Category: Action Reports

Blockade against industrial wind project in Danish wilderness

July 26 – Police in Den­mark detained six envi­ron­men­tal activists on Tues­day protest­ing the felling of trees in a for­est to make room for a research cen­tre for wind tur­bines.

Pro­test­ers said they were not opposed to the cen­tre, but to the loca­tion.

July 26 – Police in Den­mark detained six envi­ron­men­tal activists on Tues­day protest­ing the felling of trees in a for­est to make room for a research cen­tre for wind tur­bines.

Pro­test­ers said they were not opposed to the cen­tre, but to the loca­tion.

The test cen­tre is meant to fur­ther Denmark’s posi­tion as world leader in wind pow­er, com­mon­ly seen as envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly renew­able ener­gy as it con­sumes no fos­sil fuels and pro­duces no emis­sions.

The protest began 10 days ago at Thy in windy north­west­ern Jut­land where Denmark’s wind indus­try aims to test giant tur­bines up to 250 metres high (820 feet).

“We are not against the cen­tre, we are not against the wind indus­try — on the con­trary,” Kent Klemme­sen, chair­man of the cam­paign against the project, told Reuters. “We are against the loca­tion, because we feel there are far bet­ter alter­na­tives.”

——–

Thurs­day morn­ing, 15 July 2011, the local Dan­ish police gave up remov­ing the activists who since Fri­day, 15 July 2011, have pre­vent­ed the cut­ting down of for­est to make room for the planned Nation­al Test Cen­tre for 250 metres high wind­mills in Thy, North­ern Jut­land [Den­mark].

Ten police offi­cers turned up to end the block­ade, but with­drew when it turned out that there were more activists than expect­ed. The pro­tes­tors are camp­ing in the for­est area where the author­i­ties intend to cut down the trees to cre­ate the right wind con­di­tions in the Test Cen­tre. “We shall be back in greater num­bers,” the police said.

The Test Cen­tre will be sit­u­at­ed between a pro­tect­ed bird sanc­tu­ary, a so-called Ram­sar area, and a Natu­ra 2000 area. The Dan­ish Soci­ety for Nature Con­ser­va­tion finds that the law regard­ing the Test Cen­tre vio­lates the Euro­pean Union (EU) Habi­tat Direc­tive, and has brought the case before the EU Com­mis­sion who has request­ed a detailed state­ment from the Dan­ish gov­ern­ment. Fur­ther­more, a local asso­ci­a­tion has filed a case against the Dan­ish State.

Fri­day, 15 July, the bird breed­ing sea­son end­ed and by mid­night the Dan­ish author­i­ties intend­ed to start cut­ting down the for­est. Through­out the day, the local pop­u­la­tion protest­ed against the demo­li­tion of one of Denmark’s last wilder­ness area.

The activists sim­ply laid down in front of the author­i­ties’ machines to pre­vent the cut­ting down to start. They are stay­ing in the area in tents, day and night. The rul­ing of the EU Com­mis­sion is expect­ed with­in a cou­ple of weeks. The activists demand that the cut­ting be post­poned until the rul­ing of the EU Com­mis­sion and the ver­dict of a Dan­ish court have been made pub­lic.

The demon­stra­tion in Thy has no cen­tral orga­ni­za­tion, but arose spon­ta­neous­ly. A spokesman for the activists appealed for sup­port and assis­tance from both Europe and the rest of the world—support as soon as pos­si­ble.

For more info, con­tact Peter Skeel Hjorth, spokesman of EPAW in Scan­di­navia and the Baltic States. Email: peter@skeelhjorth.dk Phone: +46 708 166521 Or Alek­sander Søn­der. Email: aleksander.soender@gmail.com Phone: +45 26160630

UPDATE & MORE BACKGROUND 7/26/2011: “Camp has been shut down again. Still there are peo­ple mon­i­tor­ing the for­est actions and report­ing them… The wind­mill com­pa­ny first want­ed to set­tle the camp on a place where the mil­i­tary is train­ing for Afghanistan. Because the mil­i­tary argues that they are in war, they did not led the test cen­ter be built there. So the last nature reserve in Den­mark has to be vic­tim­ized for this project. This isn’t demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly vot­ed, and the legal issue at the Euro­pean cout hasn’t been decid­ed. Still the work­ers already start­ed cut­ting down. And the police are still present.” —From an anony­mous source on the front­lines

For a longer list of “play­ers” ben­e­fit­ing from, and/or invest­ed in, this project go here

For some pro-indus­try lies promis­ing great­ness and fur­ther infor­ma­tion on this region and this enor­mous wind ener­gy project also vis­it here

 

Pro­test­ers argue that the effects of the huge wind­mills on human and ani­mal life have not been stud­ied ade­quate­ly and the 1,200 hectares (2,965 acres) of for­est should be pre­served.

Though tree felling has begun, Amos Sten­ner, an activist who spent five hours up in a tree on Tues­day, said he was not giv­ing up. “It is very pos­si­ble, that I will go up a new tree tomor­row,” he told Reuters.

The test cen­tre project is run by the Dan­ish Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty DTU, with sup­port from indus­try, includ­ing wind tur­bine man­u­fac­tur­ers Ves­tas and Siemens and state-owned DONG Ener­gy.

Delivering the answer to GM spuds in Norwich

Sat­ur­day 23rd July saw grow­ers and sup­port­ers from all over the UK and beyond descend on Nor­wich to help deliv­er 40 box­es of organ­ic blight-resis­tant pota­toes to the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry to high­light the re-emer­gence of open-air field test­ing, and the £1.7 mil­lion of pub­lic mon­ey being spent in the hunt for a GM blight-res

Sat­ur­day 23rd July saw grow­ers and sup­port­ers from all over the UK and beyond descend on Nor­wich to help deliv­er 40 box­es of organ­ic blight-resis­tant pota­toes to the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry to high­light the re-emer­gence of open-air field test­ing, and the £1.7 mil­lion of pub­lic mon­ey being spent in the hunt for a GM blight-resis­tant spud. Folk came from Wales, France, Lon­don, Devon, Lan­cast­er, Man­ches­ter, Dorset, Liv­er­pool, Bris­tol, York­shire, Bun­gay and Nor­wich itself. You can see pho­tos of the event by click­ing on http://www.flickr.com/photos/chickenpea111/sets/72157627303039592/
Back­ing from celebri­ty food­ie Anto­nio Car­luc­cio, com­bined with grass­roots organ­is­ing and the sheer absur­di­ty of the GM research, meant that the event got exten­sive press cov­er­age (see the links below).

Most of the speech­es were con­duct­ed in the city cen­tre, next to the farm­ers’ mar­ket, and fea­tured the head of pol­i­cy at the Soil Asso­ci­a­tion, the Direc­tor of GM Freeze and a selec­tion of farm­ers, who explained why GM is a risky, expen­sive and out­dat­ed tech­nol­o­gy, which is still fail­ing to deliv­er com­mer­cial crops of any ben­e­fit to farm­ers or con­sumers. Peter Lund­gren, a con­ven­tion­al farmer from Lin­colnshire, described the ongo­ing research as “flog­ging a dead horse”. “Why are we throw­ing good mon­ey after bad when we already have six vari­eties of blight resis­tant pota­toes in the mar­ket­place avail­able for grow­ers? The GM indus­try makes a great effort to sug­gest that exist­ing vari­eties don’t taste good.” “Look” he said, point­ing to the chil­dren in the crowd tuck­ing into hot blight-resis­tant pota­toes being served by the local Green­house café. “That’s the real test.” The crowd of grow­ers, coun­cil­lors, senior cit­i­zens and kids then head­ed out to the John Innes Cen­tre to deliv­er the organ­ic spuds under the watch­ful gaze of sev­er­al vans of riot cops and a police heli­copter.

