Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Nembe Communities Occupy Shell Oil Facilities in Nigeria

Shell's environmental destruction of southern Nigeria is internationally condemned 12th May 2014

Shell's environmental destruction of southern Nigeria is internationally condemned 12th May 2014

Stake­hold­ers and indi­genes of Nem­be-Bas­sam­biri in Bayel­sa State last week­end besieged oil facil­i­ties oper­at­ed by the Shell Petro­le­um Devel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (SPDC) over it’s divest­ment plans and pro­posed sale of its Oil Min­ing Licens­es (OMLs).

The host to some of the SPDC’s instal­la­tions in Nem­be Local Gov­ern­ment Area of the state, were angry at the plan by Shell to sell OML 29 locat­ed in their domain with­out con­sult­ing them.

Shell has report­ed­ly placed its 45 per­cent stake in four oil wells includ­ing OML 29 for sale as part of the company’s divest­ment.

OML 29 is believed to have increased to 62,000 bpd of oil and 40 mil­lion stan­dard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscf/d). It also holds reserves of 2.2 bil­lion bar­rels of oil equiv­a­lent (boe).

The aggriev­ed pro­test­ers who stormed the company’s facil­i­ties on Sat­ur­day with diffrent  plac­ards asked Shell to stop pro­duc­tion for three days to address their demands.

Num­ber­ing over 100, the demon­stra­tors con­sist­ing of women, youths, chiefs, lead­ers and elders from the com­mu­ni­ty came on 15 speed­boats.

The pro­test­ers led by a mem­ber of the community’s Oil and Gas Com­mit­tee, Chief Brigi­di, took over the Nem­be-Brass water­ways, chant­i­ng sol­i­dar­i­ty songs as they sailed to SPDC’s major oil plat­forms in the area to reg­is­ter their griev­ances.

Some of the plac­ards dis­played by the pro­test­ers read: “the land is ours, the oil is ours, Shell can­not divest with­out us”;  “No, to Shell OML 29 sale”; “After pol­lut­ing our land and water, Shell wants to sell our land”.

Oth­ers are “No to fraud­u­lent sell of invest­ment”. “No to Shell fraud­u­lent divest­ment”;  “OML 29, OPU Nem­be demand jus­tice”; “Do not sell our oil wells to strangers” and “Include our com­pa­nies in OML divest­ment plans”.

A mem­ber of the Nem­be-Bas­sam­biri Coun­cil of Chiefs, Chief Bukunor Alfred, said mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty were angry at the plan of SPDC to sell oil blocks in the area with­out con­sult­ing them.

He said del­e­gates sent by the coun­cil of chiefs to dia­logue with SPDC on the devel­op­ment returned dis­ap­point­ed, say­ing, “Our plac­ards have shown that we are not hap­py with Shell. We are by this protest giv­ing Shell three days to shut down oper­a­tion and dia­logue with us or we will ensure that these facil­i­ties are per­ma­nent­ly closed.”

He said though SPDC had con­tributed in the devel­op­ment of the com­mu­ni­ty, the com­pa­ny was wrong to take a major deci­sion of divest­ing with­out con­sult­ing its land­lords.

“We are not against what they are doing. But we want to say that we are the land­lords and we are sup­posed to be noti­fied on what our ten­ants are doing,” he said.

Also, the Chair­man of Opu-Nem­be Improve­ment Union (ONIU), Mr. Ebinyo Robert, said the com­mu­ni­ty would not let the com­pa­ny to leave uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly after destroy­ing its envi­ron­ment through pol­lu­tion.

He insist­ed that the com­pa­ny must involve the com­mu­ni­ty in all the process­es involved in sell­ing OML 29.

He warned that indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies indi­cat­ing inter­est to buy the oil wells should desist or have the com­mu­ni­ty to con­tend with.

He said the com­mu­ni­ties have nom­i­nat­ed three com­pa­nies, Amot Oil E&P Lim­it­ed, A‑Abas Resources and Isea BMG, to par­tic­i­pate in the bid­ding process.

He said: “The place has been pol­lut­ed and our envi­ro­ment, our water our land, has been degrad­ed for a long time. We have not been reha­bil­i­tat­ed the way we real­ly want­ed it.

“By this demon­stra­tion, we are telling the par­ties to the sale includ­ing the bid­ders to desist from going ahead because if they do, of course, the land is ours, the water is ours and the oil is ours, they will have us to con­tend with and they may not like us in the man­ner in which they will meet us when they come to oper­ate.

