Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Clear-felling to resume at Mainshill Wood

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has learned from Forestry Com­mis­sion work­ers that the land own­er at Main­shill Wood in South Lanark­shire, Lord Home, intends to con­tin­u­ing clear-felling large areas of plan­ta­tion in prepa­ra­tion for a new open cast coal

Mainshill clearcutThe Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has learned from Forestry Com­mis­sion work­ers that the land own­er at Main­shill Wood in South Lanark­shire, Lord Home, intends to con­tin­u­ing clear-felling large areas of plan­ta­tion in prepa­ra­tion for a new open cast coal mine.

Two work­ers have been remov­ing branch­es on a sec­tion of plan­ta­tion next to the huge area that was felled three months ago, and told campers that the har­vest­ing machines and a JCB would be on their way soon.

When the clear-felling start­ed in June, campers took this as a sign that work was start­ing on the site and occu­pied it, pre­vent­ing any fur­ther felling and pre­vent­ing any of the wood being removed from the site.

The area of plan­ta­tion is well with­in the intend­ed exca­va­tion area on the site. In addi­tion, Scot­tish Coal have still not car­ried out the exten­sive eco­log­i­cal sur­vey at Main­shill that was a con­di­tion of the plan­ning approval. How can an accu­rate sur­vey be con­duct­ed after all the wood­land has been removed? Bad­ger sets, bats and nests of birds of prey have all bee seen in the plan­ta­tion at Main­shill.

The Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will stop any work from tak­ing place on the site in prepa­ra­tion for the nine – there is no com­mu­ni­ty con­sent for this project. An update will be sent out as soon as there is an attempt to enter the site with heavy machin­ery.

Come to the camp this week to resist more clear-felling – the longer prepara­to­ry work is delayed, the greater the cost to Scot­tish Coal and the stronger this cam­paign grows!

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp web­site: http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/

Trouble at Vestas picket — HELP NEEDED!

9.9.2009 6pm
Police and secu­ri­ty guards have descend­ed in large num­bers on the Ves­tas protest camp and appear to be attempt­ing to break up the work­ers’ and sup­port­ers’ block­ade. There has so far been one arrest ‑help is urgent­ly need­ed!

Vestas Stop the Blades camp9.9.2009 6pm
Police and secu­ri­ty guards have descend­ed in large num­bers on the Ves­tas protest camp and appear to be attempt­ing to break up the work­ers’ and sup­port­ers’ block­ade. There has so far been one arrest ‑help is urgent­ly need­ed!

We have received reports that large num­bers of police have descend­ed on the campsite/blockade which is being main­tained by Ves­tas work­ers and their sup­port­ers out­side the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in New­port. There have been two arrests so far and the sit­u­a­tion is expect­ed to con­tin­ue to esca­late over the com­ing 24 hours or so.

Any sup­port­ers who can make it down to the Island and offer help of any kind are urgent­ly request­ed to do so — check out savevestas.wordpress.com for details of how to get to the fac­to­ry — or call 07950 539 254 for more info.

CoMutiny on it’s way — are you heading to Bristol? 12th-20th September

Less than a month to go and peo­ple must be curi­ous as to what Comutiny is and who is involved. EVERYONE IS INVOLVED! Every­one is invit­ed to take part dur­ing the week in what­ev­er way they/their group feel best!!

Co-Mutiny final posterLess than a month to go and peo­ple must be curi­ous as to what Comutiny is and who is involved. EVERYONE IS INVOLVED! Every­one is invit­ed to take part dur­ing the week in what­ev­er way they/their group feel best!!

In Bris­tol and sur­rounds, a diverse bunch of enraged cre­ative, dream­ers and schemers, builders and gar­den­ers, work­ers, stu­dents and unem­ployed have been drawn togeth­er by the com­mon threads of our indig­na­tion at how a com­bi­na­tion of cor­po­rate greed, social injus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion is lead­ing us all towards cli­mate chaos and finan­cial col­lapse.

