Category: Action Reports

Combe Haven Week 1: Summary, reports and pictures December 22, 2012

Clear­ly try­ing to get the jump on the Link Road’s oppo­nents, con­trac­tors start­ed work on the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) prop­er on Fri­day 14 Decem­ber with a move to cut down the trees near Adam’s farm in Crowhurst (“clear­ance” work like this was not sched­uled to begin until next year). The resis­tance over the next week was some­times sham­bol­ic, always peace­ful, and occa­sion­al­ly hero­ic. Six tree defend­ers were arrest­ed (2 on Sat­ur­day, 4 on Mon­day), and Day 8 closed with activists camp­ing overnight in the trees near Adam’s farm.

Activists are now call­ing on peo­ple to help them hold the site near Adam’s farm.

What fol­lows is a brief sum­ma­ry of the sto­ry so far.

Fri­day 14 Decem­ber 2012

Anti-road pro­tes­tors from Hast­ings, St Leonards and Bex­hill were joined by oth­ers from East­bourne, Brighton and Lon­don at dawn in the Combe Val­ley today to stop attempts to begin tree-felling for the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road. On a day of heavy rain and high winds, around 30 pro­tes­tors suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent­ed any sig­nif­i­cant work tak­ing place despite the pres­ence in the val­ley of over 100 secu­ri­ty guards, chain­saw oper­a­tives and oth­er con­trac­tors.

The cam­paign­ers ini­tial­ly occu­pied trees at Adams Farm and suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the access track for over 2 hours. The main con­trac­tors’ con­voy from Sid­ley arrived en masse at Upper Wilt­ing Farm mid-morn­ing, and they pro­ceed­ed on foot to attempt tree-cut­ting near Lit­tle Bog Wood. Pro­tes­tors prompt­ly moved into the wood­land to min­gle with the work­ers, mak­ing it impos­si­ble for any felling to occur.

The con­trac­tors then relo­cat­ed by vehi­cle to Adams Farm and were again meet by pro­tes­tors, some still occu­py­ing trees and oth­ers on the ground. There were lengthy peri­ods of inac­tiv­i­ty with the work crews and secu­ri­ty seem­ing unclear what tac­tics to adopt. On only a few occa­sions were chain­saws or strim­mers start­ed but pro­tes­tors imme­di­ate­ly placed them­selves in posi­tions to stop them being used. The con­trac­tors and secu­ri­ty guards retreat­ed to their vans for lunch and at around 12.30 made a deci­sion to aban­don work for the day. Pro­tes­tors remained on alert in the val­ley for a fur­ther 2 hours to ensure no fur­ther attempts were made.

Sat­ur­day 15 Decem­ber 2012

Activists were able to stop some of the trees in Bex­hill from being chopped down, though con­trac­tors were able to chain­saw quite a large a num­ber there. There were two arrests – one for “aggra­vat­ed tres­pass” (now charged and released), the sec­ond for not giv­ing their name and address to a police offi­cer (which they have no legal right to demand under most cir­cum­stances).  No trees were felled at Adam’s farm how­ev­er, which was also being defend­ed.

Sun­day 16 Decem­ber

Trees con­tin­ued to be felled in Bex­hill at the back of the Leisure Cen­tre (TN39 4HS), despite attempts to defend the trees. Chain­saws and secu­ri­ty guards moved-in on trees nr Adam’s Farm with climbers, and one per­son locked-on to a con­trac­tors vehi­cle, sig­nif­i­cant­ly imped­ing their activ­i­ties.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mon­day 17 Decem­ber

Tree-felling con­tin­ued in Bex­hill, with four activists occu­py­ing the trees in the morn­ing / after­noon. All four were even­tu­al­ly removed from the trees and arrest­ed. They were all released, the last one at 2am the next day! Fel­low activists were out­side Hast­ings police sta­tion to greet them, and the CHD are now arrang­ing court sup­port for them where appro­pri­ate.