“So, we are ask­ing the SPDC to stop the flow and all oper­a­tions for now and ensure that the com­mu­ni­ty is car­ried along because that is the only way we can have peace here.

“We are also say­ing that the com­mu­ni­ty has nom­i­nat­ed three com­pa­nies, Amot Oil E&P Lim­it­ed, A‑Abas Resources and Isea BMG, to par­tic­i­pate in the bid­ding process. So, SPDC should involve these com­pa­nies in the process.”

But the Oper­a­tions Team Lead San­ta Bar­bara Flow Sta­tion, Mr. Akpe Emmanuel, wel­comed the pro­test­ers on behalf of Shell.

He thanked them for the peace­ful man­ner in which they con­duct­ed the demon­stra­tion and promised to pass their griev­ances across the SPDC.

He said: “Once again, you are wel­come. I want to thank you for the man­ner in which you pre­sent­ed your case. I real­ly appre­ci­ate it on behalf of Shell.

“Like the com­mu­ni­ty has assigned you to rep­re­sent them, I am also here on behalf of Shell. I have heard all you have said. It is my duty to pass this mes­sage to my prin­ci­pal.”

Colombian Poor Occupy Lands Slated for Military Base

wYdfu2J12th May 2014 FORTUL, COLOMBIA–Holding down an occu­pa­tion for five months isn’t easy. Doing so in Colom­bia, even less so.

wYdfu2J12th May 2014 FORTUL, COLOMBIA–Holding down an occu­pa­tion for five months isn’t easy. Doing so in Colom­bia, even less so. But mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty of Héc­tor Alirio Martínez in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of For­tul, near the bor­der with Venezuela, have raised the stakes even high­er: they’re occu­py­ing land owned by the Min­istry of Defense. The 100 hectare ter­rain now spot­ted with wood and plas­tic homes was slat­ed to become a large mil­i­tary base.

Locals say the land orig­i­nal­ly was pur­chased by Occi­den­tal Petro­le­um in order to build a large new base to coor­di­nate pro­tec­tion of a new oil pipeline which pass­es less than a few hun­dred meters from the lot.

“This land belongs to the Min­istry of Defense, it was pur­chased and spon­sored by Oxy, so we as good peo­ple from Arau­ca said that the most viable thing is to take over this plan, and see if the Min­is­ter of Defense will give it to us over time, many peo­ple need­ed this land,” said Jhon Car­los Ariza Aguilar, the Vice-Pres­i­dent of the com­mu­ni­ty of over 2,000 fam­i­lies. They began the occu­pa­tion on Novem­ber 26, 2013.

I met with Jhon and oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty on a hot Feb­ru­ary after­noon, weeks after the com­mu­ni­ty was sup­posed to have been removed by force. On Jan­u­ary 20, the army entered the shack set­tle­ment with a tank, and an evic­tion was sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 4, but that date came and went with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in an uneasy calm about what would take place next.

For­tul is a munic­i­pal­i­ty in the Colom­bian foothills, between the moun­tains and the wide open plains, and not far from the Arau­ca Riv­er, which marks the bor­der with Venezuela. This oil rich region is also deeply con­flict­ual, on the road over, sol­diers hung around a hand­ful of tanks, and army pres­ence is ubiq­ui­tous. ELN and FARC guer­ril­las also patrol the area and have car­ried out attacks on Caño Limon-Covenas pipeline which serves Occidental’s near­by Caño Limon field. Under the heavy after­noon sun, a group of men lounged under a hand­ful of trees, and women relaxed under a shel­ter beside them. Iden­ti­cal palm shacks pro­tect­ed by green cloth roofs dot­ted the area.

As we spoke, a taxi cab arrived, with a mat­tress strapped to the top and fur­ni­ture in the trunk, indi­cat­ing anoth­er fam­i­ly per­ma­nent­ly mov­ing into the area. Ariza Aguilar indi­cat­ed that about one in four mem­bers of the occu­pa­tion was an inter­nal­ly dis­placed per­son, forced out of their homes because of the ongo­ing con­flict.

“Oxy bought this land and they gave it to the Min­istry of Defense” in 2010, said Jhon­ny Alex­is Cas­tro, the For­tul rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Joel Sier­ra Human Rights Foun­da­tion. Oxy did not respond to a request for com­ment.

