Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Shell to Sea Solidarity Action in Scotland

Between 7am and 8am this morn­ing (16th Feb­ru­ary 2007) while the city was still in dark­ness, a num­ber of activists shut down eight dif­fer­ent Shell petrol sta­tions in and sur­round­ing the city cen­tre of Edin­burgh. This action was a sol­i­dar­i­ty action for the Shell to Sea cam­paign in Ross­port, Coun­ty Mayo and also to tar­get Shell for being a major con­trib­u­tor to glob­al warm­ing and cli­mate change. The action was pur­pose­ly planned to coin­cide with the action tak­ing place at the Bal­linaboy refin­ery site on the same morn­ing.

Shell logo burningBetween 7am and 8am this morn­ing (16th Feb­ru­ary 2007) while the city was still in dark­ness, a num­ber of activists shut down eight dif­fer­ent Shell petrol sta­tions in and sur­round­ing the city cen­tre of Edin­burgh. This action was a sol­i­dar­i­ty action for the Shell to Sea cam­paign in Ross­port, Coun­ty Mayo and also to tar­get Shell for being a major con­trib­u­tor to glob­al warm­ing and cli­mate change. The action was pur­pose­ly planned to coin­cide with the action tak­ing place at the Bal­linaboy refin­ery site on the same morn­ing.

The activists turned the emer­gency shut down levers so the pumps stopped work­ing and the sta­tion was unable to sell any­more fuel. They left a shell shaped skull and a note at each sta­tion (stuck on with Shell to Sea stick­ers) stat­ing;

“Shell has been shut down today in Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the inno­cent peo­ple around the world that have been sub­ject to their bul­ly­ing and use of vio­lence.

Shell is a mas­sive con­trib­u­tor to Glob­al Warm­ing and Cli­mate Change – the great­est threats to life on earth

The com­mu­ni­ty of Ross­port, on the West Mayo coast in Ire­land, are under siege due to Shell’s desire to get their hands on the gas reserve. Shell is build­ing an extreme­ly dan­ger­ous onshore gas pipeline through Ross­port and a mas­sive refin­ery destroy­ing this beau­ti­ful coast and endan­ger­ing hun­dreds of lives.

This has to stop now. The inno­cent peo­ple of the area are fight­ing for sur­vival against an evil multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion. They fear for their lives, their chil­dren and their com­mu­ni­ty.

Join us in the fight against Shell – Boy­cott Shell and make them with­draw this dis­as­ter­ous pipeline sheme from Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land”.

There were no police involved and there­fore no arrests were made. Some sta­tions remained shut down for a num­ber of hours, and unfor­tu­nate­ly some were start­ed up again quite quick­ly.

The fact that one or maybe more of the emer­gency shut down levers were faulty and did not stop the pumps imme­di­ate­ly adds to Shell’s track record of being a dan­ger­ous com­pa­ny with no regard for health and safe­ty. These levers are meant to be used in an event of fire or emer­gency (or sol­i­dar­i­ty actions!) and the fact that they are faulty and dif­fi­cult to access means that in an emer­gency the sta­tion would not shut down and the pumps would con­tin­ue to dis­pense fuel.

Lat­er that after­noon, all of the tar­get­ed sta­tions were up and run­ning again. But the mes­sage was clear­ly left and the sta­tions were shut down and had emp­ty fore­courts dur­ing the morn­ing rush hour.

CAMP BLING Photo report

Show your sup­port by com­ing to the fol­low­ing: PARKRALLY ‘SAVE PRIORY PARK!!’ A fund­ing deci­sion on the con­tro­ver­sial Pri­o­ry Cre­sent road widen­ing is due. Please join us for a mass ral­ly and demon­stra­tion from 6.30pm on Thurs­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, at Southend Civic Cen­tre, to show the deci­sion mak­ers your oppo­si­tion to the scheme. Videos, pho­tos, … Con­tin­ue read­ing “CAMP BLING Pho­to report”

camp bling bender
camp bling knight
camp bling platform
camp bling house & tower
camp bling treehouse
camp bling visitors centre
Show your sup­port by com­ing to the fol­low­ing:

PARKRALLY ‘SAVE PRIORY PARK!!’

