Category: Coal

Two Coal Mines In North East England Shutdown By Protests

Pro­test­ers occup­ping equip­ment at the Har­g­reaves open cast coal mine at Field House, Coun­ty Durham

ACTIVISTS UNDER THE BANNER OF EARTH FIRST! TAKE ON COAL MINING IN THE NORTH EAST OF ENGLAND. TWO COAL MINES SHUT DOWN!

In the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing, activists from the North East,
around the UK and abroad entered and occu­pied machin­ery in Field House mine and block­ad­ed Schot­ton mine to stop them from con­tin­u­ing to dig up coal, destroy­ing the sur­round­ing envi­ron­ment and con­tribut­ing to the cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe.

Open­cast coal min­ing is strong­ly resist­ed in the “des­o­late North”, an
area that has become a sac­ri­fice zone for con­tin­ued eco­nom­ic growth at
the cost of the glob­al cli­mate, local envi­ron­ment and  com­mu­ni­ty health. It sup­plies the UK’s dirty pow­er sta­tions, lead­ing CO2 emit­ters, while peo­ple in the glob­al South are suf­fer­ing the con­se­quences. Even in the UK we are start­ing to see the impacts of cli­mate change such as flood­ing and the expect­ed sea lev­el rise will affect coastal areas around the coun­try.

Pro­test­ers occup­ping equip­ment at the Har­g­reaves open cast coal mine at Field House, Coun­ty Durham

Field House open­cast start­ed in 2018 and is oper­at­ed by Har­g­reaves. The
exact des­ti­na­tion or pow­er sta­tions that the coal is being trans­port­ed to is unknown. Machin­ery inside the mine is occu­pied.

Coal pro­vid­ed just 5.3% of the elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed in the UK in 2018.
Recent research by Friends of the Earth has shown that already, enough
coal is held in stock­piles in the UK to last until 2025, the date by which the UK gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted to phas­ing out coal.

Yet, it allows for con­tin­ued extrac­tion, expan­sion and even pro­pos­als
for 2 new coal mines to go ahead.

Pro­test­ers block­ade entrance to Shot­ton open cast coal mine, Blag­don Hall, Northum­ber­land

Coal burn­ing is not only one of the main con­trib­u­tors to cli­mate change, but also destroys valu­able habi­tat and impacts air qual­i­ty where it is dug and where it is burnt. The Bradley mine in the Pont Val­ley, Durham for instance, vio­lat­ed Euro­pean and UK nature con­ser­va­tion leg­is­la­tion by destroy­ing Great Crest­ed Newt habi­tat.

We need to stop import­ing coal, and we need to stop dig­ging it up in the
UK now. Frack­ing, bio­mass, gas and nuclear are not solu­tions either.
Nei­ther do we want large-scale, cor­po­rate-con­trolled renew­able ener­gy
instal­la­tions that rely on the min­ing of rare met­als else­where to pow­er
indus­tri­al so-called “devel­op­ment”. Green cap­i­tal­ism is not the answer.

Instead, we have to work towards rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent, local­ly and
com­mu­nal­ly con­trolled, off-grid solu­tions that involve the use of DIY
tech­nolo­gies made with recy­cled mate­ri­als. These solu­tions need to be
cou­pled with a dras­tic reduc­tion in ener­gy con­sump­tion, and a wider,
rad­i­cal oppo­si­tion to our cap­i­tal­ist plu­toc­ra­cy. Such sys­tems can then
be embed­ded in non-hier­ar­chi­cal­ly organ­ised shar­ing economies that
oper­ate accord­ing to prin­ci­ples of mutu­al aid and sol­i­dar­i­ty.

Earth­First! is a plat­form for peo­ple to take direct action against the
destruc­tion of the earth. We adhere to prin­ci­ples of non-hier­ar­chi­cal
organ­i­sa­tion and the use of direct action to con­front, stop and reverse
the destruc­tion of the earth.

No com­pro­mise in defence of the earth!

@earthfirst_uk

Back­ground info

The Durham coal­field has been a work place and source of ener­gy since
Roman times. At its height, this coal­field employed almost 250,000
minework­ers and their union was the lifeblood of their com­mu­ni­ties.
Durham min­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed in the nation­al strike for a year from March
1984 resist­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s plan to close more than 70 under­ground
mines, (but only 20 clo­sures were acknowl­edged at the time) in an effort
to increase elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion from import­ed coal, nuclear and gas
and try to smash the pow­er of the unions. Min­ers came togeth­er to fight against the pit clo­sures and to sup­port the fam­i­lies left in pover­ty as wages stopped com­ing in.

The last under­ground mine in the Durham closed in 1993, but the
com­mu­ni­ty cul­ture born of the indus­try and col­lec­tive resilience car­ries
on. Now mem­bers of the same com­mu­ni­ties are fight­ing to stop the total
eco­log­i­cal oblit­er­a­tion, noise, dust, heavy traf­fic, denial of access to
nat­ur­al spaces and com­mu­ni­ty dis­em­pow­er­ment that are open­cast coal extrac­tion.

Also near­by lies a site of con­tin­ued strong oppo­si­tion to coal by the Cam­paign to Pro­tect Pont Val­ley who bat­tle against Banks Group in their
val­ley. Banks Group’s the only Eng­lish com­pa­ny sub­mit­ting plans to
expand its coal extrac­tion ven­ture, with appli­ca­tions await­ing deci­sions
to open­cast Dew­ley Hill (out­skirts of New­cas­tle) and at Druridge Bay (a
stun­ning beach north of New­cas­tle). Banks wants to extend the open­cast
in the Pont Val­ley and could put in fur­ther exten­sion appli­ca­tions at
its two exist­ing open­cast sites in Northum­ber­land.