The Oleo­duc­to Bicen­te­nario, a meter wide oil pipeline that will even­tu­al­ly trav­el 960km from Casanare depart­ment to the port of Cov­eñas, is three min­utes from the occu­pa­tion by road, on the back end of the com­mu­ni­ty the under­ground pipeline is but a few hun­dred meters away. “That’s why they want­ed a bat­tal­ion here, but there is a school very close, hav­ing a bat­tal­ion here would mean hav­ing a check­point right in front of the school,” said Cas­tro.

Today, chil­dren from the set­tle­ment are already attend­ing the school. “What mat­ters is that the chil­dren go and study, it doesn’t mat­ter if we have elec­tric­i­ty or not, that [they study] is the impor­tant thing,” said Ariza Aguilar. He invit­ed me to swim in a riv­er near­by, which pro­vides those liv­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty with a place to gath­er water, wash cloth­ing, and bathe.

The com­mu­ni­ty of Héc­tor Alirio Martínez is the first per­ma­nent occu­pa­tion of land owned by the Min­istry of Defense in Colom­bia. The com­mu­ni­ty takes its name from a local peas­ant activist who was pulled from a house at dawn and shot to death by sol­diers along with two oth­ers on August 4, 2004. “The prob­lem is that Arau­ca is con­sid­ered a red zone in Colom­bia, and any leader who ori­ents peo­ple, who even just teach­es them how to go to city hall (to man­age their paper­work), that’s enough to say they’re a guer­ril­la and hunt them until they kill them,” said Ariza Aguilar.

Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers know that tak­ing part in the occu­pa­tion is an extreme­ly risky activ­i­ty, but for many the need for hous­ing and the abil­i­ty to send their chil­dren to school out­weighs the risk.

Eviction of treehouse village on Hambacher Forst protest site

Ker­pen, 28.​03.​2014. Short­ly after 20:00 on last wednes­day the 28th of march the last of sev­en activists was evict­ed from a tree.

Ker­pen, 28.​03.​2014. Short­ly after 20:00 on last wednes­day the 28th of march the last of sev­en activists was evict­ed from a tree. The tree­hous­es were com­plete­ly destroyed and lots of tree were cut down dur­ing the 16-hour large scale oper­a­tion. While the police is still prais­ing them­selfes, the activists already plan the reoc­cu­pa­tion of the for­est.

Accord­ing to a press release of the police the claim of the evic­tion was made by the town of Ker­pen. The spokesper­son of the town declared build­ing reg­u­la­tions and the “dan­ger­ous” con­di­tions of the hous­es as rea­son for the police oper­a­tion. “The inter­ests of ener­gy com­pa­nies are con­stant­ly pre­sent­ed in the name of dif­fer­ent com­mit­tees or as pub­lic inter­est. At fed­er­al lev­el this mean sub­ven­tions for the most cli­mate-dam­ag­ing form of ener­gy; at region­al lev­el it means the local author­i­ties and the police make up rea­sons to clear the way for RWE. We do not expe­ri­ence this for the first time.” says An­ni­ka Schle­reth after the evic­tion.

Already while the evec­tion was still run­ning peo­ple from Bonn and Vien­na declared their soli­adri­ty through dif­fer­ent actions. Also today man­i­fes­ta­tions for sol­i­dar­i­ty will take place in Mün­ster, Essen and Frankfurt/Main. “Repres­sion can make peo­ple with­draw or weak­en a move­ment. But if we stand unit­ed then it will strenghen us and our resis­tance. Fol­low­ing the evic­tion in novem­ber 2012 a lot of peo­ple declared their sol­i­dar­i­ty and took action over month for the for­est and against RWE. The crim­i­nal­iza­tion of our legit­i­mate protest will not stop our fight.” con­tin­ues Anni­ka Schlereth.

For this rea­son we call for a reoc­cup­tion of the Ham­bach For­est on 26.​04.​2014 By then var­i­ous groups and indi­vid­u­als will be pre­pared to per­ma­nent­ly reoc­cu­py the for­est and to send a strong sig­nal to RWE. “We will not stand by and watch how forests, farm­land and vil­lages will be destroyed for the sake of min­ing. We will not sit back and do noth­ing while the cli­mate is killed by the burn­ing of coal. We will orga­nize, resist and be solid­ly unit­ed with all the peo­ple world­wide that fight against destruc­tion of their space!”