We invite you to con­verge on Bris­tol for an upris­ing of autonomous actions and events from 12th – 20th of Sep­tem­ber 2009.

The pro­vi­sion­al CoMutiny timetable is avail­able now. There is more time to add any events/actions/skillshares/performances/happenings so please send the infor­ma­tion to: bristolcomutinyworkshops@riseup.net

http://comutiny.wordpress.com/

Mainshill Solidarity Camp Update: two and a half months on & 1st newsletter

Over two and a half months ago the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was set up on the site of a new open cast coal mine at Main­shill Wood, in sup­port of the local com­mu­ni­ties efforts to oppose the project and Scot­tish Coal’s plans, and in defi­ance of plan­ning approval grant­ed by South Lanark­shire Coun­cil

Its the fort that countsOver two and a half months ago the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was set up on the site of a new open cast coal mine at Main­shill Wood, in sup­port of the local com­mu­ni­ties efforts to oppose the project and Scot­tish Coal’s plans, and in defi­ance of plan­ning approval grant­ed by South Lanark­shire Coun­cil.

A lot has hap­pened dur­ing the past few months: Scot­tish Coal and Strath­clyde Police bust­ed through bar­ri­cades with a JCB and removed machin­ery, the Camp for Cli­mate Action in Scot­land set up in the field next to the camp, actions have hap­pened, and final­ly an issue has been made of coal expan­sion in Scot­land. Amaz­ing work and research has been done into the health impacts of open cast coal min­ing for sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties (see http://coalhealthstudy.org/) – an issue that Scot­tish Coal, Lord Home (the land own­er) and South Lanark­shire Coun­cil can no longer silence.

So why have a group of peo­ple decid­ed to live on the site of a rel­a­tive­ly small open cast coal mine, that is most­ly plan­ta­tion for­est and sur­round­ed by only a few small com­mu­ni­ties, and why is this so impor­tant? Because it is places such as Dou­glas that direct action, root­ed in com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle, can be at its most effec­tive. At Main­shill, the fight is against feu­dal land own­er­ship and a fat-cat Lord, a cor­rupt Coun­cil that has removed local demo­c­ra­t­ic process­es, a mul­ti-mil­lion pound min­ing com­pa­ny that stops at noth­ing for prof­it and gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy that pri­ori­tis­es cheap coal over com­mu­ni­ty health and the envi­ron­ment.

Now the cam­paign is firm­ly estab­lished and is win­ning a lot of ground, pres­sure and momen­tum must be kept up and the strug­gle must be brought to oth­er com­mu­ni­ties fac­ing sim­i­lar injus­tices as Dou­glas.
The camp will defend this lib­er­at­ed space and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties until the Wood is saved!

How you can help:
— Vis­it and stay at the camp! Even if its just for a day we’d love to have you
— Dona­tions – both finan­cial and any­thing from our wish­list here are much appre­ci­at­ed
— Spread the word – help dis­trib­ute fly­ers, send emails and tell peo­ple about the strug­gle
— Take action – cen­tral Scot­land is lit­tered with coal infra­struc­ture, cor­po­rate HQs, open cast mines and pow­er sta­tions

http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/
http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/

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Mainshill header
Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Newslet­ter no. 1 out now!

The sto­ry so far, uncov­ered health impacts from open cast­ing, the Camp for Cli­mate Action, assault­ed by a coun­cilor, and oth­er coal strug­gles at Hunter­ston and Cous­land – the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp & Coal Action Newslet­ter is now out!

Down­load the pdf here: http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?p=669

Please copy and dis­trib­ute far and wide. We hope to make this a reg­u­lar pub­li­ca­tion and wel­come sub­mis­sions – please email * mainshill@riseup.net * with any arti­cles, sto­ries or pho­tos.

Land and Forest Occpation started in Lapland (Finland)

On the 26th of August an inter­na­tion­al occu­pa­tion­camp has been start­ed in Finnish Lap­land, due to the plan­ning of ura­ni­um min­ing and the plan­ning of a new nuclear plant. Locals and par­tic­i­pants from the cli­mate camp fin­land, decid­ed to com­bine pow­ers and try to pre­serve the lap­pish nature and way of life.

