Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Protests against beginning Airport extension in Frankfurt/Germany

13.01.2009
+++The Own­er of the Frank­furt Air­port, Fra­port, start­ed today the exten­sion of the air­port to build a new runway+++woodcamp still exists+++more than a hun­dred peo­ple on a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion in the wood

13.01.2009
+++The Own­er of the Frank­furt Air­port, Fra­port, start­ed today the exten­sion of the air­port to build a new runway+++woodcamp still exists+++more than a hun­dred peo­ple on a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion in the wood

Frank­furt Air­port is the biggest ger­man air­port and one of the biggest in europe. Some may remem­ber the fierce con­tro­ver­sies in the 1980s when a new run­way was built (known as “Start­bahn 18 West”, in those times more than 30.000 peo­ple gath­ered in the wood to fight against the exten­sion an police bru­tal­i­ty). Now the own­er of the air­port, the Fra­port cor­po­ra­tion, wants to build a new run­way because they think they need more capac­i­ties to com­pete against the oth­er euro­pean air­ports. The new run­way will be in the north-side of the Frank­furt Air­port, in the for­est of Kel­ster­bach.

After Fra­port began on Tues­day to fence the for­est of Kel­ster­bach in, the day X chain alarm was trig­gered. The fence is the first build­ing in the for­est and serves to lim­it and even­tu­al­ly clo­sure of the for­est area, which the Fra­port wants to be cleared until the end of Feb­ru­ary. The for­est area is only trans­ferred in the pos­ses­sion of Fra­port since yes­ter­day. Before the fence was set­up, one hun­dred cops searched the area for pro­tes­tors. The Hüt­ten­dorf (pro­tes­tors camp) itself has not yet been affect­ed by the fenc­ing.

Already in the morn­ing police showed up in the Hüt­ten­dorf and the camp was searched. The search­es can be under­stood as part of a prepa­ra­tion for the evic­tion to be, because the police sur­veyed some areas and made the pho­tographs. After the search offi­cers in vehi­cles and on foot patroled through the adja­cent for­est.

At the same time dif­fer­ent engi­neer­ing firms began under the sur­veil­lance of hun­dred vops with mea­sure­ments and the fenc­ing in of the wood-area, which will be cleared first. The com­pa­ny signs of the vehi­cles were cov­ered. The con­struc­tion work­ers etah­b­lished a 200-meter fence.

By 18 o’ clock more than a hun­dred peo­ple came toge­hter to a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion in the wood. The demon­stra­tion went with flares to the point, whre the fence was built, there are rumours, which say the fence was part­ly dis­man­tled. Con­stant sur­veil­lance of the fence was not evi­dent and the police had dis­ap­peared from the for­rest.

Accord­ing to media reports, Fra­port will wait with the clear­ing of the 300-hectare piece of wood long enough to wait until the Hes­s­ian admin­is­tra­tion court has decid­ed an urgent appeal of the vil­lage of Kel­ster­bach the air­port expan­sion. But Fra­port will start to fell the trees soon, because due to ger­man “ecol­o­gy” law they are only allowed to fell trees until the begin­ning of march.

For an accu­rate assess­ment of events please vis­it in the com­ing days the Inter­net sites of www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de or www.flughafen-bi.de

It the com­ing days there will be fur­ther actions. Tomor­row at 18 clock some ini­tia­tives (envi­ron­men­tal­ist, social groups, antifas­cists) will demon­strate togeth­er against the pol­i­tics in Hesse (thats the fed­er­al state Frank­furt is in and which politi­cians did decide to allow the air­port exten­sion) in Frank­furt.

Next Sat­ur­day there will be a demon­stra­tion at the air­port.

The resis­tance against the air­port expan­sion will not be finnished with the build­ing of the fence, not with the grub­bing-up, not with the evac­u­a­tion of the “Hüt­ten­dorf” — We will con­tin­ue to resist the air­port as a cli­mate killer, as a source of noise and envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion as well as an impor­tant ele­ment of Euro­pean racist fore­clo­sure sys­tem.

The fence will fall — Smash Fra­port!

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with and greet­ings to Cli­mate rush — Stop air­port exten­sions world­wide!

http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de/english-information/

Chester (Australia) Forest Rescue Needs You!

14 JAN 08: Chester For­est Res­cue Camp is heat­ing up with the first arrest yes­ter­day (impound­ed sur­vey­ors vehi­cle with lock on) whilst they were try­ing to enter for­est while wet, and pos­si­bly spread dieback.

We also issued them with an infringe­ment with a penal­ty of 40 hours tree plant­i­ng.

