Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Hinkley Occupied Again — directions to camp

13th Feb­ru­ary 2012

13th Feb­ru­ary 2012

Pro­test­ers have for the sec­ond time in a week occu­pied the devel­op­ment site at Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

In the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing anti-nuclear activists took pos­ses­sion of an aban­doned farm on the site which is pro­tect­ed under Inter­na­tion­al Envi­ron­men­tal law. The site con­tains a Site of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic inter­est (SSSI) and a pro­tect­ed wet­land (R.A.M.S.A.R site) but it is due to be cleared by pow­er com­pa­ny EDF in the com­ing months. Pro­test­ers are angry that per­mis­sion has been giv­en for this work to begin before the com­pa­ny have won per­mis­sion to build their con­tro­ver­sial new nuclear plant.

Som­er­set born Theo Simon said “We want to reclaim this land and make sure that the wildlife that inhab­its it and for­ages here is pro­tect­ed. Giv­ing per­mis­sion to clear the land before Plan­ning Per­mis­sion has even been grant­ed clear­ly gives the mes­sage to EDF that per­mis­sion is a done deal. I, and many oth­ers like me, want prop­er pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion and debate before we com­mit to a tech­nol­o­gy whose tox­ic lega­cy will remain for gen­er­a­tions.”

Local media report­ed this week that EDF will begin site clear­ance in the com­ing weeks, although EDF claimed the oppo­site when pro­test­ers occu­pied the trees on Tues­day.
The first phase of the prepa­ra­tion works will include removal of hedgerows and all trees, before strip­ping all top­soil and lev­el­ling the land­scape, all this despite the fact that plan­ning per­mis­sion has not been grant­ed for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion at the site.

Nik­ki Clark of SWAN said “Bat ecol­o­gists have explained to us that 86% of Bat crime is caused by the destruc­tion of roosts car­ried out by devel­op­ers. We have been told that the so-called ‘mit­i­ga­tion’, which involves build­ing alter­na­tive roosts, that has been pro­posed by EDF has nev­er been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly test­ed to prove that it actu­al­ly works.”

Ques­tions have been raised about the Gov­ern­men­t’s process of devel­op­ing ener­gy pol­i­cy.
In the cor­rup­tion of gov­er­nance report last week it was revealed that the ‘Nuclear Renais­sance’ was insti­gat­ed against the advice of sci­en­tists, and is indica­tive of wider cor­rup­tion with­in the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change.

The new min­is­ter brought into replace Chris Huhne, who stood down last week to face crim­i­nal charges, is Lib Dem — Ed Dav­ey. Despite hav­ing pro­duced the par­ty’s anti-nuclear pol­i­cy in 2006, he has now made a com­plete U‑turn and is sup­port­ing the coali­tion in pro­mot­ing new nuclear build in the UK.

Shana Deal, one of the occu­piers in Lang­bor­ough Farm, said today: “If EDF’s activ­i­ties con­tin­ue, this nature reserve will be lost for­ev­er. Not even EDF are will­ing to guar­an­tee that a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion will be eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable, and I for one do not want to see this beau­ti­ful land turned into a Tox­ic Waste dump.”

The farm premis­es is acces­si­ble by pub­lic foot­paths and vis­i­tors are being wel­comed by the pro­test­ers.

For back­ground and fur­ther infor­ma­tion phone: 07530 947554

www.stophinkley.org

http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net/content/nuclear-reactor-site-occupied

Directions/practical info:

In the ear­ly hours of Sun­day morn­ing a group of us moved into and occu­pied the premis­es of Lang­bor­ough Farm near Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion. The old farm­house premis­es, on a site that EDF has ear­marked for it’s pro­posed new nuclear reac­tor, is now a legal squat. To help them set­tle into their new home with­out any has­sle the occu­piers would wel­come friend­ly vis­i­tors today and in the days ahead.

To find your way by Pub­lic Foot­path to Lang­bor­ough Farm, see map below, or go to half-way through the youtube film “West Coun­try Walks” at
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWp_ut-Uya4

Friends of mine went to vis­it the new­ly squat­ted site next to Hink­ley Point pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set this week­end. Lang­bor­ough Farm (ST 201 456) is in the mid­dle of the area on which EDF ener­gy pro­pose to build a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion. They said that although work to clear the site is like­ly to begin in the com­ing weeks, it is crossed by pub­lic foot­paths and bridal ways that are still open. They said that although they saw lots of G4S secu­ri­ty, get­ting access to the site was easy. The secu­ri­ty were very inter­est­ed in them and took lots of pho­tos but did­n’t stop them so long as they stuck to the foot­paths.

They parked in the lay-by on the main approach road to the pow­er sta­tion (Point 1 on the map) and then walked along the pub­lic foot­path which starts at a stile imme­di­ate­ly to the left of the main gates to the pow­er sta­tion (Point 2). The foot­path fol­lows the south­ern perime­ter fence of Hink­ley B pow­er sta­tion and then fol­lows a hedge line west to Lang­bor­ough Farm. They said it took about 15 — 20 min­utes to get there. Access is very mud­dy and there are a cou­ple of gates and stiles.

Remem­ber that access to the farm is by Pub­lic Right Of Way, and if any­one tries to obstruct you they will be com­mit­ting an offence under sec­tion 137 of the High­ways Act 1980, pun­ish­able by a fine of up to £1000.There are many paths across the site, but your best bet may be Wick Drove Lane, where there is a lay-by for park­ing. Walk down to the Pow­er Sta­tion entrance then turn left up the pub­lic foot­path.