Resistance To Imminent Coal Mining In Pont Valley, County Durham

Time is run­ning out for Banks Group to build an access road to the site of it planned open­cast coal mine in Coun­ty Durham, before their plan­ning per­mis­sion expires on 3rd June. Local peo­ple and their sup­port­ers have left to stop the first spade going into the ground on 71 hectares of grass­land, fields and woods in the Pont Val­ley, Co Durham. Under plan­ning per­mis­sion, the min­ing com­pa­ny Banks Group has to start work by 3 June or their licence to start min­ing the site will expire.

The site is in the Pont Val­ley off the A692 between the vil­lages of Leadgate and Dip­ton, where the Banks Group plans to extract around 500,000 tonnes of coal over two to three years. A camp was set­up on 2nd March at the entrance to the pro­posed mine. Sev­er­al Local Groups, the Coal Action Net­work and cam­paingers from Ham­bach For­est have been instru­men­tal in get­ting the camp going. Between 19th and 21st April, the camp was evict­ed by bailiffs and sev­en cam­paign­ers were arrest­ed, but a new camp has been re-estab­lished at a new loca­tion. All are invit­ed to come and stay and pro­tect the beau­ti­ful Pont Val­ley. There is local bus con­nec­tions to Dip­ton from Durham and New Cas­tle.

There are plans for a series of pub­lic demon­stra­tions in the days lead­ing up to the dead­line, includ­ing:

For over thir­ty years, UK Coal and now Banks Group have want­ed to start an open cast coal mine in the Pont Val­ley, between Dip­ton and Leadgate, at a site known as ‘Bradley’, in Coun­ty Durham. The com­mu­ni­ty won 3 high court bat­tles against UK Coal. But they lost on the fourth despite pre­sent­ing even stronger evi­dence than the pre­vi­ous 3. UK coal got the per­mit, but they were bank­rupt and they liq­ui­dat­ed in 2015. Every­one thought that was the end of it and there would be no mine. This Jan­u­ary, Banks Group announced they’d bought the land and the per­mit off UK Coal and intend to work the mine.

If you would like to put an event any­where in UK or in oth­er parts of Europe to spread the word of the strug­gle please get in touch with: protectpontvalley@gmail.com

Also see:

Earth First! & RtP shut down UK’s biggest opencast coal mine on the UK’s first day without electricity generated by coal

Five peo­ple from Reclaim the Pow­er and Earth First! stopped work at the UK’s largest open­cast coal mine, Ffos-y-fran near Merthyr Tyd­fil, South Wales for ten hours today.

Excavator Occupied

Five peo­ple from Reclaim the Pow­er and Earth First! stopped work at the UK’s largest open­cast coal mine, Ffos-y-fran near Merthyr Tyd­fil, South Wales for ten hours today. Three peo­ple locked to an exca­va­tor with a ban­ner say­ing ‘End Coal’. Two peo­ple locked to a key access road, pre­vent­ing coal leav­ing the coal mine to the rail­head. Every day this week a train has trans­port­ed 2200 tonnes to RWE npower’s Aberthaw near Bar­ry, South Wales.[1] Aberthaw is the UK’s dirt­i­est pow­er station[2]. Today is also the UK’s first work­ing day where no elec­tric­i­ty has been gen­er­at­ed from coal in the UK.

Miller Argent’s Ffos-y-fran open­cast coal mine is the largest in the UK. Recent­ly the Unit­ed Nations called for an inves­ti­ga­tion into can­cer and child­hood asth­ma inci­dences in the pop­u­la­tion near to the mine.[3] The pro­tes­tors are join­ing local peo­ples’ call for the full restora­tion of Ffos-y-fran now.

Alice who is dressed as a canary locked to an exca­va­tor said, “Today the UK hasn’t gen­er­at­ed any elec­tric­i­ty from coal. This shows that it is pos­si­ble to move away from destruc­tive fos­sil fuel gen­er­a­tion. Nei­ther coal nor gas can achieve the type of green­house-gas reduc­tions demand­ed by inter­na­tion­al bod­ies such as the IPCC.   The shift away from coal would not be pos­si­ble with­out decades of com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance and action from the move­ment for cli­mate jus­tice.  In tra­di­tion­al under­ground mines canaries were used to alert min­ers to air pol­lu­tion. Today we, as canaries are warn­ing that we need to take urgent action against coal to tack­le air pol­lu­tion and cli­mate change”

Alex, also locked on added, “RWE npow­er talk of swap­ping to import­ed coal, but while the con­di­tions sur­round­ing Ffos-y-fran mine are unac­cept­able, the sit­u­a­tion for peo­ple liv­ing close to the coal mines in Rus­sia and Colom­bia, where most of the UK’s pow­er sta­tion coal comes from, are com­plete­ly unbear­able. It is long past time Ffos-y-fran was restored and absolute­ly time that Aberthaw was shut down.”signal-2017-04-21-104703

In 2015 38% of coal import­ed to the UK came from Rus­sia and 29% came from Colombia.[4] In these coun­tries the sit­u­a­tions sur­round­ing the open­cast coal mines amount to cul­tur­al geno­cide, with indige­nous and set­tled com­mu­ni­ties being forced from their land.[5] Miller Argent’s main cus­tomer for coal from Ffos-y-fran is Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion.