Chester camp leaflet14 JAN 08: Chester For­est Res­cue Camp is heat­ing up with the first arrest yes­ter­day (impound­ed sur­vey­ors vehi­cle with lock on) whilst they were try­ing to enter for­est while wet, and pos­si­bly spread dieback.

We also issued them with an infringe­ment with a penal­ty of 40 hours tree plant­i­ng.

The min­is­ter announced that log­ging will start in Feb­ru­ary!

Call out for the cav­al­ry!

Chester For­est Res­cue Poster here — More details asap…

More arrests in Tasmanian forest destruction

JAN 14, 2008: A camp set up by con­ser­va­tion­ists almost three years ago was bro­ken up by police on Mon­day morn­ing at the request of Forestry Tas­ma­nia which wants to start log­ging.

JAN 14, 2008: A camp set up by con­ser­va­tion­ists almost three years ago was bro­ken up by police on Mon­day morn­ing at the request of Forestry Tas­ma­nia which wants to start log­ging.

A pro­test­er who locked him­self in a spi­der­hole tun­nel for over 30 hours has been charged with tres­pass in Hobart. The activist was one of a group attempt­ing to stop Forestry Tas­ma­nia build­ing a road into a log­ging coupe in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley.

Two oth­er men have also been charged after try­ing to enter the same tun­nel. A Queens­land woman was also arrest­ed after evad­ing police ear­li­er by climb­ing high­er up a tree as they used a cher­ry-pick­er to bring her down.

Four pro­test­ers remain in tree-sits as more peo­ple arrived to sup­port activists who have been liv­ing in the area. Still Wild Still Threat­ened say 150 peo­ple have gath­ered for a com­mu­ni­ty walk through the area in sup­port of pro­test­ers who are try­ing to stop a log­ging road.

“The com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who are out in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley in defence of our old growth forests will be attempt­ing to get into this exclu­sion zone by any means so they can wit­ness the ongo­ing destruc­tion of our old growth forests…”

READ MORE/Comment…

MORE: Take Action || Police raid Tas­man­ian for­est block­ade || Spi­der-hole for­est pro­test­er arrest­ed || Still Wild Still Threat­ened

Protesters in Standoff with Power Company Over Swamp Access (Florida, USA)

Jan 6th, 2009

As part of their ongo­ing strug­gle against Flori­da Pow­er and Light (FPL), activists from Ever­glades Earth First! have set up an encamp­ment at the entrance to the Bar­ley Bar­ber Swamp, demand­ing entry to ensure that ancient cypress trees are not being killed by water pump­ing for the adja­cent Mar­tin Coun­ty Pow­er Plant. Fol­low­ing a com­bined protest/picnic, demon­stra­tors attempt­ed to hike in to inspect the swamp, but were pre­vent­ed from enter­ing by police. A stand­off has ensued.

Swamp protestorsJan 6th, 2009

As part of their ongo­ing strug­gle against Flori­da Pow­er and Light (FPL), activists from Ever­glades Earth First! have set up an encamp­ment at the entrance to the Bar­ley Bar­ber Swamp, demand­ing entry to ensure that ancient cypress trees are not being killed by water pump­ing for the adja­cent Mar­tin Coun­ty Pow­er Plant. Fol­low­ing a com­bined protest/picnic, demon­stra­tors attempt­ed to hike in to inspect the swamp, but were pre­vent­ed from enter­ing by police. A stand­off has ensued.


—

Swamp Stand­off Ends With 17 Arrests
Jan 12th, 2009

Sev­en­teen pro­test­ers from Ever­glades Earth First! were arrest­ed on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 10, six of them for cross­ing into the Bar­ley Bar­ber Swamp, which is owned by Flori­da Pow­er and Light. This end­ed a 6‑day stand­off, in which pro­test­ers had camped at the entrance of the swamp demand­ing entry, accus­ing FPL of bar­ring the pub­lic in order to con­ceal the fact that its adja­cent Mar­tin Coun­ty Pow­er Plant was destroy­ing the swamp and its 1,000-year old cypress trees through exces­sive water pump­ing.

Ever­glades Earth First! has put out a call for finan­cial sup­port to help bail out those arrest­ed. “Direct action is a com­mu­ni­ty effort that goes well beyond the risk of arrest,” the group said. “It requires broad sup­port from those who wish to see grass­roots efforts suc­ceed.”

Watch videos of this and oth­er Ever­glades EF! actions at their YouTube page

Florentine Arrests — Police raid Tasmanian forest blockade

JAN 12, 08 — Nine anti-log­ging pro­test­ers remain locked to a road in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley in south­ern Tas­ma­nia after refus­ing to leave their camp­site.

