Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Gas Pipeline Treesitter Arrested in PA, Resistance Continues

6 March 2013

6 March 2013

Tree sit against Ten­nessee pipeline in PA Mil­ford, PA – Yes­ter­day, local hero and tree-sit­ter Gif­ford Pin­chot was arrest­ed on the ninth day of hold­ing fast in a for­est tree-sit meant to stop tree clear­ing for the Ten­nessee Gas Pipeline. This morn­ing Pin­chot was released from police cus­tody, while work­ers were again turned away from the work site by local pro­test­ers. Last evening at approx­i­mate­ly 6:00 p.m., Gif­ford Pin­chot was appre­hend­ed in the forests of Pike Coun­ty, PA on the ninth day of the tree-sit. He was charged with aggra­vat­ed tres­pass, resist­ing arrest and dis­or­der­ly con­duct, but was released on his own recog­ni­zance this morn­ing. Mean­while, work crews returned to Cum­mins Hill Road to con­tin­ue clear­ing trees along the Ten­nessee Gas Pipeline right of way and were turned away by emo­tion­al pleas and tes­ti­mo­ny from local res­i­dents. Local activists were able to appeal to their com­mon inter­est in a safe, clean envi­ron­ment, and the work­ers walked away from the job of clear­ing one of the final stands of trees for this right of way. The arrest was part of a nine-day tree-sit block­ade and two-week road block­ade. Both actions sup­port­ed a cam­paign oppos­ing the Ten­nessee Gas Pipeline in the Delaware Riv­er Basin. The direct action cam­paign is tak­ing place after near­ly two years of local oppo­si­tion from grass­roots groups and polit­i­cal lead­ers in the courts, in pub­lic hear­ings, and through protest. When asked for a per­son­al state­ment on his expe­ri­ence in the tree stand, his arrest, and future plans, Gif­ford Pin­chot said, “Let this be a les­son to all those resist­ing eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. The state and their cor­po­rate cohorts will lie, coerce and intim­i­date us. But we must trust in our friends and the for­est. Those are our only true allies in this fight. As these strug­gles con­tin­ue and inten­si­fy, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that we are not alone. We are just one link in a chain of resis­tance to those oppress­ing the earth, and this chain will not be bro­ken until the earth and all her inhab­i­tants are free at last.” For updates: http://www.notennesseepipeline.blogspot.com

Reclaim the Fields:Spring into Action Gathering!FoD

:Reclaim the Fields : Spring into Action Gath­er­ing! 16th-25th March:

:Reclaim the Fields : Spring into Action Gath­er­ing! 16th-25th March:
Yorkley Court is host­ing the Reclaim the Fields ‘Spring into Action’ gath­er­ing, on Sat­ur­day the 16th of March- 25th! The Gath­er­ing aims to be a plat­form for shar­ing prac­ti­cal land-based skills, crafts and relat­ed knowl­edge. We intend to ‘get on with it’ whilst con­tin­u­al­ly seek­ing to cre­ate a pop­u­lar discourse/ debate on the issues of land access, the right to food autonomy/ sov­er­eign­ty and the right to build and dwell with­in a low-impact home on the land.

Yorkley Court Com­mu­ni­ty Farm is a grow­ing grass-roots farm in the For­est of Dean, inter­est­ed in devel­op­ing resilient agro-eco­log­i­cal sys­tems, that are both pro­duc­tive and eco­log­i­cal­ly regen­er­a­tive.

The Seed Camp will start on the 8th of March, with a two day Per­ma­cul­ture course by Tomas Remi­arz. The rest of the week will focus on set­ting up infra­struc­ture and open­ly, inclu­sive­ly organ­is­ing the Gath­er­ing. Any­one inter­est­ed and able to help get the Gath­er­ing off to a great start, should come along for this week, pri­or to the main Gath­er­ing! Lots of skill-shar­ing and fun will be had!

We are cur­rent­ly look­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in doing talks, run­ning work­shops and skill-shar­ing dur­ing the main Gath­er­ing… every­one will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share their skills and knowl­edge at the gath­er­ing, but we can pub­li­cise the workshops/talks offered before the gath­er­ing! So let us know what you’d like to offer or to see, in the way of workshops/skillshares asap!

