Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Eviction Of Coal Mine Protest Site Started (Bodge House)

7.08.2008
Around 7.45am about 60 police and 50 bail­liffs arrived at the house. Through­out the day the police have been try­ing to get through the bar­ri­cades and defences. Local peo­ple and media have been at the scene. So far 3 peo­ple have been removed from lock­ons and a car­go net out­side the house and have been arrest­ed. 7 peo­ple are still inside and are heav­i­ly bar­ri­cad­ed in, includ­ed being hid­den in tun­nels under the house. The bailiffs have put up secu­ri­ty fences and although they have man­aged to enter part of the build­ing, the evic­tion attempt has been stopped for today. It is esti­mat­ed the evic­tion will take at least anoth­er cou­ple of days.

Bodge House eviction7.08.2008
Around 7.45am about 60 police and 50 bail­liffs arrived at the house. Through­out the day the police have been try­ing to get through the bar­ri­cades and defences. Local peo­ple and media have been at the scene. So far 3 peo­ple have been removed from lock­ons and a car­go net out­side the house and have been arrest­ed. 7 peo­ple are still inside and are heav­i­ly bar­ri­cad­ed in, includ­ed being hid­den in tun­nels under the house. The bailiffs have put up secu­ri­ty fences and although they have man­aged to enter part of the build­ing, the evic­tion attempt has been stopped for today. It is esti­mat­ed the evic­tion will take at least anoth­er cou­ple of days.

Direc­tion to the site (PDF) — http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20918

Bowl Court Evicted This Morning — Call Out For Help

7.08.2008
This morn­ing at 7am, 40 high court bailiffs have evict­ed the Bowl Court squat in Shored­itch. It is locat­ed in Bowl Court which is up Plough Court next to the junc­tion of Great East­ern Street and Shored­itch High Street. Please come around — help need­ed urgent­ly !

—

I went there at 1pm the sit­u­a­tion was :

- a lot of secu­ri­ty around, both sides of the build­ing

7.08.2008
This morn­ing at 7am, 40 high court bailiffs have evict­ed the Bowl Court squat in Shored­itch. It is locat­ed in Bowl Court which is up Plough Court next to the junc­tion of Great East­ern Street and Shored­itch High Street. Please come around — help need­ed urgent­ly !

—

I went there at 1pm the sit­u­a­tion was :

- a lot of secu­ri­ty around, both sides of the build­ing
— a lot of rental vans — it looks like they might be emp­ty­ing it
— met­al grills have been fixed to all entrances, both sides of the build­ing
— they had run­ning gen­er­a­tors out­side, going in. Don’t know what for.

I did­n’t see any of the squat­ters, there was noth­ing to do so I left.

SAVING ICELAND BLOCKADES RIO TINTO-ALCAN’S SMELTER IN ICELAND

Aug 01 2008
“STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF ÞJÓRSÁ FOR ARMS PRODUCTION!”

Rio-Tinto/Alcan blockadeAug 01 2008
“STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF ÞJÓRSÁ FOR ARMS PRODUCTION!”

HAFNARFJORDUR, ICELAND — Activists from Sav­ing Ice­land have today begun stop­ping traf­fic to and from Rio Tinto-Alcan’s alu­mini­um smelter in Straumsvík, Haf­nar­fjor­dur, by chain­ing them­selves to the gates of the plant. Sav­ing Ice­land is protest­ing against Rio Tinto-Alcan’s plans to increase their alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty on the island, the con­se­quences of which would would be that sig­nif­i­cant parts of Iceland’s unique envi­ron­ment would have to be destroyed for ener­gy gen­er­a­tion. The activists are also protest­ing against the worlds largest alu­mini­um producer’s involve­ment with the arms indus­try.

Rio Tin­to-Alcan wants to increase its pro­duc­tion in Straumsvík by 40 thou­sand tons per year with­out enlarg­ing the smelter build­ing itself. At the same time the com­pa­ny is plan­ning to build a sec­ond alu­mini­um smelter in the towns of Keil­isnes or Þor­lák­shöfn (1).

