|
12th August 2013
PEEL SLAUGHTERS SILVER BIRCH TREES AS SALFORD PEOPLE POWER RESISTS
| |
|
12th August 2013
PEEL SLAUGHTERS SILVER BIRCH TREES AS SALFORD PEOPLE POWER RESISTS
`As the trees went down, our den went down and all our childhood memories were gone' Olivia Cummings
Horrified residents launched a spontaneous demo last Friday as Peel Holdings trashed huge silver birch trees on the field behind their homes in Boothstown, with no warning and no health and safety measures in place.
The police were called, and Salford Council hurriedly slapped preservation orders on the trees but by that time most were already felled… "Birchfield was named after these birches and they've just butchered them" says resident Michelle Baglin
|
  
  
click image to enlarge |
|
"It's nothing less than we've come to expect from Peel" Councillor Garrido
"I was wearing my Salford City Reds top and it has Peel on there as a sponsor" recalls Olivia Cummings "I was walking about with my hand over it as much as I could; I was so embarrassed and so ashamed for wearing it…"
Olivier is just one of loads of local young people who have grown up playing around the huge silver birches in the field at the back of houses on Birchfield Drive in Boothstown. For them, both the field and the dens built near the trees are magical places that have spanned generations. Then, last Friday, it all came crashing down as Peel Holdings sensed a quick buck to be made.
"We used to play in the dens behind the trees, and, as the trees went down, our den went down and all our childhood memories were gone" adds Olivier "We can't go in there any more."
Her friend, Oliver Ward, also witnessed Peel Holdings' eco policies at first hand…
"I was stood right in front of it and there were loads of silver birches, some sixty feet high, coming down, I was shocked" he says "Our childhood just crashed. They didn't even put fences up, only when they knew we were going to tell. They lied to the police as well – it's disgusting. I video-d it on my brother's phone."
Peel Holdings might have got away with it completely, but for the pesky kids and residents who organised a spontaneous protest on the field, complete with banners.
"There was tree felling with no notification to residents or notices on the entrances to protect children, so we all headed on to the field and asked them to stop but they refused point blank" says resident Angela Hilton "We started trying to block them, the police were called and then they did stop and promised not to fell any more trees. But ten minutes later, after the police had gone, they carried on. We filmed about half a dozen trees being felled and we went out again, then more police came…"
During the events, local councillor, Robin Garrido, was trying to get an emergency tree preservation order from Salford Council but by the time it arrived, most of the damage had been done. Councillor Garrido says he was `appalled'…
"On Friday I got a phone call from one of the residents saying they were up in arms that Peel Holdings had got contractors felling trees on the site" he says "I got in touch with the Council which checked out the situation and advised that there were no preservation orders on the trees and that, because the site wasn't in a conservation area, there was nothing they could do, which was quite right.
"I came down to the site, saw what was happening, spoke to the Council again and they agreed that we could get an emergency tree preservation order" he adds "That was at 4:45pm,and at about 5:45pm an officer of the Council came down to the site with the preservation orders, which means that they can't remove any more trees without planning permission.
"We're a bit concerned because we did agree with the contractors and Peel prior to that being served that no further trees would be felled that day" he explains "Immediately after I left and the residents went back to their houses they felled a further six trees which is absolutely disgusting. I think it's appalling that a company should behave in that sort of way but to be honest it's nothing less than we've come to expect from Peel."
Residents believe that the motive for the tree slaughter is the preparation of the green site for building houses. In 2004 there was a planning application submitted for housing which was rejected on the grounds of wildlife habitat destruction amongst other things. Now the wildlife is being driven out.
Residents told the Salford Star that, in 2004, Peel Holdings owned half the field, while Salford Council owned the other half – yet when the Council was checking into the tree preservation order last week, apparently the site is wholly owned now by Peel.
"We want to know when the Council sold it" says Angela "If they sold it after 2004 when they knew Peel wanted to build on it then, obviously, that's naughty. There are a lot of houses around here and the only places children can go to play is either over the East Lancs Road, which is a hazard, or the main road which is a danger. There's always kids on here. This is the only green space they have."
Last night, around forty local residents attended a meeting at Boothstown Library and vowed to carry on the fight against Peel.
"We don't trust Peel Holdings, and we've got someone on lookout so they don't cut any more trees down when they're `tidying up'" says resident Michelle Baglin "We're all working class on here, and we look forward to taking the kids on the field. They do have a good life but Peel don't care. If we came down to their houses and ripped the trees out of their gardens I'm sure they would be kicking off like we are.
