions:
Demon­stra­tion of reoc­cu­pa­tion !

To rebuild — against the air­port!

Pitch­forks, wood­en beams, planks, nails and tools in hand…
Meet­ing Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 17th in the morn­ing.

Notre Dame des Lan­des
Fac­ing the evic­tions:
Demon­stra­tion of reoc­cu­pa­tion !

To rebuild — against the air­port!

Pitch­forks, wood­en beams, planks, nails and tools in hand…
Meet­ing Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 17th in the morn­ing.

To read the call online or dowload posters, fly­ers… http://zad.nadir.org/

The strug­gle against the air­port project of Notre-Dame des Lan­des kept on grow­ing in the last years. Among oth­er ini­tia­tives, an occu­pa­tion move­ment has spread on the hous­es and farm­land threat­ened. A year ago, fac­ing
increas­ing threats on the dif­fer­ent hous­es, huts and gar­dens, inhab­i­tants of the ZAD and sol­i­dar­i­ty col­lec­tives called for a mass demon­stra­tion of
reoc­cu­pa­tion in case of evic­tions.

When Cae­sar is floun­der­ing…

On Tues­day, Octo­ber 16th the dread­ed evic­tion offen­sive start­ed.  1,200 police­men invad­ed the 1,800 hectares of the ZAD. They attacked grad­u­al­ly occu­pied hous­es and huts, destroy­ing them and wash­ing away every garbage
pieces out of the area, leav­ing noth­ing that could be used to rebuild. Occu­piers and all those who joined them on the spot resist­ed, bar­ri­cad­ed, reoc­cu­pied. Togeth­er, we have done every­thing to stop the destruc­tion machin­ery and block police move­ments … We’re still here!

Our deter­mi­na­tion was strength­ened by a great wave of sol­i­dar­i­ty com­ing from the entire coun­try and beyond: dai­ly demon­stra­tions in Nantes and in var­i­ous cities, sup­plies and mate­ri­als, sup­port actions on rep­re­sen­ta­tion
of social­ist par­ty, Vin­ci, air­port man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er crush­ers of our lives…

While most homes have already been evict­ed as well as some huts, many oth­er occu­piers remain in the woods, in the fields, in the trees. New con­struc­tions are already under­way. In addi­tion to the occu­piers, « legal » inhab­i­tants and local peas­ants are also threat­ened to have to leave the ZAD in the com­ing months. This is to say that this XXL evic­tion attempt is going to last. Wise guys from the depart­men­tal author­i­ty offi­cial­ly called their mil­i­tary oper­a­tion: “Cae­sar.” It is up to us show them how the resis­tance against the air­port is actu­al­ly relent­less, they will final­ly be defeat­ed and ridicu­lous.

We keep on fight­ing, we are still here!

Beyond the call to join the area and con­tin­ue the sol­i­dar­i­ty actions in the com­ing weeks, we con­firm today that a mass demon­stra­tion of reoc­cu­pa­tion will take place on Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 17th 2012, start­ing
from one of the vil­lages near the ZAD.

After this first evic­tion round, we are look­ing for­ward to a time of broad, con­struc­tive and offen­sive mobi­liza­tion, shared by the var­i­ous parts of the strug­gle: occu­piers, peas­ants, inhab­i­tants, local peo­ple and from else­where, asso­ci­a­tions and sol­i­dar­i­ty groups… The objec­tive is to recon­struct an open col­lec­tive place on threat­ened lands, meant for
strug­gle orga­ni­za­tion. We want to make this place a hub for occu­piers and peo­ple strug­gling against the air­port, a start­ing point for new hous­ing con­struc­tions, an anten­na to orga­nize resis­tance to future works: those of
the air­port and its high­way (which is the first stage of the project, meant to begin in Jan­u­ary). They well may mil­i­ta­rize the area; they will not pre­vent us from reset­tling here.

Ayrault, Vin­ci and oth­ers — the mes­sage is clear: Fuck off the land!