 

 

 

 

 

Tues­day 18 Decem­ber 2012

Tree-defend­ers were in action in Bex­hill again where chain­saw-wield­ing con­trac­tors con­tin­ued to fell trees. They attempt­ed to enter the area but were eject­ed by secu­ri­ty guards. Oth­er sites have been mon­i­tored and do not appear to have been attacked yet.

Wednes­day 19 Decem­ber 2012

Work began in Sid­ley again on Wednes­day (19.12.12) as secu­ri­ty guards and their ubiq­ui­tous Har­ris fenc­ing crept north­wards up the dis­used rail­way, giv­ing the chain­saw crews space to do their dirty work unob­struct­ed by the small num­bers of pro­tes­tors present. One ear­ly bird pro­tes­tor dropped by on the way to work and put anti-road posters up all along the hoard­ings by the A269 bridge.

Tree defend­ers main­tained a pres­ence across the val­ley, mon­i­tor­ing for signs of activ­i­ty in the vicin­i­ty of Upper Wilt­ing Farm, Adams Farm (where a small num­ber of Envi­ron­ment Agency peo­ple were again at work on what’s believed to water­course main­te­nance not relat­ed to road build­ing), Acton’s Farm and Glover’s Farm. The val­ley remained just about pass­able on foot, with about 30 cm of stand­ing water along the foot­path in the val­ley bot­tom near Adam’s Farm.

Sad­ly, recon­nais­sance revealed exten­sive tree-felling in the copse between Acton’s Farm and Glover’s Farm at map ref TQ748099, about 100m to the left of the foot­path as you walk towards Acton’s Farm from Sid­ley. This work looked like it was done a few days ear­li­er. The con­trac­tors cut down around 30 larg­er trees with­in the copse but left a screen of sur­round­ing small­er trees to shield their work from view. A few larg­er trees still remained in the copse on the North side.

Thurs­day 20 Decem­ber 2012

Tree defend­ers were out again in Sid­ley on Thurs­day and man­aged to halt the felling of a num­ber of trees along the dis­used rail­way near Glovers bridge. In the ear­ly hours two pro­tes­tors with climb­ing gear scaled 20ft into an over­hang­ing ash tree and hasti­ly erect­ed a tar­pau­lin to pro­vide shel­ter from the rain. Local sup­port­ers were also present on the bridge and even­tu­al­ly man­aged to get choco­lates and hot water to the tree-sit­ters.

The occu­pied tree and a num­ber of oth­ers sur­round­ing it were spared the teeth of the chain­saws, although many sig­nif­i­cant trees fur­ther along the route were felled as the chain­saw gangs and their secu­ri­ty detail moved North into the Combe Haven val­ley. The pro­tes­tors out­last­ed the work crews and even man­aged to rus­tle up a hot meal at lunch – some­thing the secu­ri­ty guard stand­ing on guard near­by for 3 hours in the pour­ing rain could only envy.

Fri­day 21 Decem­ber

The day began with the re-occu­pa­tion of the trees in Sid­ley that were suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ed the pre­vi­ous day. Secu­ri­ty and police then made a major move on the trees near Adam’s farm in Crowhurst, felling some near the barns there, and report­ed­ly pre­vent­ing access along the foot­paths.

How­ev­er, tree defend­ers were still able to occu­py key trees along the line of the old dis­used rail­way cut­ting there, build­ing tree hous­es. Police tell one of those occu­py­ing the trees that they will bring him mince pies if he’s still there in the morn­ing. The day end­ed with secu­ri­ty guards leav­ing, amid rumors that they may have knocked off now until the New Year, and activists camp­ing out overnight in and around the trees.

Resis­tance to the road also made the front pages of the three local papers:

First Nations blockade Alberta tarsands highway near Fort McMurray

Decem­ber 21, 2012. FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — The leader of an abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty near the Alber­ta tarsands says the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is clear­ing the way for devel­op­ment on tra­di­tion­al land.