One of the occu­piers said “We real­ly want you to come and vis­it and  spread the word. We are fight­ing against a cor­rupt plan­ning deci­sion, made at the high­est lev­els, which favours the nuclear cor­po­ra­tions over the demo­c­ra­t­ic process, and we will feel much safer here if we have vis­i­ble sup­port.”

(It’s cold out there so please take warm food, water, any spare tents, blan­kets or bed­ding you may have and any­thing use­ful you can think of when you go!)

If you’ve got time come and stay!

Hinkley Tree Protesters Evicted

8th Feb -

Pro­test­ers occu­py­ing trees at Hink­ley Point in Som­er­set were evict­ed today by police and a 5‑man climb­ing team hired by the French com­pa­ny EDF.   The mature oak wood­land is due to be cleared this month so that pre­lim­i­nary work can begin on build­ing 2 new nuclear reac­tors and a radioac­tive waste dump at the site.

8th Feb -

Pro­test­ers occu­py­ing trees at Hink­ley Point in Som­er­set were evict­ed today by police and a 5‑man climb­ing team hired by the French com­pa­ny EDF.   The mature oak wood­land is due to be cleared this month so that pre­lim­i­nary work can begin on build­ing 2 new nuclear reac­tors and a radioac­tive waste dump at the site.

The evic­tion came around 11am, after the occu­piers had spent a sleep­less night in sub-zero tem­per­a­tures. One of the occu­piers, Michael, said “Secu­ri­ty guards and dog-han­dlers  kept us awake all night with taunts and intim­i­da­tion from bark­ing dogs.” 

 How­ev­er, the occu­piers had been rein­forced by sup­plies  deliv­ered overnight by well-wish­ers from the local area. Can­ning­ton res­i­dent, Roy Pum­frey, vis­it­ed the site three times over the last cou­ple of days, try­ing to deliv­er sup­plies to the pro­test­ers. On his final vis­it to the site this morn­ing, Mr. Pum­frey said ” I have con­cerns about Group 4 Security’s inter­pre­ta­tion of the law and ordi­nary people’s civ­il right’s. Their guard’s told me that I was tres­pass­ing when I was in fact using pub­lic rights of way . “

In the morn­ing a climb­ing  team, with 5 police offi­cers in atten­dance, climbed into the trees and began remov­ing belongs and climb­ing gear, before telling the remain­ing occu­pi­er, Taunton man, David Jesse  that he was tres­pass­ing and would be forcibly removed if he did not come down.  After leav­ing the tree peace­ful­ly, Jesse was searched and then released by police, who warned him that he could have been charged with Aggra­vat­ed Tres­pass, as his pres­ence in the trees was pre­vent­ing the chain­saw crew from going about their law­ful work.

Speak­ing for the South West Against Nuclear net­work, Theo Simon of Shep­ton Mal­let said,  “It appears that EDF have act­ed ruth­less­ly and prob­a­bly ille­gal­ly,   to end a legit­i­mate peace­ful protest.  Clear­ly, if  the cur­rent work is only to clear dead elms as EDF claim, then the pro­test­ers in the oak trees were not in any way pre­vent­ing this work.  In the light of this company’s record how­ev­er, we do not expect them to play clean.  This is a com­pa­ny who last Novem­ber had 2 employ­ees jailed and were fined 500,000 euros (£428,000) in France for spy­ing on anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers.  Aston­ish­ing­ly,  this is a com­pa­ny who have also been giv­en the green light to destroy a beau­ti­ful part of our Som­er­set her­itage, before they have even won plan­ning per­mis­sion for their pro­posed Nuclear project”.

http://southwestagainstnuclear.wordpress.com/

Concerned Locals take to the Trees at Hinkley Point near Bridgwater, Somerset

Update 8th Feb: Overnight on Feb­ru­ary 6th, anti nuclear activists occu­pied trees on EDF’s pro­posed new nuclear site west of Hink­ley Point in Som­er­set.  This was in response to intial ground-clear­ance work being car­ried out by con­trac­tors the day before.

Although EDF have sub­se­quent­ly said that the work being done was only the clear­ing of dead elms, this is undoubt­ed­ly the first stage in prepar­ing for major clear­ance, since EDF have now been giv­en the go-ahead to begin reduc­ing this beau­ti­ful piece of Som­er­set coast­line to a lunar land­scape.  They  are being per­mit­ted to do this even though it will be 12 months before they will know if they have plan­ning per­mis­sion for the 2 new nuclear reac­tors and a radioac­tive waste dump.  They obvi­ous­ly think this is a done deal!

In response to media inter­est today, includ­ing BBC TV Points West, Som­er­set Sound and Radio 4, and the West­ern Dai­ly Press, EDF have also claimed that this stand of oak is not sched­uled to be felled as part of the so-called “Pre­lim­i­nary Works”.  How­ev­er, WSDC Plan­ning Offi­cer Andrew Good­child has con­firmed that this is untrue, and ALL veg­e­ta­tion with­in the site will have to be cleared in the next 4 to 6 weeks under the apt­ly named “Phase Zero”.   The nest­ing sea­son won’t be a big prob­lem though, as they have a spe­cial license from “Nat­ur­al Eng­land” to destroy the feath­ered song­sters homes.  It seems they have a spe­cial license for just about any­thing!

