Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Community halts illegal work on Special Area of Conservation, Ireland- pls help!

24th July 2008
The fight goes on- be part of it.

Shell fence beach, Mayo24th July 2008
The fight goes on- be part of it.
This is an urgent call for sup­port to pro­tect the com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­ment of Ross­port in Mayo, Ire­land. Shell is now attempt­ing to con­struct the first 200m metres of the onshore sec­tion of the pipeline with­out any plan­ning per­mis­sion. 13 res­i­dents were arrest­ed on Tues­day and this morn­ing a 10ft fence was erect­ed and guard­ed by40 police & 70 secu­ri­ty.
Help is urgent­ly need­ed. Come if u can. Protest at Irish Embassy, Shell garages etc.

At 8am this morn­ing, over 40 police, who are now sta­tioned in the Shell com­pound, and 70 Shell spe­cial­ist secu­ri­ty forced the local com­mu­ni­ty away from Glen­gad beach. The crowd who had assem­bled to mon­i­tor the ille­gal work being done on the cliff-face at Glen­gad were peace­ful­ly protest­ing on the beach. How­ev­er the local com­mu­ni­ty were then forced off the beach to allow 10ft high fenc­ing to be placed down to the water edge. This has blocked of the right of way on Glen­gad beach. All attempt­ed ques­tions regard­ing the legal­i­ty and the con­sents for the work were ignored by both Gar­daí and Shell staff alike.

The legal­i­ty of the con­sents giv­en is still an issue of major con­cern to the peo­ple of the local­i­ty as it is still unclear what per­mis­sions Shell have received and for what exact work. While Min­is­ter for Ener­gy Eamon Ryan has claimed that it was just an “over­sight” that the lat­est autho­ri­sa­tions for the project was­n’t pub­lished, this cloud­ing of what con­sents have been grant­ed has been a char­ac­ter­is­tic of the whole Cor­rib Project.

Local res­i­dent Ter­ence Con­way said “The fact is that this first onshore sec­tion is the most dan­ger­ous part of the whole project as the pres­sure could be as high as 345bar and still it will not have gone through any plan­ning if it is con­struct­ed”.

Shell is now attempt­ing to con­struct the first 200m metres of the onshore sec­tion of the pipeline with­out it going through plan­ning per­mis­sion at all. Although the remain­ing 9.2km of the onshore pipeline is cur­rent­ly being exam­ined by An Bord Pleanala, Shell are attempt­ing to lay the first 200m metres before a deci­sion is made.

On Tues­day 22nd July, 13 res­i­dents were arrest­ed at Glen­gad, while chal­leng­ing Shell on the per­mis­sions they had to do exca­va­tion and oth­er works around the site of the pro­posed land­fall area of the pipeline. The arrest­ed peo­ple includ­ed Gold­man Prize win­ner Willie Cor­duff as well as Shell to Sea trail­er host­ess Mary Horan. The 13 were arrest­ed around 2pm and held at Bel­mul­let police sta­tion for 3 hours before being released with­out charge, with files being sent to the DPP. One of the peo­ple arrest­ed had to be brought by ambu­lance to Castle­bar Hos­pi­tal after see­ing a doc­tor in Bel­mul­let sta­tion. The mood of the arrestees after release was def­i­nite­ly one of res­olute defi­ance. After the 13 were arrest­ed, Shell attempt­ed to re-com­mence the exca­va­tion work how­ev­er anoth­er group of around 20 locals arrived and halt­ed the work for the remain­der of the day.

On Wednes­day 23rd July, a Shell dig­ger began clear­ing the top­soil from the area around the cliff-face to begin the pro­ce­dure of cre­at­ing a cause­way down to the beach. Rough­ly an hour lat­er they were request­ed by local res­i­dents to pro­duce the per­mis­sions but were only met with silence from the line of secu­ri­ty which at first tried to let the dig­ger con­tin­ue but even­tu­al­ly the dig­ger retired to behind secu­ri­ty gates.

While Shell have received a Fore­shore Licence in 2002 by the then Min­is­ter for the Marine and Nat­ur­al Resources for the off­shore part of the pipeline, this Licence is only valid up to high-water mark. How­ev­er Shell are seek­ing to do work that would involv­ing cre­at­ing a pipe pull-in facil­i­ty that would lay the pipeline up to the pro­posed pres­sure reduc­tion facil­i­ty which will be over 30m back from the cliff-face. Plan­ning per­mis­sion for all of the onshore pipeline sec­tion is cur­rent­ly before An Bord Pleanala since May 2008 under the new Strate­gic Infra­struc­ture Act and it is believed that an Oral hear­ing will be heard before An Bord Pleanala pro­vides the nec­es­sary rub­ber-stamp.

How­ev­er in the mean­time it is believed that all the work cur­rent­ly being done in Glen­gad doesn’t have the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion. Shell have now installed about 5 large port-cab­ins which include office and cafe­te­ria facil­i­ties on the Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) only about 300m away from where the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp stood, until they were removed less than a year ago.

After about an hour stand­off, the gar­daí led by Super­in­ten­dent John Gilli­gan arrived at the scene, park­ing all their squads, jeeps and pad­dy wag­ons inside on the Shell com­pound on the SAC. After speak­ing with Shell per­son­nel, Supt Gilli­gan approached the group and was told about the con­cerns over the per­mis­sions for the work. Supt Gilli­gan was told that mem­bers of the assem­bled pro­tes­tors had met with Conor Ó Raghal­laigh, Direc­tor of the Nation­al Parks & Wildlife Ser­vice (NPWS) on the pre­vi­ous day and that it had been agreed that the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion were to be sought from the Dept of Ener­gy, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nat­ur­al Resources and the Dept of Agri­cul­tu­ture & Fish­eries. How­ev­er, the Depart­ments hadn’t replied to any of the queries sent so far, and so it was request­ed by the pro­tes­tors that the work be halt­ed until the sit­u­a­tion was clar­i­fied. After again speak­ing with Shell per­son­nel, Supt. Gilli­gan said that Shell were will­ing to stop for 2 hours so queries could be made into the per­mis­sions grant­ed, how­ev­er he was told that it was believed that this would not be long enough. Supt. Gilli­gan was also remind­ed how last Octo­ber he had attempt­ed to push through drilling work in the area for Shell that was chal­lenged by locals and which was sub­se­quent­ly found to be ille­gal. Supt. Gilli­gan then once more spoke with Shell per­son­nel inside the com­pound and after warn­ing all the peo­ple assem­bled, peo­ple began to be arrest­ed.