Chief Alan Adam of the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation says Ottawa’s omnibus bud­get leg­is­la­tion weak­ens envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in Cana­da.

Decem­ber 21, 2012. FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — The leader of an abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty near the Alber­ta tarsands says the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is clear­ing the way for devel­op­ment on tra­di­tion­al land.

Chief Alan Adam of the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation says Ottawa’s omnibus bud­get leg­is­la­tion weak­ens envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in Cana­da.

He says tarsands projects have already sul­lied rivers and lakes in the area and the bud­get bill — quote — “gives the green light to destroy the rest.”

Adam’s com­ments came as he joined a high­way block­ade north of Fort McMur­ray that was part of the abo­rig­i­nal Idle No More move­ment.

Protests and march­es have been held coun­try-wide in recent weeks to demand the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment reverse the leg­is­la­tion that First Nations say will affect treaties and tra­di­tion­al land use.

A nation­al protest is planned for Fri­day.

“The peo­ple are stand­ing up and say­ing enough is enough,” Adam said Thurs­day. “The Harp­er gov­ern­ment is cre­at­ing leg­is­la­tion that aims to weak­en our rights and pave the way for indus­try on our lands.

“As a leader I plan to stand with my peo­ple and reject this bill and any oth­er bill that does not have our con­sent and any such law will not apply on our reserve lands and tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries,” he added.

The Athabas­ca Chipewyan band has been rais­ing con­cerns for years about the impact of the oil­sands on the envi­ron­ment and on the health of peo­ple liv­ing in the area.

“Our Nation has been fight­ing for bet­ter pro­tec­tion of rights and lands right here in Alber­ta for over a decade. Instead of lis­ten­ing to us, they have cre­at­ed laws to try and silence us,” Adam said.

“We will not be silent any longer.”

Band mem­ber Les Car­di­nal said the issue goes beyond abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple.

“This is not just for First Nations peo­ple, Metis peo­ple, indige­nous peo­ple,” he said. “This is all of Cana­da. The gov­ern­ment is lit­er­al­ly sell­ing your democ­ra­cy away to the cor­po­ra­tions.

“And this is only the start. They’re doing what they want to do.”

Bangladesh mine activists dump coal outside GCM meeting in London

21 Decem­ber 2012. Pro­test­er dressed as San­ta Claus deliv­ers sack in row over plans for mine in Phul­bari, Bangladesh

 

21 Decem­ber 2012. Pro­test­er dressed as San­ta Claus deliv­ers sack in row over plans for mine in Phul­bari, Bangladesh

 

Activists dumped coal out­side the annu­al meet­ing of min­ing firm GCM Resources in Lon­don on Thurs­day in protest at the com­pa­ny’s plans for a con­tro­ver­sial mine in Bangladesh.

The meet­ing at the Insti­tute of Direc­tors was brought to an end after a pro­test­er dressed as San­ta Claus deliv­ered a sack of coal to the GCM chair­man, Ger­ard How­ell. Two pro­test­ers were arrest­ed for breach of the peace but released with­out charge.

The firm, list­ed on Lon­don’s junior Aim mar­ket, wants to run an open pit coal mine in the Phul­bari town­ship in the north of the coun­try, despite claims that up to 130,000 peo­ple could be dis­placed and warn­ings by the UN that human rights could be vio­lat­ed.

An offi­cial com­plaint to the Organ­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-oper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment has been made by the World Devel­op­ment Move­ment and the Inter­na­tion­al Account­abil­i­ty Project, say­ing the com­pa­ny would forcibly evict up to 130,000 peo­ple if the project went ahead. The com­plaint men­tions a UN report from ear­li­er this year warn­ing that “access to safe drink­ing water for some 220,000 peo­ple is at stake”.

The com­pa­ny claims the mine will dis­place 40,000 peo­ple but cre­ate 17,000 jobs.

The 1,000ft-deep mine, which could stretch across 14,500 acres has been put on hold since 2006 after local oppo­si­tion.