Reyk­javík Ener­gy (Orku­vei­ta Reyk­javíkur) pulled out from an ener­gy deal with Rio Tin­to-Alcan because of strong pub­lic oppo­si­tion to their expan­sion, result­ing in the geot­her­mal­ly active Bitra moun­tain being saved.(2)

At the same time, Landsvirkjun (the nation­al ener­gy com­pa­ny) is plan­ning to go ahead with the con­struc­tion of three dams in the Thjórsá riv­er, south Ice­land, as well as one in the adjoin­ing Tung­naá riv­er. They have already signed an ener­gy expan­sion con­tract with Rio Tin­to-Alcan (4). In Decem­ber 2006, the two com­pa­nies signed a con­tract which stat­ed that Rio Tin­to-Alcan would share the cost of the three dams in Thjórsá (5).

Cor­rup­tion in Haf­nar­fjörður
In the end of March 2007, a pub­lic ref­er­en­dum took place in Haf­nar­fjör­dur, where a major­i­ty in the city vot­ed against the enlarge­ment of their Rio Tinto-Alcan’s smelter. Lúd­vík Geirs­son, may­or of Haf­nar­fjör­dur, said that the ref­er­en­dum was a “vic­to­ry for democ­ra­cy” and added that he would fol­low the con­clu­sion (6). Rio Tin­to-Alcan announced that they were then con­sid­er­ing to move their pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty to to Thor­lák­shöfn.

Only three months lat­er, Lúd­vík sat at a meet­ing with Ran­nveig Rist, direc­tor of Alcan in Ice­land, and Michael Jacques, direc­tor of Alcan Pri­ma­ry Met­al Group, where they dis­cussed the future of Alcan in Ice­land. One idea dis­cussed was to increase the Straumsvik smelter’s capac­i­ty into the sea, on top of a land­fill mound, rather than onto a lava rock area cleared by Alcan in antic­i­pa­tion of a pos­i­tive result from the ref­er­en­dum (7). Many see this as a betray­al of the ref­er­en­dum spir­it, which was not in regards to the speci­fici­ties of Alcan’s expan­sion but their expan­sion alto­geth­er.

“Is this real­ly what Geirs­son calls the ‘vic­to­ry of democ­ra­cy’? Bro­ken promis­es?” says Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son, from Sav­ing Ice­land. “His behav­iour show clear­ly how much pow­er the alu­mini­um cor­po­ra­tions have here in Ice­land. The author­i­ties seem to not dare to speak or act against these cor­po­ra­tions will.”

Alcan’s links with the arms indus­try
August 30th, 2006, Alcan signed a long-term con­tract for their involve­ment with the pro­duc­tion of the F‑35 Join­t­er Strike Fight­er, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the arms pro­duc­ers Lock­heed Mar­tin, Nothrop-Grum­man and BAE Sys­tems (8).

“This is not a respectable com­pa­ny” says Sofie Larsen from Sav­ing Ice­land. “Until now, Alcoa has got the most atten­tion here in Ice­land when it comes to the links between alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion and the arms indus­try. Yet, Alcan is no bet­ter at all, since the com­pa­ny is con­tract­ed to sev­er­al dif­fer­ent weapon pro­duc­ers.”

Alcan pro­duces alu­minum for EADS (Euro­pean Aero­space and Defense and Space) (9), whose line of mil­i­tary heli­copters and fight­er jets includes the Eurofight­er Tycoon, Mirage F1 and EF18 Hor­net. EADS is also a lead in the pro­duc­tion of mis­siles (10).

“On it’s web­site, EADS claims that the company’s prod­uct is only sold to coun­tries who ´guar­an­tee a respon­si­ble approach to high-tech mil­i­tary air sys­tems´” says Sofie, ”but on the same site, one can find videos which glo­ri­fy Nazi Germany’s air­force (11). What kind of ethics is that?”

