Category: Unnecessary Developments

Sabotage against the Glensanda Quarry Expansion

An aggre­gates pro­cess­ing plant on the edge of the York­shire Dales Nation­al Park has been sab­o­taged. The Plant is owned by Bar­don Aggre­gates a mem­ber of Aggre­gate Indus­tries, part of the Hol­cim Group. Aggre­gate Indus­tries own the Glen­san­da Quar­ry on the north west coast of Scot­land. The quar­ry is europes biggest coastal quar­ry and has it’s own port. Aggre­gate Indus­tries plan to expand the quar­ry from 125 ha to 206 ha giv­ing reserves of 814 mil­lion tonnes of gran­ite. They cur­rent­ly extract 7–8 mil­lion tonnes a year and can increase this to 15 mil­lion tonnes. The expan­sion plan includes remov­ing the peaks “The Mam” and “Lag a ‘mhaim” from the sky­line. This would be vis­i­ble from the Scot­tish islands and will effect the ecol­o­gy of many species includ­ing otters, seals, and gold­en eagles. 20% of the stone extract­ed will go to major road net­work con­struc­tion across europe.

An aggre­gates pro­cess­ing plant on the edge of the York­shire Dales Nation­al Park has been sab­o­taged. The Plant is owned by Bar­don Aggre­gates a mem­ber of Aggre­gate Indus­tries, part of the Hol­cim Group. Aggre­gate Indus­tries own the Glen­san­da Quar­ry on the north west coast of Scot­land. The quar­ry is europes biggest coastal quar­ry and has it’s own port. Aggre­gate Indus­tries plan to expand the quar­ry from 125 ha to 206 ha giv­ing reserves of 814 mil­lion tonnes of gran­ite. They cur­rent­ly extract 7–8 mil­lion tonnes a year and can increase this to 15 mil­lion tonnes. The expan­sion plan includes remov­ing the peaks “The Mam” and “Lag a ‘mhaim” from the sky­line. This would be vis­i­ble from the Scot­tish islands and will effect the ecol­o­gy of many species includ­ing otters, seals, and gold­en eagles. 20% of the stone extract­ed will go to major road net­work con­struc­tion across europe.
The Plant in York­shire was entered and sab­o­taged. Vehi­cles includ­ing all bull­doz­ers had holes drilled in vital parts of their engines and their tires. Both con­trol rooms were bro­ken into and all com­put­ers and instru­ment pan­els were smashed. Keys to all build­ings and machin­ery were removed from the site. The mes­sage “Stop Glen­san­da” was left. Aggre­gate indus­tries have sites all over the UK and the World, you know what to do!

Latest details: Earth First! Winter Moot 2008 — February 22nd – 24th 2008 — Nottingham

Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

EF! fist tree 1Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

Cost: £15 (to include accom­mo­da­tion and food)
Crèche and dis­abled access both avail­able,
but please call to let us know if you need either or if you have oth­er needs.

At The Sumac Cen­tre, Glad­stone Street Not­ting­ham, www.veggies.org.uk/sumac
For more info call 01508 531636 (num­ber not avail­able dur­ing the event)

Fri­day late after­noon and evening will be a chance to arrive, and for intro­duc­tions, plus a G8 talk & film, and an Intro­duc­tion to EF!

We’ll be kick­ing off ear­ly on Sat­ur­day morn­ing (9am break­fast) — start­ing with all shar­ing the most impor­tant rea­sons why we’ve come to Not­ting­ham, we’ll get on with some prac­ti­cal dis­cus­sions around the EF! Action Update, the web­site, and the sum­mer gath­er­ing.
From what we’ve all said, we’ll be able in the after­noon to move on to ‘where next?’, plus shar­ing cam­paigns we’re involved with & see­ing what they need, and get­ting togeth­er local­ly and region­al­ly with oth­er folk who are there.

On Sun­day we’ll move into groups to con­crete­ly take the ideas for­wards from the Sat­ur­day, from the cam­paigns we’re already work­ing on and what we want to do togeth­er. We’ll fin­ish at 4pm, after hav­ing shared what we’ve come up with. Hoorah.

Earth First! is not an organ­i­sa­tion, but a way of using non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and the use of direct action to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. For fur­ther info check out www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/

Plus
All day Fri­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, Sav­ing Ice­land UK meet­ing, also at the Sumac Cen­tre. Open to those inter­est­ed in trav­el­ling to Ice­land or tak­ing part in sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against the con­struc­tion of large, wilder­ness wreck­ing dams in Ice­land.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion and essen­tial book­ing con­tact 01508 531636 or savingiceland@riseup.org

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 76, FEBRUARY 2008

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — (INTER)NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) FOSSIL FOOL FILMS AT HOUSMAN’S BOOKSHOP — LONDON, 29.3.08