Accord­ing to doc­u­ments released under the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act, GCM boss­es have approached Britain’s Depart­ment of Trade and Indus­try to soothe rela­tions between the com­pa­ny and the Bangladeshi gov­ern­ment.

In 2006, three peo­ple were killed and 800 injured at the mine dur­ing protests about the pos­si­ble evic­tions. GCM said devel­op­ment of the mine was essen­tial for meet­ing Bangladesh’s ener­gy needs by pro­vid­ing about 114m tonnes of coal for domes­tic con­sump­tion with the remain­ing 458m tonnes sold abroad.

 

Defend the trees at Adams Farm! December 21, 2012

HELP NEEDED NOW TO DEFEND THE TREES! Con­trac­tors, sup­port­ed by secu­ri­ty and police, have start­ed felling trees today at Adams Farm (TN33 9AY). This is one of the last remain­ing areas with sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of large trees on the route of the road.

HELP NEEDED NOW TO DEFEND THE TREES! Con­trac­tors, sup­port­ed by secu­ri­ty and police, have start­ed felling trees today at Adams Farm (TN33 9AY). This is one of the last remain­ing areas with sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of large trees on the route of the road.

Secu­ri­ty and police report­ed at the top of the access track, and the foot­path from Crowhurst play­ing field car park was closed ear­li­er in the morn­ing. Police are in the car park. Oth­er more imag­i­na­tive routes in to Adams Farm exist: cross-coun­try, from the Upper Wilt­ing Farm direc­tion, even across the par­tial­ly flood­ed val­ley from the Bex­hill end.

Note also a sig­nif­i­cant pock­et of trees at risk locat­ed near Decoy Pond, half way between Adams Farm and Upper Wilt­ing Farm. To receive info and action reports through­out the day text 07926 423033.

Stop the tree destruction! December 20, 2012

Update at 10am, Thurs­day 20 Decem­ber: Tree defend­ers are now high in trees just north of Glover’s Farm Bridge TN39 5AJ, in Bex­hill. Secu­ri­ty present. Any sup­port appre­ci­at­ed!

Update at 10am, Thurs­day 20 Decem­ber: Tree defend­ers are now high in trees just north of Glover’s Farm Bridge TN39 5AJ, in Bex­hill. Secu­ri­ty present. Any sup­port appre­ci­at­ed!

Tree-felling is con­tin­u­ing at the Bex­hill end (see report from today below), and pro­tes­tors are encour­aged to gath­er tomor­row, Thurs­day, from 7am in Sid­ley TN40 2LH, near Glover’s Farm, to keep peace­ful­ly resist­ing. How­ev­er tree defend­ers should also be aware of trees at risk near Adam’s Farm and Decoy Pond in Crowhurst, and hence try and keep a watch through­out the val­ley. If you want to receive info and action updates through the day tomor­row (Thurs­day) text us on 07926423033.

Work began in Sid­ley again today, Wednes­day 19th Dec, as secu­ri­ty guards and their ubiq­ui­tous Har­ris fenc­ing crept north­wards up the dis­used rail­way, giv­ing the chain­saw crews space to do their dirty work unob­struct­ed by the small num­bers of pro­tes­tors present.

One ear­ly bird pro­tes­tor dropped by on the way to work and put anti-road posters up all along the hoard­ings by the A269 bridge.

Tree defend­ers main­tained a pres­ence across the val­ley, mon­i­tor­ing for signs of activ­i­ty in the vicin­i­ty of Upper Wilt­ing Farm, Adams Farm (where a small num­ber of Envi­ron­ment Agency peo­ple were again at work on what’s believed to water­course main­te­nance not relat­ed to road build­ing), Acton’s Farm and Glover’s Farm. The val­ley remains just about pass­able on foot, with about 30 cm of stand­ing water along the foot­path in the val­ley bot­tom near Adam’s Farm.

