Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Camp Titnore birthday protest!

CAMP TITNORE, the eco-protest site near Wor­thing, West Sus­sex, is cel­e­brat­ing its sec­ond birth­day on Sat­ur­day May 24.

To mark the occa­sion, a par­ty is being held on the steps of Wor­thing Town Hall in Chapel Road.

CAMP TITNORE, the eco-protest site near Wor­thing, West Sus­sex, is cel­e­brat­ing its sec­ond birth­day on Sat­ur­day May 24.

To mark the occa­sion, a par­ty is being held on the steps of Wor­thing Town Hall in Chapel Road.

The event has been giv­en added poignan­cy by scenes at the recent elec­tion count, when heavy-hand­ed secu­ri­ty and police threw out Save Tit­nore Woods! can­di­date Dawn Smith and her sup­port­ers.

Cam­paign­ers are invit­ing any­one who sup­ports the camp and the wider cam­paign to turn up in par­ty mode — with hats, bal­loons, cake and music. One said: “The cam­paign has, of course, being going a lot more than two years, but the extra­or­di­nary achieve­ment of those who have kept alive a con­tin­ued pres­ence in the woods since May 2006 just can­not be over-empha­sised.

“Not every one is able to get down to the camp to express their sup­port, so this event in the town cen­tre is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to show the pro­test­ers you are with them in spir­it.

“Let’s make a real effort to cel­e­brate in style and com­mu­ni­cate our ongo­ing deter­mi­na­tion to see off this threat to Wor­thing’s envi­ron­men­tal her­itage!”

The inci­dent at the count hap­pened on Fri­day May 2, when Dawn, who was stand­ing for the Stop Dur­ring­ton’s Overde­vel­op­ment — Save Tit­nore’s Trees par­ty, in the bor­ough’s North­brook ward, was arrest­ed after a row at Wor­thing’s Assem­bly Hall, appar­ent­ly for “dis­or­der­ly behav­iour”.

She was thrown to the ground by police, held down with her hands behind her back, knelt on and hand­cuffed, then held for four hours at Dur­ring­ton police sta­tion — all for object­ing to her sup­port­ers being vio­lent­ly eject­ed from the count.

Dawn, who has not been charged, explained that there was con­fu­sion over the pass­es for her guests at the count, who includ­ed Tit­nore eco-campers. Names she had reg­is­tered did not seem to have been record­ed, in an offi­cial bun­gle.

Oth­er peo­ple, con­sid­ered of “respectable” appear­ance, were waved through by secu­ri­ty but they demand­ed ID from her sup­port­ers.

While she went to try and sort the error, some of the campers wan­dered through into the hall and were attacked and phys­i­cal­ly thrown out by secu­ri­ty staff in what she called a “com­plete over-reac­tion”.

Dawn object­ed vocal­ly. She said: “I shout­ed at them. The only rea­son they did this was because the guys had dread­locks. I’m not going to stand by and see some­one jumped on.”

Stuck for something to do!? Uninspired & lacklustre..? The all new singing dancing EF!AU is here to lift your spirits

As if putting the boot into the genet­ics indus­try, fill­ing emp­ty spaces with joy & cre­ativ­i­ty, and fool­ing the fos­sil-heads was­n’t enough, peo­ple have been busy wash­ing lumps of coal and cov­er­ing them­selves with paint…we kid you not…all in aid of halt­ing the trash­ing of the plan­et!

Par­lia­ments have been climbed, air­port ter­mi­nals flash(mobb)ed, fields & var­i­ous oth­er sites occu­pied, build­ing stormed & block­ad­ed, pipelines block­ad­ed & destroyed…

EF! crossed tools 1As if putting the boot into the genet­ics indus­try, fill­ing emp­ty spaces with joy & cre­ativ­i­ty, and fool­ing the fos­sil-heads was­n’t enough, peo­ple have been busy wash­ing lumps of coal and cov­er­ing them­selves with paint…we kid you not…all in aid of halt­ing the trash­ing of the plan­et!

Par­lia­ments have been climbed, air­port ter­mi­nals flash(mobb)ed, fields & var­i­ous oth­er sites occu­pied, build­ing stormed & block­ad­ed, pipelines block­ad­ed & destroyed…

Throw into the mix ye oldie Reclaim the Streets, the tried and test­ed eeeeevil Mr/Ms Sab­o­tage, the launch of a new cam­paign ‘Leave it in the Ground’, plus a sum­mer-full of dates, new con­tacts list, it’s a won­der we’ve fit­ted in a brand new sexy EF! sum­mer gath­er­ing poster (front & back). Down­load the lat­est EF!AU to share with oth­ers, sub­scribe or check out some past issues. The next issue will come out at the begin­ning of August.

And of course, this year’s EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing (or fol­low the link to the left) is from Wednes­day 27th August to Mon­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2008, if you want to plot & plan, and laugh & chat with old friends & new.

Phew, what a scorcher!

Tara Vigil Camp Being Evicted

May 08, 2008; 10:30 am
HELP NEEDED NOW

About a half an hour ago 20 Gar­dai, 20 OPW and 10–15 MD Secu­ri­ty descend­ed on the Hill to evict the Vig­il Camp.

May 08, 2008; 10:30 am
HELP NEEDED NOW

About a half an hour ago 20 Gar­dai, 20 OPW and 10–15 MD Secu­ri­ty descend­ed on the Hill to evict the Vig­il Camp.

2 Loader lor­ries and 12 oth­er vehi­cles are cur­rent­ly there . The Tem­ple struc­ture has been dis­man­tled, chopped into pieces and removed. They are now dis­man­tling the A Chairde hut and the Tipi. The sev­en Vig­il Keep­ers on site were not giv­en time to remove their per­son­al items and there is no chan­nel of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open as the work­ers turn their backs. There is no nego­ti­a­tion.

