Category: Unnecessary Developments

(Australia) Newcastle residents protest health effects of proposed 4th coal terminal

New­cas­tle res­i­dents and activists dressed in med­ical gowns protest­ed the lack of con­sid­er­a­tion of health and cli­mate change effects in the pro­posed build­ing of a fourth coal ter­mi­nal at the port of New­cas­tle, already the world’s largest coal port. A peace­ful protest and ‘lock­on’ occurred out­side The office of NSW Min­is­ter for Plan­ning Brad Haz­zard last Thurs­day who is due to con­sid­er the mer­its of the pro­pos­al.

Relat­ed: Newcastle’s T4 project puts short-term prof­it before health | Some­thing in the air: time for inde­pen­dent test­ing in coal areas | Coal Ter­mi­nal Action Group

Dressed as doc­tors and patients, about 20 pro­tes­tors hold­ing ban­ners and plac­ards occu­pied the front steps of Gov­er­nor Mac­quar­ie Tow­er at 1 Far­rer Place, Syd­ney.

Two cam­paign­ers were allowed in to meet with Min­is­ter Haz­zard’s staff. They spent 25 min­utes dis­cussing the 4th ter­mi­nal and relay­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s con­cerns over health and cli­mate and request­ed a pub­lic meet­ing in New­cas­tle with the Min­is­ter.

On the steps of the build­ing Spokesper­son Alex McIn­nis said “We are here because there are plans to expand New­cas­tle coal port, which is going to hurt the health of the com­mu­ni­ty because of the impact of coal dust. It’s also going to dam­age our farm­land and cli­mate.”

“So, we’ve come to Min­is­ter for Plan­ning Brad Haz­zard’s office to urge him to reject the planned expan­sion of the coal port and lis­ten to the com­mu­ni­ties con­cerns over health and put those con­cerns in front of the inter­ests of the coal com­pa­nies and reject the coal ter­mi­nal.” she said.

Anoth­er pro­tes­tor dressed in a med­ical gown said: “We are here today because in the res­pi­ra­to­ry unit the asth­ma caused by coal dust in the Hunter region and New­cas­tle is a seri­ous health haz­ard. We are ask­ing Min­is­ter Haz­zard not to allow the pro­posed 4th coal ter­mi­nal in New­cas­tle to go ahead.”

Police attend­ed and asked the pro­tes­tors to move. Some vol­un­tar­i­ly left the steps. Two pro­tes­tors in med­ical gowns refused and had their locks removed by the Police Res­cue Squad and were tak­en away and arrest­ed.

 

A steep drop in coal prices and reduced Demand for coal has caused many coal com­pa­nies like Rio Tin­to and Xstra­ta to shelve expan­sion plans in the Hunter Val­ley and cut jobs.

The fourth coal ter­mi­nal at New­cas­tle pro­posed by Port Waratah Coal Ser­vices will expand coal export capac­i­ty from 210 to 330 mil­lion tonnes each year, yet the demand for coal appears to be falling. Min­ing and trans­port of this coal will dou­ble the coal dust pol­lu­tion from coal trains, piles and coal load­ers that peo­ple breath in towns through­out the Hunter Val­ley.

Med­ical aca­d­e­mics have argued that Newcastle’s T4 project puts short-term prof­it before health. Pub­lic health and com­pre­hen­sive health mon­i­tor­ing has tak­en sec­ond place in coal regions to the argu­ments in favour of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. The long term health costs are sim­ply nev­er fac­tored into the eco­nom­ic costs.

The med­ical and health issues of coal are well known. Coal dust con­tributes to asth­ma, can­cer, heart dis­ease and stroke and it inter­feres with lung devel­op­ment and com­pro­mis­es intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty. In the US there has been health cost­ing data gath­ered show­ing that if the cost of dis­ease result­ing from coal was paid for by the coal and pow­er indus­tries it would almost dou­ble the cost of elec­tric­i­ty. Up to 50,000 deaths each year in the US are attrib­uted to pol­lu­tion from pow­er plants. A 2009 report by Physi­cians for Social Respon­si­bil­i­ty (USA) out­lined ‘Coal’s Assault on Human Health’ and the need to phase out coal on health, ener­gy and cli­mate grounds.

