Category: Action Reports

Cambridge Activists slow down Tesco’s Building work

22.07.2009
Cam­bridge activists sab­o­tage machin­ery in a bid to slow down the build­ing work of a new Tescos’s on Mill Road

22.07.2009
Cam­bridge activists sab­o­tage machin­ery in a bid to slow down the build­ing work of a new Tescos’s on Mill Road

Last night local activists sab­o­taged a dig­ger being used by Tesco’s who have start­ed work on a new store on Mill Road in Cam­bridge. A selec­tion of glues was used to dis­able machin­ery and door­locks. Reports from an eye­wit­ness saw the dig­ger being trans­port­ed away this morn­ing.

Tesco’s, true to form are using heavy hand­ed tech­niques. They have announced open­ing dates, com­menced works with­out hav­ing the nec­es­sary per­mis­sions to do so. They have no deliv­ery access and do not have an alco­hol license. This is designed to intim­i­date local cam­paign­ers and the coun­cil.

Last nights action was not aimed at work­ers from the hire com­pa­ny or the peo­ple work­ing on the site but to send a strong mes­sage to Tescos.

One activist said:
“we’ve no quar­rel with the peo­ple being paid to work on the site, they’re just doing a job and we under­stand their need to get paid for their jobs.HOWEVER we pub­licly invite them to help us to give them a well earned break, by let­ting us know how we can best slow down the work!”

Save Vestas — Defend Jobs, Save the Planet — Support the Occupation — UPDATE below: arrests, cops starving them out…

Work­ers at the Ves­tas Wind Tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight have JUST NOW occu­pied their fac­to­ry. They are fight­ing for 600 jobs and the future of the plan­et. They need help now.

PLEASE TEXT AND CALL EVERYONE YOU KNOW.

Vestas OccupationWork­ers at the Ves­tas Wind Tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight have JUST NOW occu­pied their fac­to­ry. They are fight­ing for 600 jobs and the future of the plan­et. They need help now.

PLEASE TEXT AND CALL EVERYONE YOU KNOW.

There is a large pick­et of sup­port start­ing out­side the fac­to­ry. This will be cru­cial in giv­ing peo­ple con­fi­dence inside. We want hun­dreds of peo­ple by morn­ing.
If you are not work­ing, come now, by car, bus or train.
If you are on the South Coast and work­ing, come for the night and go to work exhaust­ed and proud.

If you can’t come, call up friends and offer to pay the fare or petrol mon­ey for some­one else to come down. Or part of the fare.
Don’t just call the envi­ron­men­tal and union activists you know. Call your friends and ask them who they know. Call your brother’s friends or your children’s friends. Text every­one. Get your friends call­ing and tex­ting.

WE WANT HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE NOW. SAVE THE JOBS — SAVE THE PLANET.

The work­ers want Gor­don Brown to step in as if it was a trou­bled bank and save the jobs and keep mak­ing wind tur­bine blades. They gave the bankers tril­lions. They say they care about cli­mate change. He has talked about cre­at­ing 40,000 “Green Jobs”, the first step should be pro­tect­ing these 600.

The work­ers will need sol­i­dar­i­ty — dona­tions of mon­ey, food and oth­er assis­tance. In the first instance please send mes­sages of sol­i­dar­i­ty to savevestas@gmail.com

We will sug­gest oth­er forms of sol­i­dar­i­ty soon. Do this now. Reach for your phone.

—-

How to get there, and more info at:

http://savevestas.wordpress.com/

—-

A pro­test­er claims the 30 demon­stra­tors at a sit-in at the Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight have been told they will be sacked.

Dan­ish com­pa­ny Ves­tas Windsys­tems plans to make 625 work­ers redun­dant at the end of July, despite ris­ing prof­its.

One of the pro­test­ers, who occu­pied the New­port site on Mon­day, said man­agers gave them until 2230 BST on Tues­day to end their action or face the sack.

Ves­tas said con­sul­ta­tion on the site was on-going and would not com­ment.

The work­er, who did not want to be named, said: “We have been told we will be sacked.

“We were giv­en the choice to leave by 2230 BST last night and keep our redun­dan­cy pack­age and walk out with no charges.

“Obvi­ous­ly we have stayed in. We did­n’t want it to come to this.

“We want the com­pa­ny to explore the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment tak­ing the site over and improv­ing the redun­dan­cy pack­age.”

The cam­paign­ers have called on Ed Miliband, the ener­gy and cli­mate change sec­re­tary, to trav­el to the island and speak to them.

Luke, one of the pro­test­ers, said: “We’re pre­pared to stay here for as long as it takes.”

About 200 work­ers staged a protest out­side the fac­to­ry on Tues­day after being turned away when they arrived for work.

They were also joined by cli­mate change pro­test­ers who are sup­port­ing them.

Police said Ves­tas has start­ed legal action to gain an injunc­tion which would remove the pro­test­ers.

The com­pa­ny said the fac­to­ry was being closed next week due to reduced demand for wind tur­bines in north­ern Europe

—-

Update, 22nd July: ARRESTS AT VESTAS + FOOD IN

At 5.10am this morn­ing, a cli­mate activist at the protest out­side the Ves­tas plant attempt­ed to take a bag of food to the occu­py­ing work­ers by means of a rope which the work­ers had low­ered from the bal­cony. The activist was grabbed by 5 police offi­cers and arrest­ed. On his release he obtained the police report of his arrest, which stat­ed that the rea­son for his arrest was that, as his bring­ing food to the occu­piers had the stat­ed inten­tion of pro­long­ing the protest, it was facil­i­tat­ing a breach of the peace – clear­ly ludi­crous as the police have them­selves admit­ted that the protest is not breach­ing the peace.

At 1248, a large num­ber of pro­tes­tors walked through the line of police hold­ing food in their hands which they threw up to the bal­cony. The police pushed some of the pro­tes­tors and attempt­ed to obstruct the line but did not offer sub­stan­tial resis­tance. One pro­tes­tor was harassed by a secu­ri­ty guard, and asked a police offi­cer, whose num­ber was 24266, if he intend­ed to do any­thing about it; the offi­cer said he didn’t. Anoth­er pro­tes­tor saw a police offi­cer grab­bing the arm of an activist as he attempt­ed to throw food to the bal­cony – the activist told the police offi­cer that this con­sti­tut­ed harass­ment, the police offi­cer took no notice.

A sec­ond cli­mate activist was arrest­ed and tak­en through the front doors of the fac­to­ry. Lat­er, a sergeant whose num­ber was 3027 came out and said that no-one had been arrest­ed for car­ry­ing food, but that one activist had been arrest­ed for assault. Oth­er pro­tes­tors present have com­ment­ed that as the activist in ques­tion, who has not giv­en per­mis­sion for his name to be released, is a chris­t­ian paci­fist, this seems unlike­ly.

Secu­ri­ty have start­ed putting up a fence around the site, with pro­tes­tors out­side attempt­ing to get a sec­ond food-car­ry­ing walk-in past the police before its com­ple­tion. There are cur­rent­ly around 50 pro­tes­tors out­side the fac­to­ry, over 30 of them Ves­tas work­ers, and sources say they expect num­bers to increase dras­ti­cal­ly around 6pm when the protest starts.

