Category: Animal Rights/Liberation

Sea Shepherd Ploy Leaves Two Frustrated Japanese Whaling Captains Looking Silly at Sea

28.2.12

Since Feb­ru­ary 22nd, The Sea Shep­herd ship, Steve Irwin, has led a Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel and the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet secu­ri­ty ves­sel on a mer­ry wild goose chase away from the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.

28.2.12

Since Feb­ru­ary 22nd, The Sea Shep­herd ship, Steve Irwin, has led a Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel and the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet secu­ri­ty ves­sel on a mer­ry wild goose chase away from the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.

With the Sea Shep­herd ship, Bob Bark­er, ful­ly refu­eled and head­ing back to the South­ern Ocean to hunt down the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet, the Sea Shep­herd ship, Steve Irwin, head­ed north for Mac­quar­ie Island under the ruse of a fuel trans­fer with the Bob Bark­er.

Sea Shep­herd had declared that the Bob Bark­er would refu­el the Steve Irwin and that both ships would return to chase the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet until the end of the sea­son. The inten­tion, how­ev­er, was for the ful­ly fueled Bob Bark­er to return to the South­ern Ocean alone. The Steve Irwin’s job was to decoy the two Japan­ese ships away from the Bob Bark­er.

The two Japan­ese ships fol­lowed and ille­gal­ly entered the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone where they have been pro­hib­it­ed by order of the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court and the Gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia.

The Yushin Maru No. 3's hull obliterated with black and red paint. Photo: Billy DangerThe Yushin Maru No. 3’s hull oblit­er­at­ed with black and red paint. After a day at Mac­quar­ie Island, the Steve Irwin made the move north­ward to Auck­land Island, New Zealand as a change of plans to refu­el with the Bob Bark­er. The Yushin Maru No. 3 and the Shonan Maru No. 2 fol­lowed.

Mean­while, the Bob Bark­er was putting hun­dreds of miles between them and the two ships wait­ing for the refu­el­ing oper­a­tion that we nev­er intend­ed to actu­al­ly hap­pen.

The Bob Bark­er will con­tin­ue to chase the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet for the remain­der of the sea­son, to the end of March if need be, while the Steve Irwin returns to Aus­tralia.

“We have placed the Japan­ese secu­ri­ty ship, the Shonan Maru No. 2, and the har­poon ves­sel, the Yushin Maru No. 3, a great dis­tance from the whal­ing oper­a­tions and the fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru. It could take them more than a week to return. It was a very suc­cess­ful ploy that has allowed the Bob Bark­er to be free of its tail and to knock out two of the Japan­ese ships from the game for more than two weeks,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

Cap­tain Peter Ham­marst­edt, of Swe­den, is now in com­mand of the Bob Bark­er. He replaced Cap­tain Alex Cor­nelis­sen who need­ed to return to his duties as Sea Shep­herd direc­tor of oper­a­tions for the Gala­pa­gos.

“The Japan­ese ships fell for the bait, fol­low­ing hard on our heels first to Mac­quar­ie Island and then onto Auck­land Island. They have wast­ed tons of fuel and weeks of time to accom­plish noth­ing more than to escort the Steve Irwin back north. Now they have no one to fol­low any­more and the Bob Bark­er is free to con­tin­ue the chase,” said Cap­tain Wat­son.

With only three weeks left in the sea­son, the whalers are run­ning out of time fast. They have not had much time, or the har­poon ves­sels, avail­able to real­ize their quo­ta.

“Because we lost our scout ves­sel, the Brigitte Bar­dot, we have been hand­i­capped this sea­son. But despite that, we have chased this out­law fleet more than 16,000 miles from west to east and from north to south. I am con­fi­dent that we have severe­ly impact­ed their kill quo­ta once again.”

Sea Shepherd Chases the Japanese Whalers into Yesterday

22nd Jan­u­ary 2012

The Japan­ese whal­ing fleet are not where they should be this time of year.

Last year the fleet was oper­at­ing in the Ross Sea. This year their “sci­en­tif­ic sur­vey” was sup­posed to take place in the waters south and west of Tas­ma­nia, east and south of South Africa.

22nd Jan­u­ary 2012

The Japan­ese whal­ing fleet are not where they should be this time of year.

Last year the fleet was oper­at­ing in the Ross Sea. This year their “sci­en­tif­ic sur­vey” was sup­posed to take place in the waters south and west of Tas­ma­nia, east and south of South Africa.

Every year they alter­nate. But not this year! Although the whalers attempt­ed to begin their killing oper­a­tions in the waters south­west of Aus­tralia, the Sea Shep­herd ships have chased the entire whal­ing fleet ever east­ward. At 1700 hours AEST, the Bob Bark­er encoun­tered the Yushin Maru No. 3 at 66 Degrees, 22 min­utes South and 179 Degrees, 05 min­utes West.

From being inter­cept­ed 500 miles west of Fre­man­tle, Aus­tralia, the Japan­ese fleet has run over 4,500 nau­ti­cal miles for the last 30 days, all the way into the Ross Sea, far to the East of Aus­tralia. This is an aver­age of 150 miles a day, leav­ing very lit­tle time to kill whales with only one har­poon ves­sel. The oth­er two har­poon ves­sels have either been tail­ing or search­ing for the Sea Shep­herd ships.

“You can say we chased the whale killers into yes­ter­day since we have crossed the Inter­na­tion­al Date Line,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, of the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin. “This illus­trates that they real­ly have no sci­en­tif­ic agen­da at all since their so-called sur­vey requires them to “sam­ple” whales from the two dif­fer­ent areas alter­na­tive­ly each year. This is not about sci­ence and it nev­er has been. It’s not even about prof­it any­more because we have negat­ed their prof­its. It’s sim­ply about pride. Whal­ing in the South­ern Ocean has become a heav­i­ly sub­si­dized wel­fare project for an archa­ic indus­try that has no place in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry.”

Sea Shepherd’s cam­paign, Oper­a­tion Divine Wind, has been chal­leng­ing this year due to the thir­ty mil­lion dol­lars allo­cat­ed to the whal­ing fleet for added secu­ri­ty. This mon­ey was tak­en from the tsuna­mi and earth­quake relief fund.

“They have ten mil­lion dol­lars for every one mil­lion dol­lars we have to finance our three ships,” said Cap­tain Alex Cor­nelis­sen of the Bob Bark­er. “They have the full sup­port of their gov­ern­ment and lit­er­al­ly have a license to kill because if any of us are injured or killed, their gov­ern­ment will back them and jus­ti­fy their actions. Our gov­ern­ments con­demn us just for toss­ing rot­ten but­ter on their decks.”