In Aus­tralia we have a woe­ful record of pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing and assess­ing health costs from coal. A good start to address­ing the imbal­ance between eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and health would be estab­lish­ing com­pre­hen­sive pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing done reg­u­lar­ly and inde­pen­dant­ly for all coal areas — mines, trans­port cor­ri­dors, ports, coal fired pow­er sta­tions and near­by res­i­den­tial areas — at the expense of the coal indus­try and make the data pub­licly avail­able. Read more at Some­thing in the air: time for inde­pen­dent test­ing in coal areas.

The Coal Ter­mi­nal Action Group is rais­ing mon­ey to mon­i­tor coal dust in sub­urbs between the Hunter Val­ley coal mines and Newcastle’s port.

Doc­tors for the Envi­ron­ment in their sub­mis­sion and com­ment on the Envi­ron­ment Impact state­ment said :“From the data pre­sent­ed, New­cas­tle is a pol­lut­ed town with like­ly exist­ing health impacts and now we have a pro­pos­al that will undoubt­ed­ly increase pol­lu­tion. It is not that Aus­tralia needs to make this sac­ri­fice for ener­gy secu­ri­ty, as alter­na­tives to burn­ing coal for ener­gy cur­rent­ly exist. Fur­ther­more the mor­bid­i­ty and mor­tal­i­ty con­ferred on the world’s peo­ple by the export of this coal would not be insignif­i­cant.”

Sources:

is a cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist from Mel­bourne Aus­tralia who has been writ­ing on cli­mate change, sci­ence and protests since 2004. This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at Aus­tralia Indy­media

(USA) From the Woods: Tar Sands blockade update

I’m cur­rent­ly part of a team of awe­some friends rov­ing through the woods of east Texas as part of the Tar Sands Block­ade (TSB).

I’m cur­rent­ly part of a team of awe­some friends rov­ing through the woods of east Texas as part of the Tar Sands Block­ade (TSB). This is an epic fight to defend Tex­ans’ homes and land against the clearcut­ting and pol­lu­tion caused by the build­ing of the mas­sive Key­stone XL pipeline.