The OPW Archae­ol­o­gist said that she would PERSONALLY put out the fire. She is refer­ring to the Vig­il Fire that has been burn­ing for the Val­ley since Sum­mer Sol­stice June 06.

URGENT

Phone cred­it is urgent­ly need­ed on the Vig­il phone. Also urgent is the need for cam­eras and wit­ness­es to doc­u­ment this. Please do what­ev­er you can NOW. Send cred­it, bring help.

VIGIL PH: 086 1758557
Relat­ed Link: http://www.tarapixie.net

—

Vig­il keeps have man­aged to get some time.

The Gar­dai were not able to quote specif­i­cal­ly any law that would allow them to estin­guish the sacred fire, they have giv­en them a days grace to cer­e­mo­nous­ly remove the fire, but as it is specif­i­cal­ly the Hill of Tara sacred fire, it would have to be moved to anoth­er site on Tara!!!!! This in itself cre­ates a conun­drum.

No method state­ment has been pro­vid­ed.
Peo­ple are now allowed to remove per­son­al pos­ses­sions.
A recog­nised Fer­rovial employ­ee was assist­ing, but was wear­ing MD Secu­ri­ty cloth­ing. THIS IT OBVIOUSLY OUTRAGIOUS.

There is approx 20 vig­il keep­ers suround­ing the Tem­ple Ti-Pi/­Fire adamant that they have the right to con­tin­ue hold­ing the Vig­il.
There is a good atmos­phere, music + drums, kids and laugh­ter.
Ener­gy is high and spir­its are pos­i­tive.

—

3pm update:

The OPW did not pro­duce any paper­work for this evic­tion. Noth­ing signed and dat­ed by a Judge.

The Pro­tec­tors are cur­rent­ly blockad­ing their vehi­cles and not allow­ing them to LEAVE the site. Short­ly after this hap­pened, the OPW agreed to nego­ti­a­tions and are now at a meet­ing with mem­bers of the Vig­il.

—

Vig­il Press Release

Press Release on behalf of the Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il Camp
8th May 2008
At approx 10:30 this morn­ing, the Office of Pub­lic Works launched an evic­tion attempt on the Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il Camp, which is in situ on pub­lic land.

The Vig­il is “a non-hier­ar­chi­cal peo­ples’ sol­i­dar­i­ty vig­il, here in sup­port of local peo­ple and all indi­vid­u­als and groups in the cam­paigns to Save Tara. We are adamant in our non-affil­i­a­tion with any par­tic­u­lar polit­i­cal or reli­gious par­ties but wel­come any friends of Tara to the sacred Vig­il Fire, which has been burn­ing con­tin­u­ous­ly since the Sum­mer Sol­stice, 21st of June 2006”.

This morn­ing, 20 OPW employ­ees, up to 15 MD Secu­ri­ty Work­ers and 20 Gar­daí entered the camp and began to dis­man­tle tem­po­rary struc­tures which are used dai­ly by the Vig­il Keep­ers. The struc­tures include a Tem­ple, sev­er­al dwellings and meet­ing huts. The Tem­ple, which was made of wood, was des­e­crat­ed by chain­saw as the Keep­ers looked on in shock. Their pri­or­i­ty was to hold their ground pro­tect­ing the sacred flame with­in the Vig­il TiPi. To add insult to injury, hid­den with­in the group of MD Secu­ri­ty work­ers, wear­ing their logo was a known Fer­rovial employ­ee.

Fer­rovial Agro­man, a Span­ish com­pa­ny, are one of the com­pa­nies, in con­junc­tion with SIAC, who are con­tract­ed to build the con­tro­ver­sial M3 motor­way. This begs to fur­ther ques­tion the repeat­ed coop­er­a­tion between the Gar­daí and pri­vate secu­ri­ty for SIAC/ Fer­rovial Agro­man, on the back of the demo­li­tion of the Direct Action Protest Camp at Rath Lugh on 17th Apr2008.

The OPW Archae­ol­o­gist onsite stat­ed, and has been record­ed that she would “per­son­al­ly put out the fire”. Both the OPW onsite and the Gar­daí were ini­tial­ly refus­ing to acknowl­edge the sacred­ness of the fire and in doing so are not uphold­ing an individual’s right to reli­gious worship/practice. The OPW have also admit­ted on cam­era that this was not an offi­cial evic­tion, and that they didn’t even have the offi­cial doc­u­men­ta­tion or method state­ment to car­ry out the activ­i­ty.

When nego­ti­a­tions were final­ly pos­si­ble, the Gar­daí were not able to quote specif­i­cal­ly any law that would allow them to extin­guish this sacred fire. Talks since have pro­duce a guar­an­tee from Ms Fion­nu­la Par­nell, Archae­ol­o­gist from the Nation­al Mon­u­ments Depart­ment OPW, in the pres­ence of a Gar­dai, that no attempt to remove the fire, or the TiPi hous­ing it until the out­come of an agreed meet­ing on 19th May 2007. There are approx 30 vig­il keep­ers sur­round­ing the TiPi hous­ing the fire adamant that they have the right to con­tin­ue hold­ing the Vig­il and prac­tice their indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive beliefs. Sev­er­al of these peo­ple were assault­ed by the pri­vate­ly hired secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny in the pres­ence of Gar­dai, and will be fil­ing charges. Oth­er­wise, there is a great atmos­phere, music + drums, children’s laugh­ter in the air. Ener­gy is pos­i­tive and spir­its are high in the Sum­mer sun. This is why the Vig­il has attract­ed vis­i­tors from the 4 cor­ners of the world in the 23months of it’s exis­tence.