The chase across the bot­tom of the world involves five ships from the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet and two ships from Sea Shep­herd. The third Sea Shep­herd ship, the Brigitte Bar­dot, was dam­aged by heavy seas and had to return to Fre­man­tle, Aus­tralia for repairs.

Nev­er before has the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet aban­doned one des­ig­nat­ed whal­ing “sur­vey” area for anoth­er. Sea Shep­herd has appar­ent­ly seri­ous­ly dis­rupt­ed the Japan­ese whal­ing plan for this sea­son and has cost them a huge amount in fuel costs. In addi­tion, two of the three har­poon ves­sels have been tak­en away from killing whales in order to tail the Steve Irwin and the Bob Bark­er. The Yushin Maru No. 2 is tail­ing the Steve Irwin and the Yushin Maru No. 3 is tail­ing the Bob Bark­er. This has left only the Yushin Maru to hunt for whales.

Sea Shep­herd has been able to keep the whal­ing fleet on the move and con­tin­ues to track their move­ments by rely­ing on drone oper­a­tions and ten years of expe­ri­ence fol­low­ing the pre­dictable move­ments of the whalers.

Last sea­son the Bob Bark­er was able to chase the Nis­shin Maru all the way to the tip of South Amer­i­ca before they quit and returned to Japan in humil­i­a­tion after tak­ing only sev­en­teen per­cent of their kill quo­ta.

Three Sea Shepherd Crew Injured in Skirmish with Japanese Harpoon Vessel

January 18th, 2012

The Japanese whalers have escalated their aggression by throwing iron grappling hooks at Sea Shepherd boats.

Two Steve Irwin crew were struck in the shoul­der with iron grap­pling hooks and one crewmem­ber was struck twice in the face with a long bam­boo pole.

January 18th, 2012

The Japanese whalers have escalated their aggression by throwing iron grappling hooks at Sea Shepherd boats.

Two Steve Irwin crew were struck in the shoul­der with iron grap­pling hooks and one crewmem­ber was struck twice in the face with a long bam­boo pole.

The Yushin Maru No. 2 con­tin­ues to tail the Steve Irwin. The inci­dent occurred at 0400 Hours AEST at 64 degrees 17 min­utes South and 155 degrees 41 min­utes East. This is about 300 miles north of Maw­son Penin­su­la off the George V Land coast of Antarc­ti­ca.

“Our small boats were attempt­ing to slow down the Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel Yushin Maru No. 2, which is aggres­sive­ly tail­ing the Steve Irwin,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

Yushin Maru sprays Delta boat with water cannonYushin Maru sprays Delta boat with water can­nonAmer­i­can crewmem­ber Bri­an Race, (25) from New York, was jabbed twice in the face with a bam­boo pole receiv­ing lac­er­a­tions above his right eye and on his nose.

Rus­sell Bergh of South Africa, (35) a cam­era­man for Ani­mal Plan­et, was struck in the right arm and shoul­der with an iron grap­pling hook thrown from the har­poon ves­sel result­ing in deep bruis­ing.

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Guil­laume Col­let of France, (27) was also struck in the right arm and shoul­der by an iron grap­pling hook result­ing in deep bruis­ing.

There were no injuries incurred by any of the crew on the Japan­ese ves­sel.

Two of the three har­poon ves­sels have been assigned to tail Sea Shep­herd ships, effec­tive­ly knock­ing out two of the three killing boats.

“We are almost at the lim­it of the east­ern bound­ary of their self assigned hunt­ing area,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “We should be get­ting close.”

Whale Wars Victory – Activists to be Released

10.1.12

An unsched­uled meet­ing between Japan’s whalers and envi­ron­men­tal activists on the high seas seems an unlike­ly back­drop to an out­break of détente.

10.1.12

An unsched­uled meet­ing between Japan’s whalers and envi­ron­men­tal activists on the high seas seems an unlike­ly back­drop to an out­break of détente.

But Aus­tralia was qui­et­ly cel­e­brat­ing a minor vic­to­ry for diplo­ma­cy on Tues­day after Japan agreed to release three anti-whal­ing activists who ille­gal­ly board­ed one of its whal­ing ships over the week­end. 

The trio, all Aus­tralian cit­i­zens, have been detained on the Shonan Maru 2, which is pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty to the fleet, after clam­ber­ing aboard ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing to protest Japan’s annu­al hunts in the Antarc­tic. The Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion banned com­mer­cial whal­ing in 1986 but allows Japan to hunt a lim­it­ed num­ber of whales for “sci­en­tif­ic research.” The fleet left port last month with plans to kill some 900 whales this sea­son.

The inci­dent threat­ened to cause ten­sion between Aus­tralia and Japan, close trade and secu­ri­ty part­ners. Soon after the men were detained it seemed like­ly that they would be kept aboard the Shonan Maru 2 and tak­en to Japan, where they faced a tri­al and pos­si­ble impris­on­ment for tres­pass­ing.

By late Mon­day evening, how­ev­er, Japan had agreed to release the trio, a move wel­comed by Australia’s prime min­is­ter, Julia Gillard.

Prime Min­is­ter Gillard, who came under imme­di­ate pres­sure at home to secure the activists’ release, thanked Japan for its coop­er­a­tion, but sound­ed a warn­ing to cam­paign­ers think­ing of employ­ing sim­i­lar forms of direct action.

“No one should assume that because an agree­ment has been reached with the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment in this instance that indi­vid­u­als will not be charged and con­vict­ed in the future,” she said in a state­ment. “The best way to stop whal­ing once and for all is through our court action.

Aus­tralia has lodged a legal chal­lenge to the annu­al whale hunts with the inter­na­tion­al court of jus­tice in the Hague but a deci­sion is not expect­ed until 2013 at the ear­li­est.

Can­ber­ra’s del­i­cate task was to bal­ance an elec­tion pledge to end the whale hunts with a pub­lic show of respect for mar­itime law.

The release, which won’t hap­pen until an Aus­tralian coast­guard boat ren­dezvous­es with the Shona Maru 2 in sev­er­al days’ time, was wel­comed by Sea Shep­herd’s founder, Paul Wat­son.

But in an inter­view with Mac­quar­ie Radio, Mr. Wat­son said: “If the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment would do their job and ful­fill their elec­tion promis­es, these things wouldn’t be hap­pen­ing.”