The damming of Thjórsá riv­er
Despite strong local resis­tance from farm­ers unwill­ing to give up their land for Rio Tinto-Alcan’s expan­sion, Landsvirkjun have been work­ing full time to push through the four dam project. Landsvirkjun has again and again gone up to the riv­er, try­ing to get farm­ers to agree with the con­struc­tion. When they received a let­ter signed by nine of the ten farm­ers affect­ed by the Urridafoss water­fall Thjórsá dam, stat­ing that they refused to par­tic­i­pate in any fur­ther dis­cus­sions with the ener­gy agency, Landsvirkjun threat­ened to force­ful­ly expro­pri­ate their land.

Recent­ly the dis­trict coun­cil of Flóahrep­pur made an agree­ment with Landsvirkjun to include the Urridafoss dam into their dis­trict plan. Jón Árni Vig­nis­son, a farmer who lives by Thjórsá, said that they had done so after Landsvirkjun had promised to pump funds into a vari­ety of their minor infra­struc­ture projects: road, water sup­ply and mobile phone recep­tion improve­ments (12). Essen­tial­ly, the local gov­ern­ment had been bribed.

The enlarge­ment of Rio Tinto-Alcan’s capac­i­ties in Ice­land and the damming of the Thjórsá riv­er are high­ly cor­rupt projects which Sav­ing Ice­land demands the imme­di­ate halt­ing of.

Ref­er­ences:

(1) Mbl.is, Álfram­leiðs­la hjá Alcan aukin um 22 prósent, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(2) Mbl.is, Fyrirhugaðar framkvæmdir og orkusala hal­dast í hen­dur, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(3) Mbl.is, 200 mw orkusala úr sögun­ni, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(4) Vísir.is, Alcan kep­pir áfram um orku Þjórsár, http://visir.is/article/20070909/FRETTIR…
(5) Heimasíða Rio Tin­to-Alcan á Íslan­di, http://www.riotintoalcan.is/?PageID=12&a…
(6 )Mbl.is, Sig­ur fyrir lýðræðið, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(7) Mbl.is, Álver á land­fyllingu, http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2007/06…
(8) Vef­síða Alcan, http://www.alcan.com/web/publishing.nsf/…(JSF
(9) Vef­síða ABC Mon­ey, http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/132007869…
(10) Vef­síða EADS, http://www.eads.com/1024/en/businet/defe…
(11) Myn­d­band sem segir sögu EADS, http://www.eads.com/xml/content/OF000000…
(12) Sunnlen­s­ka Frét­tablaðið, 30. tölublað, Eigum mar­ga aðra valkosti, bls. 8–9, 24. Júlí 2008

Cambridge Mill Road Social Centre evicted but car-park squatted

On Fri­day 1st around 9AM, police and bailiffs kicked down the door to the social cen­tre and start­ed evict­ing peo­ple from the premis­es. No advance warn­ing was giv­en. It goes to show that Tesco can nev­er be trust­ed, as they reneged on their promise not to take pos­ses­sion of the build­ing before they need­ed to start build­ing.

On Fri­day 1st around 9AM, police and bailiffs kicked down the door to the social cen­tre and start­ed evict­ing peo­ple from the premis­es. No advance warn­ing was giv­en. It goes to show that Tesco can nev­er be trust­ed, as they reneged on their promise not to take pos­ses­sion of the build­ing before they need­ed to start build­ing.

Tesco were obvi­ous­ly very con­fi­dent that the pre­vi­ous night’s plan­ning meet­ing (to allow them to build waste and air­co facil­i­ties) would find in their favour. As it turned out, their appli­ca­tion was turned down. No doubt Mill Road­’s Broad­way will soon sport a set of shiny met­al win­dow boards.

—

We cor­doned off part of the car park behind the evict­ed mill road social cen­tre, and are now squat­ting the site.

