Category: Action Reports

Iceland Camp Against Heavy Industry Starts July 6th

The cam­paign to defend Europe’s vastest remain­ing wilder­ness con­tin­ues. After the direct action camps in Ice­land in the sum­mers of 2005 and 2006 against the Karah­n­jukar dam and ALCOA’s alu­mini­um smelter, the Sav­ing Ice­land cam­paign moves on to bring indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Ice­land to a halt. A new camp in Ice­land will com­mence on July 6th 2007 (loca­tion to be announced lat­er). New plans for dams, pow­er plants, smelters and oth­er heavy indus­try need to be stopped. Tar­gets include cor­po­rates such as ALCOA, ALCAN, Cen­tu­ry Alu­mini­um, Bar­clays, Mott McDon­ald, Bech­tel, Rio Tin­to and BH Bil­li­ton. Ice­land, with it’s vast geot­her­mal and megahy­dro pos­si­bil­i­ties, is a new fron­tier for ener­gy crav­ing indus­tri­al moguls, in times of increas­ing ener­gy scarci­ty and inse­cu­ri­ty. Stop­ping indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion of the last unspoilt coun­try in the west would be a major strate­gic vic­to­ry for the green and anar­chist move­ment and a new incen­tive for a glob­al move­ment against indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and eco­cide. This includes the cam­paign against ALCOA and AluTrin­t’s plans for a smelter in Trinidad and oth­er direct action against dams and heavy indus­try.

The cam­paign to defend Europe’s vastest remain­ing wilder­ness con­tin­ues. After the direct action camps in Ice­land in the sum­mers of 2005 and 2006 against the Karah­n­jukar dam and ALCOA’s alu­mini­um smelter, the Sav­ing Ice­land cam­paign moves on to bring indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Ice­land to a halt. A new camp in Ice­land will com­mence on July 6th 2007 (loca­tion to be announced lat­er). New plans for dams, pow­er plants, smelters and oth­er heavy indus­try need to be stopped. Tar­gets include cor­po­rates such as ALCOA, ALCAN, Cen­tu­ry Alu­mini­um, Bar­clays, Mott McDon­ald, Bech­tel, Rio Tin­to and BH Bil­li­ton. Ice­land, with it’s vast geot­her­mal and megahy­dro pos­si­bil­i­ties, is a new fron­tier for ener­gy crav­ing indus­tri­al moguls, in times of increas­ing ener­gy scarci­ty and inse­cu­ri­ty. Stop­ping indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion of the last unspoilt coun­try in the west would be a major strate­gic vic­to­ry for the green and anar­chist move­ment and a new incen­tive for a glob­al move­ment against indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and eco­cide. This includes the cam­paign against ALCOA and AluTrin­t’s plans for a smelter in Trinidad and oth­er direct action against dams and heavy indus­try.

Climate chaos and aviation: giant issue — giant letter

5.12.2006

5.12.2006

Yes­ter­day cli­mate activists from South­west Cli­mate Action smart­ly stormed North Som­er­set Envi­ron­ment and Plan­ning Offices to protest against the planned expan­sion of Bris­tol Inter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The plan­ners were tak­en aback by the style of deliv­ery when pre­sent­ed with a giant let­ter, but as the pro­test­ers explained, cli­mate change is a giant issue.

They occu­pied the lob­by and some climbed onto the roof, claim­ing they were try­ing to escape the ris­ing sea lev­els that cli­mate change will bring. A near­by soundsys­tem played record­ed sounds of planes tak­ing off in order to bring home to the plan­ners the effects that their deci­sions could have upon peo­ple in the South­west.

In the lob­by pro­tes­tors had the full atten­tion of key peo­ple involved in mak­ing this deci­sion and togeth­er they flood­ed them with the argu­ments: moral, envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­i­cal, for why expan­sion must not hap­pen.