Ex-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has in the past fore­warned of dan­ger­ous trends in mod­ern soci­ety “So much of what is hap­pen­ing with­in our soci­ety and in the wider world is bound up with ques­tions of reli­gion, reli­gious iden­ti­ty and reli­gious belief,” he said, “that gov­ern­ments which refuse or fail to engage with reli­gious com­mu­ni­ties and reli­gious iden­ti­ties risk fail­ing in their fun­da­men­tal duties to their cit­i­zens.” The Irish Con­sti­tu­tion (Arti­cle 8) recog­nis­es that cit­i­zens have a right to “Free­dom of con­science and the free pro­fes­sion and prac­tice of reli­gion are, sub­ject to pub­lic order and moral­i­ty, guar­an­teed to every cit­i­zen, and no law may be made either direct­ly or indi­rect­ly to endow any reli­gion or pro­hib­it or restrict the free exer­cise there­of or give any pref­er­ence, or impose any dis­abil­i­ty on account of reli­gious belief or reli­gious sta­tus”. The Euro­pean Con­sti­tu­tion (Part II — The Char­ter of Fun­da­men­tal Rights of the Union) Arti­cle II-70 recog­nis­es ”Free­dom of thought, con­science and reli­gion: 1) Every­one has the right to free­dom of thought, con­science and reli­gion. This right includes free­dom to change reli­gion or belief and free­dom, either alone or in com­mu­ni­ty with oth­ers and in pub­lic or in pri­vate, to man­i­fest reli­gion or belief, in wor­ship, teach­ing, prac­tice and obser­vance”.

We, the Vig­il Keep­ers, call on Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley, as Min­is­ter of the Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment, Her­itage and Local Gov­ern­ment respon­si­ble for State Man­aged Vis­i­tor Ser­vices, to offi­cial­ly acknowl­edge the sacred Vig­il Fire on the Hill of Tara.

For ver­i­fi­ca­tion call Deb­bie Reil­ly on 086 175 8557

Issued on behalf of the Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il
Joanne Cor­bett 086 6030389 www.savetara.com

Forest activists take their protest to the headwaters of the Styx River, Tasmania

2008-05-08

TN47C logging protest (2)TN47C logging protest (1)2008-05-08

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists halt­ed the log­ging of old growth forests near the head­wa­ters of the Styx Riv­er. Ten activists have peace­ful­ly occu­pied coupe TN47C, locat­ed 100 metres from the TWWHA bound­ary near the base of Mount Mueller to high­light the con­tin­ued destruc­tion of Tas­ma­ni­a’s unique old growth forests.

“Tas­ma­nia is in a state of envi­ron­men­tal emer­gency. Every sin­gle day, our island’s unique old growth forests are felled, bull­dozed and trucked off to the wood­chip­per. Gunns Ltd.‘s stran­gle­hold on the Lennon gov­ern­ment has been high­light­ed again this week and once again it will be our pre­cious car­bon rich forests, the tax­pay­er and the com­mu­ni­ty that will suf­fer as a result of yet anoth­er matey deal between cli­mate crim­i­nals John Gay, Bob Gor­don and Paul Lennon” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“We are call­ing on the Rudd gov­ern­ment to take seri­ous action on cli­mate change and put a stop to this out­ra­geous sit­u­a­tion by ensur­ing the imme­di­ate pro­tec­tion of ancient forests in the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine val­leys. The con­tin­ued dev­as­ta­tion of Tas­ma­ni­a’s old growth forests has glob­al ram­i­fi­ca­tions and must be halt­ed imme­di­ate­ly” said Miss Majew­s­ki.

http://www.myspace.com/stillwildstillthreatened
campflorentine@gmail.com

For­est activists will con­tin­ue to take peace­ful action against the con­tin­ued log­ging of Tas­ma­ni­a’s south­ern forests.

Leave it in the Ground: open-cast coal mass trespass, 26th May — poster to download added

A new open-cast coal mine site is about to get under­way in beau­ti­ful Der­byshire, unless we stop it now.

Lodge House site, which is east of the vil­lage of Smal­l­ey and spans either side of Bell Lane, is one of sev­en that UK Coal is to open-cast.

open CastA new open-cast coal mine site is about to get under­way in beau­ti­ful Der­byshire, unless we stop it now.

Lodge House site, which is east of the vil­lage of Smal­l­ey and spans either side of Bell Lane, is one of sev­en that UK Coal is to open-cast.

The area is about to be dev­as­tat­ed, despite objec­tions from local coun­cils, res­i­dents and local envi­ron­men­tal groups, but the Sec­re­tary of State grant­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion in 2007.

The 122 hectare site will have one mil­lion tonnes of coal ripped out over five years and ‘returned back to its nat­ur­al state’ accord­ing to UK Coal, how­ev­er res­i­dents fear there may be more to the plot, as they were exclud­ed from parts of the plan­ning meet­ing on grounds of com­mer­cial con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

UK Coal are one of those com­pa­nies that looks to max­imise their prof­its by rap­ing the land and prof­it­ing from it any way they can — after coal extrac­tion, they return the area to busi­ness parks, hous­ing and indus­tri­al estates. In some cas­es they return it to farm­land and charge the farm­ers rent, or on low-grade land grow ener­gy crops accord­ing to their web­site. They are even into wind­pow­er, but as yet have still not erect­ed a tur­bine.

Coal is not clean ener­gy, and with the new onslaught of pro­posed pow­er sta­tions, UK Coal are look­ing to cash in on cli­mate dev­as­ta­tion and destruc­tion unless we stop them.