Sian Far­rar, a local res­i­dent of Rym­ney, a neigh­bour­ing vil­lage, said, “Those of us who live here see the black coal dust out­side every day – we are breath­ing this in con­stant­ly.. Add to that the more dan­ger­ous invis­i­ble pol­lu­tants from the pow­er sta­tions, and it’s clear this indus­try is tox­ic for local com­mu­ni­ties, in Wales and glob­al­ly. I stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with glob­al com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by UK coal-fired pow­er – RWE must stop sourc­ing coal from my back­yard, and must not sub­ject oth­er com­mu­ni­ties to these impacts.’signal-2017-04-21-105122

Chris who is cur­rent­ly locked to the access road said, “I am tak­ing this action today because RWE npow­er is burn­ing Welsh coal which when burnt releas­es high lev­els of CO2 con­tribut­ing to cli­mate change and nitro­gen oxides caus­ing res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness. [6] The Euro­pean Union have ruled against the UK gov­ern­ment for allow­ing this NOXs pol­lu­tion to hap­pen, but no action has been tak­en. This is sim­ply not acceptable.”[7]

They con­tin­ued, “The solu­tion to the air pol­lu­tion We need to stop burn­ing fos­sil fuels. caused by burn­ing Welsh coal isn’t to import coal instead, as RWE npow­er sug­gest. Swap­ping air pol­lu­tion in the UK for coal dust which contaminates the water, land and air in Rus­sia, Colom­bia or even Aus­tralia, to keep Aberthaw going sim­ply can­not go ahead. [8]All coal mines need to be restored and the pow­er sta­tions must be shut down now.”

This action is part of a series of demon­stra­tions against Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion call­ing for it, and all oth­er UK coal pow­er sta­tions to close. [9]

Notes to Edi­tors

Con­tact press@reclaimthepower.org.uk or phone Sarah Squires on 07436629608

A Welsh speak­er is avail­able to speak as a local res­i­dent affect­ed by the mine.

Ref­er­ences

[1] Train infor­ma­tion gath­ered from real­time­trains. Eg: today a train is due to depart at 14.45 www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/ABTHPS/2017/04/21/0000–2359?stp=WVS&show=freight&order=wtt

[2] WWF, Sand­bag and oth­ers (Oct 2016) Lift­ing Europe’s Dark Cloud P26 In the first half of 2016 the plant emit­ted 11,003 tonnes of NOx, almost four times the 4,800 tonnes per­mit­ted under Euro­pean Union Indus­tri­al Emis­sions Direc­tive lim­its.

 

[3]Wales Online (09/03/17)UN expert calls for open­cast mine inves­ti­ga­tion after con­cerns about the impact on health

[4] Cal­cu­la­tions from HMRC coal import sta­tis­tics

[5] Mys­ki local civic organ­i­sa­tion “Revival of Kazas and the Shor peo­ple”, Inter­na­tion­al Work Group for Indige­nous Affairs (IWGIA) and Insti­tute for Ecol­o­gy and Action Anthro­pol­o­gy (INFOE),Dis­crim­i­na­tion against Shor com­mu­ni­ties in Mys­ki munic­i­pal dis­trict, Kemero­vo Oblast, Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion P10-17

[6] Friends of the Earth Cym­ru (Sep­tem­ber 2016) Air qual­i­ty and health impacts of Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion http://foe.cymru/sites/default/files/FOE_APS_report_final.pdf P2

[7] Judge­ment of the Court (7th Cham­ber) 21 Sep­tem­ber 2016 (*) Fail­ure of a Mem­ber State to ful­fil oblig­a­tions — Direc­tive 2001/80/EC — Arti­cle 4(3) — Annex VI, Part A — Lim­i­ta­tion of emis­sions of cer­tain pol­lu­tants into the air from large com­bus­tion plants — Appli­ca­tion —Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion

[8] Luz Ángela Uri­ana Epi­ayu, of the Wayuu in Colom­bia said, “My son Moisés Daniel is sick with a high fever and a dry cough, and he is hav­ing trou­ble breath­ing… He is still only three years old. I live very close the Cer­re­jón coal mine… Because of the coal dust cre­at­ed by Cer­re­jón Moisés gets this dry cough… He breathes con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed air twen­ty-four hours a day.” Uri­ana Epi­ayu, LA (2017) RWE npow­er Colom­bian coal is killing our chil­dren! Close Aberthaw!Cer­re­jon is the largest Colom­bian coal mine it sup­plies Drax pow­er sta­tion and oth­er UK coal pow­er sta­tions. It is owned by Glen­core, Anglo- Amer­i­can and BHP Bil­li­ton, all list­ed on the Lon­don Stock Exchange.

[9] This action is the lat­est in a series of actions against Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion. These have includ­ed a block­ade of the pow­er sta­tions main entrance using two tripods for over 4 hours in Decem­ber. 150 peo­ple demand­ed “Shut Aberthaw: Green jobs now!” at a demon­stra­tion against the pow­er sta­tion on Sat­ur­day 28th Jan­u­ary organ­ised by Reclaim the Pow­er, Coal Action Net­work and Unit­ed Valley’s Action Group and a demon­stra­tion at RWE Npower’s head­quar­ters in Swin­don ear­li­er in Jan­u­ary.

Main coal conveyor belt blocked at Hambach

1st Sept 2015

Ear­ly this morn­ing two peo­ple occu­pied the main con­vey­or belt, close to the coal bunk at Ham­bach. This con­vey­or belt trans­ports coal from all over the mine to the coal bunker, and from there, to the coal trains.

This action is against this sys­tem in which big com­pa­nies are allowed to destroy our earth.
Also in sol­i­dar­i­ty with our com­rade Jus, who is in prison for 6 weeks now. We encour­age every­one to show sup­port for Jus in any­way that they see fit. Free­dom for Jus!

The peo­ple in the block­ade decid­ed to focus on their action and not so much on media, if media has ques­tions they can call the mead­ow phone: 0157 – 54 136 100

For one hour the work­ers sprin­kled them with cold water. After 6,5 hours the peo­ple were removed by police and have been released at 1 pm.