Forest in FinlandOn the 26th of August an inter­na­tion­al occu­pa­tion­camp has been start­ed in Finnish Lap­land, due to the plan­ning of ura­ni­um min­ing and the plan­ning of a new nuclear plant. Locals and par­tic­i­pants from the cli­mate camp fin­land, decid­ed to com­bine pow­ers and try to pre­serve the lap­pish nature and way of life.

lat­est news from the camp, Ran­ua ( FL)

August 31th, 2009
On August 26th a base­camp has been estab­lished for the Ran­ua Res­cue Are­va Min­ing Mon­i­tors. Dur­ing the Lap­land Nuclear Cli­mate Camp in July we learned from locals that Are­va has already began their ura­ni­um prospect­ing in Ran­ua, Lap­land. We have come here to mon­i­tor Are­va’s activ­i­ties and help sup­port the resis­tance to ura­ni­um min­ing here, and every­where.
We have found a beau­ti­ful loca­tion for the camp, near a lake, with­in an old for­est, on the edge of Are­va’s mas­sive prospect­ing claim area. We need thought­ful, respect­ful peo­ple, skills, sup­plies, sup­port, laugh­ter, and ded­i­ca­tion!
You can check the http://www.nuclearfreefinland.org site, and the blog on http://www.ranuarescue.blogspot.com.
Soon we will be send­ing pho­tos and direc­tions to get here, we will also set up a sched­ule for when peo­ple are most need­ed, what is need­ed, and what events will be hap­pen­ing.
When you want to come to the camp, con­tact in advance (camp (at) nuclearfreefinland.org) and tell of your arrival time in Ran­ua. From there you can phone the camp work phone num­ber +358 40 365 2041.[1]

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So every­body who has some spare time on their hands is very wel­come to come.

Anoth­er Web­site: http://www.greenkids.de/europas-atomerbe/index.php/Ranua_Uranium_Exploration_Action

Irish climate camp & actions round-up

Peat pow­er worse than coal for CO2 emis­sions

Cli­mate Camp is up and run­ning at Shan­non­bridge, Co.Offaly — start­ed Sat­ur­day 15th August and goes on till Sun­day 23rd August.

Peat pow­er worse than coal for CO2 emis­sions

Cli­mate Camp is up and run­ning at Shan­non­bridge, Co.Offaly — start­ed Sat­ur­day 15th August and goes on till Sun­day 23rd August.

It’s about what we can do in the face of chang­ing cli­mate that will affect us all. Peat bogs are a liv­ing car­bon sink — greater even than forestry. Burn­ing peat releas­es more CO2 into the atmos­phere than burn­ing coal. The peat-fired pow­er­sta­tion beside the camp should have been shut down long ago — since our gov­ern­ment and Bord na Mona still fail to see the urgency of reduc­ing emis­sions, cli­mate camp will be stag­ing a major protest on Sat­ur­day 22nd August — this will be a day of action and fun, includ­ing street the­atre, art, etc, which will hope­ful­ly bring media atten­tion to this impor­tant issue.

Mean­while, the camp has lots of great work­shops every day this week about sus­tain­able liv­ing, peat bogs, forestry, cycling, renew­able ener­gy, etc, etc. Come along to my Trees and You work­shop on Wednes­day ! I will be talk­ing about trees as car­bon sinks, as vital ele­ments of bio­di­ver­si­ty, as added val­ue to farms and gar­dens, wood­land gar­dens, agro­forestry, CELT native tree nurs­ery, CELT Week­end in the Woods (19 / 20 Sep­tem­ber) (anoth­er event not to be missed !) .….….….….….……

So get your­self along to CLIMATE CAMP and be a part of it !

http://www.climatecamp.ie

Camp trail­er

Newslet­ter, includ­ing next organ­is­ing gath­er­ing
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Cli­mate Campers take Direct Action on Bog Restora­tion
August 23, 2009

Hun­dreds par­tic­i­pat­ed in Cli­mate Camp at Shan­non­bridge, which was held under the shad­ow of the peat burn­ing pow­er­sta­tion.
The Cli­mate Camp organ­ised three events to cre­ate bet­ter aware­ness around the indus­tri­al use of peat in pow­er­sta­tions.

