Category: Action Reports

Season of the Climate Trials

RATCLIFFE ON TRIAL ‘SHOW OF SOLIDARITY’
9am, 22nd Novem­ber
Out­side Not­ting­ham Crown Court

RATCLIFFE ON TRIAL ‘SHOW OF SOLIDARITY’
9am, 22nd Novem­ber
Out­side Not­ting­ham Crown Court

Next Mon­day 20 activists begin their long await­ed tri­al. Accused of con­spir­ing to shut down Rat­cliffe on Soar pow­er sta­tion, they don’t deny this was their inten­tion. How­ev­er they are plead­ing Not Guilty on the grounds that they planned to act to pre­vent loss of life and seri­ous injury caused by cli­mate change.

With the tri­al due to begin Mon­day morn­ing, we are ask­ing sup­port­ers from far and wide to con­gre­gate out­side the Crown Court at 9am for a Show of Sol­i­dar­i­ty before the tri­al gets under­way. You don’t need to bring any­thing but your­selves, and we will be invit­ing you to hold ban­ners read­ing “I’d Stop Emis­sions Too”.

We ask for a calm pres­ence that doesn’t dis­rupt the tri­al. But the more atten­dees the bet­ter. This is the cul­mi­na­tion of an exhaust­ing 18 month process for the defen­dants, who face a max­i­mum sen­tence of three months in prison. A big show of sup­port would make their day.

Get book­ing your trav­el, or organ­ise a mini-bus with your local group. For more infor­ma­tion, email info@ratcliffeontrial.org

See you next Mon­day,
Rat­cliffe on Tri­al cam­paign sup­port group

PS: Join the Face­book Event: http://on.fb.me/92y0Yx

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THE INSTANT INFO BOARD: PRINT IT OUT, STICK IT UP

A few of the Rat­cliffe on Tri­al sup­port­ers have been hard at work over the last few days, putting togeth­er an “instant info board”. This 8‑page doc­u­ment explains, briefly, the var­i­ous dif­fer­ent aspects of the tri­al, the con­text, the neces­si­ty defence and how to help. We’d love it if sup­port­ers around the coun­try could print it out and stick it up in your local social cen­tre, stu­dents union, work­place or any­where else you can think of. Thanks!

Down­load it here:
http://ratcliffeontrial.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/ratcliffeontrial.pdf

***************

MANCHESTER AIRPORT ON TRIAL

In May 2010, sev­en­teen peo­ple staged a protest/direct action at Man­ches­ter Air­port, tem­porar­i­ly shut­ting it down. They did this to stop some of the 5 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon emis­sions that the air­port is respon­si­ble for annu­al­ly and in oppo­si­tion to plans to destroy local homes and bio­di­ver­si­ty spots to expand the World Freight Cen­tre.

Mis­sion:

17 peo­ple are now fac­ing two tri­als as a result of this action. 11 peo­ple will be tried for ‘obstruc­tion of the high­way’ in Dec 2010. The remain­ing 6 will face a tri­al in ear­ly 2011.

Please
‑Email state­ments of sup­port to manchesterairportontrial@gmail.com
‑Like the Face­book page: http://on.fb.me/92b4jo
‑www.manchesterairportontrial.org/

******************

Update:
On 25 Novem­ber 2010, the Copen­hagen Dis­trict Court found Stine Gry Jonassen and Tan­nie Nyboe guilty in charges of being organ­is­ers and insti­ga­tors of vio­lence and van­dal­ism. The inci­dent took place on 16th of Decem­ber at Bel­la Cen­tre last year dur­ing the cli­mate sum­mit in Copen­hagen. The two women were sen­tenced to four months of pro­ba­tion. One out of three judges dis­agreed with the ver­dict and thought the women were inno­cent of all charges.

Stine Gry and Tan­nie Nyboe both act­ed as spokesper­sons for the Glob­al Net­work “Cli­mate Jus­tice Action” (CJA).

Dur­ing the Cop15 last year, CJA organ­ised sev­er­al non-vio­lent civ­il
dis­obe­di­ence protests, includ­ing the “Reclaim Pow­er — Push for Cli­mate Jus­tice” ral­ly on 16th of Decem­ber. The two women were both the pub­lic faces of the move­ment and they are now found guilty in charges of being organ­is­ers and insti­ga­tors of vio­lence and riots. They are both deeply shocked by the out­come of the tri­al and are now con­sid­er­ing an appeal.