Sad­ly, recon­nais­sance revealed exten­sive tree-felling in the copse between Acton’s Farm and Glover’s Farm at map ref TQ748099, about 100m to the left of the foot­path as you walk towards Acton’s Farm from Sid­ley. This work looks like it was done a few days ago. The con­trac­tors cut down around 30 larg­er trees with­in the copse but left a screen of sur­round­ing small­er trees to shield their work from view. A few larg­er trees still remain in the copse on the North side.

Tar Sands Blockaders still in jail, and on hunger strike

Today hunger strik­ers in Hous­ton hit day 20 with­out food and the three activists who locked down inside the Key­stone XL pipe on Dec 3rd are still in jail, fac­ing exor­bi­tant bail.

While jail is oppres­sive, dehu­man­iz­ing, and bor­ing, your mes­sages of love and sup­port will help lift their spir­its. Please send a let­ter today… And start mak­ing your plans to get out to Texas next month for the TSB Mass Action camp, Jan 3rd – 8th.

For mail to Matt and Glen:

Inmate’s Full Name (1 per let­ter: Matt Almonte, or Glen Collins)
C/O Smith Coun­ty Jail
206 E. Elm
Tyler, Texas 75701

*Note: Let­ters can­not exceed 12” by 15”. Return address with full name is required. Be mind­ful that the author­i­ties will like­ly read your let­ter. Keep it pos­i­tive and avoid inflam­ma­to­ry lan­guage – oth­er­wise it might not be deliv­ered. As a gen­er­al rule: if in doubt, leave it out.

To write Isabel:

Isabel Brooks
PO Box 849
Kauf­man, TX 75142

Chainsaws vs Tree Defenders Day 6 (Wed 19 Dec)

Trees to be felled Wednes­day 19 Decem­ber in Sid­ley, Bex­hill, start­ing ear­ly nr TN40 2DD. Tree defend­ers will be going there and also to the dis­used rail­way cut­ting near Adam’s farm in Crowhurst (see maps below). Info: 07926 423 033. Remem­ber to stay calm and peace­ful.

Up till now far it’s all been urban trees being felled. From now on they’ll be hit­ting the coun­try­side prop­er.

Impor­tant note: If you go to either loca­tion then please down­load and read the bust card here and take it with you, whether or not you antic­i­pate being arrest­ed.

The next two maps are down­load­able from this web-site.

 

Australia: activists scale Yallourn power station Cooling Tower in coal protest

19/12/12

19/12/12

Late last week two intre­pid cli­mate change activists scaled one of the cool­ing tow­ers at Yal­lourn coal fired pow­er sta­tion in Vic­to­ri­a’s La Trobe Val­ley. In the end they spent 30 hours on the cool­ing tow­er, the longest pow­er sta­tion occu­pa­tion of it’s kind in Aus­tralia, final­ly com­ing down vol­un­tar­i­ly to be arrest­ed and charged with var­i­ous offences. The protest high­light­ed the enor­mous mul­ti-mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion being giv­en by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to pow­er oper­a­tors for the impo­si­tion of the car­bon tax. The brown coal fired pow­er sta­tions in Vic­to­ri­a’s La Trobe val­ley are some of the dirt­i­est most car­bon emis­sions pol­lut­ing pow­er sta­tions in Aus­tralia and the world.

Relat­ed: Quit Coal | Latrobe Val­ley Coal pow­er and Cli­mate change | Fur­ther sub­si­dies for Vic­to­ri­an coal by Vic­to­ri­an and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments | Elec­tric­i­ty Demand and Emis­sions Falling in East­ern Aus­tralia | 

Yal­lourn Pow­er Sta­tion and it’s asso­ci­at­ed brown coal mine have also been beset with prob­lems this year with the major flood­ing of the mine which has reduced the oper­a­tional capac­i­ty of the pow­er sta­tion. The pol­lut­ed water from the mine, filled with heavy met­als such as mer­cury, lead, arsenic, and cad­mi­um in sus­pen­sion, is being pumped direct­ly into the Latrobe Riv­er which flows direct­ly into the Gipp­s­land Lakes, an impor­tant wet­lands area. The pol­lu­tion impacts fish­ing, tourism and farm­ing in the region, and the health of peo­ple in the area down­stream of the mine.