3/9/15: Update on Jus

Into the Heart of the Beast: Occupying Germany’s Open Cast Coal Nightmare

Last week­end I along with around one thou­sand oth­er peo­ple took part in mass direct action against one of the largest open cast lig­nite mines in Europe, owned by RWE, which along with sur­round­ing mines and coal pow­ers sta­tions is the largest source of green­house gas­es in Europe.

I took part because fos­sil fuel cap­i­tal­ism is destroy­ing our Earth. Wait­ing for com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ments to do the right things is not work­ing and is not going to work so peo­ple must stand up and force them to.

Ear­li­er this year, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment caved in to the lob­by­ing might of RWE, back­track­ing on plans to put a levy on the most pol­lut­ing pow­er plants, which would have led to a phase out of lig­nite. Last week­end, peo­ple stood up in protest to say ‘Ende Gelände’, here and no fur­ther.

 

This is my expe­ri­ence of the day. It was a long, exhaust­ing and con­fused day, and what I expe­ri­enced will not be the same thing that oth­ers in dif­fer­ent parts of the action expe­ri­enced. But I hope this can help any­one read­ing under­stand what hap­pened.

The assault

“Guten Mor­gen, Ende Gelände!” Those were the words I woke up to at 5:45 am in my tent. An ear­ly start for a momen­tous day, I rushed to scram­ble my stuff togeth­er, go to the loo and then hasti­ly join up with my affin­i­ty group.

We were in the ‘Green Fin­ger’ one of the four groups with approx­i­mate­ly 250 peo­ple in them, that would be lay­ing siege to the mine.

When the whole fin­ger was formed up with every­one in their agreed place, my affin­i­ty group was in the mid­dle. The first kilo­me­tre or so passed calm­ly enough. I could even hear some­one play ‘The Dig­gers Song’ on a pipe, as we searched for a way across the motor­way between us and the mine.

In the end, we came upon a tun­nel with only about four lines of cops block­ing it. It was at this point that many peo­ple there had their first expe­ri­ence of police vio­lence, in some ways I was lucky I knew what to expect from pre­vi­ous actions.

So they resort­ed to fill­ing the air with a mist of pep­per spray and beat­ing every­one they could reach with their clubs, in the hope of sep­a­rat­ing them from the group. Every­one around me bunched up like rug­by play­ers in a scrum so the police couldn’t drag any of us away.

After this came a mad dash across the fields going through two more police lines. Even when they weren’t in front of us, the police fol­lowed behind us on foot and in vans try­ing to beat and pick off any strag­glers. One per­son in my affin­i­ty group got pep­per spray in their face, so we had to guide him by hand as we ran through a break in the police line.

I’m hum­bled by the trust he showed in us to make sure he wasn’t beat­en to a pulp. The way every­one ral­lied to help those around them who had been beat­en or pep­per sprayed was one the most beau­ti­ful dis­plays of prac­ti­cal sol­i­dar­i­ty I had ever seen.

Into the mine

After we suc­cess­ful­ly got across the fields, we walked along a dirt track by the edge of the mine that was in line with some water sprin­klers used to stop dust escap­ing. Before this point I hadn’t real­ly grasped the scale of the place. It looked large enough to fit at least two good sized towns in. It went from sand coloured at the top down to pitch black at the bot­tom.

We descend­ed down the mine on a sandy ramp wide enough to dri­ve a van down. At a bend near the bot­tom there was an attempt to block the path, but we evad­ed the police by trav­el­ling out the bank and bypass­ing them instead.

We then moved as fast as we could along the top tier of the mine, shad­owed by a group of riot cops on the cliff top. When we reached one of the cor­ners of the top tier, where con­vey­or belts over a kilo­me­tre long end­ed, we met a small group of secu­ri­ty, which most of us were able to get past with­out much trou­ble. As we moved along the side of the con­vey­or belt towards one of the mas­sive Bag­gers the police raced after us in bor­rowed 4x4s.

The police tried to form a line to block us off, but there were too few of them to do any­thing, so we were able to bust through the line with ease. My legs were burn­ing from run­ning in the sand with a heavy bag full of water. My right arm felt like it was on fire from the pep­per spray.

After this we formed a line in order to stop any more police being able to join those in front of us. They tried again to block our path, but we held our line togeth­er by link­ing arms. We suc­cess­ful­ly stood our ground and they were forced to retreat. See­ing the police retreat was a won­der­ful sight.

Even­tu­al­ly we came to a point that was too wide for us to ful­ly block and even more police man­aged to get past us. They had a much stronger line in front of us, which was thick­est next to the con­vey­or belt where I was walk­ing. On the very far side from me peo­ple man­aged to break through their line next to some small­er dig­gers.

The mem­bers of the affin­i­ty group I was with tried to run over to flow through the police, but by the time we got there they had closed it. I saw one police offi­cer grab some­one by their front and beat them across their back, while oth­ers lashed wild­ly in every direc­tion, and oth­ers pep­per-sprayed around them hop­ing to burn some­one.

Deten­tion

After two hours, rough­ly sev­en kilo­me­tres, and numer­ous police lines, we were ket­tled at 9 am. Even then we were still win­ning, as just by being there we stopped the mine from run­ning and the police guard­ing us couldn’t work to keep oth­ers out.

We could see the Bag­gers lying still while in the dis­tance wind tur­bines moved. A cou­ple of hours in, they start­ed to pull us out one by one, tak­ing our pho­tos and try­ing to get our names. Almost no one told them.

After this, they tied our hands with zip ties behind our backs. Through all this we sup­port­ed each oth­er, and worked to keep our spir­its up by play­ing games and chat­ting (small talk when you can’t say your name, or say too much about your­self is strange).