More: http://www.climatecollective.org/post/151

CLIMATE DEFENCE IS NOT AN OFFENCE!

ZAD, the story so far…

4 Novem­ber 2010

A com­mu­ni­ty fights on against the inva­sion of the bull­doz­er empire.…

And as the empire grows, the com­mu­ni­ty must also grow, and look for those to join the fight.…

4 Novem­ber 2010

A com­mu­ni­ty fights on against the inva­sion of the bull­doz­er empire.…

And as the empire grows, the com­mu­ni­ty must also grow, and look for those to join the fight.…

For over 40 years, a storm cloud has been gath­er­ing, 25km north of the city of Nantes, France, over a rur­al area of farms, fields, hous­es, marsh­lands and forests. As an inte­gral part of the mas­sive expan­sion of the so-called “eco metro­pole” of the grand-ouest, the local gov­ern­ment has been buy­ing up an area of over 1860 hectares of land to make way for the con­struc­tion of a so-called “high qual­i­ty envi­ron­men­tal” project a new air­port, high­way bypass and tgv train line. This zone is offi­cial­ly known as the “ZAD”, “Zone d’Ameneg­ment Dif­ferè, and by us who resist as the “Zone A Defendre”.

Since the announce­ment of the plans, local res­i­dents and farm­ers have organ­ised their resis­tance through peti­tions, demon­stra­tions and a trac­tor occu­pa­tion in the cen­tre of Nantes. In spring and autumn ’09, the area was in a state of mil­i­tary guard, as 150 mil­i­tary cops were sent out to pro­tect machines involved in the ear­ly works of core drilling and soil sam­pling. This is not a nor­mal course of action; rather it was the response of the local gov­ern­ment to acts of sab­o­tage that occurred ear­li­er on dur­ing the works.

In Sep­tem­ber ’09, after a cli­mate camp in the ZAD, a call was made to occu­py the aban­doned hous­es and threat­ened areas of the ZAD, with sup­port of local peo­ple in resis­tance to the air­port. This call has been answered, and already there are some 13 occu­pied areas on the ZAD, includ­ing emp­ty farm­hous­es, car­a­vans on aban­doned land, forests and col­lec­tive gar­dens. On July 15th 2010, author­i­ties deliv­ered papers to 5 occu­pied areas, warn­ing the occu­piers that they should vacate these places by the 30th July or face legal pro­ceed­ings and evic­tions. Ear­li­er that day, an agree­ment was signed by 5 unim­por­tant bureau­crats to finance the con­struc­tion of the air­port. On 29th July 2010, about 40 peo­ple occu­pied the coun­cil offices in Nantes. The next day, it was made pub­lic that the multi­na­tion­al con­struc­tion com­pa­ny Vin­ci had been award­ed the con­tract to build the air­port. Already the first works have begun on the Bar­reau Routi­er, a high­way bypass being built to serve the air­port. In August 2010 the city of Nantes made pub­lic their search for a secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny to be on con­stant guard on the con­struc­tion sites and areas around the ZAD.

But we won’t be moved so eas­i­ly. Busi­ly grow­ing food to sup­port us over the next years, look­ing for fur­ther areas to occu­py and build­ing defences with­in the ZAD, we are dig­ging our heels in even deep­er and prepar­ing for the fight.

If you would like to join, or even come and vis­it, we are always open. There are many hous­es, fields, trees, car­a­vans that are to be occu­pied and defend­ed when the time comes. If you have your own project to con­tribute, like set­ting up a new space, gar­den, action ideas, or any oth­er use­ful resources or tal­ents, even bet­ter. We are encour­ag­ing peo­ple to try and be as self suf­fi­cient as pos­si­ble with­in this space, as well as want­i­ng to be inspired to become part of this ever grow­ing strug­gle against the machine of progress. Or if you can’t come and vis­it us, maybe you feel the wish to vis­it some sites or offices of Vin­ci in your area.…..

Wish list / ideas of stuff to bring.… bicy­cles and trail­ers, tarps, tools, build­ing and bar­ri­cad­ing mate­ri­als, climb­ing mate­ri­als, com­put­er and tech­ni­cal skills, wheel­bar­rows, rope of all kinds, books, vans/trucks, media resources, ideas, inspi­ra­tion, fight­ing ener­gy, don­keys, drag­ons and den­tists.….

map/directions to the zad
email — zad@riseup.net
to sign up to our list, please email zad-occupation@lists.aktivix.org
Web­site com­ing soon

+ An update
This week (yes­ter­day the 2nd of Novem­ber) they start­ed the drilling for test­ing soil where the high­way is sup­posed to be build. Lets stop it!

