Category: Unnecessary Developments

Inner Mongolians protest against Coal extraction

May 28, 2011

Chi­na: Inner Mon­go­lia: street protests against Chi­nese abus­es

Bei­jing – Protests are spread­ing in Inner Mon­go­lia, as demon­stra­tions spread fol­low­ing the death of two local herder lead­ers opposed to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion due to coal min­ing.

Yes­ter­days, protests were held in two towns in Inner Mon­go­lia, the South­ern Mon­go­lian Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre (SMHRIC) said.

May 28, 2011

Chi­na: Inner Mon­go­lia: street protests against Chi­nese abus­es

Bei­jing – Protests are spread­ing in Inner Mon­go­lia, as demon­stra­tions spread fol­low­ing the death of two local herder lead­ers opposed to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion due to coal min­ing.

Yes­ter­days, protests were held in two towns in Inner Mon­go­lia, the South­ern Mon­go­lian Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre (SMHRIC) said.

It has been dif­fi­cult for the for­eign press to reach the area, but pic­tures were sur­faced online show­ing hun­dreds of pro­test­ers march­ing through the coun­ty seats of Huveet Shar Ban­ner (coun­ty) and Left Ujum­chin Ban­ner.

The pro­test­ers car­ried ban­ners bear­ing Mon­go­lian slo­gans includ­ing ‘defend the rights of Mon­gols’ and ‘defend the home­land.’

Six more protests are planned in oth­er areas of Inner Mon­go­lia from Fri­day to 2 June, SMHRIC said. Using online social net­work­ing, Mon­go­lians were invit­ed to fur­ther gath­er­ings in Alshaan Left Ban­ner on Fri­day, Ordos City on Sat­ur­day, and Tongliao on Sun­day.

Protest first broke out on Mon­day in Xil­in­hot, the admin­is­tra­tive cen­tre of Xilin-Gol, when hun­dreds of eth­nic Mon­go­lians gath­ered in from of a gov­ern­ment build­ing after a Mon­go­lian herder leader was killed by a coal hauler dri­ven by eth­nic Han Chi­nese. Mer­gen, that is the herder leader’s name, was try­ing to stop coal-haul­ing lor­ries from tak­ing a short­cut across frag­ile graz­ing land

Pho­tos show­ing his body were post­ed online. They show his head, crushed under the wheels of a 100-tonne coal hauler dri­ven by two Han Chi­nese dri­vers on 10 May, and his body, dragged by the lor­ry for 150 metres.

On Tues­day, more than 2,000 peo­ple, most­ly stu­dents, took to the streets in protest, demand­ing Chi­nese author­i­ties respect the rights of Mon­go­lian herders to their land and lifestyle.

Indige­nous Mon­go­lians have com­plained for a while that Chi­na is only inter­est­ed in the region’s min­er­al resources, espe­cial­ly coal. For them, min­ing and indus­tri­al devel­op­ment is destroy­ing graz­ing land, under­min­ing the tra­di­tion­al herd­ing econ­o­my, already under stress from expand­ing deser­ti­fi­ca­tion and lack of rain.

Shen Wenyin, deputy chief of the Xilin­gol League gov­ern­ment, said on Tues­day night that the two Han Chi­nese dri­vers, Li Lin­dong and Lu Xiang­dong, had been arrest­ed by police. He did not com­ment the protest.

He did how­ev­er con­firm that res­i­dents in the Abag min­ing area tried to stop oper­a­tions at a near­by coal mine on 14 May because of noise, dust and water pol­lu­tion.

One of the pro­test­ers, Yan Wen­long, 22, was killed when Sun Shun­ing, a work­er, drove a fork­lift truck into Yan’s car. Sun was arrest­ed for inten­tion­al homi­cide. Offi­cial sources said that the mine stopped oper­a­tions.

The wave of protests is increas­ing­ly tak­ing on an eth­nic con­no­ta­tion as indige­nous Mon­go­lians resent dom­i­na­tion by eth­nic Han Chi­nese who have become the largest eth­nic group in Inner Mon­go­lia, fol­low­ing a delib­er­ate immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy pur­sued by Bei­jing that includes tax and finan­cial breaks as well as oth­er advan­tages.