The area is rich with wildlife and backs onto Ship­ley Coun­try Park; some hous­es, (the sort of place you dream of liv­ing in) have been shut­tered up and items like toys, dog ken­nels and oth­er per­son­al bits remain, look­ing like some­thing from a hur­ried evac­u­a­tion from a war zone. UK Coal has stat­ed that the site will be returned to farm land, but they are able to expand beyond the 122 hectares with­out need­ing fur­ther per­mis­sion.

To com­bat open-cast min­ing, a new action group “Leave it in the Ground” has formed, sup­port­ed by Earth First! with an invite to a Pic­nic in the Park on 26th May for a mass tres­pass to see it before the destruc­tion starts, meet the locals and have fun. So come and Dis­cov­er Der­byshire!

Meet at the Vis­i­tors Cen­tre, Ship­ley Coun­try Park, Slack Lane, Heanor DE75 7GX at 12 noon on the 26th May.

For more info phone 07852 460871 or email derby@earthfirst.org.uk

Blog http://leaveitintheground.wordpress.com
Web­site http://leaveitintheground.org.uk/

Down­load the poster to put up on notice­boards & bring your friends

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 79, MAY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LONDON, 10–11.5.08
2) SAVING ICELAND IN WALES AND SCOTLAND — 7th & 9th MAY ‘08
3) TURNING UP THE HEAT — LONDON, CARDIFF, MANCHESTER & ONLINE, 8/10/13.5.08
4) BIG BLETHER 6 — GLASGOW, 9–11.5.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LONDON, 10–11.5.08
2) SAVING ICELAND IN WALES AND SCOTLAND — 7th & 9th MAY ‘08
3) TURNING UP THE HEAT — LONDON, CARDIFF, MANCHESTER & ONLINE, 8/10/13.5.08
4) BIG BLETHER 6 — GLASGOW, 9–11.5.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP SPEAKERS’ TRAINING — MANCHESTER, 17.5.08
6) MAKE A NOISE! — LONDON, 31.5.08
7) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — NATIONAL, 3.6.08

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) ‘MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS’ — INTERNATIONAL, 1.5.08
2) M1 PUBLIC NUISANCE CASE DISMISSED — SHEFFIELD, 1.5.08
3) BANK OF AMERICA, DIRTY COAL PROTEST – CHARLOTTE (USA), 23.4.08
4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS PIE FRIEDMAN — NEW YORK, 21.4.08
5) ECO-RELATED ARSON IN GREECE — 21.4.08
6) KOORAGANG COMMUNITY WALK-IN — AUSTRALIA, 19.4.08
7) BELGIAN AGRO-GIANT BLOCKADE — 17.4.08
8) TARA UPDATES — IRELAND, APRIL 08
9) BIOFOOLS DAY — NATIONWIDE, 15.4.08
10) PLANE STUPID TAKE TO THE ROOF — EDINBURGH, 14.4.08
11) BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL! — TASMANIA, 14.4.08
12) COLLEGE GROVE UPDATES — AUSTRALIA, APRIL ‘08
13) CHEVRON TOXICO GOLDMAN AWARD — SAN FRANCISCO, 13.4.08
14) SUBVERTISING — NEW GROUP, APRIL ‘08
15) CARBON DETOX — NEW BOOK, APRIL ‘08
16) BRING CLIMATE CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE — WEBSITE, APRIL ‘08
17) PROTEST WATCH — WEBSITE, APRIL ‘08
18) AIRPORTWATCH BULLETIN — APRIL ‘08
19) THE BATH BOMB — APRIL ‘08
20) LONDON CRITICAL MASS, 14TH ANNIVERSARY — APRIL 08

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LONDON, 10–11.5.08
Green­peace HQ, Canon­bury Vil­las, Lon­don, N1 2PN. 10am-6pm.
This sum­mer the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents out­side Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent for a week of edu­ca­tion, sus­tain­able liv­ing and direct action. Every­one is invit­ed to the camp, which is now part of an inter­na­tion­al move­ment, with eight cli­mate camps on four con­ti­nents planned for this sum­mer. Togeth­er, we will show that the blind pur­suit of eco­nom­ic growth at any cost is sim­ply insane, and is
to blame for the CO2 emis­sions and ecosys­tem destruc­tion that are caus­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change. Come to the gath­er­ing and get involved!
www.climatecamp.org.uk

2) SAVING ICELAND IN WALES AND SCOTLAND — 7th & 9th MAY 08
Alu­mini­um smelt­ing, even when pow­ered by geot­her­mal ener­gy, emits so much green­house gas emis­sions that Ice­land now pro­duces 18 tons of CO2 equiv­a­lent per capi­ta, com­pared to the Euro­pean aver­age of 11. May 7th at 8pm — Sav­ing Ice­land will give a pre­sen­ta­tion of these issues at The Tree­house, Bak­er St. Aberys­t­wyth, and will describe the inter­na­tion­al direct action cam­paign and plans for this sum­mer’s camp in July. (There will be a num­ber of vehi­cles going from the UK to the camp.) Come and see some of the most stun­ning places of beau­ty on earth, and help pro­tect them with direct action!
May 9th — Veg­an ban­quet with live music, bar and raf­fle! The Ban­quet starts at 7pm at Old St Pauls Hall, Edin­burgh. £5 (unwaged / low income) and £7 (waged). All prof­it will go to fund­ing the Scot­tish Sav­ing Ice­land Col­lec­tive.
Email; savingicelandscotland@riseup.net to reserve your tick­ets!
More info; http://www.savingiceland.org.

