Category: Action Reports

Concerned Locals take to the Trees at Hinkley Point near Bridgwater, Somerset

Update 8th Feb: Overnight on Feb­ru­ary 6th, anti nuclear activists occu­pied trees on EDF’s pro­posed new nuclear site west of Hink­ley Point in Som­er­set.  This was in response to intial ground-clear­ance work being car­ried out by con­trac­tors the day before.

Although EDF have sub­se­quent­ly said that the work being done was only the clear­ing of dead elms, this is undoubt­ed­ly the first stage in prepar­ing for major clear­ance, since EDF have now been giv­en the go-ahead to begin reduc­ing this beau­ti­ful piece of Som­er­set coast­line to a lunar land­scape.  They  are being per­mit­ted to do this even though it will be 12 months before they will know if they have plan­ning per­mis­sion for the 2 new nuclear reac­tors and a radioac­tive waste dump.  They obvi­ous­ly think this is a done deal!

In response to media inter­est today, includ­ing BBC TV Points West, Som­er­set Sound and Radio 4, and the West­ern Dai­ly Press, EDF have also claimed that this stand of oak is not sched­uled to be felled as part of the so-called “Pre­lim­i­nary Works”.  How­ev­er, WSDC Plan­ning Offi­cer Andrew Good­child has con­firmed that this is untrue, and ALL veg­e­ta­tion with­in the site will have to be cleared in the next 4 to 6 weeks under the apt­ly named “Phase Zero”.   The nest­ing sea­son won’t be a big prob­lem though, as they have a spe­cial license from “Nat­ur­al Eng­land” to destroy the feath­ered song­sters homes.  It seems they have a spe­cial license for just about any­thing!

Mon­ey talks, but actions talk loud­er.  The gal­lant folk who took com­mand of the sit­u­a­tion have act­ed pre-emp­tive­ly and spon­ta­neous­ly and are cur­rent­ly few in num­ber.  They are in a net off the ground and “just about” warm enough.  They need ground sup­port – peo­ple to just vis­it them with treats, flasks, and warm words – which will also help defend them by keep­ing every­thing in the pub­lic eye.  A video cam­era would be extreme­ly help­ful, and maybe more phones.  RIGHT NOW THEY NEED A DELIVERY OF WARM SOCKS.

~~~~~~

7/2/12

Pro­tes­tors take to the trees at Hink­ley Point in a bid to save ancient oaks from being trashed by EDF before gov­ern­ment deci­sion on new nuclear is re-exam­ined.

Ear­ly this morn­ing, con­cerned locals occu­pied threat­ened, ancient trees at the pro­posed site for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion at Hink­ley Point, near Bridg­wa­ter in Som­er­set.

Michael Hunt, one of the tree occu­piers said of their action :
“ We’re here to stop work on this crim­i­nal devel­op­ment and to pro­tect the ancient trees that are sur­round­ed by a spe­cial con­ser­va­tion area but mys­te­ri­ous­ly exclud­ed from it “

The protest was pre­cip­i­tat­ed by last week’s shock­ing rev­e­la­tion in a report by Unlock Democ­ra­cy and the Asso­ci­a­tion for Con­ser­va­tion of Ener­gy enti­tled “ A Cor­rup­tion of Gov­er­nance?”

The report reveals in detail how MPs and Par­lia­ment based their nation­al ener­gy pol­i­cy, specif­i­cal­ly their pol­i­cy to build new nuclear pow­er on fal­si­fied infor­ma­tion.

The report out­lines that, on the basis of the Government’s own evi­dence, we do not need new nuclear to ‘keep the lights on’ or reduce CO2 emis­sions. It goes on to show that, on the basis of the Government’s own evi­dence, it is not the best way to cut car­bon. In every­day terms, the build­ing of new nuclear pow­er sta­tions to pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty is like­ly to mean high­er fuel bills.

The report con­cludes that this cor­rup­tion of gov­er­nance can only be rec­ti­fied if Par­lia­ment re-opens this debate, and MPs vote on this issue hav­ing seen the cor­rect infor­ma­tion.