Eth­nic Mon­go­lians now num­ber only 6 mil­lion out of 23 mil­lion peo­ple in the province, a minor­i­ty in their native land.

Experts note that the sit­u­a­tion remained calm until recent­ly. Things began to change when large-scale envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion began to threat­en the local herd­ing econ­o­my. Action by eth­nic Mon­go­lian groups based abroad has also played a role.

From Sig­nal­fire

http://signalfire.org/?p=10797

South Coast climate camp eviction threat

26.5.11
The St Annes protest site in Lewes (http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/)
has been under threat of evic­tion since 4pm yes­ter­day!

Please come and sup­port the resis­tance by com­ing to vis­it some­time soon.
OR come and stay on the beau­ti­ful site — we des­per­ate­ly need peo­ple to occu­py. There are spare tents and bed­ding.

26.5.11
The St Annes protest site in Lewes (http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/)
has been under threat of evic­tion since 4pm yes­ter­day!

Please come and sup­port the resis­tance by com­ing to vis­it some­time soon.
OR come and stay on the beau­ti­ful site — we des­per­ate­ly need peo­ple to occu­py. There are spare tents and bed­ding.

Lots of fun things going on, includ­ing tree house build­ing, seed plant­i­ng, music mak­ing and tea drink­ing.

the address — St. Anne’s School (dis­used)
Rot­ten Row
Lewes
East Sus­sex
BN7 1LJ

and here’s a video about the site –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B14oEZFLcHQ&feature=player_embedded

South Coast climate camp: occupation continuing!

Fol­low­ing a num­ber of meet­ings of the local com­mu­ni­ty at the camp it has been decid­ed to con­tin­ue the occu­pa­tion of the site, at least until it becomes clear what the sit­u­a­tion is regard­ing the own­er’s (East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil) plans for the site. All the indi­ca­tions are that they wish to demol­ish the exist­ing school build­ings and sell the beau­ti­ful grounds to devel­op­ers to be con­cret­ed over.

Fol­low­ing a num­ber of meet­ings of the local com­mu­ni­ty at the camp it has been decid­ed to con­tin­ue the occu­pa­tion of the site, at least until it becomes clear what the sit­u­a­tion is regard­ing the own­er’s (East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil) plans for the site. All the indi­ca­tions are that they wish to demol­ish the exist­ing school build­ings and sell the beau­ti­ful grounds to devel­op­ers to be con­cret­ed over. This is far from pop­u­lar with local res­i­dents and a local group call STAND (St Anne’s Dig­gers) has been formed to pro­tect the space and use it as a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den.

Peo­ple are strong­ly encour­aged to come down, get involved and per­haps stay for a while in order to defend the site and help this new com­mu­ni­ty space flour­ish. Do get in touch if you can help in any way. E‑mail southcoastcamp@riseup.net or call the site phone 07743 218521.

http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/occupation-continuing/

In the spirit of Gerrard Winstanley; a shout out for help from a neighbouring allotment group. Are you free on Saturday?

On St. George’s Day, Sat­ur­day 23rd April, 2011 we start­ed a Green rev­o­lu­tion in Ash­ton-under-lyne, Tame­side, in the tra­di­tion of Eng­lish rad­i­cal group The dig­gers who dur­ing the peri­od of the Eng­lish Com­mon­wealth, in 1649 reclaimed the com­mon land of St. George’s Hill from the Lords of the Manor by dig­ging and cul­ti­vat­ing it.

On St. George’s Day, Sat­ur­day 23rd April, 2011 we start­ed a Green rev­o­lu­tion in Ash­ton-under-lyne, Tame­side, in the tra­di­tion of Eng­lish rad­i­cal group The dig­gers who dur­ing the peri­od of the Eng­lish Com­mon­wealth, in 1649 reclaimed the com­mon land of St. George’s Hill from the Lords of the Manor by dig­ging and cul­ti­vat­ing it.

After years of delay by Tame­side Coun­cil prospec­tive allot­ment hold­ers in Ash­ton have now organ­ised our­selves to take over con­trol of the land on Ash­ton Moss that had been allo­cat­ed for the replace­ment allot­ments, sup­port­ed by sym­pa­thet­ic
vol­un­teers we came togeth­er in a day of action to reclaim the allot­ments from Cord­ing­leys who have neglect­ed and mis­man­aged the land.

