Category: Action Reports

Update: Work starts to cut down Irton’s beech tree

Break­ing News 11pm, Tues­day 4th:
CONTRACTORS have start­ed work to cut down Irton’s beech tree.
Vic­ki “Beech­nut” Welsh spent four nights in the tree but came down at 10.10am today to applause from vil­lagers, who have now accept­ed defeat in their bat­tle to save the tree.

Break­ing News 11pm, Tues­day 4th:
CONTRACTORS have start­ed work to cut down Irton’s beech tree.
Vic­ki “Beech­nut” Welsh spent four nights in the tree but came down at 10.10am today to applause from vil­lagers, who have now accept­ed defeat in their bat­tle to save the tree.
The tree was fenced-off and felled, to tears — video.

4 Octo­ber 2011
A PROTESTER who is the lat­est to sit in the branch­es of a threat­ened tree in Irton yes­ter­day demand­ed answers to four ques­tions – one of which was aimed square­ly at the Prime Min­is­ter – before she leaves her leafy home.

The 17-year-old Bridling­ton girl, who is known only as Beech Nut, had been there since Fri­day and is the fifth tree­top pro­test­er since the start of the sit-in two weeks ago today.

She said that a spe­cial appeal had also been set up. She said: “I am here to launch the Irton Tree Foun­da­tion and would like to appeal for any help with our cause.”

Beech Nut said she want­ed to dis­pel any mis­con­cep­tions that the protest had cost coun­cil tax­pay­ers £250,000 – because their protest began after the deci­sion to fell the tree had been tak­en.

She added that, while they did not roost in the tree, bats used it as a pri­ma­ry feed­ing site. She said: “I’d like to see the results of a rep­utable bat sur­vey.”

Beech Nut said that the vil­lagers had been treat­ed with dis­re­spect and deserved answers. She asked: “Has the evi­dence been seen by a high court judge?”

And in a ques­tion direct­ed at Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron she asked about the valid­i­ty of tree preser­va­tion orders – the beech tree was the sub­ject of an order but it was over­ruled by a judge. She said: “It’s not just about this tree, in this vil­lage, it’s about all trees in Eng­land.”

A North York­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tive read out a state­ment on Fri­day which said that any­one pre­vent­ing the tree felling, which is like­ly to take place by the end of this week, could face a prison sen­tence.

Tree sup­port­ers have tak­en sep­a­rate legal advice to chal­lenge the court deci­sion and are wait­ing to hear the results.

Irton res­i­dent David Park­er said that they would con­tin­ue the protest until the first “chain­saw touched the trunk”. He added: “We’ve been told that some time this week the tree will def­i­nite­ly be felled but no offi­cial per­son has come here so far.”

He said that they would con­tin­ue to look into every legal avenue that they pos­si­bly could. He said: “We are quite with­in our rights to do so. We have a right to object peace­ful­ly against some­thing we dis­agree with. We will act with­in the law.”

The tree has been the sub­ject of a long-run­ning legal bat­tle between vil­lagers, two local author­i­ties and a near­by home­own­er, who suc­cess­ful­ly applied to a judge to have the beech cut down.

Peo­ple who would like to donate to the Irton Tree Foun­da­tion can do so through any branch of HSBC by using the sort code 40–40-22 and account num­ber 91752707.

Hinkley Point blockaders declare victory over EDF Energy

3/10/2011
For about nine hours, we block­ad­ed the nuclear pow­er sta­tion with up to 400 peo­ple. This was the biggest anti nuclear pow­er action in Britain for quite some years. It marked the begin­ning of a new anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in this coun­try, and you all made this pos­si­ble.

3/10/2011
For about nine hours, we block­ad­ed the nuclear pow­er sta­tion with up to 400 peo­ple. This was the biggest anti nuclear pow­er action in Britain for quite some years. It marked the begin­ning of a new anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in this coun­try, and you all made this pos­si­ble.
This time, the block­ade was tol­er­at­ed by EDF and the police. Only one per­son was arrest­ed when walk­ing on the pub­lic foot­path along the fence.
He was stopped and searched by police, and arrest­ed for pos­ses­sion of a craft knife. Luck­i­ly, he was lat­er released from Taunton police sta­tion with­out charge.