EDF’s plans to dis­rupt lives and liveli­hoods by dig­ging up the 400 acres land­scape and beau­ti­ful coast­line in the com­ing weeks has already begun with the trees, says local cam­paign­er Sarah Stone “We man­aged to get an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order last year because the trees were threat­ened by this devel­op­ment, but WSDC refused to make it a full order after six months because they claimed they’d giv­en per­mis­sion to EDF to trash the site even though to date this deci­sions is still not pub­lished. This whole appli­ca­tion has been char­ac­terised by lies, deceit, and cor­po­rate bul­ly­ing it’s made a com­plete joke out of the British plan­ning sys­tem and if they won’t pro­tect the trees until there is a prop­er deci­sion about nuclear new build then we will”
*************************************ENDS**********************************************************
Notes to Edi­tor
1) Cor­rup­tion of Gov­er­nance report was pub­lished last week and pre­sent­ed to min­siters at Par­lia­ment. It can be found here www.ukace.org
2) The trees were sub­ject to an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order last March which was dropped by WSDC in Octo­ber last year.
For inter­views con­tact Theo on 01749860767 or 07805666239

south west against nuclear
swanactive@gmail.com
www.southwestagainstnuclear.wordpress.com

Reclaim the Fields Spring Gathering 2012

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes work­shops on:

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes work­shops on:

*How to organ­ise & main­tain effec­tive land occu­pa­tions
*An intro­duc­tion to land rights
*Com­post­ing gen­der
*Legal options for access­ing land
*Learn­ing from Peas­ant Strug­gles in the Glob­al South
*Using the food sov­er­eign­ty prin­ci­ples as a strate­gic frame­work

There will also be feed­back from the Euro­pean Reclaim the Field Gath­er­ings & con­stel­la­tion as well as space for work­ing group ses­sions around:

*Seed Sov­er­eign­ty
*WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
*Plan­ning for Inter­na­tion­al Peas­ants Day of Strug­gle on April 17th

Some guer­ril­la-gar­den­ing type actions are also planned through­out. Sat­ur­day 10th is the Wilder­ness Cen­tre’s pub­lic open day so there will also be prac­ti­cal skills-shar­ing work­shops.

When: Accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able from the evening of Wednes­day 7th. Oth­er­wise the gath­er­ing is two full days Thurs­day & Fri­day 8–9th March. The For­est always wel­comes vis­i­tors so arrange with them if you want to stay & help out before hand.
Where: Wilder­ness Cen­tre, For­est of Dean. Direc­tions are here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064
Who to con­tact for more infor­ma­tion: use the RTF UK email list or email frankynecklace@yahoo.co.uk

What to bring: Sleep­ing bags, blan­kets, mats, own set of cut­lery & bowl if pos­si­ble. There is indoor sleep­ing space and room for tents out­side. Any home grown food to share & also seeds to swap.

Food will be a min­i­mum of £5 dona­tion per day. Any oth­er dona­tions are wel­come

More sug­ges­tions for work­shops, ses­sions & oth­er activ­i­ties are always wel­come, this is our con­stel­la­tion & gath­er­ing to make things hap­pen.

About:

Reclaim the Fields is a con­stel­la­tion of peo­ple and col­lec­tive projects will­ing to go back to the land and reas­sume the con­trol over food pro­duc­tion. We are deter­mined to cre­ate alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal­ism through coop­er­a­tive, col­lec­tive, autonomous, real needs ori­ent­ed small scale pro­duc­tion and ini­tia­tives, putting the­o­ry into prac­tice and link­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles.
You can find more about us, our strug­gles & more resources such as down­load­able zines here: www.reclaimthefields.org.uk

Action to re-occupy the ZAD

A reoc­cu­pa­tion action is being planned in case of an evic­tion at the ZAD, near Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des in France: To re-plant and rebuild against the con­struc­tion of the air­port: Vin­ci get out! Not here, not Khim­ki, not any­where! Meet on the 4th Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion with your pitch­forks, tools, beams and camp­ing gear. Although we don’t know when the troops will be sent in, we are launch­ing this call-out now to be able to cre­ate a mas­sive rapid reac­tion.

A reoc­cu­pa­tion action is being planned in case of an evic­tion at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des in France: To re-plant and rebuild against the con­struc­tion of the air­port: Vin­ci get out! Not here, not Khim­ki*, not any­where!

This is a joint call out from occu­pants of the ZAD and the net­work Reclaim the Fields to meet on the 4th Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion, near Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des.