3) TURNING UP THE HEAT — LONDON, CARDIFF, MANCHESTER and ONLINE, 8/10/13.5.08
Can big busi­ness save the plan­et? A series of inter­ac­tive debates on cli­mate change and cor­po­rate pow­er. Attend the live events or watch online!
Thurs­day 8 May — Can the free mar­ket stop cli­mate change? 7:30–9:30pm at Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Action Cen­tre 17–25 New Inn Yard Lon­don EC2A 3EA.
10.5.08 – ‘Will bio­fu­els help com­bat cli­mate change?’ 2:30–4:30pm Cardiff Uni­ver­si­ty, Main Build­ing, Shan­don The­atre, Park Place CF10 3AT.
13.5.08 – ‘Does cli­mate change mean we should restrict avi­a­tion & tourism?’ 7:30–9:30pm, Man­ches­ter Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, Cock­croft The­atre, Sackville Street M1 3BB.
To book your free place and to reg­is­ter to watch online please go to http://www.wdm.org.uk/heat or call 020 7820 4900 for more infor­ma­tion.

4) BIG BLETHER 6 — GLASGOW, 9–11.5.08
Talamh Life Cen­tre, Near Glas­gow.
BB is a meet­ing place for activists to bring and share ideas, infor­ma­tion and enthu­si­asm and to cre­ate action out of inspi­ra­tion. Every­one is wel­come to par­tic­i­pate and con­tribute — big or small. There will be work­shops on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, includ­ing every­thing from cli­mate change issues, cre­ative cam­paign­ing and tran­si­tion towns to nuclear resis­tance, yoga and wood­land crafts. BB is a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion and entrance will be by dona­tion. www.bigblether.org.uk

5) CLIMATE CAMP SPEAKERS’ TRAINING — MANCHESTER, 17.5.08
If you would like to talk to peo­ple about the Cli­mate Camp and help inspire hun­dreds of peo­ple to come this year, then this train­ing is for you. The net­work­ing team in con­junc­tion with COIN (http://coinet.org.uk/) and TRAPESE (http://trapese.clearerchannel.org/) have designed a short presentation/ work­shop that any­one can give to groups inter­est­ed in com­ing to the camp.
10:30 till 5:30pm.
Con­tact; speakers@climatecamp.org.uk to book your place.

6) MAKE A NOISE! — LONDON, 31.5.08
An agen­da for colos­sal air­port expan­sion and colos­sal cli­mate change demands a colos­sal response. You’re invit­ed to a car­ni­val on Sat­ur­day 31st May, which will make its way from Hat­ton Cross Tube Sta­tion (Pic­cadil­ly Line, 12pm) to Sip­son, the vil­lage that will be wiped out if Heathrow expan­sion goes ahead. At the end, you’ll have the chance to help form a great big NO! spelt out by human bod­ies. Organ­is­ers hope to set a new world record for the biggest and loud­est NO! in the world.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/make-a-noise-20080408

7) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — NATIONAL, 3.6.08
The food we eat con­tributes up to a third of the emis­sions poi­son­ing the plan­et. It’s time for a detox! Cli­mate action starts on your din­ner plate, at the super­mar­ket, on your allot­ment and in your back yard, at the food dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres, down on the farm, in your high street, at the air­port and the lor­ry park. What­ev­er your tastes, there’s some­thing for every­one on this action menu! Local food mar­kets, free food stalls, work­shops and film show­ings, street the­atre, info stalls, protests and direct action, cook­ing demon­stra­tions, allot­ment shows. Get cre­ative and get involved!
This Day of Action on Cli­mate Change has been called by the Net­work for Cli­mate Action in co-oper­a­tion with the Ris­ing Tide Net­work and the Camp for Cli­mate Action. It has been planned to coin­cide with The UN Con­fer­ence on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate Change, which runs from 3rd to 5th June.
Please email; foodNO@SPAMdaysofclimateaction.org.uk for fur­ther info.

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) ‘MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS’ — INTERNATIONAL,
1.5.08
This day of action tar­get­ed false cap­i­tal­ist solu­tions to cli­mate chaos.
There were actions in Europe and Cana­da:
Leam­ing­ton Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed the E.on head­quar­ters in Coven­try to expose the truth behind its green­wash and show that car­bon cap­ture is a false solu­tion to the prob­lem of cli­mate change. Peo­ple arrived at 8am to hand fliers to the work­ers, while one pro­test­er occu­pied the roof of the build­ing. The day was a great suc­cess with a fes­tive vibe and no arrests. Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide got togeth­er with Earth First for a Crit­i­cal Mass to Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion to high­light that nuclear is not a solu­tion to cli­mate change. In Lon­don, The Coal Clean­ing Com­pa­ny launched their enter­prise with E.on; accord­ing to the chat­ty clean­ers, “There’s no mess too big! We make coal Fos­sil Fuel Fresh!” In York peo­ple from groups across the city and both Uni­ver­si­ties took part in a ban­ner protest out­side Roy­al Bank of Scot­land’s cen­tral branch in the city. Leaflets were hand­ed out sum­maris­ing RBS’s cli­mate crimes. Mean­while, mem­bers of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front joined forces to car­ry out an action against unnec­es­sary urban devel­op­ment in the south-west. A JCB and oth­er vehi­cles were dam­aged on a road con­struc­tion site.
Green­wash fly­ers were hand­ed out at the Green Liv­ing Show in Toron­to Cana­da, while in Paris “Biofuel=Danger” was chalked on the side of the French Agri­cul­tur­al Research insti­tute.
http://www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk/
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/276