Sinixt Nation Establishes a Protection Camp on Their Ancestral Land

The Sinixt Nation, declared extinct by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment more than 50 years ago, has set up a pro­tec­tion camp on their ances­tral land, halt­ing all com­mer­cial log­ging in the area known to the Sinixt Nation as “Slhu7kin”.

The Sinixt Nation, declared extinct by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment more than 50 years ago, has set up a pro­tec­tion camp on their ances­tral land, halt­ing all com­mer­cial log­ging in the area known to the Sinixt Nation as “Slhu7kin”.

On Octo­ber 26th 2010, the Sinixt Nation assert­ed their sov­er­eign­ty by ini­ti­at­ing the Sinixt Slhu7kin (Per­ry Ridge) Pro­tec­tion Camp on their ances­tral lands. The Sinixt, by dec­la­ra­tion, have estab­lished the “Sinixt Slhu7kin – Per­ry Ridge Wilder­ness Pre­serve to pro­tect the rich bio-diver­si­ty on Per­ry Ridge and the col­lec­tive domes­tic water­shed inter­ests of the Per­ry Ridge com­mu­ni­ty.”

Sinixt Nation mem­bers, local res­i­dents, and sup­port­ers are gath­ered at the begin­ning of the Per­ry Ridge For­est Ser­vice road near the town of Slo­can, BC. The camp has halt­ed all com­mer­cial log­ging in the area.

After a com­plete refusal to con­sult with the Sinixt Nation, BC Tim­ber Sales via BC Min­istry of Forests and Range sold the log­ging rights to 4 con­tro­ver­sial cut-blocks on Per­ry Ridge to Sun­shine Log­ging LTD of Kaslo, BC. Sun­shine Log­ging pur­chased the 2 year con­tract for approx­i­mate­ly $330,000 after BC Tim­ber Sales dropped the auc­tion bid­ding price because no com­pa­nies want­ed to touch the high­ly con­tentious con­tract with a ten foot pole.

This isn’t the first time peo­ple have tak­en a stand to pro­tect the area known as Slhu7kin to the Sinixt. In 1997 local res­i­dents, the Per­ry Ridge Water Users Asso­ci­a­tion, and Sinixt mem­bers took both legal and direct action and suc­cess­ful­ly halt­ed road build­ing on the ridge. Over 300 peo­ple blocked the road demand­ing pro­tec­tion for the area.

Known as the Arrow Lakes Indi­an Band under the Indi­an Act, Cana­da offi­cial­ly declared the Sinixt extinct in 1956. This left Sinixt mem­bers liv­ing on the Colville Reser­va­tion (in the USA) or scat­tered among oth­er nations in BC with­out recog­ni­tion.

Many Sinixt returned to the North­ern part of their ter­ri­to­ry to pro­tect their ances­tral bur­ial sites in Val­li­can, BC in the late 1980’s when a BC Min­istry of Trans­porta­tion road devel­op­ment project des­e­crat­ed their bur­ial sites, removed bones and arti­facts and placed them in muse­ums. After a tremen­dous amount of effort from the Sinixt and sup­port­ers, remains of their ances­tors were returned to them and were reburied at the site. The Sinixt to this day con­tin­ue to live peace­ful­ly and re-occu­py their land in Val­li­can mak­ing it the longest re-occu­pa­tion in Cana­di­an his­to­ry.

Sinixt ter­ri­to­ry spans from the head­wa­ters of the Colum­bia Riv­er north of Nakusp, to Kaslo in the West, Rev­el­stoke in the East, and down into what is now known as Wash­ing­ton State. Over 80% of the ter­ri­to­ry lies on the “Cana­di­an side” of the 49th par­al­lel.

In BC alone, 15 dams were built on Sinixt Ter­ri­to­ry. In 1954, Kaiser Alu­minum pro­posed a dam on Arrow Lake. The Keen­ley­side Dam flood­ed 140 Sinixt cul­tur­al sites. The Com­in­co smelter at Trail built a dam on the Koote­nay Riv­er near the ancient Sinixt vil­lage of kp’itl’els. The zinc and lead smelter has since dumped over 13 mil­lion tonnes of tox­ic slag, includ­ing mer­cury, into the Colum­bia Riv­er.