The week­ends of the Gath­er­ing will be focused on talks, pre­sen­ta­tions, work­shops and dis­cus­sions. The week days between will be more focused on prac­ti­cal activ­i­ties.

Please get hold of us, if you’re plan­ning to come to the Seed Camp, or are want­i­ng to do talk, run a work­shop, etc…

:Con­tact Details:

yorkleycourt@gmail.com

yorkleycourt.wordpress.com < our main, local com­mu­ni­ty fac­ing web­site!

rtfspring2013.wordpress.com  < the gath­er­ings own web­site! pro­gramme still under-con­struc­tion!

reclaimthefields.org.uk < our con­stel­la­tions web­site

:A bit about the For­est:

The For­est of Dean is a land betwix two rivers, a secret Wilder­ness in West Glouces­ter­shire, right on the Welsh board­er.

The For­est of Dean has his­tor­i­cal­ly been the home of many rad­i­cal land-rights strug­gles and was set­tled by ‘the cab­in­ers’, peo­ple who built their homes “by right” instead of through state depen­dence. They were treat­ed by the state with the same dis­tain as ‘squat­ters’ are today, albeit with more direct vio­lence and less PR spin.

As one Oxford prof. put it, after mov­ing here recent­ly, because…
“The For­est and it’s peo­ple have a healthy dis­re­gard for the rule of law!”

Resis­tance is Fer­tile!

Reclaim the Fields!

“Reclaim the Fields is a con­stel­la­tion of peo­ple and col­lec­tive projects will­ing to go back to the land and reas­sume the con­trol over food pro­duc­tion. ”

 

Camp Ivy pops up!

20.2.13

ivyCombe Haven Defend­ers has just got word of a new inde­pen­dent camp that has appeared just off the pub­lic foot­path between Glover’s Farm and Acton’s Farm.

20.2.13

ivyCombe Haven Defend­ers has just got word of a new inde­pen­dent camp that has appeared just off the pub­lic foot­path between Glover’s Farm and Acton’s Farm.

Camp Ivy is not on the route of the road and this means it should be rel­a­tive­ly secure from short-term evic­tion. It does, how­ev­er, pro­vide a good base for pro­tes­tors very close to the action! At the moment con­trac­tors are try­ing to com­plete exten­sive hedgerow cut­ting along the route of the pro­posed road to beat the 1st March nest­ing sea­son dead­line. This com­ing week­end 22/23 Feb will be a focus for protest against the hedgerow destruc­tion.

Folk com­ing to the camp are request­ed to be as self-suf­fi­cient as pos­si­ble, bring­ing food and water, and, if stay­ing overnight, tent and sleep­ing bag too. The Camp Ivy mobile is 07706 065623.

Camp Ivy takes shape in the trees!

To access the camp, take the pub­lic foot­path from Glover’s farm, Sid­ley, and fol­low it along the track which goes under the dis­used rail­way and then bears right towards Acton’s Farm. The camp is locat­ed dis­creet­ly in wood­land on your right, between the foot­path and the dis­man­tled rail­way. The OS map ref is TQ750097. There’s a map in the fly­er below. For the more adven­tur­ous, access is also pos­si­ble from the North on foot across the val­ley from Crowhurst.

Sid­ley is a 30 minute walk from Bex­hill train sta­tion, or reach­able by Stage­coach bus 98 (every 30 mins approx) from Hast­ings, St Leonards and Bex­hill.ivyflyer1sm

 

Combe Haven Defenders deliver tree to East Sussex County Council offices

14.2.13

Not deterred by the evic­tion of the camps on the route over thir­ty oppo­nents of the £100 mil­lion Bex­hill-Hast­ings link road vis­it­ed East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil in Lewes this w

14.2.13

Not deterred by the evic­tion of the camps on the route over thir­ty oppo­nents of the £100 mil­lion Bex­hill-Hast­ings link road vis­it­ed East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil in Lewes this week.

They did­n’t arrive emp­ty hand­ed how­ev­er– they turned up with big bits of tree, left over from the felling at Adam’s Farm. They then pro­ceed­ed to wedge them into the doors of the coun­cil offices. The coun­cil’s door­men seemed remark­ably reluc­tant to take deliv­ery of the boughs which ESCC has com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased.