Mon­ey talks, but actions talk loud­er.  The gal­lant folk who took com­mand of the sit­u­a­tion have act­ed pre-emp­tive­ly and spon­ta­neous­ly and are cur­rent­ly few in num­ber.  They are in a net off the ground and “just about” warm enough.  They need ground sup­port – peo­ple to just vis­it them with treats, flasks, and warm words – which will also help defend them by keep­ing every­thing in the pub­lic eye.  A video cam­era would be extreme­ly help­ful, and maybe more phones.  RIGHT NOW THEY NEED A DELIVERY OF WARM SOCKS.

~~~~~~

7/2/12

Pro­tes­tors take to the trees at Hink­ley Point in a bid to save ancient oaks from being trashed by EDF before gov­ern­ment deci­sion on new nuclear is re-exam­ined.

Ear­ly this morn­ing, con­cerned locals occu­pied threat­ened, ancient trees at the pro­posed site for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion at Hink­ley Point, near Bridg­wa­ter in Som­er­set.

Michael Hunt, one of the tree occu­piers said of their action :
“ We’re here to stop work on this crim­i­nal devel­op­ment and to pro­tect the ancient trees that are sur­round­ed by a spe­cial con­ser­va­tion area but mys­te­ri­ous­ly exclud­ed from it “

The protest was pre­cip­i­tat­ed by last week’s shock­ing rev­e­la­tion in a report by Unlock Democ­ra­cy and the Asso­ci­a­tion for Con­ser­va­tion of Ener­gy enti­tled “ A Cor­rup­tion of Gov­er­nance?”

The report reveals in detail how MPs and Par­lia­ment based their nation­al ener­gy pol­i­cy, specif­i­cal­ly their pol­i­cy to build new nuclear pow­er on fal­si­fied infor­ma­tion.

The report out­lines that, on the basis of the Government’s own evi­dence, we do not need new nuclear to ‘keep the lights on’ or reduce CO2 emis­sions. It goes on to show that, on the basis of the Government’s own evi­dence, it is not the best way to cut car­bon. In every­day terms, the build­ing of new nuclear pow­er sta­tions to pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty is like­ly to mean high­er fuel bills.

The report con­cludes that this cor­rup­tion of gov­er­nance can only be rec­ti­fied if Par­lia­ment re-opens this debate, and MPs vote on this issue hav­ing seen the cor­rect infor­ma­tion.

EDF’s plans to dis­rupt lives and liveli­hoods by dig­ging up the 400 acres land­scape and beau­ti­ful coast­line in the com­ing weeks has already begun with the trees, says local cam­paign­er Sarah Stone “We man­aged to get an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order last year because the trees were threat­ened by this devel­op­ment, but WSDC refused to make it a full order after six months because they claimed they’d giv­en per­mis­sion to EDF to trash the site even though to date this deci­sions is still not pub­lished. This whole appli­ca­tion has been char­ac­terised by lies, deceit, and cor­po­rate bul­ly­ing it’s made a com­plete joke out of the British plan­ning sys­tem and if they won’t pro­tect the trees until there is a prop­er deci­sion about nuclear new build then we will”
*************************************ENDS**********************************************************
Notes to Edi­tor
1) Cor­rup­tion of Gov­er­nance report was pub­lished last week and pre­sent­ed to min­siters at Par­lia­ment. It can be found here www.ukace.org
2) The trees were sub­ject to an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order last March which was dropped by WSDC in Octo­ber last year.
For inter­views con­tact Theo on 01749860767 or 07805666239

south west against nuclear
swanactive@gmail.com
www.southwestagainstnuclear.wordpress.com

Reclaim the Fields Spring Gathering 2012

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes work­shops on:

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes work­shops on:

*How to organ­ise & main­tain effec­tive land occu­pa­tions
*An intro­duc­tion to land rights
*Com­post­ing gen­der
*Legal options for access­ing land
*Learn­ing from Peas­ant Strug­gles in the Glob­al South
*Using the food sov­er­eign­ty prin­ci­ples as a strate­gic frame­work

There will also be feed­back from the Euro­pean Reclaim the Field Gath­er­ings & con­stel­la­tion as well as space for work­ing group ses­sions around:

*Seed Sov­er­eign­ty
*WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
*Plan­ning for Inter­na­tion­al Peas­ants Day of Strug­gle on April 17th

Some guer­ril­la-gar­den­ing type actions are also planned through­out. Sat­ur­day 10th is the Wilder­ness Cen­tre’s pub­lic open day so there will also be prac­ti­cal skills-shar­ing work­shops.

When: Accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able from the evening of Wednes­day 7th. Oth­er­wise the gath­er­ing is two full days Thurs­day & Fri­day 8–9th March. The For­est always wel­comes vis­i­tors so arrange with them if you want to stay & help out before hand.
Where: Wilder­ness Cen­tre, For­est of Dean. Direc­tions are here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064
Who to con­tact for more infor­ma­tion: use the RTF UK email list or email frankynecklace@yahoo.co.uk

What to bring: Sleep­ing bags, blan­kets, mats, own set of cut­lery & bowl if pos­si­ble. There is indoor sleep­ing space and room for tents out­side. Any home grown food to share & also seeds to swap.

Food will be a min­i­mum of £5 dona­tion per day. Any oth­er dona­tions are wel­come

More sug­ges­tions for work­shops, ses­sions & oth­er activ­i­ties are always wel­come, this is our con­stel­la­tion & gath­er­ing to make things hap­pen.

About:

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. We are deter­mined to cre­ate alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal­ism through coop­er­a­tive, col­lec­tive, autonomous, real needs ori­ent­ed small scale pro­duc­tion and ini­tia­tives, putting the­o­ry into prac­tice and link­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles.