“A vis­i­tor to the Colum­bia Basin will be unlike­ly to see any indi­ca­tion that there was ever a native cul­ture that thrived for so long in this region. Most of the Sinixt tra­di­tion­al vil­lages and bur­ial grounds were flood­ed with the damming of the Arrow Lakes. We know of only one mon­u­ment to the Sinixt. In the town of Edge­wood, there is a totem pole that was erect­ed in the late 1960’s. It was com­mis­sioned by B.C. Hydro as a com­mem­o­ra­tive to an extinct race.”

But the fact of the mat­ter is that the Sinixt nev­er had totem poles and they aren’t extinct.
What You Can Do

The Sinixt Nation and their sup­port­ers are encour­ag­ing peo­ple to help out any way they can.

Finan­cial dona­tions can be made payable to the Sinixt Nation Soci­ety. Mail well con­cealed cash, mon­ey orders and cheques to: The Sinixt Nation Soci­ety, RRI G‑I6 C‑2, Win­law, BC VOG 2JO.

Con­tact the Sinixt Nation:

Mar­i­lyn James (Offi­cial Appoint­ed Spokesper­son)
Bob Camp­bell (Head­man)
Phone: 250 226 6726
Fax: 886 685 7376

For more infor­ma­tion and back­ground, vis­it: http://sinixtnation.org, http://www.firstnations.eu/invasion/sinixt.htm, http://sinixt.kics.bc.ca, http://www.aaanativearts.com/colville-tribe/lake-indians.htm

More pho­tos and updates can be found on the Sinixt Nation’s Face­book page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sinixt-Nation/255421804460

Note sure how to say “Sinixt”? Want to know why the gov­ern­ment says they don’t exist? Lis­ten to the one-hour radio doc­u­men­tary: Keep­ing the Lakes Way: The Past and Future of the Sinixt

Update from Coal Action Scotland & THWAC

30th Octo­ber 2011
Hel­lo all,

Here’s a brief update of what’s been going on with Coal Action Scot­land and what’s com­ing up. There’s a week to go before the Autumn Gath­er­ing and lots has been hap­pen­ing!

1. New THWAC! short film
2. THWAC Gath­er­ing 6th-10th Novem­ber
3. Coal Action Scot­land Octo­ber Newslet­ter
4. Action Roundup
5. Recent News

*1. New THWAC! short film*

30th Octo­ber 2011
Hel­lo all,

Here’s a brief update of what’s been going on with Coal Action Scot­land and what’s com­ing up. There’s a week to go before the Autumn Gath­er­ing and lots has been hap­pen­ing!

1. New THWAC! short film
2. THWAC Gath­er­ing 6th-10th Novem­ber
3. Coal Action Scot­land Octo­ber Newslet­ter
4. Action Roundup
5. Recent News

*1. New THWAC! short film*

A short film about the Hap­pen­don Wood Action Camp and fight­ing Scot­tish Coal in the Dou­glas Val­ley, and pub­li­cis­ing the gath­er­ing next week can be watched here: http://politube.org/show/3075 and http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2206

*2. THWAC Gath­er­ing 6th-10th Novem­ber*

The Hap­pen­don Wood Action Camp (THWAC) was occu­pied on 12th Sep­tem­ber 2010 to resist the destruc­tion of the Dou­glas Val­ley by Scot­tish Coal and SRG Estates.

Join us for our five day autumn gath­er­ing in the woods!

As part of what they’re call­ing their “for­ward strat­e­gy”, Scot­tish Coal have begun the process of clos­ing the cir­cle of open cast mines around the com­mu­ni­ties of the Dou­glas Val­ley by announc­ing three new open cast appli­ca­tions.

For too long now Scot­tish Coal, (with the help of rich landown­ers and cor­rupt coun­cil­lors) have been shit­ting all over the Dou­glas Val­ley, caus­ing ill health to the local com­mu­ni­ties in the area and con­tribut­ing to cli­mate change. This has got to stop.

The evic­tion at Main­shill was not an end but just a begin­ning. We’re back to fin­ish what we start­ed. If Scot­tish Coal want to oblit­er­ate what’s left of the Scot­tish coun­try­side, we will oblit­er­ate them.

We’re call­ing for affin­i­ty groups to come to the site with ener­gy and ideas for action to destroy Scot­tish Coal’s plans.

There will also be the usu­al skill­shar­ing, includ­ing action work­shops, infor­ma­tion-shar­ing and oppor­tu­ni­ties to get involved in the cam­paign and day-to-day life on camp.

