Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilderness defence

Mass action camp: End Coal Now – April/May 2016

As part of the Groundswell year of action and international mobilisations taking on the fossil fuel industry, this May, we’re going to shut down the UK’s largest opencast coal mine – Ffos-y-fran in Wales.

As part of the Groundswell year of action and international mobilisations taking on the fossil fuel industry, this May, we’re going to shut down the UK’s largest opencast coal mine – Ffos-y-fran in Wales. It’s up to us to keep it in the ground – sign up to join us and get updates on plans.

What’s the Plan?

In collaboration with local resistance groups, we’ll set up camp near Ffos-y-fran and the site of the proposed new mine. We’ll build a camp and use this as a base to host a programme of workshops and trainings, and to build the kind of community we want to see – just, democratic and sustainable. We will also be taking mass action to shut down Ffos-y-fran. The camp will take place over the May bank holiday weekend, from Saturday 30th April to Wednesday 4th May and will come just before the Welsh Assembly elections on May 5th. Further information on the practicalities of the camp is coming soon. Sign up to the mailing list for updates.

Why?

For nearly a decade, the 11-million-tonne Ffos-y-fran mine has scarred the landscape and the community in South Wales. Now the corporation responsible for Ffos-y-fran – Miller Argent – wants to crush local democracy and resistance, and dig another vast coal mine just next door at Nant Llesg. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel and we cannot transition to a just, democratic and clean energy system while we continue to dig it up and burn it. We want to build on the strong tradition of mass action Climate Camps in the UK, and the success of the Reclaim the Power camps over the last few years. We have also been inspired by Ende Gelände and other international coal resistance movements. Last year, the Welsh Assembly voted for a moratorium on opencast coal mining, but the Government have ignored them. Let’s make leaving fossil fuels in the ground a defining political issue in Wales and the UK.

The reality of the UK’s coal industry exposed

Map

A new report from the Coal Action Network exposes the untold human and environmental stories of the coal supply chain. Ditch Coal calls on the government to phase out coal faster than its suggested end of 2025. The extreme situations surrounding mines in Russia, Colombia, the USA and the UK which supply the UK’s power stations show that coal energy is an extreme energy. 24% of electricity generated in 2015 came from coal.

Grass roots group the Coal Action Network has worked with communities and environmental activists from the four major countries supplying the UK’s coal. The report details the ignored social justice issues caused by our addiction to coal.

Mining Impacts Abroad

Russia supplies 42% of the coal imported to the UK. In Russia’s main coal producing region, the Kuzbass area of Siberia, mining is devastating indigenous communities and their cultures. Shor and Teleut peoples are being forced off their ancestral lands, breaking the connection with their spiritual homes, their culture is being attacked and their language is fading from use.

Companies exporting coal from Colombia have been implicated in financing paramilitary mass murders, executions, and disappearances. Whole villages have been forcibly evicted to make way for mines, with insufficient relocation plans. Colombia produces a third of the coal imported here.

In the USA, where 19% of the coal imported to the UK is from, extremely destructive mining operations are destroying huge swathes of land and ecosystems, and poisoning local people. Mountaintop removal and damaging deep mining processes are used by companies exporting coal to the UK.

Although the UK government has announced an intention to phase out coal by 2025 Coal Action Network do not see this as something to celebrate. This time-frame and the phase out’s many caveats show that the government continues to prioritise our high electricity demands over others basic rights such as the safety of ones home, the ability to grow food, rights to health, freedoms of religion and spirituality, and biodiversity.

Mining in the UK

Since the government’s coal phase out announcement Durham based mining company Hargreaves have been granted permission to mine at Field House County Durham. Miller Argent who run the UK’s biggest mine Ffos-y-Fran are appealing a decision against a new mine adjacent to it. Five other coal mine applications are still waiting a decision. We need to stop coal mining in this country.

Communities in the UK are fighting for their areas and against coal power. As environmental activists we should follow their example and stand up to the companies involved and stand in solidarity with front-line communities. We cannot simply wait for the government to sort this out. The coal industry is spread wide across our island. Ditch Coal highlights where the ports importing coal are, where power stations are situated and which companies are mining in the UK. There are nine power stations burning coal without a closure plan.

