Category: Oil

Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al. To sup­port this pub­li­ca­tion, pre­order your copy or donate today.

After sev­er­al years in devel­op­ment, the Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al is ready to go to press. A group of front­line activists has assem­bled over 300 pages of dia­grams, descrip­tions of tech­niques and a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the role direct action plays in our cam­paigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundrais­ing cam­paign to ensure that this crit­i­cal book gets out to peo­ple who can use it. You can pre­order your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your ear­ly endorse­ment by donat­ing today. More impor­tant­ly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowl­edge. Every dona­tion over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the man­u­al to a cam­paign of your choice. The more you give, the more man­u­als we can put in the mail.

The man­u­al will be print­ed in the com­ing month with long­time Earth First! part­ner, The Gloo Fac­to­ry. This com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed, union print shop has sup­plied Earth First! and its affil­i­ates with stick­ers and mer­chan­dise for decades and remains com­mit­ted to using a high stan­dard for recy­cled and reclaimed mate­r­i­al, as well as sup­port­ive work­er con­di­tions.

The man­u­al was first print­ed near­ly two decades ago and has been out of print since its ini­tial dis­sem­i­na­tion. Though many of the con­sid­er­a­tions for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and inter­ven­tion have remained tried and true, new ele­ments have altered the ways we put these tac­tics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al will con­tin­ue the role of safe and effec­tive actions in stop­ping the destruc­tion of the plan­et.

Sup­port this effort today!

Reclaim the Power gathering 8–9 February

After an incred­i­ble day of idea gen­er­a­tion and vision­ing at the last gath­er­ing, it’s time for con­crete pro­pos­als and deci­sions about our next steps.


Loca­tion: Oxford
Time: Sat­ur­day 8th Feb­ru­ary 11am ­­– Sun­day 9th 4pm
Address: TBC
Crash Space/Social: Pro­vid­ed. Fur­ther details TBC.
Meals: Pro­vid­ed, dona­tion cost TBC
Trav­el Pool: Avail­able. Please book trav­el tick­ets in advance so that this can sup­port the most peo­ple.
Notes from Man­ches­ter Vision­ing Day are here: http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3

In ear­ly Decem­ber a large num­ber of peo­ple came togeth­er to dis­cuss the rad­i­cal visions they had for the future – visions that Reclaim the Pow­er, as a net­work, could help bring about.

It was a very open day of dis­cus­sion with a clear struc­ture, but with no pre-planned agen­da. Every­thing we talked about was gen­er­at­ed by par­tic­i­pants, and a huge num­ber of dif­fer­ent ideas were placed on the table.

So what next? Well, the idea is that all of that dis­cus­sion feeds into a month of cre­ative pro­pos­al mak­ing before the next gath­er­ing. This will be a space for short and medi­um-term deci­sion mak­ing where we work out what we’re doing in the next few months – and how this fits in with long term visions.

Rough pro­pos­al area groups formed at the Decem­ber gath­er­ing, includ­ing:

1. How to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er
2. Move­ment and diver­si­ty
3. Ener­gy and fos­sil fuels
4. Pos­i­tive solu­tions

If you would like to link up with these groups and input into pro­pos­als for next steps, just con­tact info@nodashforgas.org.uk and you will be put in touch with a group con­tact.

This said, all pro­pos­als are wel­come! If you’re work­ing on your own, out­side these groups, then great. The more ideas the bet­ter.

The pro­pos­al dead­line is the 31st Jan­u­ary 2014. Please try and fol­low this rough four point list when writ­ing them, as it is essen­tial that all the pro­pos­als be con­sid­ered on an equal foot­ing.

1. What is it?
2. How does it link to long-term strate­gic aims?
3. Time­line?
4. Resources need­ed? (inc, peo­ple, costs, skills)

Spe­cif­ic venue and agen­da details to fol­low soon. In the mean­while, please check http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3 to see the dis­cus­sions and out­comes of the last agen­da.

