Category: Action Reports

ELF Torches Development Water Truck in Mexico

16.8.2009
Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front Torch­es Devel­op­ment Water Truck in Mex­i­co

Com­mu­nique:
In the clan­des­tine dark­ness, on a tran­quil and hot night, we assem­bled our dream with gaso­line that would soon be fire.

We walk under the ghosts of the trees already destroyed, only our breath­ing and steps we could hear. Dur­ing this night, every­thing went well.

16.8.2009
Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front Torch­es Devel­op­ment Water Truck in Mex­i­co

Com­mu­nique:
In the clan­des­tine dark­ness, on a tran­quil and hot night, we assem­bled our dream with gaso­line that would soon be fire.

We walk under the ghosts of the trees already destroyed, only our breath­ing and steps we could hear. Dur­ing this night, every­thing went well.

We arrived at our objec­tive, a truck full of water, uti­lized to squan­der hun­dreds of liters of water for the earth that civ­i­liza­tion would lat­er lick, urban­iz­ing it and leav­ing it com­plete­ly infer­tile, all for the con­struc­tion of streets where zom­bies wan­der.

We placed our device in the front rim of the truck and we hid behind urban flo­ra. A small spark of hap­pi­ness suf­fices to illu­mi­nate a sad night of agony.

Our dark clothes cam­ou­flage with the shad­ows, and the lumi­nous and round moon lit the truck that in some min­utes would begin to burn. The incen­di­ary was lit and began to burn the the rim, the chest, and lat­er, slow­ly, the cab­in of the truck would be eat­en. A great cloud rose to the skies, as we felt a great emo­tion in our bod­ies. The flames were large, as large as our desire to see the dying civ­i­liza­tion burn.

In the com­pa­ny of the stars, we admired our com­plet­ed action, behind the trees, just as the pan­ther visu­al­izes its prey.

Sud­den­ly, the deaf­en­ing noise of chaos, of neigh­bors, and of sirens were heard. An ambu­lance arrived, fire­men arrived and the cars that were near the smoke began to flee. The deaf­en­ing sound was the sound of the motor of the truck explod­ing.

The social peace had been destroyed. Exploiters of the earth received their pun­ish­ment, the truck was ren­dered use­less and we once again struck with­out leav­ing any trail.

Revenge for the land, the trees, the moun­tains, the water and every­thing that sig­ni­fies wild nature turned into mer­chan­dise for the anthro­pocen­tric human!

We will con­tin­ue in the fight.

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front/Mexico

info@elfpressoffice.org
http://www.elfpressoffice.org

Police raid eco-protest camp

16.08.2009
POLICE bul­lies have invad­ed Camp Tit­nore near Wor­thing and intim­i­dat­ed the pro­test­ers, who have been peace­ful­ly occu­py­ing the threat­ened Dur­ring­ton wood­land since 2006.

16.08.2009
POLICE bul­lies have invad­ed Camp Tit­nore near Wor­thing and intim­i­dat­ed the pro­test­ers, who have been peace­ful­ly occu­py­ing the threat­ened Dur­ring­ton wood­land since 2006.

Com­ing just a few weeks after Tesco got per­mis­sion for its dis­gust­ing new abom­i­na­tion on neigh­bour­ing fields, it is feared this her­alds an all-out attack on the camp by the usu­al unholy alliance of prof­i­teer­ing cap­i­tal­ist scum, cor­rupt local author­i­ties and the tax­pay­er-fund­ed thugs-in-blue.

Strong rumours are cir­cu­lat­ing that Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil plan­ners are to meet very soon to give the final go-ahead for the 875-home hous­ing devel­op­ment at Tit­nore Woods and that the camp will be cleared by force before work starts, pos­si­bly as soon as Octo­ber.

The campers are appeal­ing for all those who have sup­port­ed them dur­ing their three-year marathon protest to make the effort to come and vis­it them now — before it is too late — and show the author­i­ties that they can­not mis­treat them with impuni­ty as they enjoy pub­lic back­ing.

If peo­ple can go and stay at the camp for any amount of time, no mat­ter how small, that would obvi­ous­ly be even bet­ter.