A fund­ing deci­sion on the con­tro­ver­sial Pri­o­ry Cre­sent road widen­ing is due. Please join us for a mass ral­ly and demon­stra­tion from 6.30pm on Thurs­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, at Southend Civic Cen­tre, to show the deci­sion mak­ers your oppo­si­tion to the scheme.

Videos, pho­tos, events etc.….
http://www.ppps.org.uk/ -

Con­tacts, blog, news, events.…
http://www.savepriorypark.org.uk/

>VISTORS ALWAYS WELCOME

Check http://www.savepriorypark.org.uk/ for direc­tions to the site.

Pipeline company targetted by direct action

15.02.2007
The offices of Land and Marine in Bath were tar­get­ted last night with spray­paint­ed mes­sages and super glued locks as part of ongo­ing resis­tance to their South Wales gas pipeline scheme.

15.02.2007
The offices of Land and Marine in Bath were tar­get­ted last night with spray­paint­ed mes­sages and super glued locks as part of ongo­ing resis­tance to their South Wales gas pipeline scheme.

“Dis­as­ter in the pipeline”, “LNG pipeline — eco time bomb” and “Cli­mate Chaos Crim­i­nals” were a few of the words of warn­ing left on the walls.
The com­pa­ny is respon­si­ble for build­ing the mas­sive­ly destruc­tive and dan­ger­ous 150 mile long LNG pipeline which is set to trash land and com­mu­ni­ties across South Wales as well as pos­ing a huge threat to the safe­ty of local peo­ple. By pro­vid­ing the infra­struc­ture for con­tin­ued fos­sil fuel depen­dence, Land and Marine are part of an indus­tri­al sys­tem based on prof­it at any cost. And the by prod­ucts? Cli­mate chaos, eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ters and attacks on all our health and safe­ty. Con­front the cor­po­ra­tions which are killing the plan­et and steal­ing our lives, land and future.

Think Glob­al, Trash Local

Npower uses Thugs to Evict Radley Lakes Environmental Activists

At approx 5am Tues­day 6th Feb­ru­ary 12 bailiffs dressed from head to foot in black and wear­ing bal­a­clavas with­out warn­ing smashed through the win­dow of the occu­pied npow­er prop­er­ty show­er­ing sleep­ing activist in glass. They then pro­ceed­ed to cut the air sup­ply to a for­ti­fied bunker with­out check­ing if it was occu­pied, smash there way into a for­ti­fied loft with­out check­ing that the occu­pant Dave was safe. Not long after this they climbed onto the scaf­fold tow­er posi­tioned on the garage roof and topped with a wood­en box con­tain­ing a 45 gal­lon con­crete lock. Chris who was in the box at the time said they climbed on top of the box and start­ed to rock the tow­er before break­ing in with sledge ham­mers. Vet­er­an road pro­test­er Mup­pet Dave said ‘it was one of the most dan­ger­ous evic­tion he had expe­ri­enced and that it was only luck that nobody was seri­ous­ly hurt’.

Radley baliffs tip lock-on barrelAt approx 5am Tues­day 6th Feb­ru­ary 12 bailiffs dressed from head to foot in black and wear­ing bal­a­clavas with­out warn­ing smashed through the win­dow of the occu­pied npow­er prop­er­ty show­er­ing sleep­ing activist in glass. They then pro­ceed­ed to cut the air sup­ply to a for­ti­fied bunker with­out check­ing if it was occu­pied, smash there way into a for­ti­fied loft with­out check­ing that the occu­pant Dave was safe. Not long after this they climbed onto the scaf­fold tow­er posi­tioned on the garage roof and topped with a wood­en box con­tain­ing a 45 gal­lon con­crete lock. Chris who was in the box at the time said they climbed on top of the box and start­ed to rock the tow­er before break­ing in with sledge ham­mers. Vet­er­an road pro­test­er Mup­pet Dave said ‘it was one of the most dan­ger­ous evic­tion he had expe­ri­enced and that it was only luck that nobody was seri­ous­ly hurt’.