Japan, mean­while, insist­ed the deci­sion to release the men did not mean it had gone soft on Sea Shep­herd.

The trio are not mem­bers of the group – they belong to anoth­er orga­ni­za­tion called For­est Res­cue – and had not injured any mem­bers of the Shonan Maru 2’s crew when they board­ed, Japan’s chief cab­i­net sec­re­tary, Osamu Fujimu­ra, told reporters.

“The three activists were not vio­lent dur­ing or after they board­ed the whal­ing ves­sel,” he said. “There was no evi­dence that they were part of Sea Shep­herd, which has been engaged in obstruct­ing the fleet.”

Japan may have also had in mind the neg­a­tive inter­na­tion­al pub­lic­i­ty it attract­ed in 2010, when it pros­e­cut­ed for­mer Sea Shep­herd mem­ber Pete Bethune, who had board­ed the Shonan Maru 2 to protest the sink­ing of the group’s high-tech speed­boat. Mr. Bethune, who had been car­ry­ing a knife, was giv­en a sus­pend­ed sen­tence and deport­ed.

Offi­cial sup­port for the whal­ing pro­gram was also put under the spot­light last month when it was revealed that the gov­ern­ment had used 2.28 bil­lion yen ($30 mil­lion) of tax­pay­er mon­ey intend­ed for the tsuna­mi recov­ery effort to fund this year’s hunt, on top an exist­ing $6 mil­lion annu­al sub­sidy. The fish­eries agency said the use of the fund was jus­ti­fied because one of the towns destroyed in the dis­as­ter was a whal­ing port.

Sea Shepherd Dancing Dangerously With the Outlaw Whaling Fleet in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary

11 Jan­u­ary 2012

The nau­ti­cal chess pieces con­tin­ue to move and the board keeps chang­ing in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

11 Jan­u­ary 2012

The nau­ti­cal chess pieces con­tin­ue to move and the board keeps chang­ing in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

The Shonan Maru #2 is no longer chas­ing the Steve Irwin. The secu­ri­ty ves­sel has been replaced by the har­poon ves­sel Yushin Maru #2. It is assumed that the Shonan Maru #2 will now head west towards the Aus­tralian cus­toms ves­sel Ocean Pro­tec­tor to turn over the three Aus­tralian pris­on­ers onboard. With the Yushin Maru #2 now fol­low­ing the Steve Irwin, and the Yushin Maru #3 still at Mac­quar­ie Island, the Nis­shin Maru now has only one har­poon ves­sel left — the Yushin Maru.

Sea Shep­herd has tem­porar­i­ly lost drone con­tact with the Nis­shin Maru and can­not guar­an­tee that whal­ing has not begun. If so, it will pro­ceed with two of the three har­poon ves­sels not involved in killing oper­a­tions. “If we had one more ship, there would be no pos­si­bil­i­ty of any whales dying,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “In July I met with Green­peace rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the IWC and request­ed of them that they send one ship to sup­port us. I told them that one more ship would shut down this entire fleet. They refused, and that is deeply dis­ap­point­ing, and as a result whales may die.”

Sea Shep­herd is work­ing to secure a third large, fast, ice-strength­ened ves­sel to return next sea­son. The Sea Shep­herd fast scout ves­sel Brigitte Bar­dot remains in Fre­man­tle under­go­ing repairs from dam­age caused by the extreme weath­er con­di­tions of the South­ern Ocean.

“We have demon­strat­ed that we can shut these poach­ers down and every year we become more effec­tive than the year before. One more ship will give us the abil­i­ty to throw a blan­ket of inter­ven­tion over them that will com­plete­ly extin­guish their ille­gal oper­a­tions,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

The drop­ping away of the Shonan Maru #2 removes the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the trans­fer of the three For­est Res­cue men to the Steve Irwin. The trans­fer of the men to the Steve Irwin would have saved the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars. Mean­while despite being ordered out of the ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters of Australia’s Mac­Quar­ie Island, the Yushin Maru #3 con­tin­ues to ille­gal­ly remain inside the twelve mile ter­ri­to­r­i­al lim­it.

“The Japan­ese whalers act like they own the entire South­ern Ocean,” said Bob Bark­er Cap­tain Alex Cor­nelis­sen of the Nether­lands. “They go where they want, when they want, and do what they want, with com­plete con­tempt for Aus­tralian sov­er­eign­ty.”

 

Sea Shepherd Intercepts the Japanese Whaling Fleet with Drones

24.12.11

Japanese Security Ships Move In On the Steve Irwin

The Sea Shep­herd crew has inter­cept­ed the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet on Christ­mas Day, a thou­sand miles north of the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

24.12.11

Japanese Security Ships Move In On the Steve Irwin

The Sea Shep­herd crew has inter­cept­ed the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet on Christ­mas Day, a thou­sand miles north of the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

The Sea Shep­herd ship, Steve Irwin, deployed a drone to suc­cess­ful­ly locate and pho­to­graph the Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru on Decem­ber 24th. Once the pur­suit began, three Japan­ese harpoon/security ships moved in on the Steve Irwin to shield the Nis­shin Maru to allow it to escape.

This time how­ev­er the Japan­ese tac­tic of tail­ing the Steve Irwin and the Bob Bark­er will not work because the drones, one on the Steve Irwin and the oth­er on the Bob Bark­er, can track and fol­low the Nis­shin Maru and can relay the posi­tions back to the Sea Shep­herd ships.

“We can cov­er hun­dreds of miles with these drones and they have proven to be valu­able assets for this cam­paign,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son on board the Steve Irwin.

The drone named Nicole Mon­te­cal­vo was donat­ed to the Steve Irwin by Bayshore Recy­cling of New Jer­sey.

Cap­tain Wat­son hav­ing received reports from fish­er­men when the Japan­ese ship passed through the Lom­bok Strait wait­ed south of the strait at a dis­tance of 500 miles off the south­west coast of West­ern Aus­tralia. Sea Shep­herd caught the whalers at 37 degrees South, far above the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary

“The chase is on for the next 1000 miles,” said Deck­hand Eleanor Lis­ter of Jer­sey (U.K.).

With the Steve Irwin tak­ing up the resources of three of the Japan­ese ships the Bob Bark­er remains clear of a tail and the Brigitte Bar­dot is clear to scout out the fac­to­ry ship, hav­ing supe­ri­or speed to the har­poon ves­sels.

The Sea Shep­herd crew have found the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet before a sin­gle whale has been killed.

“This is going to be a long hard pur­suit from here to the coast of Antarc­ti­ca,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “But thanks to these drones, we now have an advan­tage we have nev­er had before – eyes in the sky.”