The lat­est police raid on the camp came under the the pre­tence of a “health and safe­ty check”. Up to 18 tooled-up ‘offi­cers’ intim­i­dat­ed the envi­ron­men­tal­ists with video cam­eras, as they were in-ter­ror-gat­ed. This includ­ed a young woman with a 4‑year-old child who was vis­it­ing friends at the camp. The police then search and video’d all areas of the camp despite being told to leave the campers’ home.

Clear­ly even after all the crit­i­cism of the police by gov­ern­ment min­is­ters fol­low­ing their behav­iour in Lon­don in April they are still out of con­trol.

The campers now expect more harass­ment in order to get them to give up and leave.

Warn­ing of a pos­si­ble move to give the hous­ing devel­op­ment the OK immi­nent­ly, cam­paign group Pro­tect Our Wood­land! says: “A lot has to be done in a very short time. First please could you sign the peti­tion at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/TitnoreWoods/ and ask all in your address book to do the same. Next it is still very impor­tant to send an e‑mail of objec­tion to the coun­cil, please find all the details at www.protectourwoodland.co.uk then if you’ve still got the ener­gy write to the papers.

“Yes we know there’s been very lit­tle report­ing in the local papers — except for the Tesco part of the devel­op­ment — that’s because edi­tors get fed up with the same old sus­pects writ­ing in end­less­ly. So let’s see if a new hand will get results. All the details are on the web­site.”

Mean­while the cam­paign­ing Dur­ring­ton and North­brook Times reports that work on the mas­sive new Tesco Extra will start tomor­row, Mon­day August 17, with res­i­dents’ con­cerns bull­dozed out of the path of the mon­ster that they like to call progress.

It report­ed in a spe­cial email bul­letin:

“At a pub­lic meet­ing in the Dur­ring­ton Com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, Robert Cur­tis Project Man­ag­er for builders Kier revealed that although dis­tur­bance to local res­i­dents would be kept to a min­i­mum there would be some incon­ve­nience.

“He admit­ted to a stunned audi­ence, that one max­i­mum weight mul­ti-wheeled truck would have to come through the exist­ing Tesco car park every 7 min­utes as nego­ti­a­tions had bro­ken down with the own­er of land north of Ful­beck Ave, pre­vi­ous­ly ear­marked. The route to the car park indi­cat­ed on the hand­out was through res­i­den­tial roads such as New Road (From the Lamb) and Romany Road.

“It was fur­ther revealed that apart from rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing NO oth­er sus­tain­able fea­tures are to be incor­po­rat­ed. Not even one solar pan­el.

“So there we are then, our coun­cil has allowed this mega rich con­glom­er­ate to build a shed that will be a blot on the land­scape, cre­ate a traf­fic night­mare, destroy local res­i­dents right to breathe clean air and enjoy peace and qui­et. Thank you coun­cil­lors you will be remem­bered at elec­tion time.

“What a shame not one reporter from either the Wor­thing Her­ald or Argus felt it nec­es­sary to be present to report on this. How­ev­er you can rely on The Dur­ring­ton and North­brook Times to report what’s going on to res­i­dents.”

http://www.protectourwoodland.co.uk/tea.htm

Day of the Broken Promise

Ben­ny Wen­da, West Papuan inde­pen­dence leader and chair­man of the Kote­ka Trib­al Assem­bly, and most of the rest of the small hand­ful of West Papuans liv­ing in Britain demon­strat­ed oppo­site the Nether­lands Embassy in Lon­don on Fri 14 Aug, to mark the anniver­sary of the ‘Day of the Bro­ken Promise’, 15 August 1962.

West Papuan Broken Promise Day demoBen­ny Wen­da, West Papuan inde­pen­dence leader and chair­man of the Kote­ka Trib­al Assem­bly, and most of the rest of the small hand­ful of West Papuans liv­ing in Britain demon­strat­ed oppo­site the Nether­lands Embassy in Lon­don on Fri 14 Aug, to mark the anniver­sary of the ‘Day of the Bro­ken Promise’, 15 August 1962.