Styx tripodJAN 12, 08 — Nine anti-log­ging pro­test­ers remain locked to a road in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley in south­ern Tas­ma­nia after refus­ing to leave their camp­site.

Police are try­ing to break up the two-year-old protest camp so that Forestry Tas­ma­nia can begin road­works and log­ging. Forty mem­bers of the group ‘Still Wild Still Threat­ened’ were camped in the area this morn­ing when police arrived just after 8:30pm.

The immi­nent log­ging of the Upper Flo­ren­tine for­est is a nation­al dis­grace, Aus­tralian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
“The Upper Flo­ren­tine For­est has been deemed of World Her­itage val­ue. The immi­nent log­ging oper­a­tion there is a nation­al dis­grace. Claims by Prime Min­is­ter Rudd that native for­est log­ging is sus­tain­able are patent­ly stu­pid,” Sen­a­tor Brown said.

The con­voy report­ed­ly con­tains 12 police cars, includ­ing two small bus­es with an esti­mat­ed 30 police involved in the oper­a­tion.

Sen­a­tor Brown was fly­ing over the site in a heli­copter this morn­ing, which was recalled to base fol­low­ing con­tact from the police. A large ban­ner read­ing ‘Save our Forests’ can be seen from the sky.

Spokesman Chris­to Mills says police asked them to leave but they refused. Mr Mills says after a two hour stand-off 30 activists have now been removed, one has been arrest­ed and nine remain locked to a road, accord­ing to reports on the ABC web­site.

“For­est defend­ers are con­tin­u­ing to hold their posi­tions and will do so for as long as it takes,” he said.

Sen­a­tor Bob Brown says police had bet­ter pre­pare for a long fight. “I think it will take quite a while to remove these folk…”

——–

RED ALERT!!!! CAMP FLORENTINE HAS BEEN BUSTED

RED ALERT!!!! CAMP FLORENTINE HAS BEEN BUSTED AND THE BULLDOZERS AND CHAINSAWS ARE MOVING IN RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ear­ly this morn­ing, police stormed a peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty block­ade in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley. Camp Flo­ren­tine, locat­ed in log­ging coupe FO044A, has been defend­ing the glob­al­ly recog­nised old growth forests of the Upper Flo­ren­tine for over two years.

This move by police is designed to allow Forestry Tas­ma­nia to build 4km of new log­ging roads into the heart of the val­ley. These roads will rip apart an ancient and glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant ecosys­tem, open­ing up the val­ley to indus­tri­al scale dev­as­ta­tion at the hands of wood­chip­ping barons Gunns Lim­it­ed.

THE BULLDOZERS AND CHAINSAWS ARE MOVING INTO THE PRISTINE FORESTS OF THE UPPER FLORENTINE VALLEY RIGHT NOW AND WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PEACEFUL COMMUNITY WALK IN THIS WEDNESDAY AT 10AM.

If you are liv­ing in Tas­ma­nia, please stand up and speak out against the destruc­tion of our pre­cious old growth forests. A com­mu­ni­ty walk in will be held this Wednes­day, 14th Jan­u­ary 2009 at 10am. Meet at Timbs Track carpark, Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley. To get to the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley, take the Brook­er High­way out of Hobart, take the New Nor­folk turnoff and fol­low the signs to Mt Field or Lake Ped­der. Con­tin­ue on through May­de­na. Camp Flo­ren­tine and Timbs Track are 20 min­utes past May­de­na on the side of the Gor­don Riv­er Road.

WRITE TO THE POLLIES AND THE NEWSPAPERS. CALL UP YOUR LOCAL MP AND TALKBACK RADIO STATION.

Politi­cians need to know about your seri­ous con­cerns with the destruc­tion of the glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant forests of the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley. Become an active cit­i­zen and exer­cise your demo­c­ra­t­ic right to let the gov­ern­ment know that old growth log­ging and the destruc­tion of ancient ecosys­tems is unac­cept­able, and that seri­ous changes to leg­is­la­tion and pol­i­cy need to hap­pen now!

Write a let­ter (every hand writ­ten let­ter is viewed as rep­re­sent­ing the opin­ions of 100 vot­ers, so it’s cer­tain­ly worth mak­ing the extra effort) or send an email to your local fed­er­al mem­ber and any (or all!) of the fol­low­ing mem­bers of par­lia­ment. Make an appoint­ment with your local MPs … they are your employ­ees and need to lis­ten to your con­cerns.