After five to sev­en hours we were moved onto bus­es and tak­en to a police sta­tion. We sat for sev­er­al more hours chat­ting, singing and shar­ing food (our hands had been freed by then). Even­tu­al­ly, they gave up on try­ing to process sev­er­al hun­dred peo­ple that refused to give their names and resist­ed hav­ing their fin­ger­prints tak­en.

Around 11 pm we were dumped out­side a rail­way sta­tion and made our way back to camp, tired but tri­umphant. For the train ride back, some of us brought a cou­ple of crates of beer, we cel­e­brat­ed the day and talked about what we’d been through on the train back. By around 1 am I was back in my tent exhaust­ed, sore, emo­tion­al­ly drained, but also felt great about what we’d done togeth­er and achieved.

We had stopped the dig­gers for a day but it was also about more than just that. In eco­nom­ic terms it will have also dam­aged RWE’s posi­tion on the mar­ket (their share price just hit a new low) and made them seem less trust­wor­thy to investors.

In addi­tion to this many there had nev­er tak­en part in direct action before but now know that by work­ing togeth­er and tak­ing mat­ters into our own hands we can achieve more than wait­ing for sal­va­tion from those above us in soci­ety could ever do.

Many peo­ple both there and watch­ing the events from afar will also have seen the role of the police, not as keep­ing of the peace but as guard dogs of social and eco­nom­ic order which is killing us and our plan­et. Last week­end, we fought and we won.

by Toni Bel­ly / The Ecol­o­gist

Protesters Storm Open-Pit Coal Mine in Western Germany

Pro­tes­tors look at a huge buck­et-wheel exca­va­tor as they arrive for a demon­stra­tion at the open-pit coal mine near Garzweil­er

Pro­tes­tors look at a huge buck­et-wheel exca­va­tor as they arrive for a demon­stra­tion at the open-pit coal mine near Garzweil­er, west­ern Ger­many Sat­ur­day Aug. 15, 2015. Sev­er­al hun­dred envi­ron­men­tal activists have stormed a lig­nite mine in west­ern Ger­many to protest against the use of coal for elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion. dpa via AP Mar­ius Beck­er

August 15th, 2015

Envi­ron­men­tal activists have stormed a lig­nite mine in west­ern Ger­many to protest the use of coal, a major source of green­house gas­es.

The Ger­man news agency dpa reports that sev­er­al hun­dred peo­ple from a group call­ing itself Ende Gelande — which loose­ly trans­lates as “it’s fin­ished now” — broke through a police line in Garzweil­er, west of Cologne.

Police spokesman Anton Hamach­er says offi­cers used pep­per spray to stop the crowd and are remov­ing pro­test­ers from the site.

A spokesman for Ger­man ener­gy com­pa­ny RWE says sev­er­al huge buck­et-wheel exca­va­tors used at the open-pit mine had to be shut down for safe­ty rea­sons. Spokesman Lothar Lam­bertz says RWE has can­celed plans to bring employ­ees onto the site to ral­ly in favor of coal min­ing.

from Asso­ci­at­ed Press

Germany: Giant Coal Excavator Occupied 145315

from Ham­bach For­est and here (Ger­man Lan­guage link)