Fian­na Fáil’s Gar­ret Tubridy unknow­ing­ly con­tributed to the eco-con­scious Cli­mate Camp at Shan­non­bridge. Recent local elec­tion posters were reused as part of the men’s toi­let facil­i­ties. Users did not have to look at his face. Gavin Harte gave a talk on com­mu­ni­cat­ing the media mes­sage with plen­ty of work­shops on drum­ming, Ross­port, per­ma­cul­ture, the end­less dream­catch­ers and there were more ban­ners being made than you could shake a stick at. It was great for kids and par­ents alike.

Lentil Dis­or­der pro­vid­ed the veg­gie food for the hun­gry mass­es with an oats cri­sis on the Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Choco­late flap­jacks sat­ed the appetites of ear­ly ris­ers.

Locals were bemused watch­ing the parade which left the camp short­ly after mid­day. The bar­men from both locals — Killeen’s and Luk­er’s pubs — waved at some of their new cus­tomers. Anoth­er local said noth­ing like this had ever hap­pened in Shan­non­bridge before. Paraders from the camp had dressed up as zom­bies and the dark forces of dan­ger­ous car­bon emis­sions with a sym­bol­ic chim­ney stack. Bif­fo of course led the zom­bies through the vil­lage! Campers had made ban­ners, plac­ards, dream catch­ers and an eclec­tic sound sys­tem boomed, ‘Black Bet­ty, Bam Alam’ and Mar­ley.

Kayak­ers got onto the lit­tle island in the mid­dle of the Shan­non hold­ing aloft a ban­ner ‘Sponge Bog Stops Floods’, as the parade reached the bridge timed nice­ly with cyclists return­ing from anoth­er direct action from the bog.

A few dif­fer­ent direct actions were planned and no one told me nuthin’.

Climate Justice Now banner
There are three peat pow­er­sta­tions in Ire­land, Lanes­boro and Eden­der­ry, where agile activists dropped ban­ners from, and Shan­non­bridge where there was a parade and some scuf­fles broke out when the parade could­n’t go up to the pow­er­sta­tion.
peat protest placardGive Peat a Chance placard
Look at ClimateCamp.ie for more infor­ma­tion about the issues.

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Cli­mate Campers take Direct Action on Bog Restora­tion
Filling in peat trenches
No time to waste — pre­serv­ing Irish peat­lands is essen­tial

Cli­mate campers of all ages at Shan­non­bridge took a direct action this morn­ing August 18th, on a near­by bog by fill­ing in trench­es that are used to drain the bog for cut­ting. The peace­ful demon­stra­tions last­ed 2 hours with police curi­ous­ly onlook­ing at the hard work­ing activists.
Peat train line trespass
This morn­ing at 11.30am six­ty odd Cli­mate Campers of all ages strolled 2km from the camp beside the Shan­non­bridge Peat Burn­ing Pow­er Plant towards one of the Bord na Móna man-made brown deserts out­side of the town. Equipped with some sacks, shov­els, pil­low cas­es, wheel­bar­rows, ban­ners and good cheer, they start­ed fill­ing in the trench­es made to drain the bogs with milled peat which was des­tined for burn­ing at the pow­er plant. The direct action con­tin­ued for about 2 hours fill­ing in a sig­nif­i­cant part of the trench. Local police watched as the cli­mate campers, includ­ing many chil­dren, dili­gent­ly set about their task and some engaged the police in con­ver­sa­tion explain­ing to them the rea­sons for their actions.