To give an idea of some of the things that have hap­pened:

On 7 May 2011, we were a thou­sand peo­ple on an action, pitch­forks in hand, to clear and put to use an aban­doned plot of agri­cul­tur­al land. This was to cre­ate a space to grow food to feed the strug­gle against the air­port — and it’s been thriv­ing since the action! We’ll be back to strive to pro­tect this farm and oth­er occu­pied places on the ZAD (Zone d’A­me­nage­ment Dif­feré), or in oth­er words, Zone About to be Destroyed).

On 24 June, Vin­ci start­ed evic­tion pro­ce­dures against eight squats, includ­ing Les Planchettes, our col­lec­tive space of organ­is­ing and hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

On 10 July, dur­ing a gath­er­ing a few thou­sand peo­ple made a human ban­ner say­ing “Vin­ci d égage!” (Vin­ci get out!)

On 23 August, the pres­i­dent of the region Pays de la Loire, Jacques Aux­i­ette, asked the local author­i­ties to clean out the rad­i­cal occu­piers of the ZAD. It was an unam­bigu­ous bru­tal call for repres­sion, but this will not pre­vent us from resist­ing, re-occu­py­ing and re-grow­ing.

To fol­low up on May 7, occu­piers from the ZAD and Reclaim the Fields, a net­work of young activist peas­ants, are invit­ing you to be a part of a huge demon­stra­tion to re-occu­py in case of an evic­tion, and urge all groups and col­lec­tives to sup­port this action. If the police force does arrive to clean us out, we want to be back by the thou­sands to give shape to the cry “Vin­ci get out!” and to con­tin­ue to occu­py the zone and to stop con­struc­tion works in their tracks.

For forty years, deci­sion mak­ers and con­struc­tion man­agers have been push­ing a new air­port next to Nantes, at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, to make their dreams of mas­sive eco­nom­ic expan­sion and a metrop­o­lis. The ZAD: it’s 2000 hectares of cul­ti­vat­ed and inhab­it­ed land that they want to anni­hi­late under con­crete. The resis­tance against this project is at the cross­roads of many chal­lenges on which to unite, to address issues of com­mon strate­gies and think­ing.

Through this strug­gle we are fight­ing indus­tri­al soci­ety and agri­cul­ture, its eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment poli­cies, its cli­mate change and its con­trol of the land, the mega­lopo­lis and the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of ways of life, the pri­vati­sa­tion of the com­mons, the myth of end­less growth and the illu­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion …

The deci­sion-mak­ers are con­stant­ly try­ing to sell their project and to give the impres­sion that going back­wards is unthink­able at this stage. So after forty years strug­gling, the pre­lim­i­nary con­struc­tion work of the air­port and its high­way have start­ed: drilling for soil analy­sis, envi­ron­men­tal assess­ments, archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions and clear­ing works… all pre­req­ui­sites for pour­ing con­crete all over the area.

But its oppo­nents are far from giv­ing up and the actions inten­si­fy: block­ing drillings, dis­turb­ing the envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment work of Biotope*, dis­trib­ut­ing news­pa­pers, occu­py­ing offices, con­struc­tion sites, open­ing up Vin­ci’s toll­ways, and much more..

In addi­tion, for more than two and a half years, instead of the ZAD grad­u­al­ly emp­ty­ing to the rhythm of black­mail and destruc­tion, life and activ­i­ty has been flour­ish­ing.

Many of the hous­es left aban­doned were refur­bished and occu­pied, new hous­es were con­struct­ed on the ground and in the trees, col­lec­tives occu­pied land to make veg­etable gar­dens. Meet­ing spaces, guest acco­mo­da­tion, a bak­ery and a library were opened for one and all. There are more than a hun­dred peo­ple per­ma­nent­ly occu­py­ing the ZAD, sup­port­ed by many oth­ers, local and else­where, who meet and organ­ise. The occu­pa­tions are part of a move­ment that has many dif­fer­ent forms. Among oth­er things, they have a allowed rapid reac­tions to the first steps tak­en by Vin­ci towards con­struc­tion work.

In June 2011, Vin­ci began evic­tion pro­ce­dures in order to have the legal means to remove the occu­piers of the ZAD who have “no right or title”. Now they want to stop the growth of the move­ment and make a clean sweep to start the work: as well as evict­ing the occu­piers, they are think­ing about the ten­ants, own­ers and farm­ers. At the same time, those names who are pro-air­port do every­thing they can: run­ning a cam­paign to iso­late the occu­piers, attempt­ing to divide the move­ment and break up sol­i­dar­i­ty, rein­force the dai­ly police pres­ence and repres­sion of col­lec­tive action.