**WHAT TO BRING:**

* warm clothes, boots and water­proofs, a tent, sleep­ing bag and mat
* tools for build­ing work and action mate­ri­als if you can
* Most impor­tant­ly bring your­self and friends.

FOOD:
There’ll be com­mu­nal veg­an food for a dona­tion, so come pre­pared to help with chop­ping veg.

GETTING THERE:
>The camp is near junc­tion 12 of the M74, which runs from Carlisle to Glas­gow. The near­est train sta­tions are Lanark and Hamil­ton and there are fre­quent direct bus­es to near the site. Email us or call the sit phone if you need a lift from the train sta­tion.

MORE INFO AND CONTACT:
Email: con­tact [at] coalactionscotland.org.uk
Site phone: 07806926040
Post: Hap­pen­don Wood Action Camp
Wolfcrooks Road
South Lanark­shire
ML11 9PA

Check out the brochure of coal tar­gets in Scot­land plus Dig­ger Div­ing for Begin­ners here http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?page_id=10>.

If you would like to do an info night in your area to pub­li­cise the camp and the gath­er­ing, get in touch and we’ll
send you our new film and action resources.

*3. Octo­ber Newslet­ter*

Down­load and dis­trib­ute the Coal Action Scot­land Octo­ber Newslet­ter!
Find it here:

front three pages:
http://coalaction.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Oct-10-first-three-pages.pdf

back page:
http://coalaction.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Oct-10-back-page.pdf

*4. Action Round-up*

Bore­hole Drilling Machine sab­o­taged in sol­i­dar­i­ty with The Hap­pen­don Wood Action Camp http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2202>

Action against RPS group Glas­gow in Sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in Co. Mayo and South Lanark­shire http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2185>

“Nae Coal at Hunter­ston”: Action against Ayr­shire Pow­er and Peel
Hold­ings http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2177>

CON­sul­ta­tions by Scot­tish Coal marked by actions against the mines in Dou­glas Val­ley http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2166>

Begin­nings of a new wave of direct action in the Dou­glas Val­ley against Scot­tish Coal http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2160>

*5. Recent News*

Dead­ly Coal Tour Vis­its THWAC http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2197>

Scot­tish Coal giv­en a slap on the wrist for envi­ron­men­tal dam­age in Ayr­shire http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2189>

Vic­to­ry against Scot­tish Coal in Mid­loth­i­an!

Kayford Mountain, USA — dozens march onto “reclaimed” site and plant trees

KAYFORD MTN., W.Va.–Forty-four peo­ple risked arrest yes­ter­day on Kay­ford Moun­tain by tres­pass­ing on a Patri­ot Coal Com­pa­ny “recla­ma­tion” site to plant trees. “The coal com­pa­nies sure as hell aren’t going to do any­thing about it – someone’s got to,” said Junior Walk, 20, of the Coal Riv­er Val­ley.

KAYFORD MTN., W.Va.–Forty-four peo­ple risked arrest yes­ter­day on Kay­ford Moun­tain by tres­pass­ing on a Patri­ot Coal Com­pa­ny “recla­ma­tion” site to plant trees. “The coal com­pa­nies sure as hell aren’t going to do any­thing about it – someone’s got to,” said Junior Walk, 20, of the Coal Riv­er Val­ley. Once all the trees were plant­ed and the activists were not under arrest, they walked back off with their shov­els.

“The coal indus­try does not attempt to return the land­scape to its pre­vi­ous bio­di­ver­si­ty – leav­ing it up to the cit­i­zens to reclaim it them­selves. Fix­ing the ruined land­scape will pro­vide long term jobs for those put out of work by the abo­li­tion of moun­tain­top removal” said John John­son, a forester and envi­ron­men­tal­ist.

…

Peo­ple in the front of the march includ­ed Ken Hech­ler, Lar­ry Gib­son and two Colom­bian union coal min­ers, Nation­al Pres­i­dent of Sin­tramiener­get­i­ca Raul Sosa and Jose Brito of the Sin­traCar­bon union. The Colom­bian Net­work Against Transna­tion­al Large-Scale Min­ing sent let­ter of sup­port to Appalachi­an Ris­ing. The two Colom­bians joined the march to the mine’s edge as part of a sol­i­dar­i­ty tour that includ­ed a meet­ing with the Mate­wan local UMWA and peo­ple work­ing to save Blair Moun­tain. Free trade agree­ments such as the North Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ment (NAFTA) and Unit­ed States-Colom­bia Trade Pro­mo­tion Agree­ment (CTPA) hurt work­ers, com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ments both here and in Colom­bia.