This is the first step that’s need­ed to restore our bogs” said Mol­ly Walsh, spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp Ire­land. “Peo­ple don’t realise that when bogs are drained and dried, they release ample amounts of car­bon diox­ide, even before the peat is burnt. Degrad­ed peat­lands release 0.97 mil­lion tonnes of C02 annu­al­ly in Ire­land.” she added.
peat banners
Colour­ful ban­ners and plac­ards were unveiled on the bog say­ing “Cli­mate Change Costs Lives” and “The bog is our rain­for­est”. One ban­ner was mount­ed on a piece of peat-cut­ting machin­ery which said “Don’t Burn our Bogs”. Some of the activists board­ed a bog train, while oth­ers pushed them along, sym­bol­is­ing that human­i­ty is on the wag­on towards cli­mate chaos unless we halt these cli­mate chaos caus­ing activ­i­ties imme­di­ate­ly.

Come join us at the camp for more actions and work­shops! Cli­mate Camp Ire­land con­tin­ues at Shan­non­bridge until August 22nd with the main day of action. We call on every­one to come join us on a day of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop peat burn­ing at the Shan­non­bridge Pow­er Sta­tion.

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Cli­mate Camp shuts down two peat burn­ing pow­er sta­tions
22nd August 2009

The Cli­mate Camp cul­mi­nat­ed in Shan­non­bridge with a day of action. The unsus­tain­abil­i­ty of the peat burn­ing was suc­cess­ful­ly high­light­ed with actions at all three peat burn­ing pow­er plants. Activists suceed­ed in shut­ting down the two plants at Shan­non­bridge and Lanes­bor­ough. The Shan­non­bridge plant has been shut all week since the camp start­ed, and the Lanes­bor­ough plant was shut down by activists today.

This morn­ing a group of Cli­mate Camp activists car­ried out a peace­ful direct action at Lanes­bor­ough peat burn­ing pow­er plant. Some activists locked them­selves to the gates while anoth­er group entered the plant and car­ried out a ban­ner drop on one of the build­ings which read “Give Peat a Chance.” The pow­er plan­t’s chim­ney stack stopped bel­low­ing its car­bon emis­sions for most of the work­ing day. Two activists were arrest­ed.

Ger­ald Glynn, a spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp said, “We took this peace­ful direct action to high­light the urgency of cli­mate jus­tice issues. Our bogs are our rain­forests and we need to pro­tect them. We can’t wait for our gov­ern­ments to act. Let’s give peat a chance now.”

At mid­day anoth­er group of Cli­mate Campers tar­get­ted a third pow­er plant in Eden­der­ry, owned by Bord na Mona. Five women dropped a ban­ner from the pow­er sta­tion’s con­vey­or belt which read “Cli­mate Jus­tice Now”. The work­ers at the plant came out and took an inter­est in the action. “Bord na Mon­a’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty talk is noth­ing but that, talk, they are still extract­ing and burn­ing the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel. We are send­ing out a strong mes­sage of sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in the Glob­al South suf­fer­ing from the impacts of cli­mate change.” said Jer­rieann Sul­li­van, a spokesper­son for the group.

A live­ly colour­ful parade began at 12pm in Shan­non­bridge and made its way through the town, across the riv­er and back towards the pow­er plant. Many cre­ative ban­ners were car­ried by Cli­mate Campers of all ages with slo­gans such as “Cli­mate Change Costs Lives” and “Bogs are our rain­forests”. Peo­ple were dressed up as zom­bies and bog mon­sters as they parad­ed, chant­ed, danced and sang through the town while locals looked on with amused inter­est. Anoth­er group merged with the parade after tak­ing more direct action fill­ing in trench­es which drain the bogs to start restor­ing our peat­lands. A Cli­mate Camp riv­er crew also unveiled a ban­ner say­ing “Sponge bog stops floods” to many cheers from the main parade.