Coal power used to be a main focus of the UK environmental movement, it still is in Germany and remains an issue here. The Coal Action Network will be touring the UK with a Russian activist in the spring, you can catch a preview at the Earth First Winter Moot. The Coal industry’s currently in a position of change, where new technology needs to be implemented or power stations closed. Join the Coal Action Network in fighting the individual power stations and working with communities, let’s not rely on the government to take these important actions.

The whole report can be viewed at www.coalaction.org.uk/ditchcoal as can the two page summary and infographics. Check out the website to see what we are up to or follow us on facebook.

actions in Paris at #COP21 & around the world

For all the latests updates on climate direct actions taken around the world, including in Paris parallel to the UN climate negotiations, see our twitter feed

For all the latests updates on climate direct actions taken around the world, including in Paris parallel to the UN climate negotiations, see our twitter feed

Save Sheffield Trees & Smithy Woods – campaign update

Protesters

5.11.15 Latest:

An independent panel aiming to resolve disagreements involving the felling of trees in Sheffield has been set up.

It follows thousands of people supporting a campaign to stop 12 trees being chopped down on Rustlings Road.

Community group Save Sheffield Trees said it would wait to see the “terms of reference” of the new panel.

A council spokesman said a survey will be sent to residents when upgrading works which affect trees.

If over half of respondents object, it will then be referred to the Independent Tree Panel.

After considering the evidence, the panel will then provide advice to the council about the proposals.

15 September 2015: Campaigners took their fight against controversial tree felling to the door of Sheffield Council contractor Amey, which is carrying out the work.

 

A demonstration was held at the firm’s Olive Grove Road depot in Heeley yesterday morning.

Campaigners across the city continue to call for a pause on felling while a formal tree strategy is developed.

David Dilner, from Sheffield Tree Action Group, said: “Since the last tree forum our membership has grown from 200 to 800 – that demonstrates the level of frustration and it is growing apace.

16 September 2015: Campaigners fighting felling in Sheffield have set up a camp near to 11 trees which have become the ‘symbol’ of the city-wide controversy.

Members of the Sheffield Tree Action Group (STAG) pitched their tents in Endcliffe Park on Rustlings Road to protect trees which are due to be felled as part of Sheffield City Council’s £2bn road improvement scheme.

The original drive to save those 11 trees led to a 13,000-strong petition, which triggered a debate in Sheffield Town Hall and was the spark behind calls for a formal city-wide tree strategy to be developed by Sheffield Council.

Save Our Roadside Trees (SORT) campaigner Calvin Payne, who was sleeping over in the tent last night, said all supplies had been donated and passers-by were supportive.

He added: “This road is symbolic, although the campaign is city wide, and we do want a win here to inspire people across the city.”

Aims of the camp were to enable campaigners to take peaceful action quickly if felling did begin and also to raise more awareness as protests spread across the city.

Protests have been held over the last few months in other parts of the city to try and prevent trees being felled.

In June/July, STAG gathered more that 10,000 signatures on a petition calling for the council to stall the plans until independent experts assessed the trees.
Protestors gathered outside Sheffield Town Hall to protest about the cutting down of Sheffield's trees.
Background: With an estimated two million trees – four for every person – Sheffield holds a strong claim to be Europe’s greenest city. But the South Yorkshire city’s tree-lined streets have become a battleground in an angry row that has pitted residents against council highways officials.

Contractors are assessing 36,000 roadside trees on behalf of Sheffield City Council to decide which need to be felled as part of a £2bn road improvement scheme.

About 2,000 have already been cut down since the Streets Ahead scheme was launched in 2012, although the council says it has replaced them all with younger trees and has planted 50,000 extra trees in 17 new woodlands.

But residents have launched their own grassroots campaigns to defend the roadside trees, some of which are 100 years old, and the dispute is becoming increasingly heated. A protest camp has been set up in a city park and other residents have been rushing out of their homes to disrupt workmen arriving in their streets.

“Residents across the city want to save these trees,” said ecologist and environmental campaigner David Garlovsky, a spokesman for the Sheffield Trees Action Group. “Eight or nine groups have sprung up in different areas. These trees are there for our wellbeing and cutting them down will increase pollution. The council haven’t looked after these trees in the past and they now have a problem on their hands, but there seems to be a blitz on now to cut down as many as possible, as quickly as possible.”

Only last week it was reported that the council was refusing to answer Freedom of Information requests from residents about the trees because the requests were considered “vexatious”.

Sheffield City Council apologised last week after Steve Robinson, the head of highways, was secretly recorded allegedly saying “we’re not interested” in residents’ “nonsense” reasons for saving individual trees.