Despite this con­text, we’re keep­ing the mem­o­ry of past vic­to­ries in France against mega­lo­man­ic projects, from nuclear to mil­i­tary, like at Car­net, Plo­goff or Larzac, and we know that this air­port can still be stopped. We look to the oth­er side of the Alps, where oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of the Lyon-Turin high-speed train line across a val­ley, where tens of thou­sands of peo­ple pre­vent work. We are prepar­ing the same here: any attempt to con­crete the place will cost them dear­ly.

This call for action sig­ni­fies that evic­tions do not mean in any way the end of the strug­gle; it allows us to launch col­lec­tive attacks after the poten­tial evic­tions as well. It affirms that they can­not mil­i­tarise or ster­ilise this place at all times and that what­ev­er their efforts they won’t stop us reoc­cu­py­ing it. It shows the com­mon will to keep the occu­pa­tions going to pre­vent the air­port project. This event will allow, as nec­es­sary, the recon­struc­tion of col­lec­tive spaces for organ­is­ing, hous­ing, or again for grow­ing food.

Although we don’t know when the troops will be sent in, we are launch­ing this call-out now to be able to cre­ate a mas­sive rapid reac­tion. We pro­pose to meet again on the fourth Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion — bring your pitch­forks, tools and beams — to reclaim the land and rebuild togeth­er.

In addi­tion to this call for reoc­cu­pa­tion, oth­er ini­tia­tives are clear­ly wel­come: sol­i­dar­i­ty actions wher­ev­er you are, pres­ence at evic­tion time to hin­der the police … And until then, efforts con­tin­ue to pre­vent the air­port, and life on the ZAD as well!

Prac­ti­cal Info:

- Check reg­u­lar­ly  http://zad.nadir.org, espe­cial­ly in case of an evic­tion. The date and exact meet­ing loca­tion will be spec­i­fied at the time.

- It will be pos­si­ble to arrive on the eve of the event, for the final prepa­ra­tions and bring­ing every­one up to speed. Come pre­pared to camp.

- We invite you to stay here after the action to pro­tect the re-occu­pied spaces and con­tin­ue the con­struc­tion.

*Extra expla­na­tion:
Vin­ci is the biggest con­struc­tion com­pa­ny in the world and is respon­si­ble for build­ing the air­port at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des. It is also engaged in build­ing pris­ons, high­ways, nuclear pow­er sta­tions, deten­tion cen­ters for ille­gal immi­grants, exploit­ing the ura­ni­um mines in Niger and destroy­ing the for­est of Khim­ki near Moscow.
Biotope: An enti­ty respon­si­ble for ensur­ing, through envi­ron­men­tal expert on the flo­ra and fau­na, the eco­log­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the air­port … the new fron­tiers of green cap­i­tal­ism!

A call-out from occu­piers on the ZAD and Reclaim the Fields

 reclaimthezad@riseup.net

zad@riseup.net
zad.nadir.org

Aussies occupy drill rig to protest coal mining

6.02.12

6.02.12

One Aus­tralian activist has been released pend­ing sum­mons for ‘inter­fer­ing with a motor vehi­cle’ today after stop­ping drilling in Bac­chus Marsh. Paul Con­nor locked him­self  to the top of Man­tle Mining’s 8.5 metre-tall drill rig while hang­ing a ban­ner that read ‘No New Coal Bac­chus Marsh’. Anoth­er cam­paign­er, local moth­er Natasha Mills, also locked her­self to the drill rig at ground lev­el, sur­round­ed by a sup­port crew of 15 oth­er Quit Coal activists who occu­pied the drill site to stage a ‘pic­nic’, which fea­tured pro­duce from local farms.

‘We are eat­ing local­ly grown food to illus­trate what is at stake here’ said Mills, who is cur­rent­ly 7 and a half months preg­nant with her sec­ond child. ‘This project will destroy prime agri­cul­tur­al land, all for the sake of a quick buck and the burn­ing of brown coal, one of the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly harm­ful prac­tices pos­si­ble.

‘Mantle’s project has so lit­tle sup­port here among locals in Bac­chus Marsh that our May­or, our State MP and our Fed­er­al MP have all come out against it’ she con­tin­ued. ‘It’s just wrong, and we’re not going to let it hap­pen.’