North Carolina: ELF Vandalizes Home of Bank of America Director

“North Car­oli­na:
Steve Jones, a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors for Bank Of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States’ pri­ma­ry investor in moun­tain top removal coal min­ing, had his house vis­it­ed twice dur­ing the night recent­ly.

“North Car­oli­na:
Steve Jones, a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors for Bank Of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States’ pri­ma­ry investor in moun­tain top removal coal min­ing, had his house vis­it­ed twice dur­ing the night recent­ly.

On the eve of the Sum­mer Sol­stice, we vis­it­ed him the first time, smash­ing the front win­dow on the cute lamp in his dri­ve­way and leav­ing a stick­er on the post to let him know why we’d vis­it­ed. Also on this night we glued the locks and put stick­ers on a Bank Of Amer­i­ca branch in his town. 2 weeks lat­er, on the eve of the full moon we returned to his house and smashed to bits the rest of the lamp and splat­tered black paint all over the sign with his address/mail box and steps/walkway.

Ani­mal rights activists have long used red paint to mark mur­der­ers of many sorts; we chose black paint because it is black like the coal sludge that cov­ers Ten­nessee, mak­ing the earth tox­ic in a dis­as­ter said to be worse than the Exxon Valdez spill. This dis­as­ter was uncom­mon only in that it got press cov­er­age.

It is black like the water that comes out of the taps when peo­ple in effect­ed com­mu­ni­ties turn on their taps for water. And it is black like your heart. For the kids, for the bears, for the moun­tains, for the wolves, for the fish, for our moth­er, We will be back. ELF.”

Com­mu­nique from the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front Press Office. Click here for the press release.

Eco-arsonists for the liberation of the Earth in Mexico

13th June — 13th July

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More
EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City
EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

13th June — 13th July

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More
EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City
EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More

Com­mu­nique:

“Week­ly Report of eco-arsonists.mexico

Com­mu­nique:
Sat­ur­day, June 13th, fol­low­ing the call to action, attacks against the own­ers of cap­i­tal began. Sat­ur­day, the 13th the win­dow of a bank belong­ing to Sco­tia­bank was stoned, caus­ing mobi­liza­tion by the police in Tlal­pan when the alarm was acti­vat­ed. Sun­day, June 14th an incen­di­ary device was placed at the ATM of a Banamex locat­ed in Mil­pa Alta, which was foiled by the police, how­ev­er in this dis­trict where noth­ing has hap­pened before they no longer sleep in peace; para­noia has been cre­at­ed since sim­i­lar attacks were car­ried out against a BBVA in recent days caus­ing a huge impact on the dis­gust­ing author­i­ties in this com­mu­ni­ty; the police at the ser­vice of the rich did­n’t delay, since then a patrol has been guard­ing the entrance of the BBVA and its sur­round­ings; so as a response anoth­er incen­di­ary device was placed in the hood of a PGJ [Procu­raduría Gen­er­al de Jus­ti­cia] patrol car out­side the dis­trict com­mand head­quar­ters. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it was detect­ed and the action was inter­rupt­ed, but although the goal of burn­ing the patrol was not achieved, pan­ic was cre­at­ed and there is chaos in the streets of this com­mu­ni­ty; where what that they were not expect­ing has hap­pened; now their para­noia will not allow them to sleep. Wednes­day night, June 17, the Tlal­pan road­way was illu­mi­nat­ed with the abo­li­tion­ist fire of eco-arson­ists; the ATM of a BBVA out­side the entrances to the metro was left unus­able when an incen­di­ary device was left. On the same night, near the Metro Chaba­cano there was a sec­ond fire at a Sco­tia­bank ATM; the third attack was at a Banamex near Tax­queña where an explo­sive device was placed at the ATM. The same night a false bomb was left in anoth­er Banamex in Xochim­il­co. On that night it was once again demon­strat­ed that we are every­where, and now we are dogs infect­ed with rage. Thurs­day, June 18, a Banamex ATM in Ciu­dad Neza was burned by an incen­di­ary device; a threat­en­ing note was left on a sheet of paper, demand­ing free­dom for Amadeu Castel­las and claim­ing the action.
We will not stop our­selves, they will not stop us, we will con­tin­ue attack­ing the sym­bols of cap­i­tal­ism, the mur­der­er, tor­tur­er, spon­sor of the destruc­tion of the earth, there will be no turn­ing back; for each banker we have an incen­di­ary device, for each jail­er a bomb; that their mon­ey burns in flames of the abo­li­tion­ist fire of the eco-arson­ists.

We are your worst ene­my, your num­ber one ene­my!

We will be the dog that barks and that bites you!”

»

EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City

Com­mu­nique:

“INCENDIARY ATTACKS ON CARS IN MEXICO

Sat­ur­day, July 4, around 11:30 at night in a place in the south of Mex­i­co City where things seemed to be calm, where there was peace and order on the streets, all those who are our ene­mies had slept qui­et­ly for quite some time yet now they do not; those who passed by in their lux­u­ry cars on the nau­se­at­ing black­top now may not do so; those who have left their con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing cars out­side their homes with­out wor­ry that some eco-arson­ist would attack, now they can be wor­ried because as night fell on Sat­ur­day, July 4, a day before the elec­tions in Mex­i­co we entered the house of a wealthy destroy­er of the earth and we placed an incen­di­ary device at two of his lux­u­ry cars and we stealth­ily slipped away with­out a trace oth­er than the abo­li­tion­ist fire. As expect­ed the police, at the sound of their mas­ter’s voice, act­ed imme­di­ate­ly, imple­ment­ing a mobi­liza­tion in the streets in search of the eco-arson­ists and once again we made a mock­ery of them. We passed before their faces and they could­n’t imag­ine even if they want­ed to that we were their ene­mies, twen­ty min­utes lat­er the fire­fight­ers extin­guished the fire but the cars were already burned.

We will con­tin­ue attack­ing with­out mer­cy! We will not let them sleep in peace!

We will not stop until we see civ­i­liza­tion burned!

ECO-ARSONISTS FOR THE LIBERATION OF THE EARTH (EpLT)”

»

EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

Com­mu­nique:

“INCENDIARY ATTACK AT DISTRICT OFFICE IN MEXICO

On Mon­day night, July 13, at 12:30 we decid­ed to attack the offices of a dis­trict in the south­west of Mex­i­co City. These offices are respon­si­ble for admin­is­ter­ing and orga­niz­ing the pol­lu­tion and destruc­tion of the wood­lands in this com­mu­ni­ty for the Sabri­tas com­pa­ny, pro­duc­ers of trans­genic veg­eta­bles used in junk food. This com­pa­ny has plant­ed fields near the com­mu­nal wood­lands. An incen­di­ary device was left at the door of the build­ing, work­ing suc­cess­ful­ly with­out leav­ing any trace; the abo­li­tion­ist fire con­sumed almost the entire wood­en door, leav­ing the roof and walls marked with black smoke. The author­i­ties have let pass unno­ticed all the actions that have been tak­en by the eco-arson­ists for the lib­er­a­tion of the earth; they know per­fect­ly well why we do it, that we have one objec­tive and that our sab­o­tages are not just an act of van­dal­ism. We will not stop attack­ing the destroy­ers of the earth!