Residents have spent a month under canvas at a protest camp in the city’s Endcliffe Park to protect 11 lime trees on neighbouring Rustlings Road, which they say are under threat. A petition has attracted 10,000 signatures.

Louise Wilcockson, who lives close to the park, said: “I walk past those trees around five or six times a day. We have to save them – not just for the people on this street but for the entire city.”

Residents in Western Road, Crookes, have also rallied around a London plane tree – one of several planted in memory of war heroes. They say an independent survey has found that the tree is in “reasonable health”, in contrast with a contractor’s report saying it is a “safety risk”.

Sheffield City Council says the aim of the Streets Ahead project is to upgrade the city’s roads, pavements and street lighting as part of a Private Finance Initiative project. Officials say Sheffield is the greenest city in the UK and is in a “unique position” to carry out this “vital work”.

It also says an independent survey identified that three-quarters of Sheffield’s street trees were dead, dangerous or dying, and needed replacing. The contractor, Amey, is working to replace trees that fit criteria known as the “six Ds”, which also include those found to be diseased, damaging or discriminating – obstructing safe passage for prams and wheelchairs.

The main reason that is being given for felling these trees on the individual survey reports is that they are damaging the pavement, not that they are diseased or dying and that it is easier to remove the tree than find any other way of making the pavement flat. Most of these trees are around 100 years old and are species such as Limes and London Panes, and so have a life expectancy of 300-400 years. These trees are teenagers, and will last for many more generations if Sheffield City Council lets them.

I think someone has confused a 2006-2007 survey that said 75% of the trees are over-mature (which does not really mean anything – 100 year old trees, with a 400 year life expectancy fall in to this category – it is a forestry term relating to the value of the timber), and the later survey in 2012 categorized trees according to other criteria (the 6 Ds), including that trees were damaging pavements. I suspect this misunderstanding is the council’s of the survey the commissioned, rather than the journalist, as we have seen it elsewhere. They appear to be felling most of the city’s street trees based on misunderstanding a report…

Sheffield Tree Action Group

Another similar fight in Sheffield -Take Action for Smithy Woods

If you are concerned about the loss of ancient woodland, local green spaces, local wildlife and wildlife sites or worried about inappropriate development in the green belt and erosion of ecological networks then please object to this application. Help us to Save Smithy Wood!

For background information about Smithy Wood and this case click here.

An outline planning application has been submitted by ‘Extra MSA’ group that proposes to build a new motorway service area on Smithy Wood Ancient Woodland and Local Wildlife Site close to Junction 35 of the M1 in the Ecclesfield/Chapeltown area of Sheffield. The development includes a large fast food court, 80-bed hotel, petrol station and car park.

There is now a FINAL opportunity to comment on this application following the submission of further material by the developer. The more objections that are received by the City Council, the more likely the application is to be refused. It does not matter if you have objected previously – you can always refer to your previous submission or re-iterate your points.

You have until the Friday 13th November to submit your objection to Sheffield City Council Planning Dept. This is how to respond to the planning application.

Peruvian Land Defender Killed After 48-Hour Anti-Mining Strike

Seven rural communities organized a general strike that immobilized completely the activities in Puquio, capital of Lucana province, and resulted in the unfortunate death of a young member of the Cccollana community: Erick Mendonza Tumaylle, age 22.

October 29th, 2015

Seven rural communities organized a general strike that immobilized completely the activities in Puquio, capital of Lucana province, and resulted in the unfortunate death of a young member of the Cccollana community: Erick Mendonza Tumaylle, age 22. The conflict occurred at the site of one informal mining project where toxic run-offs lead directly into fields used by the community for agriculture.

Leaders of the community have reported Juan Pariona of Ccollao injured as a result of being held hostage by the informal mining company in the San Andrés zone.

This theme of conflict is a recurring one throughout the entire southern territories of Ayacucho, Ica, and parts of Arequipa. Some community members are suing Laytauma Corporation for being the main storage facility for explosives, for being the main source of income for informal transient workers, and for being the sole purchaser of feed produced in Sancos district.

People are worried about how thousands of informal workers are affecting the Yuariviri lagoon, the many springs and water sources. It has been made apparent that the center storm of this conflict has moved to this zone of the country.

by Observatorio de Conflictos Mineros en el Perú /  Conflictos Mineros

translated by Earth First! Newswire

Anti-Dam Activists Celebrate Two Years of Blockades in Malaysia

On October 23rd 2015, indigenous communities from around the world gathered on the banks of the Baram River in Sarawak, Malaysia in the context of the second year anniversary of the indigenous-led blockades against the proposed Baram Dam.