At 3:15pm today (Fri­day) we cor­doned off part of the car park behind the evict­ed mill road social cen­ter, so at to make a clear bound­ary, and are now squat­ting the site. Please feel free to come and join us. As it is open air, accom­mo­da­tion is camp­ing. If any­one has any spare tar­pau­lin they could give/lend us this would be use­ful.

Bicyclists Attack Failed Businesses With Seeds, Art

Fri­day, August 1st — “We don’t need anoth­er park­ing lot” read one of over 30 sten­ciled card­board signs erect­ed Fri­day evening across the fences of var­i­ous failed busi­ness­es through­out San­ta Cruz by a group of bicy­clists as part of a “Going Out of Busi­ness & Green Futures” com­mu­ni­ty ride.

Parking lot stencilFri­day, August 1st — “We don’t need anoth­er park­ing lot” read one of over 30 sten­ciled card­board signs erect­ed Fri­day evening across the fences of var­i­ous failed busi­ness­es through­out San­ta Cruz by a group of bicy­clists as part of a “Going Out of Busi­ness & Green Futures” com­mu­ni­ty ride.

Part protest against car cul­ture, part liv­ing art project, and part prank, the group of about 20 bicy­clists vis­it­ed the sites of for­mer gas sta­tions, dri­ve thrus, autodeal­er­ships, and more, plant­i­ng wild flower seeds, and oth­er dec­o­ra­tions depict­ing a dete­ri­o­rat­ing econ­o­my and hopes for a green­er, wilder future. “Prop­er­ty is Theft”, “My heroes car­ry guns in the their minds”, and “Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den Com­ing Soon!” read some of the signs post­ed out­side fenced off build­ings and pave­ment crack­ing open with weeds.

The ride was in response to a state­ment sent by the Cor­po­rate Rulers of Amer­i­ca that read:

“To the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States,

Due to cir­cum­stances beyond our con­trol, we regret to inform you that we will no longer be able to con­tin­ue run­ning this coun­try as all of our assets are no longer viable.

Effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly, we will no longer be pro­vid­ing you with low-wage mean­ing­less jobs, cheap gaso­line, or hours upon hours of info­tain­ment. Fur­ther­more, we can­not guar­an­tee that the remain­der of our mass pro­duced prod­ucts are of any qual­i­ty beyond the val­ue assumed by our cor­po­rate logos, nor are they envi­ron­men­tal­ly safe. We also can­not guar­an­tee that your pen­sions will be paid, that your sav­ings are secure, or that you’ll be get­ting the best health care in the indus­tri­al­ized world. In fact, to be com­plete­ly hon­est, we’ve nev­er real­ly meant any­thing we’ve said but do thank you for believ­ing in us nonethe­less.

We here­by relin­quish all deeds of pri­vate prop­er­ty and assume no respon­si­bil­i­ty with what hap­pens to it from here on out.

Final­ly, we’d like to thank you for all your years of ser­vice and sac­ri­fice, but most of all, thank you for your obe­di­ence to our way of life, we seri­ous­ly could­n’t have done it with­out you. We wish you the best of luck. You’re on your own.

Sin­cere­ly,
Cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca”

By Sat­ur­day after­noon, most of the signs had been removed…But the seeds have been sown.

More words & pho­tos

Police invade Climate Camp — and FIT are ejected

2.08.2008
The For­ward Intel­li­gence Team made a for­ay onto the field today but were eject­ed from the field by campers.

Police incursionPolice try to nick climate camp plumbingClimate campers sit on woodpileWood chain from cops to camp2.08.2008
The For­ward Intel­li­gence Team made a for­ay onto the field today but were eject­ed from the field by campers.

Police still feel con­fi­dent to wan­der about the site in pairs — fol­lowed and escort­ed, natch — but the arrival of the FIT with cam­eras proved too much.

Accord­ing­ly they were sur­round­ed and eject­ed from the field today by the camp.