The media team for TSB are doing an awe­some job of updat­ing our web­site as Tran­sCana­da (TC) and their hired goons advance toward our block­ade with heavy equip­ment and repeat­ed­ly endan­ger our peo­ple in some scary ways. A friend and I thought that allies of the TSB might appre­ci­ate an on-the-ground per­spec­tive, and so before I go back to defend­ing our block­ade I thought I’d update y’all.
     The for­est of east Texas is total­ly beau­ti­ful. Water oak, sweet gum and slash pine trees define the canopy, and green bri­ar, mus­ca­dine grapes and beau­ty­ber­ry bush­es cov­er the ground. This for­est is home to great blue herons, turkey vul­tures, whip­poor­wills, lots of deer, rat­tlers and oth­er snakes, armadil­los, and even occa­sion­al black bears. All of these are our nat­ur­al allies and have been incred­i­bly dis­turbed by the clear cut­ting of their home.   
     At the begin­ning of this week the bad guys were oper­at­ing a feller bunch­er and clear cut­ting a vast swath of for­est aimed direct­ly at our block­ade. On Tues­day morn­ing we tem­porar­i­ly stopped them by plac­ing our­selves direct­ly in the path of their machines. As a back­hoe was plac­ing tim­bers over a gul­ly so that oth­er more destruc­tive stuff like feller-bunch­ers could advance toward our block­ade, two of our team locked down to the back­hoe and stopped it in its tracks while the rest of us pro­vid­ed cov­er. The lock­down­ers were then tor­tured by local police with TC super­vi­sors watch­ing and laugh­ing. After they were extract­ed from the back­hoe, the tim­ber bridge got built and the feller bunch­er start­ed rapid­ly destroy­ing trees advanc­ing toward our block­ade.
     Then we ran out in front of it and one of my friends sat down direct­ly in its path. All of us were way too close to the back­hoe for it to oper­ate safe­ly. Instead of back­ing away slow­ly to a safe dis­tance per OSHA reg­u­la­tions, the oper­a­tor of the machine (which might’ve been the same guy oper­at­ing the back­hoe) decid­ed to fell anoth­er tree and drop it right on my friend’s head. This demon­strates anti­so­cial and poten­tial­ly mur­der­ous behav­ior and this guy clear­ly should be get­ting men­tal help, not oper­at­ing heavy machin­ery. TC super­vi­sors were watch­ing this hap­pen the whole time, and nod­ding with approval. This is crim­i­nal and they should be pros­e­cut­ed for reck­less endan­ger­ment and attempt­ed manslaugh­ter, both of which are ille­gal in the state of Texas. It’s lucky that I caught the whole thing on film and even luck­i­er that my friend jumped out of the way in time and is now rel­a­tive­ly safe.
Our friends in trees and on the Wall are incred­i­bly brave to be main­tain­ing their posi­tions despite the mech­a­nized onslaught advanc­ing toward them and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bru­tal­i­ty by TC’s hired goons, and we are here to sup­port them no mat­ter what. The bad guys have now advanced all the way up to the wall, leav­ing a scarred and dev­as­tat­ed land­scape in their wake. There are work­ers, boss­es and goons below (as I write this) mak­ing all kinds of scary and emp­ty threats. Our peo­ple are jovial and defi­ant in the face of dan­ger. We’re invit­ing all our friends and allies out to vis­it our block­ade and pro­vide sup­plies, encour­age­ment and rein­force­ments. We who are liv­ing in the for­est are com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing our posi­tions no mat­ted how intim­i­dat­ing this multi­bil­lion-dol­lar cor­po­ra­tion and their enablers in local law enforce­ment try to be. Run­ning cir­cles around con­fused TC boss­es and their goons in the beau­ti­ful Texas for­est is total­ly fun, and every­one should come out and par­tic­i­pate.You can help by com­ing down to join us, by doing sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against TC and their enablers in your local town, by send­ing us funds and/or gear, reach­ing out to your media con­tacts, and telling all your friends about this and ask­ing them to spread the word.
    We need: walkie-talkies, AAA bat­ter­ies, camo gear, rain gear, climb­ing gear of all kinds, tools, satel­lite inter­net, solar pan­els, deep-cell bat­ter­ies, woods food, water fil­ters, and video cam­eras.
     We make our stand here in the hope of inspir­ing oth­ers to make a stand against Key­stone XL in a broad diver­si­ty of ways. Cor­po­ra­tions should not be allowed to just roll over us the way they’ve repeat­ed­ly done for decades. Resis­tance is com­ing. Every­one affect­ed by this pipeline must real­ize that risks must be tak­en in defense of what we love. Lay­ing down in front of things, or any vari­a­tion on that, is good for pub­lic­i­ty but is nowhere near enough. Peo­ple must rise up and defend their homes.
Love and Rage,
Anony­mous Block­ad­er # 57

(USA) When Big Oil Attacks

Tues­day after­noon in East Texas, after police bru­tal­ly tor­tured two pro­test­ers locked to a back­hoe and work­ers resumed destruc­tion of the for­est, mem­bers of the Tar Sands Block­ade, deter­mined not to be deterred by vio­lence, moved in to try and stop work again. One activist sat down in front of a feller bunch­er, a hideous machine used to rapid­ly cut down small­er trees, and, after mak­ing eye con­tact with the work­er, almost had a tree dropped on him. The video shows it all, and you can read the activist’s own telling of the inci­dent here.

There’s real­ly not much else to say. Big Oil is attack­ing our bod­ies, our homes, and the plan­et, and now that the cards are on the table, it’s time to fight back. Word on the street is that we’ve got a love­ly crew of Earth First!ers ready for action join­ing us tonight or tomor­row morn­ing, but there’s plen­ty of room for you to get involved too. Go here or email noneshallpass@riseup.net, and we’ll see you on the ground.

- Tar Sands Block­ad­er

A259 Link Road one hour from London help us now

The Combe Haven val­ley is a unique habi­tat which was once the port of Hast­ings (pre 1066). Evi­dence is now being obtained from a small group of entu­si­asts which proves this unique val­ley, which is in the Parish of Crowhurst Sus­sex, was the site of the Nor­man Inva­sion and also the Bat­tle of Hast­ings in 1066.

The Combe Haven val­ley is a unique habi­tat which was once the port of Hast­ings (pre 1066). Evi­dence is now being obtained from a small group of entu­si­asts which proves this unique val­ley, which is in the Parish of Crowhurst Sus­sex, was the site of the Nor­man Inva­sion and also the Bat­tle of Hast­ings in 1066. Our group is fight­ing a bat­tle with East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil to stop the A259 Link Road cut­ting through one of the most impor­tant her­itage sites in the land and also an invalu­able envi­ro­men­tal reserve.