Lead­ers in their unions have been assas­si­nat­ed by para­mil­i­taries, and the union says Alaba­ma-based Drum­mond Co. is behind them. The tour is the result of work by Ken­tuck­ians for the Com­mon­wealth, and pos­si­bly oth­ers.

Don’t miss the video from the day!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Octo­ber 25, 2010

Hun­dreds ral­ly on Kay­ford Moun­tain; dozens march onto “reclaimed” site and plant trees

Con­tact:
Charles Sug­gs or Josh Grau­pera: 304.854.1937

NOTE: Infor­ma­tion, Pho­tographs, & Video will be updat­ed on www.climategroundzero.org. Ban­ners: Recla­ma­tion Fail; Over 500 Moun­tains Destroyed, Recla­ma­tion Jobs Now; EPA, We’re Doing Your Job

KAYFORD MTN., W.Va.–Forty-four peo­ple risked arrest yes­ter­day on Kay­ford Moun­tain by tres­pass­ing on a Patri­ot Coal Com­pa­ny “recla­ma­tion” site to plant trees. “The coal com­pa­nies sure as hell aren’t going to do any­thing about it – someone’s got to,” said Junior Walk, 20, of the Coal Riv­er Val­ley. Once all the trees were plant­ed and the activists were not under arrest, they walked back off with their shov­els.

“The coal indus­try does not attempt to return the land­scape to its pre­vi­ous bio­di­ver­si­ty – leav­ing it up to the cit­i­zens to reclaim it them­selves. Fix­ing the ruined land­scape will pro­vide long term jobs for those put out of work by the abo­li­tion of moun­tain­top removal” said John John­son, a forester and envi­ron­men­tal­ist.

The stan­dard recla­ma­tion prac­ticed by min­ing com­pa­nies is inad­e­quate, which involves regrad­ing high walls into gen­tle, high­ly-com­pact­ed slopes and seed­ing the rocky soil with grass. Some com­pa­nies plant trees but rarely return to tend them–most trees don’t sur­vive long. The extreme­ly diverse mixed mes­o­phyt­ic forests of Cen­tral Appalachia, which rely upon the micro-cli­mates cre­at­ed by the area’s fold­ed land, can­not regrow on reclaimed sur­face mines. Native plants like gin­seng require the steep north-fac­ing slopes of Appalachia that retain mois­ture, and will nev­er grow on the gen­tle slopes of a reclaimed strip mine.

The coal indus­try defends moun­tain­top removal by tout­ing the flat land of reclaimed mine sites as prime for devel­op­ment. Accord­ing to a recent report by the Nat­ur­al Resoures Defense Coun­cil, how­ev­er, “only about four per­cent of moun­tains in Ken­tucky and West Vir­ginia, where the vast major­i­ty of this min­ing is occur­ring, had any post-min­ing eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty.”

The day’s ral­ly began in the Stan­ley Heir’s Park, a small island of green sur­round­ed by 12,000 acres of moun­tain­top removal, much of which is in some state of recla­ma­tion.

Peo­ple in the front of the march includ­ed Ken Hech­ler, Lar­ry Gib­son and two Colom­bian union coal min­ers, Nation­al Pres­i­dent of Sin­tramiener­get­i­ca Raul Sosa and Jose Brito of the Sin­traCar­bon union. The Colom­bian Net­work Against Transna­tion­al Large-Scale Min­ing sent let­ter of sup­port to Appalachi­an Ris­ing. The two Colom­bians joined the march to the mine’s edge as part of a sol­i­dar­i­ty tour that includ­ed a meet­ing with the Mate­wan local UMWA and peo­ple work­ing to save Blair Moun­tain. Free trade agree­ments such as the North Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ment (NAFTA) and Unit­ed States-Colom­bia Trade Pro­mo­tion Agree­ment (CTPA) hurt work­ers, com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ments both here and in Colom­bia.

Lead­ers in their unions have been assas­si­nat­ed by para­mil­i­taries, and the union says Alaba­ma-based Drum­mond Co. is behind them. The tour is the result of work by Ken­tuck­ians for the Com­mon­wealth, and pos­si­bly oth­ers.