Num­bers are swelling — the clmate camp info line is very busy with last minute requests for direc­tions — and we will soon be empow­ered to reclaim absolute own­er­ship of the site.

———-

Activists dove under police vans and formed human chains to pre­vent them from get­ting on site, and peo­ple scram­bled up the dou­ble tripods — but campers were out­num­bered 3 to 1 by the police.

Although police claimed to be search­ing for mate­ri­als that could be used on the 9th August day of action, they also seized items such as guy-ropes for safe­ly secur­ing mar­quees, radios used in med­ical emer­gen­cies, and build­ing mate­ri­als essen­tial for the con­struc­tion of com­post toi­lets. The seizures went as far as the con­fis­ca­tion of such ridicu­lous items as a bicy­cle repair kit, three board games and a pack of chil­dren’s crayons.

But the real stand off took place over water pipes and wood for the kitchens. In a twist of supreme irony, as the coun­cil dug a pipeline to deliv­er fresh water, activists had to engage in a tug of war with the police to keep the water pipes on site — which they did suc­cess­ful­ly. And as the police brought in a flat-bed lor­ry to remove wood for the kitchens, activists climbed onto the wood­pile and pre­vent­ed it from being tak­en away.

As the police gave in and the lor­ry drove away, a cheer went up and campers imme­di­ate­ly formed a human chain to car­ry the wood up to the kitchens. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there is for the time being a small police pres­ence on site.

Every­thing is now calm on site, but the raid has put the set-up back by half a day, so more peo­ple on site are need­ed to get the camp ready for this Sun­day. The big push will be hap­pen­ing over Fri­day and Sat­ur­day as the major­i­ty of mate­ri­als arrive, and there’s plen­ty of work to be done — so come on down!

31.07.2008
This after­noon over 100 police offi­cers invad­ed the Cli­mate Camp, claim­ing to search for mate­r­i­al that could be used for crim­i­nal dam­age. Since there are only around 150 peo­ple cur­rent­ly on site, more peo­ple are urgent­ly need­ed to make the site more secure. There are reports that sev­er­al peo­ple were arrest­ed.

Activists who blocked police vehi­cles were removed in a very heavy hand­ed man­ner. The names and details of many peo­ple were tak­en. Mate­ri­als were removed from site, includ­ing a wet suit. All the while, a police heli­copter was in the sky over the camp.

Police have now left.

—

IMC time­line:

19:10 — Police num­bers on site are now sub­stan­tial­ly reduced but they have installed a mobile police sta­tion at the entrance to the camp and there is talk of a per­ma­nent patrol. Campers cur­rent­ly nego­ti­at­ing the return of the prop­er­ty stolen by police, much of which is essen­tial to set­ting up the camp infra­struc­ture.

18.36 — The wood pile has been saved. Peo­ple sat on the wood­pile pro­tect­ing it and even­tu­al­ly the police gave up and sent the recov­ery vehi­cle away. The seizure of water pipe was also attempt­ed but stopped by peo­ple sit­ting on it.

18.15 — Cur­rent­ly the police are remov­ing the pile of con­struc­tion wood using a 24 hour recov­ery vehi­cle. Oth­er con­fis­cat­ed items now include: lots of rope, lots of tools, 3 boardgames, a lad­der, boil­er suits, flares. Police have emp­tied entire vans. Half of the police have gone off-site, the oth­er half stopped the search but are still on-site. So far 2 peo­ple have been arrest­ed, 1 for stop­ping police from going into their tent (obstruc­tion).

16.40 — Over 200 police offi­cers have entered the site with vehi­cles and a police heli­copter is hov­er­ing over­head. Police were issued with a war­rant for the search­ing and seiz­ing of arti­cles for use in crim­i­nal dam­age. Con­fis­cat­ed items have includ­ed: planks of wood, car­pet and a war-on-ter­ror boardgame. Every tent is being searched. Peo­ple are up in the tripods. Some offi­cers are report­ed act­ing aggres­sive­ly towards peo­ple try­ing to resist the search. For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams (FIT) are walk­ing around the site pho­tograph­ing and film­ing peo­ple.