You can find more about us, our strug­gles & more resources such as down­load­able zines here: www.reclaimthefields.org.uk

Action to re-occupy the ZAD

A reoc­cu­pa­tion action is being planned in case of an evic­tion at the ZAD, near Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des in France: To re-plant and rebuild against the con­struc­tion of the air­port: Vin­ci get out! Not here, not Khim­ki, not any­where! Meet on the 4th Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion with your pitch­forks, tools, beams and camp­ing gear. Although we don’t know when the troops will be sent in, we are launch­ing this call-out now to be able to cre­ate a mas­sive rapid reac­tion.

A reoc­cu­pa­tion action is being planned in case of an evic­tion at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des in France: To re-plant and rebuild against the con­struc­tion of the air­port: Vin­ci get out! Not here, not Khim­ki*, not any­where!

This is a joint call out from occu­pants of the ZAD and the net­work Reclaim the Fields to meet on the 4th Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion, near Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des.

To give an idea of some of the things that have hap­pened:

On 7 May 2011, we were a thou­sand peo­ple on an action, pitch­forks in hand, to clear and put to use an aban­doned plot of agri­cul­tur­al land. This was to cre­ate a space to grow food to feed the strug­gle against the air­port — and it’s been thriv­ing since the action! We’ll be back to strive to pro­tect this farm and oth­er occu­pied places on the ZAD (Zone d’A­me­nage­ment Dif­feré), or in oth­er words, Zone About to be Destroyed).

On 24 June, Vin­ci start­ed evic­tion pro­ce­dures against eight squats, includ­ing Les Planchettes, our col­lec­tive space of organ­is­ing and hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

On 10 July, dur­ing a gath­er­ing a few thou­sand peo­ple made a human ban­ner say­ing “Vin­ci d égage!” (Vin­ci get out!)

On 23 August, the pres­i­dent of the region Pays de la Loire, Jacques Aux­i­ette, asked the local author­i­ties to clean out the rad­i­cal occu­piers of the ZAD. It was an unam­bigu­ous bru­tal call for repres­sion, but this will not pre­vent us from resist­ing, re-occu­py­ing and re-grow­ing.

To fol­low up on May 7, occu­piers from the ZAD and Reclaim the Fields, a net­work of young activist peas­ants, are invit­ing you to be a part of a huge demon­stra­tion to re-occu­py in case of an evic­tion, and urge all groups and col­lec­tives to sup­port this action. If the police force does arrive to clean us out, we want to be back by the thou­sands to give shape to the cry “Vin­ci get out!” and to con­tin­ue to occu­py the zone and to stop con­struc­tion works in their tracks.

For forty years, deci­sion mak­ers and con­struc­tion man­agers have been push­ing a new air­port next to Nantes, at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, to make their dreams of mas­sive eco­nom­ic expan­sion and a metrop­o­lis. The ZAD: it’s 2000 hectares of cul­ti­vat­ed and inhab­it­ed land that they want to anni­hi­late under con­crete. The resis­tance against this project is at the cross­roads of many chal­lenges on which to unite, to address issues of com­mon strate­gies and think­ing.

Through this strug­gle we are fight­ing indus­tri­al soci­ety and agri­cul­ture, its eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment poli­cies, its cli­mate change and its con­trol of the land, the mega­lopo­lis and the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of ways of life, the pri­vati­sa­tion of the com­mons, the myth of end­less growth and the illu­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion …

The deci­sion-mak­ers are con­stant­ly try­ing to sell their project and to give the impres­sion that going back­wards is unthink­able at this stage. So after forty years strug­gling, the pre­lim­i­nary con­struc­tion work of the air­port and its high­way have start­ed: drilling for soil analy­sis, envi­ron­men­tal assess­ments, archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions and clear­ing works… all pre­req­ui­sites for pour­ing con­crete all over the area.

But its oppo­nents are far from giv­ing up and the actions inten­si­fy: block­ing drillings, dis­turb­ing the envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment work of Biotope*, dis­trib­ut­ing news­pa­pers, occu­py­ing offices, con­struc­tion sites, open­ing up Vin­ci’s toll­ways, and much more..

In addi­tion, for more than two and a half years, instead of the ZAD grad­u­al­ly emp­ty­ing to the rhythm of black­mail and destruc­tion, life and activ­i­ty has been flour­ish­ing.

Many of the hous­es left aban­doned were refur­bished and occu­pied, new hous­es were con­struct­ed on the ground and in the trees, col­lec­tives occu­pied land to make veg­etable gar­dens. Meet­ing spaces, guest acco­mo­da­tion, a bak­ery and a library were opened for one and all. There are more than a hun­dred peo­ple per­ma­nent­ly occu­py­ing the ZAD, sup­port­ed by many oth­ers, local and else­where, who meet and organ­ise. The occu­pa­tions are part of a move­ment that has many dif­fer­ent forms. Among oth­er things, they have a allowed rapid reac­tions to the first steps tak­en by Vin­ci towards con­struc­tion work.

In June 2011, Vin­ci began evic­tion pro­ce­dures in order to have the legal means to remove the occu­piers of the ZAD who have “no right or title”. Now they want to stop the growth of the move­ment and make a clean sweep to start the work: as well as evict­ing the occu­piers, they are think­ing about the ten­ants, own­ers and farm­ers. At the same time, those names who are pro-air­port do every­thing they can: run­ning a cam­paign to iso­late the occu­piers, attempt­ing to divide the move­ment and break up sol­i­dar­i­ty, rein­force the dai­ly police pres­ence and repres­sion of col­lec­tive action.