The west­ern half of New Guinea became a Dutch colony in the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, but by the 1950s they were mov­ing towards giv­ing it inde­pen­dence. How­ev­er the Indone­sian gov­er­ment claimed the coun­try and threat­ened inva­sion after then Dutch set up an elect­ed gov­ern­ment of West Papua in 1961.

Indone­sia was backed by mil­i­tary aid from the Sovi­et Union, and the Kennedy admin­is­tra­tion in the USA want­ed to pre­vent fur­ther move­ment of the coun­try towards the Sovi­et bloc, so pres­sured the Nether­lands into sign­ing the ‘New York Agree­ment’ with Indone­sia in August 1962. This allowed Indone­sia to take over the admin­is­tra­tion of the coun­try but pro­vid­ed for all the adult pop­u­la­tion of West Papua to vote at a lat­er date on whether they wished to become inde­pen­dent.

The Indone­sian army moved in on 1 May 1963 and began a pro­gramme of repres­sion and human rights abuse against the peo­ple. In 1969 they round­ed up and detained just over a thou­sand West Papuans as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the peo­ple and enusured that they vot­ed for rule by Indone­sia by threats, includ­ing at least in some cas­es that they and their fam­i­lies would be killed unless they did so.

The Indone­sian gov­ern­ment made it impos­si­ble for the UN rep­re­se­n­ata­tive who was sup­posed to over­see the elec­tion to oper­ate prop­er­ly, and banned most for­eign reporters. Although it was clear that the vote did not reflect the will of the West Papuan peo­ple — and had failed to meet the terms of the agree­ment — which had been rat­i­fied by the UN — it was approved by the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly.

Since then there have been many reports of repres­sion by Indone­sia in the coun­try, includ­ing mur­der, polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions, tor­ture, rapes, dis­s­a­pear­ances and bomb­ing. The gov­ern­ment also had a pro­gramme of reset­tling migrants from Indone­sia in the coun­try, appar­ent­ly aimed at pro­duc­ing an Indone­sian major­i­ty pop­u­la­tion.

West Papuans have engaged in both civ­il dis­obe­di­ence — par­tic­u­lar­ly around cer­mo­ni­al rais­ing of the West Papua flag (the Morn­ing Star) as well as armed resis­tance.

Wen­da was jailed for dis­play­ing the West Papuan flag (on his chest and at top right of pic­ture) but man­aged to escape and gain asy­lum in the UK. Esti­mates of the num­ber of West Papuans killed by Indone­sian repres­sion are in the hun­dreds of thou­sands (400,000 accord­ing to the Free West Papua Cam­paign), and in 2006, 43 refugees land­ed in a tra­di­tion­al canoe in Aus­tralia, claim­ing the Indone­sian mil­i­tary was car­ry­ing out a pro­gramme of geno­cide.

Despite a wide­spread recog­ni­tion of what has been hap­pen­ing, there is lit­tle inter­na­tion­al sup­port for West Papua. The coun­try has the world’s largest cop­per and gold mines, large­ly owned by US Comp­nay Freeport-McMoRan with UK based Rio Tin­to Group also involved.

Today’s demon­stra­tion was peace­ful and tune­ful, with Ben­ny and Maria Wen­da and oth­ers play­ing instru­ments and singing tra­di­tion­al West Papuan songs oppo­site the embassy.

A Dutch diplo­mat came across the road to talk to the demon­stra­tors and receive a let­ter demand­ing that the Nether­lands and oth­er gov­ern­ments insist on the prop­er imple­men­ta­tion of the 1962 agree­ment, with a free and fair inde­pen­dence ref­er­en­dum involv­ing all West Papuans over­seen by the UN. Papuans feel they were let down by every­one involved, but par­tic­u­lar­ly by the Dutch; “We trust­ed you and we believed in you. But you betrayed us.”

The diplo­mat spoke for a few min­utes with the demon­stra­tors and was inter­est­ed to see a fea­ture on the rebel army there which appeared in today’s Inde­pen­dent on dis­play.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/bows-arrows-and-a-dream-of-liberation-1771884.html

After the demon­stra­tion at the Nether­lands Embassy the protest was mov­ing to the Indone­sian Embassy in Grosvenor Square, where the West Papuans hold reg­u­lar protests.