The coun­cil came togeth­er on Tues­day for a rare meet­ing of all 49 coun­cil­lors to agree its 2013 bud­get, George Osborne will have been pleased to hear that his Tory cronies vot­ed to spend pub­lic mon­ey on the Road — which will dev­as­tatethe Combe Haven val­ley — at the same time as it is mak­ing cuts of £ 70m, which will be borne main­ly by chil­dren and vul­ner­a­ble adults.

Accord­ing to Combe Haven Defend­ers “Peter Jones, ESC­C’s bul­ly boy has aban­doned claims that the road will relieve con­ges­tion, con­struct­ing instead a myth of job cre­ation, yet the day before the bud­get meet­ing, cen­tral Gov­ern­ment announced £16m to regen­er­ate sea­side towns like Bex­hill and Hast­ings, much of it sus­tain­able and com­mu­ni­ty-based. West­min­ster expects to gen­er­ate 4000 jobs. This is more than four times total num­ber of jobs that the Link Road might hope to cre­ate at a frac­tion of the cost.”

In a fur­ther devel­op­ment, a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request by Hast­ings Alliance revealed that the road has yet to receive final fund­ing approval from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, the doc­u­ments were heav­i­ly redact­ed and cam­paign­ers are demand­ing to know what oth­er embar­rass­ing infor­ma­tion has been with­held.

There are an increas­ing num­ber of autonomous affin­i­ty groups com­mit­ted to resist­ing by direct action. Combe Haven Defend­ers are now joined by a Crowhurst res­i­dents group and a local Quak­er affin­i­ty. The bat­tle over Combe Haven is only just begin­ning.

www.combehavendefenders.org.uk

Lifelong Oklahoman Youth Pastor Locked to Machinery in Protest of Keystone XL 11 Feb

Ear­li­er this morn­ing, Ste­fan Warn­er, a youth pas­tor who was born and raised in Har­rah, OK, locked him­self to machin­ery being used to build the tox­ic Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline through Creek land near Schoolton, OK.

Warn­er is tak­ing action to pro­tect the health of the North Cana­di­an Riv­er, com­mu­ni­ties and land that this pipeline would run through from being irre­versibly dam­aged by dilut­ed bitu­men (tar sands) leaks and spills. He is send­ing a clear mes­sage that the cur­rent day colo­nial­ism and dis­re­gard for the health and sov­er­eign­ty of indige­nous peo­ples in Alber­ta, Cana­da, and along the pipeline is unacceptable—from a Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive, as well as a human per­spec­tive.

Tar sands pipelines have a hor­ren­dous track record: the exist­ing Key­stone 1 pipeline leaked 12 times in its first year, and at least thir­ty times to date. In 2010, the added dan­gers of tar sands pipelines were demon­strat­ed by Enbridge’s Line 6B pipeline spill of more than a mil­lion gal­lons of dilut­ed bitu­men into the Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er in Michi­gan. The Kala­ma­zoo tar sands spill is the costli­est inland spill in U.S. his­to­ry, drain­ing the oil spill cof­fers and plac­ing the $800 mil­lion and ris­ing price tag onto the backs of local and fed­er­al tax­pay­ers. But it is not the mon­e­tary bur­den that weighs heav­i­est. It is the toll on human life and the health of local ecosys­tems that is immea­sur­able, espe­cial­ly the tox­i­c­i­ty of the dilut­ed bitu­men and undis­closed pro­pri­etary chem­i­cals has proven dev­as­tat­ing.

In addi­tion to the immense dan­gers posed by the Key­stone XL, Tran­sCana­da has been mis­rep­re­sent­ing the eco­nom­ic effects of the pipeline. The major­i­ty of con­struc­tion jobs are tem­po­rary and have been filled by Wis­con­sin-based con­trac­tor Michel’s, not Okla­homans and Tex­ans. Despite Tran­sCana­da and the State Department’s rhetoric of ener­gy inde­pen­dence, the dilut­ed bitu­men trans­port­ed by the Key­stone XL is des­tined for export to for­eign mar­kets after being refined in Gulf Coast refiner­ies, and the Nation­al Resources Defense Coun­cil asserts that the KXL will increase domes­tic gas prices.