Despite this con­text, we’re keep­ing the mem­o­ry of past vic­to­ries in France against mega­lo­man­ic projects, from nuclear to mil­i­tary, like at Car­net, Plo­goff or Larzac, and we know that this air­port can still be stopped. We look to the oth­er side of the Alps, where oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of the Lyon-Turin high-speed train line across a val­ley, where tens of thou­sands of peo­ple pre­vent work. We are prepar­ing the same here: any attempt to con­crete the place will cost them dear­ly.

This call for action sig­ni­fies that evic­tions do not mean in any way the end of the strug­gle; it allows us to launch col­lec­tive attacks after the poten­tial evic­tions as well. It affirms that they can­not mil­i­tarise or ster­ilise this place at all times and that what­ev­er their efforts they won’t stop us reoc­cu­py­ing it. It shows the com­mon will to keep the occu­pa­tions going to pre­vent the air­port project. This event will allow, as nec­es­sary, the recon­struc­tion of col­lec­tive spaces for organ­is­ing, hous­ing, or again for grow­ing food.

Although we don’t know when the troops will be sent in, we are launch­ing this call-out now to be able to cre­ate a mas­sive rapid reac­tion. We pro­pose to meet again on the fourth Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion — bring your pitch­forks, tools and beams — to reclaim the land and rebuild togeth­er.

In addi­tion to this call for reoc­cu­pa­tion, oth­er ini­tia­tives are clear­ly wel­come: sol­i­dar­i­ty actions wher­ev­er you are, pres­ence at evic­tion time to hin­der the police … And until then, efforts con­tin­ue to pre­vent the air­port, and life on the ZAD as well!

Prac­ti­cal Info:

- Check reg­u­lar­ly  http://zad.nadir.org, espe­cial­ly in case of an evic­tion. The date and exact meet­ing loca­tion will be spec­i­fied at the time.

- It will be pos­si­ble to arrive on the eve of the event, for the final prepa­ra­tions and bring­ing every­one up to speed. Come pre­pared to camp.

- We invite you to stay here after the action to pro­tect the re-occu­pied spaces and con­tin­ue the con­struc­tion.

*Extra expla­na­tion:
Vin­ci is the biggest con­struc­tion com­pa­ny in the world and is respon­si­ble for build­ing the air­port at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des. It is also engaged in build­ing pris­ons, high­ways, nuclear pow­er sta­tions, deten­tion cen­ters for ille­gal immi­grants, exploit­ing the ura­ni­um mines in Niger and destroy­ing the for­est of Khim­ki near Moscow.
Biotope: An enti­ty respon­si­ble for ensur­ing, through envi­ron­men­tal expert on the flo­ra and fau­na, the eco­log­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the air­port … the new fron­tiers of green cap­i­tal­ism!

A call-out from occu­piers on the ZAD and Reclaim the Fields

 reclaimthezad@riseup.net

zad@riseup.net
zad.nadir.org

Call from the Wilderness Forest of Dean Wilderness Centre

State­ment from the Wilder­ness Cen­tre : On the day of Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil meet­ing that will deter­mine the coun­cils next course of action.

State­ment from the Wilder­ness Cen­tre : On the day of Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil meet­ing that will deter­mine the coun­cils next course of action.

Two activists jedi’d their way into the meet­ing, and hand­ing out our “state­ment of intent” (link below) to the offi­cious types sat around with mem­bers of the police, var­i­ous coun­cil offi­cers and advi­sors in Shire Hall, Glouces­ter, before being ask­ing to leave ‑all was very polite, civ­il and in good humour.

We await their deci­sion, which will dic­tate our next move.

Call from the Wilder­ness

Here in the wilder­ness we are try­ing to find our way home. How did we come to dwell here in the wilder­ness? For over 40 years the wilder­ness has been a pio­neer­ing envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion cen­tre. Then last year Glouces­ter­shire coun­ty coun­cil decid­ed that it was no longer in the pub­lic inter­est to sus­tain the cen­tre. Bet­ter val­ue for the tax­pay­er to sell it to the high­est bid­der? We dis­agree. We believe that edu­ca­tion is the great­est source of wealth in our com­mu­ni­ties. Sure­ly the exploita­tion of our envi­ron­ment can only be dri­ven by igno­rance. Edu­ca­tion is our great­est tool in the strug­gle against exploita­tion.
The coun­cil seem to think oth­er­wise. The coun­ty coun­cil, or in their words “the pow­ers that be” think we are home­less. Trav­ellers, squat­ters they tell us to… move on. They want us out of here. We don’t belong here. They tell us we have no right to be here. They’ve set their wolves to prowl around the grounds lock­ing things down. They want our names and pre­vi­ous address­es. They don’t trust us. They are con­cerned about health and safe­ty. The pub­lic are a lia­bil­i­ty. We tried to talk about respon­si­bil­i­ty. We tried to assure them that we ful­ly com­pre­hend the impli­ca­tions of a com­post toi­let. But they are doubt­ful.

Exact­ly who is bewil­dered?

We came here on the first full moon of the year with the inten­tion of cre­at­ing an envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion cen­tre to dis­close a process of learn­ing the skills and tech­niques required to move towards a home found­ed upon the prin­ci­ples of eco­nom­ic self-suf­fi­cien­cy and eco­log­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty.