On October 23rd 2015, indigenous communities from around the world gathered on the banks of the Baram River in Sarawak, Malaysia in the context of the second year anniversary of the indigenous-led blockades against the proposed Baram Dam. Two years ago indigenous communities set up two blockades and chased workers and researchers from the site. The works on the dam have come to a standstill and last month the government of Sarawak announced a moratorium.

Indigenous anti-dam activists from Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Brazil, the US, Honduras, and from around Malaysia united at the blockades to stand in solidarity with the resistance against the Baram Dam and to strengthen ties between their communities. The week-long event is called the World Indigenous Summit on Environment and Rivers, WISER Baram 2015, and was hosted by the grassroots network SAVE Rivers.

During celebrations at the two blockades, the proposed dam site, as well as at a conference in the town of Miri, the participants were united by the similarities between their struggles. “I have gained a lot of experience from all of the delegates. And with such information, I am confident enough such experiences will be fundamental to us – the Baram People – and our strategies to continue to fight and stop the proposed Baram Dam,” said James Nyurang, who hosted the delegates at his village.

According to Berta Cáceres, 2015 Goldman Prize winner from Honduras, “this summit on indigenous peoples and rivers has a special value in that its actions give strength to the historic resistance of our peoples and makes visible the grave aggression and conflict generated by the privatization of rivers and the construction of dams within Indigenous communities and regions.”

The declaration also calls on governments and institutions to stop presenting dams as climate neutral, and recognize that dams emit large amounts of greenhouse gases, including methane.

Participants in the summit collectively produced a declaration that acknowledges the widespread suffering and destruction caused by dams, and stresses the importance of obtaining Free, Prior, and Informed Consent from communities impacted by dam building. It urges all stakeholders to act in full accountability, transparency, and compliance of all human rights principals and values.

The indigenous defense of the Baram river stands united with other communities’ struggles for land, livelihood, spirituality, identity, and community cohesion.

protest against British Columbia Hydro Dawson Creek dam – unconnected person wearing anonymous mask gets shot dead

Sept 23, 2015

Sept 23, 2015

Terry Hadland, a Peace River farmer, says he should have got the police bullet that killed a man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask outside a Site C open house this summer.

“He created a diversion so I could get away,” Mr. Hadland told The Globe and Mail in an interview. “He stepped up and took that shot for me, that’s for sure.”

RCMP were called to the open house in Dawson Creek on July 16 after getting calls about a man causing a disturbance at the British Columbia Hydro public information session.

One day after the hacker group Anonymous vowed to “avenge one of our own” following the shooting, the group is claiming to have crashed parts of the RCMP website on Sunday morning.

A Twitter account associated with the global activist group has posted photos showing the Dawson Creek RCMP website server status listed as “down.”

– See more at: http://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/dawson-creek/police-mum-on-link-between-police-shooting-anonymous-group-1.2005056#sthash.SbEOrEJA.dpuf

Mr. Hadland said he was the man causing trouble, but he left before police arrived, and officers confronted another man, who was reportedly carrying a knife and wearing the trademark mask of the hacktivist group Anonymous. Moments later, shots were fired, and James McIntyre, a dishwasher at Le’s Family Restaurant, was dead outside the Stonebridge Hotel’s Fixx Urban Grill.

In response to the shooting, Anonymous promised retribution, subsequently posting a 2014 Treasury Board memo about Canadian Security Intelligence Service funding, and threatening to leak more material.

One day after the hacker group Anonymous vowed to “avenge one of our own” following the shooting, the group is claiming to have crashed parts of the RCMP website on Sunday morning.

A Twitter account associated with the global activist group has posted photos showing the Dawson Creek RCMP website server status listed as “down.”

– See more at: http://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/dawson-creek/police-mum-on-link-between-police-shooting-anonymous-group-1.2005056#sthash.SbEOrEJA.dpuf

One day after the hacker group Anonymous vowed to “avenge one of our own” following the shooting, the group is claiming to have crashed parts of the RCMP website on Sunday morning.

A Twitter account associated with the global activist group has posted photos showing the Dawson Creek RCMP website server status listed as “down.”