Bull­doz­ers are already on the site dig­ging trench­es. An ini­tial road protest is organ­ised this week­end. Please famil­iarise your­self with the her­itage sto­ry because this is impor­tant. 5000 Eng­lish­men gave their blood in this val­ley and it should be pre­served and not des­e­crat­ed with a road that goes through open coun­try­side — see the videos on our web site — see why we are fight­ing to save this place one hours dri­ve from cen­tral Lon­don

http://secretsofthenormaninvasion.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/stop-the-road-camp-this-saturday-29th-september-2012/

 

(USA) Texas Tar Sands Blockade Continues Despite Police Torture

Despite sum­mer being over, things con­tin­ue to heat up in Texas for the Tar Sands Block­ade as we enter day 3 of the tree-sit.  On Mon­day, 8 peo­ple took to the trees to defend the land from clear-cut­ting that would allow for con­tin­ued con­struc­tion of the pipeline.  And yes­ter­day, two ground-dwelling allies locked them­selves to a piece of con­struc­tion machin­ery that was being used to build a road to the tree vil­lage, effec­tive­ly halt­ing TransCanada’s work for most of the day.

The police response to this action was pre­dictable but nev­er­the­less shock­ing.  Under the encour­age­ment of Tran­sCana­da super­vi­sors, police used sus­tained choke­holds, vio­lent arm-twist­ing, pep­per spray, and mul­ti­ple shocks from a Taser, all while the two block­aders were in hand­cuffs. Despite the tor­ture, the two block­aders held strong for hours, and their per­se­ver­ance has only fur­ther inspired block­aders to con­tin­ue the protests. This morn­ing, in response to the bru­tal­i­ty inflict­ed on our com­rades yes­ter­day, anoth­er activist has ascend­ed into the tree vil­lage to join the aer­i­al block­ade, bring­ing its total pop­u­la­tion to 9.

Ben­jamin Franklin, one of the tor­tured pro­test­ers, had this to say after being released from jail: “As some­one who has a reli­gious ded­i­ca­tion to non­vi­o­lence, I have a duty to assist non­vi­o­lent tac­tics. This is a path to change that works. Despite every­thing that hap­pened at the direc­tion of Tran­sCana­da, I don’t regret my involve­ment at all. I encour­age every­body to per­se­vere in the face of this type of sheer bru­tal­i­ty. To fol­low one’s moral com­pass in spite of extreme chal­lenges is the way we move for­ward towards a more humane, tar sands-free plan­et.”

Tran­sCana­da has shown bla­tant dis­re­gard for the safe­ty of peace­ful peo­ple, local fam­i­lies, and our plan­et. Despite their claims to be con­cerned for safe­ty, whether of pro­tes­tors, landown­ers, or the plan­et, time and time again this has been shown to be patent­ly false. From encour­ag­ing tor­ture to defraud­ing and coerc­ing peo­ple out of their land to cut­ting cor­ners with safe­ty mea­sures for detect­ing and pre­vent­ing spills, TransCanada’s only con­cern is abun­dant­ly clear – prof­it.

They can be stopped. Every day of delay costs them mon­ey and brings us a tiny bit clos­er to the goal of stop­ping the pipeline. The odds are low, but this is a winnable fight.

If you read the call to action or saw this awe­some video, you know how dev­as­tat­ing extract­ing and burn­ing tar sands oil will be to the cli­mate and how crit­i­cal stop­ping this pipeline is. This action has the poten­tial to be a huge turn­ing point for the resis­tance move­ment against fos­sil fuels, but it needs your help to sur­vive and suc­ceed. If you can spare any­thing, make a dona­tion here. If you want to do more, vis­it this page or email noneshallpass@riseup.net to get involved.

For the wild!

- Tar Sands Block­ad­er

Campaigners mobilising to fight ‘hundreds of new roads’

Cam­paign­ers are hop­ing to kick-start oppo­si­tion to ‘hun­dreds of new roads’ with actions in Twyford Down and Hast­ings this week­end.

Cam­paign­ers are hop­ing to kick-start oppo­si­tion to ‘hun­dreds of new roads’ with actions in Twyford Down and Hast­ings this week­end.

Gov­ern­ment and local coun­cils are plan­ning to spend bil­lions of pounds on dozens of new roads over the next few years, and new ‘growth’ funds and devolved spend­ing pow­ers for local coun­cils threat­en to add hun­dreds more dis­as­trous projects to this list.