Back­ground

In 1996 at the time of the devel­op­ment of the M60 Motor­way, Ash­ton Moss allot­ment sites were tak­en out of use and the land was giv­en by Tame­side Coun­cil to local estate Agents, Cord­ing­leys, to devel­op for busi­ness and leisure use, the con­tract includ­ed pro­vid­ing alter­na­tive allot­ment sites

Peo­ple on the Coun­cil’s allot­ment wait­ing list who were promised plots on the site are still wait­ing, although the allot­ment site was
devel­oped by Cord­ing­leys over 7 years ago, we have now been told that the site is not due to be hand­ed over in the near future.

Ash­ton Allot­ment Action now intend to take direct action to start
cul­ti­vat­ing the allot­ments as a mat­ter of urgency. Because the land has not been cul­ti­vat­ed, since it was devel­oped it has now become over­run with weeds, prin­ci­pal­ly Soft Rush which needs to be cleared before we can start grow­ing fruit and veg­eta­bles. We intend to clear the weeds from a part of the site and to the plant seeds or seedlings.

Reg­u­lar Sat­ur­day Action days

We invit­ing every­one to come along to our action days and help us, every Sat­ur­day from 10.00 am

Please come along and sup­port our action days, come when you want and stay as long as you want, please bring your own hand tools, food and drink

The allot­ments are locat­ed on Moss Lane, which is a rough track
run­ning from a junc­tion of Lord Shel­don Way, left turn from
Droylsden/Manchester, right turn from Ash­ton.

If you are com­ing by car, it could be advis­able to park at the leisure park and walk over the round­about and motor­way bridge, where you will find a foot­path lead­ing to the allot­ments

Ash­ton Moss Allot­ment site co-ordi­nates
OS X (East­ings) 392221
OS Y (Nor­things) 399178
Near­est Post Code OL7 9LA
Lat (WGS84) N53:29:21 (53.489254)
Long (WGS84) W2:07:07 (-2.118708)

Please view our video of the 23/04/11 Action day http://you.tube/8X0qjO_UxkQ

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion and direc­tions con­tact Nigel 07709056079

For his­to­ry buffs, the Dig­gers’ pam­phlet online:
http://www.bilderberg.org/land/poor.htm

http://ashtonallotmentaction.wordpress.com/

Indigenous People and Supporters Occupy Sacred Land at Glen Cove

On April 15, 2011, approx­i­mate­ly 150 Indige­nous Peo­ple and sup­port­ers occu­pied the ancient bur­ial site at Glen Cove, Valle­jo, Cal­i­for­nia, block­ing the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict (

On April 15, 2011, approx­i­mate­ly 150 Indige­nous Peo­ple and sup­port­ers occu­pied the ancient bur­ial site at Glen Cove, Valle­jo, Cal­i­for­nia, block­ing the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict (GVRD) from gain­ing entry to the site with bull­doz­ers to begin work on their new pub­lic park. The GVRD’s plans, which involves grad­ing a hill and build­ing toi­lets and a park­ing lot in the area, would deface the land­scape and des­e­crate the sacred site.

Indige­nous Peo­ple at the protest, includ­ing Mem­bers of the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment (AIM), have said they will remain at the site until the GVRD and the City of Valle­jo agree to not car­ry out their plans.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has report­ed­ly stepped in to medi­ate talks between the Indige­nous Peo­ple and the park dis­trict.

See Below for a Press Release from Sacred Site Pro­tec­tion & Rights of Indige­nous Tribes (SSP&RIT).

Media Con­tacts: Mark Anquoe (415) 680 0110; Morn­ing Star Gali (510) 827 6719; Nor­man “Wound­ed Knee” Deo­cam­po 707–373-7195; Cor­ri­na Gould 510–575-8408.

Please Urge the GRVD and the City of Valle­jo to respect the Ohlone Peo­ples wish­es of pre­serv­ing Sogorea Te. They do not have to des­e­crate the site. They are choos­ing to des­e­crate it.

Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict
707–648-4600
Shane McAf­fee, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er
395 Amador St.
Valle­jo, CA 94590
E‑mail: smcaffee@gvrd.org

Osby Davis, City of Valle­jo May­or
707–648-4377
555 San­ta Clara St

Valle­jo, CA 94590
E‑mail: mayor@ci.vallejo.ca.us

Cur­rent requests from the group: shade struc­tures, tents, paper tow­els, banner/sign mak­ing sup­plies, rope, moist hand wipes, Bron­ners soap, hon­ey, and most of all, more peo­ple to stand with us. We do not need any more bot­tled water!

An Emer­gency Defense Fund has also been set up to sus­tain the ongo­ing effort.

To send a mes­sage to the group, just leave a com­ment on any of the arti­cles at http://protectglencove.org.

Direc­tions: If you’re in the Bay Area, you are invit­ed to stop by for a few hours, or a few days. Direc­tions to Glen Cove can be found here.

April 15th: Occupation underway, demonstrations at City Hall and GVRD Headquarters

Native Amer­i­cans and sup­port­ers have suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied the ancient bur­ial site at Glen Cove, Valle­jo, pre­vent­ing the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict from begin­ning work that would des­e­crate the sacred site. Begin­ning with an ear­ly morn­ing spir­i­tu­al cer­e­mo­ny attend­ed by over 100 peo­ple, pro­test­ers vowed to block bull­doz­ers and pre­vent any work that would des­e­crate the site from tak­ing place. The occu­pa­tion will con­tin­ue until there is an agree­ment to pro­tect the bur­ial site. Dozens will camp at the site tonight.

At 11:30 am today the pro­test­ers held a peace­ful ral­ly and cer­e­mo­ny at Valle­jo City Hall and then marched to the offices of the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict.

Last night the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Jus­tice sent a senior con­cil­i­a­tion spe­cial­ist to Glen Cove to meet with Native Amer­i­can lead­ers. The Native Amer­i­cans asked the DOJ to help facil­i­tate a meet­ing with the GVRD to try to reach an agree­ment to pro­tect the sacred bur­ial site. It is pos­si­ble a meet­ing between the sides, medi­at­ed by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, may occur Mon­day. The State Attor­ney General’s office has also become involved after the orga­ni­za­tion SSP&RIT filed an admin­is­tra­tive civ­il rights com­plaint against the City and GVRD on Wednes­day.

Native Amer­i­can activists and sup­port­ers have begun the occu­pa­tion of Glen Cove as an esca­la­tion of their strug­gle that has been going on for over a decade, since the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict (GVRD) first pro­posed plans for a “ful­ly fea­tured pub­lic park” includ­ing con­struc­tion of a paved park­ing lot, paved hik­ing trails, 1000 pound pic­nic tables and a pub­lic restroom on top of the 3500 year old bur­ial site.

On Wednes­day, April 13th, Sacred Site Pro­tec­tion and Rights of Indige­nous Tribes (SSP&RIT), a Valle­jo-based com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tion, filed an admin­is­tra­tive civ­il rights com­plaint to the State of Cal­i­for­nia alleg­ing that the City and GVRD are dis­crim­i­nat­ing on the basis of race in threat­en­ing to destroy and des­e­crate sig­nif­i­cant parts of the Glen Cove Shell­mound and bur­ial site, for harm­ing Native Amer­i­cans’ reli­gious and spir­i­tu­al well-being, and effec­tive­ly exclud­ing Native Amer­i­cans from their right to full par­tic­i­pa­tion in deci­sion-mak­ing regard­ing the site.

The his­to­ry and cul­tur­al val­ue of the site has nev­er been dis­put­ed. Human remains have been con­sis­tent­ly unearthed as the area around the site has been devel­oped. Native Amer­i­cans con­tin­ue to hold cer­e­monies at Sogorea Te just as they have for thou­sands of years. The Glen Cove Shell Mound spans fif­teen acres along the Car­quinez Strait. It is the final rest­ing place of many Indige­nous Peo­ple dat­ing back more than 3,500 years, and has served as a tra­di­tion­al meet­ing place for dozens of Cal­i­for­nia Indi­an tribes. The site con­tin­ues to be spir­i­tu­al­ly impor­tant to Cal­i­for­nia tribes. The Glen Cove site is acknowl­edged by GVRD and the City to have many buri­als and to be an impor­tant cul­tur­al site, yet they are mov­ing for­ward as ear­ly as Fri­day with plans to build a toi­let and park­ing lot on this sacred site and to grade a hill that like­ly con­tains human remains and impor­tant cul­tur­al arti­facts.