"Birchfield was named after these birches and they've just butchered them" she adds "Well, the public is not going to stay quiet any longer. The mums are going to speak up and carry on fighting for our children."
|
14th August 2013: The Bureau of Land Management wants to close to the public more than 2,000 acres of forestland east of Myrtle Creek to keep out environmental activists trying to stop logging.
Cascadia Forest Defenders tree-sitters have perched themselves to block the White Castle timber sale, one of three pilot projects planned by the BLM to log and simultaneously create wildlife habitat.
The group’s spokesman, Jason Gonzales, said anywhere from five to 30 protesters at any one time are occupying what the group calls a “tree village.”
“There is nowhere they could log right now. There are tree-sits covering an entire section to be logged,” he said.
To prevent protesters from interfering with loggers or from being harmed by falling trees, the BLM has indicated it intends to block off 2,167 acres, including 15 miles of road, for up to two years while the trees are cut. The agency will take public comments until Aug. 30.
The move would prevent people who recreate in the Myrtle Creek watershed from entering the area.
A Roseburg BLM field manager, Steven Lydick, said the BLM’s biggest concern is safety.
“We would be working with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office to remove people from the area,” Lydick said. “But it is our hope they would leave voluntarily.”
The tree-sitters took up their positions more than a month ago. So far, there have been no arrests or forcible removals, although Cascadia Forest Defenders states protesters have been visited by law enforcement.
The Scott Timber Co., a subsidiary of Roseburg Forest Products, already has the contract to log 6.4 million board feet, but has put the harvest on hold.
“We are unable to operate on it because of the tree-sitters and serious fire risks,” said Scott Folk, the vice president of resources with Roseburg Forest Products. “We would be logging right now, assuming conditions were better.”
The agency is using the 187-acre harvest to test principles developed by forestry professors Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington and Norm Johnson of Oregon State University. The Obama administration has backed the experiment as a way to increase timber harvests while heeding conservation values.
Proponents of the experimental timber harvests say they will mimic natural forest fires and create clearings for flowers and shrubs to grow unshaded by trees. Native plants thriving in the sunlight will feed butterflies, birds and small mammals.
Conservation groups, however, have criticized the sales as a ruse to clear-cut forests and have filed administrative challenges.
“People are concerned the trees in the White Castle timber sale will start to fall,” said Francis Eatherington, conservation director for Cascadia Wildlands, a different group than the one occupying trees.
“These are young people putting their lives in danger to save these forests. They are very brave,” she said.
Gonzales accused the BLM of obscuring plans to clear-cut with the term “regeneration harvest.”
“We think it’s very sneaky of (BLM) to use the term ‘regeneration harvest’ without people knowing what it is,” he said.
Lydick said it’s wrong to equate the harvests with clear-cutting.
“The pilot project is really intended to make a habitat mosaic. Some areas will be cut and others will remain completely intact,” he said.
The Umpqua Lands Trail Riders Association has proposed an off-road vehicle trail through the area. The association’s trail manager, Wayne Brady, said he would not be particularly concerned if the closure were only temporary.
He noted that his group and conservation groups have not been allies. “They were dead-set against our proposal too,” he said.
“If they are out there interfering, then the closure is not too long,” Brady said. “If the closure becomes permanent, then that’s a slap in our face.”
A two-year closure would eventually affect hunting in the area, said Cindy Rooney, president of the Oregon Hunters Association’s Umpqua Valley Chapter.
“It’s my personal feeling that people should have access to public lands,” she said.
11th August 2013
The Earth First! Summer Gathering has just finished. This year in solidarity with the Coombe Haven Defenders, it was in a beautiful spot close by to the Hastings-Bexhill Link Road, the scene of big protests and camps to try to stop the road earlier in the year.
Each day there were Coombe Haven Defenders talks and walks, mostly inspiring 'accidental' invasions of the road work site, engaging in a bit of digger-diving or 'footpath enforcement', in other words stopping construction vehicles.
The road is of 'low value' even by the government's standards, campaigners worked out a week ago. There was a Campaign for Better Transport workshop about the Roads to Nowhere national road proposals (full map and more).
Day 18
Day 18 (Sun 11th) Of Community Fracking Blockade In Balcombe Sussex
See The Great Gas Gala Website for upcoming events and how to get involved.