“I grew up in a town where the North Cana­di­an Riv­er runs right through, and we can’t let the North Cana­di­an become anoth­er Kala­ma­zoo,” said Okla­homan youth pas­tor Ste­fan Warn­er. “I fig­ure folks have to take action to stop our beau­ti­ful Okla­homa from being marred by a for­eign cor­po­ra­tion, and stand up to fight big cor­po­ra­tions who think that poi­son­ing peo­ple and steal­ing land is accept­able so long as they make a prof­it.”

Warn­er is act­ing with Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance, a coali­tion of Okla­homans and allies fight­ing to pre­vent con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL which will bring dan­ger­ous and tox­ic dilut­ed bitu­men from the bio­me-con­sum­ing tar sands gigapro­ject to refin­ery com­mu­ni­ties in the Gulf. This action comes in the wake of dozens of sim­i­lar actions which have active­ly fought con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL in Okla­homa and Texas. In light of reports of shod­dy weld­ing by Tran­sCana­da whistle­blow­er Evan Vokes and the recent release of pho­tographs depict­ing holes in the weld of a pipe buried in Texas, the strug­gle to keep the Key­stone XL from being com­plet­ed is even more urgent.

Updates

At 8 a.m., direct sup­port for Ste­fan was arrest­ed with­out warn­ing and placed in police car. Six oth­er peo­ple on site are being detained.

At 9 a.m., six peo­ple detained now arrest­ed. Sev­en police vehi­cles are on scene. Work­ers have low­ered side-boom in dis­re­gard of Stefan’s safe­ty and OSHA reg­u­la­tions. Ste­fan is still locked to machin­ery but lying painful­ly face-down on the low­ered arm. Police are obscur­ing Ste­fan from view and not allow­ing any­one with­in pho­tograph­ing dis­tance.

At 9:15 a.m., anoth­er indi­vid­ual arrest­ed. This per­son was not ini­tial­ly detained but was pre­vent­ed from access­ing her vehi­cle since 8 a.m. Ste­fan
is still hold­ing strong. It also appears that this action is also blockad­ing an active frack site.

Alexandra Park: Tree felling resumes at protest site, 8th Feb

Alexan­dra Park: Tree felling resumes at protest site
Tree felling in Alexan­dra Park, Whal­ley Range Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil said it would not be deflect­ed from its plans

Alexan­dra Park: Tree felling resumes at protest site
Tree felling in Alexan­dra Park, Whal­ley Range Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil said it would not be deflect­ed from its plans

Tree felling has resumed at a Man­ches­ter park where activists climbed trees to pre­vent the clear­ance.

The felling was pre­vent­ed last week when up to 70 peo­ple got into Alexan­dra Park, Whal­ley Range, on Thurs­day.

The pro­test­ers set up a camp and a num­ber of them scaled trees in the park.

A Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil spokesman said it would not be deflect­ed from its plans and legal action may be tak­en against the tree climbers.

Pro­tes­tor Ian Brew­er con­firmed some demon­stra­tors were still up trees but added: “There are not enough peo­ple at the camp, it is very dis­ap­point­ing.

“We’ve had good sup­port with our peti­tion but we need more peo­ple at the camp.”

The coun­cil intends to fell 280 trees as part of a £5.5m project to return the park to the way it is sup­posed to have looked in Vic­to­ri­an times.
Raised flowerbeds

The author­i­ty said only 10% of the park’s trees were being felled and local peo­ple have said they do not feel safe in the park.

But pro­test­ers claim the the actu­al num­ber of trees to be cut down is more than 400.

The trees are being removed and replaced by raised flowerbeds as part of the regen­er­a­tion of the park.

The plans also include cre­at­ing new ten­nis courts and foot­ball facil­i­ties and improve­ments to the lake.

More than 2,000 peo­ple have signed an online peti­tion oppos­ing the felling of trees in the project, which received £2.2m from the Her­itage Lot­tery Fund.

Eamonn O’Rourke, head of com­mu­ni­ties and cul­ture for Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil, said: “The actions of a small, noisy band of pro­test­ers have been hold­ing up much-need­ed improve­ments to the park which have wide­spread pub­lic sup­port and indeed all the evi­dence from our ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tions with local peo­ple sug­gest that the major­i­ty are behind the plans.“
Coun­cil plans for park The coun­cil said peo­ple did not feel safe in the park

Tim Cooke, from Hulme, who is also protest­ing against the tree felling, said: “It’s not improv­ing the park — it is destroy­ing the park by dec­i­mat­ing a third of the trees.