Prof. Jonathan Jones (or JJ to us…) Field notes from close quar­ters.

The most unusu­al aspect of the demo which fol­lowed was the inti­mate approach adopt­ed by the Sains­bury’s lab researchers. Nor­mal­ly indus­try sci­en­tists are more than coy about engag­ing with crit­ics. Stop GM attempt­ed to organ­ise a stan­dard pub­lic debate in Bramham near Leeds Uni­ver­si­ty a cou­ple of months ago. The vil­lage is next to the only oth­er open-air tri­al site in the coun­try at Leeds Uni­ver­si­ty, but Prof. Atkin­son refused to attend, say­ing that he did­n’t believe adver­sar­i­al debates inform the pub­lic.

Up until 6 days before the Nor­wich ral­ly Jones was issu­ing threats against any­one attempt­ing to make a deliv­ery to his door and refus­ing our offer of a mod­est plat­form. So it was curi­ous that JJ brought not only a small army of secu­ri­ty, but also what appeared to be a not insignif­i­cant part of his research team, his PA, and his wife to the par­ty out­side the Sains­bury Lab gates, who all min­gled with the crowd and attempt­ed to engage in a vari­ety of ways. Jones gave us some use­ful insights into what to expect from the indus­try when cor­nered. The intro to his speech actu­al­ly includ­ed a sub­stan­tial ‘I used to sub­scribe to the Ecol­o­gist in the 70’s you know’ sec­tion. He also talked a lot about the sup­port he had from local farm­ers, none of whom were actu­al­ly in atten­dance, and he didn’t acknowl­edge viable alter­na­tives to GM, oth­er than to say that the pota­toes that had been deliv­ered were “not pop­u­lar with con­sumers” (Unlike, say, GM foods — the only prod­uct ever to be uni­ver­sal­ly banned by super­mar­kets from their own lines in response to mass con­sumer oppo­si­tion). He attempt­ed through­out to paint him­self as a cham­pi­on of impar­tial pub­lic sci­ence ded­i­cat­ed to reduc­ing chem­i­cal use, reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions and feed­ing the world. This from a man who’s oth­er day job is that of co-founder of Mendel Bio-tech­nol­o­gy. This is tak­en from their web­site: “Mendel is ded­i­cat­ed to being a pre­mier biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny serv­ing large agri­cul­tur­al com­pa­nies with new genet­ic and chem­i­cal solu­tions and to becom­ing the lead­ing seed com­pa­ny serv­ing the bioen­er­gy indus­try.” Those chem­i­cal solu­tions and large agri­cul­tur­al com­pa­nies he so care­ful­ly aligned him­self against in Sat­ur­day’s speech? Mendel has three strate­gic part­ners: Mon­san­to (the largest), BP and Bay­er Crop Sci­ence.

JJ defend­ing his Mon­san­to links in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/18/gm-scientist-defends-monsanto-links

For more on Jones and his com­mer­cial bio-tech and lob­by group links see: http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Jonathan_Jones

Jones is also on the board of direc­tors of the ISAAA, a GM indus­try lob­by group.
ISAAA’s annu­al review of GM crops is often used to pro­mote the tech­nol­o­gy, as no one else is putting sim­i­lar data out.

The ral­ly was fol­lowed by some fine shapes being thrown around the camp­fire at the excel­lent after-par­ty, and day of grass­roots organ­is­ing where we gath­ered inspi­ra­tion from our amaz­ing French friends and fur­ther evolved cam­paign ideas start­ed at Gath­er­ing Momen­tum in Jan­u­ary. Watch out for our stall and work­shops at the Green Gath­er­ing in Chep­stow this week­end. Drop in and say hel­lo if you’re pass­ing. For more infor­ma­tion about non-GM blight-resis­tant pota­toes see www.savari-trust.org

A sum­ma­ry of some of the news cov­er­age-

TV -

ITN : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REZwCEZqoSU&feature=player_embedded
BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-14277147
Radio: BBC Nor­folk:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00hxv3f

Press –

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2011/07/25/127998/Campaigners-protest-against-GM-spuds.htm

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/health/anti_gm_protesters_descend_on_john_innes_centre_in_norwich_1_972864

http://www.newmarketjournal.co.uk/news/regional/protesters_meet_gm_crop_scientists_1_2896750http://www.southnorwichnews.co.uk/news/rally-heads-for-research-park/

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/latest-news/norwich-protest-over-gm-potatoes/40434.article

JJ also got a pre-emp­tive piece in the on-line Guardian. For those who aren’t aware, the Guardian has start­ed receiv­ing Gates Foun­da­tion fund­ing. The Microsoft billionaire’s fond­ness for biotech appears to have ren­dered sev­er­al pre­vi­ous­ly impar­tial organ­i­sa­tions slight­ly blink­ered in their engage­ment with GM issues. Whilst some of the media cov­er­age is undoubt­ed­ly unbal­anced, the Sains­bury lab­o­ra­to­ry do a lot of PR any­way, and this ral­ly is the first time in many years that they have been forced to defend rather than just pro­mote their work. At their site they seem to have expend­ed a fair bit of ener­gy in defence as well, with a con­ve­nient con­t­a­m­i­na­tion con­tain­ing ‘tent’ over the tri­al site, and earth bar­ri­cades at every entrance.

The cam­paign con­tin­ues — come and get involved. Con­tact info@stopgm.org.uk

Rossport action update

Shell block­ad­ed on the first day
Tri­pod blo­cakd­ing road as first of new fences sit and wait with nowhere to go

At 6.59 this morn­ing a tri­pod was erect­ed on the road between Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery and their com­pound at Augh­osse, Co Mayo.

Shell block­ad­ed on the first day
Tri­pod blo­cakd­ing road as first of new fences sit and wait with nowhere to go

At 6.59 this morn­ing a tri­pod was erect­ed on the road between Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery and their com­pound at Augh­osse, Co Mayo.
At 6.59 this morn­ing a tri­pod was erect­ed by peo­ple from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp on the road between Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery and their com­pound at Augh­osse there­by blockad­ing the road to all incom­ing trucks. Shell were due to move the first lot of fenc­ing from one site to anoth­er at 7am in order to pre­pare and enlarge the exist­ing com­pound in prepa­ra­tion for turf removal before pipe lay­ing, but instead the truck of fenc­ing now sits behind a line of 30 IRMS secu­ri­ty with nowhere to go. Mean­while the head of IRMS, Jim Far­rell, can be seen mak­ing fran­tic phone calls.
Watch this space for more updates through­out the day…

http://www.shelltosea.com/content/shell-blockaded-first-day

10.30 am update
Three and a half hours after it was erect­ed, the tri­pod block­ade is still hold­ing the road and no deliv­er­ies have yet been made. Scones have just been deliv­ered via local sup­port­ers.