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — (INTER)NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) FOSSIL FOOL FILMS AT HOUSMAN’S BOOKSHOP — LONDON, 29.3.08
3) CLIMATE OF CHANGE 2 EXHIBITION — LONDON, STARTS 1.2.08
4) NIGHT TALKS AT THE SYNERGY PROJECT — LONDON, 8.2.08
5) COIN EVENTS — LONDON, FEB-MARCH ’08
6) CAMPAIGN AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE TRADE UNION CONFERENCE — LONDON, 9.2.08
7) COLOMBIAN ACCOMPANIMENT TRAINING — BRISTOL, 16–17.2.08
8) ‘THE CARBON CONNECTION’ UK PREMIERE — LONDON, 21.2.08
9) SAVING ICELAND GATHERING — NOTTINGHAM, 22.2.08
10) EARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT — NOTTINGHAM, 22–24.2.08
11) CAMPAIGN AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE NATIONAL MEETING — MANCHESTER, 23.2.08
12) TELL SHELL AND BP: HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! — NATIONAL, 23.2.08
13) MASS RALLY AGAINST HEATHROW EXPANSION — LONDON, 25.2.08
14) BRINGING THE PIPELINE BACK TO SHELL — LONDON, 15–17.3.08
15) WEEK OF ACTION ON THE CLIMATE BILL — NATIONAL, 30.3.08–5.4.08
16) APRIL BIOFOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 15.4.08
17) NATUREWISE COURSES — LONDON AREA, 2008
18) ECO-COMMUNITY EDUCATION WORKSHOPS — SUFFOLK, FEBRUARY-APRIL ’08
19) CAT COURSES — WALES, MARCH-SEPTEMBER ’08
20) CLIMATETALK CARD GAME — FREE UNTIL THE END OF FEBRUARY ’08
21) E‑PETITIONS AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION — HEATHROW AND NEWQUAY, ONGOING ’08

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) TOP WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION DITCHES SHELL — 26.1.08
2) NEW WAVE OF CLIMATE ACTION — NATIONWIDE, JANUARY ’08
3) ACTIVISTS BLOCKADE PRIVATE JETS — EDINBURGH, 21.01.08
4) PENGUINS RECLAIM ICE (SH)RINK — LONDON, 12.01.08
5) GREENWASH GUERILLAS HIT SHELL HQ — 4.1.08
6) LONDON RISING TIDE DIE-IN AT THE TATE — 4.1.08
7) GREENERGY BIOFUELS PROTESTS — LONDON AND EDINBURGH, 30.1.08 AND 31.1.08
8) TESCO GREENWASH PROTEST — MANCHESTER, 23.1.08
9) CLIMATE CAMP SET UP OUTSIDE COURT — NOTTINGHAM, 14.1.08
10) CLIMAX BLOCK DONG POWERPLANT! — COPENHAGEN, 29.1.08
11) INDIGENOUS ACTION AGAINST MINING — PHILIPPINES, 17.1.08
12) OGONI DAY REMEMBERED AS SHELL FAILS TO HALT GAS FLARES — 4.1.08
13) CLIMATE CAMP SUPERGLUE TRIAL — LONDON, JANUARY ’08
14) BONN SQUARE TREE OCCUPATION — OXFORD, JANUARY ’08
15) ACTION AGAINST MOTORWAY THROUGH TARA — IRELAND, JANUARY ’08
16) CRITICAL MASS REPORT — LONDON, JANUARY ’08
17) FOREST PROTEST ACTIONS AND ARREST — TASMANIA — 8.1.08
18) SHELL TO SEA UPDATES — IRELAND, JANUARY ’08
19) ROAD BLOCK E‑BULLETIN — JANUARY ’08
20) PERMACULTURE ASSOCIATION E‑BULLETIN — JANUARY ’08
21) SAVE SWALLOW’S WOOD CAMPAIGN UPDATE — JANUARY ’08
22) EARTH FIRST! ACTION UPDATE — SPRING ’08

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Roll up! Roll up! The Count­down to Fos­sil Fools Day Begins…
With less than two months to go, activists are busy plot­ting and plan­ning, intent on bring­ing the spir­it of car­ni­val and mis­chief to the fight for cli­mate jus­tice. The day of action is being sup­port­ed by the Cli­mate Camp move­ment, Glob­al Exchange and Rain­for­est Action Net­work among oth­ers. Numer­ous actions are expect­ed world­wide, with pos­si­ble tar­gets includ­ing the oily strong­man and gas guz­zling gowk, the dirty coal mer­chant and bio­fu­el clown, the off­set jug­gler and avi­a­tion freak­show. It’s time to turn the tables on the fos­sil fools and to pull a prank that real­ly packs a punch.
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/
http://www.globalexchange.org/
http://www.ran.org/
The net­work for cli­mate action is plan­ning 3 Days Of Action Over 3 Months, start­ing with Fos­sil Fools.
April 1st: Fos­sil Fuels / May 1st: False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions / June: Food and Cli­mate Change. This third day of action will coin­cide with the UN con­fer­ence on food secu­ri­ty and cli­mate change on 3–5 June.
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

2) FOSSIL FOOL FILMS AT HOUSMAN’S BOOKSHOP — LONDON, 29.3.08
Housman’s Book­shop at Kings Cross will be screen­ing two short doc­u­men­taries in the run up to FFD ( ‘Those Who Dance’ and ‘The Car­bon Con­nec­tion’) high­light­ing the strug­gle of com­mu­ni­ties at the front­line of the fos­sil fuel empire. Starts at 5pm. http://www.housmans.com/

3) CLIMATE OF CHANGE 2 EXHIBITION — LONDON, STARTS 1.2.08
6–9pm at the old Mer­cedes Garage,341 Finch­ley Rd. Cam­den, Lon­don NW3 6ET.
Then on the fol­low­ing Tues and Thurs 6–9pm. This is an open sub­mis­sion exhi­bi­tion.
http://www.circlecommunity.org/

4) NIGHT TALKS AT THE SYNERGY PROJECT — LONDON, 8.2.08
Cli­mate Abuse — get­ting over the addic­tion! by Jonathan Essex 02:00–02:40
Bio­fu­els — worse than fos­sil fuel? By Jim Roland, eco-cam­paign­er 02:40–03:30
As part of the Syn­er­gy event at the SeOne club, West­on Street, Lon­don Bridge.
http://www.thesynergyproject.org/content/view/13/38/

5) COIN EVENTS — LONDON, FEBRUARY-MARCH ’08
Win the cli­mate change argu­ment in a 15 minute tea break, 7.2.08 / Car­bon Cafe, 12.2.08 / Cli­mate Change Con­densed, 28.2.08 / Cli­mate Action Groups, 11.3.08
See www.coinet.org.uk for full details of all our train­ings!