To be a force of res­o­lu­tion we need peo­ple to join us. Deci­sive peo­ple who under­stand the con­se­quences of there actions. Com­mit­ted, hard work­ing peo­ple. We need peo­ple with a respect for food. We need gar­den­ers and grow­ers who can cul­ti­vate the ideas that have been sown in our soil by the dif­fer­ing schools of per­ma­cul­ture and bio-dynam­ics. Who know how let these ideas grow organ­i­cal­ly. We need peo­ple with the deter­mi­na­tion to dig. Reflec­tive peo­ple who look for their reflec­tion in oth­ers. Peo­ple who can prac­tice the hos­pi­tal­i­ty of the guest. Peo­ple who do not wait for oth­ers to make nec­es­sary changes.
Here in the wilder­ness we make our­selves at home. You are wel­come.

State­ment of Intent : protectthewilderness.org.uk/protect.html
Web­site (still in progress) protectthewilderness.org.uk

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Pro­tect The Wilder­ness

Earth First! Winter Moot, what to expect

This years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

This years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

The Moot 2012 col­lec­tive has felt that at pre­vi­ous EF! Gath­er­ings groups have pri­mar­i­ly attend­ed to recruit for their respec­tive cam­paigns. Yet those who attend EF! Gath­er­ings are pre­dom­i­nant­ly already active, mak­ing them good places for net­work­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly for out­right recruit­ment. We recog­nise the effort gath­er­ing organ­is­ers put into plan­ning agen­das but often the more dis­cur­sive aspects of the gath­er­ings focus on larg­er, abstract ques­tions and debates have often been framed by self-appoint­ed experts. We feel that these dis­cus­sions inef­fec­tive­ly attempt to find answers or reach con­sen­sus where this is inap­pro­pri­ate.

For exam­ple at the first EF! Gath­er­ing 20 years ago the ques­tion was asked: ‘What is EF!?’ 20 years lat­er in 2011 at the last Moot the same ques­tion was still being asked …

The answer is EF! is what we make it, and this year we are going to make it a space in which we can approach our cam­paigns both crit­i­cal­ly and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly by ask­ing more spe­cif­ic and prac­ti­cal ques­tions. Our activism should be con­stant­ly evolv­ing not stuck in a rut ask­ing the same ques­tions again and again.

The agen­da will be designed to ask ques­tions around four key issues: the tac­tics we use; the strate­gies that we employ in our cam­paigns; com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty; and sus­tain­able activism. There will be no attempt to reach con­clu­sions or con­sen­sus espe­cial­ly about what EF! is. Instead we want to have dis­cus­sions that lead to new ideas that could evolve ongo­ing cam­paigns or give cre­ative inspi­ra­tion to ones that are just get­ting start­ed.

A free space will be pro­vid­ed in which cam­paigns will be able to hold meet­ings and have fur­ther dis­cus­sions if they wish, and there will also be some space giv­en for cam­paign updates with an empha­sis on hon­est analy­sis rather than pro­mo­tion.

For updates and more info check the web­site or email us.

EF!WM Crew
e-mail: efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk
Home­page: http://earthfirstgathering.org.uk

Scaling tree cutters and trees to halt Corrib pipeline works

Shell today, 9th Jan­u­ary 2012, began to cut down a Coillte plan­ta­tion in the vil­lage of Leen­amore, Co. Mayo. This sur­prise move marks the begin­ning of their attempts to pre­pare the 4km stretch of land between the Augh­oose tun­nelling com­pound and the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery. Despite a large Gar­da and pri­vate secu­ri­ty pres­ence, cam­paign­ers entered the tree felling area and halt­ed work.

Shell start­ing this sec­tion of the pipeline was com­plete­ly unan­tic­i­pat­ed both by local cam­paign­ers and those of us liv­ing at Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. Rumour had it that the clear­ing of the plan­ta­tion might not hap­pen until lat­er in the year. As it hap­pened many of us had planned to take the day off actions today to tend the camp gar­dens, carve new wind tur­bine blades, bake bread and work on oth­er projects. The day turned out quite dif­fer­ent to how we planned…

When we arrived at Leen­amore at 11am we saw that they were cut­ting down trees at two dif­fer­ent sec­tions of the road and set­ting up a machin­ery stor­age com­pound. There was a heavy Gar­da pres­ence includ­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic order unit with no num­ber tags. There were twen­ty Gar­daí and at least fifty of Shell’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty IRMS attempt­ing to guard the tree line. There was sev­en of us, basi­cal­ly mean­ing we were out­num­bered by about 10 to 1.

A few of us tried to get over the fence or into the trees to pre­vent the tree cut­ting from hap­pen­ing. Five of us suc­ceed­ed in breach­ing lines of secu­ri­ty to impede work at dif­fer­ent times. Some of us were car­ried back over the barbed wire fence by secu­ri­ty guards. The secu­ri­ty guards had real dif­fi­cul­ty in remov­ing us from the area as the ground was extreme­ly uneven and bog­gy. They kept stum­bling as they car­ried us out and it was real­ly dan­ger­ous for the secu­ri­ty them­selves. The Gar­dai were stand­ing out on the road and wouldn’t let us stand on the road.

After try­ing to get in over the fence along the road a few times, sev­er­al cam­paign­ers broke away to try to enter from fur­ther away and dis­ap­peared in the woods.

To everyone’s delight, one cam­paign­er reap­peared about an hour lat­er, on top of a tree-cut­ting dig­ger. Anoth­er cam­paign­er, also reap­peared a hour lat­er, with­out his trousers! His expla­na­tion was that the ski-suit he had been wear­ing had been caus­ing rustling as he approached secu­ri­ty lines so even­tu­al­ly he had to resort to remov­ing them and run in his ther­mals to make it to climb a tree that was in the path of Shell’s destruc­tion. As a new­com­er to the camp, this is his expe­ri­ence of try­ing to stop Shell in his own words;