Back­ground on the Steve Irwin Drone:
Bayshore Recy­cling striv­ing to pro­tect and con­serve nature

Drone Nicole Mon­te­cal­vo aids Sea Shep­herd in pre­serv­ing ocean wildlife world­wide.

Wood­bridge NJ- Bayshore Recy­cling Corp (BRC) not only strives to pro­tect the planet’s nat­ur­al resources through recy­cling but also encour­ages every­one to help endan­gered wildlife. To pro­mote and encour­age this effort, BRC’s own­ers recent­ly donat­ed a long-range drone fit­ted with cam­eras and detec­tion equip­ment to the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety (SSCS). The SSCS is an inter­na­tion­al non-profit, direct action marine wildlife con­ser­va­tion orga­ni­za­tion. SSCS neces­si­tat­ed an addi­tion­al aer­i­al vehi­cle that could add to their fleet and expand their capa­bil­i­ties in order to scan hun­dreds of miles more with each flight in order to assist in find­ing and doc­u­ment­ing whal­ing ships and oth­er ille­gal poach­ing oper­a­tions. The drone will also assist in help­ing pro­tect the fleet, her crew and alert them to poten­tial dan­gers, when their heli­copter may not be avail­able for use.

A long-range drone is defined as an unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cle that does not require human oper­a­tion and can fly inde­pen­dent­ly or be oper­at­ed remote­ly. The drone named Nicole Mon­te­cal­vo has assist­ed in locat­ing Japan­ese whal­ing fleet in the South­ern Ocean pre­vi­ous­ly has assist­ed in oper­a­tions against blue fin tuna poach­ing oper­a­tions off the coast of Libya. The drone Nicole Mon­te­cal­vo was deliv­ered on board the ves­sel Steve Irwin by the Ves­sel Secu­ri­ty Offi­cer dur­ing tran­sit to Antarc­ti­ca while in search of the Japan­ese flag­ship, Nis­shin Maru. BRC stress­es the impor­tance of con­serv­ing our planet’s nat­ur­al habi­tats. Whether it is sav­ing nat­ur­al resources, con­serv­ing ener­gy, pre­serv­ing endan­gered wildlife or recy­cling house­hold debris—Bayshore ris­es to the chal­lenge. Togeth­er, BRC and the SSCS will fight to save the ocean and its vul­ner­a­ble inhab­i­tants.

Mc-hammer time

In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing (27/09/11) McDon­alds dri­ve thru in Bed­min­ster was vis­it­ed and thor­ough­ly smashed, with all it’s win­dows attacked.

Fuck Mcdon­alds and the death cul­ture they per­pet­u­ate and sym­bol­ise glob­al­ly, which means:

In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing (27/09/11) McDon­alds dri­ve thru in Bed­min­ster was vis­it­ed and thor­ough­ly smashed, with all it’s win­dows attacked.

Fuck Mcdon­alds and the death cul­ture they per­pet­u­ate and sym­bol­ise glob­al­ly, which means:

abuse and mass slaugh­ter for mil­lions of ani­mals caged all their mis­er­able lives, poi­so­nous food, sick­ness and can­cer for humans, mind numb­ing drudgery and work­place con­trol and dis­ci­pline for work­ers treat­ed like slaves, destruc­tion for the envi­ron­ment and of course mas­sive prof­it for cap­i­tal­ists.

If you thought smash­ing up Mcdon­alds had gone out of ant­i­cap­i­tal­ist fash­ion, think again. We don’t for­get or for­give.

For earth, ani­mal and human lib­er­a­tion.

ALF / ELF

The Black Fish is looking for crew members

The marine pro­tec­tion organ­i­sa­tion The Black Fish is look­ing for peo­ple to join its direct action team and future ship’s crew.

The marine pro­tec­tion organ­i­sa­tion The Black Fish is look­ing for peo­ple to join its direct action team and future ship’s crew. “In order to be effec­tive in our marine con­ser­va­tion cam­paigns, we need to be out at sea, oppos­ing the most destruc­tive fish­ing and hunt­ing activ­i­ties, where they hap­pen away from the pub­lic eye.” For this rea­son The Black Fish is work­ing towards the pur­chase of an ocean going ves­sel and is look­ing for crew mem­bers.

“There are pos­si­bil­i­ties open­ing up to us which might see us get­ting access to a ves­sel in the near future. We need a crew for the ini­tial over­haul of this ship and prepar­ing it for its first cam­paign.” accord­ing to Wietse van der Werf, spokesper­son for the organ­i­sa­tion.

The Black Fish has launched a crew appli­ca­tion page where peo­ple can apply for vol­un­tary crew posi­tions. “We are look­ing for peo­ple with sail­ing expe­ri­ence but this is not a neces­si­ty for the entire crew. Will­ing­ness and ded­i­ca­tion to com­mit time and hard work to make future cam­paigns of The Black Fish a suc­cess, that is a must.”

Any ques­tions relat­ed to crew­ing with The Black Fish, please see the crew­ing page on our web­site or con­tact the crew­ing coor­di­na­tor at crew@theblackfish.org

We look for­ward to your appli­ca­tion!

http://www.theblackfish.org/

Sea Shepherd Prevents Pilot Whale Bloodshed in the Faeroe Islands

26 August 2011

26 August 2011

Operation Ferocious Isles Pilot Whale Defense Campaign is a Success

“Sail forth — steer for the deep waters only,
Reck­less O soul, explor­ing, I with thee and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, our selves and all.”
- Walt Whit­man 

Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Society’s Oper­a­tion Fero­cious Isles pilot whale defense cam­paign is almost over and it looks like our objec­tive has been achieved. Not a sin­gle whale or dol­phin has been killed on the beach­es or in the waters of the Faeroe Islands under our watch this July and August.

Ear­li­er in the sum­mer, the Faeroese police ordered that no grinds (pilot whale dri­ves and slaugh­ter) would be allowed for as long as the Sea Shep­herd ships were in Faeroese waters. Thus, our mere watch­ful pres­ence pre­vent­ed any killings this sum­mer sav­ing hun­dreds of whales as a result. Not a dra­mat­ic cam­paign by far, but enor­mous­ly suc­cess­ful nonethe­less.

It remains pos­si­ble that whales may be killed after the Steve Irwin and the Brigitte Bar­dot leave patrol, but June, July, and August are the three most noto­ri­ous months for the slaugh­ter of the whales as they are peak migra­tion months. Our objec­tive was to pre­vent the killing of any whales dur­ing this peri­od and that objec­tive has been real­ized, there­fore, Oper­a­tion Fero­cious Isles has been extra­or­di­nar­i­ly suc­cess­ful.