6) CAMPAIGN AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE TRADE UNION CONFERENCE — LONDON, 9.2.08
Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don Union, Malet Street, 10 am — 5 pm. Del­e­gate fee £10.
Open­ing ple­nary speak­ers include Michael Meach­er MP, Car­o­line Lucas MEP, Mark Ser­wot­ka (Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, PCS), Matt Wrack (Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, FBU).
http://www.campaigncc.org/CCAC%20Trade%20Union%20Conference.pdf

7) COLOMBIAN ACCOMPANIMENT TRAINING — BRISTOL, 16–17.2.08
Espa­cio Bris­tol-Colom­bia are organ­is­ing a two day train­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in going to Colom­bia to do sol­i­dar­i­ty ‘accom­pa­ni­ment’ there; that is to both pro­vide an inter­na­tion­al pres­ence to deter the army or para­mil­i­taries from killing social activists and to work with Colom­bian organ­i­sa­tions build­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty links. There is the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get involved with work on bio­fu­els, BP, coal min­ing as well as strug­gles around food sov­er­eign­ty and indige­nous rights. The train­ing will take place at Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Coop , 14 Robert­son Road, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol from 11am – 5pm on Sat­ur­day and then 10pm – 4pm on Sun­day.
If you are inter­est­ed in attend­ing this train­ing email;
espacio@redcolombia.org.
http://www.redcolombia.org/

8) ‘THE CARBON CONNECTION’ UK PREMIERE — LONDON, 21.2.08
6.30 pm at Water­loo Action Cen­tre, 16 Baylis Road, Lon­don SE1 7AA. This bril­liant doc­u­men­tary expos­es gov­ern­ment claims that buy­ing and sell­ing car­bon cred­its can reduce glob­al warm­ing. Plus dis­cus­sion on sus­tain­able alter­na­tives to trad­ing in pol­lu­tion. Intro­duced by Kevin Smith, Car­bon Trade Watch and Pen­ny Cole, author of ‘Run­ning a Tem­per­a­ture – action plan for the eco-cri­sis’. Refresh­ments. Details: info@aworldtowin.net 07871 745258
http://www.carbontradewatch.org/

9) SAVING ICELAND GATHERING — NOTTINGHAM, 22.2.08
One day gath­er­ing on oppo­si­tion to wilder­ness trash­ing dams in Ice­land; these are part of the USA’s car­bon trad­ing scam and evi­dence shows that dams are not free from releas­ing green­house gas­es either. For more info. phone; 01508 531636
http://www.savingiceland.org/

10) EARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT — NOTTINGHAM, 22–24.2.08
2 days of dis­cus­sion on rad­i­cal direct action on cli­mate change, GM food, nuclear pow­er and much more. For more info. phone; 01508 531636
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19843

11) CAMPAIGN AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE NATIONAL MEETING — MANCHESTER, 23.2.08
An oppor­tu­ni­ty for you to get involved in decid­ing what the Cam­paign Against Cli­mate Change should be doing in the com­ing year, and to hear about plans already made! 11.45 am to 5.00 pm, in the Peter­loo Room — The Mechan­ics Cen­tre, 103 Princess Road, Man­ches­ter.
http://www.campaigncc.org/

12) TELL SHELL AND BP: HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! — NATIONAL, 23.2.08
Lon­don action (as part of Nation­al Day of Action) meet 12.30pm, Bond Street tube Hold a protest at your local Shell and BP garages (see web­site for resources), and con­tact handsoffiraqioil@gmail.com so they can help pub­li­cise it.
www.HandsOffIraqiOil.org

13) MASS RALLY AGAINST HEATHROW EXPANSION — LONDON, 25.2.08
‘We want to fill Cen­tral Hall, West­min­ster to get our mes­sage across to the Gov­ern­ment.’ Speak­ers, music, sol­i­dar­i­ty, con­vivi­al­i­ty, inspi­ra­tion for action…7pm on the 25th.
http://www.stopheathrowexpansion.com/

14) BRINGING THE PIPELINE BACK TO SHELL — LONDON, 15–17.3.08
Glu­aiseacht are mobil­is­ing peo­ple from all over Ire­land to trav­el to Shell Head­quar­ters in Lon­don on St Patrick­’s Day to protest the give-away and mis­man­age­ment of our nation­al resources. We will be car­ry­ing a 200ft pipeline to Shel­l’s front door. For more info email; gluaiseacht@gmail.com
http://gluaiseacht.nologic.org/wordpress/

15) WEEK OF ACTION ON THE CLIMATE BILL — NATIONAL, 30.3.08–5.4.08
A whole host of NGOs, under the ban­ner of Stop Cli­mate Chaos, will be tak­ing action for a stronger Cli­mate Bill from March 30th to April 5th. In par­tic­u­lar, they are encour­ag­ing every­one who cares about the Bill to lob­by their MPs (not just in the week of action, but start­ing imme­di­ate­ly) — and have pro­duced a com­pre­hen­sive pack of resources about how to do so. This is avail­able for down­load at;
http://icount.org.uk/get_involved/296.asp
On Sat­ur­day April 5th, Friends of the Earth have called for a Day of Action on the Cli­mate Bill.
http://www.foe.co.uk/index.html

