Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Whalers Hand Activists Over To Australia’s Ship

17th Jan­u­ary: the activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35 — were detained Tues­day after board­ing the har­poon ship to protest Japan’s whal­ing pro­gramme. They were hand­ed over to Aus­tri­ali­a’s ‘Ocean Viking’ ear­li­er today.

Operation Migaloo (Sea Shepherd)
Steve Irwin Sea Shepherd boat & helicopter
17th Jan­u­ary: the activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35 — were detained Tues­day after board­ing the har­poon ship to protest Japan’s whal­ing pro­gramme. They were hand­ed over to Aus­tri­ali­a’s ‘Ocean Viking’ ear­li­er today.

A Japan­ese whal­ing ship late Thurs­day hand­ed over to an Aus­tralian cus­toms ves­sel two anti-whal­ing activists who climbed aboard two days ear­li­er, an offi­cial from Japan’s Fish­eries Agency said.

Aus­tralia sent the cus­toms ship, the Ocean­ic Viking, to the Japan­ese whal­ing ship in a bid to end the stand-off involv­ing the activists of the mil­i­tant Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety.

“Two Sea Shep­herd activists who intrud­ed onto the Yushin Maru No 2 and have been in cus­tody on the ship were hand­ed over to the Ocean­ic Viking char­tered by the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment,” Hidea­ki Oka­da, a whal­ing offi­cial at the Fish­eries Agency in Tokyo, told AFP ear­ly Fri­day.

More at http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gzy-7LzEluJCEYZWmJXa_MiYpOcQ and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7193212.stm

Hope­ful­ly they will be returned back to Sea Shep­herd’s ‘Steve Irwin’ very soon, that is the plan.

Back to destroy­ing whal­ing…

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Sea Shepherd pirates
Antarc­tic Whale Defense Cam­paign
Oper­a­tion Miga­loo 07–08

For more details, see http://www.seashepherd.org/migaloo/index.html

Anti-whaling hostages — update & solidarity demo reports: Berlin, London, Barcelona, New York, Washington DC

17/1/2008
Sea Shep­herd Shuts Down Antarc­tic Whale Hunt
The Japan­ese hunt for endan­gered whales in the South­ern Oceans Whale Sanc­tu­ary has been shut down.

Yushin Maru 2 whaler17/1/2008
Sea Shep­herd Shuts Down Antarc­tic Whale Hunt
The Japan­ese hunt for endan­gered whales in the South­ern Oceans Whale Sanc­tu­ary has been shut down.

“All whal­ing activ­i­ties have come to a halt,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son from onboard the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Society’s ship Steve Irwin. No whales have been killed since Jan­u­ary 11th. The Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been denied a sol­id week of whal­ing activ­i­ty. Our task now is to make that two weeks and then three weeks.”

As long as the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and Green­peace keep the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet on the run, there will be no whal­ing activ­i­ty.

“I wish that Green­peace would be more coop­er­a­tive,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “How­ev­er we will con­tin­ue to feed them the coor­di­nates for the rest of the fleet as they tail the fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru. If we can­not work with Green­peace direct­ly we will work with them indi­rect­ly. The strength of any move­ment is in diver­si­ty.”

Jan­u­ary 17th found the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin chas­ing the whal­ing sup­ply ves­sel Ori­en­tal Blue­bird and three oth­er whal­ing ships east­ward along the line of Lat­i­tude of Six­ty Degrees South near the Eighty Six Degree East line of lon­gi­tude. This is approx­i­mate­ly 2000 miles from Fre­man­tle, Aus­tralia.

The Japan­ese whalers con­tin­ue to hold Aus­tralian cit­i­zen Ben­jamin Potts 28 and Giles Lane 35 of Great Britain. The Japan­ese gov­ern­ment has ordered their release but the whalers are defy­ing that order and refus­ing to release their hostages until Sea Shep­herd agrees to their demands. One of the demands is for Sea Shep­herd to dis­con­tin­ue oppos­ing whal­ing activ­i­ties. Cap­tain Wat­son respond­ed by refus­ing to acknowl­edge their demands and demand­ing instead that the hostages be released with­out con­di­tions.

The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin will con­tin­ue to pur­sue ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties for as long as pos­si­ble.

——

Aus­tralia to inter­cede in Safe Return of Sea Shep­herd activists

After two days being held hostage on the Yushin Maru No 2, two Sea Shep­herd anti-whal­ing activists may be returned with­in the next day to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin by the autho­ri­sa­tion of the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to use the Cus­toms and Fish­eries patrol ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking as an inter­me­di­ary.

Aus­tralian For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Stephen Smith said “What is required now to trans­fer those two men is the agree­ment of the Japan­ese Gov­ern­ment, which we have, the agree­ment of the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment, which we have,” Mr Smith said. “We now need the full and com­plete coop­er­a­tion of the two ves­sels, the two cap­tains and the two men con­cerned.”

Sea Shep­herd were refus­ing to meet the con­di­tions stip­u­lat­ed by the Cap­tain of the Yashin Maru No 2 to stop inter­fer­ing with the whal­ing fleet oper­a­tions for the trans­fer of the two crew mem­bers, with Cap­tain Paul Wat­son say­ing on the ABC 7.30 report “I don’t acqui­esce to ter­ror­ist demands and that’s what that is. Hold­ing hostages and mak­ing demands is a ter­ror­ist tac­tic.”

Asked to jus­ti­fy two mem­bers of his crew board­ing anoth­er ves­sel with­out autho­ri­sa­tion, which the Japan­ese have accused as an act or ter­ror­ism or pira­cy, Paul Wat­son replied “You can run around the ocean jump­ing on poacher’s ves­sels. They’re tar­get­ing endan­gered species and whale sanc­tu­ar­ies, in vio­la­tion of a glob­al mora­to­ri­um. The Unit­ed Nations’ world char­ter of nature on sec­tion of imple­men­ta­tion under Sec­tion 21 E allows for non-gov­ern­ment organ­i­sa­tions to uphold inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. So, we are autho­rised to do that. These are poach­ers, I’m try­ing to get that through to peo­ple. They are poach­ers.”

Sec­tion 21 E of the World Char­ter for Nature, passed by the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly in 1982, states that “States and, to the extent they are able, oth­er pub­lic author­i­ties, inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, indi­vid­u­als, groups and cor­po­ra­tions shall .…(e) safe­guard and con­serve nature in areas beyond nation­al juris­dic­tion.”