Addi­tion­al­ly dur­ing the dura­tion of the cam­paign, the crews of our two Sea Shep­herd ships were able to meet and speak to hun­dreds of Faeroese youth. We were pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to find so many young peo­ple in oppo­si­tion to the grind.

Sea Shep­herd had hoped to make a pub­lic pre­sen­ta­tion but unfor­tu­nate­ly, our request was denied by the Faeroese gov­ern­ment, although our pres­ence gen­er­at­ed a great deal of pub­lic­i­ty both in the Faeroes and in Den­mark.

Sig­nif­i­cant cam­paign achieve­ments include increas­ing inter­na­tion­al aware­ness of the whal­ing that takes place in the Faeroes, pro­vok­ing con­tro­ver­sy and dis­cus­sion amongst the local peo­ple, increas­ing spend­ing for the Dan­ish Navy and police dur­ing the Sea Shepherd’s time in Faeroese waters, and most impor­tant­ly, pre­vent­ing a sin­gle grind from tak­ing place.

The two Sea Shep­herd ships will return to Great Britain to begin to make prepa­ra­tions for a return voy­age to the Antarc­tic waters to once again inter­vene against ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

The Steve Irwin will host a fundrais­ing event on the Thames (riv­er) in Lon­don on Sep­tem­ber 13th.

The crews of the Steve Irwin and the Brigitte Bar­dot are very hap­py with the results of this year’s cam­paign and are anx­ious to return and once again inter­cept the Japan­ese fleet to pre­vent them killing whales off the coast of Antarc­ti­ca.  

“Over the past few months we saw whales, we deterred whales from approach­ing the islands, we pre­vent­ed the killing of whales by just being here. We could not be any more pleased with the results of the cam­paign. Zero kills trans­lates into a per­fect cam­paign and we are extreme­ly hap­py with the results of our efforts this sum­mer,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

This has been a very busy year for Sea Shep­herd begin­ning with our vic­to­ry over the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet by dri­ving them out of the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary a month and a half before their sea­son end­ed and pre­vent­ing them from killing 83% of their intend­ed kill quo­ta. Since our vic­to­ry in the South­ern Ocean, we have cap­tured poach­ers in the Gala­pa­gos, con­front­ed tuna poach­ers off the coast of Libya, protest­ed at the 63rd Annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion meet­ing in Jer­sey, exposed the atroc­i­ties of the seal slaugh­ter in Namib­ia, helped catch the crim­i­nals who vicious­ly clubbed seal pups in New Zealand, reduced the num­ber of dol­phins killed in Tai­ji, Japan by half, and now, we can rel­ish in this vic­to­ry for the pilot whales here in the Faeroes.

Nev­er before has Sea Shep­herd been so active and effec­tive on a tru­ly inter­na­tion­al lev­el.

And the rea­son for our suc­cess­es is your con­tin­ued sup­port. We do the best we can with the resources avail­able to us and increased sup­port trans­lates into increased activism.

Our sup­port base is steadi­ly grow­ing thanks to the momen­tum of recent doc­u­men­tary films fea­tur­ing Sea Shep­herd includ­ing Eco-Pirate: The Sto­ry of Paul Wat­son, Minds in the Water, and Con­fes­sions of an Eco-Ter­ror­ist. And of course, thanks to Ani­mal Planet’s hit tele­vi­sion series Whale Wars now in its fourth sea­son.   

“What gives me such sat­is­fac­tion is know­ing that because we have inter­vened, because our ships have been on the water around the world, that so many marine lives have been saved,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “When I think of a moth­er whale and her calf swim­ming free in the sea because we silenced the har­poons this year, I feel deeply and warm­ly sat­is­fied, that all our efforts have been worth the rough seas, the long voy­ages, the dan­ger­ous con­fronta­tions, and the polit­i­cal harass­ment. And to be at sea sur­round­ed by hun­dreds of pilot whales that we were able to keep away from the killers onshore – that was the high­point of our sum­mer.”

Read more in Cap­tain Paul Watson’s An Open Let­ter to the Peo­ple of the Faeroe Islands.

Beneath The Fae’roes Sky  

The North­ern lights were danc­ing, 
On the waves across the sea.
The stars of heav­en hov­ered,
Across our shim­mer­ing galaxy.

A refrain from down the ages,
So in haunt­ing in its song.
These ancient isles shall tell us,
Our love must make us strong.

The wind it swirled around me,
As we stood there off the shore,
And lis­tened to their song,
Like we nev­er heard before.

The whalers they may find them,
No choice may ours to be.
Yet we defend life proud­ly,
For this truth will set us free. 

Mem­o­ries recalled across the years,
Of rages and of strife.
Of cetacean mis­ery,
And the hor­rif­ic waste of life.

We won­dered where love was,
In the face of so much pain.
I looked into the sea below,
To find it once again.

We trav­elled the wide oceans,
Heard many call us names.
With har­poon and gun and hatred,
The insan­i­ty of human games.  

Some used the whales for glo­ry,
Some use them for their gain.
But Sea Shep­herd inter­venes,
To cleanse the cru­el human stain.

Is it not our place to won­der,
As the sea does weep with tears,
And all the ocean’s crea­tures,
Look on with mor­tal fear.

It is ours to hold the tri­dent,
It is ours to hold it long,
It is ours to voy­age for­ward,
Our love must make us strong.  

With the tri­dent in one hand,
In the oth­er, the shepherd’s crook,
We try to regain the bal­ance,
To return what man has took.

And as the cold wind car­ried,
The whale’s  song into the night.
We closed our eyes and dreamt,
Until the morn­ing light.

We saw the pilots swim­ming,
They did swim into our lee,
It was in this mag­ic moment,
Came this song from moth­er sea.  

Our hearts were all a danc­ing,
On the waves, out on the sea.
The whales turned from the shore,
And from the islands they did flee.

A host of ghosts on the beach­es,
So haunt­ing in their song,
These ancient isles have shown us,
That our love has made us strong.  

-By Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, inspired by and with lines bor­rowed from “Beneath a Phry­gian Sky” by Loreena McKen­nitt

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update 2011

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop.

If you can come down to help set up please do, we start on August the 5th, if you can stay a few days after the gath­er­ing to help bring it all do that’d also be grand.

