Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Grapes of Rathlin

3rd July from Scc­NEWS Con­voys of trucks car­ry­ing equip­ment descend­ed on West New­ton yes­ter­day, where Rath­lin Ener­gy are com­menc­ing their explorato­ry

3rd July from Scc­NEWS Con­voys of trucks car­ry­ing equip­ment descend­ed on West New­ton yes­ter­day, where Rath­lin Ener­gy are com­menc­ing their explorato­ry frack­ing drilling. As the first major activ­i­ty at the East York­shire site kicked off, a hand­ful of pro­test­ers and many more anx­ious locals could only watch in hor­ror as the frack­ing trucks made their way along the long sin­gle track lane towards the well.

The con­voys were pro­tect­ed by hun­dreds of police and riot vans, while local res­i­dents were blocked from access­ing their own homes and one elder­ly res­i­dent burst into tears at the scale of what was hap­pen­ing.

West New­ton is one of two loca­tions in East York­shire that Rath­lin are attempt­ing to frack. At both West New­ton and Craw­ber­ry Hill, Rath­lin have had plan­ning per­mis­sion for explorato­ry drilling since 2012. Ear­li­er this year they also got Envi­ron­ment Agency per­mits that last until Sep­tem­ber, in the case of Craw­ber­ry Hill, and longer in the case of West New­ton. “We knew they were due to do the tests at either site at any time”, says our source from cam­paign group HEY Frack Off.

Small protests camps were set up at both loca­tions in May. Craw­ber­ry was the larg­er, with num­ber aver­ag­ing at 20: Not only was it look­ing like­li­er that Rath­lin would hit there first as the per­mits ran out soon­er, but it’s near­er urban cen­tres like Bev­er­ley and Hull. Cru­cial­ly, it is in the area of the mas­sive under­ground aquifer that is relied on for drink­ing water for much of the pop­u­la­tion of Hull and East York­shire: “If that were to be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed it would be an absolute cat­a­stro­phe”. So far, Craw­ber­ry Hill has yet to see any sig­nif­i­cant activ­i­ty.

Over at West New­ton, the pro­tec­tion camp has been tiny but dogged­ly per­sis­tent. The vil­lagers in the very rur­al area have been slow on the uptake but now seem to be wak­ing up to what’s about to hap­pen on their doorsteps. At first, they’d been bizarrely anx­ious about the camp and upset about the pro­test­ers’ pres­ence, rather than their vil­lages sur­round­ing a hell­mouth of the envi­ron­men­tal armaged­don.

“It’s an unbe­liev­ably con­ser­v­a­tive area. Some peo­ple did­n’t even want to con­tact HEY Frack Off because of our ‘con­tro­ver­sial’ name!”, says our con­tact. “Most of the local res­i­dents have swal­lowed Rath­lin’s line and their PR hook, line and sinker.”

But recent well-attend­ed pub­lic meet­ings, and indi­vid­ual con­ver­sa­tions, have shown aware­ness is slow­ly start­ing to sink in. Maybe the locals are slow­ly start­ing to organ­ise?

Just to show how much they respect the local res­i­dents, when the con­voys came onto site at West New­ton yes­ter­day, they “ran roughshod” over the plan­ning con­di­tions that had been agreed between the local coun­cil (East Rid­ing of York­shire) and Rath­lin Ener­gy to sweet­en the frack­ing pill for local res­i­dents.

First­ly, they failed to give the stip­u­lat­ed 14 days notice before any activ­i­ty com­menced. Sneaky, but not sur­pris­ing giv­en the momen­tum the anti-frack­ing move­men­t’s been gain­ing. Sec­ond­ly, they spec­tac­u­lar­ly flout­ed the traf­fic man­age­ment plan which promised local res­i­dents no more than one truck every ten min­utes. Yes­ter­day saw two mas­sive con­voys of lor­ries – around 65 vehi­cles enter­ing the site. Need­less to say, the well pad was crowd­ed.

In terms of polic­ing, our con­tact reports: “Police have said they have learned from the mis­takes of Bar­ton Moss and Bal­combe where they allowed peace­ful protest in the form of slow walk­ing in front of vehi­cles down pub­lic high­ways. It’s been made quite clear in East York­shire that any­one who gets in the way of a vehi­cle on the pub­lic high­way will be arrest­ed imme­di­ate­ly.”