“I am a 6th gen­er­a­tion West Vir­gin­ian from Mer­cer Coun­ty and I’m a grand­daugh­ter and great grand­daugh­ter of coal min­ers. And they’d be mad about moun­tain­top removal,” Wendy John­ston said. “The bat­tle of Blair Moun­tain lives on in my and my fathers’ spir­it.”

The ral­ly and action comes on the heels of the EPA’s rec­om­men­da­tion to veto the Spruce No. 1 mine’s per­mit and Appalachia Ris­ing, the largest nation­al gath­er­ing of peo­ple in oppo­si­tion to moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing to date. Appalachia Ris­ing cul­mi­nat­ed with a march to the White House of over 2,000 peo­ple and 114 arrests for non-vio­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence at the White House, PNC Bank, Depart­ment of Inte­ri­or and Army Corps of Engi­neers.

Ken Hech­ler, a long-serv­ing West Vir­ginia states­man said at the ral­ly, “I may be 96 but there’s a fire in my bel­ly. I’m here to help save these beau­ti­ful moun­tains of West Vir­ginia and put peo­ple back to work doing use­ful things.” Ken Hech­ler has been a vocal oppo­nent of moun­tain­top removal since the ear­ly 1970’s.

Huntington Lane Eviction Call Out!

Site A Evic­tion Shock!
Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, 2010

Site A at Hunt­ing­ton Lane has now been evict­ed and the camp mem­bers are putting out an urgent call out for peo­ple to get them­selves down to help defend the main protest camp, which is expect­ing evic­tion any minute.

Site A Evic­tion Shock!
Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, 2010

Site A at Hunt­ing­ton Lane has now been evict­ed and the camp mem­bers are putting out an urgent call out for peo­ple to get them­selves down to help defend the main protest camp, which is expect­ing evic­tion any minute.

At around 8:30am today police offi­cers and mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team arrived on Site A to find the tree hous­es sad­ly unoc­cu­pied. The tree hous­es have now been removed and branch­es lopped off the trees so they can’t go back up.

Pro­test­ers have been threat­ened with arrest should they tres­pass upon Site A. An evic­tion notice is yet to be served but this chain of events would appear to sug­gest its immi­nent arrival. We would encour­age any con­cerned indi­vid­u­als to pay a vis­it to camp whether it be to stay on, help out with defences, leave a dona­tion or lend their moral sup­port.

Site A is the south­ern most part of the site (see below marked as ‘site 2′) and the area where the mines infra­struc­ture is to be built and the min­ing is to begin.

The south­ern most part of the site (called site 2 in this image) has been evict­ed

The infra­struc­ture process has now begun and is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly and the com­mence­ment of min­ing oper­a­tions is set to fol­low.

Please call 07503 583419 for info or to get involved.

Shell Garage closed near Elephant

26.9.10

Pro­tes­tors in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ross­port layed siege to a Shell garage near Ele­phant and Cas­tle in south Lon­don yes­ter­day evening at 17:00.

26.9.10

Pro­tes­tors in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ross­port layed siege to a Shell garage near Ele­phant and Cas­tle in south Lon­don yes­ter­day evening at 17:00.

The pro­tes­tors, mem­bers of the ‘pet­rosiege crew’ climbed on to the roof of the garage to force its clo­sure on a busy sat­ur­day evening as part of ongo­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty actions over the oil refin­ery and local peo­ple’s strug­gle in Coun­ty Mayo in the north west of Ire­land (Ross­port)

Exact loca­tion:

Shell Wal­worth South

The Passion for Freedom knows no borders

26.9.10

Lon­don, Fri­day 24 Sep­tem­ber: around 2pm. a num­ber of anar­chists and sym­pa­thiz­ers from var­i­ous parts of the metrop­o­lis con­verged on the shop­ping cen­tre in the mid­dle of the busy inter­sec­tion Ele­phant and Cas­tle, cho­sen because of the thou­sands of peo­ple from Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries liv­ing in the area.

26.9.10

Lon­don, Fri­day 24 Sep­tem­ber: around 2pm. a num­ber of anar­chists and sym­pa­thiz­ers from var­i­ous parts of the metrop­o­lis con­verged on the shop­ping cen­tre in the mid­dle of the busy inter­sec­tion Ele­phant and Cas­tle, cho­sen because of the thou­sands of peo­ple from Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries liv­ing in the area.

After drop­ping ban­ners over the main entrance in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Mapuche hunger strik­ers and the 14 anar­chists arrest­ed in Chile, they dis­persed into and around the shop­ping cen­tre and local mar­ket giv­ing out hun­dreds of leaflets in Eng­lish and Span­ish.