See you soon,

RTP Gath­er­ings Team

info@nodashforgas.org.uk

 

Earth First! Winter Moot 7–9 March 2014: programme up

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

Evening Fri­day 7th — after­noon Sun­day 9th March 2014, Not­ting­ham

Cost scale £20 to £30. This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion.

It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat. Train to Not­ting­ham then tram to Bea­cons­field street– walk to the end turn right on to Glad­stone St — 245 Glad­stone St, Not­ting­ham NG7 6HX — www.earthfirst.org.uk

Full map/travel details

For offers of help or ques­tions email themiddle@earthfirst.org.uk

 

Programme

Friday

16.30–17.30 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop
17.30–18.30 Film

18.30 Din­ner

20.00 Ben­e­fit Gig

Saturday

8.30–9.30 Break­fast
9.30–10.45 Intro go round of cam­paigns

10.45–11.00 Break

11.00–12.00 Future of Earth First Part 1
12.00–13.00 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop

13.00–14.00 Lunch

14.00–14.30 Lush/fundraising work­shop
14.30–18.15 Cam­paign Work­shops (tim­ings to be finalised to include Frack­ing, Nuclear, Roads and Coal)
18.15–18.30 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing han­dover

18.30 Din­ner
20.00 DJ??

Sunday

9.00–10.00 Break­fast fry up
10.00–10.30 Tidy up of venue
10.30–11.30 Feed­back go round
11.30–12.30 Future of Earth First Part 2
12.30–14.00 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Plan­ning (and time of oth­er work­shops to run in par­al­lel)

14.00–15.00 Lunch
15.00 End

Ecuador Bans Environmental Group

ecuador indigenous woman faces police 8th Dec The

ecuador indigenous woman faces police 8th Dec The crim­i­nal­iza­tion of Ecuador’s indige­nous and envi­ron­men­tal move­ments con­tin­ues, as the Cor­rea gov­ern­ment pri­or­i­tizes extrac­tion at all costs. From World War 4 Report:

Ecuador’s gov­ern­ment ordered closed the envi­ron­men­tal­ist Fun­dación Pachama­ma Dec. 4, with the Inte­ri­or Min­istry say­ing it was “affect­ing the pub­lic peace.” The Envi­ron­ment Min­istry issued its own state­ment accus­ing of the orga­ni­za­tion of “inter­fer­ence in pub­lic pol­i­cy.” Plain­clothes police were sent to seal off the group’s offices in the morn­ing. The action stemmed from the pre­vi­ous week’s protests at the XI Round for sell­ing oil leas­es in the Ecuadroan Ama­zon. Pres­i­dent Rafael Cor­rea accused Pachama­ma and anoth­er group, Yasunidos, of attack­ing the Chilean ambas­sador, Juan Pablo Lira. Pachama­ma denies the alle­ga­tions, say­ing its mem­bers were not even present at the protest in front of the Hydro­car­bons Min­istry. Fun­dación Pachama­ma plans to appeal the government’s deci­sion.

“The real rea­son the gov­ern­ment has tar­get­ed Fun­dación Pachama­ma is because of the effec­tive­ness of their work,” said Bill Twist of the Pachama­ma Alliance, the group’s sib­ling orga­ni­za­tion based in San Fran­cis­co.  ”This is an attempt to keep them from doing their work, and chill their rights to free speech and assem­bly.”

Yasunidos is a group that is col­lect­ing sig­na­tures to demand a ref­er­en­dum on devel­op­ment of the Ish­pin­go-Tam­bo­cocha-Tipu­ti­ni oil bloc, locat­ed with­in Yasuni Nation­al Park. State com­pa­ny Petroa­ma­zonas is set to begin devel­op­ing the ITT bloc in 2014, and is seek­ing pri­vate part­ners for pro­duc­tion in the zone.