Police have even admit­ted to cam­paign­ers that it’s a “game of num­bers”, and that if there were as many pro­test­ers as police they’d have to review their tac­tics.

The loca­tion of the West New­ton site is so rur­al that keep­ing up com­mu­ni­ca­tions – from sim­ple phone calls to live stream­ing – is dif­fi­cult. The cam­paign is encour­ag­ing any poten­tial pro­tec­tors to get in touch. The camp phone num­ber is 07773739937.

Protests in Nigeria After Mobil Spills 600,000 Barrels of Oil

oil_theft_7-300x1991st July Youths in Eket and Esit Eket in Akwa Ibom on Mon­day staged peace­ful protests against fresh oil spills in Nkpana com­mu­ni­ty from a Mobil facil­i­ty i

oil_theft_7-300x1991st July Youths in Eket and Esit Eket in Akwa Ibom on Mon­day staged peace­ful protests against fresh oil spills in Nkpana com­mu­ni­ty from a Mobil facil­i­ty in Ibeno.

The youths num­ber­ing more than 500 protest­ed on major streets in Eket, includ­ing the Mari­na and Ter­mi­nal roads.

The pro­test­ers, under the ages of Core Youth Forum, car­ried plac­ards with inscrip­tions: “Oil spill is killing our aquat­ic life’’, “No com­pen­sa­tion for oil spill” and “Enough of this oil spillage,’’ among oth­ers.

Mr God­win Peter, the spokesman of the pro­test­ers, said the spill occurred on Sat­ur­day and occu­pied com­mu­ni­ties along the spill line on Sun­day.

He said the spill had dev­as­tat­ed aquat­ic life and destroyed fish­ing equip­ment, among oth­ers.
Peter appealed to Mobil to urgent­ly clean up the envi­ron­ment.

The youths threat­ened to dis­rupt Mobil activ­i­ties if their demands, which includ­ed imme­di­ate clean up and com­pen­sa­tion, were not met.

Also react­ing, Mr Inyang Ekong, the Sec­re­tary of the Arti­sanal Fish­er­men Asso­ci­a­tion of Nige­ria, Akwa Ibom Branch, not­ed that fish­ing had been sus­pend­ed in the area as a result of the spill.

He said that fish would be scarce in the state and appealed to Mobil to replace its old pipes to fore­stall fur­ther occur­rence.

Ekong said the spill would cause untold hard­ships to the peo­ple of Ibeno.

When con­tact­ed, Mr Akaninyene Esiere, the Man­ag­er of Pub­lic and Gov­ern­ment Affairs at the Qua Iboe Ter­mi­nal of Mobil, con­firmed the inci­dent.

“We have con­firmed a liq­uid release from our Qua Iboe ter­mi­nal on Sun­day, June 29, fol­low­ing seri­ous weath­er con­di­tions and light­ning strikes over the area at the week­end. We have acti­vat­ed our emer­gency response sys­tems to con­tain the release. All rel­e­vant reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers have been notified.We will con­tin­ue to work with the com­mu­ni­ty to allow progress in the effort by Mobil to con­tain the spill,’’ he said.

Esiere said that Mobil was com­mit­ted to safe envi­ron­ment dur­ing its oper­a­tions.

Earth First! Summer Gathering 2014 — exact location & other practicalities added

Updates: Exact loca­tion has been releas­es — see here. 

Trav­el - book your trav­el to Cas­tle Cary or Bru­ton train sta­tion, then it’s a bus jour­ney and 20 minute walk.

Updates: Exact loca­tion has been releas­es — see here. 

Trav­el - book your trav­el to Cas­tle Cary or Bru­ton train sta­tion, then it’s a bus jour­ney and 20 minute walk.

Bus times are : 8.14am — 9.44am — 11.44am — 12.33pm — 2.14pm — 4.33pm (last bus).  There’s no Sun­day ser­vice so we will timetable a shut­tle bus to return.

Cycling: Bru­ton is bet­ter if you are cycling as it is a mile short­er, and there is also a bus from there too. The last bus from here leaves lat­er.  (Bus times from Bru­ton are: 9:09am — 10:39am — 12:12pm — 1:39pm — 3:54pm — 5:39pm)

We will post the exact address three weeks before the gath­er­ing.