“I would under­stand it if they were dis­eased but they are cut­ting down per­fect­ly healthy trees.”

Greater Man­ches­ter Police con­firmed a woman was arrest­ed on Fri­day on sus­pi­cion of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

She was not charged but giv­en a police cau­tion.

Protest camp evicted & restarted

7th Feb 2013: Mov­ing Camp and Climb­ing Trees

We are in the process of mov­ing the camp to anoth­er loca­tion in the park.

There is a pro­test­er up in the trees which have ari­al walk ways to them.

7th Feb 2013: Mov­ing Camp and Climb­ing Trees

We are in the process of mov­ing the camp to anoth­er loca­tion in the park.

There is a pro­test­er up in the trees which have ari­al walk ways to them.

If you are will­ing and able to active­ly pro­tect oth­er trees by var­i­ous means, we do have food sup­plies and a lim­it­ed amount climb­ing gear for use. 

The police have sur­round­ed anoth­er area of trees which are about to be felled.

6/2/13, noon: URGENT: An evic­tion notice has been served to us on the camp which will be enforced in 45 min­utes at 12.00 We need peo­ple to come down to the camp as soon as pos­si­ble!
To show how many peo­ple in our com­mu­ni­ty object to what MCC are doing…
To make the evic­tion dif­fi­cult which will give us more time….
To help move things out of camp so res­i­dents won’t loose all of there grear they have kind­ly donat­ed, as the police can hold equip­ment ‘as evi­dence’.

http://savealexandraparkstrees.wordpress.com

Decoy Pond camp evicted but the campaign continues! (31 Jan)

Decoy Pond camp – the third of three camps that had been erect­ed on the path of the planned Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) – was final­ly evict­ed yes­ter­day (Wednes­day 30 Jan).

Decoy Pond camp – the third of three camps that had been erect­ed on the path of the planned Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) – was final­ly evict­ed yes­ter­day (Wednes­day 30 Jan).

In the end it took scores of secu­ri­ty, bailiffs and police three days to evict all of the climbers – not to men­tion tun­nel­ers, peo­ple in tripods and folk locked-on on the ground! Denied food, water and med­i­cine by East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil, the activists in the trees also had to con­tend with tor­ren­tial rain and gusts of wind of up to 54mph (Met Office fig­ure for near­by Bat­tle)! See below for pho­tos and films from yes­ter­day (30 Jan). In total, 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed, and the CHD is now help­ing to assist those charged, as they go through the court process.

After 48 days of con­tin­u­ous protest (with 28 arrests) some of those involved will prob­a­bly now be tak­ing a short but much need­ed rest. Nonethe­less, the Cam­paign con­tin­ues, with four activists in Court this morn­ing (Thurs­day 31 Jan), more news expect­ed from the High Court on Fri­day, the “Grannies’ Dinghy” action in the Val­ley this Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary), and an oppor­tu­ni­ty for oppo­nents of the Road to get togeth­er to form groups and plan future activ­i­ties, this Sun­day (3 Feb­ru­ary: 4–6pm, The Roomz, 33–35 West­ern Road, St Leonards on Sea, TN37 6DJ).

Many more activ­i­ties and projects are also in the pipeline, so please sign the Pledge / like us on Face­book / fol­low us on Twit­ter (@combe_haven) / send a dona­tion (use the Pay­Pal but­tons on this site or send a cheque) and stay post­ed for more news on Phase 2. A luta con­tin­ua!

Day 48 (30 Jan): Decoy Pond Camp eviction continues!

[Update, 10.43am: First arrest of the day report­ed as cam­paign­er removed from tree.]

[Update, 10.43am: First arrest of the day report­ed as cam­paign­er removed from tree.]

30 Jan: Day 48 of the cur­rent phase of Combe Haven protests has begun with activists still in the trees at Decoy Pond Camp (see here for maps and direc­tions). The evic­tion con­tin­ues! East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil are still insist­ing that no food, water, blan­kets or med­i­cines be allowed up to the peo­ple high-up in the trees, who faced gusts of wind of up to 54mph last night.