16) APRIL BIOFOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 15.4.08
On the 15th April the UK bio­fu­el leg­is­la­tion known as the RTFO (Renew­able Trans­port Fuel Oblig­a­tion) will come into force. This com­mits the UK to a 2.5% mix of bio­fu­els in both diesel and petrol ris­ing to 5% in two years (2010). This increased demand will exac­er­bate the seri­ous prob­lems of trop­i­cal defor­esta­tion, bio­di­ver­si­ty loss, land grabs and food price increas­es forc­ing yet more peo­ple into life-threat­en­ing food pover­ty. A num­ber of NGOs will be protest­ing on this day and they are hop­ing for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions.
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

17) NATUREWISE COURSES — LONDON AREA, 2008
Intro­duc­to­ry week­ends: Hornsey Rise Gar­dens / Kingston upon Thames / Spit­tle­fields City Farm.
Per­ma­cul­ture for fam­i­lies res­i­den­tial week­end: Epping.
Full design course (res­i­den­tial): Ching­ford / North Lon­don.
Wood­land Week­ends: Sus­sex.
Fees: Nego­tiable and flex­i­ble, depend­ing on income.
http://www.naturewise.org.uk/page.cfm

18) ECO-COMMUNITY EDUCATION WORKSHOPS — SUFFOLK, FEBRUARY-APRIL ’08
Feb­ru­ary 12th, Non-hier­ar­chi­cal Deci­sion Mak­ing and effec­tive meet­ings.
Feb­ru­ary 13–14th, Solar pho­to-volta­ic pan­els and 12 volt electrics.
April 3rd-4th, Intro­duc­tion to per­ma­cul­ture.
April 14th-16th, Build­ing a Grey water sys­tem.
Book­ing is essen­tial — Con­tact Mell on 07760161755 / 08453370282
email; susteducation@hush.ai
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2008/01/388741.html

19) CAT COURSES — WALES, MARCH-SEPTEMBER ’08
The Cen­tre for Alter­na­tive Tech­nol­o­gy (CAT) has announced a new pro­gramme of one-day cours­es for 2008:
8 March; Land Art: As Nature Inspires / 15 March; Moss­es and Lichens of the Old Quar­ry / 29 March; Hur­dle Mak­ing / 29 March; Wil­low Weav­ing / 26 April; For­est ecosys­tems: Dead wood, leaf lit­ter and nutri­ent cycling / 10 May; Birds of the Old Quar­ry / 24 May; Wood­land Paint­ing / 31 May; Char­coal Draw­ing / 31 May; Organ­ic Veg­eta­bles of the Old Quar­ry / 3 June; Upland Ecol­o­gy and Land­scape Man­age­ment: the Future / 14 June; Prac­ti­cal­i­ties of Using Rain­wa­ter / 21 June; Plants of the Old Quar­ry / 19 July; Mam­mals of the Old Quar­ry / 30 August; Char­coal Mak­ing: Prac­ti­cal and The­o­ret­i­cal / 27 Sep­tem­ber; Trees of the Old Quar­ry. Con­tact the Cours­es Depart­ment on 01654 705981.
http://www2.cat.org.uk/shortcourses/

20) CLIMATETALK CARD GAME — FREE UNTIL THE END OF FEBRUARY ’08
This is a con­ver­sa­tion game that helps groups of about 6 peo­ple talk about cli­mate change and what they might do about it. Every­thing they need, includ­ing the infor­ma­tion and process for this con­ver­sa­tion are pro­vid­ed in a smart lit­tle pack. Copies of the kit are cur­rent­ly avail­able for free for small organ­i­sa­tions that com­mit to send­ing their results. It is also freely down­load­able from www.climatespace.org

21) E‑PETITIONS AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION — HEATHROW AND NEWQUAY, ONGOING ’08
Two min­utes? — two peti­tions.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stopheathrowexpansion/
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stopnqyexpansion/

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) TOP WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION DITCHES SHELL — 26.1.08
Shell’s two year tenure as spon­sor of the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um’s Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year exhi­bi­tion has come to an end. A deter­mined, cre­ative two year nation­al cam­paign, coor­di­nat­ed in part by Ris­ing Tide and its Art Not Oil cam­paign, helped force the Nation­al His­to­ry Muse­um and the BBC to ditch their unlike­ly spon­sor. Lon­don Ris­ing Tide’s Chris Hyde said: “This vic­to­ry has shown what cli­mat­i­cal­ly con­scious grass­roots art can achieve…we will be keep­ing up the pres­sure with our Art Not Oil cam­paign.”
And please send your art in to the 2008 Art Not Oil online gallery…
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/259,
www.shelloiledwildlife.org.uk,http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/

2) NEW WAVE OF CLIMATE ACTION — NATIONWIDE, JANUARY ’08
Here’s some rea­sons to be cheer­ful in the dark win­ter months… far from hid­ing away from the cold (or hid­ing heads in the sand for that mat­ter), hotbeds of cli­mate action are spring­ing up around the coun­try. On the Ris­ing Tide front, six new groups have formed in the last six months, with more peo­ple join­ing in all the time.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/253

3) ACTIVISTS BLOCKADE PRIVATE JETS — EDINBURGH, 21.01.08
Over twen­ty envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­ers breached secu­ri­ty at Edin­burgh Air­port and block­ad­ed the entrance to the pri­vate jet com­pa­ny, Greer Avi­a­tion. The activists, from direct action group Plane Stu­pid Scot­land, pledged that today’s actions come as part of a nation­wide cam­paign to reverse the cur­rent plans for a tripling of air trav­el in Scot­land which they say flies in the face of the gov­ern­men­t’s own cli­mate tar­gets.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scotland-activists-blockade-Edinburgh-airport-private-jets