For the lib­er­a­tion of the earth! Total destruc­tion of civ­i­liza­tion!

Eco-arson­ists for the lib­er­a­tion of the earth EpLT”

»

Source — http://www.elfpressoffice.org

Cambridge Social Centre — evicted & more info

18th July 2009
Last night a large num­ber of police with sev­er­al vehi­cles, riot gear, and dogs evict­ed the new­ly opened social cen­tre, on the pre­text of fire safe­ty. There were no arrests. The pub­lic meet­ing called for tonight will go ahead in a reduced for­mat out­side the bin­go hall.

18th July 2009
Last night a large num­ber of police with sev­er­al vehi­cles, riot gear, and dogs evict­ed the new­ly opened social cen­tre, on the pre­text of fire safe­ty. There were no arrests. The pub­lic meet­ing called for tonight will go ahead in a reduced for­mat out­side the bin­go hall.

Last night the 20 occu­pants of the old bin­go hall were evict­ed by around 50 police includ­ing tac­ti­cal units with riot gear, under the pre­text of fire reg­u­la­tions. Iron­i­cal­ly, the police inter­rupt­ed a meet­ing that had just secured 5 fire extin­guish­ers and was dis­cussing the open­ing up of the remain­ing fire exits in prepa­ra­tion for the planned pub­lic launch tomor­row.

The police ini­tial­ly said that they would not take action on the squat­ted build­ing, as squat­ting is a civ­il mat­ter between occu­pants and build­ing own­er. How­ev­er, the squat­ters gained a high­er pro­file through local media and out­reach work, pro­mot­ing anti-cap­i­tal­ism and social change, and organ­is­ing a pub­lic meet­ing and music event that was antic­i­pat­ed to draw large num­bers of peo­ple. Fol­low­ing this, the police threat­ened the occu­piers over two days, and final­ly moved to pro­tect prop­er­ty and the sta­tus quo, using any pos­si­ble excuse.

The fire offi­cer who accom­pa­nied the police said that the occu­piers would have to imme­di­ate­ly remove the met­al grills cov­er­ing fire doors to make the build­ing safe. This was planned for the fol­low­ing morn­ing, and the occu­piers and fire war­den agreed that this could hap­pen imme­di­ate­ly, how­ev­er the police accom­pa­ny­ing the fire offi­cer made it clear that this would imme­di­ate­ly lead to arrests for crim­i­nal dam­age. It was obvi­ous from the huge num­ber of police in atten­dance that the out­come was already set, and that the only result the police would tol­er­ate was evic­tion. Giv­en the recent rep­u­ta­tion of police actions against polit­i­cal pro­test­ers, the occu­piers left for the own safe­ty rather than keep the doors secured.

A state­ment from the occu­piers said:

“We expect that this build­ing in the cen­tre of our city will remain emp­ty for an indef­i­nite amount of time, as has the pre­vi­ous social cen­tre site on Mill Road, owned by Tesco, and an increas­ing num­ber of prop­er­ties in the area. At the same time, artists, musi­cians, com­mu­ni­ty groups and local peo­ple strug­gle to find spaces to meet, socialise and put on events.

We believe that local com­mu­ni­ties, rather than wealthy inter­ests, should deter­mine what the build­ings and spaces in the local area are used for. We will be going ahead with the planned pub­lic meet­ing at 7.30 pm, in the street out­side the bin­go hall, where we will be dis­cussing the repres­sion we have faced, free spaces, and our plans for the future.”

cambridgefreespaces@listst.riseup.net
http://cambridgefreespaces.wordpress.com

—–

17.7.09
Cam­bridge BINGO! Social Cen­tre

Update on what’s going on at the occu­pied Bin­go Hall Social Cen­tre, Hob­son Street, Cam­bridge.

Cam­bridge Social Cen­tre opens in old Gala Bin­go Hall!

Mem­bers of the Cam­bridge Action Net­work have occu­pied the old Gala bin­go hall on Hob­son Street, behind Water­stones book shop. The cen­tre is now open to the pub­lic to use for events such as films, music, work­shops, art, dis­cus­sions and meet­ings. Every­one is wel­come (dur­ing rea­son­able wak­ing hours!)

We’re cur­rent­ly work­ing to clean the space up, make it nice, and get hold of fur­ni­ture, and we’d love you to join us. We organ­ise by con­sen­sus – no-one is in charge, and every­one involved has an equal say. This is every­one’s space – let’s make it bril­liant!

We’ve done this because we believe that local com­mu­ni­ties should have con­trol of local spaces, and be able to use them for what­ev­er they see fit. Emp­ty, unused build­ings are a dis­grace in a soci­ety where get­ting access to space is so dif­fi­cult. A direct exam­ple of this is in Mill Road, where a live­ly social cen­tre was closed by Tesco last year, leav­ing an emp­ty build­ing ever since.

There will be an offi­cial open­ing event on Sat­ur­day 18th July at 7.30 pm, where you are invit­ed to come along, enjoy the new social cen­tre, and see how you can use the space and get involved.

There will be a open mic event in the evening show­cas­ing local acts. Bring your own refresh­ments. Come on down!

Want to put on events or get involved? Get in touch in per­son or:

phone: 01223 356630

web: www.cambridgefreespaces.wordpress.com

email: cambridgefreespaces@lists.riseup.net

UPCOMING EVENTS from 17th JULY 2009:

Dai­ly (most days): 5.30pm POLITICAL DISCUSSION TIME — top­ics are decid­ed dai­ly by those present with some radical/social/political issues sug­gest­ed in the diary already.

Dai­ly (most days): 7:30pm PUBLIC MEETING — to dis­cuss the space/use of the space/arising issues

Fri­day, 17th July – after the pub­lic meet­ing – OPEN JAMMING SESSION

Sat­ur­day, 18th July – after the pub­lic meet­ing – OPEN POETRY & ACCOUSTIC MUSIC/LIVE BANDS (dona­tions at the door for cli­mate camp)

AND MUCH MORE COMING SOON…

More broken promises and lies as the fight to save Mainshill Wood continues.

The threat from Scot­tish Coal is grow­ing, just as the front line against new coal looks for­ward to its one month birth­day (com­plete with pic­nic). So get down here! Its now or nev­er!

The threat from Scot­tish Coal is grow­ing, just as the front line against new coal looks for­ward to its one month birth­day (com­plete with pic­nic). So get down here! Its now or nev­er! The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is extreme­ly grate­ful for the con­tin­u­ing sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty and will be cel­e­brat­ing its one month birth­day on Sun­day 19th July with a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic at 3pm to which every­one is wel­come.

Local res­i­dents awoke on Mon­day morn­ing to the news of yet anoth­er appli­ca­tion for an exten­sion at Poniel [1], a Scot­tish Coal mine in the Dou­glas Val­ley, some­thing that com­mu­ni­ties had been assured would not hap­pen, and which new plan­ning pol­i­cy guards against…Mainshill defences

Poniel Open Cast Coal site, a few hun­dred metres away from Main­shill, will be extend­ed by 100,000 tonnes over a six month peri­od. This bro­ken promise is yet anoth­er exam­ple of the dis­re­gard shown to com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment in the pur­suit of prof­it.