“I arrived at the camp a few days ago. It’s my first vis­it. I spent the first day help­ing to block lor­ries and got a good chance ot be active against Shell’s destruc­tion. This morn­ing every­one was sur­prised that Shell were start­ing work on the for­est. A few of us went away to come at the machin­ery from anoth­er angle. We crawled through the woods towards the area they were cut­ting slow­ly. As were crawl­ing towards the dig­ger I dart­ed off left. All the secu­ri­ty were shout­ing ‘hold the line’. I kept run­ning until a group of secu­ri­ty broke away from a group at the road and start­ed run­ning after me. I ran back into the woods with them run­ning behind me shout­ing, so I went to ground and hid for 20 min­utes. Then crawled down a bit and looked up to see where they were and they were all around me. I had to run accorss a big gap where they could all see me and into anoth­er patch of woods. With them all run­ning behind me I got into the trees again. I reached the first suit­able tree to climb just to the right of the tree-cut­ting-dig­ger. By the time I was up the secu­ri­ty guards had run past me but couldn’t see me. Fif­teen or twen­ty of them were below film­ing and wan­der­ing around. They shout­ing at me, things like ‘are you going to come down?’ and ‘Chop him down!’. I climbed right to the top to see where the dig­ger was. I swung to anoth­er tree and then to anoth­er to get a bit clos­er to the dig­ger as it moved. I stayed up for about 45 min­utes as the dig­ger broke up the trees beside me. The secu­ri­ty guards start­ed to get more and more angry with me. They start­ed shak­ing the tree and get­ting sticks. I said, ‘I’m real­ly going to want to come down with you doing that!’. I nego­ti­at­ed with them to let me come down safe­ly and agreed that one of them would escourt me out of the woods. I met up with the oth­er campers and camp back to get a cup of tea and some food. A few local peo­ple called in to catch up with us. I feel good to be here to so far. I’ve met some good peo­ple. I found it good to be doing actions with ener­getic peo­ple who have been fight­ing this cam­paign for a long time.”

The oth­er camper up on the tree-cut­ter stayed up to stop work until 6.30pm before com­ing down. This camper report­ed that one of the IRMS secu­ri­ty super­vi­sors that had been run­ning after him in the woods, as he got to the tree-cut­ter, had injured his ankle and had even­tu­al­ly been stretchered off the site. The cam­paign­ers were not arrest­ed as the cut­ting was hap­pen­ing on pri­vate land.

New camp mem­bers are always wel­come and even if you don’t feel like crawl­ing around in the woods in your first few days there is plen­ty of oth­er things to do…

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is call­ing for sup­port in advance of this com­ing Fri­day the 13th of Jan­u­ary. Fri­day is the first Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty of the new year, when peo­ple from around Ire­land are invit­ed to join the protests for a day to show their sup­port for the ongo­ing resis­tance to the Cor­rib Gas Project.

http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org
 
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Shell’s tree cutting disrupted for second day running

Dis­rup­tion to the felling of the Coillte wood­land for Shel­l’s planned onshore pipeline (along with the stop­ping of haulage trucks to the Augh­oose com­pound), con­tin­ued today as pro­tes­tors inter­cept­ed a spe­cial­ist 8‑track tree felling machine between the Augh­oose tun­nelling com­pound and Leen­amore for­est.

A Bar­ret­t’s truck trans­port­ing the machine was halt­ed as it made the 1km jour­ney at 7am this morn­ing by a small band of mer­ry pro­tes­tors, one of whom quick­ly ascend­ed the arm and set­tled into posi­tion as a lone Gar­da looked on. Sev­er­al more Gar­daí soon came to join her sup­port­ed by a large num­ber of IRMS staff who have been posi­tioned along the road by the for­est since yes­ter­day.

As a win­tery dawn broke over the beseiged bog the Gar­daí “removal” team arrived along with their “trans­porter”, dri­ven by Sgt Aidan Gill, who then pro­ceed­ed to ini­ti­ate Gar­da attacks on the gath­er­ing sup­port­ers, in the name of health and safe­ty.

Fol­low­ing some hasty posi­tion­ing of ‘crash-mat­tress­es’ and blan­kets (!!) on and around the machine an attempt was made to remove the pro­tes­tors, only for the Gar­daí to dis­cov­er that the pro­tes­tor had D‑locked her neck to the machine.

In an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly reck­less move, the Gar­daí then decid­ed to use an angle grinder just mil­lime­ters away from the pro­tes­tors’ head, all to enable the con­tin­u­a­tion of Shel­l’s work for the day.

How­ev­er the delay of 3 & 1/2 hours to the tree felling had also thwart­ed all deliv­er­ies of stone and removals of peat at the Augh­oose com­pound as the dri­ver of the truck car­ry­ing the machine had been swerv­ing so much, as to end up pre­vent­ing the pas­sage of any oth­er trucks on the road.
After being tak­en down the pro­tes­tor was arrest­ed and charged and is due to appear in Bel­mul­let court along with 4 oth­er cam­paign­ers.

Lat­er on in the evening anoth­er protest was called for out­side Bel­lan­aboy, how­ev­er it seems the lat­est activ­i­ty has result­ed in a fur­ther increase in the amount of Gar­daí loi­ter­ing in the area. About 15 Gar­daí were imme­di­ate­ly on hand and so not too many trucks were stopped in the evening.