4) PENGUINS RECLAIM THE ICE (SH)RINK — LONDON, 12.01.2008
Around 30 pen­guins today “reclaimed the ice” at the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um’s ice (sh)rink in protest at British Air­ways spon­sor­ship of the muse­um’s annu­al win­ter fes­tiv­i­ties. The pro­test­ers, from the cli­mate action group Plane Stu­pid, dressed as pen­guins to high­light the irony of an air­line cre­at­ing an ice rink in cen­tral Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/march-penguins-climate-activists-protest-british-airways-ice-rink

5) GREENWASH GUERILLAS HIT SHELL HQ — 4.1.08
A small band of Ris­ing Tide green­wash gueril­las entered the lob­by of the Lon­don Shell HQ to high­light the mas­sive amount of tox­ic green­wash ema­nat­ing from the build­ing. Once eject­ed they con­tin­ued their work out­side, warn­ing the pub­lic of the dan­gers of green­wash.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/250

6) LONDON RISING TIDE DIE-IN AT THE TATE — 4.1.08
Activists from Lon­don Ris­ing Tide staged a ‘die-in’ in the BP spon­sored Tate Britain. Bob Jones from LRT said “we’re here to demand that the Tate cut it’s ties with BP, an art gallery is no place for an envi­ron­men­tal haz­ard such as an oil com­pa­ny. BP are here to Green­wash their image and dis­tract from the eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion they’re caus­ing around the world”. The pro­test­ers hand­ed out lots of leaflets and urged patrons to demand the end of oil com­pa­nies’ spon­sor­ship of art gal­leries.
http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk/node/409

7) GREENERGY BIOFUELS PROTESTS — LONDON AND EDINBURGH, 30.1.08 AND 31.1.08
In Lon­don, a colour­ful ban­ner protest was held out­side the office of Green­er­gy Inter­na­tion­al, the UK’s largest bio­fu­el sup­pli­er. This was part of a Nation­al Week of Action on Agro­fu­els in which dif­fer­ent groups and organ­i­sa­tions across the UK are organ­is­ing protests against the defor­esta­tion, high food prices, human rights abus­es and faster glob­al warm­ing caused by bio­fu­els from large-scale mono­cul­tures. There was a sec­ond protest at Edin­burgh’s Green­er­gy office.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/390483.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/390551.html

8) TESCO GREENWASH PROTEST — MANCHESTER, 23.1.08
See; http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19911

9) CLIMATE CAMP SET UP OUTSIDE COURT — NOTTINGHAM, 14.1.08
While the tri­al of the eleven cli­mate change activists who shut down Rat­cliffe-on-Soar pow­er sta­tion on April 10th 2007 began at Not­ting­ham Mag­is­trates Court,
Over 30 peo­ple set up a cli­mate camp out­side the court. This is the first time that the defence of neces­si­ty in rela­tion to cli­mate change has been used in a court of law. The defen­dants will call an expert wit­ness; a cli­mate sci­en­tist, and Roy­al Soci­ety Research Fel­low, to prove to the court the scale and immi­nence of the threat that cli­mate change pos­es. The judge­ment is expect­ed on 25th Feb­ru­ary.
http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389386.html
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19860

10) CLIMAX BLOCK DONG POWERPLANT! — COPENHAGEN, 29.1.08
50 activists from the Dan­ish group Cli­maX blocked the main entrance to a pow­er­plant in Copen­hagen owned by the DONG Ener­gy cor­po­ra­tion. The pow­er com­pa­ny plans to start build­ing a coal-fired pow­er­plant in north­ern Ger­many.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19933

11) INDIGENOUS ACTION AGAINST MINING — PHILIPPINES, 17.1.08
Trib­al vil­lagers block­ad­ed an Aus­tralian min­ing com­pa­ny and forced the firm to leave the vil­lage.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19875

12) OGONI DAY REMEMBERED AS SHELL FAILS TO HALT GAS FLARES — 4.1.08
At just before 8.30 this morn­ing, as staff were arriv­ing for work at Roy­al Dutch Shel­l’s Irish head­quar­ters in Dublin, they were treat­ed to a taste of what life is like for those who have to live and work near Shell instal­la­tions in oth­er parts of the world.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19799

13) CLIMATE CAMP SUPERGLUE TRIAL — LONDON, JANUARY ’08
The pros­e­cu­tion col­laps­es. See;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19819

14) BONN SQUARE TREE OCCUPATION — OXFORD, JANUARY ’08
For updates see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19837
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19818
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19827

15) ACTION AGAINST MOTORWAY THROUGH TARA — IRELAND, JANUARY ’08
For action updates see;
http://www.tarapixie.net
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19929
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19905
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19902

16) CRITICAL MASS REPORT — LONDON, JANUARY ’08
See; http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19920

17) FOREST PROTEST ACTIONS AND ARREST — TASMANIA — 8.1.08
For reports see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19937
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19877
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19878

18) SHELL TO SEA UPDATES — IRELAND, JANUARY ’08
See; http://www.corribsos.com/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19926

19) ROAD BLOCK E‑BULLETIN — JANUARY ’08
To get these month­ly updates on cam­paigns against road build­ing schemes (and for some quick online actions ) sign up here;
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/user/subscribe/2

20) PERMACULTURE ASSOCIATION E‑BULLETIN — JANUARY ’08
For the lat­est ebul­letin from the Per­ma­cul­ture Asso­ci­a­tion (Britain) see;
http://permaculture.org.uk/ebulletin.php

21) SAVE SWALLOW’S WOOD CAMPAIGN UPDATE — JANUARY ’08
See; http://www.saveswallowswood.org.uk/index.shtml

22) EARTH FIRST! ACTION UPDATE — SPRING ’08
See; http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19938

———-

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This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

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Support the Eco-Prisoners — Imbolc 2008 — they’re in there for us out here, please write

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

Earth Liberation Prisoners logoSpir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!”
(For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As we enter Feb­ru­ary so we await three major events. First off, Jeff ‘Free’ Luers is due to be re-sen­tenced. We hope its good news. Sec­ond­ly, Eric McDavid is also due to be sen­tenced. As soon as Eric has been sen­tenced we urge every­one to send him let­ters of sup­port. And third­ly, the police infor­mant Jacob Fer­gu­son is also due to be sen­tenced. His cow­ard­ly deals and treach­ery means he won’t be sent to prison. But we await with inter­est to see what sen­tence this piece of scum does receive. If any­one hears, please do let ELP know. But whilst we await those three sen­tenc­ings, please don’t for­get all the oth­er eco-pris­on­ers. Remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy.