Sec­tion 24 of the char­ter says that “Each per­son has a duty to act in accor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the present Char­ter; act­ing indi­vid­u­al­ly, in asso­ci­a­tion with oth­ers or through par­tic­i­pa­tion in the polit­i­cal process, each per­son shall strive to ensure that the objec­tives and require­ments of the present Char­ter are met.”

Accord­ing to the Aus­tralian For­eign min­is­ter, Stephen Smith on the ABC 7.30 Report, “the only con­di­tions that will be imposed here are con­di­tions that will be imposed by the Aus­tralian author­i­ties and the ‘Ocean­ic Viking’, and those con­di­tions will go to the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of this oper­a­tion.

It was report­ed by AAP that the trans­fer may take place in the next 24 hours. Accord­ing to Kim McCoy, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, on board the Steve Irwin “We have just spo­ken very recent­ly with an agent on board the Ocean­ic Viking cus­toms ves­sel,” she said. “We have received offi­cial con­tact from them stat­ing that they’re just wait­ing for the Japan­ese to con­firm that they’re will­ing to accept those terms.”

“My under­stand­ing is that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment is not going to impose any con­di­tions on us to stop harass­ing the whal­ing, because the whal­ing is ille­gal. The only con­di­tion that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment wants to impose is the safe trans­fer, and of course we’re going to have to facil­i­tate a safe trans­fer, we don’t want to jeop­ar­dise any­one’s safe­ty dur­ing the trans­fer of Giles and Pottsy (Ben­jamin Potts) to our ship.

“Beyond that they’ve told us that there will be no addi­tion­al con­di­tions. In oth­er words, we are going to con­tin­ue inter­ven­ing against the ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ty of the Japan­ese.” she said.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son told Ali Moore from the ABC 7.30 Report “We’re not protest­ing their whal­ing oper­a­tions, we’re not protest­ing them. What we are doing is inter­fer­ing with ille­gal activ­i­ties. This is an inter­ven­tion­ist oper­a­tion not a protest organ­i­sa­tion.”

Sources:

* ABC 7.30 Report — Jan 17, 2008 — Govt con­sid­ers send­ing ‘Ocean­ic Viking’ to the res­cue
* ABC 7.30 Report — Jan 17, 2008 — Sea Shep­herd cap­tain reports from the high seas
* ABC News — Jan 17, 2008 — Sea Shep­herd will only accept ‘uncon­di­tion­al’ Govt help
* news.com.au, Jan 17, 2008 — Anti-whalers con­tact­ed over detainees
* Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­by 1982 World Char­ter for Nature

Repost from report on Syd­ney Indy­media, that con­tains all source links.
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/australia-intercedes-safe-return-sea-shepherd-activists

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Sea Shep­herd Sol­i­dar­i­ty Protest at Japan­ese Embassy, Berlin

16.1.2008
Peo­ple went to put pres­sure on offi­cials at the Japan­ese Embassy at Hiroshi­mas­trasse in Berlin today. They hung ban­ners on the fences of the Embassy demand­ing the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of the two Sea Shep­herd crew mem­bers tak­en hostage on 15 Jan­u­ary by the Japan­ese
Whal­ing Fleet.

For updates, see www.seashepherd.org

——

Sea Shepherd Hostage London Solidarity Demo
Sea Shep­herd Hostage Lon­don Sol­i­dar­i­ty Demo
16/1/08

Fifty pick­et the Japan­ese embassy in Lon­don in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Sea Shep­herd hostages (see pre­vi­ous posts). The embassy staff were not hap­py. Ban­ners read ‘Free the Hostages’, ‘Stop the the Whale Slaugh­ter’ and ‘Defend the Wild’. The pick­et got a lot of media cov­er­age with mul­ti­ple TV crews includ­ing one from Japan.

Updates post­ed here and at www.seashepherd.org

——

Sea Shep­herd demo, Barcelona
17.1.2008
Demon­stra­tors today held a protest out­side the Japan­ese Con­sul in Barcelona, also deliv­er­ing a let­ter to the Gen­er­al Con­sul demand­ing the imme­di­ate release of two Sea Shep­herd crew mem­bers cur­rent­ly held hostage by Japan­ese whalers.

A group of Sea Shep­herd sup­port­ers demon­strat­ed out­side the Japan­ese Con­sulate in Barcelona today, to call for the imme­di­ate release of Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts, cur­rent­ly held hostage aboard a Japan­ese whal­ing ship.

Inside, two peo­ple deliv­ered a let­ter to the Con­sul con­demn­ing the hostage tak­ing and demand­ing Japan­ese inter­ven­tion. Out­side, 150 leaflets were hand­ed out to work­ers and passers­by.

The Mossos turned up but every­thing was qui­et. Sol­i­dar­i­ty to Sea Shep­herd!

—–

NYC Protest for Sea Shep­herd Hostages

17.01.2008
Activists braved the cold of New York City today to protest yes­ter­day’s kid­nap­ping of Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts by an ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing ship. They were released ear­li­er today to the Ocean Viking (Aus­trali­a’s ship).

VIDEOS
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk1AKVRbR8I
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb7IM9VNY48

Activists braved the cold of New York City today to protest yes­ter­day’s kid­nap­ping of Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts by an ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing ship.

The duo are cur­rent­ly being held hostage on the ship, and demon­stra­tions and protests at Japan­ese embassies and con­sulates across the globe are being held in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Sea Shep­herd crew.

Japan, we demand you stop the bloody slaugh­ter of inno­cent whales and dol­phins and return the kid­napped activists IMMEDIATELY with­out harm!

http://www.war-online.org

—–

17/01/08

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO2I38jBo‑E

Activists from NYC band­ed togeth­er with activists from Wash­ing­ton D.C. to protest the kid­nap­ping and hostage tak­ing of Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety mem­bers Giles Lane (UK) and Ben­jamin Potts (Aus­tralia).

Ani­mal lovers and envi­ron­men­tal­ists gath­ered out­side the Japan­ese embassy and demand­ed the release of Potts and Lane, who are regard­ed as heroes, and also demand­ed an end to the slaugh­ter of beau­ti­ful whales and dol­phins that go to feed Japan­ese bel­lies.

At the end of yes­ter­day’s protest activists received the call: The Sea Shep­herd heroes had just been released.