“Yal­lourn is a dan­ger­ous rel­ic that con­tin­u­al­ly pos­es a threat to local com­mu­ni­ties and vital ecosys­tems in the region, whilst mak­ing a huge con­tri­bu­tion to dan­ger­ous changes in our cli­mate. All of this has not stopped the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from giv­ing Chi­na Light and Pow­er, the own­er of Yal­lourn, $257 mil­lion in hand­outs this finan­cial year dressed up as “com­pen­sa­tion” for the car­bon tax” said Quit Coal spokesper­son and climber Chloe Alden­hoven accord­ing to Quit Coal

The action is the first major protest to chal­lenge the 2009 amend­ed crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture laws. Accord­ing to Quit Coal, the activists were charged with “tres­pass on crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture, affix­ing objects to crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture and behav­ing in a reck­less man­ner that could shut­down crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture.”

The laws were amend­ed by the Brum­by Labor Gov­ern­ment in an effort to deter protests con­cerned about cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change and gov­ern­ment inac­tion, from under­tak­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and direct action. Penal­ties include fines up to $45,000 plus impris­on­ment.

State Ener­gy and Resources Min­is­ter Michael O’Brien con­demned the pro­tes­tors in a state­ment, say­ing:

“These extrem­ist groups have threat­ened the gen­er­a­tion of elec­tric­i­ty on a 35 degree day, when the demand for ener­gy is typ­i­cal­ly high, and when all Vic­to­ri­ans need a reli­able sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty,” Mr O’Brien said.

“This sad­ly demon­strates the con­tempt that these groups hold for ordi­nary Vic­to­ri­an house­holds, busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ties.

“These protest groups don’t care if house­holds, busi­ness­es, farms, hos­pi­tals, schools, and oth­er essen­tial ser­vices lose their pow­er sup­ply,” Mr O’Brien said.

“This action is also incred­i­bly dan­ger­ous for the pro­tes­tors them­selves, and this event will no doubt divert emer­gency ser­vices from oth­er impor­tant duties.

“These extreme envi­ron­men­tal groups have no respect for main­stream Vic­to­ri­ans and we should not be sur­prised if Vic­to­ri­ans have no respect for the views of these groups in the pub­lic debate on our ener­gy future.”

“These peo­ple are act­ing like dan­ger­ous fools. Their views will be dis­missed accord­ing­ly,” Mr O’Brien said.

But the con­ser­v­a­tive Bail­lieu state Gov­ern­ment has repeat­ed­ly failed the Vic­to­ri­an peo­ple by con­sis­tent­ly act­ing in oppo­si­tion to cli­mate action, sup­port­ing and sub­si­dis­ing the States’s brown coal indus­try, reduc­ing the solar Feed-in tar­iff and sti­fling wind farm devel­op­ment through dra­con­ian plan­ning reg­u­la­tions. Vic­to­ria has been going back­wards on cli­mate and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion since Bail­lieu was elect­ed while many Vic­to­ri­ans want the State Gov­ern­ment to take action on cli­mate change.

The recent­ly released CEDEX report shows that elec­tric­i­ty demand is falling and some of the gen­er­at­ing capac­i­ty of the largest pol­lut­ing coal pow­er sta­tions at Hazel­wood, Yal­lourn and Mor­well can be retired. Much more could be done with a pro-active Gov­ern­ment encour­ag­ing wind farm devel­op­ment and large scalle solar pow­er, as well as a more gen­er­ous solar feed-in tar­iff again.