SSP&RIT have asked GVRD to recon­sid­er their plans to grade the hill and build toi­lets and a park­ing lot at the site.

Video of trip there

New protests erupt over Stuttgart 21 rail project

8 Feb­ru­ary 2011

8 Feb­ru­ary 2011

Police and oppo­nents of the Stuttgart 21 rail project clashed ear­ly Tues­day morn­ing as work began to trans­plant trees to make way for a new build­ing. Police used force to remove demon­stra­tors who blocked equip­ment.

More than 1,000 demon­stra­tors came out in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing to protest the con­tin­u­a­tion of con­struc­tion work on the con­tro­ver­sial revamp of Stuttgart’s main train sta­tion. Accord­ing to police, around 50 peo­ple tried to stop the machines that would be used to trans­plant the trees.

Police repeat­ed­ly broke up groups of demon­stra­tors who had sat in front of the equip­ment or tried to tear down bar­ri­ers. Accord­ing to Matthias von Her­rmann, the spokesman for a group opposed to the project, offi­cers used night­sticks.

“Those respon­si­ble for Stuttgart 21 have still not under­stood our crit­i­cism of their project,” said Her­rmann in a state­ment. “We shall con­tin­ue to resist the build­ing oper­a­tions and protest against them, just as we have over the past weeks and months.”

Some 32,000 mem­bers of the Parkschützer group were noti­fied by e‑mail or text mes­sage at 3:34 am on Tues­day. The group, whose name trans­lates as “park guards,” oppose mov­ing the trees, say­ing they play an impor­tant role in fil­ter­ing auto­mo­bile emis­sions from a busy inter­sec­tion.

Over the next few days, 16 trees in all are to be trans­plant­ed to oth­er loca­tions in Stuttgart in prepa­ra­tion for the con­struc­tion of an under­ground build­ing asso­ci­at­ed with the mul­ti-bil­lion-euro rail project.

ZAD, the story so far…

4 Novem­ber 2010

A com­mu­ni­ty fights on against the inva­sion of the bull­doz­er empire.…

And as the empire grows, the com­mu­ni­ty must also grow, and look for those to join the fight.…

4 Novem­ber 2010

A com­mu­ni­ty fights on against the inva­sion of the bull­doz­er empire.…

And as the empire grows, the com­mu­ni­ty must also grow, and look for those to join the fight.…

For over 40 years, a storm cloud has been gath­er­ing, 25km north of the city of Nantes, France, over a rur­al area of farms, fields, hous­es, marsh­lands and forests. As an inte­gral part of the mas­sive expan­sion of the so-called “eco metro­pole” of the grand-ouest, the local gov­ern­ment has been buy­ing up an area of over 1860 hectares of land to make way for the con­struc­tion of a so-called “high qual­i­ty envi­ron­men­tal” project a new air­port, high­way bypass and tgv train line. This zone is offi­cial­ly known as the “ZAD”, “Zone d’Ameneg­ment Dif­ferè, and by us who resist as the “Zone A Defendre”.

Since the announce­ment of the plans, local res­i­dents and farm­ers have organ­ised their resis­tance through peti­tions, demon­stra­tions and a trac­tor occu­pa­tion in the cen­tre of Nantes. In spring and autumn ’09, the area was in a state of mil­i­tary guard, as 150 mil­i­tary cops were sent out to pro­tect machines involved in the ear­ly works of core drilling and soil sam­pling. This is not a nor­mal course of action; rather it was the response of the local gov­ern­ment to acts of sab­o­tage that occurred ear­li­er on dur­ing the works.

In Sep­tem­ber ’09, after a cli­mate camp in the ZAD, a call was made to occu­py the aban­doned hous­es and threat­ened areas of the ZAD, with sup­port of local peo­ple in resis­tance to the air­port. This call has been answered, and already there are some 13 occu­pied areas on the ZAD, includ­ing emp­ty farm­hous­es, car­a­vans on aban­doned land, forests and col­lec­tive gar­dens. On July 15th 2010, author­i­ties deliv­ered papers to 5 occu­pied areas, warn­ing the occu­piers that they should vacate these places by the 30th July or face legal pro­ceed­ings and evic­tions. Ear­li­er that day, an agree­ment was signed by 5 unim­por­tant bureau­crats to finance the con­struc­tion of the air­port. On 29th July 2010, about 40 peo­ple occu­pied the coun­cil offices in Nantes. The next day, it was made pub­lic that the multi­na­tion­al con­struc­tion com­pa­ny Vin­ci had been award­ed the con­tract to build the air­port. Already the first works have begun on the Bar­reau Routi­er, a high­way bypass being built to serve the air­port. In August 2010 the city of Nantes made pub­lic their search for a secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny to be on con­stant guard on the con­struc­tion sites and areas around the ZAD.

