Aviation and Roads – Page 5

Forest occupation in Belgium needs more people!

Since the first of Juli we have occupied a forest in Wilrijk, south of Antwerp in Belgium. It looks like it won’t be a very long occupation, because the owner has already started all the procedures to kick us out and the police stops by at least once a day. We urgently need more people (climbers and ground crew!) to help us occupy this forest and make it as hard as possible for the police to evict us.

So if you can spare a few days to protect the forest with your presence and help us build our walkways, platforms and kitchen, please stop by!

adress: fotografielaan 7
wilrijk
train to antwerp central
from rooseveltplaats bus 500 to boom
get off close to the pizzahut (ask busdriver)
walk to the pizzahut, go right, at the end of the road (cows) go right, first left, you’ll see the banners
you can contact us at: steungroep.groenoord@gmail.com
for more info: www.groenoord.be / facebook van steungroep groenoord
0485507274

The area has been mapped as a forest since 1771 and is an ecologically very valuable oak forest which is a habitat for lots of birds and endangered bat species. The forest is a so called wrongly zoned forest, it’s been zoned as an industrial area since 2005. Flanders (the dutch speaking part of Belgium) is the second poorest region in Europe when it comes to forests, only 8 % of the land if forest. About a third of those forests are wrongly zoned which means they are often threatened. Most of these forests are cut without anyone ever knowing. So we are not just fighting for this specific forest, we are fighting for a more just forest policy in Flanders.

The owner wants to cut the forest to build an office and storage space, but it is not clear if they have someone to rent it yet. Their old partner ended the contract because the plans were delayed.

There’s heaps of empty office buildings in Flanders. Within a minute’s walk from the forest there’s 4 empty buildings that could be renovated or broken down to make space for a new building. Yet they still want to cut the forest.

Because they have never done proper geological studies there’s big problems with the water in the area. The water can’t go anywhere so part of the forest is often under water, which has killed a lot of the trees. Measures need to be taken to ensure the survival of the forest.

Whenever cutting forests in Flanders, they talk about compensation. Which is bullshit. You can’t just cut a forest here and plant a new one somewhere else.

It is about time we realise that trees have an intrinsic value and stop thinking only about money.

NO COMPROMISE IN DEFENSE OF MOTHER EARTH

Help us defend the trees!

groeNoord / Groenfront! (Earth First!)

CHP Removes Willits Bypass Protester from Tower

3 July 2013 An environmental protester who had been perched 50 feet up a piece of construction equipment outside Willits for more than a week has been removed a

3 July 2013 An environmental protester who had been perched 50 feet up a piece of construction equipment outside Willits for more than a week has been removed and arrested by the CHP.

Will Parrish, 31, of Ukiah was arrested Monday after being cut loose from a locking device he had connected to one of two 100-foot wick-drain installers being used on the Highway 101 bypass project outside Willits.

The $210 million bypass is being built to skirt the city of Willits, where traffic regularly slows to a crawl as Highway 101 narrows to two lanes through downtown. Proponents say it’s necessary to reduce traffic congestion and restore the city’s small-town feel. Opponents say it is a costly and ugly mistake that will hurt streams and fisheries and increase flooding.

Parrish’s protest had prevented the wick-drain installers from operating since June 20. Work resumed on Tuesday, Caltrans said.

More than 30 arrests have been made among protesters since April.

On Monday, CHP officers, acting on a request from Caltrans, which owns the property, used cherry-picker-type lifts to reach Parrish.

“We had a team go up and first made sure he was OK and didn’t need medical attention,” said CHP Capt. Jim Epperson. “After we were sure he was OK, we hydrated him — gave him some Gatorade.”

Officers then cut his locking device and brought Parrish down.

He and another protester, Amanda “Warbler” Senseman, were arrested on trespassing charges, Epperson said. Senseman sat in a tree for two months earlier this year as a protest against the bypass.

Caltrans spokesman Phil Frisbie said Parrish was “putting himself and others at risk and delaying construction by trespassing.”

“And with the ongoing hot weather forecasted, we are also concerned about his health and safety,” he said.

Protest leader Freddie Long said one tree-sitter remains in an ash grove north of where Parrish was perched. So far, that person hasn’t been confronted, Long said.

The 5.9-mile bypass is expected to be completed in the fall of 2016.

Willits Bypass “Crane-Sitter” Resupplied in Stealth Climb

A protester perched atop a wick drain stitcher being used to build the US 101 highyway bypass in Willits, CA, 28 June 2013

A protester perched atop a wick drain stitcher being used to build the US 101 highyway bypass in Willits, CA, 28 June 2013

A mysterious climber ascended Caltrans equipment on the Willits Bypass Project Wednesday evening in order to resupply a protester who has been perched 50 feet up in the air on a construction tower for a week.