Mean­while, local grand­moth­ers are mobil­is­ing to bring inflat­able dinghies to the flood­ed val­ley ths Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary) for an aquat­ic demon­stra­tion of their sup­port for the peace­ful protests.

Five peo­ple were arrest­ed yes­ter­day, bring­ing the total num­ber of arrests so far to 26. All have now been released: one was cau­tioned, and the remain­ing four have been charged.

As we not­ed at the time of the evic­tion of “Base Camp”: This is only the end of the begin­ning for the protests against the Bex­hill Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR)!

If you can’t make it down to the Val­ley this week then please sign the Pledge / like us on Face­book / fol­low us on Twit­ter (@combe_haven) / send a dona­tion (use the Pay­Pal but­tons on this site or send a cheque) and stay post­ed for news on Phase 2!

Two short films from yesterday’s evic­tion:

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

Press Infor­ma­tion Note
Combe Haven Defend­ers [1]
30 Jan­u­ary 2013

EVICTION OF HASTINGS ANTI-ROAD CAMP ENTERS THIRD DAY
Local grand­moth­ers to show sup­port with “Grannies’ Dinghy” action this Sat­ur­day (2 Feb)

30 Jan­u­ary, 8.15am: At least four activists are still in the tree­tops of the third [2] anti-road camp along the route of the pro­posed Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) this morn­ing, as local grand­moth­ers mobilise to bring inflat­able dinghies to the flood­ed val­ley ths Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary) for an aquat­ic demon­stra­tion of their sup­port for the peace­ful protests.

Cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly peace­ful­ly resist­ing the evic­tion of the Camp, which is locat­ed just west of Upper Wilt­ing Farm in Crowhurst (TN38 8EG) [3]. East Sus­sex Coun­cil have denied food and water to the pro­test­ers – who have faced heavy rain and gusts of up to 54mph, fifty-feet up in the trees – since Mon­day morn­ing [4].

Local grand­moth­ers will be assem­bling with inflat­able dinghies at 12.45pm this Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary) at the Plough Inn in Crowhurst (TN33 9AW), from where they plan to mount an aquat­ic demon­stra­tion against the Road in the near­by flood­ed fields – fields through which the Road is sup­posed to pass [5]. An ear­li­er action (“Grannies’ Tree”) was repro­duced in both the Dai­ly Mail and Dai­ly Tele­graph.

The £100m Road project is one of over forty “zom­bie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resus­ci­tat­ed as part of as part of Britain’s largest road-build­ing pro­gramme in 25 years [6,7].

Sev­en peo­ple have been arrest­ed since Mon­day, includ­ing Natal­ie Hyn­de, daugh­ter of pop singer Chrissie Hyn­de [4]. The peace­ful protests against the Road– which have now been run­ning con­tin­u­ous­ly for 48 days, with 26 arrests – have seized nation­al atten­tion over the past sev­en weeks [8].

Adri­an Hop­kins of the Combe Haven Defend­ers said: “Resis­tance has been grow­ing to this awful scheme as each day pass­es and more peo­ple become inspired by the action so far tak­en to pro­tect the beau­ti­ful Combe Haven val­ley. This is only the begin­ning of a sus­tained cam­paign of peace­ful resis­tance to this envi­ron­men­tal­ly dis­as­trous white-ele­phant project.”

NOTES
[1] http://www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] The first camp was estab­lished on 21 Decem­ber. Two oth­er camps along the route, ‘Three Oaks’ and ‘Adams Farm’, have already been evict­ed, on 14 Jan and 16–17 Jan respec­tive­ly, result­ing in sev­en arrests.
[3] For maps and direc­tions see http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/camp-groundrules-directions/
[4] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/29-jan-escc-still-denying-food-blankets-to-activists-facing-44mph-gusts/
[5] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/sat-19-jan-grannies-photoshoot‑2/
[6] See ‘Con­tro­ver­sial ‘zom­bie roads’ scheme to be resus­ci­tat­ed’, Guardian, 10 Octo­ber 2012, http://tinyurl.com/zombieroads
[7] http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report
[8] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/recent-media-coverage/

Tar Sands Blockade Activists Forced to Settle Lawsuit But Will Continue to Fight

TransCanada Claimed $5 Million in Damages

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 25th, a group of activists agreed to a se

TransCanada Claimed $5 Million in Damages

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 25th, a group of activists agreed to a set­tle­ment in TransCanada’s law­suit against Tar Sands Block­ade, Ris­ing Tide North Texas, Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca, and nine­teen indi­vid­u­als. The SLAPP suit (Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion) alleged that direct action against Key­stone XL has cost Tran­sCana­da $5 mil­lion. This con­tra­dicts fre­quent pub­lic state­ments by TransCanada’s spokes­peo­ple that block­aders were not imped­ing con­struc­tion in any mean­ing­ful way.