The plan­ners admit­ted to the pro­test­ers that they might have to rethink the entire approach to the nation­al pro­gram of expan­sions in the light of increas­ing news about cli­mate change. The recent­ly pub­lished Stern Report pre­dicts that cli­mate change will push the world econ­o­my into a depres­sion if we do not act now.

Coun­cil­lor John Crock­ford-Haw­ley, North Som­er­set Coun­cil Exec­u­tive Mem­ber for Strate­gic Plan­ning and Trans­port, also agreed with our state­ment that if expan­sion went ahead it would make a mock­ery of peo­ples indi­vid­ual efforts.

Stanst­ed air­port was refused plan­ning per­mis­sion for their expan­sion last week. The plan­ners said that the Stern report was a major fac­tor in their deci­sion. The gov­ern­ment plans to expand almost every air­port in the UK, tripling air traf­fic by 2030. But this would make it impos­si­ble to meet the tar­gets for emis­sions in order to avoid run­away cli­mate change.

The pro­test­ers urged peo­ple to oppose the expan­sion. Passer­by­ers thatt felt moved wrote their com­ments on post­cards which were hand­ed in at the end of the day. The dead­line for objec­tions is Dec 22nd, which is the last chance for peo­ple to have their say.

South­west Cli­mate Action are a group of indi­vid­u­als inspired by the cli­mate camp and the glob­al move­ments for cli­mate jus­tice. They have pledged that, if the expan­sion goes ahead, they will take direct action in order to stop it.

The sub­mit­ted let­ter:
Mon­day 4th Decem­ber 2006

Dear Plan­ners,

We are a group of indi­vid­u­als who are very alarmed by the pro­posed mas­ter plan to expand Bris­tol Inter­na­tion­al Air­port con­sid­er­ing con­sen­sus by cli­mate sci­en­tists that we need to take action now to avert cat­a­stroph­ic effects on humans and the ecosys­tems we are part of.

We need to pre­vent glob­al tem­per­a­tures from ris­ing by more than 2 degrees above pre-indus­tri­al lev­els: the point at which dan­ger­ous process­es caused by cli­mate change could spi­ral out of con­trol, such as the melt­ing of the West Antarc­tic and Green­land ice sheets, which could raise glob­al sea lev­els by 7m and West­on being flood­ed.

Avi­a­tion: Bris­tol Air­port already pumps out more emis­sions than the whole of Bris­tol’s traf­fic. If the air­port expan­sion go’s ahead it will be impos­si­ble for North Som­er­set to meet their tar­get of 60% cuts by 2050.

Local Econ­o­my: Tourists spend £11bn in the UK, while UK tourists spend £26 bil­lion abroad – a loss of £15bn to our econ­o­my. Region­al tourism is the sin­gle largest indus­try in the South West with 8% of all jobs; with expan­sion the tourism deficit is like­ly to dou­ble by 2030.

Fur­ther­more, the Stern report reach­es the sim­ple con­clu­sion: “the ben­e­fits of strong, ear­ly action on cli­mate change con­sid­er­ably out­weigh the costs.â€?

In light of this infor­ma­tion it is crit­i­cal that you ful­ly acknowl­edge this infor­ma­tion now.

Demand’s

Recog­nise that cli­mate change is a seri­ous glob­al threat, it demands an urgent response.

Recog­nise the glar­ing con­tra­dic­tion between the coun­cils stat­ed com­mit­ment, through the Not­ting­ham dec­la­ra­tion, to tack­le cli­mate change and the expan­sion of the air­port.

Recog­nise that if the air­port expan­sion goes ahead it will be to the detri­ment of the local and glob­al econ­o­my.

Acknowl­edge that the ‘Master Plan’ con­tains inac­cu­ra­cies and fails to deal with the issue of cli­mate change, and thus is irre­spon­si­ble.