Indigenous Action Against Mining Hold Australian Firm At Bay in the Philippines

2008-01-17
NUEVA VIZCAYA, Philip­pines- Trib­al vil­lagers up north Luzon block­ad­ed the Aus­tralian min­ing com­pa­ny from fur­ther explor­ing min­er­als in their com­mu­ni­ty, Fri­day noon, and forced the min­ing firm to leave the vil­lage.

Rabbit under fence2008-01-17
NUEVA VIZCAYA, Philip­pines- Trib­al vil­lagers up north Luzon block­ad­ed the Aus­tralian min­ing com­pa­ny from fur­ther explor­ing min­er­als in their com­mu­ni­ty, Fri­day noon, and forced the min­ing firm to leave the vil­lage.

Accord­ing to reports, hun­dred dozens of indige­nous res­i­dents in Kasi­bu town ‚“pushed away employ­ees of a for­eign min­ing firm and their earth-mov­ing equip­ment that were sup­posed to start explo­ration in their com­mu­ni­ty”, said Inq.Net. The action held by local peo­ple has lead to an indef­i­nite oper­a­tion shut down of OceanaGold Philip­pines Inc.- an Aus­tralian com­pa­ny.

Indige­nous res­i­dents were only pro­tect­ing the Papaya water­shed that feed the Alimudin, Mal­ong and Pah­d­u­an rivers. These are the main sources of irri­ga­tion for about 150,000 fruit trees in Mal­abing Val­ley, which has six vil­lages. But the min­ing firm came in with­out con­sent among the vil­lagers and threat­en their means of exis­tence.

This is what the Aus­tralian Min­ing Com­pa­ny has said in their media release:
“OceanaGold offi­cials insist they no longer need proof of con­sent from the com­mu­ni­ty since they have a Finan­cial and Tech­ni­cal Assis­tance Agree­ment (FTAA) grant­ed by the gov­ern­ment in 1994 to Cli­max Min­ing Ltd.”

Japanese whalers take Sea Shepherds hostage (incl. Brit) — demo, L’don, 16 January; email addresses; release demands; videos

15.01.2008 — [lat­est update at bot­tom]
In what has been an unpre­dictably dra­mat­ic day for the cam­paign against whal­ing in Antarc­ti­ca, the crew of a Japan­ese har­poon gun­boat have seized Aus­tralian and British crew mebers of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, Steve Irwin.

Sea Shepherd Hostages15.01.2008 — [lat­est update at bot­tom]
In what has been an unpre­dictably dra­mat­ic day for the cam­paign against whal­ing in Antarc­ti­ca, the crew of a Japan­ese har­poon gun­boat have seized Aus­tralian and British crew mebers of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, Steve Irwin.

Astound­ing! Last year around this time, things were real­ly get­ting dra­mat­ic in the Sea Shep­herd pur­suit of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet across Antarc­ti­ca. Crew miss­ing at sea, ship­board fires, the risk of a pris­tine envi­ron­ment being chem­i­cal­ly dec­i­mat­ed, and even one human death as an accom­pa­ni­ment to the slaugh­ter of hun­dreds of mam­moth sen­tient beings.

Not to be out­done, the 2007/08 sea­son of resis­tance has just kicked into over­drive. Today, the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court called Japan­ese whal­ing — in Aus­tralian waters, at least — what it is: ille­gal. The Hon­ourable Jus­tice All­sop issued an injunc­tion order­ing that all Japan­ese whal­ing with­in Aus­tralian Antarc­tic waters (which Japan and most oth­er coun­tries don’t rec­og­nize) stop imme­di­ate­ly. So, tech­ni­cal­ly, since about 3pm Aus­tralian East Coast time every sin­gle crew mem­ber of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been eli­gi­ble for arrest should they enter Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­ries.

But the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet, as always, need­ed to up the ante. In the last 50 min­utes it has been report­ed that the crew of the har­poon gun­boat Yashin Maru II have tak­en two Sea Shep­herd activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts and a Briton, Giles Lane — hostage, and tied them to the radar mast of their ship. Ear­li­er today the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Steve Irwin broke off its pur­suit of the whale-pro­cess­ing fac­to­ry ves­sel, also known as the Cetacean Death Star, the Nis­shin Maru. With Green­peace’s Esper­an­za still pur­su­ing the fac­to­ry ship away from the rest of the whal­ing fleet, the Shep­herds turned about to dis­rupt the activ­i­ties of the rest of the scat­tered fleet.

Obvi­ous­ly, they found them alright. Shep­herd Cap­tain Paul Wat­son reports that the two men, who have now been effec­tive­ly kid­napped on the high seas — iron­i­cal­ly, a gen­uine act of pira­cy by the Japan­ese whalers — had board­ed the ship to deliv­er a let­ter to the cap­tain pro­claim­ing their whal­ing activ­i­ty ille­gal and demand­ing an imme­di­ate ces­sa­tion of whale-hunt­ing, as per the order made today by the Fed­er­al Court.

Seems that Aus­tralian con­cerns about cre­at­ing a diplo­mat­ic inci­dent with Japan pale in com­par­i­son to what the whal­ing fleet are clear­ly eager to cre­ate.

Stay tuned.

============

The Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel Yushin Maru No. 2 has tak­en two Sea Shep­herd vol­un­teer crew mem­bers hostage. Ben­jamin Potts 28, an Aus­tralian cit­i­zen and Giles Lane, 35, a cit­i­zen of Great Britain are being held hostage onboard the whal­ing ves­sel. Both men were assault­ed and then tied to the rail­ings of the whaler. They were then moved and tied to the radar mast by the whalers.

Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet On the Run With Two Sea Shep­herd Hostages

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety’s ship Steve Irwin is in full pur­suit of five ves­sels of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet includ­ing the Japan­ese sup­ply ves­sel Ori­en­tal Blue­bird.