—- Addi­tion­al and prac­ti­cal infos —-

- Occu­piers from the ZAD and peo­ple from the net­work Reclaim The Fields launched this call for reoc­cu­pa­tion. They pre­vi­ous­ly had occu­pied waste­land with more than a thou­sand peo­ple in May 2012 in order to set­tle the veg­etable farm “Le Sabot”. Today we invite all peo­ple and groups to spread infor­ma­tion on this ini­tia­tive and to join Novem­ber 17th orga­ni­za­tion.

- Beyond a demon­stra­tion, this is above all about a col­lec­tive action that will gain pow­er from a long and active pres­ence of the great­est num­ber of per­sons. Plan to be there for the week­end and more if you can: to begin the occu­pa­tion, to con­tin­ue con­struc­tions, to defend, and to gen­er­ate ideas for the future.

- Bring diverse and var­ied tools and mate­ri­als, over­alls, sound, wacky cre­ations, portable radios, pies to share and unfail­ing deter­mi­na­tion.

- It is pos­si­ble to arrive the day before. Meet­ing and camp­ing spots will be announced in the days before the event.

- Giv­en the ener­gy required to resist against evic­tions by then, and the con­se­quent exhaus­tion of occu­piers, suc­cess of this event depends cru­cial­ly on the involve­ment of sol­idary indi­vid­u­als and col­lec­tives
every­where. We call for pub­lic meet­ings, relay­ing infor­ma­tion and car shar­ing in each vil­lage for Novem­ber 17th.

- Posters and fly­ers to print and pho­to­copy are avail­able on the web­site, and on paper in nantes (B17) or in the ZAD (Vache-Rit). Any finan­cial sup­port is wel­come (check payable to « Vivre sans aéro­port » (“Liv­ing with­out an air­port ?), La Pri­maudière — Notre-Dame des Lan­des 44130 ; bank trans­fer: 20041 01011 1162852D32 36)

As the sit­u­a­tion changes every day, check infor­ma­tion reg­u­lar­ly on:http://zad.nadir.org/

For Novem­ber 17th, we are look­ing for wood­en beams, con­struc­tion and climb­ing mate­ri­als, kitchens, tents, musi­cians, batukadas, huts kits, tools, trac­tors…

For any exchange, help, relays, and pro­pos­als:  reclaimthezad@riseup.net

— Why do we strug­gle? For the resis­tance to the air­port and it?s world. —

At Notre-Dame des Lan­des, pol­i­cy mak­ers and con­creters are work­ing on anew air­port to ful­fil their dreams of vora­cious metrop­o­lis and eco­nom­ic expan­sion. For 40 years they have been want­i­ng to destroy under con­crete
2,000 hectares of agri­cul­tur­al land and habi­tats sit­u­at­ed on the north of Nantes. The con­cerned area is called ZAD, orig­i­nal­ly named ?Zone d?Aménagement Dif­féré? (Deferred Devel­op­ment Zone) by air­port stake­hold­ers is now ?Zone A Défendre? (Zone To Defend).

Since the begin­nings of this project, resis­tances are orga­niz­ing. This strug­gle is at the cross­roads of issues on which unite and think of com­mon strate­gies. Through it, we are fight­ing feed­ing on a drip, indus­tri­al
soci­ety and glob­al warm­ing, ter­ri­to­ry con­trol and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment poli­cies, cities and ways of life stan­dard­iza­tion, pri­va­ti­za­tion of the com­mons, myths of growth and the illu­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion…

Today as yes­ter­day, the oppo­nents are far from giv­ing up and keep on strug­gling via: demon­stra­tions, legal actions, links with oth­er strug­gles, hunger strikes, cir­cu­la­tion of news­pa­pers, free tolls oper­a­tions,
oppo­si­tions to drillings, sab­o­tages, dis­tur­bance of impact stud­ies and archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions, office and build­ing sites occu­pa­tions, etc.

To the detri­ment of the state and Vin­ci who buy and destroy to clear the ZAD, life and activ­i­ty den­si­fied and diver­si­fied in the zone over more than three years. Many aban­doned hous­es have been reha­bil­i­tat­ed and
occu­pied, huts were built on the ground and in the trees, col­lec­tives occu­py land to pro­duce veg­eta­bles. Meet­ing spaces, a bak­ery, a library, homes, were open to all. More than a hun­dred per­sons were con­stant­ly liv­ing in the ZAD, sup­port­ed by many oth­er peo­ple, local and from else­where, who met and organ­ised there. This pres­ence on the ground has allowed rapid reac­tions against the works? process under­tak­en by Vin­ci. It is this cre­ative and sub­ver­sive pack that they seek to erad­i­cate today in order to start the build­ing sites.