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez — Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Jef­frey Luers, #1306729, Lane Coun­ty Adult Cor­rec­tions, 101 West 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401–2695, USA. Await­ing resen­tenc­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing been found guilty of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Daniel McGowan #63794–053, Unit I, FCI Sand­stone, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Christo­pher McIn­tosh #30512–013, FCI Fair­ton, PO Box 420, Fair­ton, NJ 08320, USA. Serv­ing 8 years for set­ting fire to a McDon­ald’s restau­rant.

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 2½ years. 1) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 2) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Julio Vil­lanue­va, C.P. Pri­sion De Pam­plona, 31080, Iruna (Navar­ra), Spain.
Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to his involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Nathan Block — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment.

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Rod Coro­n­a­do, Voice of the Earth, PO Box 732, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA. Due to be sen­tenced to one-year impris­on­ment after Rod informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing.

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Down­view, Sut­ton Lane, Sut­ton, Sur­rey, SM2 5PD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Joy­an­na Zach­er — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials.

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion that turned into a riot.

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack.

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic.
Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish.

Gub­s­ki Max­im, VK‑2 — 21, Batowa str. 4, Bobruisk, 213800 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Vladislav Vladimirovich Plyashke­vich, IK-10 otryad 4, Novopoltsk‑5 Viteb­skaya oblast, 211440 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, BNR: 727/07/7, JVA Tegel, Sei­del­str. 39, 13507 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties.

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self.

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009.

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA.
Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

Spring into action (though storms may be at the door) — the latest issue of the EF! Action Update has burst forth

Read all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on w

Rabbit under fenceRead all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on whal­ing boats, Buy­ing Noth­ing, Reclaim­ing the Streets and the unstop­pable singing of Christ­mas songs, not to men­tion skat­ing pen­guins. Even some upcom­ing dates to get stuck in or to meet oth­er direct action cra­zies. We could­n’t make it up even if we tried.

Anoth­er bumper issue, with a spe­cial insert on Agro­fu­els includ­ing a list of refiner­ies ‘in the pipeline’ or already on the ground, plus a legal update about the recent changes to your access to solic­i­tors in police sta­tions.

The lat­est issue of the Earth First! Action Update burst forth at the lat­est nation­al meet­ing of the Camp for Cli­mate Action (see climatecamp.org.uk for how the camp idea is auda­cious­ly mor­ph­ing this year).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here.

Coulsdon residents’ barricade halts phone mast

27.1.08
Con­struc­tion of a phone mast in Couls­don has been halt­ed after more than 100 angry pro­test­ers bar­ri­cad­ed the site.

Coulsdon phone mast protest 1
Coulsdon phone mast protest 227.1.08
Con­struc­tion of a phone mast in Couls­don has been halt­ed after more than 100 angry pro­test­ers bar­ri­cad­ed the site.

Res­i­dents and par­ents blocked two trucks and two cranes from access­ing the pro­posed mast site on Sandown Road this morn­ing in a bid to stop the trans­mit­ter being fixed to a build­ing oppo­site Chip­stead Val­ley Pri­ma­ry School.

The pro­test­ers, under the ban­ner of the Radio Action group, said there were already 15 mobile masts in less than one square mile of the school.

A Radio Action spokesman said the 10 work­men remained in Sandown Road for more than two hours before turn­ing back after dis­cus­sions with res­i­dents.

He said the group was con­cerned about the health effects of mobile mast trans­mis­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly on chil­dren.

It is believed phone com­pa­ny T Mobile want to fix the mast to the first floor of the build­ing in Sandown Road.

Prefabs Stolen from the Poor — Bristol fights back

The hum­ming­bird is the logo of Bovis Homes but dont let rapid wing­beats blur your mem­o­ry. Lest we for­get.….

Bovis took over all pre­fab sites in Bris­tol, and the old and poor were moved out to make way for new lux­u­ry apart­ment homes. Bovis lie when they say they meet the legal require­ment of 17% social hous­ing. They dont.

The hum­ming­bird is the logo of Bovis Homes but dont let rapid wing­beats blur your mem­o­ry. Lest we for­get.….

Bovis took over all pre­fab sites in Bris­tol, and the old and poor were moved out to make way for new lux­u­ry apart­ment homes. Bovis lie when they say they meet the legal require­ment of 17% social hous­ing. They dont.

Recent­ly the speed­well sites were vis­it­ed, earth movers were decomi­sioned, win­dows smashed, and bull­doz­ers put out of action.

The hoard­ing boards sur­round­ing the site give the illu­sion of wealth and hap­pi­ness. We shat­ter the illu­sion with spray paint and use them as a polit­i­cal mes­sage board to alert the com­mu­ni­ty:

Pre­fabs Stolen from the Poor!