2) M1 PUBLIC NUISANCE CASE DISMISSED — SHEFFIELD, 1.5.08
Sev­en cli­mate camp activists opposed to the widen­ing of the M1 had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court. The Judge resound­ing­ly reject­ed the pros­e­cu­tion’s argu­ment that the hang­ing of ban­ners over the motor­way could con­sti­tute a pub­lic nui­sance.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20611

3) BANK OF AMERICA, DIRTY COAL PROTEST – CHARLOTTE (USA), 23.4.08
Activists with Asheville Ris­ing Tide, Rain­for­est Action Net­work, and Croatan Earth First! hit the streets of Char­lotte to protest at Bank of America’s annu­al share­hold­ers meet­ing. Bank of Amer­i­ca has seen an esca­lat­ing lev­el of protest in the past year for its fund­ing of the coal indus­try.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/04/23/asheville-rising-tide-confronts-bank-of-america-shareholders/

4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS PIE FRIEDMAN — NEW YORK, 21.4.08
Thomas Fried­man, the author and NY Times colum­nist, was invit­ed to Brown Uni­ver­si­ty to give a keynote speech on Earth Day, before a packed audi­to­ri­um. His talk about how cor­po­rate envi­ron­men­tal­ism can restore Amer­i­ca to its “nat­ur­al place in the glob­al order” was inter­rupt­ed with a sur­prise vis­it from the Green­wash Guer­ril­las. After splat­ter­ing him with two green cream pies they threw leaflets to the crowd explain­ing their action.
http://greenwashguerrillas.wordpress.com/
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/04/22/greenwash-guerrillas-pie-thomas-friedman-on-earth-day/

5) ECO-RELATED ARSON IN GREECE — 21.4.08
Eco-relat­ed arson against the min­istry of devel­op­ment offices in Athens was car­ried out in protest against the plans to build new pow­er plants using coal. “When cap­i­tal­ism is self-declared envi­ron­ment friend­ly, it is only to mea­sure and man­age the symp­toms of the cri­sis it pro­duced itself.”
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/

6) KOORAGANG COMMUNITY WALK-IN — AUSTRALIA, 19.4.08
A crowd of around 50 pro­test­ers walked onto the con­struc­tion site for a new coal ter­mi­nal on Koor­a­gang Island in New­cas­tle. They stopped work at the site in protest against the expan­sion of the coal indus­try and its con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change. Georgina Woods, spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle said, “His­tor­i­cal­ly, ordi­nary peo­ple have achieved extra­or­di­nary things by tak­ing direct action to pre­vent immoral or
unsup­port­able actions…Many of us here today have nev­er done any­thing like this before, but we are doing it now, because we may not get anoth­er chance.” 16 of the pro­test­ers were arrest­ed and charged with tres­pass. More com­mu­ni­ty direct action against coal exports will take place in July this year.
http://www.risingtide.org.au/communitywalkin

7) BELGIAN AGRO-GIANT BLOCKADE — 17.4.08
In Bel­guim thir­ty activists blocked the gates of the Cargill fac­to­ry in Ghent.
This action was tak­en to high­light the agro-giant’s involve­ment in every­thing from bio­fu­els to soy mono­cul­ture, GMO to pesticides…The action began at around 6h30 in the morn­ing and last­ed until after 5 p.m. Dur­ing all that time, not one truck with soy could enter or leave the firm.
http://www.aseed.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=552&Itemid=211

8) TARA UPDATES — IRELAND, APRIL 08
On Thurs­day 17th April there was a peace­ful evic­tion of the Rath Lugh Camp. Four Pro­tec­tors who were on site were told by Gar­dai that they had to gath­er up their belong­ings and leave. This was not done in an aggres­sive man­ner and was com­plied with by the Pro­tec­tors.
http://www.tarapixie.net/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20557
Tara trip report — A group from Brighton went over to Ire­land recent­ly to sup­port the Irish pro­test­ers attempts to halt the work on the M3 Motor­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20502

9) BIOFOOLS DAY — NATIONWIDE, 15.4.08
From April 15th, all petrol fore­courts will be required by law to sell only fuel which is blend­ed with 2.5% agro­fu­el. Cor­po­ra­tions like Tesco are already jump­ing on the new “green” band­wag­on, speak­ing lit­tle of the greater emis­sions, dis­place­ment, pover­ty and hunger that will be left in its path. The only answer to the ener­gy cri­sis is a big shift in the way in which we live, trav­el and eat.
Nation­wide protest includ­ed; Aberdeen, Bolton, Chel­tenham, Leeds, Man­ches­ter, Not­ting­ham, Nor­wich and hun­dreds out­side Down­ing Street in Lon­don.
Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide and Espa­cio Bris­tol-Colom­bia were joined by oth­ers to inform the pub­lic about this issue at Tesco in East­ville, Bris­tol. A group of bio­fu­el activists made a colour­ful ban­ner and fly­er tour of Brighton city cen­tre and Sus­sex Uni­ver­si­ty. Agro-fuels pro­test­ers dis­abled the fuel pumps of two BP fill­ing sta­tions in Edin­burgh. Also in Scot­land, five mem­bers of the Edin­burgh Clown Army were detained for ques­tion­ing at a peace­ful and enter­tain­ing bio­fu­els protest in Brunts­field, and in Glas­gow a bio­fool ban­ner was hung.
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20546

10) PLANE STUPID TAKES TO THE ROOF — EDINBURGH, 14.4.08
Two envi­ron­men­tal activists from the cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid Scot­land, climbed onto the roof of the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment in Edin­burgh to protest against plans for expan­sion of Scot­tish air­ports. They unfurled a large ban­ner which car­ried a par­o­dy of the Trainspot­ting design, “Choose Life.” The ban­ner read, “Plane Stop­ping: Choose the future. Say no to air­port expan­sion.”
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scotland-occupy-roof-scottish-parliament

11) BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL! — TASMANIA, 14.4.08
Activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened have wel­comed a 6 metre tall Peter Gar­rett (MP and singer from Mid­night Oil) to the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley. Activists took the ‘giant Gar­rett’ on a tour of coupe FO42F which is due to be burnt in the imme­di­ate future to high­light their con­cerns about the con­tin­ued log­ging and burn­ing of some of Tasmania’s most car­bon dense forests.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20536

12) COLLEGE GROVE UPDATES — AUSTRALIA, APRIL 08
29 April 2008 — Activists have set up a new camp in the Col­lege Grove for­est area that is due to be destroyed in the next stage of devel­op­ment.
http://www.globalwarmingfg.com/
14 April 2008 — Col­lege Grove pro­test­ers stop machines for the day:
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20535
10 April — Police Vio­lence at treesit action in Col­lege Grove, Bun­bury, Aus­tralia. Two activists were arrest­ed with one tak­en to hos­pi­tal after a force­ful and vio­lent push by WA Police. A spokes for the Com­mu­ni­ty Inde­pen­dent Activists (CIA) group says it was the “most vio­lent dis­play by police in 15 years of for­est activism.”
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20531

13) CHEVRON TOXICO GOLDMAN AWARD — SAN FRANCISCO, 13.4.08
Two cam­paign­ers who have spear­head­ed a land­mark class-action law­suit against Chevron in Ecuador have been award­ed the Gold­man Prize, the world’s most pres­ti­gious envi­ron­men­tal hon­or, for their efforts to make the com­pa­ny clean up what experts believe is the world’s worst oil-relat­ed dis­as­ter. The Gold­man Prize Comes two weeks after these dam­ages were esti­mat­ed at up to $16 Bil­lion. Chevron Tox­i­co is the inter­na­tion­al cam­paign to hold Chevron­Tex­a­co account­able for its tox­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the Ecuado­ri­an Ama­zon.
http://www.amazonwatch.org/

14) SUBVERTISING — NEW GROUP, APRIL ‘08
A new group want to set up a cli­mate-focused nation­al sub­ver­tis­ing net­work where every­one has a role and where peo­ple are well sup­port­ed. If you would like to get involved, see http://www.myspace.com/subvertising

15) CARBON DETOX — NEW BOOK, APRIL ‘08
A new book by George Mar­shall of COIN. Mark Lynas,author of Six Degrees, says:
“Buy this book and thrust it into the hands of some­one who still does­n’t believe in the cli­mate cri­sis. No oth­er book goes fur­ther in address­ing peo­ple’s denial and their resis­tance to change.”
http://www.carbondetox.org/

16) BRING CLIMATE CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE — WEBSITE, APRIL ‘08
A cam­paign to estab­lish a legal process in the UK and abroad to facil­i­tate the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters and key busi­ness lead­ers whose poli­cies and activ­i­ties con­tribute to the mass loss of life which cli­mate change is cer­tain to now cause.
www.climatecriminals.co.uk

17) PROTEST WATCH — WEBSITE, APRIL ‘08
A new site which aims to become a com­pre­hen­sive resource for any­body inter­est­ed in active­ly protest­ing in the UK.
http://www.protestwatch.org.uk/

18) AIRPORTWATCH BULLETIN — APRIL ‘08
Air­port­Watch updates for April. See;
http://www.aef.org.uk/downloads//AirportWatch_bulletin_April2008.pdf

19) ‘THE BATH BOMB’ — APRIL 08
Anti-copy­right: copy and dis­trib­ute! Issue #9 free/donation. See;
http://www.myspace.com/bathbomb

20) LONDON CRITICAL MASS, 14TH ANNIVERSARY — APRIL ‘08
For ride reports/info. see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20584
http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/main.html

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

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.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

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Vegan Banquet for Saving Iceland — May 9, Edinburgh

On Fri­day 9th May we are hold­ing a veg­an ban­quet with live music, bar and raf­fle! The tick­et will include all the veg­an food you can eat (includ­ing desert), all the live music you can hear and all the ban­quet­ing atmos­phere you can take! The Ban­quet starts at 7pm at Old St Pauls Hall, Edin­burgh.
Tick­ets are £5 (unwaged / low income) and £7 (waged). All prof­it will go to fund­ing the Scot­tish Sav­ing Ice­land Col­lec­tive.

On Fri­day 9th May we are hold­ing a veg­an ban­quet with live music, bar and raf­fle! The tick­et will include all the veg­an food you can eat (includ­ing desert), all the live music you can hear and all the ban­quet­ing atmos­phere you can take! The Ban­quet starts at 7pm at Old St Pauls Hall, Edin­burgh.
Tick­ets are £5 (unwaged / low income) and £7 (waged). All prof­it will go to fund­ing the Scot­tish Sav­ing Ice­land Col­lec­tive.

Loca­tion:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&safe=off&:official&hs=h5k&q=EH1%201DH

There are two ways to get your tick­et:
1) If you know some­one from the Scot­tish Sav­ing Ice­land Col­lec­tive, get
one from them!
2) Email us at savingicelandscotland@riseup.net to reserve yours!

If we have not sold out, there will be a lim­it­ed amount of tick­ets
avail­able on the door.

If you want to arrive for the enter­tain­ment after­wards then we will be
let­ting peo­ple in after 9.30 for a dis­count­ed price.

New protest camp for College Grove — Bunbury, Australia

New protest camp for Col­lege Grove — 29 April 2008

New protest camp for College Grove 2New protest camp for College Grove 1New protest camp for Col­lege Grove — 29 April 2008

Activists have set up a new camp in the Col­lege Grove for­est area that is due to be destroyed in the next stage of devel­op­ment.