– See more at: http://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/dawson-creek/police-mum-on-link-between-police-shooting-anonymous-group-1.2005056#sthash.hTyGNWmh.dpuf

Anonymous has already begun its retaliation campaign, knocking the main RCMP websites offline for several hours on Sunday (19 July).

This is part of the group’s campaign to “remove the RCMP cyber infrastructure from the Internet” as it calls on members to “march, create and sign petitions, hack, dox [until] all demand and justice is met”.

The hackitivst collective has also offered to raise funds for the victim’s burial.

Doxxing

The group leading the campaign – Operation Anon Down – also tweeted on Monday (20 July) that it had accessed documents marked “secret” inside the Canadian government, warning: “It’s not just a DDoS op anymore kiddos.”

#AnonDown has accessed docs marked “secret” inside Canadian government. It’s not just a DDoS op anymore kiddos. More tomorrow. Night all.
— Operation Anon Down (@OpAnonDown) July 20, 2015

In an emailed statement released over the weekend, Anonymous vowed to “identify the RCMP officer involved, thoroughly dox him – and release that dox on the Internet. Because the world has a right to know every detail about killer cops.”

Anonymous has a patchy history with “doxxing” police officers accused of shooting members of the public however, with one member of Anonymous having incorrectly identified the officer accused of shooting Michael Brown in Ferguson last year.

Mr. Hadland, 66, said he did not know Mr. McIntyre, 48, and regrets that his actions inadvertently brought police into conflict with him. “It’s tragic, that’s for damn sure,” he said. “They were trying to get me.”

Mr. Hadland said if police had found him instead of Mr. McIntyre, the incident would have ended peacefully. “I would have obeyed them,” he said.

Mr. Hadland, who lives off the grid on a farm in the Peace River district, said he went to the open house to protest against the controversial Site C dam.

“I’d been planning it for a couple of weeks,” he said. “I walked into the room … I thought, ‘I’m just going to push them a bit.’”

Anonymous

Mr. Hadland said BC Hydro officials were talking to members of the public at information tables covered with pamphlets, maps and posters.

“I flipped a couple [of tables],” he said. “I ripped up the rest of the maps …. They had placards. … I started breaking up those.”

Mr. Hadland said he was quickly surrounded by BC Hydro staff, but the confrontation did not become violent.

“They didn’t try to push me,” he said. “I made my statement and I walked out.”

Mr. Hadland said he assumes 911 calls were made during his protest, but added that if anyone reported a violent incident, then the police were misinformed and may have arrived expecting serious trouble.

“It was all very peaceful,” he said. “The police could have showed up and been amicable.”

When it was suggested that tipping over tables and tearing up posters might seem threatening to some, Mr. Hadland agreed.

“Oh, it could have been,” he acknowledged.

Mr. Hadland said he passed within metres of Mr. McIntyre in the parking lot but did not see a knife or a mask.

“I thought he was a BC Hydro person [because] he kept turning away and trying to hide his face,” he said.

Mr. Hadland was worried police were coming, so he jumped in his vehicle and drove away without looking back. He said he went to the RCMP the next day, identified himself as the man who disrupted the meeting, and told police he was concerned someone had made a 911 call “that wasn’t valid” because his protest was not violent.

Arthur Hadland, a former director of Peace River Regional District, confirmed his cousin was the man who disrupted the Site C open house.

The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) of B.C. is investigating the police shooting of Mr. McIntyre.

“It is not our practice to provide specific details about an investigation while it is still active – what I can say is that while we obtain all accessible and available information we believe is relevant to the IIO investigation, our focus is on the actions of the police officers,” Kellie Kilpatrick, an IIO spokesperson said in an e-mail.

“Since our investigation of the initial disturbance is a parallel investigation to that of the IIO’s investigation which is still ongoing, it would be inappropriate for me to comment at this time,” Corporal Dave Tyreman of the RCMP’s North District said in a separate e-mail.

BC Hydro spokesman Dave Conway declined to comment on Mr. Hadland’s version of events.

—

July 2015:

B.C. Hydro Site C protest in Vancouver cancelled due to concerns about violence

Rally organizers say they’re concerned about reaction to the recent death of a man in Dawson Creek

—

Further info

Indigenous activists celebrate bitter victory over rainforest dam moratorium

22nd October 2015

22nd October 2015

As indigenous activists opposing hydropower dams on their territories gather this weekend in the rainforests of Sarawak, Malaysia, they have good news to celebrate: a giant dam on the Baram river has been put on hold. But the forests are still being logged, local people have been stripped of land rights, and a programme of 12 giant dams is still official policy.