Day 18
Day 18 (Sun 11th) Of Community Fracking Blockade In Balcombe Sussex
See The Great Gas Gala Website for upcoming events and how to get involved.
Update (2pm): Day 18 of the community fracking blockade in Balcombe. Huge numbers of people coming down to the site to support the blockade and sing together.
Day 19
Update (4pm): 2 arrests today. Highlight of day was homemade pizza brought down to feed people at lunch time!
Update (11am): 2nd truck of day took 40mins to get onto site. Come down and help protect Sussex.
Update (9:10am): One woman arrested while protecting Sussex from fracking.
Update (9am): Day 19 of the community fracking blockade in Balcombe. Renewed efforts by Cuadrilla to force fracking trucks through the blockade. Come lend your support!
Day 20
Update (11am): Police have forced 3 fracking trucks through the blockade today
Update (10am): Today the blockade in Balcombe goes Dutch. A contingent of people from the Netherlands is on their way to support the fight against fracking. They are expected to arrive around 3pm. Arch-frackers, Cuadrilla Resources, are also active in the Netherlands.
Update (9am): Day 20 of the community fracking blockade in Balcombe. Renewed efforts by Cuadrilla to force fracking trucks through the blockade. Come lend your support!
Since the first of Juli we (an action group from the Dutch Earth First!) have occupied a forest in Wilrijk, s
Since the first of Juli we (an action group from the Dutch Earth First!) have occupied a forest in Wilrijk, south of Antwerp in Belgium. So far there’s been no talk about eviction but this is about to change. The legal procedures keeping the owner from being allowed to cut are almost finished.
September 15th till Ocotber 15th are the only weeks they are allowed to cut the forest (this is to ‘protect’ the bats and birds in the forest), so we really need people to come and help us prepare for eviction! Lots of work to be done, both on the ground and in the trees.
We expect the chance of eviction will be the greatest from September 12th till September 20th. So the more people in the forest the better!
adress: fotografielaan 7, wilrijk
train to antwerp central
from rooseveltplaats bus 500 to boom
get off close to the pizzahut (ask busdriver)
walk to the pizzahut, go right, at the end of the road (cows) go right, first left, you’ll see the banners
you can contact us at: steungroep.groenoord@gmail.com
for more info: www.groenoord.be / www.facebook.com/steungroep.groenoord
0032485507274
The area has been mapped as a forest since 1771 and is an ecologically very valuable oak forest which is a habitat for lots of birds and endangered bat species. The forest is a so called wrongly zoned forest, it’s been zoned as an industrial area since 2005. Flanders (the dutch speaking part of Belgium) is the second poorest region in Europe when it comes to forests, only 8 % of the land if forest. About a third of those forests are wrongly zoned which means they are often threatened. Most of these forests are cut without anyone ever knowing. So we are not just fighting for this specific forest, we are fighting for a more just forest policy in Flanders.
The owner wants to cut the forest to build an office and storage space, but it is not clear if they have someone to rent it yet. Their old partner ended the contract because the plans were delayed.
There’s heaps of empty office buildings in Flanders. Within a minute’s walk from the forest there’s 4 empty buildings that could be renovated or broken down to make space for a new building. Yet they still want to cut the forest.
Because they have never done proper geological studies there’s big problems with the water in the area. The water can’t go anywhere so part of the forest is often under water, which has killed a lot of the trees. Measures need to be taken to ensure the survival of the forest.
Whenever cutting forests in Flanders, they talk about compensation. Which is bullshit. You can’t just cut a forest here and plant a new one somewhere else.
NO COMPROMISE IN DEFENSE OF MOTHER EARTH
Help us defend the trees!
11.8.13 – Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) offers its humble gratitude for all of the courageous Nez Perce tribal members and regional supporters who so successfully blockaded and scuttled the Omega Morgan plan to move a 644,000-pound evaporator to Alberta tar sands operations through the wild rivers, forests, and canyons of the Nez Perce homeland. After crossing Idaho over four nights and meeting the most passionate resistance ever witnessed by such an industrial convoy, the megaload reached Highway 12 milepost 4, just over Lolo Pass in Montana, at 5:30 am on Friday morning, August 8. Ideally, the Idaho Rivers United/Nez Perce injunction requested on Thursday may take effect this week for the Lochsa-Clearwater wild and scenic river corridor in Idaho. We have heard that another eight loads are now headed down the Washington coast toward the Port of Wilma, so we are calling on all West Coast/Columbia River activists to report their observations of these shipments.