Both men board­ed the Yushin Maru to deliv­er a mes­sage to the Japan­ese cap­tain that the whalers were in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law by tar­get­ing endan­gered species in an estab­lished whale sanc­tu­ary in vio­la­tion of a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing. They also noti­fied the cap­tain that Aus­tralia had just passed a court rul­ing bar­ring Japan­ese whalers from the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

All of this activ­i­ty has tak­en place in the area of 60 Degrees South and 78 Degrees East. All activ­i­ty has been doc­u­ment­ed from the Sea Shep­herd heli­copter and the fast mov­ing Delta ves­sel. The Steve Irwin has dis­patched a small fast Delta boat and a heli­copter to attempt to per­suade the Yushin Maru No. 2 to stop and release the hostages.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son has noti­fied the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Police that he would like to see kid­nap­ping charges brought against the Japan­ese whalers. The Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and the British Embassy have been informed that their cit­i­zens are being held hostage on an ille­gal­ly oper­at­ed Japan­ese whal­ing ship in Inter­na­tion­al waters.

The Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru has fled over 700 miles to the North­west and is head­ing towards South Africa accom­pa­nied by the Green­peace ship Esper­an­za. The entire whal­ing fleet is on the run and out­side of the whal­ing area with the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin in hot pur­suit of five ves­sels of the Japan­ese fleet.

No whales have been slaugh­tered for the last four days and it does not look as if the whal­ing oper­a­tions are going to begin again for anoth­er week at least, and not at all if the ves­sels are pre­vent­ed from regroup­ing. The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin has a good sup­ply of fuel and can remain in the area for some time and will con­tin­ue to police the ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions by the Japan­ese fleet.

Sea Shep­herd cap­tain Paul Wat­son will turn over author­i­ty to the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment to enforce the court rul­ing against ille­gal whal­ing in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone upon request from the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and an agree­ment that Aus­tralia will enforce the court’s rul­ing to bar all Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.

The let­ter tak­en aboard:

To: The Cap­tain of any Japan­ese ship involved with poach­ing oper­a­tions in The Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

Sir,

My name is Giles David Lane

I am a British cit­i­zen and an unpaid vol­un­teer on the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel Steve Irwin

I have come onboard your ship because you have refused to acknowl­edge com­mu­ni­ca­tion from our ship per­tain­ing to your ille­gal activ­i­ties in the waters of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

I am not board­ing your ship with the intent to com­mit a crime, to rob you or to inflict injury upon your crew and your­self or dam­age to your ship. My rea­son for board­ing is to deliv­er the mes­sage that you are in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law and in vio­la­tion of the laws of Aus­tralia. It is my intent to deliv­er this mes­sage and then to request that you allow me to dis­em­bark from your ves­sel with­out harm or seizure.

I am empow­ered to act to uphold these laws in accor­dance with the Unit­ed Nations World Char­ter for Nature and the laws of Aus­tralia.

I am board­ing you with the request that you please refrain from any fur­ther crim­i­nal activ­i­ty in these waters and cease and desist with the con­tin­ued killing of endan­gered whales in this des­ig­nat­ed Whale Sanc­tu­ary in vio­la­tion of the IWC glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing and that you cease and desist in con­tin­ued vio­la­tions of Aus­tralian law by killing whales with­in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters of Aus­tralia with­out per­mit or per­mis­sion from the gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia.

I am board­ing you on the orders of Cap­tain Paul Wat­son who requests that you treat me with respect and in accor­dance with the Gene­va Con­ven­tion.

http://www.seashepherd.org/

============

Pick­et at 2.15pm 16/1/08 at Japan­ese Embassy, Lon­don. Near­est Tubes Green Park & Hyde Park Cor­ner.

The address is:101–104 Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don, W1J 7JT
============

It would be great if every­one could take a moment to email the Japan­ese embassy and For­eign office and ask them to do what­ev­er they can to effect Giles’ release. Japan­ese Embassy: info@jpembassy.org.uk

For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Office: It would be good to copy them in to what­ev­er you send to the Embassy. I had some trou­ble get­ting hold of an email address, but you could try the fol­low­ing one — msu.publicin@fco.gov.uk; Meg Munn is the Min­is­ter “respon­si­ble” for Asia and the Pacific.meg.munn@fco.gov.uk or munnm@parliament.uk
020 7008 1500

Sug­ges­tion of what to write: Dear Japan­ese Ambassador,I am writ­ing to you to protest in the strongest pos­si­ble terms the tak­ing of two hostages on board a Japan­ese Whal­ing Ship this morning.Press reports (see links below) have sug­gest­ed that the two men, (one of whom is a UK Nation­al by the name of Giles Lane), who peace­ful­ly board­ed the Yushin Maru No. 2 to deliv­er a let­ter, were assault­ed and then tied up. Pho­tographs from their own ves­sel, the Sea Shep­herd, show the two men being tied up out­side. The inci­dent hap­pened sev­er­al hours ago and I am great­ly con­cerned for their safety.I demand that you inter­vene at once to ensure that these men are released, pro­tect­ed from the ele­ments, and returned safe­ly to their ves­sel as soon as pos­si­ble. I also hope that your gov­ern­ment will ensure that the cap­tain and crew of the Yushin Maru No. 2 be pros­e­cut­ed for their actions.Yours sin­cere­ly, etc

============

16/1/2008

Japan­ese Whalers Make Demands for Return of Hostages

The Insti­tute of Cetacean Research, the front group for the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tions are mak­ing demands for the release of the two Sea Shep­herd crew being held hostage onboard the Japan­ese whal­ing ves­sel Yushin Maru No. 2.

The whalers said they will return the hostages in return for Sea Shep­herd agree­ing to no longer inter­fere with their whal­ing oper­a­tions.

“The Insti­tute of Cetacean Research is act­ing like a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion,” said Steve Irwin’s 1st Offi­cer Peter Brown. “Here they are tak­ing hostages and mak­ing demands. Our pol­i­cy is that we don’t respond to ter­ror­ist demands.”

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has heard reports from the media that Japan has agreed to release the hostages but the Steve Irwin has not heard any­thing offi­cial from either the Aus­tralian or Japan­ese gov­ern­ments.

“The activ­i­ties of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet are ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. The Japan­ese are poach­ers and should be treat­ed in the same man­ner as ele­phant or tiger poach­ers,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety will not nego­ti­ate with poach­ers and demands that the Japan­ese whalers release Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane as soon as pos­si­ble.

The loca­tion of the Yushin Maru No. 2 with the hostages onboard is not known present­ly. The ves­sel is no longer in sight or with­in radar range of the Steve Irwin.