Two activists were arrest­ed and one sub­se­quent­ly de-arrest­ed and Chris is due in Did­cot Mag­is­trates Court on Thurs­day 15th charged with obstruc­tion of the Bailiffs. Short­ly after­wards npow­er swift­ly cor­doned of the lakes despite a ongo­ing legal chal­lenge by the local “Save Radley Lakes” group for it to be recog­nised as com­mon land.

The prop­er­ty was occu­pied with the inten­tion of cre­at­ing a field cen­tre to raise aware­ness and pre­vent these beau­ti­ful lakes being in filled with tox­ic ash from the burn­ing of coal at the Ger­man owned RWE npow­er Did­cot pow­er sta­tion. How­ev­er, despite mas­sive sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty, where there is over­whelm­ing oppo­si­tion to npower’s plans, and near­by envi­ron­men­tal groups it soon became clear that npow­er were hav­ing non of it, so we decide to oppose the repos­ses­sion and dig in. This deci­sion instant­ly cre­at­ed more media inter­est embar­rass­ing npow­er and under­min­ing their green­wash and it was prob­a­bly for this rea­son that they decide to dis­re­gard the safe­ty of indi­vid­u­als and send in the heav­ies. We are no seek­ing to take legal action against Sher­cu­ri­ty Ltd for the lack of health and safe­ty pro­ce­dure and endan­ger­ment of life. How­ev­er, we ful­ly intend to con­tin­ue our cam­paign to save the lakes and against RWE npow­er for both local and glob­al pol­lu­tion of the plan­et.

Sher­cu­ri­ty Ltd — have dealt with protest evic­tions (& squat­ters) before:
Main Tele­phone num­ber: +44 (0)845 890 9220
Fax: +44 (0)0845 890 9221

Com­pa­ny Offices
Sher­group House, Brain­tree Freeport, No 3 Freeport Office Vil­lage, Cen­tu­ry Dri­ve, Brain­tree, Essex CM77 8YG

Lon­don: 20–21 Tooks Court, Lon­don EC4A 1LB

http://www.shercurity.net/

The Trebanos Five — “Ramblers” arrested on route of National Grids Pipeline

This morn­ing ( Wed 31-01-2007 ) five peo­ple were arrest­ed on the pub­lic foot­path run­ning through the con­struc­tion site in Tre­banos, South Wales.

The Tre­banos Five.…. Whose quick deci­sion mak­ing left a bit to be desired were arrest­ed today for “learn­ing Ital­ian, hav­ing a pic­nic and read­ing” on an ille­galy closed pub­lic foot­path in Tre­banos.….. Hav­ing being giv­en 5 min­utes to move on, they were hand­cuffed and man­han­dled whilst decid­ing what to do next( three min­utes lat­er.…) They are now known as The Tre­banos Faffing Five !!!

This morn­ing ( Wed 31-01-2007 ) five peo­ple were arrest­ed on the pub­lic foot­path run­ning through the con­struc­tion site in Tre­banos, South Wales.

The Tre­banos Five.…. Whose quick deci­sion mak­ing left a bit to be desired were arrest­ed today for “learn­ing Ital­ian, hav­ing a pic­nic and read­ing” on an ille­galy closed pub­lic foot­path in Tre­banos.….. Hav­ing being giv­en 5 min­utes to move on, they were hand­cuffed and man­han­dled whilst decid­ing what to do next( three min­utes lat­er.…) They are now known as The Tre­banos Faffing Five !!!

The foot­path was sub­ject to an “undat­ed” clo­sure notice on Thurs­day 25th Jan­u­ary 2007. The notice gave 7 days notice. Today’s arrests on the foot­path were with­in the 7 day peri­od and those arrest­ed are seek­ing legal advice with regards their wrong­ful arrest.