—-

Shell delayed again — 2nd day
27.07.2011
A vari­ety of actions have been tak­ing place all day in order to delay Shel­l’s expan­sion and secur­ing of their new com­pound. Protests and block­ades from 7am to 7pm

On Tues­day 26th July the actions against Shel­l’s pro­posed high pres­sure gas pipeline began at 7am in the morn­ing with 6 peo­ple block­ing the road with an arm tube lock on. No arrests were made. This was fol­lowed by mul­ti­ple block­ades of trac­tors and equip­ment bound for the Augh­oose com­pound. Cur­rent­ly Shell are work­ing on secur­ing their com­pound by putting up stronger fences, lay­ing bog mats and bring­ing in machin­ery. This is in prepa­ra­tion for the peat removal from the area in order to begin lay­ing the pipe.

Peo­ple have been climb­ing up on the back of flat bed trail­ers and on top of var­i­ous trac­tors and trucks. One per­son was on top of a trac­tor for over an hour and a half before being forcibly removed and arrest­ed by the Gar­dai (police) who have been trav­el­ing in con­voy ‘pro­tect­ing’ the trac­tors all day.

Only 2 loads were suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­ered to the com­pound before mid­day. This after­noon has seen con­tin­u­ous dis­rup­tion of the deliv­er­ies, with peo­ple hid­ing along the road and jump­ing out/on the con­voy to force it to stop.

One local per­son suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the road by climb­ing up on top of a lor­ry direct­ly in front of the com­pound.

Its been anoth­er long and amaz­ing day. It is becom­ing clear that the Gar­daí are find­ing the inten­si­ty of the protests frus­trat­ing and that they seem reluc­tant to make arrests. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to keep this lev­el of polic­ing up but it is clear­ly exhaust­ing all of their resources.

This is a crit­i­cal time in the the cam­paign and to keep this kind of protests going we need more peo­ple! There is a mass Day of Action this Fri­day 29th July. If you can come up soon­er or stay for longer it would be great!

For more infor­ma­tion call 085 1141170 or check out www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org or rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.org

——

Mayo — Shell’s con­struc­tion stopped for fifth con­sec­u­tive day

– Cam­paign­ers blockad­ing heavy vehi­cles pre­vent con­struc­tion of Shell’s onshore pipeline — Press release from ear­li­er today — more details from today plus pho­tos to fol­low as soon as the folk involved catch their breath!

This morn­ing, 28th of July 2011, cam­paign­ers again suc­cess­ful­ly stopped the first haulage of the day from Shell’s refin­ery at Bal­linaboy to the pro­posed tun­nel­ing com­pound at Augh­oose, Erris. Co. Mayo. Two peo­ple climbed on top of the trac­tor car­ry­ing mate­ri­als for the con­struc­tion site at 7.05am. The cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly block­ing all fur­ther Shell trans­port for the fifth con­sec­u­tive work day since Shell attempt­ed to start peat removal on Fri­day the 22nd of July.

The first block­ade of the day last­ed for over two hours. At 9.45 a tri­pod block­ade was erect­ed on the same stretch of road, which is cur­rent­ly block­ing Shel­l’s haulage. Con­tin­u­ous block­ades can be expect­ed until 7pm this evening. Three arrests were made yes­ter­day. There have been no arrests so far today.

Local res­i­dent Bet­ty Schultz protest­ing this morn­ing at Bal­linaboy, said “Tomorrow’s Day of Action marks our con­tin­u­ing oppo­si­tion to the dis­rup­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty and the unique envi­ron­ment we live in. Now is the time to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty of Erris in their cam­paign. Ire­land can’t afford to give away its nat­ur­al resources.”

Peo­ple from around Ire­land are answer­ing this SOS call from Erris, and many are expect­ed to arrive this after­noon and this evening to be ready for a mass Day of Action tomor­row, Fri­day the 29th of July. In advance of the mass action tomor­row, local women gath­ered at the entrance to Bal­linaboy this morn­ing from 7am to show that Shell do not have the com­mu­ni­ty con­sent.

Gle­n­amoy res­i­dent Mary Horan at Bal­linaboy gates said “While in Ire­land we are clos­ing our hos­pi­tals due to lack of funds, Shell have today announced prof­its of 13 bil­lion euros. Shell’s prof­its announced this morn­ing are sick­en­ing to this com­mu­ni­ty whose health and safe­ty has been sac­ri­ficed for Shel­l’s share­hold­ers. Nei­ther Shell nor Enda Ken­ny can hide the injus­tice being done to Ire­land. We will be here until jus­tice is done.”

ENDS
–
www.shelltosea.com

Outdoor Skillshare 2011 location released!

This year’s Out­door Skill­share will take place at Talamh Hous­ing Coop­er­a­tive in South Lanark­shire. The skill­share runs 26–29 August, but get there on Thurs­day and leave on Tues­day to make sure you don’t miss any­thing!

This year’s Out­door Skill­share will take place at Talamh Hous­ing Coop­er­a­tive in South Lanark­shire. The skill­share runs 26–29 August, but get there on Thurs­day and leave on Tues­day to make sure you don’t miss any­thing!

Much more infor­ma­tion about the event has been uploaded here: http://outdoorskillshare.noflag.org.uk/

Coal Action Scot­land warm­ly invites you to join us in beau­ti­ful rur­al South Lanark­shire for a week­end of skill­shar­ing and work­shops about out­door life and resis­tance tech­niques. From mass cater­ing to for­ag­ing wild foods, from land defence to self defence, from climb­ing trees to dig­ging tun­nels and every­thing between; come and learn new skills, meet new peo­ple and share your expe­ri­ences with oth­ers.

Since the occu­pa­tion of Main­shill Wood and the recent nine month occu­pa­tion of Hap­pen­don Wood, Coal Action Scot­land has had much col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence of occu­py­ing and defend­ing land along with sus­tain­ing and grow­ing a com­mu­ni­ty of resis­tance. The skill­share was con­ceived of because even though we have lots to share, we still have much more to learn and we hope to col­lec­tive­ly empow­er our­selves and oth­ers to increase our mutu­al capac­i­ty for effec­tive action.

This skill­share will be a safe, inclu­sive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry envi­ron­ment for learn­ing new, inter­est­ing and trans­fer­able skills and is open to peo­ple of all abil­i­ties and expe­ri­ences. What­ev­er your par­tic­u­lar cam­paign, what­ev­er inter­ests or excites you, the skill­share will be a cre­ative melt­ing pot of ideas and tech­niques to sus­tain life and resist oppres­sion (how­ev­er it man­i­fests itself).

Check the web­site or join our mail­ing list to receive updates as they hap­pen and feel free to con­tact us with any suggestions/requirements/questions you may have at out­doorskill­share [at] riseup.net.

**Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Dale Farm: At the same time as the Out­door Skill­share will be tak­ing place, Camp Con­stant will be hold­ing a skill­share at Dale Farm, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with 90 fam­i­lies fac­ing evic­tion from the UK’s largest trav­el­ing com­mu­ni­ty. The two skill­shares, although at the same time, are sup­port­ing each oth­er — if you can’t come to one, please come to the oth­er! http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/**

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update 2011

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop.

If you can come down to help set up please do, we start on August the 5th, if you can stay a few days after the gath­er­ing to help bring it all do that’d also be grand.

Site phone num­ber 1 is 07551689365 or try num­ber 2 on 07866797016.

Here’s a detailed map

——————–

And here’s the work­shop sched­ule:

Wednes­day

11:30–1

Nation­al Bargee Trav­ellers Asso­ci­a­tion

Infor­ma­tion and dis­cus­sion ses­sion on the cur­rent strug­gle of trav­el­ling boat dwellers to keep their homes in the face of harass­ment and unlaw­ful enforce­ment by British Water­ways. Come along if you live on a boat, or if you want to know how you can help the boat­ing com­mu­ni­ty fight back!