I would like to say that I have been try­ing to estab­lish the legal­i­ty of these works for almost 2 weeks now, and have sent off count­less emails and made a lot of phone calls and am still no clear­er than when I began (and many oth­er peo­ple have hit blank walls too). I have been deal­ing pri­mar­i­ly with NPWS which is the sec­tion of the Dept of Envi­ron­ment whose duty it is to over­see work on SACs and oth­er sen­si­tive areas. I was first of all told on the phone that the work was under the Fore­shore Licence and I would receive a detailed email which would clar­i­fy my con­cerns. How­ev­er no clar­i­fi­ca­tion has been forth­com­ing and now NPWS have decid­ed to wash they hand of it and have start­ed refer­ring any queries to the oth­er 2 depart­ments involved. The whole episode once again shows way that this project has been split up from start to fin­ish and how no per­son or depart­ment will take any respon­si­bil­i­ty once ques­tioned.

It should be not­ed that NPWS in their report seek­ing the removal of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, stat­ed that site where the camp was would take “10 to 15 years for the site to ful­ly recov­er” and rec­om­mend­ed that the camp be removed and “the habi­tats allowed to recov­er nat­u­ral­ly”. Now NPWS turn a blind eye when a whole com­pound (which is prob­a­bly ille­gal) has been set up.

One of the most infu­ri­at­ing sights of the day was the 2 NPWS rangers who hung out with the Shell paid ornithol­o­gist on the beach for the day watch­ing over the sand mar­tin colony while only 10 metres away a dig­ger had begun destroy­ing the cliff-face. Luck­i­ly how­ev­er the peo­ple of the local­i­ty have long giv­en up hope that any of these author­i­ties will pro­tect either them or their envi­ron­ment and took action.

If you wish to join the fight and vis­it the area, there is space to stay in the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty House ( http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com).

The fight will go on regard­less but any help is invalu­able.
http://www.shelltosea.com

Traps & Enclosures Sabotaged — Ilkley Moor Shoot

Grouse Lib­er­a­tion Front Com­mu­nique:

“Up in the White Crag plan­ta­tion off Ilk­ley moor. A large grouse pen was iden­ti­fied and trashed, the water pipes and dis­trib­u­tors were left split and smashed. The wire fenc­ing from the entire enclo­sure was brought down. The elec­tric fenc­ing was cut and the sys­tem destroyed. Two set fen traps were dis­cov­ered and placed per­ma­nent­ly out of com­mis­sion.

Grouse Lib­er­a­tion Front Com­mu­nique:

“Up in the White Crag plan­ta­tion off Ilk­ley moor. A large grouse pen was iden­ti­fied and trashed, the water pipes and dis­trib­u­tors were left split and smashed. The wire fenc­ing from the entire enclo­sure was brought down. The elec­tric fenc­ing was cut and the sys­tem destroyed. Two set fen traps were dis­cov­ered and placed per­ma­nent­ly out of com­mis­sion.

Two small­er pens were found near­by and the net­ting roof and wire sur­rounds were left in tat­ters. Feed­ers in the area were also tam­pered with.

Grouse Lib­er­a­tion Front”

Report­ed by Bite Back Mag­a­zine

Relat­ed news:

ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT TARGET ILKLEY MOOR SHOOT (5TH JULY)
Ilk­ley Moor Grouse Shoot — Update & Action Alert
Eng­lish Nature — Back­ing Blood­sports
Stop Grouse Shoot­ing on Ilk­ley Moor
West York­shire Hunt Sabs Launched | Link

—-

“Up around High Moor, Ilk­ley, activists locat­ed two small grouse pens which were put out of use. The con­tents of the pens were destroyed. A fen trap was found near­by and also destroyed. Along the moor a line of stone grouse butts were top­pled, and wood­en butts smashed. Into the High Moor wood­land, and a large pheas­ant pen was found, the walls were brought down and two traps tam­pered with, water pipes were cut and oth­er items left bro­ken. Feed­ers were also attend­ed to.

This action is ded­i­cat­ed to the Aus­tri­an pris­on­ers.

Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front”

Anony­mous report from Bite Back Mag­a­zine

Saving Iceland Blockades Century Aluminum Smelter and Elkem Steel Factory

Sav­ing Ice­land, July 21st 2008
Press Release

Century blockade 1Sav­ing Ice­land, July 21st 2008
Press Release
GRUNDARTANGI – Today 20 activists from Sav­ing Ice­land block­ad­ed the sin­gle sup­ply road to Cen­tu­ry Aluminum’s smelter on Hvalfjor­dur and Elkem – Ice­landic Alloys steel fac­to­ry. They have chained them­selves to each oth­er using arm tubes to form a human block­ade as well as using tri­pod for the first time in Ice­landic his­to­ry.

The action went on for three hours and nobody was arrest­ed. “We protest the envi­ron­men­tal and human health haz­ards Century’s baux­ite min­ing and refin­ing activ­i­ties in Jamaica, their plans for a new smelter and refin­ery in West Con­go. Both Century’s and Elkem’s expan­sion plans will also mean destruc­tion of unique geot­her­mal areas in Ice­land and pro­duce large amounts of green­house gas emis­sions,” says Miri­am Rose of Sav­ing Ice­land (1).