Neath Port Tal­bot CBC who closed the foot­path are soon to be sub­ject to a Judi­cial Revue for the way they han­dled the plan­ning process. Nation­al Grid are now threat­en­ing local peo­ple in South Wales that they will sue them should their work be delayed any longer.…

Nation­al Grids Secu­ri­ty Guards, sor­ry I mean The South Wales Police Force, seemed very pleased with them­sleves and were filmed and pho­tographed by a local res­i­dent con­cerned for the safe­ty of those arrest­ed.
Up to 40 police offi­cers were on hand to arrest the five young peo­ple.

Nation­al Grids 48″ dia, high pres­sure pipeline has caused a storm of con­tro­vesy. The envi­ro­men­tal issues, safe­ty issues, the lack of democ­ra­cy and the abuse of human rights have drawn sup­port for the pro­tes­tors from all of the UK, The Bahamas, Cal­i­for­nia and Ross­port.

The Tre­banos Five were arrest­ed with­in a few feet of the site where Nation­al Grid are attempt­ing to dig a 30 mtrs deep ver­ti­cal shaft through which will trav­el the 48″ pipe. The pipe goes through much of the South Wales Coal­field and also through the Bre­con Bea­cons Nation­al Park.

Nation­al Grid claim this pipeline is essen­tial for our future ener­gy needs. That has been dis­proved using their own data. This pipeline is not need­ed, it is not want­ed and it is a dan­ger­ous project which will only add to our car­bon foot­print. The con­tin­ued use of fos­sil fuels, which is clear­ly sup­port­ed by our gov­ern­ment and police force, can only end in dis­as­ter. We may not see all of the effects today, but our chil­dren and their chil­dren will have to live with the results of our bla­tant dis­re­gard of the Earth.

Colombian farmers evicted by British mining companies

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of African-Colom­bian and Indige­nous fam­i­lies evict­ed from their land in the province of La Gua­ji­ra, Colom­bia to make way for a mas­sive open­cast coal mine will speak in Lon­don on Mon­day 29th Jan­u­ary, 6.30pm‑8.30pm at The Human Rights Action Cen­tre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, Lon­don EC2.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of African-Colom­bian and Indige­nous fam­i­lies evict­ed from their land in the province of La Gua­ji­ra, Colom­bia to make way for a mas­sive open­cast coal mine will speak in Lon­don on Mon­day 29th Jan­u­ary, 6.30pm‑8.30pm at The Human Rights Action Cen­tre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, Lon­don EC2.

Many com­mu­ni­ties have been forced from their land since the mine opened in the 1970s. The vil­lage of Taba­co was demol­ished in 2001 just after British-based com­pa­nies bought into the project. Many inhab­i­tants accept­ed the inad­e­quate finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion on offer, oth­ers are still hold­ing out for com­mu­ni­ty relo­ca­tion so that they can con­tin­ue liv­ing as a com­mu­ni­ty and farm­ing the land as they did before.

The British-based com­pa­nies that now own the mine are Anglo Amer­i­can, BHP­Bil­li­ton and Xstra­ta. All raise mon­ey on the Lon­don Stock Exchange. Anglo Amer­i­can has its head office in Lon­don. Many pen­sion funds invest in these com­pa­nies. Many ordi­nary work­ing peo­ple in Britain, with­out know­ing it, are ben­e­fit­ing from the destruc­tion of farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties in Colom­bia by the world’s rich­est min­ing multi­na­tion­als. All three com­pa­nies have good rep­u­ta­tions as social­ly and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble enter­pris­es. The real­i­ty is very dif­fer­ent. Come and hear the com­mu­ni­ties’ side of the sto­ry

Loca­tion: The Audi­to­ri­um, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al UK, The Human Rights Action Cen­tre, 17–25 New Inn Yard, Lon­don EC2
Con­tact:  info@colombiasolidarity.org.uk
(near­est tube Old Street)

Hell at Shell petrol Stations: London blockade

Report 1 — On the evening of the 24th Jan­u­ary two Shell petrol sta­tions in north Lon­don were block­ad­ed by activists who are con­cerned over Shel­l’s aggres­sive busi­ness prac­tices and poor human rights record.