Site phone num­ber 1 is 07551689365 or try num­ber 2 on 07866797016.

Here’s a detailed map

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And here’s the work­shop sched­ule:

Wednes­day

11:30–1

Nation­al Bargee Trav­ellers Asso­ci­a­tion

Infor­ma­tion and dis­cus­sion ses­sion on the cur­rent strug­gle of trav­el­ling boat dwellers to keep their homes in the face of harass­ment and unlaw­ful enforce­ment by British Water­ways. Come along if you live on a boat, or if you want to know how you can help the boat­ing com­mu­ni­ty fight back!

Frack-Off! An intro­duc­tion to the threat of hydraulic frac­tur­ing.

Frack­ing is a night­mare! Tox­ic and radioac­tive water pol­lu­tion. Tap water you can set on fire. Run­away cli­mate change. To pro­duce expen­sive gas that will soon run out. So why are we doing it? This will be a detailed prac­ti­cal, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop aimed at bring­ing peo­ple up to speed on the issue, the specifics of which areas of the UK are direct­ly under threat and par­tic­u­lar­ly, where to find organ­ised resis­tance.

Squat Electrics

Deal­ing with our shit- Men against the Patri­archy. An open dis­cus­sion on the ways in which men can unlearn the arse­hole patri­ar­chal behav­iours they’ve picked up by being alive in this soci­ety, and rein­force with­in the rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ment.

2–4

Pop­u­lar Edu­ca­tion & Train­ing

Skill-share for Train­ers! Inter­est­ed in pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion & train­ing? Come learn & share pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion exer­cis­es & games designed for group par­tic­i­pa­tion and hor­i­zon­tal learn­ing. Find what col­lec­tives are work­ing in the UK (& beyond!) and the work they are doing.

Oh Fuck it’s the Apoc­a­lypse

work­ing on the basis that the col­lapse of indus­tri­al soci­ety is fair­ly immi­nent, and that we need to plan for it. To this end we’re look­ing at sus­tain­able liv­ing, per­ma­cul­ture, etc, with a sur­vival­ist angle; at ways to sur­vive a col­lapse and build a more sane soci­ety from the ruins; and dis­cussing how this analy­sis affects our oth­er activism and pri­or­i­ties. We’re a bit like Tran­si­tion Towns with an Edge and a Clue.

Using Radios- A begin­ners guide to using radios dur­ing actions.

Set­ting up a Tri­pod- Nev­er put up a tri­pod before, want a use one on an action. Here’s your chance to find out how.

4–6

Squatting,Direct Action and New Laws

Film: ‘Gasland’

When a doc­u­men­tary film-mak­er is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-coun­try odyssey uncov­er­ing a trail of secrets, lies and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. A recent­ly drilled near­by Penn­syl­va­nia town reports that res­i­dents are able to light their drink­ing water on fire. This is a US doc­u­men­tary, how­ev­er shale extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ is now head­ing to the UK.

Tin­kers Bub­ble

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Thurs­day

10–1130

Intro to Con­sen­sus

Con­sen­sus is wide­ly regard­ed as one of the most empow­er­ing and cre­ative ways of mak­ing deci­sions in a non-hier­ar­chi­cal group, but it isn’t always easy. This par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop pro­vides an intro­duc­tion or refresh­er to what it’s all about and how to make it work.

Rec­c­ing

Struc­tured and facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion to share skills and tips for suc­cess­ful rec­cies for action. Includ­ing a check-list of what to find out, inter­net and phone search­es, site vis­its, tricks and dis­guis­es for get­ting info, secu­ri­ty tips etc.

Intro to EF!

Lon­don Olympics

Resist­ing the Lon­don 2012 Olympics (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Counter Olympics Net­work)
What can we do to resist the Olympics in Lon­don next year? Peo­ple are aware of the prob­lems with the games — sur­veil­lance, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, pri­vati­sa­tion, job inse­cu­ri­ty etc and the ben­e­fits to cor­po­ra­tions. Come and dis­cuss these and how we can resist, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from peo­ple who have resist­ed oth­er Olympics.

How to plan a kick ass action:

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

1130–1300

Bank­ing & finance

Lock­ing on

Prac­ti­cal work­shop for learn­ing dif­fer­ent lock-on tech­niques for block­ades and oth­er actions. Arm-tubes, d‑locks, chains, hand­cuffs, super­glue and more!

20 years of EF! Look­ing for­ward

Fight Frack­ing

Shale gas extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ has been pol­lut­ing drink­ing water and the cli­mate in the US, where it has caused numer­ous health prob­lems. It’s been blamed for mini-earth­quakes in Black­pool and there are plans for projects across the UK, includ­ing in South Wales, Lan­cashire, Som­er­set, Kent, Sur­rey and Scot­land. Join an open dis­cus­sion & plan­ning ses­sion on how we can resist these projects.

Infil­tra­tion- Activist Trau­ma

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Deal­ing with Con­flict

An intro­duc­tion to under­stand­ing and deal­ing effec­tive­ly with dis­agree­ment and con­flict in our groups. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Intro to Anar­chy

Smash Edo

Anti-cuts and Against Aus­ter­i­ty

An open dis­cus­sion on how we’re cur­rent­ly work­ing against the cuts, what are we learn­ing about the sit­u­a­tion, what is prov­ing to be effec­tive, do we need to unlearn cer­tain behav­iours that have dom­i­nat­ed activist cir­cles in order to broad­en and con­nect the resis­tances cur­rent­ly occur­ring.

Men­tal Health

4pm- 6pm

Action Plan­ning for a kick ass action

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

Self-Defence for Paci­fists

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

Shell to Sea

Trou­ble Shoot­ing in meet­ings

A work­shop on trou­bleshoot­ing and improv­ing your meet­ings.

Pup­pet show

Per­for­mance and dis­cus­sion of a pup­pet show cel­e­brat­ing the his­to­ry of envi­ron­men­tal direct action in the UK.

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Fri­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Affin­i­ty groups

Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop explor­ing how and why work with oth­ers for action, includ­ing inspir­ing case stud­ies of suc­cess­ful autonomous actions.

Basic bike main­te­nance.

An infor­mal work­shop on brakes and gears, can also cov­er tru­ing wheels and look at oth­er repairs with no or few tools, by Bicy­col­o­gy.

Intro to EF!