According to the Montana Department of Transportation and its issued megaload permit, the module cannot travel in the state on Fridays or Saturdays and will move from its current location to the Bonner truck stop on Monday night, August 12. Northern Rockies Rising Tide (NRRT), No Shipments Network, All Against the Haul, and other anti-megaload activists sent an alert and are organizing a Monday night solidarity protest. They coordinated an action planning meeting on Saturday afternoon and are asking that, if you can help with organizing or participating in the Monday action, please contact NRRT as soon as possible by email at northernrockiesrisingtide@gmail.com or through the phone number posted in the contact section of the NRRT website.
Thanks to everyone in Idaho and Montana for your ongoing climate, tar sands, and indigenous rights activism. We urge brave, fellow activists in Montana to rise up against this escalating Big Oil invasion. WIRT will send you megaload issue updates as timely as possible from the road.
Wild Idaho Rising Tide
P.O. Box 9817, Moscow, Idaho 83843
WildIdahoRisingTide.org & on facebook and Twitter
208-301-8039
August 10, 2013 – Russia
anonymous report, from From Russia With Love:
August 10, 2013 – Russia
anonymous report, from From Russia With Love:
"At the end of july 2013 near Maikop (resp. Adygeya) we carried out an ecotage action at the highway construction site. We chose a moonless night to reach the site of this horrendous rape of nature and chose our targets: personal belongings of slave-workers as well as corporate property. Having picked up a stone in the ditch nearby, we cracked open a window and poured some gasoline inside the mobile housing unit (we made sure no workers were inside before the attack). The rest of gasoline was poured on the wheels. In the next moment a flash of match send this shit to hell where it properly belongs. We wish the construction company to follow the vehicle there. Our withdrawal was lighted with flames (as usual). No guard turned up to stop us (as usual).
Do not wait for the optimal moment to present itself before you go on offensive. Only the state of permanent conflict will make your personality strong. If you follow the track of biding your time, hoarding money, buying some sophisticated stuff for the action – you’re subconsciously withdrawing from the struggle. No camouflage or fancy boots will carry out the action for you (though they do help). All things are mere tools. Go outside and fight now! Do not listen to those who murmur: 'now is not the time'! To hell with famous ideologists! To hell with 'inappropriate anarchy'! Anarchy is here and now! To hell with union struggle! Working class is dead just like the present day society. It’s rotten. It’s in decay. Yet we are supposed to communicate with it just like Russians are supposed to communicate with Lenin. Do what you want the way you want it to be done. Fight for your own freedom. Fight for yourselves. Fight for your brothers and sisters. Fight for the future of your children. Nobody will grant you freedom unless you take it by force for yourselves. If now is not the time for you to step over 'the law', to look beyond the templates of accepted 'resistance', then we bet you won’t find any courage inside when the civil war starts. We wish you luck.
CCF-Russia, 2013"
10th August 2013
10th August 2013
A group of activist farmers in the Philippines stormed a government research facility and destroyed an area of genetically modified rice crops the size of 10 football fields. According to New Scientist, the farmers say that genetically modified organism (GMO) foods have not been established to be safe for consumption and that the real solution to world hunger isn’t biologically engineered plants, but a reduction in worldwide rates of poverty.
“The Golden Rice is a poison,” said Willy Marbella to New Scientist. Marbella is a farmer and deputy secretary general of a group of activists known as KMP — Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas or Peasant Movement of the Philippines.
The farmers attacked the fields at the research facility in Pili, Camarines Sur out of concern that their own crops could be pollinated and thereby contaminated by the GMO plants, possibly resulting in a boycott of their products like U.S. farmers of soft white wheat saw when a strain of Monsanto herbicide-resistant wheat abruptly appeared in an Oregon field. South Korea and Japan both halted imports of U.S. wheat in the wake of the discovery.
Golden Rice is a strain of rice that has been modified by scientists to contain beta carotene, a source of vitamin A. An estimated 2 million people die from vitamin A deficiency worldwide every year. Annually, about 500,000 children — mainly in the developing world — go blind from lack of the nutrient.
Golden Rice advocates claim that replacing half of a child’s rice intake with Golden Rice provides them with 60 percent of their daily requirement of vitamin A.