Across the val­ley at Main­shill, envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion and dis­as­trous health impacts will result from the open cast­ing of the 350ha site to extract 1.7million tonnes of coal which will cause 4.98million tonnes [2] of car­bon emis­sions when burnt, exclud­ing the huge emis­sions released through the extrac­tion process [3].

Rather than respond­ing to the objec­tions made against these plans, Dou­glas and Angus Estates and its own­er Lord Home (cur­rent­ly being inves­ti­gat­ed for alleged fraud [4]) pre­fer instead to make unfound­ed alle­ga­tions in a recent media state­ment against the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp [5] and con­tin­ue to deny com­mu­ni­ties, through sham con­sul­ta­tion, of their health, self deter­mi­na­tion and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice.

At the pub­lic hear­ing attend­ed by sev­er­al mem­bers of the camp who also live in the local com­mu­ni­ty, only two of the 700 peo­ple who object­ed were allowed to speak against the pro­pos­al. To pre­vent the cast­ing aside of these objec­tions and to obstruct the work already begun on site, the occu­pa­tion of Main­shill Woods through direct action has been under­tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Prepara­to­ry work for the mine such as the tree felling and bore sam­ple drilling work under­tak­en by Apex already has been glossed over by the Estate and con­tra­venes 7 con­di­tions of the plan­ning approval regard­ing stud­ies to ascer­tain the pres­ence of cer­tain endan­gered species such as bad­gers and bats, which the occu­piers know to be present on site.

The Estate has mis­re­port­ed the unearthing of an 11KVA under­ground pow­er cable accus­ing the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp of almost caus­ing a “major dis­as­ter”. It was in fact Apex and Scot­tish Coal who endan­gered the lives of those on site and the local com­mu­ni­ty by dri­ving heavy machin­ery over the shal­low­ly buried and unmarked cable. Any heavy machin­ery could cause death to the occu­piers since the site is now com­pre­hen­sive­ly defend­ed with tree­hous­es and tun­nels.

The Estate and Scot­tish Coal’s per­sis­tent prof­i­teer­ing from coal has been defend­ed with ref­er­ence to car­bon cap­ture and stor­age tech­nol­o­gy, how­ev­er even the indus­try says that CCS is 20 years away. Only a small per­cent­age of emis­sions can be cap­tured using CCS tech­nol­o­gy at present [6]. CCS is a smoke­screen for min­ing new coal, and evades the dra­mat­ic reduc­tion in con­sump­tion inte­grat­ed with localised renew­able solu­tions and col­lec­tive com­mu­ni­ty action which is required giv­en cur­rent sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus regard­ing cli­mate change.

The com­mu­nites which would suf­fer the envi­ron­men­tal injus­tice and neg­a­tive health impacts result­ing from coal extrac­tion should have con­trol over their local envi­ron­ment. If the plan­ning sys­tem con­tin­ues to side with the coal indus­try, futher direct action will be the only rea­son­able response.

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion please see: http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk or phone
the site for inter­views on 07806926040

Notes to Edi­tors
[1]
http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info/news.asp?intent=viewstory&newsid=18504
[2] Car­bon com­bines with oxy­gen in the atmos­phere dur­ing com­bus­tion,
pro­duc­ing car­bon diox­ide, with an atom­ic weight of (12 + 16 x 2 = 44
kg/kmol). The CO2 released to air for each kilo­gram of incin­er­at­ed coal is
there­fore 2.93kg.
[3] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826520.100-capturing-carbon.html
[4]
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/coutts-bank-chairman-lord-home-named-carroll-trust-case‑0
[5] The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has been occu­py­ing Main­shill Woods since
18/6/09 in order to resist Scot­tish Coal’s plans to devel­op a new open
cast coal mine.
[6] Cor­po­rate­Watch Tech­nofix­es Report down­load­able at
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3126

The View from the Trees — spring & summer in Cascadia, USA,

Hum­boldt Earth First! Canopy Com­mu­nique #1
Cut­ten, South Cas­ca­dia, the McK­ay Tract canopy. The land­scape unfolds below us as a patch­work quilt of war. Look­ing west, one sees the sub­urb, progress enact­ing its will upon the occu­pied coun­try­side. More devel­op­ment is planned, but it is not yet hap­pen­ing. We have pri­mar­i­ly met friend­ly peo­ple who live here, and enjoy hang­ing out in the for­est. We asked them if they want their sub­urb to grow, to con­tin­ue to “devel­op,” and they emphat­i­cal­ly do not.

Cascadia forest blockadeHum­boldt Earth First! Canopy Com­mu­nique #1
Cut­ten, South Cas­ca­dia, the McK­ay Tract canopy. The land­scape unfolds below us as a patch­work quilt of war. Look­ing west, one sees the sub­urb, progress enact­ing its will upon the occu­pied coun­try­side. More devel­op­ment is planned, but it is not yet hap­pen­ing. We have pri­mar­i­ly met friend­ly peo­ple who live here, and enjoy hang­ing out in the for­est. We asked them if they want their sub­urb to grow, to con­tin­ue to “devel­op,” and they emphat­i­cal­ly do not.

Among the sec­ond- and third-growth trees to the south lay a few erro­neous mini-man­sions encroach­ing upon the land­scape, with stumps in their yards wider than any of the three SUVs in their dri­ve­ways. The res­i­dents enjoy a qui­et life until one of them starts run­ning pow­er­tools.

We look east and see the tops of enor­mous old-growth red­woods tow­er­ing above the hun­dred-year-old sec­ond growth. Some friends live here, includ­ing spot­ted owls, ospreys, turkey vul­tures, black bears, newts, voles, fly­ing squir­rels and arbo­re­al humans.

To the north lies a clearcut. Three years ago, Green Dia­mond (GD), for­mer­ly Simp­son Tim­ber Com­pa­ny, came in and cut down every last tree in the unit, leav­ing a few huge burned-out snags. Pam­pas grass and milk­weed grow to human height in the trees’ absence, but this area is dry and get­ting dry­er.

They plant­ed a few baby conifers, red­woods and oth­ers after they cut. Those trees are now three years old, mean­ing they can cut a cou­ple more units and then start re-zon­ing the land from tim­ber­land to res­i­den­tial. More mini-man­sions are planned. So it goes.…

How­ev­er our for­est friends dis­agree with these plans. They want to live, and our solu­tion is to live with them. For the past sev­er­al months, we’ve been occu­py­ing two tree vil­lages in the McK­ay, tying in as many giant trees as pos­si­ble with tra­vers­es to pro­tect them with our own bod­ies from being cut down. Tree-sit­ting has been used to defend forests in Hum­boldt for decades, and tra­vers­es enable a few humans to defend a large num­ber of trees with­out leav­ing the canopy.