Sources:

Call Out for Action: Kick Vedanta Out of London! 1pm, 11th Jan 2013

Guardian Front Page August 2012

Guardian Front Page August 2012

From our friends at Foil Vedan­ta.

Declare sol­i­dar­i­ty with grass­roots move­ments fight­ing Vedan­ta in India, Africa and else­where!

Kick Vedan­ta out of Lon­don for it’s cor­po­rate crimes, mur­der and destruc­tion. Noise demon­stra­tion and pick­et at Vedan­ta head­quar­ters, 16 Berke­ley Street.

May­fair, W1J 8DZ . Green Park tube.
1 – 3pm. Fri­day 11th Jan­u­ary.

On Fri­day 11th Janu ary the Supreme Court will final­ly announce its his­tor­i­cal deci­sion on whether to allow the min­ing of the threat­ened Niyam­giri moun­tain in Odisha, India1. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly trib­als and farm­ers from a num­ber of grass­roots organ­i­sa­tions2 will hold a ral­ly of defi­ance in Bhawa­ni­pat­na, nea r the moun­tain. They will call for clo­sure of the sink­ing Lan­ji­garh refin­ery and an absolute ban on the so-far-unsuc­cess­ful attempt to mine baux­ite on their sacred hills3.

On 10th of Jan­u­ary activists in New York will ral­ly out­side the Unit­ed Nations Head­quar­ters point­ing out Vedanta’s clear vio­la­tions of the UN Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples, includ­ing right to par­tic­i­pate in deci­sion mak­ing, right to water and cul­tur­al and reli­gious rights. They will call for the Indi­an Gov­ern­ment to put a final stop to this con­test­ed project, and for the state owned Oris­sa Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion to be pulled out of dodgy deals it has made with Vedan­ta in an attempt to force the mine through the courts on Vedanta’s behalf (see their face­book event).

 Here in Lon­don we will draw atten­tion to Vedanta’s nom­i­nal May­fair head­quar­ters from which they gain a cloak of respectabil­i­ty and easy access to cap­i­tal. We will call for Vedan­ta to be de-list­ed from the Lon­don Stock Exchange and thrown out of its cosy posi­tion in the Lon­don cor­po­rate elite for proven human rights and envi­ron­men­tal abus­es, cor­rup­tion and poor cor­po­rate gov­er­nance4.

Please join us and bring drums, pots and pans and any­thing that makes noise!

Our sol­i­dar­i­ty demo on 6th Dec was cov­ered in all the Indi­an papers and our sol­i­dar­i­ty was felt direct­ly. Let us do it again!

See you there! More infor­ma­tion below.

(1) The Supreme Court is due to make a final deci­sion on the chal­lenge posed to the Envi­ron­ment Ministry’s stop to the Niyam­giri mine on 11th Jan­u­ary. In its Decem­ber 6th hear­ing the Supreme Court con­clud­ed that the case rest­ed on whether the rights of the indige­nous Don­gia Kond’s – who live exclu­sive­ly on that moun­tain – could be con­sid­ered ‘inalien­able or com­pen­sato­ry’. The pre­vi­ous rul­ing by Envi­ron­ment and Forests min­is­ter Jairam Ramesh in August 2010 pre­vent­ed Vedan­ta from min­ing the moun­tain due to vio­la­tions of envi­ron­ment and forestry acts. The chal­lenge to this rul­ing has been mount­ed by the Oris­sa Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, a state owned com­pa­ny with 24% shares in the joint ven­ture to mine Niyam­giri with Vedan­ta, beg­ging ques­tions about why a state com­pa­ny is lob­by­ing so hard for a British min­ing com­pa­ny in whom it has only minor­i­ty shares in this small project (see Niyam­giri: A tem­po­rary reprieve).