We keep in mind the past vic­to­ries against mega­lo­ma­ni­ac projects, from the nuclear indus­try to the mil­i­tary. As in the Car­net, in Plo­goff or in the Larzac, we know that this air­port can still be stopped. We look at the oth­er side of the Alps where oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of the high-speed train line Lyon-Turin mobi­lizes the entire Susa val­ley, where tens of thou­sands of peo­ple pre­vent the works. Here as well, any attempt to con­crete the land will cost them dear­ly.

Campaigners from No Dash for Gas abseil 90m down power station chimney to end 7 day occupation

This morn­ing the last two cam­paign­ers from No Dash for Gas abseiled down the side of one of the chim­neys they have been occu­py­ing at EDF’s West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion for the past 7 days to end the most auda­cious and high pro­file direct action in recent years. Four cam­paign­ers had left yes­ter­day, all have hand­ed them­selves in to the police.

Total occu­pa­tion time: 7 days
Total CO2 saved: 19117 tonnes

The sev­en day protest saw 16 activists occu­py the flues of two of the chim­neys at the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. Whilst up there, they rigged a rope between the two chim­neys and peo­ple were able to trav­el across. The group, No Dash for Gas, were there to stop emis­sions, halt con­struc­tion of the pow­er sta­tion and high­light the sense­less­ness of the gov­ern­men­t’s pro­posed ‘dash for gas’ in the upcom­ing Ener­gy Bill. In a move that the gov­ern­men­t’s own Select Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change has said might be ille­gal, the gov­ern­ment wants to build up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions. This would lock us into rely­ing on fos­sil fuels for anoth­er 30 years, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to hit emis­sions reduc­tions tar­gets, and ensur­ing house­hold ener­gy bills con­tin­ue to rise.

Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the cam­paign­ers and the last per­son com­ing down from the chim­ney, said:
 

“This was the first time activists have man­aged to suc­cess­ful­ly shut down a pow­er sta­tion, and the longest occu­pa­tion of a pow­er sta­tion the UK has ever seen. We stopped 20,000 tonnes of CO2 being emit­ted, pre­vent­ed any con­struc­tion work on the site for a week and got our mes­sage about how reck­less and ridicu­lous, let alone prob­a­bly ille­gal, George Osborne’s pro­posed ‘dash for gas’ is out to thou­sands of peo­ple. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved – but it’s only the start of the bat­tle for our ener­gy future.”

Dur­ing the week-long occu­pa­tion, Ener­gy Min­is­ter John Hayes’ anti-wind­farm out­burst demon­strat­ed that the Coali­tion’s ener­gy pol­i­cy is in utter dis­ar­ray. We also wit­nessed Hur­ri­cane Sandy wreak unprece­dent­ed dam­age in one of the most severe warn­ings of the effects of cli­mate change the world has seen. By shut­ting down West Bur­ton for a week, No Dash for Gas have demon­strat­ed the need to make the tran­si­tion away from a fos­sil-fuel-depen­dent ener­gy infra­struc­ture. Dan­ny Chivers, one of the cam­paign­ers who occu­pied the cen­tral chim­ney, said:

“Hur­ri­cane Sandy demon­strat­ed all too clear­ly that cli­mate change is already seri­ous — and it’s only get­ting more so each month it gets ignored. Com­pa­nies like EDF are get­ting away with mur­der, for the sake of some short-term prof­it. They are burn­ing more and more fos­sil fuels, like gas, when we des­per­ate­ly need a sus­tain­able and fair ener­gy sys­tem. The tech­nol­o­gy to sup­ply our ener­gy needs through renew­able ener­gy sources already exists, but the peo­ple with the pow­er are reck­less­ly and irre­spon­si­bly ignor­ing this.”