Mr Tesco avoids a green wash

23.1.2008
Chief Exec. of Tesco, Ter­ry Leahy, today evad­ed var­i­ous cam­paign­ers at Man­ches­ter’s Whit­worth Art Gallery who were anx­ious to dis­cuss his com­pa­ny’s recent £25 mil. invest­ment in Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty’s “Sus­tain­able Con­sump­tion” Insti­tute, yet anoth­er Tesco green-wash.….….……

Mr Tesco greenwash 1
Mr Tesco greenwash 2

23.1.2008
Chief Exec. of Tesco, Ter­ry Leahy, today evad­ed var­i­ous cam­paign­ers at Man­ches­ter’s Whit­worth Art Gallery who were anx­ious to dis­cuss his com­pa­ny’s recent £25 mil. invest­ment in Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty’s “Sus­tain­able Con­sump­tion” Insti­tute, yet anoth­er Tesco green-wash.….….……

This after­noon var­i­ous inter­est­ed groups con­vened out­side the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Gen­er­al Meet­ing of uni­ver­si­ty exec­u­tives, inter­est­ed busi­ness par­ties and dis­tin­guished alum­ni to “wel­come” the event’s guest of hon­our Tesco Chief Exec­u­tive Ter­ry Leahy. Ter­ry was afford­ed such star sta­tus at the Meet­ing, held at the Whit­worth Art Gallery, in recog­ni­tion of his company’s recent invest­ment of £25 mil­lion in research in the University’s “Sus­tain­able Con­sump­tion” Insti­tute.

Demon­stra­tors were rather less enam­oured with old Ter­ry and his cheeky green-wash­ing tac­tics. To make Ter­ry feel at home, mem­bers of the Man­ches­ter-Uni­ver­si­ty based cam­paigns col­lec­tive scrubbed the road a love­ly shade of green and, dressed in white over­alls and wield­ing mops and buck­ets of green-wash (this season’s new black), await­ed Big Tel’s arrival. Cam­paigns Col­lec­tive were also keen to reg­is­ter their dis­con­tent with the direc­tion the Uni­ver­si­ty has tak­en under Vice Chan­cel­lor Alan Gilbert, infa­mous advo­cate of a neolib­er­al style of uni­ver­si­ty man­age­ment favour­ing pri­vate invest­ment and sig­nif­i­cant bud­gets-cuts for learn­ing facil­i­ties with a pen­chant for extrav­a­gant meals where major fun­ders (such as Ter­ry him­self) are wined and dined.

Also in the wel­com­ing com­mit­tee were mem­bers of the Keep Chorl­ton Inter­est­ing cam­paign who’ve been get­ting rather cross in recent months over planned pro­pos­als for a Tesco Metro to be built on Man­ches­ter Road, Chorl­ton. Accom­pa­ny­ing them were oth­er Anti-Tesco cam­paign­ers from the Greater Man­ches­ter area, includ­ing some from Friends of the Earth. They’d brought a “Gold­en Cork in the Ear” award for the ‘com­pa­ny that most ignores the opin­ions of local com­mu­ni­ties’ to present to Ter­ry on a plush vel­vet cush­ion.

Although Manchester’s very own Rhythms of Resis­tance kept spir­its high (and feet warm) with their Sam­ba music, unfor­tu­nate­ly Ter­ry didn’t pick up his award or even use the front door, sneak­ing in through some oth­er super-secret entrance else­where thus avoid­ing a red-faced green-wash­ing.
Mr Tesco greenwash 3Mr Tesco greenwash 4
Not deterred pro­tes­tors wan­dered down to the local Tesco to give it a scrub instead.

Video from the M.E.N.

Shell to Sea revisit RPS office

Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 17th 2008

Unite against raw gasAgainst raw gas wallThurs­day Jan­u­ary 17th 2008

Yes­ter­day, over 30 local peo­ple again vis­it­ed the RPS office in Bel­mul­let to again let it be known that under no cir­cum­stances would they accept raw gas run­ning through their com­mu­ni­ty. Even though RPS group direc­tor PJ Rud­den claimed recent­ly to media that he was “pleas­ant­ly sur­prised” by the reac­tion to the short list­ed routes, he will be in no doubt what the major­i­ty of peo­ple in Kil­com­mon parish think of the routes fol­low­ing this most recent vis­it. Four mem­bers of the group went in to the RPS offices to out­line some of their objec­tions to the cur­rent pipeline pro­pos­als. They also hand­ed in a peti­tion signed by mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty stat­ing their objec­tions to putting their pipeline any­where through the Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) in Glen­gad or the Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area of Broad­haven Bay.

It also emerged recent­ly that the Coun­ty Coun­cil are once again doing their utmost to assist Shell in any­way they can. This time they have put in a plan­ning pro­pos­al to upgrade the road from the refin­ery site back to Glen­gad (via the Leanamore road). The upgrade of the road will cease imme­di­ate­ly after the gate down to land­fall leav­ing no doubt who the insti­ga­tors of this upgrade are. Approx­i­mate­ly 6 kilo­me­tres of the road will be widened while the whole of the road upgrade will be strength­ened with wire mesh to with­stand the increase traf­fic that the coun­cil forsee. This is yet anoth­er slap in the face to the local com­mu­ni­ty, who hav­ing been wait­ing for road repairs for years but must watch their Coun­cil spend their tax­es on Shel­l’s infra­struc­ture.

It also seems that Shell are con­tin­u­ing with their long held strat­e­gy of blam­ing any prob­lems they have on pro­tes­tors actions.