Write let­ters to the edi­tor of your local news­pa­per and call up talk back radio. Get the word out in the media!

The Tas­man­ian Gov­ern­ment.

THE PREMIER OF TASMANIA

David Bartlett, MHA

Lev­el 11. 15 Mur­ray St. Hobart, TAS 7000

david.bartlett@education.tas.gov.au

THE LEADER OF THE LIBERAL PARTY, TASMANIAN DIVISION

Will Hodg­man, MHA

Par­lia­ment House, Hobart, TAS 7000

will.hodgman@parliament.tas.gov.au

The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment

THE PRIME MINISTER

The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Email via the PM.s web­site . www.pm.gov.au

THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

The Hon Mal­colm Turn­bull MP

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Malcolm.Turnbull.MP@aph.gov.au

MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, HERITAGE & THE ARTS

The Hon. Peter Gar­rett

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Peter.garrett.MP@aph.gov.au

tellpeter@petergarrett.com.au

MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER

Sen­a­tor The Hon. Pen­ny Wong

PO Box 6237

Hal­i­fax Street, Ade­laide SA 5000

Senator.wong@aph.gov.au

MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY

The Hon Tony Burke MP

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Tony.Burke.MP@aph.gov.au

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT & WATER

Mr Greg Hunt

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Greg.Hunt.MP@aph.gov.au

Please con­tact us at stillwildstillthreatened@gmail.com for more info on what you can do to help us save the out­stand­ing forests of the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley.

Donate online or at any West­pac Bank to the cam­paign to save these pre­cious forests.

Account name: Tas­ma­nias South­ern Forests
BSB #: 737001.
Account #: 704815.

——–

“For the wood­chip­pers. immense pow­er threat­ens not only our for­est, but Tas­ma­ni­a’s future. Not con­tent with our great forests, their greed now destroys not only our nat­ur­al her­itage, but dis­torts our par­lia­ment, deforms our poli­ty, cows our media and stunts our soci­ety . Have courage, speak of love, take action your­self, stand up for what you believe, and our world will sure­ly change.”

Richard Flana­gan

Speech made at a Par­lia­ment Lawns forests ral­ly on 16 March, 2006. Hobart, Tas­ma­nia.

13 TASMANIAN FOREST DEFENDERS SUED BY LOGGING COMPANY

Jan­u­ary 7th 2009

Tas­man­ian based log­ging com­pa­ny Gunns Ltd has issued a law suit on thir­teen for­est defend­ers claim­ing dam­ages for tres­pass, and seek­ing an injunc­tion that will pre­vent the defen­dants from enter­ing its prop­er­ty and land hold­ings.

Jan­u­ary 7th 2009

Tas­man­ian based log­ging com­pa­ny Gunns Ltd has issued a law suit on thir­teen for­est defend­ers claim­ing dam­ages for tres­pass, and seek­ing an injunc­tion that will pre­vent the defen­dants from enter­ing its prop­er­ty and land hold­ings.

The for­est cam­paign­ers halt­ed work at the Tri­abun­na wood­chip mill in an act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to draw atten­tion to the impact of old growth log­ging on cli­mate change.

The pro­posed Gunns Ltd Pulp Mill and recent announce­ments that con­struc­tion may begin in 2009 will ensure that Tas­man­ian for­est pro­tec­tion will remain a cen­tral issue in the lead up to the next fed­er­al elec­tion.

This law­suit comes four years after Gunns Ltd issued the now infa­mous Gunns 20 law­suit in 2004 against twen­ty indi­vid­u­als and organ­i­sa­tions in response their efforts to pro­tect Tasmania’s native forests. It is clear the desire to pro­tect Tasmania’s forests has not dimin­ished.

Social Justice Centre, Birmingham

The Jus­tice not Cri­sis, Social Jus­tice Cen­tre is prepar­ing a pro­grame of activ­i­ties for the New Year includ­ing a Bin­go Night, a Freeshop, Cof­fee Morn­ing, and drop in Advice ser­vice where peo­ple will be on hand to give advice on Hous­ing Appli­ca­tions, ben­e­fits, and much more.… Come along and get involved.….

The LibraryThe Jus­tice not Cri­sis, Social Jus­tice Cen­tre is prepar­ing a pro­grame of activ­i­ties for the New Year includ­ing a Bin­go Night, a Freeshop, Cof­fee Morn­ing, and drop in Advice ser­vice where peo­ple will be on hand to give advice on Hous­ing Appli­ca­tions, ben­e­fits, and much more.… Come along and get involved.….