Cen­tu­ry in West-Con­go: open­cast baux­ite min­ing
In 2007 Cen­tu­ry Alu­minum Com­pa­ny signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing (MOU) with the Repub­lic of the Con­go (ROC) for the exclu­sive right to devel­op an alu­mini­um smelter, alu­mi­na refin­ery and a baux­ite mine (2). It spec­i­fies a min­i­mum com­mit­ment of 500 megawatts of gas-gen­er­at­ed elec­tri­cal ener­gy. Cen­tu­ry is sur­vey­ing where to mine the baux­ite and will start build­ing the smelter as soon as pos­si­ble (3).

“We believe that the Repub­lic of the Con­go has all of the ingre­di­ents nec­es­sary to sus­tain a prof­itable alu­minum indus­try,” said Cen­tu­ry CEO Logan W. Kruger (2).
“Kruger is right,” says Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son of Sav­ing Ice­land. “Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al rat­ed the ROC as one of the most cor­rupt regimes in the world. Exact­ly the kind of regimes alu­mini­um cor­po­ra­tions like to deal with…” (4)

“It’s very unlike­ly the poor will have any ben­e­fit from this devel­op­ment but they will pay the price of the envi­ron­men­tal impact. Oil rev­enue in the coun­try has nev­er reached them, why would it be dif­fer­ent for baux­ite?” Úlfhildar­son con­tin­ues.
“Con­sid­er­ing the baux­ite reserves in West Con­go, it is clear that Cen­tu­ry is plan­ning large scale open cast min­ing there, in the same way oth­er cor­po­ra­tions are attempt­ing in Oris­sa and what has also hap­pened in Jamaica, Guyana and Guinea,” says Indi­an alu­mini­um expert and author Samaren­dra Das who will be talk­ing on this top­ic at Reyk­javik Acad­e­mia on Wednes­day (see note a.).

“All over the world, where baux­ite is mined the envi­ron­ment is being destroyed and people’s liveli­hoods and health tak­en away from them. Peo­ple in Ice­land need to know where the baux­ite that is refined and then smelt­ed into alu­mini­um comes from,” says Das.
Cen­tu­ry in Jamaica: envi­ron­men­tal and health haz­ards
Cen­tu­ry-owned St Ann Baux­ite, it’s pre­de­ces­sor Kaiser as well as the ALCOA, RioT­in­to-Alcan and Rusal (which owns 1/3 of Cen­tu­ry), are also active in Jamaica, have been held respon­si­ble for rain­for­est being destroyed and tox­ic pol­lu­tion of drink­ing water (5,6,7). Cen­tu­ry want to open up a sec­ond mine and refin­ery in a joint ven­ture with Chi­nese Min­metals. That com­pa­ny is asso­ci­at­ed with prison labour fac­to­ries and gross human rights abus­es in Chi­na and else­where (see note b.).

Elkem – Ice­landic Alloys: pol­lu­tion acci­dents every week
Elkem — Ice­landic Alloys wants to expand its facil­i­ty at Grun­dar­tan­gi on Hvalfjor­dur for pro­duc­ing fer­rosil­i­con for the steel indus­try. It is already one of Iceland’s largest con­trib­u­tors to green­house gas­es and oth­er pol­lu­tants; expan­sion of the smelter would lead to a sig­nif­i­cant increase in Iceland’s car­bon emis­sions (1).
In July 2007 it was report­ed (8) that Elkem ‘acci­den­tal­ly’ released a huge cloud of pol­lu­tion from their plant. Appar­ent­ly the acci­dent was due to human error. Thor­dur Mag­nus­son, an Elkem spokesman, then said that this human error “recurs sev­er­al times a week.” Sig­ur­b­jorn Hjal­ta­son, chair­man of Kjosarhrep­pur parish, said that Elkem usu­al­ly pro­duced the emis­sions at night through­out the year.

About Sav­ing Ice­land
Last Fri­day, Sav­ing Ice­land stopped work at the con­struc­tion site of Cen­tu­ry Aluminum’s planned new smelter in Hel­gu­vík. This is part of their fourth sum­mer of direct action against heavy indus­try in Ice­land. In July 2007 activists also block­ad­ed the smelter and steel fac­to­ry.
Sav­ing Ice­land was start­ed by Ice­landic envi­ron­men­tal­ists ask­ing for help to protest the Ice­landic wilder­ness, the largest remain­ing in Europe, from heavy indus­try. As well as Cen­tu­ry, oth­er alu­mini­um cor­po­ra­tions ALCOA and Rio Tin­to-Alcan want to con­struct new smelters. This would require exploita­tion of all the geot­her­mal areas in the coun­try, as well as damming all major glacial rivers (see note c.).

This year, the fourth action camp to pro­tect Ice­landic nature has been set up near the Hell­ishei­di geot­her­mal plant east of Reyk­javik, which is cur­rent­ly being expand­ed to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty for Cen­tu­ry Alu­minum.

More infor­ma­tion
http://www.savingiceland.org

with a movie of the action
saving­ice­land at riseup.net

Notes

A.) On Wednes­day July 23, 19.30 h. Sav­ing Ice­land and Future­land will hold a con­fer­ence with the Indi­an writer, sci­en­tist and alu­mini­um expert Samaren­dra Das and ‘Dream­land’ author Andri Snær Mag­nus­son, on the influ­ence of the alu­mini­um indus­try in the third world. Also, the con­cept of alu­mini­um as a ‘green’ prod­uct will be exam­ined. It will take place at Reyk­javik Acad­e­mia, Hring­braut 121. Mr Das is avail­able for inter­views; please con­tact one of the Sav­ing Ice­land con­tacts above.