The Quit Coal action drew a bar­rage of media atten­tion, with every major tele­vi­sion sta­tion in atten­dance. For a sam­ple of the media atten­tion, click on ‘dirty fight’ on the Ten News web­site here.

After 4 and a half hours chained to the top of the drill rig, Con­nor was cut free by Police from the Search & Res­cue squad with an angle-grinder. ’We need Vic­to­ri­ans to join this fight along­side us till we win it’ he said. ‘We can’t ignore the urgent warn­ings from cli­mate sci­en­tists that we need to move away from coal, and blind­ly seek to dig it up and sell it off over­seas. We have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to the world not to allow brown coal exports to begin, for the first time ever, here in Vic­to­ria.’

Because the site was on pub­lic land and they had not bro­ken any laws, the remain­ing Quit Coal activists occu­py­ing the site were not arrest­ed. They chose to com­ply with a police request and end­ed the protest peace­ful­ly, mind­ful that the police could oth­er­wise phys­i­cal­ly remove them fol­low­ing the move on order.

Man­tle also issued a state­ment say­ing that while they sup­port the right to peace­ful protest, our action will not affect their future oper­a­tions.

Quit Coal will see about that.

Videos and more at http://quitcoal.org.au/blog/

Indigenous groups shut down Interamerican highway to protest Panama mining laws

An indige­nous Ngobe pro­test­er was killed by a gun­shot wound to the chest dur­ing con­fronta­tions with the police this morn­ing, 5th Feb­ru­ary, in San Félix, Pana­ma. It has been con­firmed that three more peo­ple have been hurt with local res­i­dents insist­ing many more are injured. In flat con­tra­dic­tion, the Secu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jose Muli­no has stat­ed that his offi­cers are not car­ry­ing guns. In retal­i­a­tion to the death, Ngobe pro­tes­tors have set light to a police sta­tion in San Félix.

Since 30th Jan­u­ary, demon­stra­tors have been posi­tioned at var­i­ous points along the inter­na­tion­al Inter­amer­i­can high­way using branch­es, pieces of wood, met­al and rocks to block the road. They are protest­ing against the gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion to remove a law that would pro­vide envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion to their lands. The police con­tin­ue to deny that there has been any vio­lence, although on Thurs­day 2nd Jan­u­ary there were reports of up to 7 peo­ple injured in attacks involv­ing tear gas.

Ear­ly 2011 saw sim­i­lar actions by thou­sands of Ngobe who protest­ed the gov­ern­men­t’s amend­ment of the nation­al min­ing law 415, which would have allowed for the com­mis­sion of mines and oth­er projects in the region. In March 2011, after talks between gov­ern­ment offi­cials and Ngobe lead­ers, it was agreed that arti­cle 5, which will pro­tect the entire Comar­ca from explo­ration and exploita­tion, would be writ­ten into the min­ing law 415.

Although the gov­ern­ment has begun the explo­ration of oth­er mines in Pana­ma, the semi-autonomous Comar­ca holds an extreme­ly con­sid­er­able amount of min­er­al wealth. Not only is it home to Cer­ro Col­orado – the sec­ond largest cop­per deposit in the world – but it hold sev­er­al small but sig­nif­i­cant sites already under explo­ration by for­eign min­ing com­pa­nies.

Cor­ri­ente Resources Inc. have report­ed­ly been work­ing in the area since 2009 with the assis­tance of the con­sul­tan­cy firm, Kokopel­li, owned by Cana­di­an Don Clarke. Kokopel­li’s role is, accord­ing to its own web­site, “to work direct­ly with indus­try to build sus­tain­able, respect­ful and respon­si­ble rela­tion­ships with Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.”

Don Clarke was also Vice Pres­i­dent of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment for Ecua­cor­ri­ente, a sub­sidiary of Cor­ri­ente Resources Inc, a com­pa­ny which was alleged­ly at the cen­tre of human rights abus­es and social con­flicts in Ecuador.

In ear­ly Jan­u­ary, Hec­tor Lopez, leader of the Asso­ci­a­tion for the Rights and Social Devel­op­ment of the Ngäbe-Bugle Peo­ple, stat­ed at the Nation­al Assem­bly that he opposed arti­cle 5 as it would affect devel­op­ment in the region, and in his opin­ion, vio­late law 10, a found­ing law of the Comar­ca. Lopez is strong­ly in favor of min­ing in the region and believes the Ngobe should receive 50% of min­ing prof­its.