In the 1990s, what was in effect a pop­u­lar upris­ing [ 1 | 2 | 3 ] brought Tory plans for ‘the great­est road-build­ing pro­gramme since the Romans’ to a screech­ing halt.

Could this week­end’s actions be the begin­ning of a new upsurge of anti-roads protests?

 

Twen­ty years ago, in 1992, protests at Twyford Down helped light the fuse of the mod­ern envi­ron­men­tal direct action protest move­ment, and hun­dreds of cam­paign­ers — old and new — will be gath­er­ing there this Sat­ur­day (29 Sep­tem­ber) to protest against the new schemes.

At the same time, activists in East Sus­sex will also be stag­ing a two-day Camp and Ral­ly this week­end in the Combe Haven Val­ley out­side Hast­ings, threat­ened by a £100m road, work on which is planned to start in the new year. The Camp will include direct action train­ing and renowned trans­port cam­paign­er John Stew­art will lead a work­shop on ‘How to stop a road’.

Of the 45 trans­port schemes approved in the bud­get by the Depart­ment of Trans­port, the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) is the worst in terms of car­bon emis­sions.

Abby Nicol, a spokesper­son for the Combe Haven Defend­ers, who are organ­is­ing the Camp near Hast­ings, said:

Run-away cli­mate change is one of the great­est threats we face. Yet the gov­ern­ment are spon­sor­ing a new wave of road-build­ing across the coun­try, using mon­ey that would be much bet­ter spent on improv­ing pub­lic trans­port. We urge peo­ple to join us this week­end to see the amaz­ing area that will be destroyed unless we take action to stop it, and to learn about prac­ti­cal ways in which we can all peace­ful­ly and effec­tive­ly resist the con­struc­tion of this road.

A major con­fer­ence of local anti-road groups is due to take place in Birm­ing­ham in Novem­ber.

(USA) People Lock Themselves to Keystone XL Machinery to Defend Tree Village

Defend­ing the block­ades from “the machine”

Defend­ing the block­ades from “the machine”

DATELINE WINNSBORO, TX — This morn­ing two Texas-born Tar Sands Block­aders have locked them­selves to a crit­i­cal piece of equip­ment for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL con­struc­tion in order to pro­tect a mas­sive tree vil­lage in the direct path of the tox­ic tar sands pipeline.

The vil­lage, where eight tree sit­ters remain in vig­il, is on prop­er­ty that Tran­sCana­da now claims own­er­ship of through court action. Key­stone XL con­struc­tion crews have advanced just over 300 yards away from the north­ern bound­ary of Tar Sands Blockade’s tree vig­il.

Stay updat­ed at the Tar Sands Block­ade web­site

 

Local residents camp & rally against Bexhill-Hastings link road

Local res­i­dents have released fur­ther details of the two-day pro­gramme of events- includ­ing a camp and ral­ly — in Combe Haven Val­ley this week­end, 29/30 Sep­tem­ber, to protest against con­tro­ver­sial plans to build a £100m link road between Hast­ings and Bex­hill. The group Combe Haven Defend­ers have gath­ered experts and enter­tain­ers from across Sus­sex and beyond to join their ‘Stop the Road’ event.

 

Fol­low­ing a lunch and ral­ly around 1pm, renowned trans­port cam­paign­er John Stew­art will lead a work­shop on ‘How to stop a road’, draw­ing lessons from the suc­cess­ful ’90s anti-roads move­ment [1]. Local peo­ple will also be able to attend an’In­tro­duc­tion to Direct Action with nation­al group Seeds for Change, as they plan the next steps of the cam­paign.

Fam­i­lies will also be catered for with a work­shop and play from envi­ron­men­tal youth group The Ote­sha Project UK, shad­ow pup­petry and sto­ry-telling. Local botany expert Judy Clark will be on hand and in the evening par­tic­i­pants will be able to stargaze with a pro­fes­sion­al astronomer.

Local musi­cians have also ral­lied to sup­port the cam­paign, with evening per­for­mances promised from Tim Hoyte, Eleanor Lynn, Ani­ta Jar­dine, Las Pasion­aras, Will Davis and Krysia Mans­field. The group have stat­ed that there will be no ampli­fied music and the event will be alco­hol-free.