June 6th, 2015
(The occu­pa­tion is ongo­ing)
Last night at 1 am, four activists occu­pied a large buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the Inden open­cast mine. They climbed to the top of the exca­va­tor about 70m high. The machine halt­ed is one of the largest machines in the world that nor­mal­ly destroys 24/7, lit­er­al­ly churn­ing the land­scape. In Inden lig­nite is pro­mot­ed for RhenAish min­ing area above ground, that is: Every­thing is about being in the way and will be destroyed; who lives about is expro­pri­at­ed and expelled.  Where vil­lages, fields, mead­ows and woods once stood incon­ceiv­ably huge holes appear in the land­scape, an indus­tri­al waste­land to the hori­zon. Of all of the ener­gy sources, lig­nite, is ridicu­lous­ly inef­fi­cient, releas­ing huge loads of CO2 and par­tic­u­late emis­sions, and the con­ver­sion of pow­er sup­ply to renew­ables sab­o­taged with inflex­i­ble “base­load plants”.
The event is also a sol­i­dar­i­ty greet­ing from the resis­tance against the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area to the resis­tance against the meet­ing of the G7 in Elmau. There is a pre­sump­tion that this polit­i­cal elite of glob­alised cap­i­tal­ism wants to define the solu­tions to the prob­lems that they them­selves have cre­at­ed , The G7 did not even have the decen­cy to pre­tend to demo­c­ra­t­ic legit­i­ma­cy – they coor­di­nate as the oli­garchic gov­ern­ment of the world, sim­ply because they can. This meet­ing of glob­al pow­er elite has no oth­er aim than solid­i­fy­ing their dom­i­nance.
It remains in the sep­a­ra­tion between indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries and those that may be exploit­ed as sources of raw mate­ri­als and for­eign mar­kets. The G7 bear most of the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the glob­al cli­mate col­lapse, but the con­se­quences are so far main­ly to oth­er parts of the world, and the cli­mate refugees left behind – which unfor­tu­nate­ly is ter­ri­bly often fatal by the inhu­mane bor­der poli­cies of the indus­tri­alised coun­tries. This meet­ing is noth­ing more than the most pow­er­ful crim­i­nal car­tel of the world – so stop  the G7!
“If four peo­ple can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours in such a gen­tle way …”
“… What might hap­pen if only a small part of all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of the soci­ety were pulled in the same direc­tion?” – From the Action State­ment
It was often said that it is when it comes to cli­mate pro­tec­tion, it is “11:55″, and that the world must act. But the world is not still, and some­one has to start some­where times. In the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area was also often try­ing to stop through the legal and demo­c­ra­t­ic influ­ence on pol­i­tics, the dis­place­ment of peo­ple and the destruc­tion of the Ham­bach for­est. These expe­ri­ences have shown that the deci­sion-mak­ers from the social pow­er elites will always give pri­or­i­ty to prof­it inter­ests – as long as we give them the choice.
This block­ade is not a fur­ther appeal to the politi­cians, to final­ly use their pow­er for good, because we do not trust the pol­i­cy mak­ers any­way. The weapon­ry of the block­ade draws a clear bound­ary: thus far and no fur­ther – Respect exis­tence or expect resis­tance! This action is an appeal to all those who are ready to assume their respon­si­bil­i­ties: Desert­ing from this sys­tem of indus­tri­al destruc­tion, you defied him, the match­ing of forms of resis­tance against it – and then let it decompose.Together we will replace it with some­thing bet­ter! If four peo­ple in such a gen­tle way, can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours – what might hap­pen if only a small part of all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of this soci­ety pulls togeth­er? If we want to bequeath a hab­it­able plan­et, there must be a thor­ough change from below. This occu­pa­tion can only be the start.
Even a small reminder: For the begin­ning of August, the Alliance mobi­lizes “end area” to a mass block­ade of an open pit in Rhineland. Here should be made pos­si­ble to low thresh­old lev­el a broad mass of peo­ple, access to civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and resis­tance. In addi­tion, each of the four for­est occu­pa­tions in Ham­bach for­est clear­ance is con­stant­ly under threat, and also on the cur­rent­ly rel­a­tive­ly safe occu­pa­tion mead­ow near the for­est there are many points of con­tact for moti­vat­ed peo­ple …
Togeth­er we can make the cap­i­tal­ist lig­nite mad­ness put an end!
The hab­it­abil­i­ty of the plan­et is at stake, pre­cise­ly now.
So Let’s do it!
PRESS RELEASE
Buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the brown coal mine Inden occu­pied
Dis­trict of Düren. In the night from Fri­day to Sat­ur­day, a buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the open-cast min­ing inden was occu­pied. Four peo­ple climbed at 1am to the top of the engine at an alti­tude of about 70m. One aim of the cam­paign is to bring the progress of the mine for a few hours to a halt. Sec­ond­ly, the occu­piers explain in their action state­ment sol­i­dar­i­ty with the protests in Elmau against the meet­ing of the G7.
“For the three lig­nite mines in the Rhineland are entire vil­lages and forests per­ma­nent­ly destroyed for­ev­er,” says one par­tic­i­pant action. “We have a respon­si­bil­i­ty for future gen­er­a­tions. Sim­ply ask to politi­cians, and then com­plain that there is no change, is not enough. “As ear­ly as on 15 March, there had been in a sim­i­lar Inden open­cast mine exca­va­tors occu­pa­tion by six peo­ple, inter­rupt­ed in the course of the oper­a­tion of the exca­va­tor for twelve hours.
Today’s block­ade will also release a sign of protest against the meet­ing of the lead­ers of the sev­en largest indus­tri­al nations in Elmau. “There is a pre­sump­tion that this polit­i­cal elite of glob­alised cap­i­tal­ism wants to define the solu­tions to the prob­lems that they them­selves have cre­at­ed,” it says in the action state­ment. “If we want to bequeath a hab­it­able plan­et, there must be a thor­ough change from below. This occu­pa­tion can this be just an impulse. ”
The action is still ongo­ing.
They can be reached under the num­ber 0157 32 48 23 40 and are O‑tones are avail­able. (In regard to the cell phone bat­tery but only to a lim­it­ed extent.) You can also reach activists, the direct con­tact with the exca­va­tors occu­pa­tion hold, on the mead­ow occu­pa­tion under 0157 541 36 100th
16:30 rest. Exca­va­tors eas­i­ly acces­si­ble.
Peo­ple from the area are wel­come to come to the open pit edge.
“It is pos­si­ble to get pret­ty close here.”, Said grade with an activist by tele­phone, who grew up in the vicin­i­ty of the open pit. “From the vil­lage Schophoven there are only a few dirt roads until man stands in front of our exca­va­tors.”
Exca­va­tor in 70m height
14:15 A fire truck arrived.
Some peo­ple climb fur­ther down the exca­va­tor around and to get an idea of ​​the sit­u­a­tion. The police can not see them.
Morn­ing
13:00 twelve hours are man­aged.
The machine stands still; “We are now the only ones here on the exca­va­tor!”
Morn­ing
12:00 loca­tion qui­et. Clothes dry again
Still no police. The clothes are now again most­ly dry. “We hav­ing quite cozy here. Ear­li­er a dog-walk­er wave­dat us. “
Morn­ing
7:00 No more police
The day dawns. Anoth­er pho­to in bright­ness reach us via MMS.
Still no police. Only an ambu­lance is around.
3:00 Police sniffs
Less than 10 Polizist_innen appear, climb up a piece and try to com­mu­ni­cate.
“We’re fine!”, The activists call back.
After some time, the police dis­ap­pear
If four peo­ple can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours in such a gen­tle way … … what might hap­pen if only a small part of pulling all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of the soci­ety in the same direc­tion? – From the Action State­ment
Staffed 1:00 exca­va­tor
Peo­ple arrive at the open pit and climb the buck­et wheel.
Some were lying down in the ear­ly evening with blan­kets in the woods and a lit­tle pre-sleep.
Now they are drenched by thun­der­storms and full of oil from the exca­va­tors to 70m height and try to curl up under a tarp.