—

Any mate­ri­als relat­ing to the Day of Action, includ­ing things that appear to be innocu­ous (oars, inflat­a­bles, pumps, D‑locks for bikes and so on) may be seized by the police.

You may like to store such items off­site for col­lec­tion at a lat­er date.

Eviction Postponed for Wembley Sports Ground; New Threats

On Wednes­day morn­ing the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground occu­piers and local busi­ness­es saw off coun­cil work­ers, who came to evict the local busi­ness­es as part of a sim­plis­tic divide-and-con­quer manoeu­ver, but were forced to back off and post­pone the evic­tion ’til Fri­day.

On Wednes­day morn­ing the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground occu­piers and local busi­ness­es saw off coun­cil work­ers, who came to evict the local busi­ness­es as part of a sim­plis­tic divide-and-con­quer manoeu­ver, but were forced to back off and post­pone the evic­tion ’til Fri­day.

Last Sat­ur­day, the 26th, saw a new group occu­py the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground. The group, called GRASS (Grass-Roots Alliance for Social Spaces), claims that the con­struc­tion of a new Acad­e­my on the grounds will close them off from the local com­mu­ni­ty and exclude many chil­dren and young peo­ple from using it. With dwin­dling com­mu­ni­ty resources due to fund­ing cuts across the nation (to help pay for the Olympics), and reports of ris­ing youth crime and vio­lence all over Lon­don, the group says that exclud­ing even more young peo­ple from safe social spaces could dri­ve them to the streets, and towards vio­lent gang crime.

On Mon­day, con­struc­tion work­ers and land sur­vey­ors attempt­ed to enter the site, and found them­selves faced with locals and campers, as well as a large tire bar­ri­cade. The locals chat­ted to the work­ers and informed them of what was going on, while the campers buck­led down in front of the gate. The work­ers left and every­one had a nice drink in the sun.

After this, the coun­cil decid­ed to try out the usu­al tac­tics of author­i­ty every­where, and informed the busi­ness­es on the site (four in all: the foot­ball ground, a kids’ nurs­ery, a motor­bike dri­ving school and a car­wash) that they must leave by Wednes­day 9am. Any­one could see this as an attempt to turn busi­ness­es against com­mu­ni­ty, and the plan back­fired as the busi­ness­es held a meet­ing and decid­ed to resist, along with the camp occu­piers. On Wednes­day morn­ing a coun­cil work­er, along with a legal aide, arrived on site and informed the busi­ness­es that their evic­tion has been post­poned until Fri­day morn­ing.

Brent Coun­cil is in deep trou­ble, as they have already promised sev­er­al par­ents that their chil­dren have places in the unbuilt school, which is due to open at the begin­ning of the school year in Sep­tem­ber. With less than five weeks to go, it has become abun­dant­ly clear that the pri­vate­ly-owned and run acad­e­my (fund­ed by ARK, a chil­dren’s “char­i­ty” man­aged by sev­er­al rich busi­ness­men, includ­ing Arpad Bus­son) will not be built in time. Sources say that the plan is for sev­er­al por­ta­cab­ins to be laid out to start with, while the school itself will be built around the stu­dents dur­ing the school year.

Mean­while, the cam­paign by locals to keep their sports­ground open and free of pri­va­tised edu­ca­tion has been going for the past two years, as con­sul­ta­tions with the com­mu­ni­ty have result­ed in open mass oppo­si­tion to the idea. The coun­cil, how­ev­er, has steam­rollered over the opin­ions of local peo­ple and went ahead with the plan.