Those of you who came to the camp after the action are aware of a police inci­dent: a mobile CCTV vehi­cle of Avon & Som­er­set police drove onto the camp site, film­ing all the time. After a while it was pos­si­ble to per­suade them to leave the site.
Stop New Nuclear sees this as a provo­ca­tion, and we made it very clear that this inci­dent destroyed a lot of the trust between the police and the cam­paign that had been built in the run-up to the block­ade.
The police Sil­ver Com­mand has since sent an ‘apol­o­gy email’ that says they’ve delet­ed the mate­r­i­al.

The camp, demon­stra­tion, and block­ade of Hink­ley Point was not a one-off, nor was it the end — it should be the begin­ning of a pow­er­ful and cre­ative anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in Britain, that will stop the plans for eight new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in its tracks. To make this hap­pen, we need you!
We are there­fore organ­is­ing a Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing in Bris­tol in Novem­ber (unfor­tu­nate­ly, we have not been able to set the date yet), to dis­cuss and plan the next cam­paigns and actions against nuclear new build in Britain. Please get involved — we need to grow as a move­ment, and this means we need more peo­ple organ­is­ing our actions. Please check back for updates and reg­is­ter for the Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/gathering2011. More infor­ma­tion will be avail­able soon.

If you have any ideas for action, please share them in our ideas forum at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/ideasforum.

News from Hink­ley Point
The Envi­ron­ment Agency has extend­ed the dead­line for objec­tions to EDF’s envi­ron­men­tal per­mit appli­ca­tion until 15 Decem­ber. This means we now have much more time to col­lect hun­dreds or even thou­sands of objec­tions. Please down­load the objec­tion sheet from http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/objections-discharges, print it, sign it, and send it of to: PSC, PO Box 4404, Sheffield, S9 4WF

Press release:

Anti-nuclear pro­test­ers have declared the mass block­ade at Hink­ley Point today as a vic­to­ry over EDF Ener­gy. The nine-hour block­ade in Som­er­set attract­ed sup­port­ers from all over the UK. Sev­er­al came from as far afield as Ire­land, Ger­many and Bel­gium.

Stop New Nuclear spokesper­son, Andreas Speck, said the block­ade has put the gov­ern­ment and EDF on the back foot. ‘Fol­low­ing the inter­est this block­ade has attract­ed, both region­al­ly and nation­al­ly, the gov­ern­ment and EDF can no longer claim that the we need nuclear ener­gy to keep the lights on.’

He con­tin­ued: ‘Ger­many has com­mit­ted to a nuclear-free future with­out buy­ing nuclear pow­er from France or build­ing new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions. The Ger­man gov­ern­ment is look­ing at a decen­tralised ener­gy mod­el with a mix of renew­ables and Com­bined Heat and Pow­er (CHP) to bridge the gap left by with­draw­al from nuclear. If Ger­many can do it, why can’t we?’

Ang­ie Zel­ter, who hit the head­lines in 1996 when she and oth­er activists attacked a Hawk jet des­tined to sup­press protests in East Tim­or (and was sub­se­quent­ly cleared of crim­i­nal dam­age by a jury), blast­ed EDF’s claims that Hink­ley Point is sus­tain­able.

She added: ‘Over its life­time, Hink­ley will con­sume more ener­gy than it pro­duces — if you take into account the ener­gy used to extract ura­ni­um and the pow­er need­ed to store radioac­tive waste for hun­dreds of years. It doesn’t add up.’

Zel­ter said the risk of flood­ing is an increas­ing wor­ry. ‘Locals are well aware of the con­stant dan­ger of flood­ing around Hink­ley,’ she con­tin­ued. ‘We have infor­ma­tion from work­ers there that sev­er­al years ago, flood­wa­ter breached the plant’s retain­ing walls.’

She added that this was a par­tic­u­lar con­cern now that EDF wants to build two new mega reac­tors at Hink­ley. ‘Radioac­tive waste from the pro­posed new ERP reac­tors will be so tox­ic that it will have to be stored on the site for over 100 years. With the growth in extreme weath­er con­di­tions there is no guar­an­tee that this waste can be stored safe­ly.’

