Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

I’m writ­ing to ya’ll from a safe space near­by the Tar Sands Block­ade in rur­al east Texas.  Ear­ly this week, heed­ing the call of friends and com­rades already on site, we assem­bled a crew of Earth First!ers from the North­east US and made the 30+ hour dri­ve to the site to pro­vide cru­cial rein­force­ment.  The tree vil­lage set up on site is one of the most fan­tas­tic things we’ve ever seen, and the emerg­ing pic­tures on the inter­net do it no jus­tice. Down below the pods, hideous mon­sters in the form of mas­sive feller bunch­ers and doz­ers fill the air with the heinous sounds of cor­po­rate eco­cide: mechan­i­cal whirs, saw­ing, and worst of the all the sound of beau­ti­ful trees hun­dreds of years old falling to their death, dri­ving wildlife from their homes.

Yes­ter­day a feller bunch­er began clear­ing through a sec­tion of the for­est, rapid­ly advanc­ing towards one of the tree sit­ters.  Clear­ly print­ed in large let­ters on the side of the death machine read a warn­ing to stay back at least 500 feet.  A rov­ing team on the ground that I was part of began cat-and-mou­s­ing the feller bunch­er, try­ing to keep our com­rade in the tree safe.  On the ground two Tran­sCana­da work­ers and one local sher­iff oper­at­ing as an armed mer­ce­nary of the cor­po­ra­tion over­saw the oper­a­tions, try­ing to move through the felled trees to push back our crew from the clear cut site.  We con­tin­ued to advance, deter­mined not only to pro­tect our com­rade above in the canopy but to push them back and show them that we are not scared and that we will RESIST.  At one point as we had just watched the feller bunch­er take down an 80 foot water oak not 40 feet away from the sit­ter and we heard our friend scream­ing from above plead­ing for the safe­ty of their life, I ran towards the machine about 25 feet away mak­ing eye con­tact with the dri­ver who con­tin­ued to oper­ate the machine and yelling to Tran­sCana­da and their bought and paid sher­iff that we would not stay back, that they were going to kill our friend if they con­tin­ued to advance and they were required by law to stop the machine.  The sher­iff approached say­ing that “they” (speak­ing as if they were actu­al­ly part of TC) weren’t com­ing any fur­ther at that point and they turned the machine around to con­tin­ue clear cut­ting.  A crew of 7 of us held our ground and remained in defense of the sit­ter on the oppo­site side of a creek where we were forced to watch tree after tree fall. A dense part of the for­est was instant­ly turned in to a morose tree morgue.

Over­come with emo­tions, hav­ing nev­er seen a clearcut myself and cer­tain­ly hav­ing nev­er faced down a mas­sive feller bunch­er, I moved back through the clearcut, across the creek where our friend sat above us in a tree.  Feel­ing the ener­gy com­ing from the mer­ci­less­ly mauled fresh tree stumps, I lay over a large one cry­ing uncon­trol­lably as I watched the remain­ing few trees off in the dis­tance be cut and wres­tled out of place. I angri­ly con­tem­plat­ed the enor­mi­ty of the cor­po­rate state, the can­cer that is cap­i­tal­ism, and the injus­tice of the entire sit­u­a­tion. Com­rades were there to com­fort me and togeth­er we all walked away from the hor­ri­ble scene feel­ing renewed in our fight and cer­tain in our deci­sion to come to Texas to fight this mad­ness and call atten­tion to this scene.

As I write this now I’m receiv­ing word from the site that they’re cut­ting in from the south side, only 20 feet away from the sit­ter we spent yes­ter­day pro­tect­ing.  North from there at the wall that y’all have seen pho­tos of ear­li­er this week, sev­er­al of our friends’ lives are at risk and trees are being cut dan­ger­ous­ly close. TC is now clear­ing from the west side of the site, attempt­ing to box our site in and pre­sum­ably make way for cher­ry pick­ers and oth­er extrac­tion devices.

One of the locals who is cur­rent­ly resist­ing the Key­stone XL pipeline in sol­i­dar­i­ty with sev­er­al local landown­ers shared sto­ries with a few of us.  It is absolute­ly clear that Tran­sCana­da is pay­ing off local law enforce­ment offi­cers.  In addi­tion TC is relent­less­ly try­ing to serve peo­ple with law­suits, putting gag orders on landown­ers who had pre­vi­ous­ly been strong allies, and buy­ing off oth­ers.  Yes­ter­day one of our key allies awoke to TC in their yard with a big feller bunch­er.  TC had promised them mul­ti­ple times both ver­bal­ly and in for­mal­ly writ­ten depo­si­tions that they would give “fair” notice before begin­ning to destroy their land.  It seems like TC knew that this area is quick­ly receiv­ing an influx of resisters and gave this landown­er no warn­ing, know­ing that we’d have cer­tain­ly act­ed at that site.

Despite the sit­u­a­tion we are keep­ing spir­its high.  Last night I came out of the woods with three com­rades to head to a safe space to write this com­mu­nique to y’all.  We were excit­ed to find that many new friends and many famil­iar faces had arrived to rein­force the site.  We’re here for the long haul and are ask­ing y’all to come down to help defend our friends in the trees and stand up to Tran­sCana­da and their dirty pipeline.  What we’re doing is not enough, but there is strength in num­bers and with the aid of more friends we can turn up the heat on TC.  There are many oppor­tu­ni­ties to plug in in var­i­ous ways here and the pipeline is going in all across this region.  There are many allies and a sup­port­ive cam­paign.  We sit here anx­ious­ly wait­ing to re-join our com­rades and wor­ried for their safe­ty, and eager to return to the woods and keep up the fight.  We hope to see you in the woods.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty & For the Wild,

Your Anony­mous Com­rade