Tomor­row is Fri­day, and there are reports of sev­er­al coun­ter­mea­sures being con­truct­ed to stop the bailiffs from evict­ing the camp­ground and busi­ness­es. If you are inter­est­ed in com­ing along to help, there are plen­ty of tents and sleep­ing bags, and you will be made wel­come. The sports ground is on Forty Avenue, Wem­b­ley Park Sta­tion being the near­est tube. For infor­ma­tion and direc­tions, please call 07533192116.

Sitting on piles of coal, revolting peasants, trashing things & fixing other things together, it’s the latest EF! Action Update

Smelters smelt­ed and wood­chip­pers chipped, pro­tes­tors around the world have been busy again tak­ing action against the plan­et-trash­ers — read all about it in the lat­est quar­ter­ly EF! Action Update.

This EF!AU is jam packed with excit­ing actions, plus fea­tures on inter­na­tion­al resis­tance against coal in time for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, a resur­gence of anti-genet­ics cam­paign­ing, and pro­pos­als for a rolling block­ade next year of Kingsnorth. You’ll be inspired to Taste the Waste, Leave it in the Ground and who knows what else!

EF! mine rest planets later logoSmelters smelt­ed and wood­chip­pers chipped, pro­tes­tors around the world have been busy again tak­ing action against the plan­et-trash­ers — read all about it in the lat­est quar­ter­ly EF! Action Update.

This EF!AU is jam packed with excit­ing actions, plus fea­tures on inter­na­tion­al resis­tance against coal in time for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, a resur­gence of anti-genet­ics cam­paign­ing, and pro­pos­als for a rolling block­ade next year of Kingsnorth. You’ll be inspired to Taste the Waste, Leave it in the Ground and who knows what else!

With sto­ries of green­wash laid bare, guer­ril­la-gar­den­ing, revolt­ing peas­ants, protest camps against coal mines and air­ports, build­ings burnt down, con­vey­ors and trains stopped, tires deflat­ed, GM fields lib­er­at­ed & ‘tri­als’ decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, despite tear-gas, jail threats, and fortress-like field pro­tec­tion, con­tin­u­ing resis­tance in Mayo & Ice­land, and cam­paign suc­cess­es, the diverse uses of super­glue just become mun­dane. Got a bro­ken tea cup or an incin­er­a­tor to shut down? You know what to use!

And if smash­ing green­hous­es or hang­ing about 60 metres up seems wierd, read on…

Also includes full lists of eco­log­i­cal direct action groups, protest camps & sup­port groups. Bat­ter­ies not includ­ed.

Pick up your copy at the Camp for Cli­mate Action or at your near­est social cen­tre. Or drop us a line at actionup­date AT earthfirst.org.uk and we’ll post you as many as you like for dis­trib­ut­ing around town and at events.

Down­load the lat­est EF!AU to share with oth­ers, sub­scribe or check out some past issues. The next issue will come out at the begin­ning of Novem­ber.

And of course, this year’s EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing (click here for lat­est news) is from Wednes­day 27th August to Mon­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2008, if you want to plot & plan, and laugh & chat with old friends & new.

Latest info on Camp for Climate Action (& action reports during the camp) — useful links including ‘what’s it like’ video

All the lat­est info you need to have a reward­ing Camp for Cli­mate Action is below — read more.

Also please note that dur­ing the camp, the best place to get relat­ed action reports will be https://indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2008/climatecamp/, with oth­ers on the gen­er­al IMC newswire. Dai­ly video reports trail­er.

We’ll do a round-up of actions & pho­tos after­wards, as last year.

Climate camp penknifeAll the lat­est info you need to have a reward­ing Camp for Cli­mate Action is below — read more.

Also please note that dur­ing the camp, the best place to get relat­ed action reports will be https://indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2008/climatecamp/, with oth­ers on the gen­er­al IMC newswire. Dai­ly video reports trail­er.

We’ll do a round-up of actions & pho­tos after­wards, as last year.