Acknowl­edge that the peo­ple of the South West will stand by the coun­cil in the rejec­tion of this insane plan­ning appli­ca­tion. North Som­er­set coun­cil will not be alone in reject­ing the cur­rent wave of ill-con­ceived air­port expan­sions.
Uttles­ford Coun­cil Plan­ners have recent­ly turned down the expan­sion of Stanst­ed say­ing
“It would be pre­ma­ture to grant plan­ning per­mis­sion for the increased use of the run­way in advance of clar­i­fi­ca­tion by the Gov­ern­ment as to whether part of its response to the Stern Review and oth­er recent research will be to with­draw or amend its Air Trans­port White Paper.â€?
“Given new evi­dence, such as the Stern report it is uncer­tain whether the pol­i­cy of encour­ag­ing air­port growth is a rea­son­able basis on which to pro­ceed.
If the expan­sion is giv­en the go ahead, despite the acknowl­edge­ment of the above infor­ma­tion, then the coun­cil will be com­plic­it in the dev­as­ta­tion of lives, com­mu­ni­ties and habi­tats around the world, who will be hit by the impacts of cli­mate chaos.

It would be neg­li­gent for the coun­cil to allow the expan­sion, but if they do we will take sus­tained action to stop it, tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for our lives and our future.

Yours tru­ly,
South West Cli­mate Action

westsideclimateaction@gmail.com

BIG Aldermaston Blockade on 11th December

The gov­ern­ment will pub­lish its white paper on the future of Britain’s
> nuclear weapons on Mon­day 4 Decem­ber 2006.
>
> We need to show that there is mas­sive oppo­si­tion to any new nuclear
> weapons. Block the Builders are call­ing a mass block­ade of AWE Alder­mas­ton

The gov­ern­ment will pub­lish its white paper on the future of Britain’s
> nuclear weapons on Mon­day 4 Decem­ber 2006.
>
> We need to show that there is mas­sive oppo­si­tion to any new nuclear
> weapons. Block the Builders are call­ing a mass block­ade of AWE Alder­mas­ton
> on 11 Decem­ber. Peo­ple from as far away as York­shire and Mersey­side are
> already indi­cat­ing their inten­tion to come to the Berk­shire bomb fac­to­ry.
>
> While there will be a three month peri­od for “debate” after the
> pub­li­ca­tion of the White Paper, Tony Blair has also made it clear that, in
> the end, MPs will only get to vote on the gov­ern­men­t’s pre­ferred option.
> Mean­while build­ing work at Alder­mas­ton con­tin­ues apace, mak­ing a mock­ery
> of the sup­posed “debate” as mil­lions are being invest­ed in new facil­i­ties.
> Right now, work on the Ori­on laser site — a key facil­i­ty for the future of
> Britain’s WMD project — is well under­way.
>
> On Mon­day 27 Novem­ber 400 peo­ple descend­ed on AWE Alder­mas­ton to car­ry out
> a cit­i­zen’s weapons inspec­tion organ­ised by Green­peace and Block the
> Builders (see http://moblog.co.uk/blogs.php?show=9068 for pix). Let’s
> build for a mas­sive block­ade on 11 Decem­ber!
>
> If you care about Britain throw­ing bil­lions at its weapons of mass
> destruc­tion while peo­ple die on hos­pi­tal trol­leys, if you care about a
> lack of resources for tack­ling cli­mate change, if you care about the mon­ey
> being spent on keep­ing troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, now is the time to
> get off your bum and come and show your oppo­si­tion to how your mon­ey is
> being spent and Britain’s sta­tus as a WMD pro­lif­er­a­tor.
> What do we want? Geno­ci­dal weapons of mass destruc­tion or real secu­ri­ty?
>
> This may well be an arrestable action, but we also need sup­port­ers.
> If we fail to act now, there will be anoth­er 20+ years of Britain as WMD
> state.
>
> Details of the block­ade can be found at:
> http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk/Blockades.php
> For ongo­ing updates and cam­paign alerts, join the tng list:
> http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/aldermaston_tng
> For reg­u­lar news, see: http://www.aldermaston.net/news
> –
> *****************************************
> BLOCK THE BUILDERS!
> non­vi­o­lent direct action against new nuclear weapons
> *****************************************
> Pledge *your* sup­port at http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk/pledge
> *****************************************
> _______________________________________________
> Btb_organise mail­ing list
> Btb_organise@aldermaston.net
> http://lists.aldermaston.net/mailman/listinfo/btb_organise
>