And Zel­ter blast­ed the gov­ern­ment for claim­ing that nuclear is the only solu­tion to com­bat­ing cli­mate change. ‘If the gov­ern­ment can spend bil­lion renew­ing Tri­dent mis­siles and fight­ing Gaddafi in Libya, why can’t they find the mon­ey to build tru­ly sus­tain­able ener­gy sys­tems that would cre­ate a great many more jobs than the nuclear sec­tor can?’

The mass block­ade was described by Stop New Nuclear organ­is­er, Andreas Speck, as a, ‘cel­e­bra­tion of dis­sent’ with pro-nuclear sup­port­ers being enter­tained by a Welsh choir and pop­u­lar fes­ti­val band, Seize The Day.

A man arrest­ed on a foot­path close to the block­ade was lat­er released with­out charge.

—

Reports, pic­tures and video.
More pho­tos
Camp pho­tos
Bridg­wa­ter demon­stra­tion
Block­ade of Hink­ley Point
Some pho­tos and some more
CND uploaded pho­tos here
We are slow­ly upload­ing videos

Call from France to all UK anti-nuclear Activists

Update: One thing is that the dates have changed and the camp will be on from 22nd of Novem­ber to 24th of Novem­ber

Update: One thing is that the dates have changed and the camp will be on from 22nd of Novem­ber to 24th of Novem­ber

INVITATION FOR A BIG CAMP AND MASS ACTION AGAINST THE NUCLEAR TRANSPORT CASTOR IN VALOGNES (FRANCE) ON THE 24TH AND 25TH OF NOVEMBER 2011, JUST ACROSS THE CHANNEL The french and the eng­lish gov­ern­ment have this com­mon fea­ture of being mad about nuclear pow­er. Where­as Ger­many, Switzer­land and Italy are step­ping out of the nuclear ener­gy, France and Great-Britain are doing as if Fukushi­ma nev­er hap­pened. If we refuse to let Fukushi­ma become, like Tch­er­nobyl before, an acci­dent with­out con­se­quence, it is time to take action, NOW. Please, spread this call to all your friends, com­rades, net­works in the UK. It will be a mas­sive thing!! If any­one could print this and give it out at the hink­ley protest, that would be won­der­ful. INVITATION FOR A BIG CAMP AND MASS ACTION AGAINST THE NUCLEAR TRANSPORT CASTOR IN VALOGNES (FRANCE) ON THE 22ND AND 24TH OF NOVEMBER 2011, JUST ACROSS THE CHANNEL The french and the eng­lish gov­ern­ment have this com­mon fea­ture of being mad about nuclear pow­er. Where­as Ger­many, Switzer­land and Italy are step­ping out of the nuclear ener­gy, France and Great-Britain are doing as if Fukushi­ma nev­er hap­pened. If we refuse to let Fukushi­ma become, like Tch­er­nobyl before, an acci­dent with­out con­se­quence, it is time to take action, NOW. More than ever, it is obvi­ous that it is only on an inter­na­tion­al lev­el that we can think the strug­gle against nuclear pow­er, because it is on this lev­el that the con­tra­dic­tion between the states that step out of it and those who don’t becomes explo­sive. As our aim — to free our­selves of those who destroy our lives and every­thing alive for the last mon­ey left to make — can in no way be achieved by them, as all the gov­ern­ments can do is green­wash their tools of destruc­tion, we should use this moment to make it clear that we still envi­sion a future. For it is not only the ques­tion of ener­gy that we are deter­mined to take back in our own hands but our lives. That is why we invite all british com­rades to join our ini­tia­tive right on the oth­er side of the Chan­nel, in Val­ognes (near Cher­bourg) on the 24th and 25th of novem­ber 2011. On these dates starts the CASTOR trans­port of high­ly radioac­tive refutes that goes from La Hague to Gor­leben (Ger­many). This year for the first time, in coor­di­na­tion with the Ger­man com­rades, there will be a camp and mass action in order to block this trans­port at its very start­ing point, in Val­ognes, just like the Ger­mans do it in Gor­leben. LET’S MEET THERE AND DISTURB LIKE NEVER BEFORE THE QUIET ROUTINE OF THIS DEADLY INDUSTRY! SOLIDARITY WITH THE BLOCKADE OF THE HINCKLEY POWERPLANT! valognesstopcastor@riseup.net

Mc-hammer time

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

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

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

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

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

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

For earth, ani­mal and human lib­er­a­tion.