How­ev­er, Celio Guer­ra, pres­i­dent of the tra­di­tion­al Ngabe Bugle Coun­cil also stat­ed in Jan­u­ary that “the peo­ple who protest­ed last year in San Felix spoke loud and clear. We don’t want min­ing in the Comar­ca.”

As protests con­tin­ue to swell on the high­way, there are grow­ing con­cerns over Pana­ma’s free­dom of press. On 20th Jan­u­ary, a Cana­di­an jour­nal­ist and fix­er, Rosie Simms, was denied entry into the coun­try. She had been work­ing on behalf of the Cana­di­an broad­cast­er CBS who were cov­er­ing a sto­ry about Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­nies in Latin Amer­i­ca.

Many believe that this is symp­to­matic of a wider issue relat­ing to free­dom of press. A recent report by Reporters With­out Bor­ders revealed that Pana­ma has dropped 58 places on the free­dom of press index since 2010.

As the protests con­tin­ue, oth­er parts of the coun­try have joined in sol­i­dar­i­ty. In Donoso dis­trict, Colón province, a group of Ngobe and campesinos have blocked a road to the Petaquil­la min­ing project. In Bocas del Toro province, Banana plan­ta­tion work­ers have announced that they will strike in 73 hours unless the gov­ern­ment hon­ors its agree­ments. Truck­ers, stuck in San Felix, have also pledged to strike. In the cap­i­tal, many peo­ple have tak­en to streets in sup­port of the Ngobe.

After five days of protests there is major dis­rup­tion through­out Pana­ma. Mar­ket sell­ers in the cap­i­tal have report­ed loss­es of up to $10,000. In Bocas del Toro, Banana Com­pa­nies have esti­mat­ed a loss of $270,000 due to road clo­sures. Accord­ing to the Cham­ber of Com­merce the econ­o­my could face a total loss of over 10 mil­lion dol­lars.

Mean­while, the Cos­ta Rican gov­ern­ment has expressed con­cern that 270 of its cit­i­zens remain stuck in Pana­ma due to the road clo­sures. Pres­sure has been increas­ing for all sides to enter into talks.

UN rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Pana­ma have urged both Ngobe lead­ers and the gov­ern­ment to begin ‘a peace­ful dia­logue’ and ‘to avoid vio­lence.’ Although Pres­i­dent Mar­tinel­li has said the sit­u­a­tion is ‘reach­ing a lim­it,’ he has refused to reach out to the Ngobe. He also con­tin­ues to under­mine the legit­i­ma­cy of the protests by accus­ing oppo­si­tion par­ties of ‘manip­u­lat­ing’ them.

In a con­tin­u­al dis­tor­tion of the facts, the gov­ern­ment has been using mis­lead­ing rhetoric such as ‘kid­napped’ and ‘hostages’ when refer­ring to trav­el­ers delayed on the high­way.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, 4th Feb­ru­ary, mobile phone cov­er­age was sus­pend­ed along a large stretch of the high­way where the pro­test­ers are con­cen­trat­ed. Lat­er in the after­noon, six teach­ers were arrest­ed in the city of San­ti­a­go whilst protest­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty.

The sit­u­a­tion is extreme­ly charged and ten­sion is mount­ing across the coun­try. As vio­lence con­tin­ues to unfold in San Félix, jour­nal­ists and human rights orga­ni­za­tions are being denied access to the area. The gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to spread dis­in­for­ma­tion and there have been no attempts so far to reach out to the Ngobe and begin peace­ful talks.

India police arrest dozens of villagers for protesting against new toxic dump

4th Feb 2012

A total of 47 indige­nous peo­ple were arrest­ed and anoth­er 5 need­ed hos­pi­tal treat­ment after hun­dreds of Indi­an police and Vedan­ta secu­ri­ty guards con­front­ed a peace­ful demon­stra­tion two weeks ago in the state of Oris­sa, India.

On Jan­u­ary 21, a group of vil­lagers came togeth­er to protest against a new tox­ic mine waste dump that threat­ens to dis­rupt their way of life.

4th Feb 2012

A total of 47 indige­nous peo­ple were arrest­ed and anoth­er 5 need­ed hos­pi­tal treat­ment after hun­dreds of Indi­an police and Vedan­ta secu­ri­ty guards con­front­ed a peace­ful demon­stra­tion two weeks ago in the state of Oris­sa, India.