Frack-Off! An intro­duc­tion to the threat of hydraulic frac­tur­ing.

Frack­ing is a night­mare! Tox­ic and radioac­tive water pol­lu­tion. Tap water you can set on fire. Run­away cli­mate change. To pro­duce expen­sive gas that will soon run out. So why are we doing it? This will be a detailed prac­ti­cal, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop aimed at bring­ing peo­ple up to speed on the issue, the specifics of which areas of the UK are direct­ly under threat and par­tic­u­lar­ly, where to find organ­ised resis­tance.

Squat Electrics

Deal­ing with our shit- Men against the Patri­archy. An open dis­cus­sion on the ways in which men can unlearn the arse­hole patri­ar­chal behav­iours they’ve picked up by being alive in this soci­ety, and rein­force with­in the rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ment.

2–4

Pop­u­lar Edu­ca­tion & Train­ing

Skill-share for Train­ers! Inter­est­ed in pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion & train­ing? Come learn & share pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion exer­cis­es & games designed for group par­tic­i­pa­tion and hor­i­zon­tal learn­ing. Find what col­lec­tives are work­ing in the UK (& beyond!) and the work they are doing.

Oh Fuck it’s the Apoc­a­lypse

work­ing on the basis that the col­lapse of indus­tri­al soci­ety is fair­ly immi­nent, and that we need to plan for it. To this end we’re look­ing at sus­tain­able liv­ing, per­ma­cul­ture, etc, with a sur­vival­ist angle; at ways to sur­vive a col­lapse and build a more sane soci­ety from the ruins; and dis­cussing how this analy­sis affects our oth­er activism and pri­or­i­ties. We’re a bit like Tran­si­tion Towns with an Edge and a Clue.

Using Radios- A begin­ners guide to using radios dur­ing actions.

Set­ting up a Tri­pod- Nev­er put up a tri­pod before, want a use one on an action. Here’s your chance to find out how.

4–6

Squatting,Direct Action and New Laws

Film: ‘Gasland’

When a doc­u­men­tary film-mak­er is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-coun­try odyssey uncov­er­ing a trail of secrets, lies and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. A recent­ly drilled near­by Penn­syl­va­nia town reports that res­i­dents are able to light their drink­ing water on fire. This is a US doc­u­men­tary, how­ev­er shale extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ is now head­ing to the UK.

Tin­kers Bub­ble

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Thurs­day

10–1130

Intro to Con­sen­sus

Con­sen­sus is wide­ly regard­ed as one of the most empow­er­ing and cre­ative ways of mak­ing deci­sions in a non-hier­ar­chi­cal group, but it isn’t always easy. This par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop pro­vides an intro­duc­tion or refresh­er to what it’s all about and how to make it work.

Rec­c­ing

Struc­tured and facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion to share skills and tips for suc­cess­ful rec­cies for action. Includ­ing a check-list of what to find out, inter­net and phone search­es, site vis­its, tricks and dis­guis­es for get­ting info, secu­ri­ty tips etc.

Intro to EF!

Lon­don Olympics

Resist­ing the Lon­don 2012 Olympics (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Counter Olympics Net­work)
What can we do to resist the Olympics in Lon­don next year? Peo­ple are aware of the prob­lems with the games — sur­veil­lance, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, pri­vati­sa­tion, job inse­cu­ri­ty etc and the ben­e­fits to cor­po­ra­tions. Come and dis­cuss these and how we can resist, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from peo­ple who have resist­ed oth­er Olympics.

How to plan a kick ass action:

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

1130–1300

Bank­ing & finance

Lock­ing on

Prac­ti­cal work­shop for learn­ing dif­fer­ent lock-on tech­niques for block­ades and oth­er actions. Arm-tubes, d‑locks, chains, hand­cuffs, super­glue and more!

20 years of EF! Look­ing for­ward

Fight Frack­ing

Shale gas extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ has been pol­lut­ing drink­ing water and the cli­mate in the US, where it has caused numer­ous health prob­lems. It’s been blamed for mini-earth­quakes in Black­pool and there are plans for projects across the UK, includ­ing in South Wales, Lan­cashire, Som­er­set, Kent, Sur­rey and Scot­land. Join an open dis­cus­sion & plan­ning ses­sion on how we can resist these projects.

Infil­tra­tion- Activist Trau­ma

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Deal­ing with Con­flict

An intro­duc­tion to under­stand­ing and deal­ing effec­tive­ly with dis­agree­ment and con­flict in our groups. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Intro to Anar­chy

Smash Edo

Anti-cuts and Against Aus­ter­i­ty

An open dis­cus­sion on how we’re cur­rent­ly work­ing against the cuts, what are we learn­ing about the sit­u­a­tion, what is prov­ing to be effec­tive, do we need to unlearn cer­tain behav­iours that have dom­i­nat­ed activist cir­cles in order to broad­en and con­nect the resis­tances cur­rent­ly occur­ring.

Men­tal Health

4pm- 6pm

Action Plan­ning for a kick ass action

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

Self-Defence for Paci­fists

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

Shell to Sea

Trou­ble Shoot­ing in meet­ings

A work­shop on trou­bleshoot­ing and improv­ing your meet­ings.

Pup­pet show

Per­for­mance and dis­cus­sion of a pup­pet show cel­e­brat­ing the his­to­ry of envi­ron­men­tal direct action in the UK.

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Fri­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Affin­i­ty groups

Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop explor­ing how and why work with oth­ers for action, includ­ing inspir­ing case stud­ies of suc­cess­ful autonomous actions.

Basic bike main­te­nance.

An infor­mal work­shop on brakes and gears, can also cov­er tru­ing wheels and look at oth­er repairs with no or few tools, by Bicy­col­o­gy.

Intro to EF!

Facil­i­tat­ing Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Work­shops

Have you got skills or infor­ma­tion you’d like to share? Or maybe you want to sup­port peo­ple to learn from each oth­er, or share expe­ri­ences? Devel­op skills, confidence& under­stand­ing to facil­i­tate fun, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry & dynam­ic work­shops.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty is a Weapon

1130–1pm

Intro to Direct Action

Direct action is about tak­ing things into our own hands instead of ask­ing the rich and pow­er­ful to do the right thing. Empow­er your­self to go out and make change hap­pen!

Intro to indus­tri­al Agri­cul­ture and GM

Anar­cho-Fem­i­nist

Black Fish

The Black Fish is a new­ly found­ed Euro­pean based con­ser­va­tion organ­i­sa­tion that takes action on the issues of whal­ing, indus­tri­al fish­ing and marine ani­mals in cap­tiv­i­ty. Using edu­ca­tion, inves­ti­ga­tion and non-vio­lent direct action, The Black Fish has set out on a mis­sion to change atti­tudes towards our pre­cious oceans and work to pro­tect the unique life with­in them.