Nativity donkey arrested at Faslane North Gate

2.12.2006

A small group of pro­test­ers at Faslane Naval base were arrest­ed at around 18:30 for hold­ing a nativ­i­ty-themed block­ade at the North Gate to the base. The group of rad­i­cal Chris­tians are cur­rent­ly being tak­en to Clyde­bank Police Office to be held, pre­sum­ably until Sun­day after­noon or Mon­day morn­ing.

Faslane 365 Nativity scene (donkey, mary & joseph)2.12.2006

A small group of pro­test­ers at Faslane Naval base were arrest­ed at around 18:30 for hold­ing a nativ­i­ty-themed block­ade at the North Gate to the base. The group of rad­i­cal Chris­tians are cur­rent­ly being tak­en to Clyde­bank Police Office to be held, pre­sum­ably until Sun­day after­noon or Mon­day morn­ing.

Yet anoth­er day of the Faslane 365 block­ade end­ed as the police broke anoth­er weird and won­der­ful lock-on device. And tomor­row being advent Sun­day, and thus, the begin­ning of advent, it seemed only appro­pri­ate that Mary, Joseph and the (lock-on-device-aka-) Don­key should arrive at the gate, only to be sent away again. Bet­ter put, it would be appro­pri­ate if you’re part of Prayer-i58, the rad­i­cal Chris­t­ian-based anti-author­i­tar­i­an net­work.

Not get­ting what they want­ed, they sat down and police moved in to arrest them, dis­cov­er­ing over £50 worth of locks and chains hold­ing the pair in place. After some time spent cut­ting them out, the police took them to the hold­ing area just beyond the base, before begin­ning their jour­ney to cells for the night.

Hav­ing phoned around, legal sup­port can con­firm that the pair are en route to Clyde­bank Police Office, where many oth­er 365’ers have been held over the recent weeks. The total arrests num­ber cur­rent­ly stands at 327 arrests (as shown on the F365 web­site). As today is a Sat­ur­day, it is pos­si­ble those arrest­ed might be inside until as late as Mon­day after­noon.

EF! gathering advance notice: date & contact to get involved

The Earth First Gath­er­ing 2007 is well into the plan­ning stage.

Make space in your diary now: 18th — 22nd July 2007, some­where in Nor­folk. Please cir­cu­late this infor­ma­tion wide­ly.

If you want to get involved con­tact nexter@riseup.net.

The Earth First Gath­er­ing 2007 is well into the plan­ning stage.

Make space in your diary now: 18th — 22nd July 2007, some­where in Nor­folk. Please cir­cu­late this infor­ma­tion wide­ly.

If you want to get involved con­tact nexter@riseup.net.

Thanx
The Col­lec­tive.

State Scum Protect Hunt Scum (again) in SW

1.12.2006

Yes­ter­day four hunt sabo­teurs were arrest­ed under sec­tion 5 of the Pub­lic Order Act, as they fol­lowed a bea­gle pack near Chip­ping Sod­bury, just out­side Bris­tol.

Yes­ter­day Bris­tol and Bath hunt sabs paid a vis­it to a bea­gle pack just out­side Chip­ping Sod­bury. The groups fol­lowed a tip-off from a League Against Cru­el Sports hunt mon­i­tor that the hunt were still ille­gal­ly hunt­ing hares.

1.12.2006

Yes­ter­day four hunt sabo­teurs were arrest­ed under sec­tion 5 of the Pub­lic Order Act, as they fol­lowed a bea­gle pack near Chip­ping Sod­bury, just out­side Bris­tol.