But we won’t be moved so eas­i­ly. Busi­ly grow­ing food to sup­port us over the next years, look­ing for fur­ther areas to occu­py and build­ing defences with­in the ZAD, we are dig­ging our heels in even deep­er and prepar­ing for the fight.

If you would like to join, or even come and vis­it, we are always open. There are many hous­es, fields, trees, car­a­vans that are to be occu­pied and defend­ed when the time comes. If you have your own project to con­tribute, like set­ting up a new space, gar­den, action ideas, or any oth­er use­ful resources or tal­ents, even bet­ter. We are encour­ag­ing peo­ple to try and be as self suf­fi­cient as pos­si­ble with­in this space, as well as want­i­ng to be inspired to become part of this ever grow­ing strug­gle against the machine of progress. Or if you can’t come and vis­it us, maybe you feel the wish to vis­it some sites or offices of Vin­ci in your area.…..

Wish list / ideas of stuff to bring.… bicy­cles and trail­ers, tarps, tools, build­ing and bar­ri­cad­ing mate­ri­als, climb­ing mate­ri­als, com­put­er and tech­ni­cal skills, wheel­bar­rows, rope of all kinds, books, vans/trucks, media resources, ideas, inspi­ra­tion, fight­ing ener­gy, don­keys, drag­ons and den­tists.….

map/directions to the zad
email — zad@riseup.net
to sign up to our list, please email zad-occupation@lists.aktivix.org
Web­site com­ing soon

+ An update
This week (yes­ter­day the 2nd of Novem­ber) they start­ed the drilling for test­ing soil where the high­way is sup­posed to be build. Lets stop it!

Shell to Sea campaigners target Shell executives in Ireland

The folks in suits final­ly got a taste of the con­flict they’ve been orches­trat­ing in Co. Mayo, Ire­land for the past decade.

The folks in suits final­ly got a taste of the con­flict they’ve been orches­trat­ing in Co. Mayo, Ire­land for the past decade. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Shell and their team of expert wit­ness­es who are pre­sent­ing the plan­ning appli­ca­tion for the Cor­rib Gas onshore pipeline to the Irish plan­ning board were pre­vent­ed from leav­ing the oral hear­ing Thurs­day night by pro­test­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

Thurs­day was a long day for Shel­l’s expert wit­ness­es, boss­es, and exec­u­tives. The plan­ning board­’s oral hear­ing into the Cor­rib Gas pipeline has been ongo­ing in Co. Mayo for the past four weeks, and local res­i­dents have been ques­tion­ing Shell experts on details sur­round­ing the pro­posed onshore pipeline.

At 10pm, exhaust­ed and with long jour­neys ahead of them Shell del­e­gates exit­ed the front doors of the hotel to dis­cov­er that pro­test­ers had board­ed their bus, hold­ing plac­ards and ban­ners with mes­sages read­ing “Ener­gy should­n’t cost the earth”and “Shell: destroy­ing the world, one com­mu­ni­ty at a time.”

At one stage when four high up Shell peo­ple tried to leave in a car, two pro­test­ers met them at the road and blocked their car with a ban­ner read­ing “Shel­l’s lies cost lives.” The annoyed dri­ver attempt­ed to dri­ve through the ban­ner and in the process ran over one per­son­’s foot. No seri­ous injury was sus­tained and the dri­ver refused to make any apolo­gies for his actions.

After delay­ing the Shell suits for over an hour, one mem­ber of the protest explained that “it was so sat­is­fy­ing to final­ly see these peo­ple at the top, who are nev­er held account­able sud­den­ly be con­front­ed with their own respon­si­bil­i­ty for this project and the dev­as­ta­tion it has caused to the com­mu­ni­ty”

Website Revamp

May 2011
We are real­ly very sor­ry for the extra­or­di­nary hic­cough with this site — this is the first time we’ve been able to even edit this mes­sage — it’s been so frus­trat­ing for every­one!