Representatives of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), a fervently pro-Golden Rice organization, say that even though the GMO has yet to be approved for human consumption, research trials suggest that it’s safe, and that scientists can’t find out anything more if people destroy the test plants.
Framing attacks on GMO crops as attacks on the effort to end world hunger, the IRRI issued a series of press releases since the action at Pili on Thursday decrying the farmers as ill-informed “vandals.”
Anti-GMO activists say that too many studies on the effects of GMOs are being undertaken by organizations that have a stake in their success. They also say that Golden Rice is being used as a seeming innocuous “poster boy” crop to sell GMOs to an overly credulous public.
Beau Baconguis of Greenpeace Southeast Asia told New Scientist, “There is not enough safety testing done on any GM crops.”
“I think that the farmers know what they want,” she said. “What they want is a safe environment that they can grow their crops in” without fear of contamination and a subsequent boycott…This is playing with the lives of people when you are using Golden Rice to promote more GMOs in our food.”
Watch a video statement about the incident from the International Rice Research Institute, www.youtube.com/embed/uxa76CHDH5Y
8.8.13
Protestors with the Nez Perce as well as Wild Idaho Rising Tide and Idle No More turned out for a third night of demonstrations against the illegal megaload’s passage through Nez Perce country.
8.8.13
Protestors with the Nez Perce as well as Wild Idaho Rising Tide and Idle No More turned out for a third night of demonstrations against the illegal megaload’s passage through Nez Perce country.
Yesterday’s police was the largest yet, taking the side of Omega Morgan rather than the law. According to Wild Idaho Rising Tide, the police were “more forceful this time. Using their cars and phalanx tactics they forced a way through the crowd and broke the blockade faster than on other nights. The megaload took off and fled, tail between its legs, and proceeded to break laws (AIDED by the cops!) and endanger people all the way to get itself off the Res. before stopping for the night, terrified of facing the Nimipu on yet another night.”
WIRT is calling on the US Forest Service to “step up to the plate with fed marshals, arrest the driver, and impound the rig,” which is traveling without a permit.
Other native activists have sent messages of solidarity to the Nez Perce, including members of the Tohono O’odham, Dine, and Mohawk. There is another blockade planned for this evening.
Video – www.youtube.com/embed/dx-1olN5O6I
WHAT IS THE M.A.T.?
The very high tension power line (M.A.T.) is an electric motorway which transports at least 400,000 volts. It is being constructed in order to connect European States to each other and also Europe with Africa. It is necessary in order to sell and distribute excess energy produced by nuclear power plants and the so-called alternative sources of energy. At the same time, it is the network which capitalism needs in order to supply the electricity necessary for other projects and infrastructures of death and destruction, such as high-speed railway lines. Those responsible for all this are always the same ones and the construction companies in question are directly involved in other projects which are destroying lands around the world; companies like Vinci standing out in Europe and Endesa in South America.
WHY THIS CAMP?
So that the last decisive section for the connection between France and Catalonia can not be constructed. So that the energy coming from 6 French nuclear power plants does not cross this land or any other. So as to treat the struggle against the M.A.T. as a starting point for questioning our way of living, which is mainly imposed by the domination of Progress. So as to create on the affected land a space for meeting, information, agitation and action.
WHY HERE AND WHY NOW?
After more than 10 years of struggle, we are at a decisive moment. In September expropriations are expected to begin, directed against owners who have refused to sign the sale of land needed for the construction of the M.A.T.’s last pylons in Girona.
It is because of all of this that we are inviting you to participate actively in the camp, in order to share, struggle and resist in a self-run space, without leaders and representatives. We want to create moments of exchange and connection between various struggles, because the M.A.T. affects us all and is not an isolated struggle.
AGAINST PROGRESS, ITS INFRASTRUCTURES AND ITS DEFENDERS:
LET’S TAKE OUR LIVES BACK!
SEE YOU ON THE 23rd OF AUGUST, 2013 ON THE LANDS AROUND GIRONA
Bring everything that you need for camping.
More information and updates: Torres más altas han caído
http://torresmasaltashancaido.espivblogs.net/
Multi-lingual printable fliers on 325 http://325.nostate.net/?p=8417
english flier http://torresmasaltashancaido.espivblogs.net/files/2013/08/mat-ing-imp.pdf
more: eco-/struggle here
http://325.nostate.net/?cat=7
http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net
|