B.) In 2004 Min­metals attempt­ed a takeover of Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny Noran­da but were declined in 2005 due to seri­ous con­cerns over human rights abus­es by the Chi­nese com­pa­ny. This report details Minmetal’s asso­ci­a­tion to forced labour:
Dhir, Aaron A. (2006). ’Of Takeovers, For­eign Invest­ment and Human Rights: Unpack­ing the Noran­da-Min­metals Conun­drum’, Bank­ing and Finance Law Review, 22, 77–104.
C.) For more details and an overview of projects in Ice­land, see: http://www.savingiceland.org/sos
Ref­er­ences
(1) Ice­landic Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment (2006). Iceland’s fourth nation­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion on cli­mate change, report to the UNFCCC. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/isl… [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(2) AZ Mate­ri­als News (2007). Cen­tu­ry Alu­mini­um to Build Alu­mini­um Smelter in Repub­lic of Con­go. http://www.azom.com/News.asp?NewsID=7734 [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(3) Afrique en Ligne (2008). Con­go to build alu­mini­um smelter in Pointe-Noire. http://www.afriquenligne.fr/news/africa-… [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(4) Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al (2006). Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tions Index 2006. Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al, Berlin.
(5) Zadie Neufville, April 6, 2001, ’Baux­ite Min­ing Blamed for Defor­esta­tion’. See http://forests.org/archive/samerica/baux…. [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(6) Mines and Com­mu­ni­ties report,’Bauxite Mine Fight Looms in Jamaica’s Cock­pit Coun­try’, 24th Octo­ber 2006. http://www.minesandcommunities.org/artic…. [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(7) Al Jazeera (2008). Envi­ron­men­tal dam­age from min­ing in Jamaica, June 11, 2008 News. Avail­able through http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJa2ftQwf…. [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(8) MBL.is (2007). Reykur frá járn­blendi­verksmiðjun­ni Grun­dar­tan­ga. http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2007/07… [Accessed 20–6‑08]

Shell to Sea Update

Dear Friends,
Hope this email finds ye well. Here is a brief update on the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion:

Dear Friends,
Hope this email finds ye well. Here is a brief update on the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion:

1. Shell activ­i­ty in the area is ramp­ing up late­ly and if you are think­ing of vis­it­ing the area we would call on you to do it over the next few weeks as help in resist­ing the work that is list­ed below is need­ed. You are always more than wel­come to stay at the new camp house; email us (rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com) or phone 0851141170 to say when you can come. Check out our new web­site too: www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com

2. Shell plan to start off­shore pipeline lay­ing short­ly as the Soltaire (pipe lay­ing ship) is cur­rent­ly off the coast of Done­gal. Shell have also been vis­it­ing hous­es late­ly around Glen­gad where the pipeline is due to come ashore say­ing that there would be some dig­ging and noise dis­tur­bance in the area short­ly. How­ev­er they have hit a hitch with the Erris Fish­er­men as this week they had a protest to object to where Shell are plac­ing their waste out­flow pipe. Pat O Don­nell said “We’ve been fish­ing these waters for gen­er­a­tions and we all have licences to fish them. So let the Min­is­ter for Jus­tice and the Gov­ern­ment pro­tect our rights now the way they brought in the Gar­daí to pro­tect the work­ers on the gas refin­ery,”
He added that if Shell want­ed to remove his crab pots from the route of the pipeline, they would have to get a court order. “And I won’t heed the court order so they’ll have to send me and oth­er fish­er­men to jail”. Read a report of it here http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88366

2. Shell have begun work­ing on their com­pound in Glen­gad by start­ing to put in secu­ri­ty fences which are in order that work will be able to begin on some of the off­shore work. (See pic­tures here http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1815). Most of this work occurs on a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion with some of the fenc­ing only about 200m from where the camp was. This work is almost cer­tain­ly ille­gal as plan­ning per­mis­sion has still not been grant­ed for any of the onshore pipeline. But the pow­ers that be are ignor­ing all attempts to high­light the sit­u­a­tion and let­ting Shell oper­ate as they wish. Two peo­ple were arrest­ed in the last week on the site but were released with­out charge.

3. Shell secu­ri­ty: There is now a new secu­ri­ty firm oper­at­ing in the area on behalf of Shell. Over the last week Shell have got some seri­ous­ly bad press over the sur­veil­lance and inti­ma­tion of local res­i­dents which includ­ed the film­ing of fam­i­lies and chil­dren on glen­gad beach (see: http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1820). Now any­one who vis­its the area and goes for a swim in the sea just beside where the camp used to be, the chances are you will be filmed. Today Shell were put under pres­sure on nation­al radio to iden­ti­fy the secu­ri­ty firm but refused to do so, mak­ing it obvi­ous that Shell have some­thing to hide as to who the firm is (it is rumoured local­ly that it is the Golan group). How­ev­er even these heav­ies need pro­tect­ing as evi­denced by how the gar­daí escort­ed them off when the full secu­ri­ty bus was stopped by locals for fail­ing to dis­play any tax or insur­ance but this infringe­ment was as usu­al ignored by the gar­daí.

4. Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil build­ing a road for Shell. The local author­i­ty is build­ing a road through the area specif­i­cal­ly for Shell against the wish­es of the local peo­ple. It shows how invid­i­ous the Shell men­tal­i­ty is, as now you have coun­cil employ­ees going around brib­ing and threat­en­ing local res­i­dents to give per­mis­sion for the coun­cil to widen the road. So far these bribes and threats have only swayed one or 2 of the landown­ers and the local res­i­dent are fight­ing the road upgrade through legal chan­nels. (See http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88317).

There is also alot of oth­er stuff going on, such as Shell being stopped from access­ing Ross­port com­mon­age late­ly, loads of sub­mis­sions gone into the plan­ning appli­ca­tions and a Euro­pean Peti­tions Chal­lenge. As always we need help with every­thing from direct actions, to ban­ner mak­ing, to help­ing out on the camp gar­den so please vis­it if you have time to spare. Also big thanks to the peo­ple in Leeds for the recent camp fundrais­er.

Any­way see all the lat­est cam­paign news on http://www.shelltosea.com

Hope to see some of ye soon.

Best wish­es from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers x

www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com

Saving Iceland Camp 2008 has Begun and First Action

The 4th Sav­ing Ice­land action camp has now begun in a beau­ti­ful threat­ened geot­her­mal val­ley beside Hell­isheiðisvirkjun in the Hengill area, where it will tar­get the expan­sion of the geot­her­mal pow­er sta­tion for the Grun­dar­tan­gi plant and oth­er South­west­ern heavy indus­try projects.