Day 7: Update and photos from No Dash for Gas

 

 

No Dash for Gas activists have now pre­vent­ed over 14,500 tonnes of CO2 from being emit­ted, as the chim­ney they are occu­py­ing had to be shut down

They are sav­ing over 2300 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions every day

 

 

No Dash for Gas activists have now pre­vent­ed over 14,500 tonnes of CO2 from being emit­ted, as the chim­ney they are occu­py­ing had to be shut down

They are sav­ing over 2300 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions every day

The Goven­men­t’s dash 4 gas is ille­gal because it will make it impos­si­ble 2 meet legal­ly-bind­ing emis­sions reduc­tions tar­gets under Cli­mate Act

Just 2 activists left occu­py­ing the chim­ney as they head into day 8. Longest-run­ning pow­er sta­tion occu­pa­tion ever!

They’ve had work­ers con­tact­ing them in pri­vate giv­ing their sup­port. Can’t speak open­ly, fear for of jobs

 

Grapes of wrath

Vine­yards in Sark  sab­o­taged.

Sup­port wires – some up to 200 yards long – have been cut and repairs will take up to six months. The cost is esti­mat­ed at tens of thou­sands of pounds.

Vine­yards in Sark  sab­o­taged.

Sup­port wires – some up to 200 yards long – have been cut and repairs will take up to six months. The cost is esti­mat­ed at tens of thou­sands of pounds.

Kevin Delaney of Sark Estate Man­age­ment says staff who have been work­ing on the project are dis­traught.

In all 40,000 vines have been affect­ed out of the 100,000 plant­ed. The sup­port wires were sev­ered at both ends and in the mid­dle. Mr Delaney said it was a “night of dev­as­ta­tion”.

The act of sab­o­tage came ahead of a protest about the scale of vine­yard plan­ta­tions in the island. The Agri­cul­ture Com­mit­tee have called for a halt on the con­ver­sion of graz­ing land. They fear it will lead to the col­lapse of farm­ing and dam­age bio­di­ver­si­ty.

More than 80 islanders staged a protest near a field cur­rent­ly being ploughed for vine­yard devel­op­ment.

In a pub­lic state­ment the com­mit­tee say

“The scale of this new mono­cul­ture will have a dev­as­tat­ing effect on Sark’s unique and diverse wildlife. Many species which rely on Sark’s healthy fields – from earth­worms, insects, but­ter­flies, moths, bats, birds, up to Pere­grine Fal­cons which nest around our cliffs, will suf­fer as the tra­di­tion­al envi­ron­ment is impov­er­ished.

“We call on the Sark Estate Man­age­ment to halt present work and recon­sid­er the agri­cul­tur­al plans and pri­or­i­ties for their land in Sark.”

The agri­cul­ture com­mit­tee say they have wor­ries about the use of Bor­deaux Mix­ture, which con­tains cop­per sul­phate, becom­ing air­borne and spread­ing out­side the vine­yards. 

TAMPAKAN MASSACRE: International solidarity requested against SMI-Xstrata corporation (Philippines, Switzerland)

SMI-Xstra­ta is a Swiss cor­po­ra­tion which has a min­ing appli­ca­tion in south Cota­ba­to, Min­danao. despite the resis­tance of the com­mu­ni­ty the Philip­pine gov­ern­ment is back­ing-up the said appli­ca­tion.

SMI-Xstra­ta is a Swiss cor­po­ra­tion which has a min­ing appli­ca­tion in south Cota­ba­to, Min­danao. despite the resis­tance of the com­mu­ni­ty the Philip­pine gov­ern­ment is back­ing-up the said appli­ca­tion.

In order to silence the resis­tance the gov­ern­ment use the mil­i­tary. 13 peo­ple were killed includ­ing an 8 years old boy and 3 months preg­nant woman. The cul­prit is based in Switzer­land. We are ask­ing for your sup­port to put pres­sure on the cor­po­ra­tion to stop the destruc­tion of nat­ur­al resources and to seek jus­tice for the vic­tims.

At 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 18, in Datal Aliong, Kiblawan, Davao del Sur, Juvy, 27, wife of B’laan leader Daguil Capi­on, was shot in cold blood togeth­er with her two sons, Jor­dan, 13, and John, 8 by ele­ments of the 27th Infantry Bat­tal­ion, led by 1st Lt. Dante Jimenez. The youngest daugh­ter Vicky, 4, escaped but was wound­ed.