============

BBC video of ship being board­ed

Col­lec­tion of dif­fer­ent videos

Saving Iceland Update 2008 — Mini-gathering — Friday 22nd February 2008, Sumac Centre, Nottingham

Sav­ing Ice­land Update 2008
Mini-gath­er­ing

A day of talks and film show­ings to pass on infor­ma­tion about the on-going inter­na­tion­al cam­paign and the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Ice­land

Fri­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary 2008, Sumac Cen­tre, Not­ting­ham

Sav­ing Ice­land Update 2008
Mini-gath­er­ing

A day of talks and film show­ings to pass on infor­ma­tion about the on-going inter­na­tion­al cam­paign and the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Ice­land

Fri­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary 2008, Sumac Cen­tre, Not­ting­ham

The event is aimed at:
Activists who have been involved with Sav­ing Ice­land in the past, have part­ed com­pa­ny for what­ev­er rea­son, but would like to know what’s hap­pen­ing now
UK-based Sav­ing Ice­land activists who were unable to make it to the recent organ­is­ing gath­er­ings abroad and would like an update
Peo­ple who are new to the issue but are inter­est­ed to find out about this great eco­log­i­cal threat to our rel­a­tive­ly local wilder­ness.
Any­one with ques­tions about the cam­paign

Please book in advance (email savingiceland@riseup.org, sub­ject head­ing “UK mini-gath­er­ing”) so we have some idea of cater­ing require­ments, and let us know if you need accom­mo­da­tion. We will be ask­ing for a small dona­tion to cov­er costs of food and venue.

We will start at 10 a.m. with an intro­duc­tion to the issues. If you already know the basics, aim to arrive by 11a.m.

* * *

www.savingiceland.org

Forest defenders take action in the Styx Valley, Tasmania

Two for­est actions took place in the Styx Val­ley this week. On Tues­day morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed work on a new bridge as a for­est defend­er locked onto forestry machin­ery for over 10 hours before being cut off by police. Yes­ter­day, activists con­duct­ed a peace­ful walk in to stop the indus­tri­al scale destruc­tion of ancient forests locat­ed in coupe SX10F.

Tasmania Styx action
Two for­est actions took place in the Styx Val­ley this week. On Tues­day morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed work on a new bridge as a for­est defend­er locked onto forestry machin­ery for over 10 hours before being cut off by police. Yes­ter­day, activists con­duct­ed a peace­ful walk in to stop the indus­tri­al scale destruc­tion of ancient forests locat­ed in coupe SX10F.

See media releas­es and audio links below…
MEDIA RELEASE

Tues­day, 15 Jan­u­ary 2008

For­est defend­ers take action in the Styx Val­ley, Tas­ma­nia

This morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed work on the con­struc­tion of a new bridge across the Styx Riv­er. If built, this bridge will pro­vide increased log truck access to the glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant stands of giant euca­lypts locat­ed in the val­ley.

“Tas­ma­nia is cur­rent­ly in a state of envi­ron­men­tal emer­gency. Vast tracts of old growth forests are being destroyed and sent to the chip­per in order to fur­ther inflate the already gross­ly bulging bank accounts of a select few. Right now, in coupe SX10F, chain­saws and bull­doz­ers are rip­ping apart some of our most pre­cious nat­ur­al her­itage” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“The com­mu­ni­ty is being locked out of their own forests all over the state, while local cli­mate crim­i­nals Forestry Tas­ma­nia employ their usu­al far­ci­cal spin and claim that this bridge will be used pri­mar­i­ly for tourists. What this bridge will do is increase the whole­sale destruc­tion of some of the island’s most sig­nif­i­cant car­bon sinks” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

Recent devel­op­ments at the Bali cli­mate con­fer­ence have fur­ther rein­forced the impor­tance of halt­ing the defor­esta­tion and degra­da­tion of car­bon sinks. Euca­lyp­tus reg­nans old growth forests, such as those locat­ed in the Styx Val­ley, have been shown to store huge amounts of car­bon.

“We are call­ing on the Rudd gov­ern­ment to take seri­ous action and demon­strate to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty that Aus­tralia is imple­ment­ing intel­li­gent, enlight­ened and equi­table strate­gies to com­bat cli­mate change by ensur­ing the imme­di­ate pro­tec­tion of Tasmania’s ancient forests” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

For­est defend­ers will con­tin­ue to take a stand against the destruc­tion of old growth forests locat­ed in the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­leys.

Lis­ten to SWST vs Forestry Tas­ma­nia on ABC Radio http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/15/2138389.htm

MEDIA RELEASE

Thurs­day, 17th Jan­u­ary 2008

For­est activists con­tin­ue their protest in the Styx Val­ley, Tas­ma­nia

Ear­ly this after­noon, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened con­duct­ed a peace­ful walk in to coupe SX10F to doc­u­ment and bear wit­ness to the ongo­ing destruc­tion of old growth forests locat­ed in the Styx Val­ley.

“Some of our most sig­nif­i­cant car­bon sinks are being destroyed at a dis­turbing­ly accel­er­at­ed rate, ren­der­ing Tasmania’s forestry prac­tices an inter­na­tion­al dis­grace. The Rudd gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to endorse the log­ging and burn­ing of ancient forests locat­ed in the Styx Val­ley. Pro­tect­ing Tasmania’s old growth forests is a sim­ple, cheap and intel­li­gent cli­mate change solu­tion” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“SX10F has gained an inter­na­tion­al pro­file over the past few years, becom­ing an icon­ic exam­ple of Tasmania’s glob­al­ly renowned forests. This irre­place­able ecosys­tem, locat­ed with­in 1.5km of the World Her­itage Bound­ary, is being ripped apart by bull­doz­ers and chain­saws to line the pock­ets of greedy wood­chip­pers Gunns Ltd.” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

For­est defend­ers will con­tin­ue to peace­ful­ly protest against the destruc­tion of old growth forests locat­ed in the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­leys.