ALF / ELF

3rd October: Manchester occupied!

Yes­ter­day saw the occu­pa­tion of Albert Square in Man­ches­ter out­side the town hall. Through­out the after­noon and evening sev­er­al open mic assem­bly ses­sions were held with peo­ple speak­ing about var­i­ous issues with the com­mon themes being resis­tance to cuts, com­mu­ni­ty organ­is­ing, direct democ­ra­cy, and occu­pa­tions. There was also a sound sys­tem pump­ing out tunes and some danc­ing in the rain.

Yes­ter­day saw the occu­pa­tion of Albert Square in Man­ches­ter out­side the town hall. Through­out the after­noon and evening sev­er­al open mic assem­bly ses­sions were held with peo­ple speak­ing about var­i­ous issues with the com­mon themes being resis­tance to cuts, com­mu­ni­ty organ­is­ing, direct democ­ra­cy, and occu­pa­tions. There was also a sound sys­tem pump­ing out tunes and some danc­ing in the rain.

The per­sis­tent rain proved to be a dis­cour­ag­ing fac­tor and after sev­er­al hours the size of the crowd pret­ty much matched the size of the tarps strung across lam­posts to pro­vide some cov­er (ear­li­er the police had tried to pre­vent peo­ple rig­ging up the shel­ters).

Lat­er in the evening peo­ple heck­led guests attend­ing tory par­ty fringe meet­ings at the town hall and the police went around grab­bing beers off a few peo­ple.

Around 9pm a group of 20–30 peo­ple with a sound sys­tem on their way to the occu­pa­tion from the squat­ted con­ver­gence cen­tre were has­sled by the cops and there were a few arrests.

http://www.occupymanchester.org

3rd October: Blockaders begin mass protest outside Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station

More than 200 peo­ple have suc­cess­ful­ly sealed off the main entrance to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

Con­voys of pro­test­ers began to arrive at the main gate short­ly before 7am. The entrance is just yards away from where EDF Ener­gy is mak­ing a bid to build two new mega-reac­tors.

http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

More than 200 peo­ple have suc­cess­ful­ly sealed off the main entrance to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

Con­voys of pro­test­ers began to arrive at the main gate short­ly before 7am. The entrance is just yards away from where EDF Ener­gy is mak­ing a bid to build two new mega-reac­tors.

http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

The block­ade was launched with the arrival of a the­atri­cal troupe who enact­ed a nuclear dis­as­ter sce­nario sim­i­lar to Fukushi­ma. Approx­i­mate­ly 70% of pro­test­ers are from the South West. Oth­ers have come from as far afield as Bel­gium and Ger­many.

Well-known fes­ti­val band, Seize the Day, pro­vid­ed a musi­cal back­drop to the event. Andreas Speck, spokesper­son for the Stop New Nuclear alliance said: ‘This is the start of a new move­ment. We intend this day to be a cel­e­bra­tion of resis­tance against the gov­ern­ment and EDF Energy’s plans to spear­head the con­struc­tion of eight new nuclear pow­er plants around the UK.’

He con­tin­ued: ‘This is block­ade shows that peo­ple who under­stand the true dan­gers of nuclear pow­er are pre­pared to use civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to get their voice heard. The gov­ern­ment has hood­winked the pub­lic into believ­ing that we need nuclear pow­er to keep the lights on. But this is total­ly untrue.’

To show their sup­port for the vic­tims of the Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter, pro­test­ers will launch 206 heli­um bal­loons – to rep­re­sent the num­ber of days since the par­tial melt­down at the Japan­ese pow­er sta­tion. The jour­ney of bal­loons will be tracked to show which areas of the West Coun­try will be worst affect­ed should a major dis­as­ter hap­pen at Hink­ley Point.

‘We need to bring home to peo­ple that nuclear pow­er sta­tions can fail for many rea­sons – usu­al­ly because of human error,’ said Nik­ki Clark from South West Against Nuclear. ‘The explo­sion at a waste pro­cess­ing plant in France a few weeks ago is a clear reminder that nobody is safe from the dan­gers of nuclear ener­gy.’