Unno­ticed by the State and pri­vate secu­ri­ty who were too intent on defend­ing the boss­es’ wares, the ban­ners stayed in place for hours in full view of hun­dreds of bus pas­sen­gers from almost every coun­try on the plan­et on their way to and from their places of exploita­tion.

Today’s out­ing, cho­sen to coin­cide with the inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty date for our Chilean com­rades, rather than being a fait accom­pli is a call to action every­where, with­out delay.

Appalachia Rising: end mountaintop removal mining!

22.9.10

Appalachia Ris­ing is a mass mobi­liza­tion in Wash­ing­ton, DC, Sep­tem­ber 25–27, 2010, call­ing for an end to the dev­as­tat­ing prac­tice of moun­tain­top removal min­ing.

22.9.10

Appalachia Ris­ing is a mass mobi­liza­tion in Wash­ing­ton, DC, Sep­tem­ber 25–27, 2010, call­ing for an end to the dev­as­tat­ing prac­tice of moun­tain­top removal min­ing.

Moun­tain­top removal has already destroyed over 500 of the world’s old­est moun­tains and more than 2,000 miles of streams, and has con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed our nation’s waters. Togeth­er, we will bring Appalachia’s cry to our nation’s cap­i­tal: We must end moun­tain­top removal and trans­form the economies of Appalachia away from destruc­tive min­ing prac­tices and toward clean-ener­gy jobs and a sus­tain­able and healthy future.

The week­end includes two full days of strate­giz­ing work­shops, learn­ing, fea­tured speak­er pan­els and dis­cus­sions, cul­tur­al events, and enter­tain­ment. On Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 27, we will march, ral­ly, and sup­port indi­vid­u­als tak­ing part in dig­ni­fied non-vio­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence against moun­tain­top removal min­ing.

Join thou­sands of Appalachi­an and nation­al lead­ers, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, coal­field res­i­dents and min­ers, con­cerned cit­i­zens, activists, moun­tain groups, envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice orga­ni­za­tions, and Amer­i­cans from coast to coast for this momen­tous move­ment-build­ing sum­mit, gath­er­ing, and call to action. Hear the voic­es of those most impact­ed by moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing, and let your voice be heard in this move­ment to offer Amer­i­ca hope for a bet­ter future.

Shell to Sea campaigners target Shell executives in Ireland

The folks in suits final­ly got a taste of the con­flict they’ve been orches­trat­ing in Co. Mayo, Ire­land for the past decade.

The folks in suits final­ly got a taste of the con­flict they’ve been orches­trat­ing in Co. Mayo, Ire­land for the past decade. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Shell and their team of expert wit­ness­es who are pre­sent­ing the plan­ning appli­ca­tion for the Cor­rib Gas onshore pipeline to the Irish plan­ning board were pre­vent­ed from leav­ing the oral hear­ing Thurs­day night by pro­test­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

Thurs­day was a long day for Shel­l’s expert wit­ness­es, boss­es, and exec­u­tives. The plan­ning board­’s oral hear­ing into the Cor­rib Gas pipeline has been ongo­ing in Co. Mayo for the past four weeks, and local res­i­dents have been ques­tion­ing Shell experts on details sur­round­ing the pro­posed onshore pipeline.

At 10pm, exhaust­ed and with long jour­neys ahead of them Shell del­e­gates exit­ed the front doors of the hotel to dis­cov­er that pro­test­ers had board­ed their bus, hold­ing plac­ards and ban­ners with mes­sages read­ing “Ener­gy should­n’t cost the earth”and “Shell: destroy­ing the world, one com­mu­ni­ty at a time.”

At one stage when four high up Shell peo­ple tried to leave in a car, two pro­test­ers met them at the road and blocked their car with a ban­ner read­ing “Shel­l’s lies cost lives.” The annoyed dri­ver attempt­ed to dri­ve through the ban­ner and in the process ran over one per­son­’s foot. No seri­ous injury was sus­tained and the dri­ver refused to make any apolo­gies for his actions.

After delay­ing the Shell suits for over an hour, one mem­ber of the protest explained that “it was so sat­is­fy­ing to final­ly see these peo­ple at the top, who are nev­er held account­able sud­den­ly be con­front­ed with their own respon­si­bil­i­ty for this project and the dev­as­ta­tion it has caused to the com­mu­ni­ty”