Last week, 31-year-old Ukiah resident Will Parrish climbed one of the two pieces of Caltrans equipment used to install wick drains at the site in order to stall work in the Mendocino County highway construction zone.

Fellow activists argue that Parrish has been denied food and water, while authorities state that Parrish is free to leave the tower for food and water and that protesters attempting to bring him supplies are trespassing on Caltrans property.

On Saturday evening, 45 protesters attempted to send supplies up to Parrish in a bucket. According to Earth First!, CHP officers cut the rope and arrested six individuals. According to CHP, four individuals were arrested.

On Wednesday, a second person climbed the second wick drain tower. Jamie Chevalier, a spokeswoman with Redwood Nation Earth First!, said the mystery climber was “like a ninja.”

”He climbed the tower in full daylight with CHP everywhere,” she said. “Then after around six hours he managed to traverse a line over to the other tower 60 feet away for supplies and vanished into the night.”

Chevelier estimated that the entire event took place between 5 p.m. and midnight. She said the supply line is still in place and has a 5,000 pound breaking

strength.

District 1 Caltrans Public Information Officer Phil Frisbie Jr. confirmed that Parrish had been resupplied and said Caltrans personnel are not at the site that late at night.

”He was gone by the morning,” Frisbie said of the resupplier.

Frisbie said the machinery cannot operate with the protesters on it and that protests over four months have directly cost taxpayers $1.2 million by causing delays.

Campaigners build dual carriageway on Osborne’s doorstep

Sunday 23 June

Contact 07565 967 250. Photos available from 07711 090 544 (photojournalist Adrian Arbib) or from alamy: http://tinyurl.com/k25d5tm

CAMPAIGNERS BUILD DUAL CARRIAGEWAY ON OSBORNE’S DOORSTEP IN SPENDING REVIEW PROTEST
Money for new roads bad for jobs, countryside and climate say campaigners

12 noon, Sunday 23 June: Anti-road campaigners have built a 50m long dual carriageway next to Chancellor George Osborne’s country retreat this morning, in a protest against the expected funding for new roads in this Wednesday’s (26 June) 2013 Spending Review [2].

Twenty people rolled-out the 8m x 50m road in the grounds of Crag Hall in the Peak District National Park this morning and used giant eight-foot letters to spell out the words “NO NEW ROADS”. Photos are available from photojournalist Adrian Arbib [3].

Osborne moved into “a two-storey building near Crag Hall, a sprawling £4million country estate which is owned by his long-term family friend Lord Derby” earlier this year; “lunches most Sundays” at the nearby Crag Inn pub; and has been a guest at falconry events at the Hall [4]. Reportedly, he “often talks about how brilliant it is to come to the country and enjoy some peace and quiet” [4].

The campaigners – who include an artist, a teacher, a physicist and at least four grandmothers – travelled from Hastings, where peaceful protests against the £100m Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) have already led to 30 arrests and attracted national media attention [5]. The BHLR is the ‘first and the worst’ of over 200 new road-building projects that the Chancellor, Big Business and local councils are currently pushing throughout England and Wales [6]. Mr Osborne is believed to have pressured the Department for Transport (DfT) into funding the BHLR as a test case for Britain’s largest road-building programme in 25 years.

Karl Horton, a spokesperson for the Combe Haven Defenders, one of the groups involved in today’s action, said: “George Osborne is building a pointless and destructive road to nowhere on our doorstep – and is planning to build scores more on other people’s – so today we’ve come and built one on his. His obsession with building new roads is bad for jobs, bad for our countryside and bad for our warming climate. It can – and will – be met with sustained peaceful resistance.”

A “National Rally Against Road Building”, backed by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the RSPB, will be taking place in Crowhurst, on the route of the BHLR, on Saturday 13 July [7].

Contact 07565 967 250. Photos available from 07711 090 544 (Adrian Arbib).

NOTES
[1] http://www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] For background see the Campaign for Better Transport’s briefing ‘What the spending review could mean for transport’, http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/blogs/traffic/what_the_spending_review_means_for_transport
[3] www.arbib.org; tel 07711 090 544
[4] ‘Final nail in your coffin: Chancellor moves into new home as UK stripped of AAA rating’, Sunday Mirror, 24 February 2013, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-osborne-bungling-chancellor-moves-1728026
[5] https://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/recent-media-coverage/
[6] See http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/campaigns/roads-to-nowhere/map for an online map of the proposals. For background see the Campaign for Better Transport’s October 2012 briefing ‘Going backwards: the new roads programme’: http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report. The latter lists 191 projects (more have come to light since then), conservatively costed at £30bn, including 76 bypasses, 56 widened roads, 48 link roads and 9 bridges and tunnels. It also notes that ‘Many of the roads would affect areas protected for conservation, landscape and heritage reasons … incl[uding] three National Parks, the National Wetland of the Norfolk Broads and at least seven Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).
[7] http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/roadsrally2013

Contact 07565 967 250. Photos available from 07711 090 544 (Adrian Arbib).