Infor­ma­tion can be found on our web­site www.justicenotcrisis@wordpress.com (diary of Activ­i­ties)

Our new videos high­light­ing our cam­paign to build more social­ly rent­ed & Coun­cil Homes can be found on our web­site
fol­low link above.

They are also post­ed on youtube : Jus­tice not Cri­sis The Movie http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EoCb_tlAKu0 The set­ting up our our Land Squat with some humour!!

Jus­tice Not Cri­sis The Movie Part 2 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TUKb337Yrt8 Shows the Set­ting upm of The Social Jus­tice Cen­tre in The derelict Fire­bird Pub again with some humour !!Social Justice Centre, Birmingham some of the activities...

Radley Lakes saved

Fol­low­ing years of cam­paign­ing through legal chan­nels, and the squat­ting of a build­ing by the side of Thrupp Lake at the begin­ning of 2007, the Save Radley Lakes cam­paign is vic­to­ri­ous — hoorah! Use the search above for old sto­ries and pho­tos from the cam­paign — sto­ries about the recent vic­to­ry and future plans are below.

Thrupp Lake at sunsetFol­low­ing years of cam­paign­ing through legal chan­nels, and the squat­ting of a build­ing by the side of Thrupp Lake at the begin­ning of 2007, the Save Radley Lakes cam­paign is vic­to­ri­ous — hoorah! Use the search above for old sto­ries and pho­tos from the cam­paign — sto­ries about the recent vic­to­ry and future plans are below.

End of an Era

Yes­ter­day’s (17.12.08) announce­ment by RWE Npow­er brought to an end a 41 month cam­paign to save the last remain­ing Radley Lakes, Thrupp and Bull­field Lakes, from destruc­tion by being filled with waste pul­verised fuel ash (PFA) from the Did­cot A Pow­er Sta­tion.

It also brings to an end 23 years of fill­ing of old grav­el pits in Radley with pow­er sta­tion ash, which began in 1985, when the Pow­er Sta­tion was run by the nation­alised Cen­tral Elec­tric­i­ty Gen­er­at­ing Board and when the envi­ron­ment fig­ured less high­ly in pop­u­lar con­cerns. The choice back then was between land­fill with gen­er­al waste, com­mer­cial exploita­tion, or ash. Local peo­ple vot­ed for the ash, which is prob­a­bly what they would have got any­way.

The ash had been pumped into the grav­el pits as a slur­ry via an under­ground pipeline. Many grav­el pits were filled in this way over the inter­ven­ing years and peo­ple did not seem to mind, though eye­brows were being increas­ing­ly raised, and there were objec­tions to the fill­ing of Lakes H and I, which had become a spec­tac­u­lar haven for wild­fowl. In 2005, RWE npow­er sought per­mis­sion to fill the the two remain­ing grav­el pits. These were the old­est exca­va­tions, which had, over the half cen­tu­ry or so of their exis­tence, become restored into beau­ti­ful lakes and had been giv­en names by local peo­ple.

How the Lakes Were Saved (in a nut­shell)

The small­er Bull­field Lake was res­cued from this fate fol­low­ing protests back in 2005, but the much larg­er and more impor­tant Thrupp Lake has remained under threat ever since, as plan­ning, legal and oth­er bat­tles raged around it. As a last resort, local peo­ple even applied to have the area turned into a Town Green. This too failed, but it remains the sub­ject of a Judi­cial Review, which was due to be heard in the High Court in Feb­ru­ary 2009. In Feb­ru­ary 2007, hav­ing got all nec­es­sary plan­ning per­mis­sions and removed the pro­tes­tors who’d occu­pied the lake­side build­ing, npow­er went ahead with clear­ance work on the site, and many trees were destroyed. Work then had to stop until the Autumn, because of nest­ing birds. After car­ry­ing out some pre­lim­i­nary work in Octo­ber 2007, npow­er sud­den­ly ceased their activ­i­ties on the site.

Then, in Feb­ru­ary 2008, events took an unex­pect­ed turn: npow­er announced an inter­im reprieve for Thrupp Lake. A lit­tle lat­er, Waste Recy­cling Group (WRG) open­ly came for­ward with a pro­pos­al that would save Thrupp Lake for ever. It has tak­en until now to bring this to fruition. Plan­ning per­mis­sion was need­ed, tech­ni­cal prob­lems had to be resolved, a com­mer­cial agree­ment had to be reached; then there was the ques­tion of what to do with Thrupp Lake. Many del­i­cate nego­ti­a­tions, it seemed, were going on in the back­ground, cul­mi­nat­ing in yes­ter­day’s momen­tous announce­ment.