“300,000 peo­ple are dying annu­al­ly world­wide as a result of cli­mate change, not to men­tion loss­es in wildlife and bio­di­ver­si­ty.” said Nan­cy Ser­ra­no, spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp. “Peo­ple in the mid­lands deserve bet­ter com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed sus­tain­able jobs. We need to think long-term and we need to start now.” she added.

ENDS

www.climatecamp.ieFor inter­view or fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­tact the cli­mate camp media phone 085 7851241
or for spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion on the action in Lanes­bor­ough — 085 1386675

http://www.flickr.com/photos/climatecampireland

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Daily Shannonbridge blockade
Dai­ly peace­ful block­ade of Shan­non­bridge pow­er sta­tion

site taken for Camp for Climate Action 2009, at Blackheath

After a relaxed start to things, get­ting to the camp­site seemed almost too easy. Only one video­g­ra­ph­er was has­sled when an offi­cer tried to grab his cam­era ear­ly on. After a first meet­ing, tents and mar­quees are going up all over the place.

Tripod & banner at climate camp 2009climate camp 2009 tripod with banks behindAfter a relaxed start to things, get­ting to the camp­site seemed almost too easy. Only one video­g­ra­ph­er was has­sled when an offi­cer tried to grab his cam­era ear­ly on. After a first meet­ing, tents and mar­quees are going up all over the place.

The weath­er is nice, albeit some­what windy and the view over Lon­don is amaz­ing. It’s almost hard to believe that we’re still in the city.

Swoop action time­line

Loca­tion, more pho­tos and more at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

Come to a Picnic

A Fam­i­ly Pic­nic Day to Stop Tesco Build­ing at Tit­nore Woods, in West Sus­sex.

A Fam­i­ly Pic­nic Day to Stop Tesco Build­ing at Tit­nore Woods, in West Sus­sex.

On Tues­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber, we will meet at 12 noon at the round­about in front of the exist­ing West Dur­ring­ton Tesco Extra. It’s the where Romany Road joins New Road. At about 1230 we’ll move to a bet­ter pic­nic site in the fields behind the Tesco car park, where build­ing work for the new Tesco has begun. Bring food to share and any­thing else that you think will help make the point that we don’t want Tesco destroy­ing our land­scape and our com­mu­ni­ties! Please tell your friends and bring them along.
The protest camp is near­by and they wel­come vis­i­tors and dona­tions.

http://www.titnore.wordpress.com

Whats going on in Mayo? Rossport Update

Overview of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paign in the last few months: the Soli­taire, actions, on-land sec­tion, arrests, assaults, strat­e­gy, plan­ning appeal, mobil­is­ing and more!

What’s going on in mayo?!

Overview of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paign in the last few months: the Soli­taire, actions, on-land sec­tion, arrests, assaults, strat­e­gy, plan­ning appeal, mobil­is­ing and more!

What’s going on in mayo?!

The last few months have been dif­fi­cult times for the Ross­port cam­paign but have also seen some great col­lab­o­ra­tions with activists from across Ire­land, inter­na­tion­als and the local com­mu­ni­ty.

This sum­mer the Soli­taire laid the first sec­tion of pipe in Broad­haven Bay. Dredgers are in the process of back fill­ing the first sec­tion of the pipeline, com­ing and going from the bay depend­ing on weath­er con­di­tions.… IRMS, the pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm employed by Shell, con­tin­ue to tar­get and assault pro­tes­tors. Ear­li­er this year they sunk the boat of local fish­er­man Pat O’Don­nell, one of the ‘Ross­port 5’ and attacked Willie Cor­duff, anoth­er cam­paign­er, dur­ing a non-vio­lent protest. Both were hos­pi­talised.

Sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al anti-Shell cam­paign­ers were recent­ly remand­ed for a block­ade and bailed away from Mayo. This is a wor­ry­ing devel­op­ment enforced by cor­rupt judges col­lud­ing with Shell. Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, and Niall Har­nett, both well known Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers were both giv­en 4 and 8 months respec­tive­ly, after refus­ing to com­ply with a good behav­iour bond which stat­ed that they would keep the peace, and stay away from any Shell relat­ed infra­struc­ture.