Climate campers stroll to Ffos-y-fran opencast mine

August 15th 2009

Cli­mate campers reclaim Ffos-y-fran

Campers at Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru near Merthyr Tyd­fil have upped the ante and have set off to enter Ffros-y-fran open cast coal mine, just yards from the camp.

Jill Lloyd said,

Ffros-y-fran first invasion from climate campFfros-y-franAugust 15th 2009

Cli­mate campers reclaim Ffos-y-fran

Campers at Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru near Merthyr Tyd­fil have upped the ante and have set off to enter Ffros-y-fran open cast coal mine, just yards from the camp.

Jill Lloyd said,

“We have been talk­ing to local peo­ple at the camp, in the town and on the hous­ing estates. The sto­ry is the same every­where — peo­ple feel aban­doned and used. Their hill­side is being ripped apart, a mas­sive incin­er­a­tor is pro­posed and a third phase of this mon­strous coal mine is now on the hori­zon, with plans to destroy the peace­ful wood­ed hill­side oppo­site.

“This action wasn’t planned at the start of the camp, but we feel it is impor­tant to show our oppo­si­tion to the mine with a ‘cli­mate stroll’ to sym­bol­i­cal­ly reclaim the land for the com­mu­ni­ty

“We have been hear­ing about peo­ple with res­pi­ra­to­ry con­di­tions such as asth­ma which have start­ed or wors­ened since the mine opened, peo­ple unable to put their wash­ing out because it gets black, veg­eta­bles coat­ed in filthy dust.”

Wales could soon be self-suf­fi­cient in clean ener­gy but is still gen­er­at­ing fos­sil fuels for Eng­land. The coal from Ffos y Fran will gen­er­ate the same amount of CO2 per year as Mozam­bique. We have to stop cli­mate change, not make it worse. Coal is near­ly all car­bon and must be left in the ground.

Ang­harad Jones said:

“Reclaim­ing the land is a sym­bol­ic act. Com­ing here has been a real les­son for us, and we feel priv­i­leged to be part of the resis­tance to this mine. We have had talks from sci­en­tists and ecol­o­gists, but the most mem­o­rable lessons came from the local res­i­dents.

His­to­ry has shown that changes can be made by ordi­nary peo­ple doing extra­or­di­nary things. The suf­fragettes and the civ­il rights move­ment took action that was often ille­gal but very nec­es­sary. As our politi­cians fail us, we need deeds and not words.”

Between now and the Copen­hagen cli­mate sum­mit in Decem­ber, activists will take decen­tralised or col­lec­tive action in Wales against the root caus­es of cli­mate change.

Con­tact

* 07780914369 or 07875 868232 for Welsh lan­guage inter­views
* 07789898374 for Eng­lish lan­guage inter­views
* 07973298359 for video footage

Notes for edi­tors

Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is being held in a green field near Merthyr Tyd­fil between 13 – 16 August. For maps and site infor­ma­tion, go to www.climatecampcymru.org

Access for jour­nal­ists is restrict­ed to the hours of 11am – 1pm on Sat­ur­day, but there is an edge of site media area where film­ing can take place at any time.

—–

Stroll pho­to essay

Get Your Selves Down to Climate Camp

The site was tak­en on Wednesday.Kitchens, com­post loos, wind and solar ener­gy and kids spaces are all up and run­ning; work­shops are go and we’ll soon have a cin­e­ma. The sun’s been shin­ing all day. Friend­ly locals!

Climate Camp Cymru welcome bannerClimate Camp Cymru 'clean coal: dirty joke' bannerThe site was tak­en on Wednesday.Kitchens, com­post loos, wind and solar ener­gy and kids spaces are all up and run­ning; work­shops are go and we’ll soon have a cin­e­ma. The sun’s been shin­ing all day. Friend­ly locals!