Refresh­ments — ‘This year there is no bar on site. Peo­ple are wel­come to bring their own but we ask that there’s no drink­ing before dinner/7pm. Any­one caus­ing a nui­sance or break­ing our Safer Spaces pol­i­cy will be asked to stop and/or leave. There will be a cafe & snack bar on site.’

Dogs — ‘This year dogs are wel­come, but please get in touch in advance, and keep them on a lead at all times on the site.’  Fur­ther info

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28th-31st August 2014, in the South West.…

A place for peo­ple involved in rad­i­cal green direct action to come togeth­er.…
to talk.…share skills.…learn.…listen.…play.…rant.… find out whats going on.…
scheme.…live outdoors.…hang out.…laugh.…
expe­ri­ence non hier­ar­chi­cal, low impact, fam­i­ly friend­ly liv­ing.

An activist camp that spans 5 days and con­sists of a pro­gramme of work­shops through­out each day facil­i­tat­ed by peo­ple like you and me who think they have a skill or a lev­el of knowl­edge in a sub­ject that is valu­able to share with oth­ers to improve their activism.

Is this camp for you?  Whether you’re just start­ing out in the world of direct action or you’re an old (glued and paint-stained) hand at it, you’re wel­come here.

More info here

Action dates & gatherings now working again!

The action dates and protest gath­er­ings page is once again work­ing!  Apolo­gies, we acci­den­tal­ly delet­ed it!

If there’s any eco­log­i­cal actions that are open­ly adver­tised, protest camps or cam­paign gath­er­ings, that you want to add to it, do it through the sub­mit report link and in the sub­ject, make it clear it’s to add to the cal­en­dar.  Thanks.

The action dates and protest gath­er­ings page is once again work­ing!  Apolo­gies, we acci­den­tal­ly delet­ed it!

If there’s any eco­log­i­cal actions that are open­ly adver­tised, protest camps or cam­paign gath­er­ings, that you want to add to it, do it through the sub­mit report link and in the sub­ject, make it clear it’s to add to the cal­en­dar.  Thanks.

Summary of Repression from ZAD

Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 12.46.24 PM 30th June Sum­ma­ry of arrests and tri­als since the demo in Nantes, Feb­ru­ary 22nd, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion found by the anti-repres­sion com­mit­tee (CARILA)

Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 12.46.24 PM 30th June Sum­ma­ry of arrests and tri­als since the demo in Nantes, Feb­ru­ary 22nd, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion found by the anti-repres­sion com­mit­tee (CARILA)

Feb­ru­ary 22nd: 14 arrests, two released with­out charge. Of the 12 peo­ple charged, 5 had imme­di­ate tri­als the next day, and the 7 oth­ers will have tri­als lat­er (3 on June 19th, 2 minors in children’s court, and no news for the 2 oth­ers).

Feb­ru­ary 24th: 5 imme­di­ate tri­als, 4 of them judged for “vio­lence against some­one with pub­lic author­i­ty”, and “par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group”. They were all con­vict­ed.
- 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice
- 5 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence
- 5 months of prison
- 5 months of prison and 1 month pro­ba­tion
- 6 months of prison and 6 months of pro­ba­tion + 500 euros for the under­cov­er cops sup­pos­ed­ly injured

Of all those con­vict­ed this day, no one went direct­ly to prison. This means that they can nego­ti­ate a lighter sen­tence.

March 31st: First wave of arrests after the demo: 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed at home (in Car­que­fou, St. Herblain, Nantes, and Ille-et-Vilaine).

- 2 were released with­out charges
- 4 were judged the next day in imme­di­ate tri­als
- 2 minors: one accused of throw­ing fire­works at the police judged in juve­nile court, placed under house arrest until their tri­al in 2015, the oth­er we don’t think they were charged but we have no con­fir­ma­tion
- 1 per­son had a tri­al lat­er but we don’t have con­tact with them

April 1st: Imme­di­ate tri­als for those arrest­ed the day before

- P: 4 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence, for­bid­den to car­ry weapons for a year, for­bid­den to protest in Notre Dame des Lan­des and Nantes for a year
- J: 5 months of prison, for­bid­den to car­ry weapons for 2 years, for­bid­den to protest in Nantes for 2 years
- G: 2 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 2 months prison (sus­pend­ed sen­tence from last arrest), aquit­ted for van­dal­ism
- E: 1 year of prison, start­ing imme­di­ate­ly after the tri­al, for­bid­den to protest for 3 years, for­bid­den to have explo­sives or flam­ma­ble mate­ri­als for 3 years. The judge dou­bled the sen­tence that the DA asked for!