We chose this grove because the trees stand direct­ly against the march of Leviathan in the form of sub­ur­ban devel­op­ment, and the neigh­bors (in house down below) stand with us, and give us love and sup­port. The oth­er grove, (also slat­ed to be clearcut), fea­tures an osprey nest, at least one spot­ted owl nest, flocks of turkey vul­tures cir­cling over­head, a trail and camp­site used fre­quent­ly by bears, and a creek that serves as water­shed for the Hum­boldt Bay’s health­i­est pop­u­la­tion of Coho salmon. These crit­ters have also shown much love to the treesit­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fly­ing squir­rels who share our food at night and the owls who hang out, pro­vide moral sup­port and watch us climb.

GD, is now the most-active transna­tion­al tim­ber cor­po­ra­tion remain­ing in Hum­boldt. They have clearcuts sched­uled every year across the North­west, and have large­ly escaped pub­lic scruti­ny by a process of 21st-cen­tu­ry green­wash­ing and alliances with the state. For exam­ple, the GD Habi­tat Con­ser­va­tion Plan for spot­ted owls gives the owls a vague, con­stant­ly shift­ing zone of “habi­tat” on GD land and a few remain­ing “wildlife trees”, usu­al­ly of low mon­e­tary val­ue, on land that they clearcut. In return, GD gets a bunch of “inci­den­tal take” per­mits for owls, which is a license to kill them at will. The GD plan for the McK­ay Tract is clearcut­ting, fol­lowed by res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment to dou­ble the size of Cut­ten, Cal­i­for­nia, adding more res­i­dents to the near city of Eure­ka.

So far, no chain­saws have fall­en upon the McK­ay this year. How­ev­er, Sum­mer oper­at­ing sea­son is upon us, log­ging could begin any day of any week. Neigh­bors are con­tin­u­ing to raise their voic­es in sup­port. They hike, bike, and ride hors­es along the log­ging roads in sol­i­dar­i­ty with res­i­dents of the for­est. Treesit­ters are still need­ed to live in the canopy, pro­tect­ing this last refuge of wild crea­tures from the per­pet­u­al war that is human progress. Any­one wish­ing to spend part or all of the sum­mer up in trees is encour­aged to con­tact Earth First! Hum­boldt at (707) 834‑5170; www.efhumboldt.org.
“May the for­est bewitch you,” the canopy nin­jas of EF! Hum­boldt.

——–

Owl in Cascadia forest********News­flash­es:

Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer Con­tin­ues…
July 13th, 2009

The log­ging block­ade in Oregon’s Elliot State for­est was raid­ed by a report­ed 60+ police accom­pa­nied by a bull­doz­er. 27 peo­ple were arrest­ed. This marks only the begin­ning of Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer.

Mean­while, here in Hum­boldt we are steadi­ly con­tin­u­ing the occu­pa­tion of our local rain­for­est canopy to stop Green Dia­mond from log­ging 41 acres of Red­wood for­est over 100 years old. The grove is home to Spot­ted Owls, Osprey and Black Bears. It is a refuge that is sur­round­ed by young tree plan­ta­tions, clearcuts and sub­urbs.

We have set up mul­ti­ple tree-sits and a tra­verse rope net­work tying up a large area of for­est near the Spot­ted Owl nest. The ropes allow above ground trav­el and increase the effec­tive­ness of the tree-sits by link­ing many trees togeth­er.

So far the com­pa­ny has held off from log­ging though the plan has been approved for months. Green Dia­mond says they won’t send climbers up to take activists out of the trees because it’s “too dan­ger­ous”.

If you would like to live and work in the Red­wood for­est canopy or help sup­port our activ­i­ties please give us a call or write us an email.

contactefhum@gmail.com

707–834-5170

.…

Earth First! Block­ades Log­ging Road in Ore­gon
July 7th, 2009
Ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, a large team of activists (includ­ing Hum­boldt EF!ers) skill­ful­ly and valient­ly block­ad­ed a log­ging road to pro­tect over 70 acres of 100+ year old coastal for­est that was being cut down. This kicks off the “Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer” cam­paign to high­light ongo­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and shut down high­ly destruc­tive log­ging activ­i­ties in the Pacif­ic North­west. Some of our com­rades are locked to the van in the pic­ture as well as bar­rels full of con­crete that block the road. Oth­ers are perched high atop struc­tures that have sup­port ropes that are attached to the gate and to the over­turned van. Any attempt to move the van or gate and the struc­tures would col­lapse and harm the activists. They are still there and have put out the call for more to join the effort.

Here are some links to sto­ries about the ongo­ing action in Cas­ca­dia.

Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer Blog

FD’s Blog (more pic­tures)

News sto­ry 1

News sto­ry 2

.…

Green Dia­mond Threat­en­ing Tree-sit­ters With Extrac­tion
June 19th, 2009
Ear­ly this morn­ing, tree-sit­ters in the McK­ay Tract recieved threats from Green Dia­mond employ­ees. The GD employ­ees stat­ed that if the activists did not come down that GD would send climbers up to arrest them.

Yes­ter­day, at least 2 GD employ­ees spent near­ly the entire day on the ground around the tree-sits and attempt­ed to get ahold of a rope hang­ing from one of the sits. It was quick­ly pulled high­er by a sit­ter.

.…

Rainy Spring Days
May 15th, 2009

Update from the woods: There have been no signs of trucks or heavy machin­ery as of yet. Well timed spring rains are keep­ing the roads mud­dy and undriv­able. We are on the look­out for any signs of com­pa­ny activ­i­ty.

What we have seen late­ly are Spot­ted Owls, Osprey, large Black Bear tracks in the mud and a Green Dia­mond sur­vey­or. The wild­ness and beau­ty of this for­est is an inspi­ra­tion. The ongo­ing assis­tance from our local sup­port­ers is cru­cial, thanks for all the help!

If you would like to join us in the for­est or help from town please do, more tree-sit­ters and ground crew are always need­ed.

.…


Fly­ing Squir­rel Dis­cov­ers Tree-sit­ters
March 17th, 2009

This North­ern Fly­ing Squir­rel arrived at the tree-sits last week. It was the first of it’s species to be seen by activists liv­ing in the Red­wood canopy since the first tree-sit went up in August of last year. The squir­rels are noc­tur­nal and are some­times preyed upon by Spot­ted Owls. They mate in May and June and live in groups in the cav­i­ties of large trees. They have often been seen in the past in tree-sits in old-growth groves.

.…

Alert- GD Employ­ees In McK­ay Today
March 13th, 2009

Though log­ging hasn’t start­ed, Green Dia­mond is fre­quent­ly vis­it­ing the tree sits, some­times bring­ing sher­rifs along. Today, two activists were chased through the for­est by log­gers but safe­ly got away. Ground sup­port is on alert and tree-sit­ters are pre­pared to defend the tree-vil­lages in the event that log­ging begins. If you want to be part of our action alert list please let us know. You don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to tres­pass to sup­port the tree-sits. There are many things to do in town and one of the sits can be wit­nessed from North­ridge Rd. in Cut­ten, east of Eure­ka.

.…
McK­ay 09 Update: No Log­ging Yet
March 6th, 2009

Tree-sit­ters are main­tain­ing their vig­i­lance as log­ging could begin any day. More trees have been added to the tra­verse rope net­works, there are now over 20 Red­wood and Sit­ka Spruce trees being defend­ed. They range in age from 70 to over 100 years old. Tree-sit­ters are request­ing camp stoves with re-usable fuel bot­tles, large tarps, climb­ing gear, read­ing mate­r­i­al, and most impor­tant­ly- more peo­ple to join them in the defense of this for­est and our plan­et.