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 75, JANUARY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH & LONDON, 15.12.07
3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA — DECEMBER 2007
25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Just three months to go — are you out prac­tis­ing your rou­tines? rehears­ing your songs? build­ing your props yet? I should get out more over Christ­mas…
How­ev­er, it will soon be time to hatch your mis­chie­vous scheme, so get your friends round and start plot­ting!
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/

2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
In sup­port of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, AMP is organ­is­ing a night of live music at The Oth­ers, Manor Road, Stoke New­ing­ton. Entrance £5.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=38074566

3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
Organ­ised by Ris­ing Tide with speak­ers from Groundswell and Plane Stu­pid.
7pm St. Maw­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Hall, Nr. Newquay, Corn­wall. For more info. email; kernow@risingtide.org.uk

4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
11am — 6pm at The Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham.
This meet­ing came out of the last Cli­mate Camp gath­er­ing in Novem­ber. It is focussed on grow­ing our move­ment — how can we encour­age more groups to form and more actions/campaigns to hap­pen? What things do we want to do to help build a vibrant net­work of region­al action groups doing actions local­ly and nation­al­ly?
For instruc­tion on how to get there: http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html
Also, 11 peo­ple are going to tri­al in Not­ting­ham on Mon­day 14th for ‘shut­ting down’ the local coal pow­er sta­tion, If any­one wants to stay to sup­port them that would be great!

5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/nextmeeting.php

6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
Bio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 1st Feb­ru­ary 2008. We will short­ly update our web­site to pro­vide more back­ground infor­ma­tion about the UK agro­fu­el indus­try and poli­cies, as well as a draft leaflet and oth­er resources. If you would like to get involved or find out more, please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk.
http://biofuelwatch.org.uk/

7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Forum “Cli­mate Change: it’s time to pre­pare”
9.15am at the Methodist Hall, Old­ham St, Cen­tral Man­ches­ter
http://www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk/index.html

8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
On Jan­u­ary 26 self-orga­nized groups from all around the world will take cre­ative action in their com­mu­ni­ty. This will man­i­fest in many ways, from non­vi­o­lent direct action, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, street the­atre, con­ver­gences, teach-ins and oth­er activ­i­ties and events. Grass­roots move­ments around the world are mak­ing their voic­es heard and say­ing “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”. In coor­di­na­tion with the World Social Forum.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
Next course by the Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courseoutlinelowimpactsmallholding.htm

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
For the recent­ly formed Ker­now and Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide groups, this action marked an esca­la­tion in their fight against cli­mate change and for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. How­ev­er the planned rooftop protest at Newquay air­port was giv­en an unlike­ly boost when builders at the air­port left a lad­der propped up!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/248
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7146159.stm

2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH AND LONDON, 15.12.07
Sub­ver­sive Singing San­tas Spread Sea­son­al San­i­ty in Lon­don and Nor­wich On one of the busiest shop­ping days of the year. Ris­ing Tide activists in both Lon­don and Nor­wich dressed up as San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion and hit the high streets to sing a dif­fer­ent tune to the usu­al buy, buy,
buy mad­ness of the hol­i­day sea­son.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/247

3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
A series of actions is being tak­en against the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and Bris­tol Muse­um, in protest at the spon­sor­ship of the event by Shell. A grumpy polar bear vis­it­ed the offices of BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine, then activists dis­rupt­ed Bris­tol Muse­um’s posh recep­tion to kick off the exhi­bi­tion with a Yes Men-style inter­ven­tion. And on the open­ing morn­ing, dozens of humans, polar bears, a snow leop­ard and a tiger gath­ered (com­plete with the Shell’s Wild Lie counter-exhi­bi­tion) in front of the muse­um. They hand­ed out leaflets and cre­at­ed quite a spec­ta­cle. Protests are expect­ed to con­tin­ue through Jan. 13th.
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held on 16th Decem­ber at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.
On the 19th, a small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17942
http://www.corribsos.com/

5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
Over 10,000 cli­mate cam­paign­ers took to the streets to take part in march­es in Lon­don and Glas­gow over the week­end, despite pour­ing rain. Pro­test­ers braved the weath­er in one the biggest demon­stra­tions call­ing for cli­mate jus­tice the UK has ever seen.
http://www.campaigncc.org/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387497.html
Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of the Cli­mate March in Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/
Mean­while, in Man­ches­ter air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to Euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed.

6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
A col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17893

7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
All Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre were super-glued shut in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et” The UK’s only Hum­mer deal­er­ship, Bauer Mil­lett, was also D‑locked shut.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17887

8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
Activists from Chea­dle-High-Street Against Cli­mate Change held a “A plan­et is not just for Xmas” cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17917

9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
Two adverts pro­mot­ing DVD’s by Top Gear’s Jere­my Clark­son now have large stick­ers stuck on declar­ing “This caus­es cli­mate change”. Also, Fly­Be appears to have spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17937

10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
Women cli­mate activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and coin­cides with the open­ing of their first “con­sul­ta­tion”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17883

11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
A ban­ner with this warning/statement was dropped to wel­come all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17886

12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
More than thir­ty cli­mate activists, includ­ing mem­bers of the Ris­ing Tide net­work, joined with local res­i­dents from Merthyr Tyd­fil in stop­ping exca­va­tion work for a full day on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. Activists evad­ed police and secu­ri­ty before tak­ing over the 1,000 acre site on a hill­top near Cardiff. Dressed as clowns and polar bears, they chained them­selves to bull­doz­ers and oth­er heavy machin­ery to pre­vent work on the mine.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/242

13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90
per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/240
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/03/oil.bp

14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
Four home­less polar bears appeared before Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court on 14th Novem­ber. They were arrest­ed after blockad­ing the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cor­po­rate offices on Avon St. dur­ing the Ris­ing Tide nation­al day of action. After plead­ing guilty to charges of “wil­ful­ly obstruct­ing the pub­lic high­way with a non motor vehi­cle” (i.e. a suit case) they were giv­en a con­di­tion­al dis­charge and went on to pick­et the RBS branch on Bald­win Street!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/243

15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
The only way to fight cli­mate change. A new report by Oil­Watch.
http://www.oilwatch.org/doc/documentos/Keep_oil_underground.pdf
http://www.oilwatch.org/

16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing “nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos” and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17868

17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
Unbur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of her car and pulled a cyclist off his bike.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17889

18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
“Livestock’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.” Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006
find out more at
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/hot/index.php

19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
A free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work.
http://whatbettertime.livejournal.com/

20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­bler­ousi­ness.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17905

21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
For updates on the work of Pacif­ic Envi­ron­ment, a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that pro­tects the Pacif­ic Rim’s wild places and wildlife, see;
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2658

22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
From fan­ta­sy finance to glob­al crash.
Your guide to under­stand­ing the cri­sis that is sweep­ing through the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem and what it means for ordi­nary peo­ple.
Endorsed by Kevin Smith of Car­bon Trade Watch and film­mak­er Ken Loach.
http://www.aworldtowin.net/about/HouseOfCards.html

23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
A new web­site.
http://www.swairaction.org.uk/

24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA is born — DECEMBER 2007
The group had its first meet­ing on 3rd Jan­u­ary and is now swing­ing into action. If you live in the area and want to find out more or get involved con­tact becqke@riseup.net

25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE
Ris­ing Tide action footage has been spring­ing up all over youtube — check out http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RisingTideNetwork for some RT films, some of the lat­est actions and links to oth­er’s videos of RT actions.