May 14th: G arrest­ed in Paris under a war­rant for van­dal­ism Feb­ru­ary 22nd. He refused an imme­di­ate tri­al, fuzzy pho­tos were the only evi­dence. He was placed in pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion, but got out a month lat­er because of a pro­ce­dur­al error. His tri­al is July 16th.

May 27th: R. arrest­ed in the street in Rennes by under­cov­er cops, trans­ferred to Nantes. He refused imme­di­ate tri­al, and was put under house arrest, and for­bid­den from the Loire-Atlan­tique region until his tri­al, June 19th.

June 13th: Addi­tion­al tri­al for some­one con­vict­ed Feb­ru­ary 24th to decide how much they should pay in dam­ages to the under­cov­er cops. No infor­ma­tion on the ver­dict for the moment.

June 18th:
- O. arrest­ed at home in Rennes, accused of van­dal­ism, he has an imme­di­ate tri­al the next day.
- Some­one from the ZAD arrest­ed in Nantes, who had a war­rant out for vio­lence against the police and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group.

June 19th:
- Tri­al for 3 peo­ple arrest­ed dur­ing the demo ‑K: con­vict­ed of throw­ing paving stones towards the police and arrest­ed in pos­ses­sion of a ham­mer and an iron bar, 4 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence, 18 months pro­ba­tion (forced to find a job or go to voca­tion­al school, and for­bid­den to car­ry weapons) + 105 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice ‑C: con­vict­ed of par­tic­i­pa­tion in an armed group and throw­ing a beer can at the police, sen­tenced to 2 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence ‑G: arrest­ed in pos­ses­sion of a ham­mer, sen­tenced to 1 month sus­pend­ed sen­tence
- Hear­ing for O. (arrest­ed in Rennes the day before): he refus­es his tri­al and is put under house arrest until his tri­al, July 10th
- Tri­al of R. (arrest­ed in Rennes, May 27) for van­dal­ism and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group. Sen­tenced to 8 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 1 month sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 5218 euros in dam­ages for the city of Nantes+ for­bid­den from Loire-Atlan­tique region for 2 years.
- Hear­ing for 5 peo­ple arrest­ed 2 days before by under­cov­er cops while dri­ving: ‑one per­son (a hitch-hik­er) accept­ed the imme­di­ate tri­al, con­vict­ed to pos­ses­sion of 1 gram of hash + refus­ing fin­ger­prints and DNA. No sen­tence 3 peo­ple refused imme­di­ate tri­als and are put under house arrest until their tri­al, July 18th 1 per­son refused an imme­di­ate tri­al and is in prison await­ing tri­al (July 18th)

“They were arrest­ed tues­day after a “ran­dom” iden­ti­ty con­trol by under­cov­er cops on the ring road in Nantes. Amoung them was R., who had a tri­al Thurs­day and was on their way to Nantes to see their lawyer with their friends. After 48 hours of police cus­tody, 4 of them were charged with “pos­ses­sion of stolen goods”, sus­pect­ed of hav­ing stolen… a head lamp. Also they refused to give fin­ger­prints and DNA. More seri­ous­ly, they are accused, based on some fly­ers in their car and a tool­box, of “asso­ci­a­tion of wrong-doers”, and “intent to com­mit an armed assem­bly in front of the cour­t­house in Nantes”. They risk up to 5 years in prison.”

June 20th: Hear­ing for S., who lives on the ZAD. He was arrest­ed 2 days before in Orvault, accused of hav­ing stolen 2 books. He had a war­rant out for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Feb­ru­ary 22nd demo. He is accused of theft (with pri­or con­vic­tions), refus­ing fin­ger­prints and DNA (with pri­or con­vic­tions), and par­tic­i­pat­ing with a weapon in an armed group, and vio­lence against the police. He refused an imme­di­ate tri­al and has been put in jail await­ing his tri­al on July 7th.