Facil­i­tat­ing Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Work­shops

Have you got skills or infor­ma­tion you’d like to share? Or maybe you want to sup­port peo­ple to learn from each oth­er, or share expe­ri­ences? Devel­op skills, confidence& under­stand­ing to facil­i­tate fun, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry & dynam­ic work­shops.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty is a Weapon

1130–1pm

Intro to Direct Action

Direct action is about tak­ing things into our own hands instead of ask­ing the rich and pow­er­ful to do the right thing. Empow­er your­self to go out and make change hap­pen!

Intro to indus­tri­al Agri­cul­ture and GM

Anar­cho-Fem­i­nist

Black Fish

The Black Fish is a new­ly found­ed Euro­pean based con­ser­va­tion organ­i­sa­tion that takes action on the issues of whal­ing, indus­tri­al fish­ing and marine ani­mals in cap­tiv­i­ty. Using edu­ca­tion, inves­ti­ga­tion and non-vio­lent direct action, The Black Fish has set out on a mis­sion to change atti­tudes towards our pre­cious oceans and work to pro­tect the unique life with­in them.

2–4pm

Sus­tain­ing Resis­tance- A work­shop to explore how we can make our activism more sus­tain­able and effec­tive in the long term. Find­ing sources of per­son­al sup­port to help us stay inspired, nour­ished and cre­ative for the long haul and iden­ti­fy­ing how we can chal­lenge dam­ag­ing cul­tures of over­work and burnout in our activist groups.*

Doing Actions with­out get­ting caught

Prac­ti­cal work­shop cov­er­ing var­i­ous aspects of doing actions with­out get­ting caught, includ­ing get­ting to your tar­get with­out detec­tion both in the day and in the dark, foren­sics and dress sense, get­ting togeth­er mate­ri­als, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, get­ting away. Parts of the work­shop will involve phys­i­cal prac­tise, please wear suit­able clothes for crawl­ing through bush­es…

Women’s Self Defence

The lud­dites 200 year anniver­sary and tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics today

Cel­e­brat­ing the 200 Anniver­sary of the Lud­dite Upris­ings: Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­tics Then and Now (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Luddites200 Organ­is­ing Forum
In 1811-12 Arti­san cloth work­ers in the Mid­lands and North of Eng­land rose up against fac­to­ry own­ers who were impos­ing new machines and putting them out of work. Since the 1950s the Lud­dites have been paint­ed as fools opposed to all tech­nol­o­gy and progress, but in fact the Lud­dites were very selec­tive in their attacks, break­ing only machines they thought were ‘hurt­ful to Com­mon­al­i­ty’. What can the Lud­dites teach us about the ongo­ing use of tech­nol­o­gy to replace work­ers’ jobs, as well as issues like GM food and nuclear pow­er? Can we escape the myth that tech­nol­o­gy always brings progress?

Activist Trau­ma

4–6pm

Get­ting over Fences

Priv­i­lege and Oppres­sion

Pow­er and priv­i­lege play out con­tin­u­ous­ly in our group dynam­ics. This work­shop will explore the roles we each play as priv­i­leged and as oppressed in our move­ment and in wider soci­ety.

Dale Farm

this is the biggest unlaw­ful Trav­eller site in the UK. Res­i­dents own their land but have been repeat­ed­ly refused plan­ning
per­mis­sion and Basil­don Coun­cil have now gath­ered £18million in order to evict them. After years of fight­ing their evic­tion through the courts they have now been served their papers, and have until the 31st August to leave. this work­shop will out­line the his­to­ry of the cam­paign, dis­cuss plans for resist­ing the evic­tion and, if there is enough inter­est, organ­ise a work­ing par­ty to vis­it Dale Farm to help them pre­pare for evic­tion.

Coal Action Net­work

Intro to what’s hap­pened so far with CAN. Dis­cus­sions about what peo­ple would like from the network/website and where peo­ple think coal cam­paig­ing is going. How to get involved in CAN.

Tripods

Doing Actions with­out Get­ting caught part 2

We’ll be prac­tis­ing how to move in the dark with­out being spot­ted. Please wear dark clothes suit­able for crawl­ing through the bush­es and a torch if you can. Meet at 8.30 sharp at the gate tent. The prac­tise will fin­ish by 10pm.

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Sat­ur­day

10–1130

Facil­i­ta­tion

If you’ve nev­er facil­i­tat­ed a meet­ing before, or want to brush up your skills and gain con­fi­dence, this work­shop is for you.

Intro to EF!

Basic land nav­i­ga­tion

An intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion with map and a com­pass for total begin­ners or improvers. Please bring a com­pass if you have one . Also, an overview of very sim­ple route find­ing using the sun, stars and oth­er nat­ur­al signs.

Envi­ron­men­tal and Autonomous Edu­ca­tion for young peo­ple

A dis­cus­sion about var­i­ous alter­na­tive edu­ca­tion projects for young peo­ple, a space to share ideas, expe­ri­ences and rethink the ways in which we engage in these projects.

Coal Action Scot­land- What’s going on in the Val­leys at the moment and how can peo­ple get involved.

11.30am- 1.00pm

Build­ing Strong Groups- Share ideas and learn from oth­ers for mak­ing your group more acces­si­ble, inclu­sive and sus­tain­able.

Organ­is­ing the next win­ter moot and sum­mer gath­er­ing

Enjoyed this gath­er­ing? Thought this gath­er­ing was crap? Come along and start work­ing out how next years gath­er­ing could turn out.

Nutri­tion 101

May­day Indy­media

What is indy­media and how does it work? This work­shop, run by mem­bers of the col­lec­tive which looks after the indymedia.org.uk web­site, will attempt to answer your ques­tions about indy­media and will give you the infor­ma­tion you need to report your news effec­tive­ly on the uk site [and the local sites Birm­ing­ham, Sheffield and Oxford?], includ­ing writ­ing mid­dle col­umn fea­tures for the uk front page to give promi­nence to your cam­paigns and actions. Find out about the edi­to­r­i­al guide­lines and mod­er­a­tion, as well as how to raise queries and how to start up an indy­media col­lec­tive in your local area.

Rewil­d­ing

Facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Who Cares?

Open dis­cus­sion based around recent arti­cle pub­lished on Cease­fire enti­tled “Who Cares?” which talked about the fail­ures of the rad­i­cal move­ment with­in the UK to engage with child care in a way which relat­ed to anar­chist pol­i­tics.