2–4pm

Sus­tain­ing Resis­tance- A work­shop to explore how we can make our activism more sus­tain­able and effec­tive in the long term. Find­ing sources of per­son­al sup­port to help us stay inspired, nour­ished and cre­ative for the long haul and iden­ti­fy­ing how we can chal­lenge dam­ag­ing cul­tures of over­work and burnout in our activist groups.*

Doing Actions with­out get­ting caught

Prac­ti­cal work­shop cov­er­ing var­i­ous aspects of doing actions with­out get­ting caught, includ­ing get­ting to your tar­get with­out detec­tion both in the day and in the dark, foren­sics and dress sense, get­ting togeth­er mate­ri­als, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, get­ting away. Parts of the work­shop will involve phys­i­cal prac­tise, please wear suit­able clothes for crawl­ing through bush­es…

Women’s Self Defence

The lud­dites 200 year anniver­sary and tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics today

Cel­e­brat­ing the 200 Anniver­sary of the Lud­dite Upris­ings: Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­tics Then and Now (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Luddites200 Organ­is­ing Forum
In 1811-12 Arti­san cloth work­ers in the Mid­lands and North of Eng­land rose up against fac­to­ry own­ers who were impos­ing new machines and putting them out of work. Since the 1950s the Lud­dites have been paint­ed as fools opposed to all tech­nol­o­gy and progress, but in fact the Lud­dites were very selec­tive in their attacks, break­ing only machines they thought were ‘hurt­ful to Com­mon­al­i­ty’. What can the Lud­dites teach us about the ongo­ing use of tech­nol­o­gy to replace work­ers’ jobs, as well as issues like GM food and nuclear pow­er? Can we escape the myth that tech­nol­o­gy always brings progress?

Activist Trau­ma

4–6pm

Get­ting over Fences

Priv­i­lege and Oppres­sion

Pow­er and priv­i­lege play out con­tin­u­ous­ly in our group dynam­ics. This work­shop will explore the roles we each play as priv­i­leged and as oppressed in our move­ment and in wider soci­ety.

Dale Farm

this is the biggest unlaw­ful Trav­eller site in the UK. Res­i­dents own their land but have been repeat­ed­ly refused plan­ning
per­mis­sion and Basil­don Coun­cil have now gath­ered £18million in order to evict them. After years of fight­ing their evic­tion through the courts they have now been served their papers, and have until the 31st August to leave. this work­shop will out­line the his­to­ry of the cam­paign, dis­cuss plans for resist­ing the evic­tion and, if there is enough inter­est, organ­ise a work­ing par­ty to vis­it Dale Farm to help them pre­pare for evic­tion.

Coal Action Net­work

Intro to what’s hap­pened so far with CAN. Dis­cus­sions about what peo­ple would like from the network/website and where peo­ple think coal cam­paig­ing is going. How to get involved in CAN.

Tripods

Doing Actions with­out Get­ting caught part 2

We’ll be prac­tis­ing how to move in the dark with­out being spot­ted. Please wear dark clothes suit­able for crawl­ing through the bush­es and a torch if you can. Meet at 8.30 sharp at the gate tent. The prac­tise will fin­ish by 10pm.

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Sat­ur­day

10–1130

Facil­i­ta­tion

If you’ve nev­er facil­i­tat­ed a meet­ing before, or want to brush up your skills and gain con­fi­dence, this work­shop is for you.

Intro to EF!

Basic land nav­i­ga­tion

An intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion with map and a com­pass for total begin­ners or improvers. Please bring a com­pass if you have one . Also, an overview of very sim­ple route find­ing using the sun, stars and oth­er nat­ur­al signs.

Envi­ron­men­tal and Autonomous Edu­ca­tion for young peo­ple

A dis­cus­sion about var­i­ous alter­na­tive edu­ca­tion projects for young peo­ple, a space to share ideas, expe­ri­ences and rethink the ways in which we engage in these projects.

Coal Action Scot­land- What’s going on in the Val­leys at the moment and how can peo­ple get involved.

11.30am- 1.00pm

Build­ing Strong Groups- Share ideas and learn from oth­ers for mak­ing your group more acces­si­ble, inclu­sive and sus­tain­able.

Organ­is­ing the next win­ter moot and sum­mer gath­er­ing

Enjoyed this gath­er­ing? Thought this gath­er­ing was crap? Come along and start work­ing out how next years gath­er­ing could turn out.

Nutri­tion 101

May­day Indy­media

What is indy­media and how does it work? This work­shop, run by mem­bers of the col­lec­tive which looks after the indymedia.org.uk web­site, will attempt to answer your ques­tions about indy­media and will give you the infor­ma­tion you need to report your news effec­tive­ly on the uk site [and the local sites Birm­ing­ham, Sheffield and Oxford?], includ­ing writ­ing mid­dle col­umn fea­tures for the uk front page to give promi­nence to your cam­paigns and actions. Find out about the edi­to­r­i­al guide­lines and mod­er­a­tion, as well as how to raise queries and how to start up an indy­media col­lec­tive in your local area.

Rewil­d­ing

Facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Who Cares?

Open dis­cus­sion based around recent arti­cle pub­lished on Cease­fire enti­tled “Who Cares?” which talked about the fail­ures of the rad­i­cal move­ment with­in the UK to engage with child care in a way which relat­ed to anar­chist pol­i­tics.

Know your rights: Legal and arrest work­shop

Cov­ers basic law for activists and the arrest process. If you’ve
nev­er been nicked before or you want to brush up on your knowl­edge, this is for you. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Anti-Nuclear- Cam­paign update and info ses­sion

Using Radios

Sav­ing Ice­land and Samaren­dra Das: The Glob­al Crimes of the Alu­mini­um Car­tel

Behind the shin­ing image of alu­mini­um is a dark side of envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phes, the arms indus­try and cul­tur­al geno­cide. A joint pre­sen­ta­tion by Sav­ing Ice­land and Indi­an author/activist Samaren­dra Das. It will include cur­rent threats to the Ice­landic high­lands, one of Europe’s last great wilder­ness­es, the his­to­ry and future of the cam­paign and the fal­lac­i­es of hydro and geot­her­mal ener­gy. Samaren­dra Das will speak about the present strug­gle of Adi­va­sis against com­pa­nies such as Vedan­ta and the real facts behind the alu­mini­um indus­try.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Self-Defence

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

‘The True Cost of Coal’

The Bee­hive Design Col­lec­tive (part of the Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca Net­work) cre­ate portable murals of col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly pro­duced illus­tra­tions with an amaz­ing­ly engag­ing cen­tral nar­ra­tive. ‘The True Cost of Coal’ will take you on an inter­ac­tive visu­al tour of the con­nec­tions between Coal Min­ing, Cli­mate Change, the Ever Expand­ing Cap­i­tal­ist Econ­o­my, and the Strug­gle for Jus­tice in Appalachia, North Amer­i­ca and through­out the world.

GM Cam­paign- Cam­paign update and info share.

Com­mu­ni­ty Defence: Build­ing our own Exarchia’s

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Sun­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Region­al Meet­ings

Dsei

DSEi is the worlds largest Arms Fair, as many EFers know. This year it’s from Sep­tem­ber 13–18. It’s not sim­ply about the arms trade. It’s about pub­lic ser­vices “cuts”: the envi­ron­ment: bank­ing and investors: the con­flicts in the Mid­dle East and North Africa. Not to men­tion the bor­ders that stop peo­ple flee­ing con­flict There’s a call for a mass block­ade of the DLR on the Tues­day. Pre­vi­ous Days of Action- and oth­er days in the week ‑have includ­ed street par­ties, Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides, die-ins, mock sales of “arms”, legs and even a tank; splash­ing fake blood across the entrances, engag­ing with arms deal­ers on the trains and plat­forms, invad­ing the car park and rail entrance, block­ing the roads, lock­ing on to the trains, even swim­ming in the dock! And vis­it­ing the investors offices of course. And in ther run-up- your local arms fac­to­ry. Will be talk­ing about all this — Not to men­tion that vis­it to your local arms fac­to­ry!