Mau­ra appealed her con­vic­tion, and was released from prison on bail pend­ing appeal. Niall served 15 days in Castlerea prison for refus­ing his extreme­ly restric­tive bail con­di­tions, which effec­tive­ly stopped him from being in his home. He is now out on bail.

In the last two weeks alone there have been 2 acci­dents involv­ing Shells boats, one caus­ing an oil spill, anoth­er dam­ag­ing a sup­ply ship to the pipeline. Accord­ing to Shell nei­ther had any envi­ron­men­tal impact, despite sub­stances leak­ing into the sea. This fur­ther proves the mock­ery that is the risk assess­ments on the envi­ron­men­tal impacts that they are con­duct­ing.

Despite the suc­cess of the Soli­taire and pres­sure from the gar­dai and IRMS the fight is by no means over!! In August the oral hear­ing was held where Shell sought to obtain a com­pul­so­ry pur­chase order for land need­ed across the bay to lay the on-shore pipe section…and the deci­sion has been put back till the end of Octo­ber.

Resis­tance in Glen­gad is still strong, with plans for the next phase in the bat­tle against Shell.…with the on-shore sec­tion comes a new wave of chal­lenges (and oppor­tu­ni­ties) for cam­paign­ers fight­ing to stop the pipeline… We will be con­tin­u­ing to chal­lenge Shel­l’s intim­i­da­tion tac­tics in order to stop this ille­gal, unsafe, and envi­ron­men­tal­ly cat­a­stroph­ic project. The sit­u­a­tion in Ross­port is a line in the sand for new meth­ods of intim­i­da­tion, human rights abus­es, and envi­ron­men­tal­ly dis­as­trous gas extrac­tion and must be stopped. Inter­na­tion­al links in the cam­paign have been devel­op­ing over years, espe­cial­ly with the Ogo­ni tribe in Nige­ria where Shel­l’s tac­tics have caused many human­i­tar­i­an crises, and famous­ly led to a tri­al against Shell for the mur­der of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Most recent­ly the Shell guilty cam­paign will see a col­lab­o­ra­tion between activists from across the globe fight­ing to stop Shell.

On camp and up at the house we are doing main­te­nance work on the boats, gar­den and equip­ment, and peo­ple are always very wel­come! The Irish Shell to Sea net­work is mobil­is­ing peo­ple ahead of the next sec­tion of the cam­paign, organ­is­ing actions and demos, and devel­op­ing strate­gies for action… in the UK there’s loads that can be done: organ­is­ing film nights, ben­e­fit gigs, tak­ing action in your local area against Shell and the oth­er com­pa­nies prof­it­ing from the pipeline, and mobil­is­ing ahead of the next phase. With peo­ple being bailed away from Mayo, it’s more impor­tant than ever to have peo­ple com­ing to take action against Shell!

To find out more keep an eye out for work­shops at the EF gath­er­ing, Cli­mate Cam­p’s and fes­ti­vals across the UK..

The strug­gle con­tin­ues!

For more infor­ma­tion see
www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com

www.corribsos.com

www.shellguilty.com

or email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com

Police raid eco-protest camp

16.08.2009
POLICE bul­lies have invad­ed Camp Tit­nore near Wor­thing and intim­i­dat­ed the pro­test­ers, who have been peace­ful­ly occu­py­ing the threat­ened Dur­ring­ton wood­land since 2006.

16.08.2009
POLICE bul­lies have invad­ed Camp Tit­nore near Wor­thing and intim­i­dat­ed the pro­test­ers, who have been peace­ful­ly occu­py­ing the threat­ened Dur­ring­ton wood­land since 2006.

Com­ing just a few weeks after Tesco got per­mis­sion for its dis­gust­ing new abom­i­na­tion on neigh­bour­ing fields, it is feared this her­alds an all-out attack on the camp by the usu­al unholy alliance of prof­i­teer­ing cap­i­tal­ist scum, cor­rupt local author­i­ties and the tax­pay­er-fund­ed thugs-in-blue.