Indigenous anti-dam campaigners from Brazil, India, Honduras, and across Southeast Asia are gathering on the island of Borneo to coordinate campaigns on the impact of large hydroelectric dams.

The World Indigenous Summit on Environment and Rivers is now under way in the town of Miri on Baram River in the Malaysian state of Sarawak – where rainforest dams have already drowned thousands of square kilometres of forest.

Local indigenous people belonging to Penan, Kenyah, Kayan and other groups have led a two-year blockade against the proposed Baram hydropower dam sited on the upper reaches of the Baram River, staging encampments at the dam site itself and at a site along its access road.

“We are maintaining the blockade and we are going to celebrate the anniversary on the 23-24 October”, said Peter Kallang, conference organizer and coordinator of SAVE Rivers Sarawak, a network of groups opposing dams.

Baram dam on hold – but the logging rages on

Activists have reason to celebrate. In a television address in July Sarawak’s Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem declared a moratorium on the Baram Dam project. The 400-square-kilometer (154-square-mile) reservoir of the 1,200-megawatt Baram Dam would displace up to 20,000 people and submerge their lands.

So good news, certainly. But despite the moratorium, clearance of the vast Baram Dam site is proceeding quickly. The government has already extinguished local land rights and issued logging permits to large Malaysian logging companies, and logging has begun, as Kallang explains:

“The loggers are going all out to take this opportunity to cut everything in the way. This license for logging is a legal license given by the government under what they call the salvage logging … under salvage logging they cut anything and everything, even the small trees about six inches in diameter.”

Meanwhile it appears that the moratorium decision may have been forced by simple economics: an inability to raise the billions of dollars needed for its construction.

In the case of the 2,400-megawatt Bakun Dam, which became operational in 2011 private financing fell short and British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto backed out of a proposed aluminium smelter. The state resorted to loaning most of the $2.3 billion construction cost from state pension funds.

The controversial dam, Asia’s second largest outside China, displaced 10,000 people and submerged 700 square kilometres (270 square miles) of rainforest and farmland. But now it is running at well under half of its capacity three years after it came online: it is actually generating just 900MW due to lack of domestic energy demand.

A plan to export Bakun’s energy to the Malaysian mainland via undersea transmission lines has been shelved. Activists are also keen to highlight the poor record of electricity generation by Sarawak’s Batang Ai dam.

But there’s plenty more dams planned for Sarawak’s rivers

The Baram Dam is only the fourth proposed development of twelve large dams slated to be constructed by 2030 as part of a broader hydropower-development plan called the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE). And there’s no sign that the project is to be abandoned.

Next in line for construction is the 1,295 megawatt, 204-meter (669-foot) high Baleh Dam, which so far has attracted less opposition because it is not scheduled to displace communities. Over the long term, 50 dams will be required to realize the Malaysian government’s target of 20 gigawatts of hydropower capacity in Sarawak.

“The essence of SCORE is to industrialise the state by leveraging on Sarawak’s competitive advantage in bulk hydropower”, Sarawak’s Public Utilities Minister Datuk Amar Haji Awang Tengah Ali Hasan said in a speech at the International Hydropower Association’s (IHA) conference in China last July.

Hasan argued that the plan would bring jobs and economic development to Sarawak, particularly it’s remote areas, according to the Borneo Post. Mongabay contacted the IHA for its views on SCORE and the Baram moratorium but it declined to comment.

SCORE, born in 2006 out of the Ninth Malaysia Plan, a government roadmap for development by 2020, represents a formidable scheme to replace indigenous lands and tropical rainforests with heavy industry like steel, glass, aluminium, and agri-business plantations.

However, the aim to industrialize might not be going according to plan. “It is all talking nonsense”, said Kallang, explaining that Sarawak Energy, the nationalized state energy supplier that manages all of Sarawak’s electricity, has repeatedly failed to disclose a list of companies that have signed on to purchase electricity from the 12 planned dams. Kallang suspects this is because no such list exists.

Meanwhile Sarawak’s 944-megawatt Murum Dam is complete but has yet to become operational. Kallang explained that controversy still surrounds the project, with displaced Penan hunter-gatherer indigenous communities claiming they have not been paid the compensation that the Sarawak government promised them. But another problem, surely, is that there is no demand for its power.