11.30am- 1.00pm

Action Update

Gath­er­ings Col­lec­tive

Basic Plant I‑d

Dis­cus­sion about Veg­an­ism

Direct Action Train­ing

Come and get active in this inter­ac­tive and hope­ful­ly fun work­shop where we’ll be look­ing at some fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks for tak­ing non-vio­lent direct action to fight suf­fer­ing, and prac­tis­ing dif­fer­ent non-vio­lent ech­niques to hold occu­pa­tions, block­ade, break out of ket­tles, de-arrest peo­ple, and to deal with oth­er police tac­tics, like snatch squads, hors­es and dogs. We’ll also give lots of oth­er tips for deal­ing with pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions and for affin­i­ty group actions, includ­ing some key legal infor­ma­tion which you should know when you’re tak­ing action, and some tips about deal­ing with the media. And we’ll look at some of the val­ues and atti­tudes which are key to tak­ing NVDA, like non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing and con­sen­sus (and oth­ers). We’ll hope­ful­ly be able to adjust the work­shop to cov­er what you want, and to answer all your ques­tions.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Gath­er­ing Feed­back Show

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Kids’ space and activ­i­ties

If you do not have a kid, we might still need your help, so read
on.……

The kids’ space is designed as a place where chil­dren and those car­ing for them can relax, play and eat. The space con­tains books, toys and craft mate­ri­als.

The kids’ space is NOT a creche and does­n’t have staff or facil­i­ties to care for chil­dren.

Par­ents and car­ers are respect­ful­ly remind­ed that they will need to col­lect chil­dren at meal times/breaks and that they much keep adults in the kids space informed of where they can be found; please also fill in the forms in the kids kitchen regard­ing food aller­gies etc.

If you do not have a child at the gath­er­ing, but would like to help in kids space, please talk to the col­lec­tive. Help with read­ing sto­ries, play­ing games, art and crafts always wel­come.

Kid’s kitchen

This pro­vides meals suit­able for and at appro­pri­ate times for chil­dren. Kids meal tick­ets cost £2 or £3 a day for 2 meals (the low­er rate is for tod­dlers); please buy these at the gate tent. This is the first time we have sold kids meal tick­ets and hope­ful­ly this will cov­er the cost of meals, but we may need to ask for help if this is not enough to cov­er our costs.

Even those with­out chil­dren can help by with cook­ing and wash­ing up in the kids space, please vol­un­teer if you can.

Games and activ­i­ties

Dur­ing the morn­ing (approx 10 am ‑noon) there will be activ­i­ties and work­shops for kids in one of the work­shop spaces.

In the after­noon (after lunch), there will be games in the top mead­ow for chil­dren and adults togeth­er. Again, any help with these very wel­come — just ask the collective/kids space crew.

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Pub­lic Trans­port

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .

We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). !

Wheel­chair users intend­ing to use Diss sta­tion will need to book assis­tance with the train oper­a­tor. There are no lifts so sta­tion staff have to assist mobil­i­ty impaired cus­tomers across the track. Appar­ent­ly the sta­tion is not manned 24 hours a day and the gate for the cross­ing is kept locked — so do phone and book to be sure .We have been told the bus ser­vice includes some low-floor bus­es with easy access for pushchairs, peo­ple with mobil­i­ty impair­ments etc.

Hitch to Nor­wich or Diss; from Nor­wich hitch south on the A140 to Dick­le­burgh. It is then a 3 ‑4 mile walk or hitch to the site; on the Dick­le­burgh bypass (don’t go into Dick­le­burgh vil­lage) is a right turn to Shim­pling and Burston; fol­low this road through Burston vil­lage, past the vil­lage green and out of the vil­lage. There is a sharp left turn, then down a hill to a sharp right turn. Site is on the right just over a lit­tle brick bridge.

From Diss either walk or bus, or car­ry on up the A140 to the turn­ing on the Dick­le­burgh junc­tion as above (only this time the junc­tion is on the left).

[some even more detailed info includ­ing post-code, from pre­vi­ous year, at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html]

efsummergathering2011@riseup.net

Climate activists’ convictions quashed

The con­vic­tions of 20 cli­mate activists were quashed by the Court of Appeal on Wednes­day. The 20 had been con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit aggra­vat­ed tres­pass at Rat­cliffe-on-Soar pow­er sta­tion, in Decem­ber last year.

The con­vic­tions of 20 cli­mate activists were quashed by the Court of Appeal on Wednes­day. The 20 had been con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit aggra­vat­ed tres­pass at Rat­cliffe-on-Soar pow­er sta­tion, in Decem­ber last year. How­ev­er, rev­e­la­tions about the with­hold­ing of evi­dence gath­ered by under­cov­er police offi­cer Mark Kennedy led to the Direc­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions request­ing an inde­pen­dent review into the safe­ty of the pros­e­cu­tions. Lord Chief Jus­tice, Lord Judge, said the con­vic­tions had been a mis­car­riage of jus­tice.

On the IMC newswire: Cli­mate activists’ con­vic­tions quashed | HM Court of Appeal: Lord Chief Jus­tice Appeal Judge­ment on Ratcliffe20 | Not­ting­hamshire­Po­lice extreme­ly dis­ap­point­ed shame | Rat­cliffe pow­er sta­tion pro­test­ers cleared on appe | Rat­cliffe Crown Court Tri­al ‘Col­lect­ed Report’ PDF

Pre­vi­ous fea­tures: Guilty ver­dict in Rat­cliffe tri­al | Rat­cliffe Tri­al: Week 2 | Rat­cliffe Tri­al: Pros­e­cu­tion Opens | Rat­cliffe Con­spir­a­cy Tri­al Begins | Mass Arrest of 114 Cli­mate Activists in Raid

Activists’ state­ment

We are 20 of the 114 peo­ple who were pre­emp­tive­ly arrest­ed near E.ON’s Rat­cliffe-on-Soar coal pow­er sta­tion over two years ago. Dur­ing our tri­al last year we argued that our plan to safe­ly shut down the pow­er sta­tion was nec­es­sary in order to pro­tect the ever esca­lat­ing num­bers of peo­ple dying as a result of cli­mate change. We lat­er found out our tri­al was rigged by the police and CPS to get con­vic­tions.

Through plac­ing under­cov­er offi­cers in our move­ment, using mass pre­emp­tive arrest and rig­ging our tri­al, the state has delib­er­ate­ly attempt­ed to silence dis­sent­ing voic­es. This quelling of dis­sent, now repeat­ed in the young peo­ple fac­ing prison for protest­ing against the attacks on pub­lic ser­vices, is fun­da­men­tal­ly unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic. It is yet anoth­er exam­ple of those in pow­er pro­tect­ing their own inter­ests. Whether it’s E.ON Ener­gy or News Inter­na­tion­al, the gov­ern­ment and police have a track record of col­lud­ing with big busi­ness. We need to look at the root caus­es of cli­mate change, and ask why the prof­its of cor­po­ra­tions such as E.ON are being pri­ori­tised over future gen­er­a­tions, and the mil­lions already on the front line of our chang­ing cli­mate. Tak­ing action on cli­mate change is not an act of moral right­eous­ness, its about pro­tect­ing our future. His­to­ry is full of exam­ples of ordi­nary peo­ple act­ing to defend their rights and those of oth­ers, and we need a strong move­ment of peo­ple doing just that. Win­ning this appeal is just one small vic­to­ry in the fight against the sys­tem­i­cal­ly polit­i­cal nature of polic­ing. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those have suf­fered injus­tice from the state or face repres­sion for dar­ing to take polit­i­cal action.