When a rel­a­tive of the vic­tims said that it was bet­ter if the chil­dren were not harmed, a sol­dier replied “mas maayo nga tiwa­son  ang  mga bata para wala’y wit­ness” (bet­ter to fin­ish off the chil­dren, so there are no wit­ness­es). Before Juvy was shot, the rel­a­tive heard Juvy say, “tama na ayaw namo sige ug pab­u­to kay nai­go nako” (please stop fir­ing your guns,  as I am already wound­ed). But the sol­diers kept fir­ing their guns.

Imme­di­ate­ly after the inci­dent, Colonel Alex­is Bra­vo, com­man­der of the 27th Infantry Batal­lion, con­duct­ed press con­fer­ences for radio and print, claim­ing the inci­dent was an ‘encounter’ with the NPA. Evi­dence how­ev­er showed there was will­ful intent to kill inno­cent chil­dren and their moth­er. They even talked to the unarmed moth­er before killing her. How can that be an encounter? Juvy, the moth­er, togeth­er with her hus­band Daguil, are active lead­ers in oppos­ing the min­ing project. Col. Bra­vo, Lt. Jimenez and sev­en oth­er sol­diers were relieved of duty imme­di­ate­ly after the mas­sacre.

Kiblawan May­or Mariv­ic Dia­mante, who is an active sup­port­er of Xstra­ta-SMI and receives mil­lions in ‘devel­op­ment’ funds from them, and who is often a guest speak­er in min­ing con­fer­ences in Mani­la, attempt­ed to take pos­ses­sion of two chil­dren who were vital wit­ness­es, say­ing they would be brought to the hos­pi­tal. The moth­er of Daguil refused, trig­ger­ing a tug of war, paci­fied by Atty. Haw­tay of the Com­mis­sion on Human Rights (CHR). The chil­dren are now safe­ly in the hands of the Social Action Cen­ter of Mar­bel. (Sources – Task Force Detainee of the Philip­pines, Social Action Cen­ter Mar­bel, rappler.com, LILAK).

The mil­i­tary wants to con­vince every­one it is a counter-insur­gency war. They do not see it as a people’s war against the multi­na­tion­al they pro­tect. They talk of sus­pect­ed com­mu­nist rebels. That is the way they jus­ti­fy their pres­ence. They say they are there because the rebels are there. They say they want to pro­tect the peo­ple from the rebels. But they kill instead the peo­ple they say they pro­tect. In truth, from their actions, they are there to sup­port and pro­tect the min­ing project. Before the multi­na­tion­als came, there was peace in Tam­pakan. Now the domain of the B’laans has been muti­lat­ed.

For more details (WARNING: Con­tains graph­ic pho­to’s of masacre) http://onsiteinfoshopphilippines.wordpress.com/newsupdate/

Residents protest at Manchester Airport

On Sat­ur­day 3rd Novem­ber around 100 local res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers took part in a protest walk against the pro­posed World Logis­tics Hub at Man­ches­ter Air­port. The pro­test­ers braved the cold to take a route around the 90 acre for­mer green­belt site, which is threat­ened by the plans to build 43 car­go sheds and almost 1,500 car park­ing space

Local res­i­dents, wildlife enthu­si­asts and envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers spoke at var­i­ous points along the walk, shar­ing their expe­ri­ences of fight­ing Man­ches­ter Air­port expan­sion and high­light­ing the numer­ous ways that the plans would affect local peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.

 

The Wildlife Walk came the week after the Wythen­shawe Area Committee‘recommended for approval’ the World Logis­tics Hub plans, on the 25th Octo­ber.  The appli­ca­tion will now be sent to the Plan­ning and High­ways Com­mit­tee at Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil for a final deci­sion on 22nd Novem­ber 2012. A num­ber of atten­dees at the Wildlife Walk, keen for their con­cerns to be brought to this Com­mit­tee, pledged to attend this Novem­ber meet­ing at Man­ches­ter Town Hall.