Pro­test­ers are urg­ing min­is­ters to look to Ger­many where the gov­ern­ment has pledged to phase out nuclear pow­er with­in ten years. ‘The Ger­man gov­ern­ment has just pub­lished a blue­print for a sus­tain­able, nuclear-free future,’ said Camil­la Berens from cam­paign group, Kick Nuclear. The key focus is ener­gy reduc­tion and a bridg­ing tech­nol­o­gy called com­bined heat and pow­er (CHP). The burn­ing ques­tion is, if Ger­many can do it, why can’t we?’

For more infor­ma­tion on the ground, con­tact Camil­la Berens on: 07811–451417. Pho­tographs will be release at the Stop New Nuclear web­site lat­er today.

Dale Farm: injunction remains for now

LATEST: Mon­day 3 Octo­ber: Basil­don Coun­cil con­cedes that full clear­ance of Dale Farm as orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed would be ille­gal. Coun­cil ordered to pay one third of Dale Far­m’s legal costs. Await­ing out­come of appli­ca­tions for judi­cial reviews, due Tues­day.

LATEST: Mon­day 3 Octo­ber: Basil­don Coun­cil con­cedes that full clear­ance of Dale Farm as orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed would be ille­gal. Coun­cil ordered to pay one third of Dale Far­m’s legal costs. Await­ing out­come of appli­ca­tions for judi­cial reviews, due Tues­day.

The legal­i­ty of the evic­tion notices served by Basil­don Coun­cil on Dale Farm res­i­dents was chal­lenged by the Trav­ellers in the High Court on Fri­day. Once the argu­ments had been heard, includ­ing an appli­ca­tion by Basil­don Coun­cil for the scaf­fold­ing at the entrance to the site to be removed, the Judge Mr Jus­tice Edwards-Stu­art said that there would not be a rul­ing before Mon­day 26 Sep­tem­ber (now extend­ed to Tues­day 4 Octo­ber). Late in the day it was report­ed that the injunc­tion to restrain bailiffs from start­ing any clear­ance or evic­tion of the site would stand in its cur­rent form until at least 4pm Mon­day. A lat­er report indi­cat­ed that the judge may fur­ther extend the injunc­tion into the mid­dle of next week or beyond if nec­es­sary. In the mean­time, appli­ca­tions are being pre­pared for judi­cial review of the evic­tion, which could lead to fur­ther delay of a final deci­sion. Basil­don Coun­cil has already set aside £18 mil­lion to evict the Dale Farm res­i­dents. How­ev­er, with the cur­rent stale­mate report­ed to be cost­ing the coun­cil over £1 mil­lion per day, the total cost is like­ly to have increased by some £8 mil­lion by Mon­day and will con­tin­ue to rise dur­ing any fur­ther delay. With a bit of luck they’ll run out of mon­ey before the evic­tion is allowed to go ahead.

Sup­port­ers are need­ed both at the High Court now and at Dale Farm now and for the dura­tion. Con­tact savedalefarm@gmail.com for more infor­ma­tion or see Save Dale Farm.

Bolivia suspends road project after indigenous protest

29.9.11

Bolivia’s Pres­i­dent Evo Morales has sus­pend­ed plans to build a major high­way through indige­nous peo­ples’ land in the Ama­zon rain­for­est.

29.9.11

Bolivia’s Pres­i­dent Evo Morales has sus­pend­ed plans to build a major high­way through indige­nous peo­ples’ land in the Ama­zon rain­for­est.

His deci­sion fol­lows a 40-day protest march, which was brought to an abrupt halt on Sun­day, when police used tear gas and trun­cheons to dis­pel 1,000 pro­test­ers.

Morales faced pres­sure from with­in his gov­ern­ment to use less force. His Defense Min­is­ter Cecil­ia Cha­con resigned in protest at plans to inter­vene in the march.

There are also reports the tear­gas caused a baby to die of asphyx­i­a­tion.

Morales said on Mon­day his deci­sion to sus­pend the road was made in the ‘midst of this nation­al debate’ and that he would ‘let the peo­ple decide’.