On 6th Decem­ber, in antic­i­pa­tion of a final Supreme Court rul­ing, more than 5000 trib­als and farm­ers ral­lied on the Niyam­giri moun­tain and around the Lan­ji­garh refin­ery send­ing a mes­sage that they would not tol­er­ate the mine or the refin­ery. In Lon­don Foil Vedan­ta held a noise demo out­side the Indi­an High Com­mis­sion in which a pile of mud was dumped in the entrance. This news was car­ried all over India by major papers and TV and had a sig­nif­i­cant impact (see Lon­don pro­test­ers join 5000 in India to stop mine).

(2) Niyam­giri Surakhya Sami­ti, Sachetana Nagari­ka Man­cha, Loka San­gram Man­cha, Com­mu­nist Par­ty of India and Sama­jwa­di Jan Parishad will coor­di­nate the ral­ly in Odisha on the 11th Jan.

(3) The Lan­ji­gargh refin­ery was built at the base of Niyam­giri and assessed for envi­ron­men­tal and social impact with­out tak­ing into account the inten­tion to mine the hill above for baux­ite to run the plant. How­ev­er, obtain­ing per­mis­sion to mine the moun­tain has been much more dif­fi­cult than Vedan­ta sup­posed and has left them run­ning Lan­ji­garh at a loss, leav­ing Vedan­ta Alu­mini­um with accu­mu­lat­ed debt of $3.65 bil­lion.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012–11-27…)

(4) Vedan­ta was described in Par­lia­ment by Labour MP Lisa Nandy as ‘one of the com­pa­nies that have been found guilty of gross vio­la­tions of human rights’ . Ms Nandy in her speech quot­ed Richard Lam­bert the for­mer Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the CBI: ‘It nev­er occurred to those of us who helped to launch the FTSE 100 index 27 years ago that one day it would be pro­vid­ing a cloak of respectabil­i­ty and lots of pas­sive investors for com­pa­nies that chal­lenge the canons of cor­po­rate gov­er­nance such as Vedan­ta…’. Sim­i­lar­ly City of Lon­don researchers from ‘Trust­ed Sources’ have not­ed Vedanta’s rea­sons for reg­is­ter­ing in Lon­don:

“A Lon­don list­ing allows access to an enor­mous pool of cap­i­tal. If you are in the FTSE Index, track­er funds have got to own you and oth­ers will fol­low.” Both Vedan­ta Resources and Essar Ener­gy are mem­bers of the FTSE 100. London’s rep­u­ta­tion as a mar­ket with high stan­dards of trans­paren­cy and cor­po­rate gov­er­nance is anoth­er draw for Indi­an com­pa­nies. Both Vedan­ta and Essar have faced crit­i­cism on cor­po­rate gov­er­nance grounds in India, and a for­eign list­ing is seen as one way to sig­nal to investors that the com­pa­ny does main­tain high stan­dards.

We are join­ing the calls of par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and financiers in point­ing out how the Lon­don list­ing is used for legal immu­ni­ty and to hide Vedanta’s cor­po­rate crimes. We are call­ing for Vedan­ta to be de-list­ed from the Lon­don Stock Exchange and tak­en to court for Human Rights abus­es here in Lon­don.

Combe Valley Sunday update — how to sign up to resist, workshop and news

We are now call­ing for 1,066 peo­ple from around the UK to pub­licly pledge to come and join the ‘Sec­ond Bat­tle of Hast­ings’, and peace­ful­ly resist the con­struc­tion of the road when it begins in Jan­u­ary.

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We are now call­ing for 1,066 peo­ple from around the UK to pub­licly pledge to come and join the ‘Sec­ond Bat­tle of Hast­ings’, and peace­ful­ly resist the con­struc­tion of the road when it begins in Jan­u­ary.

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Non­vi­o­lent direct action work­shop (12 Jan)

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Update at 11.10am: Tree-felling and tree-defend­ing con­tin­ues today (Sun­day 16 Dec). A stretch of trees has already been felled in Bex­hill at the back of the Leisure Cen­tre (TN39 4HS) at the base of Lon­don Rd in Bex­hill.

For report from yes­ter­day, video and maps, see More tree defend­ing today (Sun 16 Dec)!