Tri­umph at Last!

To mark the occa­sion, the Pow­er Sta­tion oper­a­tors invit­ed press and pub­lic into the grounds of San­dles, the house on the shore Thrupp Lake. There, Mr John Rain­ford, the Pow­er Sta­tion man­ag­er, announced that, because the pow­er sta­tion had found bet­ter and more sus­tain­able ways of dis­pos­ing of its ash, there would be no need to destroy Thrupp Lake, not now, not ever. He made it clear that RWE npow­er was offer­ing The Lake to the local com­mu­ni­ty as a nature con­ser­va­tion area and that dis­cus­sions were under­way with the North­moor Trust to pro­vide for its man­age­ment. It was hoped that the house could be con­vert­ed into an edu­ca­tion­al cen­tre.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the com­mu­ni­ty, Jen­ny Standen, chair­man of Radley Parish Coun­cil, and Basil Crow­ley, chair­man of Save Radley Lakes, expressed their sat­is­fac­tion and delight, thank­ing npow­er for their mag­na­nim­i­ty and look­ing for­ward to work­ing with them in restor­ing the area to cre­ate some­thing to be real­ly proud of. Both expressed grat­i­tude to all the peo­ple who had sup­port­ed the cam­paign and whose sup­port and tire­less efforts had helped bring this about.

With the late Decem­ber after­noon sun­shine cast­ing long shad­ows across the ves­tiges of San­dles’ lawn, a jubi­lant par­ty atmos­phere pre­vailed. Cham­pagne flowed, hands were shak­en, cam­eras clicked and, in a touch of sur­re­al­i­ty, a man in a frog suit played a solo trom­bone fan­fare at the lake­side to her­ald the lake’s sal­va­tion.Radley Lakes saved trombone fanfare

Where the Ash Will Go

The ash that was to have gone into Thrupp Lake will now go to Waste Recy­cling Group’s Sut­ton Courte­nay land­fill site next to the pow­er sta­tion where it will be used for engi­neer­ing, cap­ping and land­scap­ing of the land­fill oper­a­tions. Sur­plus ash will be stock­piled in a planned new stor­age facil­i­ty, which received plan­ning per­mis­sion back in July, and will main­tain WRG’s essen­tial sup­ply of ash after 2015 when the pow­er sta­tion will have closed. Because the pow­er sta­tion and the waste site are imme­di­ate­ly adja­cent, the ash can be trans­port­ed direct­ly across the fence and put into the stock­pile, which is not far from the pow­er sta­tion bound­ary. At no time will this ash be trans­port­ed on pub­lic roads, which means there will be no adverse impact on the res­i­dents of Sut­ton Courte­nay. Indeed, it will remove the need to import over half a mil­lion tonnes of sub­sti­tute mate­ri­als after 2015, which would have had an impact!

http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk/
http://www.radleyvillage.org.uk/news/News0009.htm

Stop the Weymouth Relief Road Update & Videos — wish list & overhanging branch tactic!

Lat­est news: a tech­ni­cal­i­ty has meant a tree top protest against a new £87m relief road scheme in Dorset has con­tin­ued despite a legal rul­ing.

The gov­ern­ment has giv­en the go-ahead for the Wey­mouth relief road and Dorset Coun­ty Coun­cil secured a land pos­ses­sion order to evict pro­tes­tors.

2 Mile Coppice in summer timeLat­est news: a tech­ni­cal­i­ty has meant a tree top protest against a new £87m relief road scheme in Dorset has con­tin­ued despite a legal rul­ing.

The gov­ern­ment has giv­en the go-ahead for the Wey­mouth relief road and Dorset Coun­ty Coun­cil secured a land pos­ses­sion order to evict pro­tes­tors.

But the demon­stra­tion, which began last Thurs­day, was con­tin­u­ing on Fri­day and has delayed work at Two Mile Cop­pice.

Pro­tes­tors have now occu­pied a tree branch over­hang­ing neigh­bour­ing land.

In the morn­ing, Dorset Coun­ty Coun­cil served a com­pul­so­ry pur­chase order on the land which meant the pro­tes­tors were legal­ly required to leave.

While the oak tree they are in is on land cov­ered by the notice, the branch they occu­py over­hangs adja­cent Wood­land Trust land.

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Tat list — What we need

And lat­est update (Sat­ur­day 20th Decem­ber):-

www.greenvoice.com — short­ly to be a web space for us

PLEASE CIRCULATE

update– we have an address of sorts, and dona­tions and xmas gifts would be great !”!!