Know your rights: Legal and arrest work­shop

Cov­ers basic law for activists and the arrest process. If you’ve
nev­er been nicked before or you want to brush up on your knowl­edge, this is for you. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Anti-Nuclear- Cam­paign update and info ses­sion

Using Radios

Sav­ing Ice­land and Samaren­dra Das: The Glob­al Crimes of the Alu­mini­um Car­tel

Behind the shin­ing image of alu­mini­um is a dark side of envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phes, the arms indus­try and cul­tur­al geno­cide. A joint pre­sen­ta­tion by Sav­ing Ice­land and Indi­an author/activist Samaren­dra Das. It will include cur­rent threats to the Ice­landic high­lands, one of Europe’s last great wilder­ness­es, the his­to­ry and future of the cam­paign and the fal­lac­i­es of hydro and geot­her­mal ener­gy. Samaren­dra Das will speak about the present strug­gle of Adi­va­sis against com­pa­nies such as Vedan­ta and the real facts behind the alu­mini­um indus­try.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Self-Defence

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

‘The True Cost of Coal’

The Bee­hive Design Col­lec­tive (part of the Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca Net­work) cre­ate portable murals of col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly pro­duced illus­tra­tions with an amaz­ing­ly engag­ing cen­tral nar­ra­tive. ‘The True Cost of Coal’ will take you on an inter­ac­tive visu­al tour of the con­nec­tions between Coal Min­ing, Cli­mate Change, the Ever Expand­ing Cap­i­tal­ist Econ­o­my, and the Strug­gle for Jus­tice in Appalachia, North Amer­i­ca and through­out the world.

GM Cam­paign- Cam­paign update and info share.

Com­mu­ni­ty Defence: Build­ing our own Exarchia’s

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Sun­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Region­al Meet­ings

Dsei

DSEi is the worlds largest Arms Fair, as many EFers know. This year it’s from Sep­tem­ber 13–18. It’s not sim­ply about the arms trade. It’s about pub­lic ser­vices “cuts”: the envi­ron­ment: bank­ing and investors: the con­flicts in the Mid­dle East and North Africa. Not to men­tion the bor­ders that stop peo­ple flee­ing con­flict There’s a call for a mass block­ade of the DLR on the Tues­day. Pre­vi­ous Days of Action- and oth­er days in the week ‑have includ­ed street par­ties, Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides, die-ins, mock sales of “arms”, legs and even a tank; splash­ing fake blood across the entrances, engag­ing with arms deal­ers on the trains and plat­forms, invad­ing the car park and rail entrance, block­ing the roads, lock­ing on to the trains, even swim­ming in the dock! And vis­it­ing the investors offices of course. And in ther run-up- your local arms fac­to­ry. Will be talk­ing about all this — Not to men­tion that vis­it to your local arms fac­to­ry!

11.30am- 1.00pm

Action Update

Gath­er­ings Col­lec­tive

Basic Plant I‑d

Dis­cus­sion about Veg­an­ism

Direct Action Train­ing

Come and get active in this inter­ac­tive and hope­ful­ly fun work­shop where we’ll be look­ing at some fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks for tak­ing non-vio­lent direct action to fight suf­fer­ing, and prac­tis­ing dif­fer­ent non-vio­lent ech­niques to hold occu­pa­tions, block­ade, break out of ket­tles, de-arrest peo­ple, and to deal with oth­er police tac­tics, like snatch squads, hors­es and dogs. We’ll also give lots of oth­er tips for deal­ing with pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions and for affin­i­ty group actions, includ­ing some key legal infor­ma­tion which you should know when you’re tak­ing action, and some tips about deal­ing with the media. And we’ll look at some of the val­ues and atti­tudes which are key to tak­ing NVDA, like non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing and con­sen­sus (and oth­ers). We’ll hope­ful­ly be able to adjust the work­shop to cov­er what you want, and to answer all your ques­tions.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Gath­er­ing Feed­back Show

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Kids’ space and activ­i­ties

If you do not have a kid, we might still need your help, so read
on.……

The kids’ space is designed as a place where chil­dren and those car­ing for them can relax, play and eat. The space con­tains books, toys and craft mate­ri­als.

The kids’ space is NOT a creche and does­n’t have staff or facil­i­ties to care for chil­dren.

Par­ents and car­ers are respect­ful­ly remind­ed that they will need to col­lect chil­dren at meal times/breaks and that they much keep adults in the kids space informed of where they can be found; please also fill in the forms in the kids kitchen regard­ing food aller­gies etc.

If you do not have a child at the gath­er­ing, but would like to help in kids space, please talk to the col­lec­tive. Help with read­ing sto­ries, play­ing games, art and crafts always wel­come.

Kid’s kitchen

This pro­vides meals suit­able for and at appro­pri­ate times for chil­dren. Kids meal tick­ets cost £2 or £3 a day for 2 meals (the low­er rate is for tod­dlers); please buy these at the gate tent. This is the first time we have sold kids meal tick­ets and hope­ful­ly this will cov­er the cost of meals, but we may need to ask for help if this is not enough to cov­er our costs.

Even those with­out chil­dren can help by with cook­ing and wash­ing up in the kids space, please vol­un­teer if you can.

Games and activ­i­ties

Dur­ing the morn­ing (approx 10 am ‑noon) there will be activ­i­ties and work­shops for kids in one of the work­shop spaces.

In the after­noon (after lunch), there will be games in the top mead­ow for chil­dren and adults togeth­er. Again, any help with these very wel­come — just ask the collective/kids space crew.

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Pub­lic Trans­port

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .

We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). !

Wheel­chair users intend­ing to use Diss sta­tion will need to book assis­tance with the train oper­a­tor. There are no lifts so sta­tion staff have to assist mobil­i­ty impaired cus­tomers across the track. Appar­ent­ly the sta­tion is not manned 24 hours a day and the gate for the cross­ing is kept locked — so do phone and book to be sure .We have been told the bus ser­vice includes some low-floor bus­es with easy access for pushchairs, peo­ple with mobil­i­ty impair­ments etc.

Hitch to Nor­wich or Diss; from Nor­wich hitch south on the A140 to Dick­le­burgh. It is then a 3 ‑4 mile walk or hitch to the site; on the Dick­le­burgh bypass (don’t go into Dick­le­burgh vil­lage) is a right turn to Shim­pling and Burston; fol­low this road through Burston vil­lage, past the vil­lage green and out of the vil­lage. There is a sharp left turn, then down a hill to a sharp right turn. Site is on the right just over a lit­tle brick bridge.

From Diss either walk or bus, or car­ry on up the A140 to the turn­ing on the Dick­le­burgh junc­tion as above (only this time the junc­tion is on the left).

[some even more detailed info includ­ing post-code, from pre­vi­ous year, at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html]

efsummergathering2011@riseup.net