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is call­ing for sup­port in advance of this com­ing Fri­day the 13th of Jan­u­ary. Fri­day is the first Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty of the new year, when peo­ple from around Ire­land are invit­ed to join the protests for a day to show their sup­port for the ongo­ing resis­tance to the Cor­rib Gas Project.

 

 

East Gippsland forest protests & background

Logging East Gippsland old growth forests destroys wildlife refuge in a warming climate

17 Novem­ber 2011

Logging East Gippsland old growth forests destroys wildlife refuge in a warming climate

17 Novem­ber 2011

Envi­ron­men­tal activists have been out in old growth Forests in East Gipp­s­land this week attempt­ing to stop more rape of our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and pro­tect­ing impor­tant refu­gia habi­tats for endan­gered species. Log­ging oper­a­tions on Sur­vey Rd on the Erri­n­un­dra Plateau were halt­ed by a tree-sit attached to five log­ging machines and sus­pend­ed 40 metres up in the tree canopy.

“In the face of recent Bail­lieu gov­ern­ment moves to weak­en the Flo­ra and Fau­na Guar­an­tee Act, con­ser­va­tion­ists have again tak­en their mes­sage to log­ging sites where impor­tant wildlife habi­tat con­tin­ues to be logged for wood­chips”, said Ms Amelia Young, spokesper­son for the con­ser­va­tion­ists of the Goonger­ah Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre (GECO) (Face­book).

“This site on Sur­vey Road is anoth­er con­tro­ver­sial log­ging coupe, in pre­cious, ancient for­est right on the bor­der of the nation­al park. Forests on and around the nation­al park have been iden­ti­fied as key refu­gia – a safe place — for threat­ened wildlife; that they con­tin­ue in 2011 to be tar­get­ed for short-term log­ging projects, is inex­cus­able.”

“The future of the log­ging indus­try lies in sourc­ing saw and pulp logs from plan­ta­tions. Gov­ern­ment assis­tance should be pro­cured imme­di­ate­ly to sup­port the indus­try to make this tran­si­tion out of our pub­licly owned high-con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests.”

“With waratahs in flower, indi­vid­ual trees expect­ed to be in excess of 500 years old and endan­gered spot-tailed quolls detect­ed in the area, there’s no ques­tion this old-growth for­est is worth more stand­ing”, con­clud­ed Ms Young.

Both sides of tra­di­tion­al pol­i­tics have sup­port­ed the log­ging of old growth forests, even though native old growth forests are so impor­tant to pre­serve for a raft of rea­sons that rise above the eco­nom­ic exploita­tion for wood pulp and tim­ber:

Ear­li­er this month the State Gov­ern­ment qui­et­ly announced Log­ging con­trac­tors will be able to seek exemp­tions from state envi­ron­ment laws pro­tect­ing endan­gered species under pro­posed changes by the Bail­lieu state gov­ern­ment. The Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and Envi­ron­ment would be able to exempt a log­ging project from the require­ments of the Flo­ra and Fau­na Guar­an­tee Act. Good­bye endan­gered species habi­tat!

The Supreme Court of Vic­to­ria last year banned Vic­Forests from log­ging old-growth for­est at Brown Moun­tain in East Gipp­s­land after activists released a video of a long-foot­ed potoroo filmed in a log­ging coupe on Brown Moun­tain.

More recent­ly, the Vic­to­ri­an Supreme Court has stopped log­ging of old growth forests at Sylvia Creek in Vic­to­ri­a’s cen­tral high­lands because it threat­ens the habi­tat of the endan­gered Lead­beat­er’s Pos­sum. A court injunc­tion present­ly pre­vents log­ging old growth forests in this area till 2012, while the case is heard. The changes by the State Gov­ern­ment seek to under­mine the Supreme Court rul­ings to pro­tect endan­gered species.

The Wilder­ness Soci­ety has attacked the Bail­lieu Gov­ern­ment for under­min­ing Vic­to­ri­a’s envi­ron­men­tal laws.

“Decades of over­log­ging and three major fire events in Vic­to­ri­a’s forests have pushed many species clos­er to extinc­tion. Our unique wildlife, includ­ing Vic­to­ri­a’s endan­gered fau­nal emblem, the Lead­beat­er’s Pos­sum, need their native for­est homes pro­tect­ed, not betrayed to the Bail­lieu gov­ern­ment bull­doz­ers. It is not too late to turn this deci­sion around.” says the Wilder­ness soci­ety.

The State Gov­ern­ment has no elec­toral man­date for mak­ing these changes. Lib­er­al MP Mary Wooldridge told an envi­ron­ment forum held at Mel­bourne Town Hall on 18 Novem­ber 2010 dur­ing the Vic­to­ri­an state elec­tion cam­paign, of the impor­tance of pro­tect­ing for­est that con­tains threat­ened species such as Lead­beat­ers Pos­sum.

“Some con­cerns we can address are issues about pre log­ging assess­ments and mak­ing sure the areas we are log­ging don’t have pro­tect­ed species or dif­fer­ent issues with the Lead­bet­ter’s pos­sum in rela­tion to in terms of the catch­ment areas. Mak­ing sure we are doing those assess­ments, mak­ing sure if areas are logged they don’t have those assets, insur­ing those assess­ments are done and those areas are pro­tect­ed before hand.” said Mary Wooldridge MP.

It seems this is just anoth­er bro­ken promise from a Gov­ern­ment march­ing back­wards on cli­mate and the envi­ron­ment, as well as gen­er­al social con­di­tions in pub­lic hos­pi­tals and health, and in edu­ca­tion in Vic­to­ria.

Back­ground: Coalition’s 2km wind farm veto sets a risky prece­dent | Retreat­ing on cli­mate pol­i­cy — Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment stops dis­cus­sions on Hazel­wood clo­sure | Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment needs to come clean on plan to achieve 20 per­cent emis­sions cut by 2020

Image Source: GECO — Log­ging machin­ery, awe­some cabling and trees that once stood tall — Sur­vey Rd block­ade Novem­ber 2011