Sev­er­al Coun­cil­lors of the Wythen­shawe Area Com­mit­tee backed the Logis­tics Hub plans based on the Air­port’s promis­es of local job oppor­tu­ni­ties. How­ev­er cam­paign­ers argue that

job cre­ation fig­ures pro­posed by the Air­port are inflat­ed.

Jane Beet­son from ‘Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port’ cam­paign  said “When Man­ches­ter Air­port first announced plans for a sec­ond run­way, they claimed 50,000 jobs would be cre­at­ed.  No-where near that num­ber of jobs mate­ri­alised.  Just like then, they are mis­lead­ing the pub­lic now.”

She added, “Local Coun­cil­lors say they will force the Air­port to give jobs to local peo­ple but in prac­tice they will have no way of enforc­ing this on the firms that move into the new office and ware­house spaces.  We need to cre­ate green jobs in sus­tain­able indus­tries not dirty avi­a­tion.” 

The Wildlife Walk was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty for wildlife experts to explain that Air­port’s promis­es of pre­serv­ing wildlife are also unre­al­is­tic, and that cre­at­ing a ‘mit­i­ga­tion zone’ is no sub­sti­tu­tion for leav­ing habi­tats untouched.

Along the route, cam­paign­ers encoun­tered the threat­ened habi­tats of numer­ous plant and ani­mal species. Sev­er­al mature oak trees line Sun­bank Lane, pro­vid­ing nest­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for rare birds, and poten­tial roost­ing spots for endan­gered bat species. The site is also home to 12 ponds occu­pied by Great Crest­ed Newts, an endan­gered species found only in the North West of Eng­land. Walk­ers were also able to spot signs of pro­tect­ed ani­mals for exam­ple bad­ger snuf­fle holes and mole hills in the green space around Sun­bank.

Campaigners prevent carbon emissions in longest-ever power station occupation

Government’s dash for gas brand­ed ‘inde­fen­si­ble’ in wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy

Government’s dash for gas brand­ed ‘inde­fen­si­ble’ in wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy

EDF has con­firmed that the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion will remain shut down after more than thir­ty No Dash for Gas cli­mate change cam­paign­ers evad­ed secu­ri­ty and entered the site on Mon­day morn­ing. Six­teen of them are spend­ing their third day at the top of two 300 ft smoke­stacks at the West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire, and last night built new bar­ri­cades out of scaf­fold­ing, lad­ders and wood. They have abseiled down inside one of the chim­neys to set up camp in tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. [1] As long as they hold their posi­tion above the fur­nace the plant is unable to oper­ate.

Because the plant was not yet ful­ly oper­a­tional and not con­nect­ed to the grid, the cam­paign­ers claim they have pre­vent­ed 2371 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions a day by shut­ting down the one work­ing chim­ney. This is equiv­a­lent to the ener­gy that an aver­age home uses for 182 years, or tak­ing 465 cars off the road for a year. [2] As the human and eco­nom­ic costs of Hur­ri­cane Sandy become clear­er, the need to take action on cli­mate change and avoid many more instances of such extreme weath­er-relat­ed dis­as­ters has nev­er been more press­ing.

Anneka Kel­ly is one of the activists occu­py­ing one of the chim­neys. Speak­ing on a mobile phone she said:

“Ener­gy bills are going through the roof, the East Coast of the US has been dev­as­tat­ed by Hur­ri­cane Sandy, we’re see­ing droughts and floods across the world and glob­al tem­per­a­tures are ris­ing. Yet the gov­ern­ment, at the behest of the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies, wants to build 20 new gas pow­er sta­tions. This is inde­fen­si­ble. Gas is expen­sive, high­ly pol­lut­ing and we don’t need it. We should be invest­ing in clean high-tech renew­ables that slash pol­lu­tion and in the long run will cost a lot less.”