On Jan­u­ary 21, a group of vil­lagers came togeth­er to protest against a new tox­ic mine waste dump that threat­ens to dis­rupt their way of life.

Despite the peace­ful nature of the pro­test­ers, as seen in the fol­low­ing video by Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al, the 47 vil­lagers were sub­se­quent­ly charged with “attempt­ed mur­der” and “riot­ing”.

Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for the obvi­ous­ly-false charges to be dropped. They’re also urg­ing the gov­ern­ment to release the pro­test­ers; and to prop­er­ly take their needs and rights into account before let­ting the com­pa­ny pro­ceed with the new waste dump.

Just pri­or to the arrests, Amnesty alleged that the Uk-based min­ing giant has­n’t done any­thing to clean up exist­ing pol­lu­tion at the site of its Lan­ji­garh alu­minum refin­ery beside Niyam­giri moun­tain in Oris­sa.

Sim­i­lar­ly, “The Indi­an author­i­ties have remained silent on the issues of clean­ing up the refin­ery and mon­i­tor­ing the health of local com­mu­ni­ties. They must act on this now,” said Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al’s India researcher Ramesh Gopalakr­ish­nan.

“The red mud pond, which col­lects tox­ic waste by-prod­ucts from the refin­ery, cov­ers an area of approx­i­mate­ly 38 hectares. The pond is full to the brim and suf­fered seri­ous leaks dur­ing last year’s mon­soons,” explains Amnesty.

Two weeks ago, the High Court of Oris­sa reject­ed the com­pa­ny’s plan to expand the Lan­ji­garh refin­ery after find­ing that the project is in vio­la­tion of Indi­a’s envi­ron­men­tal laws.

The wel­comed deci­sion is the lat­est in a long line of legal set­backs for the com­pa­ny.

Cascadia Forest Defense blockades the Governor’s Mansion in Oregon

On Feb­ru­ary 3 Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers (CFD) block­ad­ed the entrance to the Ore­gon Governor’s Man­sion with a mound of christ­mas trees. Activists held ban­ners, read­ing “Ral­ly at the State Land Board Meet­ing Feb. 14” and “KITZHABER LIES, FOREST DIE!” One per­son was arrest­ed.

On Octo­ber 11th 2011, Gov­er­nor John Kitzhaber approved a plan to almost dou­ble log­ging in the Elliott State For­est. Vot­ers, expect­ing a green Gov­er­nor, are out­raged at the hypocrisy of his actions. “The old Elliott State For­est man­age­ment plan already allowed an appalling amount of clearcut­ting,” says Erin Grady, a mem­ber of CFD, “The State Land Board made a 60 year com­mit­ment to this plan in 1995. And only six­teen years lat­er, they just threw the whole plan in the trash!” If log­ging in the Elliott con­tin­ues at the cur­rent rate, this for­est will be gone with­in our life­time.

In the past year, there has been wide­spread dis­ap­point­ment regard­ing Kitzhaber’s deci­sions towards the Elliott. For­est activist Echo Live­ly says, “If any­one was unsure about it before, we can now be sure that Kitzhaber is in the pock­et of indus­try in Ore­gon.” Anoth­er for­est advo­cate com­ments, “The only thing green about Kitzhaber is the mon­ey.” Kitzhaber has made many mis­takes man­ag­ing envi­ron­men­tal issues in Ore­gon, but there is still time to save this cru­cial rain­for­est of the Pacif­ic North­west.

CFD invites any and all who are enraged with Kitzhaber and oth­er mem­bers of the State Land Board to attend a ral­ly at their next meet­ing on Feb­ru­ary 14th at 10:00am. It will be held out­side the Depart­ment of State Lands locat­ed in Salem at 775 Sum­mer St. NE. Come tell Kitzhaber that we won’t let our forests be destroyed with­out a fight.

-Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers

Call from the Wilderness Forest of Dean Wilderness Centre

State­ment from the Wilder­ness Cen­tre : On the day of Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil meet­ing that will deter­mine the coun­cils next course of action.

State­ment from the Wilder­ness Cen­tre : On the day of Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil meet­ing that will deter­mine the coun­cils next course of action.

Two activists jedi’d their way into the meet­ing, and hand­ing out our “state­ment of intent” (link below) to the offi­cious types sat around with mem­bers of the police, var­i­ous coun­cil offi­cers and advi­sors in Shire Hall, Glouces­ter, before being ask­ing to leave ‑all was very polite, civ­il and in good humour.