.…
EF! Hum­boldt Tree-sit Update
Feb­ru­ary 25th, 2009

* Spot­ted Owl nest­ing sea­son pro­tec­tions to begin on March 1st. Green Dia­mond can­not cut with­in 1/4 mile of the Owls nest until they deter­mine whether or not the Owls have suc­cess­ful­ly mat­ed. If they find that the Owls have mat­ed, the so called pro­tec­tion would only last for a mat­ter of months. If not, they can go ahead and log. Green Dia­monds find­ings will most like­ly be kept secret. The fox is guard­ing the hen house.
* Earth First!ers are occu­py­ing part of this ter­ri­to­ry to defend not only the Owls habi­tat but as much of this diverse eco-sys­tem as we can.
* The numer­ous activists occu­py­ing trees here are weath­er­ing the storms and con­tin­u­ing to expand the defend­ed areas.
* Uniden­ti­fied per­sons wear­ing hard hats have made mul­ti­ple threats to cut the trees down.
* The defense of this for­est con­tin­ues…

.…

More Eco-War­riors Ascend Threat­ened Red­woods in McK­ay Tract
Feb­ru­ary 19th, 2009

There are now two tree-sit vil­lages defend­ing areas of for­est in the threat­ened Red­wood groves of Ryan Creek. Green Dia­mond employ­ees and Hum­bldt Coun­ty Sher­iffs vis­it­ed both sites yes­ter­day and inspect­ed the sit­u­a­tion. Today, dif­fer­ent work­ers appear­ing to be log­gers vis­it­ed at least one site and also inspect­ed the tree-sits. This esca­la­tion of activ­i­ty by the com­pa­ny may indi­cate they are prepar­ing to log very soon.

There are mul­ti­ple tra­verse lines through­out both of the tree-sit areas. These are not always clear­ly vis­i­ble from the ground. Activists have put red DANGER tape around many of the trees that, if cut, pose a dead­ly threat to the tree-sit­ters.

.…

Arbo­re­al Pro­test­ers Occu­py Threat­ened Red­woods
Decem­ber 2nd, 2008

Tree-sit­ters unfurled a large 30 ft. wide ban­ner this morn­ing on the edge of the great Red­wood for­est, east of Eure­ka, Ca. The ban­ner reads “Hey Green Dia­mond, Stop Clear-cut­ting ‑Earth First!”. The sit­ters remain aloft and are occu­py­ing sev­er­al large sec­ond growth trees that are slat­ed for log­ging. We invite the pub­lic to come and see the threat­ened for­est for them­selves. (Direc­tions below).

The Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny plans to log 60 acres of large sec­ond growth and resid­ual old growth Red­woods here in the near future. The two groves rep­re­sent the old­est remain­ing for­est and best habi­tat for old-growth depen­dent species like the North­ern Spot­ted Owl. The owls are nest­ing in the oth­er grove where trees over 1,000 years old still stand. Green Dia­mond has a per­mit to destroy the habi­tat of this endan­gered species. The Green Dia­mond land is locat­ed in the “McK­ay Tract” and totals 7,200 acres. Near­ly the entire Tract (and the entire Cal­i­for­nia Red­wood range) has been clear-cut once already since the 1800’s and over half of the tract has been logged with­in the past 20 years. The McK­ay Tract encom­pass­es the Ryan Creek water­shed. Green Dia­mond also has plans for res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment here, threat­en­ing the health and sur­vival of the largest Coho Salmon pop­u­la­tion in the Hum­boldt Bay water­shed. We’ll have more info and updates on this in the near future.

Direc­tions:

From Arca­ta go South on 101.

Turn Left on Myr­tle Ave.

Turn Right on Har­ri­son.

Har­ri­son turns into Man­zani­ta.

Turn Left on Dol­beer St.

Turn Left onto Wal­nut Dri­ve at 3 the way inter­sec­tion.

Stay on Wal­nut and look for the big green water­tanks.

Short­ly after that turn Left onto North­ridge rd.

The for­est will be on your left and the big white ban­ner is vis­i­ble from the road.

Please be respect­ful to the neigh­bors, thanks.

.…

OwlMass Extinc­tion — It’s Real — Fight It!
Novem­ber 20th, 2008

Coho Salmon, Chi­nook Salmon, Mar­bled Mur­relets and North­ern Spot­ted Owls are just a few of the species that are rapid­ly declin­ing in our imme­di­ate area. Both North­ern Spot­ted Owls and Chi­nook Salmon are fac­ing assaults from Green Dia­mond, a com­pa­ny we have been build­ing a cam­paign against since this spring.

They have an upcom­ing log­ging oper­a­tion in the “McK­ay Tract”, direct­ly east of Eure­ka. Green Dia­mond is plan­ning to clear-cut Spot­ted Owl nest­ing groves after Feb­ru­ary 15th and is work­ing to get Hum­boldt Coun­ty plan­ners to set in stone plans for future devel­op­ment of the area. Please con­tact us to join mul­ti­lat­er­al grass­roots efforts in build­ing a coali­tion to advo­cate for pro­tec­tion of this area . EF! Hum­boldt is active­ly orga­niz­ing against the upcom­ing log­ging and hous­ing devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. We are seek­ing more par­tic­i­pants, any amount of time or mate­r­i­al con­tri­bu­tions are much appre­ci­at­ed.

Human beings are on the verge of caus­ing a mass extinc­tion of life on Earth. A major­i­ty of the world’s biol­o­gists now believe that if cur­rent trends con­tin­ue, half of all species of plants and ani­mals liv­ing today will be extinct in less than 100 years. The gen­er­al pub­lic, how­ev­er, is almost entire­ly unaware of this cri­sis. — Species Alliance

.…

Lat­est EF! Hum­boldt Action Press Release
August 25th, 2008

For Imme­di­ate Release: Mon­day, August 25th
con­tact: Jere­my Jensen (707) 834‑5170
Earth First! Turns Atten­tion To Green Dia­mond Resource Co.

Eure­ka, Ca.- A new Earth First! tree-sit in a Green Dia­mond Resource log­ging plan east of Eure­ka end­ed as sud­den­ly as it began.

With the new own­ers of the for­mer Pacif­ic Lum­ber Com­pa­ny pledg­ing to not log Old-Growth trees, a pro­pos­al by Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny to log Ancient Red­woods grabbed the atten­tion of Earth First! Hum­boldt.

Most of the trees range from 80–100 years old but in one of the two groves there are numer­ous scat­tered Old-Growth trees that were not cut dur­ing the orig­i­nal log­ging of the area in the late 1800’

s. The com­pa­ny is also propos­ing res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment in the same area under Option B of the Hum­boldt Coun­ty Gen­er­al Plan Update.

“Clearcut­ting and Old-Growth log­ging are crimes against nature and human­i­ty,” said Jere­my Jensen of EF! Hum­boldt, “Devel­op­ment is the nail in the cof­fin.”