Get­ting there | What to bring | Neigh­bour­hoods | Phones & secu­ri­ty | Direct action | 9th August mass action | Oth­er use­ful info about the camp | Work­shop pro­gramme - you’ll find 2 work­shops clear­ly labelled as EF! but there’ll be EF!ers, such as you dear read­er, sprin­kled here and there through­out the camp in all sorts of roles, or off site tak­ing action; also check out all the excit­ing UK coal resis­tance work­shops, main­ly in the Welsh neigh­bour­hood & not in the main work­shop pro­gramme.

Video — Attend­ing the camp. The prac­ti­cal­i­ties, fun, and fears. Views, reas­sur­ance, clar­i­fi­ca­tion, and enthu­si­asm from peo­ple who attend­ed in 2007, and a lit­tle bit of the mag­ic in their words and eyes.

Activists take site for the Camp for Climate Action and reveal location

30 July 2008

Activists take site for the Camp for Cli­mate Action and reveal loca­tion

Climate camp 08 banner & tripods30 July 2008

Activists take site for the Camp for Cli­mate Action and reveal loca­tion

100 peo­ple entered and secured an uncul­ti­vat­ed field at Deans­gate Ridge at 3.00pm today, only 1 km from Kingsnorth Pow­er Sta­tion. They erect­ed and climbed tripods to pre­vent police from mov­ing them and have erect­ed a mar­quee along­side a ban­ner which reads ‘No New Coal’.

Although the cli­mate camp activists have been upfront and open about most aspects of their plans, the loca­tion of the camp had not been revealed until today in order to pre­vent E.ON and the police from attempt­ing to stop it from hap­pen­ing. The uncul­ti­vat­ed field is on a road that runs between Hoo St Wer­burgh and High Hal­stow. The Camp for Cli­mate Action intends to return the field in two weeks in as good, if not bet­ter, con­di­tion than it was found.

Around 20 sheep were in the field when it was occu­pied. They have been round­ed up and are being tak­en care of with food and water.

The camp, which is due to offi­cial­ly start on Sun­day, 3 August, is expect­ed to attract thou­sands of peo­ple com­ing from all over the UK. The week long camp hosts hun­dreds of work­shops on sus­tain­able liv­ing and the pol­i­tics of cli­mate change. The camp will cul­mi­nate on Sat­ur­day 9 August in a mass direct action to shut down Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion on protest over E.ON’s plans to build the first new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the UK for 33 years.

“We want to warm­ly invite peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty to come down and see for them­selves what the camp is all about,” said Ter­ry Graves, who has already pitched his tent up in the field.

“E.ON and the gov­ern­ment believe that you can have end­less fos­sil-fuelled eco­nom­ic growth in a world of finite resources,” said Christi­na Greens­ford, who helped to secure the camp. “Peo­ple from all over the UK are here to cre­ate a demo­c­ra­t­ic, low-car­bon soci­ety in which our long term future on this plan­et is pri­ori­tised over the short term prof­it mar­gins of the fos­sil fuel indus­try.”

“We have a future to pro­tect, and today, in set­ting up the cli­mate camp, we’ve drawn a line in the sand at Kingsnorth.” said Han­nah Abbots. “We will not allow com­pa­nies like E.ON drag us over the edge of cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe.”

Press can con­tact Conor O’Brian at 07530 306267 who is on site and arrange inter­views, either over the phone or on the perime­ter of the site.

Press can also con­tact the media team, who are not cur­rent­ly on site, at 07772 861 099

A press advi­so­ry will be short­ly issued giv­ing infor­ma­tion as to when the first media tours of the camp will take place.

camp media team
press@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

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The OS grid ref­er­ence for the camp is TQ 773 742. The site is between Dean­gate round about on the A228 and the vil­lage of High Hal­stow. The site is on the west side of the road (left com­ing north from the A228) as you go up hill after the Dean­gate sports field and before Dux Court farm.

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For direc­tions and oth­er use­ful info, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21137