May 2011
We are real­ly very sor­ry for the extra­or­di­nary hic­cough with this site — this is the first time we’ve been able to even edit this mes­sage — it’s been so frus­trat­ing for every­one!

It’s work­ing now (apart from old images not being acces­si­ble), and being grad­u­al­ly repop­u­lat­ed with the news we’ve missed. There’s a new Resources sec­tion too. Let us know (via sub­mit sto­ry) any­thing that could be bet­ter.

We hope by the end of the process you’ll feel wel­comed back with open arms, with new bells and whis­tles on their way. Thank you for bear­ing with us, and we look for­ward to your sto­ries again mak­ing this a valu­able resource for all.

Huntington Lane needs YOU!

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site.

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site. It has also been dis­cov­ered that jobs at the mine site are being advertised/allocated and local firm McPhilips will begin work­ing on the site infra­struc­ture very soon.
Time is fast run­ning out before an evic­tion notice is served and the camp would like to issue a call out for peo­ple, tools, lock on gear of all kinds (padlocks,D‑locks etc), water and food. If you’re unable to offer any of these things but would like to sup­port the camp, words of sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port are also very grate­ful­ly received 🙂
Camp

OPEN CAST COAL IN THE SHADOW OF THE WREKIN
In Octo­ber of 2009 UK Coal were grant­ed per­mis­sion by the then Sec­re­tary of State, John Den­ham to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal from a site called ‘Hunt­ing­ton Lane Sur­face Mine Site’ near Telford, Shrop­shire – this beau­ti­ful 230 acre site near The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills AONB and is home to a sced­uled ancient mon­u­ment. At least one Coun­ty Wildlife Site and the flo­ra and fau­na of the borough’s largest and most valu­able areas of ancient wood­land are threat­ened by the sur­face mine. The devel­op­ment also involves the dis­tur­bance of four bad­ger setts and the for­ag­ing ter­ri­to­ries of a fur­ther two bad­ger clans.

Not only does the pro­posed mine rep­re­sent a major blot on the beau­ti­ful rur­al land­scape, being clear­ly vis­i­ble from the Wrekin and many oth­er local areas, and also cre­ate three years of noise and dust for local res­i­dents – the sub­se­quent burn­ing of the mined coal will release a min­i­mum of 2,430,000 tonnes of cli­mate chang­ing CO2 emis­sions into the atmos­phere.

In March 2010 pro­test­ers moved onto the site in an effort to resist this destruc­tion at the hands of UK Coal.

huntingtolane1

HOW TO GET THERE
The entry point is actu­al­ly on New Works Lane, New Works, Telford, Shrop­shire. The near­est train sta­tion is Welling­ton (Telford West).

For a map view go to:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tf6+5bs&sll=52.675432,-2.498875&sspn=0.005738,0.013797&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Telford+TF6+5BS,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.675174,-2.499985&spn=0.000724,0.001725&t=h&z=19

The mark­er on the map is not quite in the right place but is very close to the entry point for camp – the stile is actu­al­ly on the oth­er side of New Works Lane, just before the hous­es begin, in the bush­es to the right of a shon­ky old gate! (Please don’t block the gate if you’re com­ing by car/van as it’s still in use by the farmer – park at the side of the road if you can. There is more space to park head­ing north up New Works Lane) If you zoom right in on the map you can see the entrance on Streetview, but be warned – the green­ery around the stile has grown sub­stan­cial­ly since this pic­ture was tak­en! Once over the stile just fol­low the path; it breaks off to the left behind the hous­es and also to the right a lit­tle fur­ther along; ignore these turn­ings and fol­low the straight path which bears to the left after them. Con­tin­ue to fol­low the path until you reach the sign direct­ing you to camp.

HOW TO CONTACT THE CAMP
Tel: 07503 583419 or 07727 295232
Email: defendhuntingtonlane@hushmail.com
Web: http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com

*PLEASE PASS THIS INFOMATION ON TO ANY PERSONS OR GROUPS YOU THINK MAY BE INTERESTED*

Many Thanks!