Yes­ter­day Bris­tol and Bath hunt sabs paid a vis­it to a bea­gle pack just out­side Chip­ping Sod­bury. The groups fol­lowed a tip-off from a League Against Cru­el Sports hunt mon­i­tor that the hunt were still ille­gal­ly hunt­ing hares.

The sabs arrived at the meet­ing point at 1pm and fol­lowed the hunt as they walked their hounds along the road. The hunt claimed that they were fol­low­ing a trail, explain­ing that as the law changed, they changed (ha!). The sabo­teurs explained that they had no prob­lem with trail hunt­ing and would not dis­rupt the hunt unless they start­ed to hunt hares, as they remind­ed them, ille­gal hunt­ing.

After fol­low­ing the hunt for a good half-hour, pre­vent­ing them from hunt­ing near­by fields, four police offi­cers turned up, threat­en­ing to arrest the sabo­teurs if they did­n’t take their masks off. The police did not give the sabs a chance to how­ev­er and arrest­ed one sab before he had the chance to reach for his mask. The rest of the sabs com­plied with the order and removed their masks, con­tin­u­ing to fol­low the hunt. How­ev­er police back­up arrived and prompt­ly arrest­ed three oth­er sabs, who resist­ed, believ­ing that they had been unfair­ly arrest­ed.

The sabs were offered a fixed penal­ty notice with a fine of £80 which they may con­test at a lat­er date. Two sabs decid­ed that this option was pre­ferrable to spend­ing the rest of the day in the cus­tody of the state. This allowed one sab the oppor­tu­ni­ty to return and con­tin­ue to fol­low the hunt. The oth­er two sabs refused to accept the fixed penal­ty, after all, the pigs seemed so keen to get them to accept, that was enough to make them sus­pi­cious! They were held in South­mead Police Sta­tion, in cus­tody for a total of 9 hours, and released unfor­tu­nate­ly just after pub clos­ing time.

The ban has had NO effect on hunt­ing, if any­thing it has helped them because peo­ple don’t think it’s nec­es­sary to sab any more. The police announced as the Hunt­ing Act was passed that they don’t have the resources to enforce it. The police con­tin­ue to not only turn a blind eye to the hunts con­tin­u­ing to kill hares and fox­es, they active­ly facil­i­tate this. Since the ban came into “effectâ€? Bris­tol and Bath sabs have seen the police:

block the road to pre­vent sabs fol­low­ing hunts repeat­ed­ly and SLOWLY search­ing sab vehi­cles to pre­vent sabs from fol­low­ing the hunt “loseâ€? footage of the hunt attack­ing sabs fail to pros­e­cute hunts­men despite clear video footage being pre­sent­ed show­ing the sabs being assault­ed fail to respond to emer­gency calls when sabs were being attacked by the hunt repeat­ed­ly threat­en sabs with arrest and con­tin­ue to arrest sabs.

This is clear exam­ple the police force act­ing to pro­tect the rul­ing class­es, those with the mon­ey and pow­er to secure vir­tu­al police immu­ni­ty.

Sab­bing is now as impor­tant as it ever was.

Hunt sab­o­tage is a non-vio­lent form of action (at least on the part of the sabs). Our tac­tics focus entire­ly on divert­ing the houds from the scent of their quar­ry (the ani­mal they’re trained to kill). We do this by:
using hunt horns to attract the atten­tion of the hounds
mask­ing the scent of the quar­ry with cit­ronel­la spray
using the sound of a crack­ing whip to “rateâ€? the hounds, ie stop them from fol­low­ing the quar­ry

to get involved with sab­bing con­tact your local group:
http://bbhuntsabs.rbgi.net
www.league.org.uk

Con­tact the Bath group:
bathsabs@fsmail.net
Tel: 07900181683
BATH HUNT SABS
P.O. BOX 426
BATH BA1 2ZD

Con­tact the Bris­tol group:
bristolhuntsabs@linuxmail.org
Tel: 07724077505
BRISTOL HUNT SABS
C/O KEBELE
14 ROBERTSON ROAD
EASTON
BRISTOL BS5 6JY

The Camp for Climate Action was just the beginning! — next meeting January 13/14th, Leeds

Come and take the next steps for­ward and be part of a new­ly ener­gised move­ment in the fight to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.