In June, the Cor­rea admin­is­tra­tion issued a Exec­u­tive Decree 16, instat­ing new strin­gent pro­ce­dures for NGOs to obtain legal sta­tus. Human Rights Watch, protest­ing the clo­sure of Fun­dación Pachama­ma, said the group was the “first vic­tim” of the decree, which it charged “con­tra­venes the rights of free expres­sion and asso­ci­a­tion.”

In a state­ment, Fun­dación Pachama­ma accused the Cor­rea gov­ern­ment of vio­lat­ing its own con­sti­tu­tion: “We have the right to dis­sent the deci­sion of the author­i­ties, the process that has been imple­ment­ed and alter­na­tive­ly pro­pose that the oil remain under­ground to pre­serve one of the great­est rich­es of our coun­try, its cul­tur­al and bio­log­i­cal diver­si­ty. The cur­rent Con­sti­tu­tion oblig­es the gov­ern­ment to find a new devel­op­ment mod­el that respects our country’s Pluri-nation­al­i­ty, Human Rights, Rights of Nature and ‘Sumak Kawsay’ or ‘Liv­ing For­est.’… We believe it is ille­git­i­mate to imple­ment process­es affect­ing indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries and not include the pres­i­dents of indige­nous nation­al­i­ties and peo­ples…”

The state­ment also said the group “extends sol­i­dar­i­ty” to the Devel­op­ment Coun­cil of the Nation­al­i­ties and Peo­ples of Ecuador (CODENPE), offi­cial­ly empow­ered to con­sult on issues affect­ing indige­nous peo­ples. (Rebe­lión, Dec. 7; EFE via Ecuavisa, Dec. 6; Pachama­ma Alliance press releas­es via Sacra­men­to Bee, Dec. 5, UDW, Dec. 4; WSJ, Dec. 4)

Ecuador’s 2008 con­sti­tu­tion includes pro­vi­sions for con­sul­ta­tion with indige­nous peo­ples on devel­op­ment issues, but the Cor­rea gov­ern­ment has been repeat­ed­ly accused of vio­lat­ing these mea­sures. The con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple of Sumak Kawsay, usu­al­ly ren­dered Vivir Bien or Good Liv­ing, is a phrase adopt­ed from Ecuador’s indige­nous move­ment.

Indigenous Petro-Struggles

stop fracking indigenous 12th Novem­ber

stop fracking indigenous 12th Novem­ber

Another Elsipogtog Showdown Brewing

SWN Resources Cana­da is plan­ning to resume its con­tro­ver­sial shale gas seis­mic explo­ration work on Wednes­day, accord­ing to Elsi­pog­tog War Chief John Levi. …

Levi said Con­nors told the peo­ple that SWN would with­draw a law­suit against sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers if the Hous­ton-based firm was allowed to fin­ish its explo­ration work unim­ped­ed.

“We said no, we are going to be there,” said Levi, in an inter­view with APTN Nation­al News. “What we told him was we are going to be there Wednes­day.”

Ponca Families Challenge TransCanada

Key­stone XL pipeline oppo­nents took to a Neligh rancher’s land Sat­ur­day, protest­ing the pro­pos­al they say cuts through the his­toric Pon­ca Trail of Tears and pos­es a steep envi­ron­men­tal risk. Pon­ca trib­al fam­i­lies, Oceti Sakowin tribes, Brave Heart Soci­ety, Bold Nebras­ka, and oth­ers — host­ed the Pon­ca Trail of Tears Spir­i­tu­al Camp, the first in a series of trib­al events aimed at show­cas­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty among ranch­ers and Native Amer­i­cans against TransCanada’s project.

Mining Resistance Stories

Anti-fracking protesters on the Seaway International Bridge at Akwesasne, Mohawk territory, Nov 9, 2013.

Anti

Anti-fracking protesters on the Seaway International Bridge at Akwesasne, Mohawk territory, Nov 9, 2013.

Anti-frack­ing pro­test­ers on the Sea­way Inter­na­tion­al Bridge at Akwe­sasne, Mohawk ter­ri­to­ry, Nov 9, 2013.