The 4th Sav­ing Ice­land action camp has now begun in a beau­ti­ful threat­ened geot­her­mal val­ley beside Hell­isheiðisvirkjun in the Hengill area, where it will tar­get the expan­sion of the geot­her­mal pow­er sta­tion for the Grun­dar­tan­gi plant and oth­er South­west­ern heavy indus­try projects.

This year activists from Ice­land, Aus­tralia, Amer­i­ca, Den­mark, Ger­many, Britain, Hol­land, France, Bel­gium and Italy amongst oth­ers have joined the cam­paign as infor­ma­tion about the destruc­tion of Iceland’s wilder­ness has spread. This year the cam­paign will focus specif­i­cal­ly on the human­i­tar­i­an effects of alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion, from the geno­cides asso­ci­at­ed with min­ing in India, South Amer­i­ca, Jamaica and more, to the use of alu­mini­um for arms man­u­fac­ture and the defence indus­try.

A week of inter­na­tion­al Sav­ing Ice­land sol­i­dar­i­ty actions will take place from July 21st to 27th in dif­fer­ent Euro­pean coun­tries. A spe­cialised con­fer­ence with respect­ed Indi­an writer and alu­mini­um expert Samaren­dra Das and Andri Snær will exam­ine the idea of “green alu­mini­um” and the effects of the Alu­mini­um indus­try in the Third World, (July 23 at Reyk­javikur Akademia).
On Sun­day the 20th July Sav­ing Ice­land and mem­bers of Sól á Suður­lan­di and the Ice­landic Moun­tain Guides will team up to lead a pub­lic tour around areas of Þjórsá threat­ened by three planned dam projects. A coach will leave Reyk­javík at 12:00 noon and return by 18:00, cost­ing 500 kr for the whole tour. Of course, direct action can as well soon be expect­ed.

savingiceland@riseup.net
http://www.savingiceland.org

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Sav­ing Ice­land Stops Work at Cen­tu­ry Alu­mini­um Con­struc­tion Site

19.07.2008
HELGUVIK (ICELAND) – Ear­ly this morn­ing 40 activists from over 10 coun­tries occu­pied the con­struc­tion site where Cen­tu­ry Alu­minum are prepar­ing to build their Hel­gu­vík alu­mini­um smelter, and chained them­selves to machin­ery and cranes. The protest is aimed at dam­age to geot­her­mal areas in south­west Ice­land and Century’s envi­ron­men­tal and human rights abus­es in Jamaica and Africa.

The con­struc­tion of the Cen­tu­ry Hel­gu­vík plant depends on the expan­sion of geot­her­mal ener­gy in Hell­isheiði and Reyk­janes (1). Con­struc­tion began in June, with­out a valid Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment, or a guar­an­tee of suf­fi­cient ener­gy (435 MW) for the smelter. (2)

’Just as with Alcoa Fjar­daal, the gov­ern­ment shows no inter­est in fol­low­ing the the legal process for these huge projects. Instead they act as if the smelter and pow­er projects are inevitable, cre­at­ing mass apa­thy. At the same time, Century’s human rights abuse record has large­ly gone unno­ticed.’, says Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Ulfhildur­son from Sav­ing Ice­land.

Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tion Cen­tu­ry Alu­minum is involved in a num­ber of projects in Africa and the Caribbean which are con­tend­ed by envi­ron­men­tal and human rights cam­paign­ers.

In Jamaica, Cen­tu­ry joint­ly owns a 4.8 mil­lion tonne baux­ite mine which is caus­ing large-scale defor­esta­tion of rain­for­est. (3,4,5) Cen­tu­ry are also involved in a joint ven­ture to open up a sec­ond mine and alu­mi­na refin­ery with Chi­nese com­pa­ny Min­metals, who are asso­ci­at­ed with prison labour fac­to­ries and gross human rights abus­es in Chi­na and else­where (6,7).

In Feb­ru­ary 2007 Cen­tu­ry Alu­mini­um signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing with the Repub­lic of Con­go for the exclu­sive right to devel­op a smelter, an alu­mi­na refin­ery and a baux­ite mine with a min­i­mum com­mit­ment of 500 megawatts of gas-gen­er­at­ed elec­tri­cal ener­gy in Pointe Noire.(8)

’Con­go is renowned for its hor­ren­dous human rights con­di­tions includ­ing ter­ri­ble mass rapes, unlaw­ful killings, tor­ture and cor­rup­tion. Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al has also rat­ed it one of the most cor­rupt regimes in the world. That’s usu­al­ly exact­ly the kind of regimes cor­po­ra­tions like Cen­tu­ry pre­fer to deal with…’, says Sav­ing Iceland’s Snor­ri. (9,10)

’The finan­cial scams orches­trat­ed by alu­mini­um com­pa­nies have cre­at­ed eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal ruin in many coun­tries, dra­mat­i­cal­ly affect­ing the lives of thou­sands of their cit­i­zens. In each case, a sus­tained and cost­ly PR cam­paign promis­ing a new age of pros­per­i­ty pre­ced­ed this con­struc­tion.’ Indi­an sci­en­tist, Alu­mini­um expert and writer Samaren­dra Dasexplains.(11) Das will be giv­ing a num­ber of talks in Ice­land in July, includ­ing a con­fer­ence with Andi Snær Mag­nus­son on the 23rd in Reyk­javikur Akademian.(12)

(1) Land­vernd report, Nóvem­ber 2007, ’Athugasemdir veg­na umhver­fisáhri­fa orkuöflu­nar fyrir álver í Hel­gu­vík, sbr. frum­matsskýrslur Orku­veitu Reyk­javíkur fyrir Bitru­virkjun og virkjun við Hver­ahlíð.’