Drax at sunsetCome and take the next steps for­ward and be part of a new­ly ener­gised move­ment in the fight to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.

In August of this year hun­dreds gath­ered near Sel­by to con­front the UK’s biggest CO2 emit­ter: Drax Coal Pow­er Sta­tion. The Camp for Cli­mate Action was an inspir­ing 10 days of learn­ing, sus­tain­able liv­ing and direct action to chal­lenge the caus­es of cli­mate chaos.

There is already much enthu­si­asm for organ­is­ing anoth­er Camp, come and get involved on 13th/14th Jan­u­ary at ‘The Com­mon Place’ in Leeds (see www.thecommonplace.org.uk for direc­tions). Meet­ings will run Sat­ur­day 11am-5pm and Sun­day 10am-6pm.

This project is still at its ear­ly stages and details such as when, where and how to organ­ise the next Camp are to be decid­ed at this meet­ing. Food and crash pad accom­mo­da­tion will be pro­vid­ed. Every­one will be asked for a dona­tion of around £10 to cov­er costs. If you have par­tic­u­lar access or child­care needs, or if would like more infor­ma­tion con­tact leeds@climatecamp.org.uk.

Please spread the news far and wide. You can down­load a rather nice poster here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/resources.htm

Some of the neigh­bour­hoods from last year’s camp are meet­ing in the mean­time to gen­er­ate ideas for the next camp and organ­ise local­ly.

Lon­don Neigh­bour­hood Meet­ing
Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre
Dec 2nd 1.00pm

York­shire Neigh­bour­hood Meet­ing
The Com­mon Place
Dec 6th 7.00–9.00pm

Man­ches­ter Neigh­bour­hood Meeting/Social
The Base­ment 24 Lever St, Man­ches­ter
4th Decem­ber 7:30 ( http://thebasement.clearerchannel.org/ for
direc­tions). Please email: mcragainstclimatechange@lists.riseup.net to con­firm

Local groups

Some of these are specif­i­cal­ly Cli­mate Camp, Ris­ing Tide or Plane Stu­pid groups, some are local groups involved in tak­ing direct action against cli­mate change that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly see them­selves as belong­ing to a nation­al group.

Not­ting­ham: nottingham[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Oxford: oxford[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Man­ches­ter: manchester[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Lon­don Ris­ing Tide: london[at]risingtide.org.uk
South Penines: potzo8[at] yahoo.com
South West: caromac20032000[at]yahoo.com
Leeds/Bradford: katieplum75[at]yahoo.co.uk
Scot­land and Ire­land: scotland[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Cam­bridge Action Net­work: cambridge[at]lists.riseup.net
Birm­ing­ham: flatline[at]aktivix.org
Read­ing: climatejustice[at]postmaster.co.uk
York Ris­ing Tide: yorks[at]risingtide.org.uk
Scot­land Ris­ing Tide: scotland[at]risingtide.org.uk
Lon­don Plane Stu­pid: london[at]planestupid.com
Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid: manchester[at]planestupid.com
Cam­bridge Plane Stu­pid: cambridge[at]planestupid.com
Oxford Plane Stu­pid: oxford[at]planestupid.com
Sheffield Plane Stu­pid: sheffield[at]planestupid.com
Sus­sex Plane Stu­pid: sussex[at]planestupid.com
Read­ing Plane Stu­pid: reading[at]planestupid.com

leeds@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

York Critical Mass — Short report and Images

1 Dec 2006

York Critical Mass December 1
York Critical Mass December 21 Dec 2006

York saw the suc­cess­ful restart to Crit­i­cal Mass­es con­tin­ue for anoth­er First Fri­day of the Month ride. The Decem­ber turn out had plen­ty of tin­sel and ‘Father Christ­mas’ hats around. In amongst over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port­ive motorists — often at first bemused, but then with smiles — the mass made a safe space to ride round York, tak­ing the roads for non-pol­lut­ing traf­fic.