Wrong Decision — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspector

On Wednes­day (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal’s appli­ca­tion to mine 520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site is cur­rent­ly agri­cul­tur­al land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a high­ly con­test­ed site with real­ly strong and well orches­trat­ed oppo­si­tion from local peo­ple. Why is this a bad deci­sion? … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Wrong Deci­sion — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspec­tor”

On Wednesday (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal's application to mine
520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site
is currently agricultural land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a highly
contested site with really strong and well orchestrated opposition from
local people.


Why is this a bad decision?



* The community were so very clear that there was NO COMMUNITY CONSENT
* One woman (the planning inspector) thinks she can decide whether a mine
would offer 'national, local or community benefits which would clearly
outweigh the remaining adverse impacts.' How can she possibly say yes when
the community SAYS NO.
* We are moving away from a reliance on coal (but not quickly enough) with
two coal fired power stations announcing closures next year
* The company pursuing the application will not directly operate the site
as they have serious financial difficulties and had to be helped by the
government in closing their last remaining deep mines and were order to
sell off their remaining opencast mines



As the following history of the application shows, the coal company
refused to take no for an answer being determined to sell on the mine with
planning permission. This is not the end of the battle. We need you to
think about what you are going to do to ensure that this piece of rural
Britain is never dug up. We need to stand together to protect the
livelihoods, families, local history, quality of life, homes, air quality,
tranquillity, health, wildlife and ecosystems in this area. Even if the
legal battle is over the fight is not. Get in touch with your suggestions
info@coalaction.org.uk



History of the application.



UK Coal’s first application was rejected by planners in 1986. In 2001 a
second application was rejected.



In February 2011 the planning hearing of Durham Council unanimously
rejected the application, councillors called UK Coal "thugs," "vandals"
and said they were trying to bribe them.



In Autumn 2011 there was a three week appeal which UK Coal lost.



The coal company took this to the High Court in London who said that the
decision was perverse and ordered another appeal.



The second appeal happened in Autumn 2014 and lasted three weeks. It was
well attended by local people, tens of whom spoke out against the mine
with incredible passion, dedication and knowledge.
From the team at The Coal Action Network

For more info on sim­i­lar issues check out 

http://www.coalaction.org.uk 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Coal-Action-Network/429163990497895

HAMBACH FOREST: LIVING ON THE BARRICADES

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers are present­ly block­ing RWE’s open cast lig­nite mine

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers are present­ly block­ing RWE’s open cast lig­nite mine from expand­ing with liv­ing bar­ri­cades and tow­ers which in turn are pro­tect­ing access to the three for­est tree sits with plat­forms, tree­hous­es and inter­conect­ing walk­ways.  
The Ham­bach Mine iron­i­cal­ly named after the for­est it is destroy­ing is Europe‘s largest net CO2 pol­luter and it is record break­ing antro­pogenic cli­mate change, one of the largest plan­e­tary extinc­tions and increas­ing waves of cli­mate refugees that are reminders and ulti­mate glob­al shout-outs that eco-jus­tice is social jus­tice.

After the attack, evic­tion and arrest of 3 activists dur­ing the destruc­tion last week of “Pirate Ship” liv­ing plat­form bar­ri­cade not 3 days have elapsed and we have errect­ed a new tow­er bar­ri­cade.  Almost 3 times high­er than the last one we have named it Remi‘s Tow­er to hon­or Remi Frese, a cli­mate activist who was killed by a police con­cu­sion grenade dur­ing the strugle of Zad de la Teste in South­ern France.  That death is reflec­tive of increas­ing­ly high­er stakes of glob­al eco­log­i­cal strug­gle and at least 2 envi­ro­men­tal activist dying each week.  For these that refuse to be silent and pas­sive in the face of this onslought our hearts and minds are with you.

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers.

http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2015/06/02/germany-an-update-from-hambach-forest-defenders/

hambacherforst@riseup.net

Maules Creek coal mine protests, down under

Selfie-6-768x1024

Selfie-6-768x1024

No “Coal for Christmas” as Whitehaven Coal Disruptions Continue in New South Wales

from Front­line Action

MAULES CREEK, 24 Decem­ber 2014: A man has sus­pend­ed him­self from a rail bridge cross­ing the Namoi Riv­er block­ing a coal train being loaded at White­haven Coal’s con­tro­ver­sial Maules Creek mine from leav­ing the site. The train blocked at the Maules Creek mine is believed to be the first con­tain­ment of coal from the site after a test train – twice dis­rupt­ed by activists – left the site last week. The rail bridge also ser­vices Idemit­su Resource’s Bog­gabri Coal mine.

Ben Soli­ty, a 31 year old logis­tics con­sul­tant, cit­ed deep con­cerns about the impact the mine will have on water and the cli­mate, say­ing, “Farm­ers need water to con­tin­ue to put food on our tables – so why are com­pa­nies like White­haven allowed to take it with pref­er­ence over farm­ers? Farmer’s jobs are only going to get hard­er for them as the effects of cli­mate change dri­ven by coal takes hold. Why are our gov­ern­ments sell­ing out our water and our cli­mate for a quick buck when food secu­ri­ty is at stake?”

Leard For­est Alliance spokesper­son Phil Evans said, “Aus­tralians do not want coal for Christ­mas – and White­haven are try­ing to sneak it into their stock­ings whilst every­one is dis­tract­ed. Just more slimy behav­iour from this dis­graced com­pa­ny – and project – that has seen Aus­tralians lose faith in min­ing approval process­es in this coun­try.”

 

“We need a stop to this farce imme­di­ate­ly – stop work and then have a good long, hard look at how suc­ces­sive NSW gov­ern­ments, embroiled in min­ing relat­ed cor­rup­tion, have allowed the Maules Creek mine approval to stick.”

Both White­haven Coal’s Maules Creek and Idemitsu’s Bogggabri mines have approval to expand into the crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered Leard State For­est this Feb­ru­ary – spark­ing this warn­ing from the protest group.