Police Cut off Willits Protester from Food and Water

23rd June 2013, This incident occurred on the third day that Red-Tailed Hawk has been perched on a stitcher, blocking Willits bypass construction and protecting critical wetlands.

Crowd of supporters marches onto wetlands destruction site to resupply Red-Tailed Hawk, who has run out of food.

Saturday evening around 45 supporters of Red-Tailed Hawk’s occupation of a wick drain “stitching machine” converged on the site in what was precious wetlands in the path of CalTrans’ freeway project. Supporters walked onto the site unopposed until they reached CHP squad cars, when two officers emerged and tried to call a halt to the march. Supporters from Willits, Ukiah and beyond proceeded on the the stitcher in which Red-Tailed Hawk is perched. When he lowered a supply rope, they tried to attach bundles of food and water. CHP officers repelled the attempt three times, cutting the rope in the process.

With press on hand protestors quietly sat and reasoned with the officers to allow resupply to Red-Tailed Hawk, who has no food and very little water left. The officers refused and refused as well to reveal whether they were under orders to starve him until he descends.

Police prevented supplies from being sent up to Red-Tailed Hawk.

Police forcibly prevented supporters from sending food and water up to Red-Tailed Hawk.

..and then cut his supply line.

When CHP reinforcements arrived, Sgt A. Mesa ordered protesters to leave the site and immediately grabbed Sara Grusky as she was complying with the order. Her daughter Thea Grusky-Foley and Naomi Wagner allowed themselves to be arrested in solidarity. Matt Caldwell, who had attempted to attach buckets to the line, was also arrested.

The evening ended at Willits Police Station, where Sara and Thea, who had walked away after being handcuffed, talked by phone to press and Sheriff Tom Allman amidst a crowd of supporters. They surrendered to an angry Sgt. Mesa after calling in their whereabouts to the CHP.

All four arrestees are currently at Mendocino County Jail, awaiting booking. Red-Tailed Hawk is still without water and food and needs all the support we can give him.

EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING 2013

EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING 2013 website all information is now up at http://efgathering.weebly.com.

Gathering Dates 7th-11th August,

Location – SE England (nearest station Bexhill)

EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING 2013 website all information is now up at http://efgathering.weebly.com.

Gathering Dates 7th-11th August,

Location – SE England (nearest station Bexhill)

40,000 form human chain around the ZAD

20.5.13

If any more proof is needed that direct action works, take a trip to Nantes in western France.

20.5.13

If any more proof is needed that direct action works, take a trip to Nantes in western France.

Fifteen or so miles outside the city, the regional authority backed by the French national government, has been trying to build “Nantes International” Airport. It claims it is required to replace the single runway airport in the city in order to attract investment into the area. The opponents commissioned their own study which refuted those claims. They also point out that Nantes is just a little over two hours by fast train from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. The new airport is dismissed as little more than an ego project of the former major of Nantes, Jean-Marc Ayrault, now the Prime Minister of France. It has been dubbed ‘Ayrauoport’.

Last weekend (11^th May) I was one of the 40,000 or so people who formed a 25 kilometre-long human chain around the site of the airport. The huge numbers have been inspired by the direct action of last winter. During the winter months there were tear-gas battles in the woods as police fought to remove hundreds of young protesters who had set up make-shift homes in support of the local community. The courage of the protesters from the self-styled ZAD as they resisted the police in the bitter cold and driving rain of last winter both cemented their support in the local community and inspired people from around France and beyond.

Now there are support groups, called “committees”, in 200 towns and cities. Each group stages demonstrations in their own towns and lobbies politicians in their own areas in support of the Nantes campaigners. Hardly a week goes by without one of the committees cycling or walking through France to the site of the proposed airport. Last weekend on my way back from the protest I spied a billboard in Le Mans– over 100 miles from Nantes– opposing the airport.

The ZAD resistance followed on from the 28 day hunger strike staged last year during the presidential election campaign by four peasant farmers against the plan to evict them from their properties.

The local community has fought a great campaign over the years – and recently won an important court case in the courts where the judge ruled that the airport’s promoters had failed to carry out proper flood plain and environmental assessments of the project, as required by the European Union. The campaigners believe that the ruling from the court may provide a way for the Government to drop the airport and save face. But the reason the Government is under so much pressure is because of the way that direct action – the hunger strikes and the resistance from ZAD – electrified support from across France. No wonder there was such a carnival atmosphere last Saturday. We were holding hands around an airport that will probably now never be built.

John Stewart guest post's blog

Earth First! Summer Gathering: 7th-11th August 2013

This year's the Summer Gathering will be in the Hastings area near the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road campaign. It will run from the evening of Wednesday 7th August and finish on Sunday 11th August.