Akwesasne Anti-fracking Protest Briefly Closes Seaway International Bridge

OTTAWA — The Sea­way Inter­na­tion­al Bridge between Corn­wall and the U.S. was closed for about an hour Sat­ur­day as First Nations pro­test­ers staged an “infor­ma­tion march” in oppo­si­tion to hydraulic frack­ing gas extrac­tion process­es.

First Nations Granted Delay On Shell’s Tar Sands Project

Ear­li­er this week  the Cana­di­an Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment Agency (CEAA) announced that a fed­er­al deci­sion on Shell Oil’s Jack­pine Mine Expan­sion, a 100,000 bar­rel per day open pit tar sands mine expan­sion, would be delayed an addi­tion­al 35 days.  At the heart of this deci­sion is the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation who has been speak­ing out against the project since day one cit­ing a vari­ety of con­cerns relat­ing to treaty and abo­rig­i­nal rights as well as  direct and cumu­la­tive envi­ron­men­tal impacts.

Colombia: Mine Opponents Assassinated

Cesar Gar­cía, a campesino leader who opposed the min­ing oper­a­tions of Angl­o­Gold Ashan­ti at La Colosa in the cen­tral Colom­bian depart­ment of Toli­ma, was assas­si­nat­ed Nov. 2 by an unknown gun­man as he worked his small farm at the vere­da (ham­let) of Cajón la Leona. Sup­port­ers said he had been tar­get­ed for his work with the Envi­ron­men­tal Campesino Com­mit­tee of Caja­mar­ca, the local munic­i­pal­i­ty. In a state­ment, the Net­work of Toli­ma Envi­ron­men­tal and Campesino Com­mit­tees said the Caja­mar­ca group had been “stig­ma­tized as ene­mies of progress in the region,” and false­ly linked to the gueril­la move­ment.

 

Rising Tide Protests TD Bank in Seattle

1422435_727576977270701_442586150_n31st Octo­ber Our friends with Ris­ing Tide Seat­tle and South Soun

1422435_727576977270701_442586150_n31st Octo­ber Our friends with Ris­ing Tide Seat­tle and South Sound Ris­ing Tide arrived at a TD Bank office with a 35-foot-long mock pipeline and a funer­al pro­ces­sion to demand they stop bankrolling the Key­stone XL and tar sands extrac­tion.

TD Bank is one of the largest share­hold­ers in the Alber­ta Tar Sands, and was also protest­ed by Ris­ing Tide Philly ear­li­er this year.

After the TD Bank office, they marched to the fed­er­al build­ing to put Pres­i­dent Oba­ma on notice; they have pledged to resist along with over 80,000 peo­ple orga­nized by The Oth­er 98%,CREDO Mobile and Rain­for­est Action Net­work.

Nigeria: Coordinated Mass Protests Shut Down ExxonMobil

pic824th Octo­ber The peo­ple of Eket fed­er­al con­stituen­cy in Akwa Ibom State yes­ter­day embarked on a mass protest shut­ting

pic824th Octo­ber The peo­ple of Eket fed­er­al con­stituen­cy in Akwa Ibom State yes­ter­day embarked on a mass protest shut­ting down the oper­a­tions of Mobil Pro­duc­ing Nige­ria Unlim­it­ed, a sub­sidiary of Exxon­Mo­bil in Ibeno and Eket, in the state

The mass protest was staged simul­ta­ne­ous­ly around Mobil facil­i­ties, the Airstrip in Eket, Mobil Ter­mi­nal in Ibeno and Mobil Hous­ing Estate in Eket.

The protest was in respect of the sum of N26.5 bil­lion oil spill fund report­ed­ly released by Exxon­Mo­bil through the state gov­ern­ment to the four oil pro­duc­ing local gov­ern­ment areas.

The pro­test­ers who chant­ed slo­gans with plac­ards and trum­pets, bar­ri­cad­ed the oil company’s  access gates, while a cof­fin with the inscrip­tion ‘RIP Mark Ward’ was kept at the gates of Mobil Ter­mi­nal in Ibeno, amidst oth­er ban­ners and plac­ards.