Links:

Rat­cliffe on Tri­al

The full judg­ment

DPP announce­ment of inde­pen­dent inquiry

Not­ting­hamshire Police state­ment

GM wheat gets the chop, Australia

Update: offices raid­ed week after decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion / French sci­en­tist dis­cov­ers signs of tox­ic effects relate

Update: offices raid­ed week after decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion / French sci­en­tist dis­cov­ers signs of tox­ic effects relat­ed to eat­ing GM foods / action video

14 July 2011

Green­peace activists, includ­ing one moth­er who wants to pro­tect her fam­i­ly, have stopped a GM wheat exper­i­ment out­side Can­ber­ra this morn­ing.

Two women used whip­per snip­pers to remove a con­tro­ver­sial genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) wheat crop before day break.

The activists con­struct­ed a decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion area to safe­ly dis­pose of the untest­ed and poten­tial­ly unsta­ble GM organ­isms.

Safety in question

The activ­i­ty fol­lows the rev­e­la­tion that Australia’s peak sci­en­tif­ic body, CSIRO, is con­duct­ing the world’s first human feed­ing tri­als of GM wheat, with­out ade­quate safe­ty test­ing.

“This GM wheat should nev­er have left the lab,” said activist and moth­er, Heather McCabe. “I’m sick of being treat­ed like a dumb Mum who doesn’t under­stand the sci­ence. As far as I’m con­cerned, my fam­i­ly’s health is just too impor­tant. GM wheat is not safe, and if the gov­ern­ment can’t pro­tect the safe­ty of my fam­i­ly, then I will.”

CSIRO’s wheat exper­i­ment came under recent scruti­ny when eight inter­na­tion­al sci­en­tists and doc­tors ques­tioned the ethics and sci­en­tif­ic rigour behind it. In an open let­ter the sci­en­tists ques­tioned the safe­ty of human feed­ing tri­als planned for lat­er this year in which Aus­tralians would be fed GM wheat from the Can­ber­ra based tri­als.

Conflict of interest

On 30 June, CSIRO reject­ed a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request by Green­peace which request­ed fur­ther infor­ma­tion to ensure the safe­ty of the human feed­ing tri­als, along with trans­par­ent infor­ma­tion about the com­mer­cial part­ner­ships CSIRO has with for­eign biotech com­pa­nies to com­mer­cialise GM wheat.

In a July report – Australia’s Wheat Scan­dal Green­peace detailed a major con­flict of inter­est at CSIRO. Two direc­tors of the biotech giant Nufarm – the dis­trib­u­tor of Monsanto’s prod­ucts in Aus­tralia – also sat on the CSIRO board at the time of the wheat experiment’s approval. View the info­graph­ic detail­ing the con­nec­tions

GM wheat has already been reject­ed in Cana­da, North Amer­i­ca, Rus­sia and the EU. The CSIRO is being used as a front for for­eign biotech com­pa­nies; this has com­pro­mised its research and put Australia’s mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar wheat indus­try at risk.

Inevitable contamination

All of the evi­dence shows that GM can’t be con­tained in the field. Green­peace has tak­en action to pro­tect our food sup­ply being con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by exper­i­men­tal GM wheat. Now the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment must step in and pro­tect the health of Aus­tralian peo­ple.

“We had no choice but to take action to bring an end to this exper­i­ment,” said Green­peace Food cam­paign­er Lau­ra Kel­ly. “GM has nev­er been proven safe to eat and once released in open exper­i­ments, it will con­t­a­m­i­nate. This is about the pro­tec­tion of our health, the pro­tec­tion of our envi­ron­ment and the pro­tec­tion of our dai­ly bread.”

Trials of potentially unstable GM wheat strains are currently planted in five states and territories across Australia

TAKE ACTION: Tell the gov­ern­ment to end its con­tro­ver­sial GM wheat tri­als

READ THE REPORT: The biotech takeover of our dai­ly bread

MORE INFORMATION: Fol­low the sto­ry so far

No TAV: renewed violent clashes in the Susa Valley

On 22nd July peo­ple tried tak­ing the fences to the work-site down, and the police used water can­nons. Ten­sions have been mount­ing in pre­vi­ous days. Much tear gas has been used, stones thrown, with water can­nons also used to put out the fires set under the fences.

On 22nd July peo­ple tried tak­ing the fences to the work-site down, and the police used water can­nons. Ten­sions have been mount­ing in pre­vi­ous days. Much tear gas has been used, stones thrown, with water can­nons also used to put out the fires set under the fences.

Videos

More videos

The A‑Team — your guide to dif­fer­ent police forces in the Val de Susa.

23rd July 2011 — over 500 pro­test­ers lay siege to the works for four hours at night.

24th July — peo­ple tried to pull down the gate to the work site, fol­low­ing a ral­ly at which the moth­er of Car­lo Giu­liani (killed dur­ing protests against the G8 in Genoa 10 years ago) spoke.

The 4 activists arrest­ed on 3 July fol­low­ing the NO TAV protests in Chiomonte were all released the pre­vi­ous week. More info

Come up to Rossport! Shell Starts Work on onshore pipeline

22nd July 2011

Shell have brought a dig­ger and a port-a-cab­in into the exist­ing tem­po­rary com­pound in Augh­oose. This is in prepa­ra­tion to start build­ing a per­ma­nent com­pound in Augh­oose from which they hope to start dig­ging the tun­nel for the pipeline which will con­nect Bal­linaboy refin­ery to the 70 kms of off­shore pipeline. They will come in full force on Mon­day 25th July, please come up to Mayo and show your sup­port! A mass day of action is planned for Fri­day 29th July, but come up any time.

22nd July 2011

Shell have brought a dig­ger and a port-a-cab­in into the exist­ing tem­po­rary com­pound in Augh­oose. This is in prepa­ra­tion to start build­ing a per­ma­nent com­pound in Augh­oose from which they hope to start dig­ging the tun­nel for the pipeline which will con­nect Bal­linaboy refin­ery to the 70 kms of off­shore pipeline. They will come in full force on Mon­day 25th July, please come up to Mayo and show your sup­port! A mass day of action is planned for Fri­day 29th July, but come up any time.

There were over 70 IRMS (Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny) present to secure the two trac­tors with trail­ers bring­ing in the equip­ment. The pri­vate secu­ri­ty blocked off about 300 metres of the pub­lic road to allow the trac­tors to enter the com­pound. Sev­en peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp ran down to try and inter­vene but a long line of IRMS had the road blocked off, and sev­er­al peo­ple were assault­ed by IRMS on the pub­lic road. Two peo­ple had to receive med­ical atten­tion. One per­son has made a state­ment to the gar­daí regard­ing the assaults, but the gar­daí were quite reluc­tant to receive the state­ment.

The dig­ger and the port-a-cab­in entered the com­pound, how­ev­er with­in 15 min­utes over 20 pro­test­ers from the camp and local res­i­dents had gath­ered out­side the com­pound, and no fur­ther work was car­ried out for the rest of the day.