We’re rough­ly the same dis­tance from Ffos y Fran, the UK’s largest open-cast coal mine, as the near­est hous­es (36 metres!) — that’s so close the mar­quee pegs are hit­ting coal. Good to know, con­sid­er­ing how much dust and air pol­lu­tion is emit­ted by the mine, the coal from which will gen­er­ate as much CO2 per year as the whole of Mozam­bique.

Come and join us for four days of sus­tain­able liv­ing, edu­ca­tion, move­ment build­ing, and build­ing the capac­i­ty for action.

200+ peo­ple at camp now, with lots still arriv­ing. 2 kitchens run­ning, 2.5 wind tur­bines up (pos­si­ble?) & the wel­come space is all go!

The Res­i­dents Against Ffos-y-fran (RAFF) work­shop was very pop­u­lar & went down well, no sur­pris­es! http://stopffosyfran.co.uk

Fol­low updates at
http://twitter.com/CampCymru09

See: http://www.climatecampcymru.org for direc­tions etc.

Vestas Rooftop protesters to head down to NIMBY MP’s office

Ves­tas Rooftop protest to move to local MP con­stituen­cy offices on Fri­day morn­ing

Press state­ment- Thurs­day 13th August 4.30pm

After being on the roof for eleven nights, rooftop pro­test­ers will descend from the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in East Cowes tomor­row morn­ing (Fri­day) at 11am. They will then take the protest to the local MP Andrew Turn­er’s con­stituen­cy office in New­port.

Ves­tas Rooftop protest to move to local MP con­stituen­cy offices on Fri­day morn­ing

Press state­ment- Thurs­day 13th August 4.30pm

After being on the roof for eleven nights, rooftop pro­test­ers will descend from the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in East Cowes tomor­row morn­ing (Fri­day) at 11am. They will then take the protest to the local MP Andrew Turn­er’s con­stituen­cy office in New­port.

They say: ‘Despite the green rhetoric from the main polit­i­cal par­ties, the truth of their atti­tude is appar­ent where green jobs are allowed to be lost and local MP Andrew Turn­er active­ly oppos­es a wind farm on the Isle of Wight. This typ­i­fies the NIMBY atti­tude which is block­ing the pro­gres­sion of on-shore wind in the UK.’

‘Andrew Turn­er’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the oppo­si­tion to Wind pow­er on the Island includes a state­ment that hav­ing a wind­farm on the Isle of Wight would have no effect on the Ves­tas work force,(1) when in fact it is the cumu­la­tive effect of deci­sions like these which effects demand for wind pow­er in the UK and has direct­ly let to the clo­sure of Ves­tas with the loss of over 600 jobs.’

Tim­ings for pho­to and inter­view oppor­tu­ni­ties;

7.30 am We will be avail­able for inter­views over the phone from this time Tele­phone 07944 744922.

11am Pro­test­ers will abseil down from the side of the Ves­tas build­ing, Columbine Road, Ven­ture Quays, East Cowes, Isle of Wight and, along­side ves­tas work­ers, will be avail­able for media inter­views.

1pm — We will be at Andrew Turn­er’s con­stituen­cy surgery request­ing to talk to him on cam­era, to dis­cuss his objec­tions to Wind pow­er on the Isle Of Wight, and his stance on NIM­BY­ism

There will be a pho­to and inter­view oppor­tu­ni­ty at this time.
Address: 24 The Mall, Caris­brooke, P030 1BW
tel. 01983 530808

Rooftop­pers Email address: vestasrooftop@googlemail.com
Tele­phone on the roof: Mar­tin: 07944744922

Notes to edi­tors:

1) Based on Andrew Turn­ers response to wind­farm appli­ca­tion: ref. TCP/27774,P/01400/06)
para­graph begin­ing: ‘I do not accept that a con­vinc­ing…’
Copies of which will be avail­able tomorow.