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At the Mobil airstrip in Eket, plan­tain suck­ers where plant­ed at the gates while the youths locked the gate with pad­lock in the full glare of a detach­ment of police­men who watched to pre­vent a degen­er­a­tion of the crises.

Also seen at one of the desert­ed gates of the Mobil Ter­mi­nal was a canoe, wrapped with tra­di­tion­al palm leaves and a white fowl, which the Ibeno pro­test­ers claimed found itself to the gate of the ter­mi­nal from the riv­er on its own, and dared author­i­ties of the oil firm to remove the canoe if they had the guts.

The com­mu­ni­ties lament­ed that Mobil was insen­si­tive to their plight, as evi­dent by its refusal to pay the com­pen­sa­tion for the 2012 oil spill inci­dent that result­ed in the dis­charge of more than 300 bar­rels of crude oil into the aquat­ic envi­ron­ment of the oil pro­duc­ing areas.

pic32

Dur­ing the protest march, some promi­nent youth lead­ers under the aegis of Eket Fed­er­al Con­stituen­cy Van­guard led by Mr. Isa­iah Abia and Mr. William Mkpa, strong­ly scold­ed Exxon­Mo­bil for being insen­si­tive to their plight of its host com­mu­ni­ties.

Exxon­Mo­bil, they said, lacked employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for the peo­ple of the com­mu­ni­ty, oper­ate on a deplorable con­di­tion of social infra­struc­ture in the host com­mu­ni­ties, as well as haz­ards result­ing from the exploita­tion by the oil firm.

They warned that fail­ure of Mobil to address the ugly trend would leave them with no option than to put final­i­ty on their oper­a­tion in their land.

The demon­stra­tors also called for the imme­di­ate rede­ploy­ment of the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Exxon­Mo­bil, Mr. Mark Ward, over his per­sis­tent snub of all the over­tures from the com­mu­ni­ties.

Address­ing the protest at the company’s ter­mi­nal in Ibeno, Mr. Isa­iah Abia said there was no going back in call­ing Mobil to order.

He said the protest march came at the expi­ra­tion of the sev­en-day ulti­ma­tum ear­li­er issued to the author­i­ties of the com­pa­ny last week.

Abia said the peo­ple of the areas where total­ly against the notion that Exxon­Mo­bil want­ed to use the oil spill com­pen­sa­tion fund to exe­cute projects in the com­mu­ni­ties, main­tain­ing that such a notion was an attes­ta­tion to the non­cha­lant atti­tude of Mobil.

Shell PR event shut down in Oxford

the Shell booth

 

the Shell booth

 

23rd Octo­ber Shell set up a fair­ly large struc­ture in Broad St yes­ter­day, an plush enclosed unit with mez­za­nine floor and car­pet, to plug their lat­est PR/recruitment scheme. They were plan­ning to be there from 10am until 6pm, but things did­n’t go accord­ing to their plans.

A protest had been called, and around lunchtime peo­ple start­ed arriv­ing and giv­ing out leaflets. Ear­li­er the Shell PR peo­ple had been roam­ing around the street chat­ting to peo­ple and giv­ing out glossy bull­shit, but once pro­test­ers arrived they seemed to with­draw a bit more into their self-built shell. One per­son heck­led them enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly.

Then, about 12:45pm, anoth­er group arrived, went inside, grabbed hand­fuls of Shell pro­pa­gan­da, poured black oily stuff every­where, and wrote anti-Shell slo­gans on their white­board (in per­ma­nent mark­er, appar­ent­ly — it looked like they weren’t able to remove it!). I heard that the oily stuff even went all over their com­put­er giz­mos, pre­sum­ably caus­ing quite a bit of dam­age.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly as they were leav­ing they got chased and grabbed by secu­ri­ty, and despite a strug­gle were hand­ed over to the cops and arrest­ed. Mean­while Shell had appar­ent­ly had enough, as not long after­wards they packed up and went home.