Eviction of Hambach Forest right now

The ham­bach for­est is under evic­tion right now. Hun­drets of police are try­ing to get the peo­ple down from the trees, but it can need some time. Media is talk­ing about lock-ons in the trees. Right now there are sev­er­al lift­ing ramps work­ing at sev­er­al tree­hous­es at the same time. The Police is block­ing roads and the motor­way in a big range.

The ham­bach for­est is under evic­tion right now. Hun­drets of police are try­ing to get the peo­ple down from the trees, but it can need some time. Media is talk­ing about lock-ons in the trees. Right now there are sev­er­al lift­ing ramps work­ing at sev­er­al tree­hous­es at the same time. The Police is block­ing roads and the motor­way in a big range.

The ham­bach for­est is occu­pied against the coal-pit from RWE close to Cologne (it’s the biggest coal-area in Europe and its biggest cli­mate killer!) The whole for­est will get cut for the coal-mine if we don’t defend it. The for­est was 5.500 ha once, and now there is less than 1000 left.

The activists call for a big re-occu­pi­a­tion at the 26. of april. More infor­ma­tion as they came.

 

More infor­ma­tion: http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/

lock-on-tastic continues/eviction court case news & more at Barton Moss (4–12 March 2014)

11.3.14

 

11.3.14

 

4th March — anoth­er lock-on delayed trucks sig­nif­i­cant­ly — 4 hours! 

The Man­ches­ter Evening News — sen­sa­tion­al­ist par­rot­er of police and frack­ing PR — con­duct­ed a sur­vey that found that 73% of Man­cu­ni­ans opposed frack­ing.

 

6th March — two hour lock-on and book shields deployed to pro­tect against TAU (riot police) aggres­sion. 

9th March — 1,200 march against frack­ing in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre. 

10th March — evic­tion court case brought by Peel Hold­ings: judge con­sid­ered two days of evi­dence over the week­end, and decid­ed against the camp.  He’d pre­vi­ous­ly said Peel could­n’t evict part of the camp from a strip of agri­cul­tur­al land that Peel lease out to a ten­ant farmer.  On Mon­day he decid­ed it was­n’t agri­cul­tur­al enough!  Camp tak­ing appeal to High Court. 

11th March — anoth­er lock-on!

lock-ons at Barton Moss

Lock-ons have been increas­ing — there’s been one today (2 peo­ple, 2 hour delay), Mon­day 3rd March; there was anoth­er last Fri­day (2 peo­ple in tubes, 1.5 hours), and last Tues­day — 2 peo­ple locked-on into a bar­rel full of con­crete, barbed wire and glass, to slow the police removal team down.

Lock-ons have been increas­ing — there’s been one today (2 peo­ple, 2 hour delay), Mon­day 3rd March; there was anoth­er last Fri­day (2 peo­ple in tubes, 1.5 hours), and last Tues­day — 2 peo­ple locked-on into a bar­rel full of con­crete, barbed wire and glass, to slow the police removal team down.

Apart from these days, there’s been con­tin­ued police vio­lence, a reduc­tion in time allowed for the slow lor­ry escorts, and the threat of evic­tion delayed till lat­er this month. 

See http://northerngasgala.org.uk/ or frack-off.org.uk/ for more info

Police Attack 20,000 French Citizens Protesting Against Airport Notre-Dame-Des-Landes

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4371803_3_a8d2_selon-la-prefecture-la-manifestation-a_fb63a9c22897e38e5bfc3f4b4776d41b

Feb­ru­ary 22, 2014

The event attend­ed by ten’s of thou­sands of French cit­i­zens against the air­port Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des esca­lat­ed Sat­ur­day after­noon in the city cen­ter of Nantes when Police Block­ad­ed the pro­gres­sion of the march and attacked with charges to the peo­ple protest­ing. Many cit­i­zens were wound­ed by tear gas and rub­ber bul­lets. Par­tic­i­pants respond­ed with fired pro­jec­tiles – bot­tles, cans, steel balls, flares – towards the police who charged repeat­ed­ly.