London climate camp summer swoop update 1

Dear Campers,

*IF YOU WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN THE SWOOP – SIGN UP TO THE TEXT MESSAGING
SERVICE ON THE WEBSITE NOW !!*
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/swoop-update

Over 900 peo­ple have signed up for the Sum­mer Swoop in the first 2 weeks,
which is a bril­liant start. If every sin­gle one of you is in Lon­don by 12
noon on Wed 26th August, we’ll be an unstop­pable swoop­ing force! But the

Dear Campers,

*IF YOU WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN THE SWOOP – SIGN UP TO THE TEXT MESSAGING
SERVICE ON THE WEBSITE NOW !!*
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/swoop-update

Over 900 peo­ple have signed up for the Sum­mer Swoop in the first 2 weeks,
which is a bril­liant start. If every sin­gle one of you is in Lon­don by 12
noon on Wed 26th August, we’ll be an unstop­pable swoop­ing force! But the
swoop is now ONLY TWO WEEKS AWAY today, and we still need more peo­ple, so
please keep invit­ing your friends.

(1) HERE’S THE PLAN…
(2) CHOOSE YOUR COLOUR
(3) BE PREPARED TO SWOOP AND STAY
(4) WHAT TO BRING

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

(1) HERE’S THE PLAN…
Every­one needs to be in Lon­don and pre­pared to swoop from 12 noon on
Wednes­day 26 August. Swoop start­ing posi­tions will be announced online -
keep your eye on the web­site in the pre­ced­ing 48 hours… !

Every­one needs to sign up to be in one of the coloured groups detailed on
the web­site. Each of these will have a dif­fer­ent meet-up point on the day.
After that the fun will begin.

(2) CHOOSE YOUR COLOUR
If you want to be in the same group as your friends, you’ll need to sign
up for the same group. Get chat­ting now and then all sign up for the SMS
updates on the web­site. This is the pri­ma­ry way that we will know that
we’ve got enough peo­ple in each group and everything’s on track. The 10
colours are:

Green – Acces­si­ble and child friend­ly group
White — North Bike group (Cyclists only!)
Brown — South Bike group (Cyclists only!)
Pink — North (On foot/public trans­port)
Blue — South (On foot/public trans­port)
Pur­ple — West (On foot/public trans­port)
Red — West (On foot/public trans­port)
Yel­low — East (On foot/public trans­port)
Sil­ver — East (On foot/public trans­port)
Orange/Invisible — not meet­ing up in a pub­lic place (On foot/public
trans­port)

Some of you may pre­fer to choose your own meet­ing point in Lon­don — one
that won’t be pub­licly announced. If you’d like to choose your own
meet­ing spot, sign up for the Orange/Invisible swoop group!

You can sign up to your cho­sen colour here:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/swoop-update

If you don’t have a mobile phone, it’s prob­a­bly best to pair up with
some­one who does. Once you’ve cho­sen your colour, get cre­ative! Wear
some­thing in your cho­sen colour on the day. There may be loads to do in
your swoop group, so get involved.

(3) BE PREPARED TO SWOOP AND STAY
The cru­cial thing about the swoop is that we get large num­bers of peo­ple
to take part, and that we all stay to set up and defend the Camp until
every­one else starts arriv­ing. This means it’s a 24 hour thing, so you
need to bring your stuff for the Camp, take the day off if you need to,
and bring food to feed your­self until the kitchens are up and run­ning. If
every­one thinks they’re com­ing for an hour and then goes home we won’t
have a defend­able site.

(4) WHAT TO BRING
— A one-day Zone 1–6 Trav­el Card (you may be required to trav­el on all
forms of pub­lic trans­port)
— Water
— Snacks/food
— Sleep­ing stuff
— Your tent
— All weath­er cloth­ing
— A lug­gage label in case you get sep­a­rat­ed from your stuff
— Any­thing else you want to bring to Camp

That’s it for now. As we say, the start­ing points for the Swoop will be
announced clos­er to the time, and the loca­tion of the Camp itself won’t be
announced until the moment of the Swoop! But make sure you’re signed up to
as may meth­ods of com­mu­ni­ca­tion as pos­si­ble so you receive the news as
soon as we have it:

SMS updates: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/swoop-update
Face­book group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=238893455547
Cli­mate Camp Newslet­ter: https://lists.riseup.net/www/subrequest/climatecamp
Twit­ter: http://www.twitter.com/climatecamp

If you’ve got any ques­tions for us, drop us a line via
summerswoop@googlemail.com