(2) In the table below, the plan­ning agency details that the 435 MW required for the smelter will come from a num­ber of geot­her­mal sites in Reyk­janes and Hell­isheiði. With Bitravirkjun on hold and Reyk­janes not yet guar­an­teed, the ener­gy require­ments are far from filled. Land­vernd states that only 60% of required ener­gy had been found in 2007, before Bitravirkjun was sus­pend­ed. (see ref­er­ence 1)
For more infor­ma­tion on the lack of prop­er Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment see The Ecol­o­gist, Octo­ber 2007,’ Alu­mini­um Tyrants’. Jaap Krater, Miri­am Rose and Mark Anslow.

(3) Cen­tu­ry Alu­mini­um web­site. http://www.centuryca.com/st_ann.html

(4) Zadie Neufville, April 6, 2001, ’Baux­ite Min­ing Blamed for Defor­esta­tion’. See http://forests.org/archive/samerica/baux….

(5) Mines and Com­mu­ni­ties report,’Bauxite Mine Fight Looms in Jamaica’s Cock­pit Coun­try’, 24th Octo­ber 2006 at http://www.minesandcommunities.org/artic….

(6) ’Cen­tu­ry Alu­minum in Jamaica min­ing deal’, Mon­day, May 15, 2006, Sil­i­con Val­ley / San Jose Busi­ness Jour­nal.

(7) In 2004 Min­metals attempt­ed a takeover of Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny Noran­da but were declined in 2005 due to seri­ous con­cerns over human rights abus­es by the Chi­nese com­pa­ny. This report details Minmetal’s asso­ci­a­tion to forced labour.

Aaron A. Dhir, ’Of Takeovers, For­eign Invest­ment and Human Rights: Unpack­ing the Noran­da-Min­metals Conun­drum’, Bank­ing & Finance Law Review, Vol. 22, pp. 77–104, 2006.

(8) http://sec.edgar-online.com/2007/03/01/ … tion11.asp
and http://www.afriquenligne.fr/news/africa … 83302.html

(9) Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al Report 2007, http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/africa/….

(10) Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al (2006). Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tions Index 2006. Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al, Berlin.

(11) Samaren­dra Das, ’Min­ing sacred moun­tains to fuel the war on ter­ror’. June 2008. See https://savingiceland.puscii.nl/wordpres…

(12) On Wednes­day July 23, 19.30 h. Sav­ing Ice­land will hold a con­fer­ence with the Indi­an writer, sci­en­tist and alu­mini­um expert Samaren­dra Das and ‘Dream­land’ author Andri Snær Mag­nus­son, on the influ­ence of the alu­mini­um indus­try in the third world. Also, the con­cept of alu­mini­um as a ‘green’ prod­uct will be exam­ined. The evening is organ­ised joint­ly with Future­land. It will take place at the Reyk­javiku­rakademi­an house on Hring­braut 121.

More infor­ma­tion and back­ground: www.savingiceland.org

Eviction gets go ahead — Bodge House

19th July 2008
Activists for­ti­fy Bodge House against UK Coal open cast mine and the evic­tion squad

The group of direct activists occu­py­ing Lodge House open­cast site since 18th June have declared that they are ready to resist evic­tion.

19th July 2008
Activists for­ti­fy Bodge House against UK Coal open cast mine and the evic­tion squad

The group of direct activists occu­py­ing Lodge House open­cast site since 18th June have declared that they are ready to resist evic­tion.

UK Coal plans to mine 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal over 5 years from the site near Smal­l­ey, der­byshire.

The com­pa­ny failed in its first attempt to evict the activists but suc­ceed­ed in obtain­ing an pos­ses­sion order at the crown court in Der­by today.

The activists are for­ti­fy­ing Prospect Farm and have built a num­ber of tree­hous­es and an under­ground tun­nel sys­tem.

Sophie from Not­ting­ham said ’ The deci­sion to mine this site was tak­en by cen­tral gov­ern­ment against the wish­es and best inter­ests of local peo­ple and in spite of the coun­cil refus­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion. Occu­py­ing the land is our last defence now that democ­ra­cy has failed. We are call­ing for peo­ple to join us in oppos­ing UK Coal’s greed and con­tempt for local opin­ion.’

‘Open­cast min­ing is par­tic­u­lar­ly pol­lut­ing and dev­as­tates large areas of coun­try­side. Min­ing more coal is not a solu­tion to our ener­gy prob­lems as it is a major cause of cli­mate change. We need to reduce ener­gy use and adapt to more sus­tain­able ways of liv­ing.

We need help in mak­ing finale prepa­ra­tions so get your ass­es here for the fun…

for more infor­ma­tion con­tact 07503 335870

or go to www.leaveitintheground.wordpress.com
http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

I‑69 Protesters Shut Down Asphalt Yard Again, Arrestees Face Severe Repression

Fif­teen I‑69 oppo­nents were arrest­ed Mon­day morn­ing (15/7/2008) block­ing the entrance to Gohmann Asphalt, and need your sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty. Many of them are being held on trumped up felony charges, and some of the female-bod­ied arrestees have been put in exceed­ing­ly unsafe sit­u­a­tions.

Fif­teen I‑69 oppo­nents were arrest­ed Mon­day morn­ing (15/7/2008) block­ing the entrance to Gohmann Asphalt, and need your sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty. Many of them are being held on trumped up felony charges, and some of the female-bod­ied arrestees have been put in exceed­ing­ly unsafe sit­u­a­tions. As of this time they are still chang­ing the charges on the fly, and we have been unable to bail out peo­ple with seri­ous med­ical con­di­tions. We are doing our best to make sure every­one is safe and get every­one out, but we need mon­ey. Any lit­tle bit helps! Dona­tions can be made through our Pay­pal account on stopi69.wordpress.com

or to the I69 Legal Office, 323 S Wal­nut, Bloom­ing­ton, Indi­ana, 47401

Peo­ple who have been call­ing the jail con­stant­ly and demand­ing humane treat­ment of the arrestees have done a great ser­vice, but at this point stop­ping those calls would make the job of the legal sup­port team sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­i­er as we try to keep lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open between us, the arrestees, and the jail/D.A.’s office. THANKS!