The pro­posed 300-kilo­me­ter high­way would cut across the heart of the Isi­boro Sécure nation­al park. It is home to Chi­man, Yuru­care and Mox­os Indi­ans.

On Sun­day pro­test­ers were near to com­plet­ing their 500km march from the north­ern town of Trinidad to Bolivia’s cap­i­tal, when police used tear­gas to dis­perse them.

Pri­or to this crack­down, a police block­ade detained indige­nous pro­test­ers for sev­er­al days, alleged­ly to pre­vent clash­es between angry colonists and the marchers.

Brazil­ian com­pa­ny OAS has been con­tract­ed to con­struct the road with fund­ing from the Brazil­ian Devel­op­ment Bank.

60 international activists occupy Gold Corporation headquarters in Rosia Montana, Romania

Today, Sep­tem­ber 28th, at 12:00 o’clock, approx­i­mate­ly 60 inter­na­tion­al activists tak­ing part in the Reclaim the Fields camp [1], togeth­er with the local asso­ci­a­tion Albur­nus Maior [2], from Rosia Mon­tana, Roma­nia, occu­pied and blocked the entrance to the Rosia Mon­tana Gold Cor­po­ra­tions [3] head­quar­ters in the vil­lage’s Ol

Today, Sep­tem­ber 28th, at 12:00 o’clock, approx­i­mate­ly 60 inter­na­tion­al activists tak­ing part in the Reclaim the Fields camp [1], togeth­er with the local asso­ci­a­tion Albur­nus Maior [2], from Rosia Mon­tana, Roma­nia, occu­pied and blocked the entrance to the Rosia Mon­tana Gold Cor­po­ra­tions [3] head­quar­ters in the vil­lage’s Old Square. This action was in defi­ance of the com­pa­nies con­tin­u­ing attempt to expro­pri­ate locals and destroy an area pro­tect­ed by Roman­ian con­ser­va­tion law.

Local and inter­na­tion­al peo­ple are oppos­ing plans to open Europe’s largest open cast gold mine, which would dis­place hun­dreds of fam­i­lies and result in wide­spread eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and cyanide con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the pro­tect­ed land­scape. The peace­ful occu­pa­tion and block­ade last­ed for two hours and the com­pa­ny decid­ed to leave the pub­lic infor­ma­tion point closed for the rest of the day.

The pro­posed mine would destroy the vil­lage of Rosia Mon­tana and intro­duce dan­ger­ous cyanide leach­ing tech­nol­o­gy, threat­en­ing water sys­tems in Roma­nia and beyond with the poten­tial of dev­as­tat­ing acci­dents. Strong local oppo­si­tion to the gold min­ing project emerged almost imme­di­ate­ly in the year 2000 when the project was announced by Cana­di­an com­pa­ny Gabriel Resources. Resis­tance to the plan has since spread across Roma­nia and beyond. Dur­ing the last 10 years, Albur­nus Maior, through the Save Rosia Mon­tana Cam­paign has suc­cess­ful­ly mobi­lized thou­sands of peo­ple and has so far kept the plans from being car­ried out.

The Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment pro­ce­dure for the min­ing project was sus­pend­ed in 2008 by the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment, due to the dis­cov­ery of ille­gal­i­ties com­mit­ted by the com­pa­ny. Fur­ther­more, civ­il soci­ety has won sev­er­al court cas­es against the Gold Cor­po­ra­tion, where it was proved that the min­ing project was ini­ti­at­ed in ille­gal con­di­tions and involved high lev­els of cor­rup­tion, coer­cion and abuse of the local pop­u­la­tion.

Accord­ing to the law, the min­ing project has to restart from point zero, but the new Roman­ian Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter wants to pro­ceed with a polit­i­cal deci­sion in favour of the min­ing project, in a clear vio­la­tion of the court deci­sions, as well as of Roman­ian and EU laws on Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment pro­ce­dures.