The 3 arrest­ed peo­ple were released about 11 hours lat­er — all 3 had been giv­en cau­tions for crim­i­nal dam­age, and 2 also had fixed penal­ty notices (£90 each) for obstruc­tion. They all seemed fine with this out­come.

Here’s an arti­cle from some of the peo­ple that organ­ised the leaflet­ting ses­sion, explain­ing why they were there:
 http://tarfreetowns.org/news/oxford-is-saying-no-to-shells-whitewashing/
…it has some decent stuff in it but does­n’t men­tion the long­stand­ing strug­gle in Ross­port, Ire­land against Shel­l’s occu­pa­tion there, which for me per­son­al­ly was near the top of my mind when I went along to the protest:
http://shelltosea.com/

Shell have been tar­get­ed plen­ty of times before when try­ing to run grad­u­ate recruit­ment events in Oxford: http://oxford.indymedia.org.uk/2009/10/440301.html  http://oxford.indymedia.org.uk/2010/03/447286.html
(as have oth­er oil com­pa­nies), but this was the first time I know of that they’d had the gall to do an event on the street (usu­al­ly they are in some kind of plush hotel).

protesters with banners

Indigenous Pipeline Protesters Harass Oil Tanker

B.C.

B.C. First Nation, the Tsleil-Wau­tuth, were joined by envi­ron­men­tal­ists Oct 14, as they crossed Bur­rard Inlet in canoes to protest Kinder Morgan’s pro­posed pipeline expan­sion.

15th Octo­ber The Tsleil-Wau­tuth First Nation and envi­ron­men­tal­ists have crossed Bur­rard Inlet in tra­di­tion­al canoes to protest U.S. oil giant Kinder Morgan’s $5B plans to expand its Trans Moun­tain pipeline.

Pro­test­ers dodged tankers as they sailed close to the Westridge Marine Ter­mi­nal, in a bid to stop Kinder Mor­gan near­ly tripling the capac­i­ty of the pipeline, which car­ries crude oil from the Alber­ta oil­sands to tankers in Van­cou­ver.

When com­plet­ed, the pro­posed expan­sion is expect­ed to increase capac­i­ty in Trans Moun­tain from the exist­ing capac­i­ty of 300,000 bar­rels per day to 850,000 bar­rels per day.

The protest comes as cab­i­net min­is­ters and senior bureau­crats head to British Colum­bia as part of a major gov­ern­ment push to mol­li­fy oppo­nents of build­ing oil pipelines to the West Coast.

The new Harp­er ini­tia­tive fol­lows a report from the prime minister’s spe­cial pipelines rep­re­sen­ta­tive in British Colum­bia, David Eyford, who told Harp­er last month that nego­ti­a­tions with First Nations are a mess.

Sources say Eyford urged the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment take the lead role in deal­ing with Indi­an bands on both the pro­posed expan­sion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Moun­tain pipeline and Enbridge’s North­ern Gate­way project.

The Trans Moun­tain line stretch­es 1,150 kilo­me­tres between Edmon­ton and ter­mi­nals in the Van­cou­ver area and Wash­ing­ton State. It car­ries heavy and light crude oil, as well as refined prod­ucts such as gaso­line and diesel.

It has been involved in sev­er­al recent spills includ­ing more 100,000 litres of light crude oil that was spilled at Kinder Morgan’s Sumas ter­mi­nal in Jan­u­ary.

Mean­while, an Enbridge offi­cial says the com­pa­ny expects a deci­sion from the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment on its pro­posed North­ern Gate­way pipeline by mid-2014, mean­ing the pipeline could be mov­ing oil by 2018.

The North­ern Gate­way pipeline pro­posed by Enbridge would deliv­er 525,000 bar­rels of petro­le­um a day to a tanker ter­mi­nal in Kiti­mat, on the north coast of B.C.