Whilst the the first protest failed to stop Land­corp from clear­ing the area, activists and the com­mu­ni­ty of Bun­bury in gen­er­al are deter­mined to stop any fur­ther destruc­tion.
SOURCE:
http://www.globalwarmingfg.com/

BACKGROUND:
Police Vio­lence at treesit action in Col­lege Grove, Bun­bury
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20531

Col­lege Grove Tuart action esca­lates in Bun­bury
http://perth.indymedia.org/?action=default&featureview=618

and oth­er posts on this web­site, see under http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/international or
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/wildernessdefence

Arsonists Torch Drilling Machine in Manawatu (NZ)

24 April 2008
Palmer­ston North, Man­awatu-Wan­ganui- Van­dals stalled con­struc­tion in the Man­awatu Riv­er water­shed by torch­ing a $750,000 drilling machine. Mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar con­struc­tion projects in the area have sparked heat­ed bat­tles between cur­rent res­i­dents, envi­ron­men­tal advo­cates and devel­op­ers. While above ground eco-groups attempt to slog out com­pro­mis­es in the courts, clan­des­tine sabo­teurs have been cost­ing the con­struc­tion indus­try mil­lions in addi­tion­al expens­es each year. Mal­colm Aber­nethy, a tech­ni­cal advis­er to the Con­trac­tors’ Fed­er­a­tion, has said that, small acts of arson and van­dal­ism are a seri­ous threat to indus­tri­al progress. “Every night some­thing prob­a­bly hap­pens, but it’s not always report­ed.”

Torched drill24 April 2008
Palmer­ston North, Man­awatu-Wan­ganui- Van­dals stalled con­struc­tion in the Man­awatu Riv­er water­shed by torch­ing a $750,000 drilling machine. Mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar con­struc­tion projects in the area have sparked heat­ed bat­tles between cur­rent res­i­dents, envi­ron­men­tal advo­cates and devel­op­ers. While above ground eco-groups attempt to slog out com­pro­mis­es in the courts, clan­des­tine sabo­teurs have been cost­ing the con­struc­tion indus­try mil­lions in addi­tion­al expens­es each year. Mal­colm Aber­nethy, a tech­ni­cal advis­er to the Con­trac­tors’ Fed­er­a­tion, has said that, small acts of arson and van­dal­ism are a seri­ous threat to indus­tri­al progress. “Every night some­thing prob­a­bly hap­pens, but it’s not always report­ed.”

The drill, which belonged to Black­ley Con­struc­tion, was the only one of its kind in the coun­try, and oper­a­tions man­ag­er Kevin Bush said the drill was an inte­gral piece of equip­ment and the inci­dent would prob­a­bly trig­ger a change in the com­pa­ny’s pro­to­cols. Addi­tion­al expens­es would like­ly include increased secu­ri­ty trans­port­ing valu­able heavy equip­ment back and forth from job sites twice a day. “We get hit about once a month I’d say. Not this big, but gen­er­al­ly some­thing will be tar­get­ed,” Mr Bush said.

Sim­i­lar acts of van­dal­ism and sab­o­tage in the U.S. are seen as dead­ly, seri­ous acts of ter­ror­ism. Fed­er­al law enforce­ment has made the dis­rup­tion and appre­hen­sion of under­ground eco-groups like the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front a greater pri­or­i­ty than right-wing groups with a his­to­ry of indis­crim­i­nate bomb­ings, lynch­ings and assas­si­na­tions. Envi­ron­men­tal­ly moti­vat­ed van­dal­ism, while it has yet to have even injured a sin­gle per­son, was ranked by the FBI as “the No. 1 domes­tic ter­ror­ism threat” in 2005. The Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and anti-abor­tion fanat­ics were baf­fling­ly not ranked as seri­ous threats. Eco-sabo­teurs have as of yet not injured a sin­gle per­son, while Chris­t­ian anti-abor­tion ter­ror­ists have mur­dered near­ly a dozen peo­ple and maimed more than 100 in the U.S. alone. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists who are appre­hend­ed rou­tine­ly face life­long prison sen­tences for their actions.

http://bombsandshields.blogspot.com

Do you want to kiss it better?

Do you want to kiss it bet­ter?

Do you want to kiss it bet­ter is a char­i­ty comics anthol­o­gy to raise mon­ey for the world land trust (http://www.worldlandtrust.org) to assist in their work to pre­serve the world’s most bio­log­i­cal­ly impor­tant and threat­ened lands

Do Yo Want To Kiss It Better - CoverDo you want to kiss it bet­ter?

Do you want to kiss it bet­ter is a char­i­ty comics anthol­o­gy to raise mon­ey for the world land trust (http://www.worldlandtrust.org) to assist in their work to pre­serve the world’s most bio­log­i­cal­ly impor­tant and threat­ened lands

The work in Green was all con­tributed with the inten­tion of mak­ing peo­ple think about goes on around them & all prof­its from the sale of the com­ic will go towards their projects.

It is 40 pages cov­er to cov­er, 35 pages of strip art. Print­ed on 100% recy­cled paper with inks based on veg­etable oil from a press pow­ered by wind tur­bines. It Fea­tures a colour cov­er from Phil Cor­bett & work from Leonie O,Moore, shi­ro, Scroobius pip, Rufus Day­g­lo, The King Blues, and many oth­er tal­ent­ed artists & writ­ers.

please have a look at:

http://doyouwanttokissitbetter.110mb.com
www.myspace.com/doyouwanttokissitbetter