The Roman­ian gov­ern­ment seems keen to sup­port cor­po­rate inter­ests in the face of local oppo­si­tion. A new law on expro­pri­a­tion has been recent­ly pro­posed in the Roman­ian par­lia­ment and is expect­ed to be vot­ed on dur­ing the next month. The law would enable pri­vate com­pa­nies, instead of the Roman­ian state and judi­cial sys­tem, to car­ry out forced expro­pri­a­tion of res­i­dents, in a clear vio­la­tion of human rights.

In dia­logue with the occu­py­ing activists, the com­pa­ny spokesper­son, Catal­in Hosu, reject­ed any rela­tion between the Gold Cor­po­ra­tion and this law and stat­ed that they would not resort to using it if it is passed. In reply, the activists promised to tar­get the cor­po­ra­tion with fur­ther actions if the promise is not kept.

At the EU lev­el, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion has been refus­ing to fol­low up on a May 2010 Euro­pean Par­lia­ment res­o­lu­tion requir­ing it to make a leg­isla­tive pro­pos­al to ban the use of cyanide in min­ing. While the Gold Cor­po­ra­tion has expressed the inten­tion to adopt cyanide reduc­tion tech­nol­o­gy in Rosia Mon­tana, recent news exposed that the use of such tech­nol­o­gy will be much more expen­sive than orig­i­nal­ly planned [4]. In response to this, Catal­in Hosu replied that the Gold Cor­po­ra­tion is com­mit­ted to respect all Roman­ian and EU leg­is­la­tion, but did not state whether this tech­nol­o­gy will be adopt­ed or dropped in face of the costs.

NOTES:

[1] The Reclaim the Fields move­ment (www.reclaimthefields.org) brings togeth­er food grow­ers and farm­ers around Europe that are con­nect­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles. Reclaim the Fields stands against cor­po­rate inter­ests and any projects which reduce the access and right to land for food pro­duc­tion, abuse local com­mu­ni­ties and destroy cul­tur­al and envi­ron­men­tal val­ues. Between 21–30 of Sep­tem­ber, 2011, sev­er­al hun­dred activists from all over Europe and Roma­nia are par­tic­i­pat­ing in an unprece­dent­ed sol­i­dar­i­ty camp in Rosia Mon­tana – Roma­nia. The event is orga­nized by Reclaim the Fields togeth­er with the Albur­nus Maior Asso­ci­a­tion (www.rosiamontana.org), with strong sup­port from the Roman­ian peas­ant asso­ci­a­tion Eco Ruralis (www.ecoruralis.ro) and numer­ous orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als from across geo­graph­i­cal Europe.

[2] Albur­nus Maior asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sents the local oppo­si­tion from Rosia Mon­tana against the largest gold mine pro­pos­al in Europe which entails the destruc­tion of Rosia Mon­tana and a large area of the Apuseni Moun­tains in Roma­nia. www.rosiamontana.org

[3] Rosia Mon­tana Gold Cor­po­ra­tion is 19.31 per­cent owned by the Roman­ian state with the remain­ing share­hold­ers includ­ing Gabriel Resources, New­mont and Bar­rick Gold.

[4] AFP, Low­er cyanide lev­el in Roman­ian gold mine to cost mil­lions, 23.09.2011, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hXIMBYPJT-sYBLCZhIWJfy-sp_oQ?docId=CNG.eca6a9ad91bdb5676908fa2ea3090890.e1

Community-Suported Treesitting in Yorkshire: the way forward

27.9.11
An old beech tree has been occu­pied since Tues­day 20th Sep­tem­ber, to stop it’s felling, with a change-over of occu­pi­er last Sat­ur­day, whilst bor­ough and coun­ty coun­cil bat­tle it out in the courts over whether the tree should be felled or pre­served.

Back­ground

27.9.11
An old beech tree has been occu­pied since Tues­day 20th Sep­tem­ber, to stop it’s felling, with a change-over of occu­pi­er last Sat­ur­day, whilst bor­ough and coun­ty coun­cil bat­tle it out in the courts over whether the tree should be felled or pre­served.

Back­ground

The local com­mu­ni­ty has been protest­ing against the destruc­tion of an 80+ year old Beech Tree in Irton, North York­shire for sev­er­al years.

Irton is a vil­lage which has a strong com­mu­ni­ty spir­it. Res­i­dents and out­siders have come togeth­er to show their oppo­si­tion to a North York­shire Coun­cil deci­sion which goes against com­mon sense.