The Earth First! Summer Gathering takes place each year to provide a space in which the radical ecology movement can share skills and plan for future campaigns and actions. Anyone who is interested in ecological direct action will have a valuable part to play and is welcome to come to this family friendly gathering. If you've not been to an Earth First! Gathering before and are thinking about it, please do come, we are a very friendly, welcoming bunch and would love to have you get involved

Programme: Workshops, skill sharing and planning action, plus low-impact living without leaders. Meet people, learn skills.

Transport/location: exact location will be announced 2 weeks before gathering on website.

Cost: £20-£30 from each person to cover all costs except food. (If you really can't afford this, please come anyway and give what you can).

Food: Delicious vegan food will be available, and meal tickets will be on sale at the gathering.

What to bring: Everyone will be camping so bring a tent, sleeping bag etc.

If you have any particular accommodation, access or dietary needs please tell us asap but at least two weeks in advance so we can plan suitable facilities. There will be a small amount of living vehicular space if booked in advance, on a first come first served basis.

Contact: summergathering-at-earthfirst.org.uk

http://efgathering.weebly.com

Breaking News: Cops Move in on Willits Treesit; Cutting and Construction to Follow

21 March 2013

If you are anywhere near Mendocino County, get out there and help!

21 March 2013

If you are anywhere near Mendocino County, get out there and help!

Willits, CA-Opponents of the Caltrans Willlits Bypass through endangered wetlands are converging on the site to protect a tree-sitter as dozens of California Highway Patrol vehicles arrived at the Bypass protest area in Willits in Mendocino County at 7 a.m. this morning. CHP officers began cordoning off the access roads to the area, keeping a gathering number of protesters and witnesses away from the tree-sit and Caltrans’ proposed construction area. The 24-year old local farmer in the tree who calls herself “the Warbler” has been aloft next to Highway 101 since January 28.

Four arrests have been made of Willits residents, and the situation is still actively unfolding. Another Bypass protester has been standing in front of the brush crushing machine that is in the jurisdictional wetlands and has repeatedly blocked it after having been removed several times without arrest. Caltrans’ permit process is not complete with regard to the Migratory Bird Act, in effect until September 15 for the nesting season.

Updates will be released as the situation unfolds.

Caltrans Bypass Battle in Willits Heats Up As Activists Sit Down to Block Equipment

16 March 2013

Willits, CA-Local residents say Caltrans tried to bulldoze their way through Federal and State regulations again in what has become a running battle over the planned Bypass highway around Willits in Mendocino County. Activists sat down in front of moving equipment and called Cal-tip to report violations of the International Migratory Bird Act after bird nests were found. This was the third time activists have blocked equipment since Jan. 28, when a tree sitter named Warbler went aloft in a tall ponderosa pine at the southern end of the proposed construction site on Hwy. 101 just outside Willits to protest Caltrans’ Bypass.

At issue is protocol regarding required surveys for nesting birds in compliance with the Migratory Bird Act and a “jurisdictional wetland” damaged when Caltrans workers drove an excavator into the boggy area and it became stuck.

When Caltrans arrived at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, they were accompanied by Arrow Fencing Company and their consulting biologists, who walked ahead of the noisy machine in case nests were again found in its path. Caltrans and Arrow Fencing employees on site claimed they had been told they could proceed by Joann Dunn, California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (DFW) regional liaison to Caltrans. No proof was available that revised protocols for the bird surveys required before starting construction had been approved by DFW.

Reached by phone, DFW Joann Dunn said she had not seen the protocols but that the Department had agreed Caltrans could continue fencing in the previously disturbed area, despite being under an “active investigation”. Last week it was revealed that Caltrans did not have the approved protocols from DFW needed prior to performing bird surveys. State DFW ordered Caltrans to submit revised protocols and do new bird surveys.

Excavator tracks flat jurisdictional wetlands

The Bypass would raise a thirty-foot high earthen wall on either end of the small northern California town, connected by an elevated two-lane, high-speed viaduct spanning the Little Lake Valley. Sensitive wetlands and Coho salmon in the two longest tributaries to the Eel River would be severely impacted. Moreover, safety concerns about the viaduct, which has no exits, have been raised repeatedly. Caltrans’ EIR says the safety standards will be met in Phase II of the plan, which opponents suspect may never be funded, leaving them with a statistically predictable higher rate of serious and fatal accidents.

State Senator Noreen Evans last week sent a letter to Caltrans with some “pointed questions” about Caltrans’ design plans after her aide visited the site and met with those opposed to the Caltrans’ Bypass, according to the Willits News. That letter can be found on the Willits News site at https://www.facebook.com/WillitsWeekly/posts/493170500739029.

During the sit-down blockade, activist Jaime Chevalier said, “We told Caltrans we’d leave if they’d stop all work and sit down and talk with Senator Noreen Evans.”