Report 1 — On the evening of the 24th Jan­u­ary two Shell petrol sta­tions in north Lon­don were block­ad­ed by activists who are con­cerned over Shel­l’s aggres­sive busi­ness prac­tices and poor human rights record.

For more details of Shells record see:

www.shelltosea.com
www.shellfacts.com
www.corporatewatch.com
www.artnotoil.org.uk

The non-vio­lent actions took place at Shell sta­tions on Hol­loway Road and Upper Street in north Lon­don. No arrests were made. How­ev­er some motorist became aggres­sive, made threats and insult­ed block­aders. The police did not over react and one offi­cer made the com­ment “sup­pose we can look this up on the usu­al web­site can we?” Here it is offi­cers.

After the last action at the sta­tion on Hol­loway Road one very friend­ly black cab dri­ver con­grat­u­lat­ed block­aders and asked for pub­lic­i­ty cards to hand out to his pas­sangers. Thank for your sup­port mate.

240107_Shell_Hell_WMV — video/x‑ms-wmv 18M

Report 2 — On 24th Jan­u­ary Lon­don Ris­ing Tide once again helped their friends at Rhythms of Resis­tance Sam­ba Band and oth­ers keep Shell aware that the cam­paign to pre­vent the dam­ag­ing high pres­sure gas pipeline and refin­ery near Ross­port in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land is still rolling.

…and rolling is what it was, with even a bit of rock­ing. We tried the new tac­tic with mea­sured suc­cess of short spells at a series of North Lon­don Shell garages blockad­ing the entrance and exits with band, ban­ners and ban­danas (there was also men­tion of bananas when it came to irate dri­vers).

Hol­loway Road was the first stop where hav­ing set up and told the gas guz­zlers on the fore­court that we were not block­ing them in, one of them decid­ed to dri­ve at us from behind. Hav­ing stepped back just in time, bang­ing the win­dow as it surged past, the dri­ver got out of her 4 x 4 (fun­ny that, it always seems to be) and vio­lent­ly threat­ened to do unspeak­able things to us as indi­vid­u­als from about 2 inch­es away. More fos­sil fuelled dri­ver luna­cy fol­lowed and we decid­ed to get rolling to the next garage when push­ing came to pull us away as plod were sum­moned.

On arriv­ing at the famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry of the Shell Upper Street garage we kit­ted up and last­ed a bit longer, even turn­ing away petrol thirsty black cab dri­vers, before more vio­lence threat­en­ing behav­iour from peo­ple block­ad­ed out. The thin line of Sam­ba resist­ed and held out as we turned away the ubiq­ui­tous Isling­ton SUVs. The usu­al sup­port from the Fire Brigade was good for keep­ing up our spir­its.

After that it was back to Hol­loway Rd with less abuse but more plod and we retired to the pub when they called for back-up since the final whis­tle of the Spurs v Arse­nal game was about to be blown along with plod’s patience.

On reflec­tion over out stout we agreed it was des­per­ate­ly sad that such anger of par­tic­u­lar­ly 4 x 4 dri­vers only had the unhealthy out­let of threat­en­ing us. Espe­cial­ly when Shell’s sta­tu­spher­ic dis­re­gard of the planet’s atmos­phere and the atmos­phere of liv­ing in Mayo, Ogo­ni­land or Sakhalin seemed a bet­ter place to vent their frus­tra­tion.

Radley lakes — eviction imminent — update 29th jan

Urgent call for help in Oxford­shire, where activists are occu­py­ing and intend to defend a squat­ted lake­side prop­er­ty in order to pre­vent the infill­ing of Radley Lakes with tox­ic ash from the burn­ing of cheap import­ed coal at the near­by NPow­er owned Did­cot pow­er sta­tion.