Cash is ok to send as it is a secure post box, but phonecards for Orange are bet­ter than cash.
Also need AAA and AA bat­ter­ies — Dura­cell and Ener­gis­er or alka­line ONLY.
Rope — Green or blue polypro­pe­lene — 6mm or 10mm thick­ness.
Rope — Sta­t­ic climb­ing line — 10mm or larg­er.
Rope — Dynam­ic climb­ing line — any thick­ness
Rope — arborist lines — we have 2 tree sur­geons liv­ing with us and this rope is use­ful.

sec­ond hand rope is nor­mal­ly FREE from climb­ing cen­tres ‑indoor cen­tres often throw their ropes out every 6 ‑9 months — just call in and ask for it.

Tarps, plas­tic sheet­ing.

Tools — ham­mers, nails, saws, prun­ing saws, bill hooks.

2 way radios, nightvi­sion gog­gles, cat­a­pults (to get rope up), grap­pling hooks. Head torch­es — LED are best.

The Wood­land Trust still own the land that the road is being built on, but have waived their 14 days notice peri­od and told Dorset Coun­ty Coun­cil that it is ok to get on with cut­ting down the Ancient wood­land — basi­cal­ly they have thrown in the tow­el with­out even stand­ing up to argue or delay the destruc­tion on their land. The fact that the Wood­land Trust still own the land was record­ed in the Court case of the 18th decem­ber 2008 of Dorset
Coun­ty Coun­cil ’ v ’ Per­sons Unknown in Wey­mouth Coun­ty Court. Her Majesty’s Land Reg­istry in Ply­mouth also con­firmed it.

The peo­ple of Wey­mouth brought Two Mile Copse through pub­lic sub­scrip­tion. Local peo­ple dug deeply into their pock­ets and put their mon­ey into con­serv­ing the land for per­pe­tu­ri­ty, for us and all future gen­er­a­tions.

Dorset Coun­ty Coun­cil have so far not giv­en one pen­ny in com­pen­sa­tion, either to the Wood­land Trust, nor local peo­ple who raised the pub­lic mon­ey to pre­serve the wood in the first place.

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More update:-

Hi Ho!, HO!, Ho!

Liv­ing up 6 trees at wey­mouth — Two Mile Copse / Ted­dy Bear Woods. I helped fight against
this road back in 1996, and 2004 and we won it then.

BUT now they gone and done it and cut 70% of the trees.….

We have a 400 year old Oak in Ancient Wood­land that’s are pro­tect­ing and 4 Ash trees reach­ing 90 feet up into the sky. Also a tall and healthy young elm.

We have a tree house, a net, lots of walk­ways in the sky and an off route vis­i­tors site on the ground.

GET HELP + MEDIA now if u can.

regards

2 Mile Copse Protest Camp
c/o Lor­ton Barn
Lor­ton Lane
Lit­tle­Moor
Wey­mouth
DT3 5QH

Sor­ry we cur­rent­ly are in the process of arrang­ing a site mobile phone — num­ber to fol­low
short­ly

Links/more below & in pre­vi­ous sto­ry.

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Fol­low­ing from the Stop the Wey­mouth Relief Road bul­letin. Appar­ent­ly there is a chain­saw gang now oper­at­ing 1.5 miles fur­ther North from Lit­tle­moor, between Lit­tle­moor and Ridge­way. There are 3 pro­test­ers down there but they need more back up. I have been in con­tact with the pro­test­ers occu­py­ing the sight at Lit­tle­moor. They are in urgent need of more sup­port from locals to help on the ground and oth­ers to help build tree hous­es along the route, all help would be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed.

On site mobiles are 07792717821 / 07807952822

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Videos: 1 | 2

COUNCIL chiefs will go to court tomor­row in a bid to remove a grow­ing num­ber of pro­test­ers from the route of Weymouth’s planned relief road.

It comes as the stand-off inten­si­fied in Two Mile Cop­pice as eco-war­riors began mov­ing a fence and telling secu­ri­ty staff it encroached too far into the ancient wood­land.

But today Dorset Coun­ty Coun­cil is hop­ing to be grant­ed pos­ses­sion of the land by Wey­mouth Coun­ty Court.

The coun­cil is ask­ing the court to rule that the pro­test­ers must leave the prop­er­ty, and if they agree to that request, when they must leave.

The num­ber of pro­test­ers reached sev­en as a camp was set up beneath an oak tree that stands alone in the fenced off area of the woods.