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This morn­ing, over 20 cit­i­zens opposed to the con­struc­tion of Inter­state 69 shut down work at the Haub­stadt Asphalt Yard belong­ing to Gohmann Asphalt & Con­struc­tion, Inc. Five of the oppo­nents locked them­selves togeth­er in a cir­cle at the yard’s gate, accom­pa­nied by five oth­ers ded­i­cat­ed to keep­ing them as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble in the face of sum­mer heat and the threat of police vio­lence. With con­struc­tion slat­ed to begin this week, oppo­nents are demand­ing that Gohmann imme­di­ate­ly drop their con­tract for work on I‑69. Addi­tion­al­ly they demand that Gohmann and their accom­plices, River­ton Truck­ing, Inc., drop a spu­ri­ous civ­il suit brought against the only I‑69 oppo­nent arrest­ed at a pre­vi­ous lock-down at Gohmann Asphalt’s Haub­stadt facil­i­ty.

Gohmann A&C is the pri­ma­ry con­trac­tor with the Indi­ana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion for the con­struc­tion of the first 1.77 miles of Sec­tion 1 of the pro­posed high­way from Evans­ville to Indi­anapo­lis. Sev­er­al weeks pri­or, five oppo­nents chained them­selves to a truck leav­ing Haub­stadt Asphalt Yard belong­ing to Gohmann Asphalt & Con­struc­tion, Inc.. The five—accompanied by twen­ty-five supporters—demanded that Gohmann drop their con­tract with INDOT or face con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion and work stop­pages. Until Gohmann drops its con­tract, oppo­nents will con­tin­ue to hold them account­able for the evic­tions of farm­ers, the dis­rup­tion of com­mu­ni­ties, and the dev­as­ta­tion of the envi­ron­ment caused by I‑69.

I‑69 has been hot­ly con­test­ed for almost two decades, with voic­es raised against its part in the destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment, the eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty of South­ern Indi­ana com­mu­ni­ties, and the vio­la­tion of Hoosiers’ prop­er­ty rights. Although over 70% of Indi­ana res­i­dents are opposed to the road, the gov­er­nor and cor­po­rate inter­ests are ram­ming I‑69 down the throats of South­ern Indi­ana res­i­dents in a com­plete sub­ver­sion of the demo­c­ra­t­ic process.

Over 400 fam­i­lies will be dis­placed in South­ern Indi­ana; thou­sands of acres of farm­land, wet­lands, and wildlife refuge will be paved over; and the already-pol­lut­ed tri-state area will face thou­sands of pounds of increased dai­ly emis­sions from the increased truck traf­fic through the region. The inter­state is ulti­mate­ly intend­ed to stretch from Cana­da to Mex­i­co, link­ing up with an exten­sive net­work of roads being con­struct­ed there. The high­way is a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of NAFTA and oth­er free trade agree­ments through­out the Americas—the same free trade agree­ments that have cost 31,000 jobs in Indi­ana alone since their begin­nings in 1994.

“This road is being billed as an eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus for South­ern Indi­ana, but in fact it will only bring min­i­mum wage jobs at truck stops and fast food joints. Mean­while, all the oth­er jobs are shipped to sweat­shops fur­ther and fur­ther south of the bor­der. The peo­ple of Indi­ana deserve bet­ter,” said Judith May­land, a pro­tes­tor at the site.

Var­i­ous cit­i­zens’ groups have opposed I‑69 for two decades, but with con­struc­tion start­ing this week, oppo­nents are step­ping up the resis­tance in order to ensure that the will of the peo­ple is enact­ed.

“We’ve writ­ten let­ters, attend­ed pub­lic meet­ings, and vot­ed, and despite mas­sive oppo­si­tion they’re still try­ing to build this road,” one of the locked-down oppo­nents said. “They haven’t lis­tened and they haven’t lis­tened. Now it’s time to lay our bod­ies on the line so that they final­ly get it that when we say ‘No road!’ we mean ‘No f***king road!’”

for more info vis­it stopi69.wordpress.com

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Legal Update on Gohmann Actions and Ensu­ing Repres­sion

Southern Tasmania update

South­ern Tas­ma­nia Spring D.A. Update

Lit­tle Deni­son — April
Over 80 peo­ple attend­ed com­mu­ni­ty protests over three days (April 27th-29th) in one of the last patch­es of high-den­si­ty old growth for­est in the Lit­tle Deni­son Val­ley, South­ern Tas­ma­nia.

Tassie lock-on
South­ern Tas­ma­nia Spring D.A. Update

Lit­tle Deni­son — April
Over 80 peo­ple attend­ed com­mu­ni­ty protests over three days (April 27th-29th) in one of the last patch­es of high-den­si­ty old growth for­est in the Lit­tle Deni­son Val­ley, South­ern Tas­ma­nia.

The 1000 hectare area, which will be par­tial­ly cable-logged, is a nest­ing site for the crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered Tas­man­ian Wedge-Tailed Eagle and the endem­ic Deni­son Bur­row­ing Cray­fish.

Sun­day 27th, saw 60 com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers attend an Open Day facil­i­tat­ed by the Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre (HVEC), where peo­ple wit­nessed the bleak expanse where 300 year old trees are being dyna­mit­ed and cut down for the world’s largest hard­wood wood­chip­per, Gunns Lim­it­ed. That night, 20 activists remained in the for­est.

The first morn­ing rays shone upon an occu­pied plat­form, sus­pend­ed 60 metres up a Euca­lyp­tus, and the glint of a lock-on and log­ging machine con­triv­ing a scheme of stag­na­tion. Four for­est activists were arrest­ed; threats of phys­i­cal vio­lence and pep­per spray were made by the Police — a wor­ry­ing esca­la­tion in a recent trend. Blockad­ing con­tin­ued into the third day, even­tu­al­ly result­ing in the tree-sitter’s arrest.