Dur­ing the Afri Hedge School that was held in Erris in ear­ly Novem­ber, a talk was giv­en by Fr Kevin O’Hara (who found­ed the Cen­tre for Social and Cor­po­rate Respon­si­bil­i­ty, which mon­i­tors oil com­pa­nies in Nige­ria). He stat­ed that in one case of an oil spill at which he was present, a Shell engi­neer upon turn­ing up at the spill loca­tion was straight away able to point out to oth­er employ­ees what had caused the oil spill as it had been a reoc­cur­ring prob­lem. How­ev­er offi­cial­ly of course the Shell excuse was that sab­o­tage had caused the oil spill. The only prob­lem for Shell was that the Shell engi­neer had been caught on film direct­ing the employ­ees to the fault in the pipeline, which was the true cause of the spill.

It seems as if Shell are using a sim­i­lar tac­tic here in Mayo. In the lat­est refin­ery ‘Envi­ron­men­tal Report’ (18th Dec 07) that Shell has com­piled, they admit­ted that one of their 4 dust col­lec­tion points showed a read­ing that was well above their lim­it for dust depo­si­tion (mea­sured 530mg/m2/day where 350mg/ m2/day is the lim­it). The dust col­lec­tion pots were in place for over a month how­ev­er Shell blame the high lev­el of dust record­ed on the fact that pro­tes­tors “pos­si­bly van­dalised” the dust gauge dur­ing an incur­sion on to the site on the 9th of Novem­ber.

See the Envi­ron­men­tal Reports (sic) here:
http://www.mayococo.ie/en/News/GasTerminal/Environmenta…2007/

Oxford Tree Protest Brings Fences Down; update & latest on end of protest/arrest

12.1.2008 A demon­stra­tion in Oxford against the felling of trees and the build­ing of a mon­strous new shop­ping cen­tre saw hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­er around Bonn Square. Many of them then took spon­ta­neous direct action to stop the fenc­ing-off of the square, and forced the Coun­cil to take the fences back down! We won this … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Oxford Tree Protest Brings Fences Down; update & lat­est on end of protest/arrest”

Oxford Saturday tree protest 3

12.1.2008
A demon­stra­tion in Oxford against the felling of trees and the build­ing of a mon­strous new shop­ping cen­tre saw hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­er around Bonn Square. Many of them then took spon­ta­neous direct action to stop the fenc­ing-off of the square, and forced the Coun­cil to take the fences back down!

We won this time, but the strug­gle to save the trees and stop the West­gate Cen­tre goes on. On Mon­day, the tree-sit­ter is in court and the Coun­cil is seek­ing final per­mis­sion to go ahead with the felling. Sup­port is always need­ed down at the Square, and watch this space for announce­ments of future actions.

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Activist arrest­ed while try­ing to give tree pro­test­er water

13.1.2008
An activist is arrest­ed for “on sus­pi­cion of lit­ter­ing” while try­ing to throw Gabriel, the Bonn Square tree pro­test­er, some water.

At about 2 AM on Sun­day morn­ing two activists went to Bonn Square to try to give the fenced-off tree pro­test­er, Gabriel, some water. As one dis­tract­ed the secu­ri­ty, the oth­er tried to throw a bot­tle to Gabriel, but unfor­tu­nate­ly it was­n’t a very good throw 😉

Police sit­ting in a near­by car quick­ly noticed and the bot­tle-throw­er was arrest­ed “on sus­pi­cion of lit­ter­ing”. For­tu­nate­ly only about 3 hours was spent at the police sta­tion before the activist was released with­out charge — the police seemed to have changed their mind and decid­ed it was­n’t a pros­e­cutable offence.

The arrestee was advised by a solic­i­tor that whilst the arrest was poten­tial­ly unlaw­ful, pur­su­ing legal action would like­ly only result in a dif­fer­ent charge such as “pub­lic dis­or­der”. An IPCC com­plaint may be made.

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14.1.2008
Lat­est update from BBC:

Police arrest tree man pro­test­er

A pro­test­er who was liv­ing in a tree in an attempt to stop it from being chopped down has been arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

Gabriel Cham­ber­lain set up his makeshift tree house in Bonn Square, Oxford, 11 days ago.

The city coun­cil secured an evic­tion order to force him down, but Mr Cham­ber­lain came down vol­un­tar­i­ly after he ran out of water and sup­plies.

The tree was lat­er felled as part of a £1.5m facelift in Oxford’s west end.

The sycamore was the largest of four trees which have been cut down.

The oper­a­tion sparked protests in Bonn Square from oth­er res­i­dents and police have arrest­ed at least two oth­er peo­ple.

The trees will be replaced with sev­en semi-mature robinia pseudoa­ca­cia trees.

A coun­cil spokesman said Bonn Square was in a key loca­tion at the inter­sec­tion of four major routes.

He said the plan was aimed at mak­ing the square more attrac­tive and improv­ing CCTV sur­veil­lance.

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Yes­ter­day morn­ing Gabriel was arrest­ed and work began on destroy­ing the tree. I don’t know the exact details; whether it was a planned evic­tion or whether he was grabbed hav­ing come down from the tree for sup­plies or a break.

Pro­test­ers were out­num­bered by cops and secu­ri­ty and the tree itself was sur­round­ed by sev­er­al lay­ers of fenc­ing. Nev­er­the­less a few attempt­ed to block the work, but were quick­ly dragged away. They were arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass and I believe all have now been released on police bail, and will find out in a few weeks whether or not the charges will be dropped.

This is not the end of the cam­paign though; there are still tens of trees under threat as part of the West­gate expan­sion, and the Bonn Square cam­paign has served to gal­vanise local action. Watch this space 🙂

Mean­while the Radley Lakes Town Green appli­ca­tion was turned down by the Coun­ty Coun­cil, despite plen­ty of evi­dence; cam­paign­ers will take the case to the High Court.