Four pro­test­ers set up camp and roped off their own area below three more based up inside the tree.

One new arrival, known only as Andy, said: “We are here to stop the road as there are many rea­sons why the wood­land should not be chopped down.

“The oak tree we are in and beneath is hun­dreds of years old.

“We heard about the peo­ple here and want­ed to come to sup­port the action.

“We can help pro­vide food and what­ev­er else they need in the tree.

“If you let the coun­cil go ahead with the road it won’t be long before they want to chop more of this beau­ti­ful wood­land down for devel­op­ment.

“The road won’t actu­al­ly help pre­vent traf­fic con­ges­tion in the end any­way.”

A coun­cil spokesman con­firmed clear­ance work is con­tin­u­ing in the west­ern edge strip of Two Mile Cop­pice and said it is hoped this will be fin­ished before Christ­mas.

She said: “There is a coun­ty court hear­ing today where the coun­ty coun­cil will be ask­ing for an order for the tres­passers to hand over the land to the pos­ses­sion of the coun­cil.”

Nick Pep­per, 41, has camped in the woods since he came down from a tree which has now been chopped down.

Mr Pep­per, who pre­vi­ous­ly lived in Wey­mouth but now lives in Bris­tol, said: “As soon as we received the legal papers to evict the tree we thought we’d bet­ter have a legal­ly legit­i­mate sup­port camp.

“We are pro­tect­ed under the 1977 Crim­i­nal Law Act which stops us from being legal­ly evict­ed or ille­gal­ly assault­ed.

“We’ve actu­al­ly squat­ted in an area of land so we can pro­tect the peo­ple up the tree from intim­i­da­tion or ille­gal activ­i­ty.

“There needs to be open access so we can mon­i­tor what’s going on.”

Forest and climate activists shut down Gunns’ Triabunna mill woodchip mill, Tasmania

2008-12-16
Sev­en activists were charged with tres­pass today after shut­ting down Gunns’ Tri­abun­na mill for over sev­en hours this morn­ing. Fif­teen peo­ple occu­pied the wood­chip mill at 4:45am, with sev­en activists attach­ing them­selves to a con­vey­or belt and oth­er machin­ery.

FIFTEEN FOREST AND CLIMATE ACTIVISTS SHUT DOWN TRIABUNNA WOODCHIP MILL, TASMANIA2008-12-16
Sev­en activists were charged with tres­pass today after shut­ting down Gunns’ Tri­abun­na mill for over sev­en hours this morn­ing. Fif­teen peo­ple occu­pied the wood­chip mill at 4:45am, with sev­en activists attach­ing them­selves to a con­vey­or belt and oth­er machin­ery.

“The Car­bon Pol­lu­tion Reduc­tion Scheme White Paper makes it plain that the Fed­er­al ALP is not com­mit­ted to ‘seri­ous and cred­i­ble’ emis­sions reduc­tions. There is a fail­ure by pol­i­cy mak­ers to grasp that we are fac­ing a cli­mate emer­gency – the poli­cies pro­posed by the White Paper will result in the dis­ap­pear­ance of Tas­ma­ni­a’s unique alpine ecosys­tems, the col­lapse of the Bar­ri­er Reef, and the sali­na­tion of Kakadu,” Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre spokesper­son said.

“Tar­gets of a 5% reduc­tion by 2020 are piti­ful and inter­na­tion­al­ly humil­i­at­ing. The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­men­t’s increased assis­tance to large emit­ters pro­vides a clear demon­stra­tion that their pri­or­i­ties lie with heav­i­ly pol­lut­ing big busi­ness, and not with Aus­trali­a’s peo­ple and nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment,” War­rick Jor­dan said.

“In Tas­ma­nia, the log­ging, burn­ing and wood­chip­ping of old growth for­est releas­es mas­sive quan­ti­ties of car­bon. Gunns Lim­it­ed is the dri­ver of this gross­ly irre­spon­si­ble and moral­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble sit­u­a­tion,” Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son said.

“Gunns hides this immense cli­mate crime behind offi­cial car­bon account­ing fig­ures which exclude the log­ging of native for­est. Tas­ma­ni­a’s old growth forests are glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant as unique ecosys­tems and car­bon stores, and their pro­tec­tion can play a sig­nif­i­cant role in Aus­tralia tak­ing real cli­mate action,” SWST

“The Tas­man­ian Gov­ern­ment has pub­licly expressed a will to address cli­mate change. If the Bartlett gov­ern­ment is seri­ous about address­ing cli­mate change then it will leg­is­late an end to old growth log­ging” con­clud­ed SWST.