The eight Tex­ans who came to court to defend them­selves on Fri­day, some of whom had not been active­ly involved with Tar Sands Block­ade since protests in August, were threat­ened with los­ing their homes and life’s sav­ings if the law­suit went for­ward. In order to pro­tect the liveli­hoods and depen­dents of brave activists like Tam­mie Car­son, who locked her­self to a truck car­ry­ing Key­stone XL pipe, the activists agreed to set­tle the law­suit. The cor­po­ra­tion will not seek the $5 mil­lion in finan­cial dam­ages, and the named defen­dants and orga­ni­za­tions agreed to not tres­pass on Key­stone XL prop­er­ty in Texas and Okla­homa or face addi­tion­al charges.

Despite this legal set­back, mem­bers of Tar Sands Block­ade are as deter­mined as ever to stop Key­stone XL. The sus­tained direct action cam­paign will con­tin­ue. Here’s a chronol­o­gy of all the direct actions tak­en since August 2012.

Defen­dants made the fol­low­ing state­ments in response to the set­tle­ment:

Tam­mie Car­son, a life­long Tex­an, grand­moth­er, and defen­dant from Arling­ton, TX, said:

“I took action for my grand­kids’ future. I couldn’t sit idly by and watch as a multi­na­tion­al cor­po­rate bul­ly abused emi­nent domain to build a dirty and dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline right through Tex­ans’ back­yards. I had no choice but to set­tle or lose my home and every­thing I’ve worked for my entire life.”

 

Ram­sey Sprague, Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son, and defen­dant from Fort Worth, TX, said:

“Tran­sCana­da is dead wrong if they think a civ­il law­suit against a hand­ful of Tex­ans is going to stop a grass­roots civ­il dis­obe­di­ence move­ment. This is noth­ing more than anoth­er exam­ple of Tran­sCana­da repress­ing dis­sent and bul­ly­ing Tex­ans who are defend­ing their homes and futures from tox­ic tar sands.”

Lau­ren Regan, an attor­ney with the Civ­il Lib­er­ties Defense Cen­ter and one of the legal coor­di­na­tors for the Tar Sands Block­ade made the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“The SLAPP suit (Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion) filed against the peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions that are fight­ing against TransCanada’s uneth­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive pipeline will nev­er stop the people’s resis­tance to the XL Pipeline. Tran­sCana­da has repeat­ed­ly attempt­ed to vio­late the law and bul­ly the peo­ple of Texas: through cor­po­rate cor­rup­tion and lies, they obtained “com­mon car­ri­er” sta­tus in Texas in order to steal pri­vate prop­er­ty from low income and hard work­ing Tex­ans; they have attempt­ed to bring the full weight of the police state upon non­vi­o­lent activists in an attempt to crush their peace­ful resistance–using mace, tasers, and phys­i­cal bru­tal­i­ty.

Despite phys­i­cal harm, lengthy incar­cer­a­tions, felony charges, and now civ­il law­suits to restrict their right to protest, the peo­ple have not been deterred and have only been embold­ened in the face of Transcanada’s attempt at repres­sion and bul­ly­ing. At each attempt by Tran­sCana­da to chill the cit­i­zens’ rights to protest the XL Pipeline, the people’s lawyers will stand up to defend them in the Court’s. For every pro­tes­tor that is jailed or beat­en, ten more arrive to take that person’s place. For every home­own­er who has had their land stolen, and dan­ger­ous tar sands oil now threat­ens their health and envi­ron­ment, peo­ple from around the coun­try will band togeth­er to pro­tect the next threat­ened com­mu­ni­ty through a vari­ety of non­vi­o­lent tools. Resis­tance is Fer­tile. The sur­vival of the plan­et in the face of glob­al cli­mate change deserves noth­ing less.”