We await their deci­sion, which will dic­tate our next move.

Call from the Wilder­ness

Here in the wilder­ness we are try­ing to find our way home. How did we come to dwell here in the wilder­ness? For over 40 years the wilder­ness has been a pio­neer­ing envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion cen­tre. Then last year Glouces­ter­shire coun­ty coun­cil decid­ed that it was no longer in the pub­lic inter­est to sus­tain the cen­tre. Bet­ter val­ue for the tax­pay­er to sell it to the high­est bid­der? We dis­agree. We believe that edu­ca­tion is the great­est source of wealth in our com­mu­ni­ties. Sure­ly the exploita­tion of our envi­ron­ment can only be dri­ven by igno­rance. Edu­ca­tion is our great­est tool in the strug­gle against exploita­tion.
The coun­cil seem to think oth­er­wise. The coun­ty coun­cil, or in their words “the pow­ers that be” think we are home­less. Trav­ellers, squat­ters they tell us to… move on. They want us out of here. We don’t belong here. They tell us we have no right to be here. They’ve set their wolves to prowl around the grounds lock­ing things down. They want our names and pre­vi­ous address­es. They don’t trust us. They are con­cerned about health and safe­ty. The pub­lic are a lia­bil­i­ty. We tried to talk about respon­si­bil­i­ty. We tried to assure them that we ful­ly com­pre­hend the impli­ca­tions of a com­post toi­let. But they are doubt­ful.

Exact­ly who is bewil­dered?

We came here on the first full moon of the year with the inten­tion of cre­at­ing an envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion cen­tre to dis­close a process of learn­ing the skills and tech­niques required to move towards a home found­ed upon the prin­ci­ples of eco­nom­ic self-suf­fi­cien­cy and eco­log­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty.
To be a force of res­o­lu­tion we need peo­ple to join us. Deci­sive peo­ple who under­stand the con­se­quences of there actions. Com­mit­ted, hard work­ing peo­ple. We need peo­ple with a respect for food. We need gar­den­ers and grow­ers who can cul­ti­vate the ideas that have been sown in our soil by the dif­fer­ing schools of per­ma­cul­ture and bio-dynam­ics. Who know how let these ideas grow organ­i­cal­ly. We need peo­ple with the deter­mi­na­tion to dig. Reflec­tive peo­ple who look for their reflec­tion in oth­ers. Peo­ple who can prac­tice the hos­pi­tal­i­ty of the guest. Peo­ple who do not wait for oth­ers to make nec­es­sary changes.
Here in the wilder­ness we make our­selves at home. You are wel­come.

State­ment of Intent : protectthewilderness.org.uk/protect.html
Web­site (still in progress) protectthewilderness.org.uk

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Pro­tect The Wilder­ness

Winter Warm-up round-up — Fuel Poverty Action protests

Fri­day update: an excit­ing start to the Fuel Pover­ty Action Week­end of Win­ter Warm-ups…Hundreds of peo­ple across the coun­try came out of their cold homes to get warm at the build­ings of insti­tu­tions that have a hand in cre­at­ing fuel pover­ty, to chal­lenge the Big Six’s monop­oly and the government’s com­plic­i­ty.  Lon­don — Leeds — Swin­don — Man­ches­ter:

Fri­day update: an excit­ing start to the Fuel Pover­ty Action Week­end of Win­ter Warm-ups…Hundreds of peo­ple across the coun­try came out of their cold homes to get warm at the build­ings of insti­tu­tions that have a hand in cre­at­ing fuel pover­ty, to chal­lenge the Big Six’s monop­oly and the government’s com­plic­i­ty.  Lon­don — Leeds — Swin­don — Man­ches­ter: read more

Sat­ur­day update: Cam­bridge

Mon­day update: six activists have bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves into meet­ing rooms on two floors of British Gas offices in Staines, Mid­dle­sex, as part of the ‘Win­ter Warm-Up’ week­end called by the cam­paign group Fuel Pover­ty Action. British Gas is being tar­get­ed as one of the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies mak­ing prof­its out of ris­ing ener­gy bills.  Read more. 

Update — faced with a threat­en­ing police pres­ence, the occu­piers of the British Gas offices have now decid­ed to leave on their own terms.