2 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly in pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion, await­ing tri­al.

Blockade Halts Old-Growth Logging in Mattole Forest

10496184_1431644777121536_4907229880304137323_o30th June A for­est defend­er has tak­en to the trees to defend an impor­tant area of the Mat­tole Riv

10496184_1431644777121536_4907229880304137323_o30th June A for­est defend­er has tak­en to the trees to defend an impor­tant area of the Mat­tole Riv­er water­shed in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Going by the name “Skunk,” the block­ad­er is stop­ping the con­struc­tion of a new log­ging road into old-growth for­est.

Skunk is sup­port­ed by res­i­dents of Hum­boldt coun­ty and allies who have worked for months to stop Hum­boldt Red­wood Company’s plan for 1,000 acres of log­ging in the Mat­tole For­est.

10428646_1431644520454895_1206681976091967028_n

In April, activists hung a ban­ner across from Hum­boldt Red­woods State Park to protest the log­ging in the Mat­tole.

While Hum­boldt Red­wood Com­pa­ny claims they are not log­ging old-growth, their def­i­n­i­tion restricts log­ging only areas with more than 8 old-growth trees in the span of an acre. They also define old-growth as exist­ing in the year 1800, cut­ting out any trees younger than exact­ly 214 years.

Skunk insists, “Our main demands to Hum­boldt Red­wood Com­pa­ny are very simple—don’t cut unlogged for­est, and don’t cut old-growth. This road threat­ens to destroy for­est that has nev­er been logged before, and will pave the way for log­ging even more impor­tant habi­tat if the com­mu­ni­ty does not rise up to stop it.” 

The Mat­tole pro­vides shel­ter to Gold­en Eagles and Spot­ted Owls, among oth­er rare species, and has long been the home of old-growth Big Leaf Maple, Dou­glas Fir, Tanoak, and Madrone.

This area of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia has a long his­to­ry of for­est defense against Maxxam/Pacific Lum­ber through­out the 1990s. What we are per­haps see­ing is just the begin­ning of a new chap­ter.

 

Support needed at Yorkley Court NOW

Update 24/6: The sit­u­a­tion here is still urgent as of this morn­ing; large num­bers of secu­ri­ty are cur­rent­ly try­ing to get on site.

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Update 24/6: The sit­u­a­tion here is still urgent as of this morn­ing; large num­bers of secu­ri­ty are cur­rent­ly try­ing to get on site.

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**Sup­port need­ed now — Please get the the site**

Bailiffs attempt­ed an ille­gal evic­tion at Yorkley Court Com­mu­ni­ty Farm this morn­ing & are still there and its like­ly they will try some­thing on the bot­tom strip tonight.

More peo­ple are urgent­ly need­ed to defend the land.

Even if you can just get there for a few hours, it helps to have as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble on site.

Back­ground:
In the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing, police and pri­vate secu­ri­ty thugs decend­ed, with­out pri­or Notice (a legal require­ment), upon the peace­ful peas­ants liv­ing on the land, and grow­ing food at Yorkley Court. This out­ragous, com­pete­ly unlaw­ful act of aggres­sion came with­out warn­ing, whilst Yorkley Court Farm are ful­ly engaged with the Dis­trict Coun­cil in their plan­ning process, and were look­ing like­ly to be grant­ed the ini­tial stages of plan­ning per­mis­sion dur­ing the com­ing weeks. We’re not sure what exact­ly the Coun­cil, no doubt in colu­sion with cer­tain pri­vate busi­ness inter­ests think they’re doing, more infor­ma­tion as we get it. Please come and help us stop this ille­gal evic­tion attempt

http://yorkleycourt.wordpress.com/

How to get there: Head to Yorkley, near Lyd­ney in Glouces­ter­shire. See a map below.

Site mobile: 07784887895

Environmentalists Halt Leard Forest Clearance for the Winter

leard-forest-protest-1200-640x426 13th June Aus­tralia White­haven Coal yes­ter­day announced it would halt its clear­ing of Leard State For­est until Sep­tem­ber fol­low­ing an injunc­ti

leard-forest-protest-1200-640x426 13th June Aus­tralia White­haven Coal yes­ter­day announced it would halt its clear­ing of Leard State For­est until Sep­tem­ber fol­low­ing an injunc­tion in the NSW Land and Envi­ron­ment Court by the Maules Creek Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil.