———-

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.

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Woman arrested at Tas forestry protest

Jan­u­ary 8, 2008

A 23-year-old woman involved in a forestry protest in Tas­ma­ni­a’s south has been plucked by a crane from her for­est perch, arrest­ed and charged.

A Tas­man­ian police search and res­cue squad arrived at the protest site in a remote for­est in the state’s south about 10am (AEDT) Tues­day to break up a four-day activist vig­il.

Jan­u­ary 8, 2008

A 23-year-old woman involved in a forestry protest in Tas­ma­ni­a’s south has been plucked by a crane from her for­est perch, arrest­ed and charged.

A Tas­man­ian police search and res­cue squad arrived at the protest site in a remote for­est in the state’s south about 10am (AEDT) Tues­day to break up a four-day activist vig­il.

The woman was sit­ting atop a 10-metre tall tree trunk which had been con­cret­ed into the mid­dle of a major access road.

She has been charged with tres­pass­ing, obstruct­ing police, and dis­obey­ing direc­tions, Inspec­tor Mark Mewis of Kingston Police said.

She will be bailed to appear in court at a lat­er date.

Two pro­test­ers remain sit­ting in trees at the Weld Val­ley site, which activists say is under threat from log­ging.

Police con­tin­ue to nego­ti­ate with the pro­test­ers while cables which had con­nect­ed the tree-borne activists to the road below have been removed.

Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre activists say about 1,000 hectares of untouched “wilder­ness” could be logged, with plans by Forestry Tas­ma­nia to build a bridge across the Weld Riv­er to access the area for the first time.

Spokes­woman Jen­ny Weber said Forestry Tas­ma­nia had indi­cat­ed it planned to start build­ing the bridge before Christ­mas, and although work has yet to start, it could begin any day.

About a dozen peo­ple were at the protest when it got under­way on Sat­ur­day.

Six peo­ple left on Mon­day after a Forestry Tas­ma­nia heli­copter hov­ered over the area and anoth­er woman left on Tues­day morn­ing.

The con­ser­va­tion group says the North Weld wilder­ness includes some of the best exam­ples of ancient forests in Tas­ma­nia.

Forestry Tas­ma­nia said vast areas of the Weld were already pro­tect­ed.

It said 88 per cent of the val­ley was pro­tect­ed, with only 12 per cent of the area, in forests out­side these zones, avail­able for log­ging.

It said the des­ig­nat­ed forestry area would be logged for spe­cial tim­bers to be used for crafts and design, an impor­tant indus­try for the state.

Forestry Tas­ma­nia spokesman David Tuck said the pro­test­ers had been told repeat­ed­ly to leave.

“They have been told for four days to clear out,” he told AAP.

Mr Tuck said pro­test­ers wore bal­a­clavas and hurled insults at Forestry Tas­ma­nia work­ers.

The activists were tres­pass­ing and had van­dalised gates, he said.

“The incred­i­ble irony is that they’ve cut down trees in order to con­struct a tree-sit and put the for­est in dan­ger by hav­ing a camp­fire in peak bush­fire sea­son,” he said.

http://news.smh.com.au/woman-arrested-at-tas-forestry-protest/20080108–1ksf.html

=====
JAN 9 2007 — Tas­ma­nia Police have con­firmed that three anti-forestry pro­test­ers were arrest­ed in the Weld Val­ley, south of Hobart, yes­ter­day.

Police and emer­gency work­ers used a crane to forcibly remove a 23 year old woman from a block­ade yes­ter­day after­noon.
She has been charged with tres­pass, caus­ing injury to prop­er­ty, obstruct­ing police and dis­obey­ing police direc­tions.

A 29 year old woman and a 26 year old man were arrest­ed last night and charged with tres­pass.

All three are from Lucas­ton, in Tas­ma­ni­a’s south. They will appear in the Hobart Mag­is­trates Court in Feb­ru­ary.

source abc

Actions against the motorway through Tara, Ireland — reports and upcoming

This morn­ing, mon­day 6th jan ’08 at 7 am, 11 of us split up into two groups. We went to the Ard­sal­lagh Com­pound (site entrance 2.10) and Roestown (site entrance 2.1 ) . All the machin­ery was parked at these two sites for the past two weeks over Christ­mas.

Ardsallagh compound diggerThis morn­ing, mon­day 6th jan ’08 at 7 am, 11 of us split up into two groups. We went to the Ard­sal­lagh Com­pound (site entrance 2.10) and Roestown (site entrance 2.1 ) . All the machin­ery was parked at these two sites for the past two weeks over Christ­mas.

Ard­sal­lagh ; four of us went on site into the com­pund and blocked a lowloader in the gate, pre­vent­ing any more machin­ery being brought off to oth­er sites. They then head­ed across coun­try towards the Riv­er Boyne at site no. 2.9 . While two held the gate, two fol­lowed them across the field ‚stop­ping them before they reached the next stretch.Construction work­ers at the gate , try­ing to intim­i­date the pro­test­ers assault­ed one man , drag­ging him to the ground and pulling out of the way allow­ing the lowloader past. In the mean time, off route down the road two of us were wait­ing to be picked up (help with trans­port need­ed), when we saw a dig­ger com­ing towards us along the hedge line. The dri­ver pro­ceed­ed to dri­ve up to us near­ly kock­ing us over. when we stood our ground in front of the machine, he got out and ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly asault­ed us. The gau­rds then arrived treat­en­ing arrest on any­one who stayed under the Mis­cel­la­neous Act2004 sec­tion 19c but were help­ful and co oper­a­tive when told about the assaults , tak­ing the dig­ger dri­vers name.