Strong rumours are cir­cu­lat­ing that Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil plan­ners are to meet very soon to give the final go-ahead for the 875-home hous­ing devel­op­ment at Tit­nore Woods and that the camp will be cleared by force before work starts, pos­si­bly as soon as Octo­ber.

The campers are appeal­ing for all those who have sup­port­ed them dur­ing their three-year marathon protest to make the effort to come and vis­it them now — before it is too late — and show the author­i­ties that they can­not mis­treat them with impuni­ty as they enjoy pub­lic back­ing.

If peo­ple can go and stay at the camp for any amount of time, no mat­ter how small, that would obvi­ous­ly be even bet­ter.

The lat­est police raid on the camp came under the the pre­tence of a “health and safe­ty check”. Up to 18 tooled-up ‘offi­cers’ intim­i­dat­ed the envi­ron­men­tal­ists with video cam­eras, as they were in-ter­ror-gat­ed. This includ­ed a young woman with a 4‑year-old child who was vis­it­ing friends at the camp. The police then search and video’d all areas of the camp despite being told to leave the campers’ home.

Clear­ly even after all the crit­i­cism of the police by gov­ern­ment min­is­ters fol­low­ing their behav­iour in Lon­don in April they are still out of con­trol.

The campers now expect more harass­ment in order to get them to give up and leave.

Warn­ing of a pos­si­ble move to give the hous­ing devel­op­ment the OK immi­nent­ly, cam­paign group Pro­tect Our Wood­land! says: “A lot has to be done in a very short time. First please could you sign the peti­tion at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/TitnoreWoods/ and ask all in your address book to do the same. Next it is still very impor­tant to send an e‑mail of objec­tion to the coun­cil, please find all the details at www.protectourwoodland.co.uk then if you’ve still got the ener­gy write to the papers.

“Yes we know there’s been very lit­tle report­ing in the local papers — except for the Tesco part of the devel­op­ment — that’s because edi­tors get fed up with the same old sus­pects writ­ing in end­less­ly. So let’s see if a new hand will get results. All the details are on the web­site.”

Mean­while the cam­paign­ing Dur­ring­ton and North­brook Times reports that work on the mas­sive new Tesco Extra will start tomor­row, Mon­day August 17, with res­i­dents’ con­cerns bull­dozed out of the path of the mon­ster that they like to call progress.

It report­ed in a spe­cial email bul­letin:

“At a pub­lic meet­ing in the Dur­ring­ton Com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, Robert Cur­tis Project Man­ag­er for builders Kier revealed that although dis­tur­bance to local res­i­dents would be kept to a min­i­mum there would be some incon­ve­nience.

“He admit­ted to a stunned audi­ence, that one max­i­mum weight mul­ti-wheeled truck would have to come through the exist­ing Tesco car park every 7 min­utes as nego­ti­a­tions had bro­ken down with the own­er of land north of Ful­beck Ave, pre­vi­ous­ly ear­marked. The route to the car park indi­cat­ed on the hand­out was through res­i­den­tial roads such as New Road (From the Lamb) and Romany Road.

“It was fur­ther revealed that apart from rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing NO oth­er sus­tain­able fea­tures are to be incor­po­rat­ed. Not even one solar pan­el.

“So there we are then, our coun­cil has allowed this mega rich con­glom­er­ate to build a shed that will be a blot on the land­scape, cre­ate a traf­fic night­mare, destroy local res­i­dents right to breathe clean air and enjoy peace and qui­et. Thank you coun­cil­lors you will be remem­bered at elec­tion time.

“What a shame not one reporter from either the Wor­thing Her­ald or Argus felt it nec­es­sary to be present to report on this. How­ev­er you can rely on The Dur­ring­ton and North­brook Times to report what’s going on to res­i­dents.”

http://www.protectourwoodland.co.uk/tea.htm