Hap­py swoop­ing,
Sum­mer Swoop

ps. We know, we know, swoops are like bus­es – you wait all sum­mer for one
and then two come along at once. For any­one con­fused, the Great Cli­mate
Swoop is a mass action to shut down Drax or Rat­cliffe-on-Soar on 17–18
Octo­ber — see http://www.thegreatclimateswoop.org/ to vote for which one
to shut down. It’s also going to be incred­i­ble! But first things first…

Protesters seize site of Wales’ first Climate Camp

12.8.2009
At 7.30am this morn­ing, around 60 pro­test­ers set up the site of Wales’ first Cli­mate Camp on the edge of Merthyr Tyd­fil, next to the con­tro­ver­sial Ffos-y-Fran open­cast coal mine.

Climate Camp Cymru logo12.8.2009
At 7.30am this morn­ing, around 60 pro­test­ers set up the site of Wales’ first Cli­mate Camp on the edge of Merthyr Tyd­fil, next to the con­tro­ver­sial Ffos-y-Fran open­cast coal mine.

The Camp, which runs until 16 August, aims to high­light the hypocrisy in gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of claim­ing to act on cli­mate change while expand­ing coal min­ing. Coal is the most car­bon-inten­sive fuel, and campers argue it should be left in the ground to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.

Campers also aim to build a strong grass­roots move­ment against the caus­es of cli­mate change in Wales. They are invit­ing any­one con­cerned about cli­mate change to come for sev­er­al days of fam­i­ly-friend­ly dis­cus­sions, work­shops and sus­tain­able liv­ing.

The protest site is only 36 metres away from the edge of the mine – the same dis­tance as sev­er­al homes. This prox­im­i­ty is despite con­tin­u­ing local oppo­si­tion to the noise, dust and fumes from the 1,000 acre site. A report fund­ed by the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment in June 2007 [1] expressed con­cern about the health effects of air pol­lu­tion and dust par­ti­cles.

Local cam­paign groups such as Res­i­dents Against Ffos-y-Fran (RAFF) have long been ignored by plan­ners and gov­ern­ment.

Camper Jill Lloyd said: “We need work that does not destroy lives or trash the plan­et, and we urgent­ly need green-col­lar jobs for Merthyr. Wales could soon be self-suf­fi­cient in clean ener­gy but if we keep min­ing fos­sil fuels such as coal, we will cause death and hard­ship for mil­lions of peo­ple around the world. To stop dev­as­tat­ing cli­mate change we must leave coal in the ground.”

————————————————————————————————————————

[1] The 2007 Health Impact Report can be found at http://www.stopffosyfran.co.uk/files/Final%20report%20June%2007.pdf

A map to the site is avail­able at www.climatecampcymru.org

3 tonne boulders to sabotage fishing trawlers

Green­peace are sink­ing 150 boul­ders, weigh­ing up to three tonnes off the Danish/Swedish coasts to stop fish­ing trawlers oper­at­ing in the area by ensnaring/damaging nets.

“Green­peace has begun sink­ing boul­ders in EU-pro­tect­ed cod fish­ing grounds to pre­vent what it says are destruc­tive forms of fish­ing in the area.

Green­peace are sink­ing 150 boul­ders, weigh­ing up to three tonnes off the Danish/Swedish coasts to stop fish­ing trawlers oper­at­ing in the area by ensnaring/damaging nets.

“Green­peace has begun sink­ing boul­ders in EU-pro­tect­ed cod fish­ing grounds to pre­vent what it says are destruc­tive forms of fish­ing in the area.

The envi­ron­men­tal group says it will drop 180 boul­ders off the Swedish and Dan­ish coasts to pre­vent fish­ing boats from drag­ging nets along the sea bed.

Green­peace says the bot­tom-trawl­ing fish­ing method destroys both the sea bed and the marine envi­ron­ment.

Green­peace spokesman Staffan Daniels­son told AFP news agency that the gran­ite boul­ders, weigh­ing as much as three tonnes, would be sunk over the next week.

They would have “no neg­a­tive impact on the envi­ron­ment”, he said.”

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8194105.stm