Many of the IRMS secu­ri­ty mem­bers seem to be new, and ear­li­er this week mem­bers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp observed a group of 12 IRMS mem­bers who seemed to be on their first shift. Peo­ple went up to talk to the secu­ri­ty guards, explain­ing to them why peo­ple are against the Shell project and talk­ing to them about why they are there protest­ing. Many of the new secu­ri­ty guards were vis­i­bly uncom­fort­able, and seemed quite affect­ed by what they were hear­ing.

This over-show of force today may have been some sort of train­ing ses­sion for the new IRMS secu­ri­ty before the real work starts on Mon­day. When deal­ing with some of the pro­test­ers who had been speak­ing with the secu­ri­ty guards, it was obvi­ous­ly much more dif­fi­cult for them to use the force they’d been ordered to use on peo­ple. One pro­test­er from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp explained that “it felt so much more empow­er­ing to talk to them on a human lev­el and tell them why I was there, than to get beat­en up by them. When the lads I’d been speak­ing with were ordered to remove me, they were bare­ly able to touch me. It was a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence than I’ve had with IRMS in the past.”

This activ­i­ty on Fri­day fol­lows a week of con­tin­u­ous actions at the Bord na Móna site in Shramore out­side Ban­gor Erris. Shell intends use this site to store the 125,000 tonnes of peat meant to be removed from the bog at the Augh­oose site. The 500,000 tonnes of peat removed from the Bal­linaboy refin­ery site in 2006/7 was stored at Shramore. In the past few weeks pri­vate con­trac­tors have been extend­ing the road net­work at Shramore to accom­mo­date the Shell project. This week pro­test­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp have turned their atten­tion to the Bord na Móna site and have been occu­py­ing trucks and dig­gers, block­ing the front gates with con­crete lock-ons, and putting bar­ri­cades in the roads on-site. Here is a brief run-down of the week:

Tues­day: Four peo­ple put their arms into con­crete lock-ons in front of the gate at the Shramore site, block­ing work for three and a half hours. No arrests were made.

Wednes­day: About 20 peo­ple entered the Shramore site, climb­ing on top of trucks and dig­gers to stop them work­ing, block­ing the front gates, and gen­er­al­ly shut­ting down all works on site. The gar­daí arrived on scene but even­tu­al­ly left with­out mak­ing any arrests.

Thurs­day: Work start­ed at about 3pm at the Shramore site, and work was stopped about 30 min­utes lat­er. Pro­test­ers chained the gate shut to pre­vent trucks from deliv­er­ing the grav­el need­ed to extend the road net­work on the site. The vehi­cles with­in the site which were active were all suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied, includ­ing three trucks, two dig­gers and one crane. The occu­pa­tion con­tin­ued for the rest of the work­ing day, no arrests were made.

Fri­day: Work start­ed just after 7:30am but was prompt­ly halt­ed by pro­test­ers block­ing the front gate and sub­se­quent­ly occu­py­ing the few machines which had start­ed work. Just before mid­day word arrived that work at the Augh­oose site had begun, so most peo­ple left. Those who stayed saw that work did not start up again till about 2pm and by 3:30pm anoth­er group of pro­test­ers had returned to halt works again for the rest of the day.

In con­clu­sion, very lit­tle work was accom­plished at Bord na Móna’s peat depos­i­to­ry site in Shramore this week. Shell began work in Augh­oose on Fri­day, and the local com­mu­ni­ty is gear­ing up for a fine resis­tance next week when Shell comes in full force. Get up here and show your sup­port! A day of mass action is planned for Fri­day the 29th of July, but come up soon­er if you’re able.

To get in touch with the camp: 00353 85 114 1170 or rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com

Calais: “Welcome to Fortress Europe” action

Sat 23rd July 2011

This after­noon over a dozen No Bor­ders activists blocked both vehi­cle entrances into the City Europe com­pound, stop­ping shop­pers and screen­ing those try­ing to enter with rules almost as arbi­trary as those used at real bor­ders… check­ing the colour of their cars, stop­ping peo­ple wear­ing hats or glass­es or with too many peo­ple in the car, see­ing as Fortress Europe was get­ting full.

Sat 23rd July 2011

This after­noon over a dozen No Bor­ders activists blocked both vehi­cle entrances into the City Europe com­pound, stop­ping shop­pers and screen­ing those try­ing to enter with rules almost as arbi­trary as those used at real bor­ders… check­ing the colour of their cars, stop­ping peo­ple wear­ing hats or glass­es or with too many peo­ple in the car, see­ing as Fortress Europe was get­ting full.

While peo­ple shout­ed ‘con­trôl fron­tière ici’ vehi­cles refused entry were direct­ed to Coquelles deten­tion cen­tre on the street oppo­site. After only sev­er­al min­utes some peo­ple try­ing to enter became very irate at the incon­ve­nience this mock bor­der con­trol was caus­ing to their after­noon shop­ping. How­ev­er many peo­ple were recep­tive to the demon­stra­tion and its pur­pose and lots of leaflets explain­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Calais were dis­trib­uted, with peo­ple tak­ing on board the point of the action.

Secu­ri­ty and police arrived soon after and removed the bar­ri­er at one gate. Activists in high-vis­i­bil­i­ty jack­ets con­tin­ued to con­trol and direct traf­fic for half an hour before being forced into the car park.

This fake ‘con­trol zone’ demon­stra­tion mim­ics the farce of ID and bor­der con­trols that seg­re­gate and per­se­cute peo­ple because of their race, nation­al­i­ty and income.

Refugees here are being sub­ject­ed to poli­cies aimed at dri­ving them under­ground and mak­ing them invis­i­ble. This nor­mal­iza­tion of state vio­lence has been put in place by British and French gov­ern­ments. These peo­ple have often been dis­placed by the poli­cies of these gov­ern­ments and are liv­ing not just the pain of the loss of the lives they left behind and the fear and uncer­tain­ty for their futures.

Unlike a demon­stra­tion pre­vent­ing peo­ple from enter­ing a shop­ping com­plex, the Euro­pean pol­i­cy of bor­der clo­sure is deny­ing peo­ple the chance to escape dan­ger and mis­ery. Dur­ing the last months an esti­mat­ed two thou­sand refugees flee­ing the war in Libya have drowned in the Mediter­ranean and rather than send­ing res­cue boats, Fron­tex the Euro­pean bor­der force, has sent boats to push refugees packed into boats back to the Libyan coast.

In Calais over the last few weeks there has been a step up in the offen­sive against migrants start­ing with the evic­tion of Africa House – the shel­ter and home of around 100 peo­ple with and with­out papers – with mass evic­tions and the destruc­tion of peo­ples homes and per­son­al belong­ings.

After force­ful­ly mak­ing peo­ple home­less, every place peo­ple move to, to eat, rest or sleep, has been sub­ject to mass raids and con­stant harass­ment, leav­ing peo­ple with lit­er­al­ly nowhere left to go.

No Bor­ders denounce the com­pli­ance of the police and the munic­i­pal ser­vices with such bar­bar­ic orders and denounce the com­plic­i­ty of those who wit­ness this and yet remain unques­tion­ing­ly silent. We are all human. We must chal­lenge the hypocrisy and seg­re­ga­tion that bor­der con­trols cre­ate.

No bor­ders, no nations, stop depor­ta­tions.