About 20,000 people demonstrated in the city center of Nantes to protest against the construction of the new airport of Our Lady of Landes.Des violent clashes took place at the end of the event between violent groups and CRS | Franck Dubray

About 20,000 peo­ple demon­strat­ed in the city cen­ter of Nantes to protest against the con­struc­tion of the new air­port of Our Lady of Landes.Des vio­lent clash­es took place at the end of the event between vio­lent groups and CRS | Franck Dubray

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“This is tens of thou­sands,” assured Julien Durand, spokesman for the ACIPA, the main oppo­si­tion group to the air­port project, while refus­ing to give a pre­cise fig­ure.

Accord­ing to him, the par­tic­i­pa­tion is equiv­a­lent to the pre­vi­ous ral­lies, such as in Novem­ber 2012 which accord­ing to the orga­niz­ers had expect­ed 40,000 peo­ple (13,000 accord­ing to police).

In the late after­noon, the city cen­ter of Nantes showed scenes of dev­as­ta­tion. Peo­ple took out frus­tra­tion from being ignored for years and beat­en down when they speak out by ran­sack­ing a police sta­tion, an agency of Vin­ci (deal­er air­port project) group, but also broke sev­er­al store­fronts, any agency of Nantes trans­port or agency Nou­velles Fron­tières. At least two con­struc­tion equip­ment vehi­cles and a bar­ri­cade were also burned.

Objects were thrown at the SNCF cate­nary to block the move­ment of trains one source said. As for police, they made use of a large amount of tear gas, stun grenades and water can­nons.

Pro­test­ers moved away blind­ed by tear gas while sev­er­al hun­dred oth­ers con­tin­ued to face the police, refer­ring new pro­jec­tiles bot­tles, or even own grenades forces.

“No mat­ter what tell the pre­fec­ture, for all of you it is a great suc­cess,” pro­vid­ed at the end of the event Julien Durand.

via @Le Télégramme

via @Le Télé­gramme

le-centre-ville-de-nantes-devaste_1
“An unnec­es­sary and expen­sive project”
The demon­stra­tion had start­ed in a friend­ly atmos­phere. “No thank you Ayrault­port”, “No to Ayrault pork”, “Ayrault also emerges Vin­ci”, “Ni or air­port metrop­o­lis, the city is ours” we heard in the pro­ces­sion.

le-centre-ville-de-nantes-devaste_2“The mobi­liza­tion is great here. We are here to show our deter­mi­na­tion to aban­don this use­less and expen­sive at this time of short­age project,” said AFP Eva Joly MEP EELV.

Giv­en the anti-cap­i­tal­ist com­po­nent of the event and clash­es that have marked pre­vi­ous events, the pre­fec­ture on Fri­day adopt­ed a mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the route so that it avoids the down­town core.

The event is orga­nized two months after the pub­li­ca­tion of pre­fec­tur­al ordi­nances autho­riz­ing the start of pre-con­struc­tion of the air­port. Appeals were filed against these orders but do not have sus­pen­sive effect. How­ev­er, work has still not start­ed.

via @youranonnews

via @youranonnews

The inau­gu­ra­tion of the future Grand Ouest Air­port, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for 2017, is now con­sid­ered only “2019 or 2020″ by sup­port­ers of the trans­fer. Accord­ing to an Ifop poll pub­lished Sat­ur­day, a major­i­ty of French (56%) are opposed to the future air­port, 24% being pos­i­tive and 20% were unde­cid­ed.

This sur­vey was con­duct­ed on behalf of Act­ing for the envi­ron­ment, Attac and ACIPA, the lead­ing asso­ci­a­tion of oppo­nents to the project. The project of pub­lic util­i­ty in 2008, is jus­ti­fied by its sup­port­ers, PS as the UMP, includ­ing the risk of sat­u­ra­tion of the cur­rent air­port Nantes Atlan­tique.

One of several damaged buildings. via Franck Dubray

One of sev­er­al dam­aged build­ings. via Franck Dubray

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STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

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STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

 

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

34497153449847Sources
http://t.co/RS8wSS9yRB” target=“_blank”>FranceTVinfo
Lemonde
7sur7

Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al. To sup­port this pub­li­ca­tion, pre­order your copy or donate today.

After sev­er­al years in devel­op­ment, the Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al is ready to go to press. A group of front­line activists has assem­bled over 300 pages of dia­grams, descrip­tions of tech­niques and a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the role direct action plays in our cam­paigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundrais­ing cam­paign to ensure that this crit­i­cal book gets out to peo­ple who can use it. You can pre­order your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your ear­ly endorse­ment by donat­ing today. More impor­tant­ly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowl­edge. Every dona­tion over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the man­u­al to a cam­paign of your choice. The more you give, the more man­u­als we can put in the mail.