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire has been tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. [3] The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants – a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills. This deci­sion is like­ly to be con­firmed when the delayed Ener­gy Bill is pub­lished towards the end of Novem­ber. But the activists echo many sci­en­tists and the government’s own advis­ers in call­ing for an end to plans for a new dash for gas and invest­ment in a high-tech car­bon-free elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem instead. [4]

Con­trary to claims by min­is­ters and the indus­try, gas is a dirty fuel that pos­es an unac­cept­able threat to the envi­ron­ment. It’s also expen­sive — offi­cial fig­ures from Ofgem show that the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose £150 last year, with £100 of that due to ris­ing whole­sale gas prices.[5] Only last week EDF raised their prices, fol­low­ing most of the oth­er major com­pa­nies and plung­ing even more peo­ple into fuel pover­ty. Mean­while high-tech renew­able sys­tems are rapid­ly com­ing down in price, mean­ing that soon they will be cheap­er, while com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try are turn­ing their back on the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies in favour of coop­er­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty ener­gy schemes.

The activists have not yet decid­ed when they are going to come down, but have pledged to give the police sev­er­al hours warn­ing, and hand them­selves in. Nev­er­the­less, the police have crit­i­cised them for wast­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey on an expen­sive police oper­a­tion.

Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the activists occu­py­ing one of the chim­neys, said : ‘It’s EDF who are wast­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey. There is no need for such a heavy police pres­ence on the ground and heli­copters in the sky. It’s not like we’re try­ing to escape! We have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the police from the start and assured them this is a respon­si­ble protest, with safe­ty at its heart. We will give them plen­ty of warn­ing when we intend to come down, and will hand our­selves over.’

Find out more at www.nodashforgas.org.uk
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ENDS

Notes to edi­tors:

  1. The night-time incur­sion was launched at 2am when the raiders got through the secu­ri­ty fence. Under cov­er of dark­ness fif­teen of them crossed the expanse to the chim­neys then split into two groups and began the 300ft climb to the top. They are now build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions. They have enough sup­plies with them to last at least a week and say they’re in it for the long haul. The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. A fur­ther team remained on the ground to liaise with the plant’s man­agers. Before launch­ing the protest they engaged in exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion with an expert engi­neer and each under­went inten­sive safe­ty train­ing.
  2. Accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine plants like this emit 353g of CO2 per kilo­watt hour: http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/policy-legislation/emr/2179-eps-impact-assessment-emr-wp.pdf . This plant had been gen­er­at­ing 280 megawatts:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/30/no-dash-for-gas-occupy . 353g per hour for a day is 8.47 kg a day (353 x 24 = 8470g) and 8.47 x 280,000 is 2371 tonnes a day. That’s the same as ener­gy that an aver­age home uses for 182 years, or tak­ing 465 cars off the road for a year. A dri­ver would have to dri­ve their car non-stop, night and day, for ten and a half years to emit that much…
    http://www.yousustain.com/footprint/howmuchco2?co2=2371+tons
  3. West Bur­ton gas pow­er sta­tion is a 1,300MW Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine (CCGT) plant, cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion in Not­ting­hamshire. It is com­prised of three tur­bine hous­es and chim­neys, labelled Units 1, 2 and 3. Unit 2 is com­plete and is oper­at­ing at almost full capac­i­ty. Units 1 and 3 are fur­ther behind, with Unit 1 clos­er to com­ple­tion than 3. When com­plete, the new CCGT plant will emit approx­i­mate­ly 4.5 mil­lion tonnes CO2 per year when oper­at­ing at full capac­i­ty. This is more than the annu­al emis­sions of Paraguay. [i]
  4. The Gov­ern­men­t’s inde­pen­dent cli­mate advis­ers, the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, have called for our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem to be almost entire­ly car­bon free by 2030.[ii] They have defined this as mean­ing that our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem should pro­duce no more than 50g of CO2 for every kilo­watt hour of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed, by 2030. The Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, John Gum­mer, recent­ly wrote to the Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, to warn that George Osborne’s plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of gas pow­er could be ille­gal: “exten­sive use of unabat­ed gas-fired capac­i­ty… in 2030 and beyond would be incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing leg­is­lat­ed car­bon bud­gets.” [iii]
  5. Fig­ures from Ofgem show that in 2011 the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose by £150, with £100 of this due to the ris­ing cost of gas. [iv]

Facts and fig­ures on the dash for gas:

· Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, has called for 20GW of gas pow­er sta­tions to be built by 2030, approx­i­mate­ly 20 new pow­er sta­tions. [v]