Activists con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple search­es of the area and made sev­er­al dis­cov­er­ies. The loca­tions of sev­er­al Old-Growth red­woods that were slat­ed to be cut, and the pres­ence of at least three North­ern Spot­ted Owls in the threat­ened for­est.

Days after stealth­ily estab­lish­ing a tree-sit in a giant Old-Growth Red­wood that was clear­ly marked to be cut, the sit­ters wor­ried that they had been pre­ma­ture­ly dis­cov­ered when field sur­vey­ors were heard walk­ing around on the for­est floor.

Though no words were exchanged, a dan­gling clus­ter of white 5 gal­lon buck­ets made the tree-sit high­ly vis­i­ble.

Three days lat­er, a Green Dia­mond employ­ee returned to mark the occu­pied tree and at least two oth­er imper­iled Old-Growth Red­woods as “Wildlife Leave Trees”, seem­ing to indi­cate that they won’t be cut.

This sur­prised EF! Hum­boldt activists because the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Forestry had already approved the log­ging plan.

While the activists sus­pect­ed it was a decep­tive move to trick the tree-sit­ters into com­ing down, anoth­er piece of infor­ma­tion came to light.

An Earth First!er review­ing the log­ging plan doc­u­ment dis­cov­ered that GDRC would not be allowed to log the area until next Feb­ru­ary 19th at the ear­li­est. This is due to the fact that lum­ber com­pa­nies are required by Cal­i­for­nia law to allow trees in adja­cent clearcuts to reach three years of age before log­ging neigh­bor­ing forests.

The Earth First!ers decid­ed to remove the plat­form and gear from the tree, assess the new sit­u­a­tion and re-cal­i­brate the defen­sive strat­e­gy for the threat­ened groves.

“At least now they know we’re seri­ous,” said a tree-sit­ter by the name of “Cross­roads”.

.…

Very high tree platform in old growth RedwoodsBreak­ing News: EF!H Tree-sit in the McK­ay Tract
August 22nd, 2008

Earth First! tree-sit­ters have been dis­cov­ered in a gar­gan­tu­an Ancient Red­wood by a Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny employ­ee just east of Cut­ten in the “McK­ay Tract”. Green Dia­mond is plan­ning for res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment of large sec­tions of the McK­ay Tract after they log all they can. This is a clas­sic cut-and run strat­e­gy, make mon­ey by tak­ing the trees and then sell the land to devel­op­ers.

The Ancient Red­wood was locat­ed a few weeks ago by EF! Hum­boldt activists dur­ing explorato­ry search­es of the area, trig­gered when the plans to log two Red­wood groves in the Tract were made pub­lic. The tree bore the blue paint des­ig­nat­ing it for cut­ting and was quick­ly occu­pied. Most of the 60 acre log­ging plan is to be clear-cut under Green Dia­monds plan. The Green Dia­mond employ­ee has now report­ed­ly marked the tree as a “Wildlife Tree” and it’s pos­si­ble that it will not be cut. Strange­ly, this log­ging plan has already been approved and we are not assum­ing that the com­pa­ny is sin­cere­ly plan­ning to leave the tree.

This may be a tac­tic to get the sit­ters to come down. There was com­pa­ny activ­i­ty in the area sev­er­al days ago but no con­tact was made. The tree-sit may have been spot­ted at that time and this could be a direct response by the com­pa­ny.

The tree, named “Mil­len­nia” by activists, appears to be well over 200 ft. tall. It is count­less hun­dreds, if not over one thou­sand, years old.

The sit­ters vow to remain in the tree until it is def­i­nite­ly pro­tect­ed. Though the sit­ters occu­py only one giant tree, both of the groves are defac­to wildlife refuges and need be pro­tect­ed in their entire­ty. The mature stands har­bor many ani­mals that have no where else to go in the log­ging-rav­aged land­scape east of Eure­ka, Ca.

Dur­ing the ini­tial search of the area, the activists were vis­it­ed by a North­ern Spot­ted Owl. The Cal­i­for­nia Dept. of Forestry refus­es to pro­tect this area as Owl habi­tat even though the Spot­ted Owls are endan­gered and still in decline. We sus­pect that the Owls are nest­ing here because of the fre­quent vis­its from them, the large num­ber of owl pel­lets on the ground, and the fact that this is one of only 2 or 3 iso­lat­ed groves in the McK­ay Tract where dense stands of large trees remain stand­ing.

The grove where this tree stands is com­prised main­ly of 100 year old Red­woods that grew fol­low­ing the orig­i­nal log­ging of the area around the turn of the cen­tu­ry. This was one of the first places logged due to it’s close prox­im­i­ty to Hum­boldt Bay. The Ancient Red­woods that remain here were left stand­ing due to either an unde­sir­able shaped trunk, tree caves, or the steep­ness and insta­bil­i­ty of the ground around the tree.

The trees in the clear-cut­ting zone are not marked for log­ging, in those areas only the scat­tered trees to be left are giv­en a dis­tin­guish­ing mark. This tree is with­in a geo­log­i­cal­ly unsta­ble area next to a creek were the com­pa­ny is lim­it­ed to only selec­tion log­ging. This type of log­ging requires that the trees select­ed for the cut be marked.

.…

Looking up at a Redwood treeFor more info & pho­tos, vis­it http://efhumboldt.org

Two climate activists lock on to Bluewaters powerplant in Australia

26th June 2009
Blue­wa­ter Coal-fired pow­er sta­tion protest: lock-ons shut-down and arrests

The fol­low­ing is the media release for yes­ter­day’s action at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie.

Collie coal lock-onCollie coal banners26th June 2009
Blue­wa­ter Coal-fired pow­er sta­tion protest: lock-ons shut-down and arrests

The fol­low­ing is the media release for yes­ter­day’s action at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie.

Two activists locked onto a con­vey­or belt at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie, West­ern Aus­tralia.
The action is to protest Grif­fin Energy’s deci­sion to burn wood from WA native forests for ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The two activists were arrest­ed and lat­er removed from the con­vey­or belt by police, after more than six hours of pre­vent­ing coal from being fed into the pow­er sta­tion. A third activist has also been arrest­ed at the site.

Blue­wa­ters Coal-fired Pow­er Sta­tion brought to a halt by for­est activists

Ear­ly this morn­ing, two activists locked onto a con­vey­or belt at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie. The action is to protest Grif­fin Energy’s deci­sion to burn wood from WA native forests for ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The two activists were arrest­ed and lat­er removed from the con­vey­or belt by police, after more than six hours of pre­vent­ing coal from being fed into the pow­er sta­tion. A third activist has also been arrest­ed at the site.

“Grif­fin Ener­gy is one of WA’s worst con­trib­u­tors to cli­mate change. The com­pa­ny has recent­ly opened yet anoth­er coal-fired pow­er sta­tion and is con­struct­ing anoth­er three,” said Ms Jael John­son, spokesper­son for the action. “To add insult to injury, it now pro­pos­es to burn wood from our pre­cious native forests as fuel and count this as renew­able ener­gy.”