One vis­i­tor to the vil­lage stat­ed “ I went pre­pared to think it was just an ordi­nary tree …. But it is excep­tion­al! It is beau­ti­ful – it adds grace to the vil­lage. Los­ing it would make a huge dif­fer­ence.”

The tree has a ‘tree preser­va­tion order’ on it, which pre­sum­ably means that tree experts feel it should not be destroyed. Despite this as well as local oppo­si­tion from res­i­dents, local coun­cil­lors, the gen­er­al pub­lic and envi­ron­men­tal experts, — North York­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil has decid­ed to fol­low legal pro­ce­dures to destroy the tree. ….

Why is the tree being destroyed?

Occu­piers of a near­by house state that the tree roots are affect­ing, or may affect in the future:

• The bound­ary walls
• The drainage sys­tem
• The cur­rent own­ers access to the prop­er­ty

Why these are not valid rea­sons

The bound­ary walls
• There is no vis­i­ble sign of dam­age to bound­ary walls.

“ It is not in any way affect­ed – it is per­fect­ly upright” says one inde­pen­dent observ­er. House own­ers need to pro­vide evi­dence that dam­age has hap­pened. This con­cern can­not be tak­en seri­ous­ly.

The drainage sys­tem
• 2 expert reviews or ‘tech­ni­cal reports’ have appar­ent­ly been con­duct­ed. Alleged­ly, the first report found that the dam­age to drains pre­ced­ed the tree, and the sec­ond report found that the drains were being dam­aged by the tree.
o Who has com­mis­sioned these reports? No infor­ma­tion has been pro­vid­ed to the pub­lic about who did these reports. Why aren’t these in the pub­lic domain?
o A local tree stu­dent has explained that any dam­age done to walls or drains can nowa­days be dealt with by localised meth­ods – the affect­ed roots can be treat­ed and there is no need to cut down an entire tree.

The cur­rent own­ers access to the prop­er­ty
• The cur­rent occu­piers can move their access point, or con­sid­er using sus­tain­able meth­ods of trans­port.
o Long term res­i­dents of the vil­lage have stat­ed that the prop­er­ty entrance was orig­i­nal­ly well away from the tree, and only in recent years has the gate­way been altered.
o Res­i­dents have indi­cat­ed that the cur­rent own­ers wrere pre­vi­ous­ly inter­est­ed in prop­er­ty devel­op­ment on the site – they sub­mit­ted a plan­ning appli­ca­tion for the devel­op­ment, of sev­er­al dwellings…… but were declined.

North York­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil may have fears about the finan­cial impli­ca­tions of deci­sions they make now, how­ev­er it is unac­cept­able to make the fear of an indi­vid­ual home own­er suing the coun­cil over­ride the rights and needs of nor­mal cit­i­zens.

The pro­test­ers

This protest is entire­ly peace­ful, and there was a feel­ing of con­fu­sion amongst pro­test­ers sur­round­ing the con­cept that what they are doing is a law­break­ing activ­i­ty.

“We felt the tree had been con­demned. We need­ed to stop it hap­pen­ing. It is dis­gust­ing.”

The protest includes a tree-sit in. 2 res­i­dents have been resid­ing in the tree in order to save it.

“We got lad­ders, and stood them up the tree. An hour lat­er, the con­trac­tors turned up. There are 60 and 70 year olds who real­ly do not want this tree cut down. Come and have a look – there is no evi­dence of dam­age.”

Pro­tes­tors in and out of the tree have been sup­port­ed by a strong com­mu­ni­ty, pro­vid­ing moral sup­port, food, drink and warmth, as well as the oblig­a­tory wee jar.

The views

“This is real­ly mov­ing all the bystanders…. Their expres­sions are amaz­ing…. It can’t be wrong to make a peace­ful protest.”.
“There is no defence for killing this tree… I can’t find any defence.”
“ It can’t be right…. Peo­ple in pow­er mak­ing decisions….it just seems very wrong…. It is very wrong. ”

Pro­tes­tors are cur­rent­ly being advised by the Envi­ron­men­tal Legal Foun­da­tion.

More pho­tos

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