The group, aid­ed by the EDO, specif­i­cal­ly appealed over the fact that many ani­mals in the for­est hiber­nate over win­ter and there­fore were more like­ly to be killed by clear­ing dur­ing win­ter months.

The com­pa­ny vol­un­tar­i­ly called a halt to clear­ing yes­ter­day after­noon, just as the court’s deci­sion on the injunc­tion was due, until the results of a full hear­ing on the mat­ter.

Maules Creek Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil spokesper­son, Phil Laird said, ‘We are pleased that White­haven has been forced to respond to our legit­i­mate chal­lenge in the court by today under­tak­ing to stop clear­ing in Leard State For­est’.

The Maules Creek Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil is argu­ing that White­haven is in breach of its devel­op­ment con­sent by winter/spring clear­ing of the for­est. A breach of devel­op­ment con­sent con­tra­venes the Envi­ron­men­tal Plan­ning and Assess­ment Act 1979.

‘This out­come today sends a strong mes­sage to coal min­ing com­pa­nies across NSW and to the NSW gov­ern­ment: if they will not enforce the law, then the com­mu­ni­ty is pre­pared to step up and do it them­selves’ Mr Laird said.

‘We appre­ci­ate the action tak­en by White­haven today and we will be prepar­ing to vig­or­ous­ly pur­sue the full legal chal­lenge,’ he added.

The new Maules Creek coalmine project involves a total clear­ing of 1664 hectares of for­est, which cur­rent­ly pro­vides habi­tat for threat­ened species includ­ing bats, koalas, for­est owls, the Swift Par­rot and the Regent Hon­eyeater.

The Nature Con­ser­va­tion Coun­cil of NSW has wel­comed White­haven Coal’s deci­sion to adhere to the con­di­tions of its devel­op­ment con­sent.

‘This is a clear vic­to­ry for com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who have been work­ing tire­less­ly to pro­tect this for­est and the region’s water resources,’ cam­paigns direc­tor Kate Smol­s­ki said.

‘The deci­sion to stop win­ter clear­ing does not end the fight to save Leard For­est, but it does at least give hiber­nat­ing native ani­mals a fight­ing chance to escape the bull­doz­ers.

‘It is regret­table the NSW gov­ern­ment did not enforce the con­di­tions of its own con­sent for this atro­cious mine, leav­ing Maules Creek Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil lit­tle alter­na­tive but to take legal action.

‘State and fed­er­al laws have failed to pro­tect this impor­tant nat­ur­al area, demon­strat­ing the need for deep reform to pro­tect impor­tant nat­ur­al places from coal min­ing.

‘Until that reform occurs, com­mu­ni­ty groups will con­tin­ue to seek rem­e­dy in the courts, and ordi­nary peo­ple will feel com­pelled to take direct action in the for­est.

‘The Maules Creek mine will tear out the heart of Leard For­est, destroy one of the largest rem­nant areas of wildlife habi­tat in west­ern NSW, threat­en ground­wa­ter resources, and have a last­ing neg­a­tive impact on the local com­mu­ni­ty of Maules Creek. This project should nev­er have been approved.’

Greens NSW MP and envi­ron­ment spokesper­son, Dr Mehreen Faruqi has also wel­comed news.

‘This deci­sion… proves com­mu­ni­ty con­cerns were jus­ti­fied. It is clear that White­haven saw the writ­ing on the wall and went for an under­tak­ing before it was ordered to by the court,’ Dr Faruqi said.

‘Unfor­tu­nate­ly, much clear­ing has already tak­en place.

‘I have seen with my own eyes just yes­ter­day the sec­tion of the for­est bull­dozed by White­haven Coal, pre­sum­ably in antic­i­pa­tion of a sus­pen­sion.

‘It is out­ra­geous that White­haven Coal was allowed to under­take win­ter clear­ing in the first place. This was com­plete­ly unnec­es­sary.

‘There needs to be an inves­ti­ga­tion into how these approvals were grant­ed by the NSW gov­ern­ment in the first place, as large tracts of endan­gered eco­log­i­cal com­mu­ni­ties have been cleared and can­not be replaced or off­set.