The man­u­al will be print­ed in the com­ing month with long­time Earth First! part­ner, The Gloo Fac­to­ry. This com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed, union print shop has sup­plied Earth First! and its affil­i­ates with stick­ers and mer­chan­dise for decades and remains com­mit­ted to using a high stan­dard for recy­cled and reclaimed mate­r­i­al, as well as sup­port­ive work­er con­di­tions.

The man­u­al was first print­ed near­ly two decades ago and has been out of print since its ini­tial dis­sem­i­na­tion. Though many of the con­sid­er­a­tions for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and inter­ven­tion have remained tried and true, new ele­ments have altered the ways we put these tac­tics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al will con­tin­ue the role of safe and effec­tive actions in stop­ping the destruc­tion of the plan­et.

Sup­port this effort today!

Barton Moss anti-fracking update

 

Embedded image permalink

15th Feb 2014

Lor­ries being brought in on a Sat­ur­day, tankers so like­ly full of chem­i­cals, fol­lowed by trucks with pipes. 

 

Embedded image permalink

15th Feb 2014

Lor­ries being brought in on a Sat­ur­day, tankers so like­ly full of chem­i­cals, fol­lowed by trucks with pipes. 

Campers try­ing to stop, one locked on top of a tanker. 

Three days ago a court ruled that the road was not a pub­lic high­way, but a foot­path, open­ing up the threat of being arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass by block­ing the trucks on the foot­path (it is legal­ly pos­si­ble under Sec­tion 68 Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994). 

Live feed 1 and Live feed 2

Romanian Villagers and Priests Occupy Chevron Fracking Site in Protest

9/2/14

Roman­ian police clashed with vil­lagers on Wednes­day as they tried in vain to force them off a field they have occu­pied for a third day to pre­vent U.S. ener­gy giant Chevron from drilling for shale gas.

9/2/14

Roman­ian police clashed with vil­lagers on Wednes­day as they tried in vain to force them off a field they have occu­pied for a third day to pre­vent U.S. ener­gy giant Chevron from drilling for shale gas.

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers blocked access to the site at Silis­tea in east­ern Roma­nia where Chevron plans to drill an explo­ration well, lying down in the mud and hold­ing hands to form a human chain.

Some 250 anti-riot police engaged in an hours-long stand-off with the pro­test­ers, with skir­mish­es as they phys­i­cal­ly tried to force them off, but the demon­stra­tors pushed their way back onto the field.

The group of pro­test­ers, some of whom have been sleep­ing at the site since Mon­day, had grown to about 500 on Wednes­day, pre­vent­ing Chevron bull­doz­ers and exca­va­tors from access­ing the site.

Ortho­dox priests also joined the protest.

Many of the vil­lagers in the rur­al region arrived on horse carts, some brought their chil­dren who held up signs read­ing: “Stop Chevron!”, while an elder­ly woman leaned on her cane beside them.

They are afraid of the envi­ron­men­tal and health impact of the high­ly con­tro­ver­sial method used for shale gas drilling, called hydraulic frac­tur­ing or ‘frack­ing’.

The tech­nique con­sists of pump­ing water and chem­i­cals at high pres­sure into deep rock for­ma­tions to free oil and gas.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists say frack­ing may con­t­a­m­i­nate ground water and even cause small earth­quakes.

Chevron has per­mits to explore for shale gas in three vil­lages in this part of east­ern Roma­nia as well as on Romania’s Black Sea coast.

“Chevron is com­mit­ted to build­ing con­struc­tive and pos­i­tive rela­tion­ships with the com­mu­ni­ties where we oper­ate and will con­tin­ue our dia­logue with the pub­lic, local com­mu­ni­ties and author­i­ties on its projects,” the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment to AFP.

“Our pri­or­i­ty is to con­duct … activ­i­ties in a safe and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble man­ner con­sis­tent with the per­mits under which we oper­ate,” it added.

Also Wednes­day, more than 2,000 peo­ple staged a protest in the cap­i­tal Bucharest, shout­ing “no to shale gas”.

Romania’s rul­ing cen­tre-left coali­tion has been defend­ing shale gas explo­ration after fight­ing it when it was in the oppo­si­tion.