“The WA pub­lic has a right to renew­able ener­gy. Here we have an abun­dance of wind, solar and wave ener­gy. CETO, a wave ener­gy com­pa­ny, has cho­sen to be a part of this renew­able rev­o­lu­tion. Grif­fin also has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to join West­ern Aus­tralian busi­ness­es com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able solu­tions. There is no place for coal-fired pow­er sta­tion or native for­est log­ging in a sus­tain­able WA,” said Ms John­son.

Grif­fin Ener­gy recent­ly won a ten­der from the For­est Prod­ucts Com­mis­sion (FPC) to buy between 250,000 and 400,000 tonnes of native for­est logs a year.

Our native forests pro­vide the WA com­mu­ni­ty with clean air and water, bio­di­ver­si­ty, and homes for unique WA plants and wildlife. Native Forests also store huge amounts of car­bon. After log­ging and burn­ing, the car­bon is released into the atmos­phere. Glob­al­ly, defor­esta­tion and log­ging con­tribute about 27% of all cli­mate change-caus­ing green­house gas­es.

“Research in the east­ern states shows that if native forests are left undis­turbed, they can play a vital role in stor­ing car­bon and con­tribut­ing to a cli­mate change solu­tion.

“Instead of pro­tect­ing them for their vital role in reduc­ing cli­mate change, Forestry Min­is­ter Ter­ry Red­man pro­pos­es to allow Grif­fin to burn native for­est logs, there­by releas­ing mas­sive amounts of GHG and accel­er­at­ing run-away cli­mate change. This is an atro­cious dis­tor­tion of a sys­tem that should be lead­ing us towards a zero-car­bon econ­o­my, not fur­ther away from it.

“The peo­ple of WA will have to pay for Griffin’s reck­less cor­po­rate behav­iour long after its share­hold­ers are done lin­ing their pock­ets. So we will con­tin­ue to dis­rupt the oper­a­tions of organ­i­sa­tions like Grif­fin for as long as they con­tin­ue to dis­play such cor­po­rate reck­less­ness and short-sight­ed­ness.

“At the same time we sup­port the calls from the Aus­tralian Man­u­fac­tur­ers Work­ers Union and the Aus­tralian Coun­cil of Trade Unions for a just tran­si­tion to a renew­able soci­ety that leaves no work­er or com­mu­ni­ty behind,” said Ms John­son.

MEDIA CONTACTS ON SITE
Ms Jael John­son: Mbl: 0438 856 981
Ms Emma McIn­tyre: Mbl: 0415 258 301

Kew Bridge Eco Village

“On June 6th 2009, near­ly a hun­dred activists con­verged on a piece of derelict land at Kew Bridge in south west Lon­don to cre­ate an eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty based entire­ly on sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy and con­struc­tion tech­niques.”

From the Eco Vil­lage face­book group

Trowel Ninja at Kew Bridge Eco Village“On June 6th 2009, near­ly a hun­dred activists con­verged on a piece of derelict land at Kew Bridge in south west Lon­don to cre­ate an eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty based entire­ly on sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy and con­struc­tion tech­niques.”

From the Eco Vil­lage face­book group

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/group.php?sid=5ed8b99539a428b28f9abf3dc54ec246&gid=88020757939&ref=search

Last Sat­ur­day (the 13th of June) we went to check out the Kew Eco Village…we arrived and were wel­comed in…some peo­ple had come to work and oth­ers to just check it out.

The site, about an acre, has appar­ent­ly been emp­ty for over two decades and used to house a Scot­tish Wid­ows build­ing. All that remains is a small out house and a large pile of rub­ble close to the entrance on Kew Bridge Road. We climed the mound which includ­ed large sheets of met­al and an old pub sign (imme­di­at­ly next door is a pub) to sur­vey the site. Behind us was a car­a­van and a wood pile. Ahead towards the riv­er and Bridge, is most­ly like a medow with a plas­tic cov­ered struc­ture where peo­ple can relax and sosialise and behind that scat­tered tents amidst the mead­ow. To the right is the kitchen and wash­ing up area (All water has to be bought from off-site) and the remain­ing con­crete build­ing that peo­ple seem to sleep in and is to be the ‘safe’ for food and tools and such-like. We elect­ed to muck in and were put on road-build­ing duty which includ­ed a dis­abled access ramp (slight­ly nar­row­er than planned due to a sur­prise uniden­ti­fied pipe).

We also dug some gar­den planters in using old beds. This includ­ed smash­ing down rocks and sift­ing rub­ble to make usable soil. Oth­ers were using rocks and bricks to out­line oth­er guardens. Locals came to chat, find out what was going on and to have a look around. Kids turned up to help and hang out and to dec­o­rate the shel­ter with graf­fit­ti. There were tons of bees also in the yel­low wild­flow­ers. We were offered food froom the kitchen and there was water and, of course, tea .

“Come, be a part of this eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty!

This eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion is inspired by cam­paigns like The Land is Ours which cam­paigns peace­ful­ly for access to the land, its resources, and the deci­sion-mak­ing process­es affect­ing them, for every­one, irre­spec­tive of race, gen­der or age. for more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it:

We now have a media web­site — http://ecocamp.info/ Its in its ear­ly stages but check out the fan­tas­tic video episodes of our first few days!

Please post any seeds or post­cards or any­thing you like to:

The Eco Vil­lage
2 Kew Bridge Rd
Brent­ford
TW8 0JF

tele­phone: 07967864370”

see also

http://www.hounslowchronicle.co.uk/west-london-news/local-hounslow-news/2009/06/12/kew-bridge-squatters-creating-eco-village-109642–23865859/

Email Con­tact email: m@s‑kollective.com

New Cambridge Social Centre Opened

Occu­py Cam­bridge is proud to announce the open­ing of the new cam­bridge social cen­tre.

Occu­py Cam­bridge, a (rather bril­liant) group of squat­ters, anar­chists, rev­o­lu­tion­ists, land rights types and gen­er­al social mis­fits, last night “reclaimed” the dis­used bin­go hall on hob­son street .

The build­ing will now be used as a social cen­tre of some kind, although this is very much a blank can­vas.

Occu­py Cam­bridge is proud to announce the open­ing of the new cam­bridge social cen­tre.

Occu­py Cam­bridge, a (rather bril­liant) group of squat­ters, anar­chists, rev­o­lu­tion­ists, land rights types and gen­er­al social mis­fits, last night “reclaimed” the dis­used bin­go hall on hob­son street .

The build­ing will now be used as a social cen­tre of some kind, although this is very much a blank can­vas.

It a large space and is kit­ted out well for film show­ings.

The build­ing is the old bin­go hall on hob­son street cam­bridge.
Come down and vis­it.

any ques­tions con­tact us on 07779051894
—
There was a cin­e­ma on the site of the old Gala Bin­go Hall on Hob­son Street from 1921 called The Cen­tral Cinema(it was rebuilt in 1930 to give the cur­rent build­ing prob­a­bly after a fire). The first talkie in Cam­bridge was screened at The Cen­tral Cin­e­ma in 1929 and that talkie was “The Broad­way Melody”
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3656/2200/1600/talkie.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broadway_Melody .
By 1972 (this date is dis­put­ed), the then Odeon, was shut down and con­vert­ed into a bin­go hall.