Through the cen­tre of town the motor traf­fic was crawl­ing as slow­ly as ever, hold­ing the mass up. On the way out up Lee­man Road, a dis­tinct­ly cyclist unfriend­ly road, with lots of cen­tral islands and a bit of a motorists speed run, the mass made a com­fort­able pace. Two motorists did their bit to try and pass, one fail­ing ter­ri­bly and sad­ly the dri­ver held up a bus for a minute.

Near the end of the ride it was nice to see Fos­s­gate again tak­en over for non-motor traf­fic.

Critical Mass Bike Ride this Friday 1st December

Birm­ing­ham’s Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride meets this Fri­day 1st Decem­ber at 6.00pm out­side St. Phil’s Cathe­dral.

Critical Mass logo 11 (negative 9)Birm­ing­ham’s Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride meets this Fri­day 1st Decem­ber at 6.00pm out­side St. Phil’s Cathe­dral.

Last mon­th’s ride had a great turn out and saw rid­ers sport­ing all man­ner of flash­ing fairy and xmas tree lights for the themed ‘well lit’ ride, this looks set to become stan­dard appar­el for night time Crit­i­cal Mass­es! There are also plans for a sound sys­tem although on a slight­ly larg­er scale to last mon­th’s…

Trees Felled on Middle Meadow Walk, Edinburgh

28 Nov 2006 Ful­ly grown trees are being felled on Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk right now for Quar­ter Mile devel­op­ments — urgent action need­ed As if the injus­tice in clos­ing down a city-cen­tre hos­pi­tal to rede­vel­op into offices, shops and lux­u­ry flats was­n’t bad enough, now trees are being felled in the name of pri­vate pros­per­i­ty. … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Trees Felled on Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk, Edin­burgh”

Edinburgh tree protest 1
Edinburgh tree protest 2
28 Nov 2006

Ful­ly grown trees are being felled on Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk right now for Quar­ter Mile devel­op­ments — urgent action need­ed

As if the injus­tice in clos­ing down a city-cen­tre hos­pi­tal to rede­vel­op into offices, shops and lux­u­ry flats was­n’t bad enough, now trees are being felled in the name of pri­vate pros­per­i­ty. Edin­burgh City Coun­cil have giv­en per­mis­sion for the Quar­ter Mile devel­op­ers to fell 10 trees (7 ful­ly mature — one lime, and the rest Scotch Elm & Sycamore and 3 sap­plings which will be replant­ed) along the Quar­ter Mile side of North Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk. The felled trees, 6 so far and count­ing, will make way for pipelines to the devel­op­ment, shop fronts and a plaza.

Alarm bells were raised yes­ter­day when it was noticed that Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk had been closed for tree felling — 4 mature trees were cut down with one stump being at least a metre in diam­e­ter. This morn­ing action was tak­en by a group of around 13 con­cerned res­i­dents who dis­rupt­ed the felling by refus­ing to leave the area and link­ing arms around the trees to be felled. The felling was held up for an hour before the pro­tes­tors were moved on by police. The last-minute nature of the protest and low turn-out meant that firmer action could not be tak­en.

Remov­ing ful­ly mature, healthy trees on pub­lic land to fur­ther cor­po­rate inter­ests is wrong and adds insult to injury regard­ing the Quar­ter Mile dis­grace. It was appar­ent how­ev­er, that nei­ther the tree fellers, build­ing con­trac­tors nor police were hap­py about the trees being felled — but with their jobs and income at stake they felt oblig­ed to con­tin­ue.

It was unclear if all of the remain­ing trees would be felled today — if felling is con­tin­u­ing tomor­row take action, before all of our remain­ing green spaces are replaced by shop fronts and non-aford­able hous­ing.