“They have a bat­tle on their hands if they think local farm­ers, tra­di­tion­al cus­to­di­ans and con­cerned cit­i­zens are going to allow this whole­sale destruc­tion. The for­est, water, cli­mate and cul­ture are all too pre­cious to lose – and we won’t take this lying down.”

The Leard For­est Alliance is a group made up of local farm­ers, promi­nent envi­ron­men­tal groups with a treaty of pro­tec­tion with the Gomeroi tra­di­tion­al cus­to­di­ans of  the area. Over 300 peo­ple have been arrest­ed since the cam­paign began over 2 and half years ago.

UPDATE 09:00: Reg­u­lar police have arrived – no Police Resuce yet. Ben remains in place.

UPDATE 14:30: Ben has just unfurled a ban­ner read­ing “White­haven Coal – No Water – No Future”

UPDATE 16:15: Police Res­cue have arrived on site.

UPDATE 16:35: Police Res­cue are try­ing to get to Ben with a Cher­ry Pick­er sup­plied by White­haven Coal.

UPDATE 17:00: Ben says Police Res­cue are tak­ing apart the bridge to get to him!

UPDATE 18:30: Police Res­cue have begun to cut off the now locked on Ben.

UPDATE 19:30: Ben has been arrest­ed and tak­en to Narrabri Police Sta­tion after 13 hours.

Fur­ther Infor­ma­tion:
Phil Evans, Leard For­est Alliance Spokesper­son, 0490 064 139

Twit­ter updates @FLACCoal and #Leard­Block­ade

Banner-Drop-1024x683

 

Decem­ber 16th, 2014

Protest Halts First Coal Train from Maules Creek Mine

from Front Line Action on Coal20141215_061108-e1418609338604

New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia 15 Decem­ber: A peace­ful block­ade has halt­ed the first train load of coal com­ing from the con­tro­ver­sial Maules Creek coal mine on its way to Newcastle’s Koor­a­gang Island coal export ter­mi­nals this morn­ing.

A group of 22 peo­ple met the train this morn­ing. Eight peo­ple have occu­pied and stopped the train and are refus­ing to leave.

The train was stopped dur­ing the night and delayed for over 6 hours by a pro­tes­tor who locked onto loco­mo­tives need­ed to push the coal over the Great Divid­ing Range. The 58 year-old pro­tes­tor, Bruce, from North­ern Rivers, has been arrest­ed. Speak­ing about why he took action, Bruce said:

“Australia’s response to cli­mate change is head­ed com­plete­ly back­wards. “If we can stop this new coal mine we set a prece­dent for the rest of Aus­tralia to stand up.”

Jonathan Moy­lan from Front­line Action on Coal said, “Over the last twelve months, hun­dreds of peo­ple have been arrest­ed slow­ing down con­struc­tion of the Maules Creek mine. The fate of our coun­try, and peo­ple every­where, depends on coal being left in the ground. In the absence of lead­er­ship from the indus­try or the Gov­ern­ment to shut down coal exports and pre­vent dan­ger­ous cli­mate change, ordi­nary peo­ple have tak­en extra­or­di­nary action to stop this mine.

“A grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple are stand­ing up to the coal industry’s plans to ship increas­ing vol­umes of coal and fuel dan­ger­ous cli­mate change. Doc­tors, peo­ple of faith, IPCC sci­en­tists and ear­li­er this month, for­mer Wal­la­bies cap­tain David Pocock, have all tak­en action to halt con­struc­tion at Maules Creek. Even Mal­colm Fras­er last week tweet­ed about Maules Creek, refer­ring to the coal sec­tor as an ‘indus­try of a past age’.

Local New­cas­tle moth­er, Vanes­sa Wieb­ford said, “I want my daugh­ter to have a future with­out the hor­ror of extreme heat and fire, and uncer­tain water and food pro­duc­tion. I am bit­ter­ly dis­ap­point­ed in Australia’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship and their unthink­ing sup­port for expand­ed coal exports at a time when we’re already see­ing alarm­ing signs of dan­ger­ous cli­mate change.

“If they’re not going to act to pre­vent this, then all par­ents have a duty to risk arrest to try and stop it our­selves.

2014 is now expect­ed to break the record as the hottest year in Australia’s his­to­ry. Heat­wave con­di­tions were observed in many parts of the coun­try dur­ing our hottest spring on record this year, and the Bureau of Mete­o­rol­o­gy is pre­dict­ing a return to El Nino con­di­tions at a time when much of Queens­land and parts of New South Wales are already drought declared.

The burn­ing of coal export­ed from Aus­tralia is this country’s biggest sin­gle con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change, and pro­duc­tion and export of coal increased in the last 12 months.

“With the inter­na­tion­al cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions in Lima fail­ing to deliv­er the scale of action need­ed, peo­ple around the world will next year have to take their future into their own hands like nev­er before. Ordi­nary peo­ple are step­ping up to do what it takes to stop the fos­sil fuel industry’s dan­ger­ous expan­sion plans,” said Moy­lan.

UPDATE 6:00 am: Coal train is stopped.

UPDATE 8:15 am: The five activists have been low­er from atop the coal wag­on by police.

UPDATE 9:00am: The coal train starts mov­ing again after 3 hours at a stand still.

UPDATE 12:30pm: Four activists released after being processed at Waratah police sta­tion.

Media Enquiries

  • On the ground:  Jonathan Moy­lan: 0431 289 766    |    Vanes­sa Wieb­ford: 0409 021 976
  • Off-site: Char­lie Wood: 0427 485 233
  • Pho­tos Avail­able at: http://bit.ly/13nps8U

0iOzmMA

pPuBsR3