‘I was also dis­turbed to see valu­able pub­lic resources being used to ben­e­fit a min­ing com­pa­ny, with the gov­ern­ment order­ing police to set up road­blocks on pub­lic roads and search cars.

‘The gov­ern­ment should be pro­tect­ing the Leard For­est, not big coal.

‘In a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety, the pub­lic have the right to protest peace­ful­ly and I have been inspired by the activists stand­ing up to pro­tect our envi­ron­ment and our wildlife.

‘The Greens and many in the com­mu­ni­ty are opposed to this mas­sive coal min­ing project because of its destruc­tive impacts on bio­di­ver­si­ty, cul­tur­al her­itage and its mas­sive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change: allow­ing clear­ing dur­ing the win­ter months fur­ther com­pound­ed these dam­ag­ing impacts.

‘Con­grat­u­la­tions to the grass­roots com­mu­ni­ty groups and the Envi­ron­men­tal Defend­ers Office that brought for­ward this legal chal­lenge. The Greens will con­tin­ue cam­paign­ing to stop this coal mine com­plete­ly’ she con­clud­ed.

Patagonia Dam CANCELED!

chao hidroaysen13th June After an eight-year strug­gle, Chile’s grass­roots and envi­ron­men­tal move­ments have suc­cess­ful­ly won the rejec­tion of five planned megadams on two Patag­on­ian rivers!

chao hidroaysen13th June After an eight-year strug­gle, Chile’s grass­roots and envi­ron­men­tal move­ments have suc­cess­ful­ly won the rejec­tion of five planned megadams on two Patag­on­ian rivers!

It’s not every day we cel­e­brate a vic­to­ry as sig­nif­i­cant and hard-won as today’s tri­umph in the eight-year cam­paign to pro­tect Chilean Patag­o­nia from the destruc­tive HidroAysén dam project!

This morn­ing, Chile’s high­est admin­is­tra­tive author­i­ty – the Com­mit­tee of Min­is­ters – made a unan­i­mous deci­sion to over­turn the envi­ron­men­tal per­mits for the con­tro­ver­sial five dam mega-project, which was planned on the Bak­er and Pas­cua rivers. This high­ly antic­i­pat­ed res­o­lu­tion effec­tive­ly can­cels the project, rul­ing that assess­ment of the project’s impacts was insuf­fi­cient to grant project approval back in 2011.

The Com­mit­tee, which con­sists of the Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment, Health, Econ­o­my, Ener­gy and Min­ing, Agri­cul­ture, and Tourism, eval­u­at­ed 35 appeals which were filed by the Patag­o­nia Defense Coun­cil and local cit­i­zens in response to the project’s Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment after it was approved in May 2011. Though it has tak­en more than three years, with meet­ings and deci­sions being repeat­ed­ly delayed and even­tu­al­ly passed on to the new admin­is­tra­tion, today’s deci­sion is a recog­ni­tion of the tech­ni­cal and pro­ce­dur­al flaws sur­round­ing HidroAysén as well as the sig­nif­i­cant impacts the project would have had on one of Chile’s most icon­ic regions.

What began as a grass­roots effort to pro­tect the pris­tine Bak­er and Pas­cua rivers, and the com­mu­ni­ties and cul­ture of Patag­o­nia, has devel­oped into a ful­ly-fledged inter­na­tion­al cam­paign and gal­va­nized a nation­al envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. Over the past four years Chileans have tak­en to the streets to demand a halt to HidroAysén and around the world an inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has ral­lied around this call. Today it is these voic­es that have won out, and togeth­er have set in motion a new path towards a bright future for Patag­o­nia and the hope of a tru­ly sus­tain­able ener­gy future for Chile.

Pascua River, Patagonia: Undammed!

Pas­cua Riv­er, Patag­o­nia: Undammed!

To bor­row some words from Patri­cio Rodri­go, Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of the Patag­o­nia Defense Coun­cil, “The government’s defin­i­tive rejec­tion of the HidroAysén project is not only the great­est tri­umph of the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in Chile, but marks a turn­ing point, where an empow­ered pub­lic demands to be heard and to par­tic­i­pate in the deci­sions that affect their envi­ron­ment and lives.”