Radley Lakes squat
Urgent call for help in Oxford­shire, where activists are occu­py­ing and intend to defend a squat­ted lake­side prop­er­ty in order to pre­vent the infill­ing of Radley Lakes with tox­ic ash from the burn­ing of cheap import­ed coal at the near­by NPow­er owned Did­cot pow­er sta­tion.

The lakes are unusu­al in their clar­i­ty and the area con­tains local and nation­al rare and threat­ened species, with 115 species of birds record­ed and over1000 trees sur­round­ing the lake which will be felled. How­ev­er this has been ignored by pow­er com­pa­ny RWE npow­er, and has been rail-road­ed through by Oxford­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil.

The lake con­tains sev­er­al pro­tect­ed species, includ­ing a pos­si­ble sight­ing of otters, and despite a report paid for by local peo­ple con­firm­ing all this the local gov­ern­ment big­wigs have giv­en per­mis­sion for N Pow­er to fill the lake with fly­ash from Did­cot pow­er sta­tion, killing every­thing in the process. They have already been allowed to do this to 3 oth­er lakes in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty. The local coun­ty ecol­o­gist has dis­missed the report, despite a long term cam­paign and evi­dence from anoth­er ecol­o­gist prov­ing the lake is a wildlife haven. The whole thing stinks.

Please, please if you are free this week, (or even bet­ter, right now), get down there, lock on, and make sure they have a fight on their hands. The baliffs are due any minute and more peo­ple are des­per­ate­ly need­ed.

Get off the train at Oxford, then catch train to Radley, takes about 10 mins, then anoth­er 10/15 minute walk. For more info call the site mobile on: 07772055384.

TAT NEEDED!
PolyProp, air horns/ rape alarms, cement, aggre­gate, etc, BOATS (dingy/inflatables etc — lake­wor­thy!) bed­ding & PEOPLE! — even if you can just spare a day to help out with build­ing defences is is much need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed.
Thanks

========================
24.01.2007 — Npow­er have been grant­ed imme­di­ate pos­s­e­sion of San­dles, the squat­ted field cen­tre at Radley lakes. A call out to any­one to come down and bring cake and lock on tubes!
Call the site mobile 0777 2055 384
www.saveradleylakes.org.uk for more info on the npow­er plans to destroy this beau­ti­ful area

Welsh pipeline protest — New tree camp set up near Brecon

22.01.2007

Fol­low­ing sup­port from local peo­ple in Bre­con at the week­end, a new protest camp has been set up right in the mid­dle of the phase two route of Nation­al Grids con­tro­ver­sial pipeline.

22.01.2007

Fol­low­ing sup­port from local peo­ple in Bre­con at the week­end, a new protest camp has been set up right in the mid­dle of the phase two route of Nation­al Grids con­tro­ver­sial pipeline.

The protest camp is up in the trees in ancient wood­land 4 miles west of Bre­con on the A40 close to Bet­tws Pen­pont church.It is locat­ed at Ord­nance Sur­vey nation­al grid ref­er­ence SN9728728525.
The ancient wood­land is sched­uled for dec­i­ma­tion by Nation­al Grid to clear a path for the 48″ high pres­sure gas pipeline. The pro­test­ers aim to stop the destruc­tion of yet more ancient wood­land by Nation­al Grid and it’s con­trac­tors.

There are over 15 peo­ple on site at the moment and they are request­ing any dona­tions. Please send sup­plies of all sorts, food, water, warm clothes and bed­ding, camp­ing and cook­ing gear, wood, rope, nails, etc etc etc. They would also like any peo­ple inter­est­ed to join them and show sol­i­dar­i­ty in this bat­tle to save our envi­ron­ment.
Map link

Sto­ries about recent stalls & sam­ba in Clydach Indoor Mar­ket and Bre­con