Roestown: As today was the first day of con­struc­tion since before Christ­mas, we need­ed to block­ade the machin­ery from enter­ing the val­ley again. From the N3 we could see the machin­ery mov­ing towards Trevet from the Roestown com­pound. We arrived there just as the first dig­ger was approach­ing. There were 5 of us. We all went into the site and approached the dig­ger. The dri­ver com­plied with health and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions and stopped his machine imme­di­ate­ly. We made a block­ade in front of the machine with traf­fic cones, poles and safe­ty notices. Mark Cleary and his com­rades entered the site, along with secu­ri­ty. They filmed us and removed the block­ade. One pro­tes­tor was stand­ing on the block­ade, Mark Cleary pushed him off. A jeep com­ing from the Roestown direc­tion passed us by, the dig­ger dri­ver had switched back on his machine. Anoth­er pro­tes­tor on bail con­di­tions stayed at the site entrance with ban­ners on the pub­lic road, play­ing his tin whis­tle. Mark Cleary and this pro­tes­tor had a cam­er­al duel! The Gar­dai arrived and asked us to leave the site, quot­ing the Hous­ing and Misc Act 2004, sec­tion C. We were told we would be arrest­ed if we were seen again today on a M3 site. The Gar­dai fol­lowed us to the Ard­sal­lagh com­pound. We held a ban­ner protest there on the side of the road. The same Gar­dai were very inter­est­ed in the Tara issue, and asked us ques­tions about archae­ol­o­gy and Lis­mullen. Nobody was arrest­ed.

Relat­ed Link: http://www.tarapixie.net

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»

Call­ing all War­riors!!!

Action called for tom­mor­row morn­ing 6am and all this week.

Sup­port and sup­plies need­ed. Num­bers are low on the ground and resources spread thin. Help need­ed in the camps , trans­port, media ,

cyber-world and dig­ger divin’.

Spe­cial Call-Out to any­one who has vis­it­ed the camps before. Your expe­ri­ence on the issue is need­ed now more than ever.

A new year and a new begin­ing, its time to show these ”short sight­ed, nar­row mind­ed, moth­er fuckin hyp­ocrits!” that this

cul­tur­al apartheid will end here!
Tara Call­ing !!!

As you may know on St. Stevens Day 2007, the NRA hand­ed over the archae­o­log­i­cal site at lismullen,with its wood henge

(which was des­ig­nat­ed a nationa lmon­u­ment in may 2007)

and an amaz­ing sub­ter­rain com­plex

(destroyed in ear­ly decem­ber 2007 with out any inde­pen­dent archae­ol­o­gy car­ried out)

con­tain­ing mega­lith­ic art from much ear­li­er mon­u­ments, to SIAC/FERROVIAL the con­struc­tion con­sor­tium

to face its faith as yet anoth­er mon­u­men­tal diaster in the gabhra val­ley,

at the hands of gov­ern­ment appoint­ed van­dals!

This is because the twelve weeks giv­en to the NRA archae­ol­o­gists to exca­vate and destroy the two thirds of the henge

lieing in the path of the pro­posed motor­way is up and under the Nation­al Mon­u­ments Act 2004

it now belongs to SIAC/FERROVIAL.

Con­struc­tion Work­ers return to work tom­mor­row morn­ing Mon­day 7th of Jan at 7am after two weeks of bliss­ful

silence in the Val­ley.

Call­ing all War­riors!!!

Action called for tom­mor­row morn­ing 6am and all this week.

Sup­port and sup­plies need­ed. Num­bers are low on the ground and resources spread thin. Help need­ed in the camps , trans­port, media ,

cyber-world and dig­ger divin’.

Spe­cial Call-Out to any­one who has vis­it­ed the camps before. Your expe­ri­ence on the issue is need­ed now more than ever.

A new year and a new begin­ing, its time to show these ”short sight­ed, nar­row mind­ed, moth­er fuckin hyp­ocrits!” that this

cul­tur­al apartheid will end here!

!!!!END TRANSMISSION!!!!

Rainforest chief killed in Borneo for his opposition to logging

Jan­u­ary 3, 2008
Kelea­su Naan, a Penan chief­tain and long­time activist against log­ging, dis­ap­peared in Octo­ber while check­ing ani­mal traps. His
tribes’ worst fears were con­firmed when they found what they believed to be Naan’s remains last month. Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, the chieftain’s nephew, Michael Ipa, has stat­ed that the body had sev­er­al bro­ken bones, lead­ing Ipa to believe that “he has been killed by peo­ple involved in log­ging”.

Jan­u­ary 3, 2008
Kelea­su Naan, a Penan chief­tain and long­time activist against log­ging, dis­ap­peared in Octo­ber while check­ing ani­mal traps. His
tribes’ worst fears were con­firmed when they found what they believed to be Naan’s remains last month. Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, the chieftain’s nephew, Michael Ipa, has stat­ed that the body had sev­er­al bro­ken bones, lead­ing Ipa to believe that “he has been killed by peo­ple involved in log­ging”.

Kelea­su Naan had been one of the key fig­ures in the Penan community’s fight against log­ging. He was also a plain­tiff and wit­ness in a land rights claim that has been await­ing tri­al since 1998.

One-hun­dred Penan vil­lagers walked six­ty miles this week to lodge a report at the clos­est police sta­tion and demand an inves­ti­ga­tion into Naan’s death. This is not the first time that Penans involved in anti-log­ging activ­i­ty have dis­ap­peared under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances. Two activist Penans dis­ap­peared in the 1990s. In 2000, Bruno Manser, a Swiss envi­ron­men­tal­ist and cham­pi­on of Penan rights, also dis­ap­peared in the jun­gle. No sign of him has been found, and some believe he was assas­si­nat­ed.

Log­ging in Bor­neo has been ram­pant since the 1980’s. In 2005 just over 50% of Borneo’s for­est remained. More recent­ly palm oil
plan­ta­tions have increased pres­sure on the forests. Naan’s Penan com­mu­ni­ty had man­aged to keep log­ging out of what the vil­lagers claim is their ances­tral land, but they now believe that sev­er­al tim­ber com­pa­nies plan to resume log­ging. Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples of the Malaysia’s Sarawak region, the Penans num­ber around 10,000. They cur­rent­ly live in set­tle­ments, but have not com­plete­ly aban­doned their tra­di­tion­al nomadic ways. They sub­sist off small gar­dens, hunt­ing, and gath­er­ing. Since so much of the Penan’s resources come from the for­est, its dis­ap­pear­ance may mark their own.

http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0103-borneo_hance.html