We are thrilled that the gov­ern­ment is sid­ing with the major­i­ty of Chileans and tens of thou­sands of peo­ple around the world to say no to HidroAysén! We com­mend Pres­i­dent Bachelet for remain­ing loy­al to her cam­paign promise that HidroAysén would not have her sup­port. And we are look­ing to the future, with the hope that mea­sures will be put in place to pro­tect this unique region from future threats. (In fact, Pres­i­dent Bachelet and the Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment recent­ly for­mal­ized a bill that would cre­ate the Depart­ment of Bio­di­ver­si­ty and Pro­tect­ed Areas (SBAP) with the aim to pre­serve crit­i­cal ecosys­tems through­out Chile.)

Caltrans Case Against Tree Sitter Dismissed

Falcon-300x274 10th June Long-stand­ing tres­pass charges against Mark Her­bert, aka “Fal­con,” who perched in an old oak tree in April, 2013, above the hill west of High­way 101 that Cal­trans is now

Falcon-300x274 10th June Long-stand­ing tres­pass charges against Mark Her­bert, aka “Fal­con,” who perched in an old oak tree in April, 2013, above the hill west of High­way 101 that Cal­trans is now exca­vat­ing for soil to con­struct the much-protest­ed Willits Bypass, where he observed and report­ed on devel­op­ments, were dis­missed entire­ly on May 29th by Judge Ann Moor­man in Uki­ah Supe­ri­or Court. Fal­con was charged with tres­pass 602K, “enter­ing any lands, whether unen­closed or enclosed by fence, 1) for the pur­pose of injur­ing any prop­er­ty or prop­er­ty rights or with the inten­tion of inter­fer­ing with a law­ful busi­ness…”

The Dis­trict Attor­ney told the court that no one had sub­poe­naed the CHP offi­cer from the Spe­cial Weapons and Tac­tics unit who super­vised the arrest of Her­bert, the wit­ness who was sup­posed to tes­ti­fy. Unlike oth­er tree sit­ters, includ­ing War­bler, the young woman whose orig­i­nal tree sit sparked the Bypass protests, Her­bert was not extract­ed by force, but agreed to come down when request­ed to do so.

Herbert’s attor­ney, Ed Den­son, said “Judge Moor­man indi­cat­ed the case was almost a year old and she dis­missed it. The CHP inves­ti­ga­tion was very per­func­to­ry and it should have been clear to the inves­ti­gat­ing offi­cer that Her­bert had com­mit­ted no crime. The evi­dence shows that no inten­tion on Herbert’s part to inter­fere with any law­ful busi­ness or occu­pa­tion. “

Den­son elab­o­rat­ed: “Herbert’s case dif­fered from that of all the oth­er tree sit­ters, but the CHP failed to note that. Their report said his tree was north of 101, but the videos clear­ly show it was on a hill well south of 101 out of the con­struc­tion area. No one from Cal­trans or the CHP had even come to his site to ask him to come down until the day he was arrest­ed by a team of 24 offi­cers. He then vol­un­tar­i­ly descend­ed from the tree. It was clear that his pur­pose in doing the tree sit was to be a wit­ness to the events occur­ring across the high­way dur­ing the CHP block­ade of the media pre­vent­ing report­ing on the extrac­tion of the sit­ters. Her­bert was a spokesper­son for the effort to save the val­ley while the oth­ers were pre­vent­ed from con­tact with the pub­lic. Had the CHP thought things through, the tax­pay­ers could have saved thou­sands of dol­lars.”

The D.A. had almost a year to pre­pare and still was not ready to pros­e­cute the case. A ral­ly to sup­port Her­bert and fel­low activist Will Par­rish was held on the cour­t­house steps at noon. Par­rish, who writes for the Ander­son Val­ley Adver­tis­er, stopped work on the Cal­trans Bypass for more than eleven days last June and July by occu­py­ing a wick drain tow­er on the north end of the project, lead­ing final­ly to his arrest and the arrests of sev­er­al oth­er activists try­ing to sup­ply him with food and water denied him by CHP offi­cers on site.

Parrish’s hear­ing on resti­tu­tion demand­ed by Cal­trans in the amount of $150,000 has been post­poned to July 17. Assis­tant Dis­trict Attor­ney Sequiera said the case has become con­fus­ing and he is insist­ing now that Cal­trans sup­ply their own lawyer to appear in court on the case, which will also be over a year old by the time of the hear­ing.