· He has also guar­an­teed that gas pow­er sta­tions that already have plan­ning con­sent can, if built, con­tin­ue emit­ting CO2 unabat­ed until 2045, i.e. their full life-span, by exempt­ing them from emis­sions reg­u­la­tions. [vi] There is cur­rent­ly 13GW of gas that has either recent­ly been com­plet­ed, is in con­struc­tion, or has been grant­ed plan­ning con­sent. [vii]

· Lord Turn­er, in his for­mer role as Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, wrote to the Ener­gy Sec­re­tary to warn this would lead to “the risk that there will be too much gas-fired gen­er­a­tion instead of low car­bon invest­ment” and that the pol­i­cy could take emis­sions “beyond the lim­its implied by car­bon bud­gets.”[viii]

· Last week, EDF hiked their ener­gy prices by 10.8%, the high­est of any of the big six ener­gy com­pa­nies so far this win­ter.

· Recent polling by YouGov found that 55% of peo­ple want more wind­farms, com­pared to just 17% who want more gas pow­er sta­tions. [ix]

· An ICM poll found that more than two-thirds of peo­ple would rather have a wind tur­bine than a shale gas well near their home. [x]

· The Off­shore Wind Val­u­a­tion Group found that har­ness­ing just 29% of the prac­ti­cal off­shore renew­able resource by 2050 would gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty equiv­a­lent of 1 bil­lion bar­rels of oil annu­al­ly, match­ing North Sea oil and gas pro­duc­tion and mak­ing Britain a net elec­tric­i­ty exporter. [xi]

[xi] http://offshorevaluation.org/downloads/offshore_valuation_full.pdf

No Dash for Gas 40 hours and counting: Update & Photos

Yes­ter­day more than 20 cli­mate change activists evad­ed secu­ri­ty to shut down the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. 16 of them have remained in the pow­er sta­tion occu­py­ing two of its chim­neys to pre­vent it from being turned on again. They climbed two smoke­stacks at EDF Energy’s West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire and abseiled down the insides of the chim­neys. The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. They’ve now been up there for over 40 hours, they intend to stay there until it is no longer pos­si­ble to remain. They have set up camp with tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. They have also instal­let­ed solar pan­els and are build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions.

The group have come togeth­er under the ban­ner ‘No Dash For Gas’, from across the coun­try to take action against the new wave of invest­ment in gas. Prof­it-hun­gry cor­po­ra­tions have been suc­cess­ful in lob­by­ing politi­cians to replace coal with gas as the new back­bone to our high­ly-pol­lut­ing and inse­cure ener­gy infra­struc­ture, whilst doing noth­ing to tack­le cli­mate change or ris­ing ener­gy bills.

For as long as we have an eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ven by prof­it, our ener­gy sys­tem will con­tin­ue to dri­ve us towards cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change. We’re here to fight back against an eco­log­i­cal­ly irre­versible deci­sion to con­tin­ue with a fos­sil-fuel pow­ered ener­gy sys­tem despite the fact that renew­able tech­nolo­gies are capa­ble of pow­er­ing a sus­tain­able future. The effects of anthro­pogenic cli­mate change have been more wide­spread and more severe this year than any so far on record – the arc­tic melt smashed through all pre­vi­ous records, the drought in the USA has sparked the begin­ning of a world­wide food cri­sis and there has been a marked increase in extreme weath­er events across the globe.

This action is one of many that have tak­en place this year as part of a renewed effort by activists across the UK to take action against cli­mate change and the eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ving it. Dur­ing our time up the chim­ney we want to con­nect with groups and organ­i­sa­tions who share our belief that the time to take rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change is now; and rad­i­cal action stretch­es from find­ing ways for com­mu­ni­ties to adapt and be resilient to cli­mate change, to stand­ing up to the vest­ed eco­nom­ic inter­ests that are pre­vent­ing the tran­si­tion to an eco­log­i­cal­ly viable and more humane soci­ety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire is being tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants—a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills.

Keep in touch with lat­est devel­op­ments by fol­low­ing us on twit­ter: @nodashforgas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protest camp on top of chim­ney