Weld Val­ley — June
In 2006 Forestry Tas­ma­nia (FT) claimed that they were “devel­op­ing a tour­ing route that will make the Weld Val­ley acces­si­ble to all vis­i­tors”. Two years on and the road to the Weld is still closed to all traf­fic but log trucks, and FT’s adver­tised bus tours still haven’t start­ed.

In fact, their actions are in total oppo­si­tion to their stat­ed tourist inten­tions.

In ear­ly June, road­ing began into pris­tine native for­est, with full scale log­ging oper­a­tions to fol­low. This tract of for­est is direct­ly adja­cent to the wild and well-loved Weld Riv­er & Fletcher’s Eddy.

In imme­di­ate response 25 peo­ple con­duct­ed a walk-in along the new road, the first for­est protest under the reign of the new Pre­mier, David Bartlett. While an activist locked-on to a grav­el truck, Pre­mier Bartlett declared his con­tin­ued sup­port for native for­est destruc­tion.

Giant Gar­rett – Nation­al — June 5th
A Nation­al Day of Action high­light­ing the Aus­tralian Labor Party’s (ALP) fail­ure to pro­tect Tasmania’s ancient forests. Hobart, Mel­bourne, Can­ber­ra, New­cas­tle, Bris­bane and Dar­win all tar­get­ed Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Peter Garrett’s sup­port for the Tas­man­ian Region­al For­est Agree­ment (TRFA) and Gunns Ltd.’s pro­posed pulp mill, with giant effi­gies of Gar­rett as a ‘cli­mate crim­i­nal’.

ALP Envi­ron­ment Offices – Syd­ney — July 4th
Activists scaled the exte­ri­or of Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, Peter Gar­ret­t’s 6 storey office build­ing to hang a ban­ner read­ing ‘The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment is Destroy­ing Tas­ma­ni­a’s Old Growth Forests’ and a 5 metre high ‘Giant Gar­rett’ pup­pet.
“Peter Gar­rett and the ALP pay lip ser­vice to cli­mate change and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion while active­ly sanc­tion­ing the destruc­tion of ancient, car­bon dense forests. As we speak, the World Her­itage Com­mit­tee meet­ing in Cana­da is con­sid­er­ing the
impacts of log­ging on wilder­ness forests in South­ern Tas­ma­nia, with Min­is­ter Gar­ret­t’s office active­ly sid­ing with the forestry indus­try in this mat­ter,” a SWST spokesper­son said.

5 Tas­man­ian for­est activists were arrest­ed, after a heavy hand­ed police response to the peace­ful occu­pa­tion.

For fur­ther info & updates vis­it
www.huon.org
www.myspace.com/stillwildstillthreatened
www.huon.org/swstautumn.pdf
www.coolforests.org

Slaughterhouse burned to the ground, Sweden

The Swedish ALF, Djurens Befrielse­front, has claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for a fire at a slaugh­ter­house in Lövud­den on Fri­day night, July 4th. By the time the fire brigade arrived on the scene, noth­ing could be sal­vaged.

Slaughterhouse burned to the groundThe Swedish ALF, Djurens Befrielse­front, has claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for a fire at a slaugh­ter­house in Lövud­den on Fri­day night, July 4th. By the time the fire brigade arrived on the scene, noth­ing could be sal­vaged. The slaugh­ter­house was due to open on Sep­tem­ber 1 and slaugh­ter moose, elk and oth­er wildlife. The own­er report­ed that insur­ance will not cov­er the entire loss and rebuild­ing may not be pos­si­ble.

Southeast Climate Convergence march visits Richmond climate criminals. Two lockdown at Bank of America

August 11th, 2008

No nukes no coal bannerAugust 11th, 2008

Despite a mas­sive police pres­ence through­out the city and our major action plan derailed by law enforce­ment harass­ment, 50 activists snaked their way through Rich­mond today in an un-per­mit­ted march, pay­ing vis­its to sev­er­al cli­mate crim­i­nals. Car­ry­ing ban­ners read­ing, “No Nukes, No Coal, No Kid­ding” and “Social Change not Cli­mate Change,” peo­ple marched to the head­quar­ters of Massey Ener­gy, Domin­ion, Vir­ginia Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­i­ty, and Bank of Amer­i­ca.

At Massey Ener­gy, a noto­ri­ous coal com­pa­ny involved in moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing, activists sur­round­ed the entrance and yelled, “Hands off our moun­tains!.” The group then moved on to the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­i­ty which recent­ly rub­ber stamped Dominion’s dirty coal plant in Wise Coun­ty, VA. Next the group brought the par­ty to Domin­ion, who is build­ing the afore­men­tioned coal plant as well as propos­ing a new nuke plant in Louisa Coun­ty, VA. Chant­i­ng “No coal, no nukes, we won’t stop until you do!” the activists attempt­ed to take over Dominion’s plaza but were repelled by police on hors­es. In a show of inter­species sol­i­dar­i­ty one horse bucked a cop off its back.

To wrap things up for the day, the crowd moved on to the the tow­er­ing Bank of Amer­i­ca build­ing, one of the largest fun­ders of the coal indus­try. In impres­sive feat of stealth two activists man­age to infil­trate the beefed up secu­ri­ty at the build­ing and locked to a sign out­side of the cus­tomer entrance. Marchers sup­port­ed the lock­down with a die in on the side­walk. Police even­tu­al­ly cut free the two that were locked down and charged them with tres­pass­ing.

All in all it was a great day. While the police may have foiled our orig­i­nal plans they couldn’t stop us alto­geth­er. Pret­ty much every build­ing in Rich­mond con­nect­ed to a cli­mate crim­i­nal had cops staked out at it and sev­er­al activists cars were fol­lowed any­where they went. Despite this we had a suc­cess­ful march and lock­down. Lets con­tin­ue the strug­gle for cli­mate jus­tice in the south­east!