Guid­ed walks to the Camp site will depart on Sat­ur­day 29 Sep­tem­ber from Bex­hill Sta­tion and Bul­ver­hythe (Sheep Wash bridge) at 11am, and from Crowhurst Sta­tion at 12 noon. Details of the Cam­p’s loca­tion will also be avail­able on the Combe Haven Defend­ers’ web-site on Sat­ur­day morn­ing: www.combehavendefenders.org.uk.

Spokesper­son Abby Nicol said: ‘We urge peo­ple to join us this week­end to see the amaz­ing area that will be destroyed unless we take action to stop it, and to learn about prac­ti­cal ways in which we can all peace­ful­ly and effec­tive­ly resist the con­struc­tion of this road. The appalling traf­fic prob­lems along the Bex­hill Road need to be alle­vi­at­ed, but the build­ing of a new road — which accord­ing to the Coun­ty Council’s own fig­ures will increase over­all traf­fic by 14 per cent — is not a sus­tain­able or finan­cial­ly viable solu­tion. We have to look to more cre­ative and sus­tain­able solu­tions to traf­fic prob­lems: the link road is not the answer. ’

NOTES
[1] John Stew­art was named “Britain’s most effec­tive rad­i­cal green activist” in the first com­pre­hen­sive list of the country’s most effec­tive greens, com­piled by The Inde­pen­dent on Sun­day – in part for his role in “co-ordinat[ing] protests that brought Tory plans for ‘the great­est road-build­ing pro­gramme since the Romans’ to a screech­ing halt in the 1990s.” For more info see www.airportwatch.org.uk/?p=2244 Combe Haven Defend­ers

(Brazil) Fishermen Paralyze Construction of the Belo Monte Dam

Fish­er­men form a line to block

Fish­er­men form a line to block access to the con­struc­tion site of a cof­fer dam on the Xin­gu Riv­er, Sep. 2012

From Inter­na­tion­al Rivers:

On Wednes­day [Sep. 19], a group of about 50 fish­er­men pre­vent­ed a fer­ry from trans­port­ing machines and work­ers to a cof­fer dam being built for the Belo Monte Dam Com­plex, set­ting up a protest camp on one of the main islands of the Xin­gu Riv­er near the con­struc­tion site.

After assem­bling, the pro­test­ers decid­ed to remain indef­i­nite­ly in place, and called on Norte Ener­gia and IBAMA to imme­di­ate­ly nego­ti­ate com­pen­sa­tion for the loss of eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive fish species that the fish­er­men have suf­fered as a result of the cof­fer dam’s con­struc­tion.

“The fish­er­men have seen a 50% reduc­tion in fish­eries pro­duc­tion. The riv­er is dry­ing up. Sev­er­al species failed to spawn over the last year due to Norte Ener­gia’s inter­ven­tion in the riv­er.  A lot of fish are dying, and in some loca­tions the com­pa­ny wants to impede the fish­er­men from access­ing the riv­er,” explained Ana Bar­bosa Laide of the Movi­men­to Xin­gu Vivo, who has accom­pa­nied the mobi­liza­tion.

On Wednes­day night, a group of fish­er­men who depend on orna­men­tal fish from the riv­er joined the group, demand­ing that envi­ron­men­tal agency IBAMA guar­an­tee the sur­vival of species that are endem­ic to the area where the dam is being built, say­ing that oth­er­wise, the species will go extinct. “They argue that if these species die off, IBAMA should release its pop­u­la­tion of col­lect­ed orna­men­tal fish in order to save the eco­nom­ic liveli­hoods of the fish­er­men,” explained Laide.

Accord­ing to the move­ment lead­ers, the occu­pa­tion protests the deci­sion of IBAMA to allow Norte Ener­gia to per­ma­nent­ly close the riv­er. Dur­ing this process, the fish­er­men were not con­sult­ed nor informed about how they could con­tin­ue their eco­nom­ic activ­i­ties, or how they could con­tin­ue to trans­port their boats on the riv­er past the dam. “The riv­er is ours and we came to fish. You can’t just pro­hib­it fish­ing, we have to work, “says Lucio Vale, Pres­i­dent of the Fish­er­men’s Colony of Altami­ra.

On the evening of the 19th, civ­il police offi­cers, accom­pa­nied by mem­bers of Norte Ener­gia, were at the demon­stra­tion site. Accord­ing to agents, they were assured that the protest was non-vio­lent.