Still no final decision on Baram dam

Activists remain cautious about the Baram moratorium and have decided to maintain their blockade pending further confirmation. Kallang thinks the state elections next year might have influenced the decision to put the dam on hold. “When politicians talk we have to know whether they are really genuine or they are fishing for votes”, he said.

Sarawak Energy spokesperson Ahadiah Zamhari told Mongabay that a final decision on the dam’s construction has yet to be made. “The Chief Minister of Sarawak has imposed a moratorium to all parties on matters related to Baram hydropower project pending the government’s final decision on the project”, he stated in an email, while declining to be interviewed.

But Rebekah Shirley, a researcher with the Energy and Resources Group at University of California, Berkeley, is cautiously optimistic: “I see this recent moratorium on works in Baram as progressive. It is hopefully a signal of new leadership that is keen on listening to the concerns of stakeholders – albeit stakeholders that should already be a legitimate part of the decision making process.”

Shirley’s work with her Berkeley colleague Daniel Kammen showing the potential of small-scale energy options such as solar and micro-hydro to meet Sarawak’s energy needs without building dams has influenced the government.

Their research appears to provide a cost-effective alternative to big dams with the added advantage of reduced environmental and social conflicts. After meeting with Kammen, Kallang, and others in June, Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan said in a television interview last month that he would look into these alternatives.

But in recent years a number of revelations have exposed corruption at the highest levels of Sarawak’s Government. The business affairs of the former Chief Minister and current state Governor, Taib Mahmud, have particularly been in the spotlight. Kallang explained Taib’s links to dam construction, which have been well documented by the news media:

“If the dams, especially Baram and Baleh are cancelled, it will affect Taib’s company very much because the sole supplier of cement in the whole of Sarawak is a company called CMS [Cahya Mata Sarawak] which is owned 90% by the Taib family… Also Sarawak Cable is owned by his son, so they are going to supply all the cable required for the transmission lines.”

The struggle is global

Dam-building remains widespread worldwide. The International Hydropower Association in its 2015 report said: “We publish this report at a time of significant hydropower development, with 37.4 GW of new installed capacity in 2014 bringing the global total to 1,036 GW.”

As part of the convergence this week, the international delegation of activists is due to join villagers on the blockades in solidarity, and over a hundred people are expected to stay in the camp, extended for the occasion, at kilometer 15 of the dam’s access road. “They are going to visit the dam site and from there they will visit the villages which could be flooded if the dam is built. We will stay overnight on the blockade”, Kallang said.

Annina Aeberli, who is helping to organize the events as a campaigner with the Swiss NGO Bruno Manser Fonds, explained the idea behind the initiative: “We were really thinking about what we can do to strengthen [the villagers’] spirits to fight. So then we came back to this idea to bring international dam activists to the Baram area, so that they can show solidarity and motivate the people.”

Though the Baram Dam protests appear to have been effective, on October 26 Kallang is due in court, where he faces fines and even jail-time in a suit brought by Sarawak Energy against him and 22 others for allegedly chasing the company away from the Baram worksite.

Whatever the court outcome, Kallang is committed to the struggle long-term and recognizes the global dimensions of the issue as indigenous activists battling dams abroad make the long journey to Sarawak:

“We would like to invite them to share their experience in fighting against dams. And with this we hope to build better solidarity with them.”

Videos and sources here

 

Ahousaht First Nation Blockade Open Net Salmon Farm

Clayoquot Sound
An aerial view of Clayoquot Sound, just north of Tofino, B.C., is shown in this handout photo. The Ahousaht First Nation are protesting an open-net salmon farm in the area.

September 11th, 2015

TOFINO, B.C. — Members of a Vancouver Island First Nation are vowing to risk arrest rather than allow an international fish farming company to anchor an open-net salmon farm north of Tofino.

Members of the Ahousaht First Nation say they set up a boat blockade Wednesday at the site of the new farm, owned by Norwegian-based Cermaq.

The Ahousaht say the company holds 17 salmon farm tenures in Clayoquot Sound and applied for two new tenures in the same area last year.

The First Nation believes the applications signal a new round of fish farm expansion on the West Coast, with the Ahousaht Fish Farm Committee predicting a four-fold increase in the industry over the next 15 years.

Protesters oppose any new fish farms in the area.

They fear possible diseases bred in fish within the open nets could be passed to clam beds or wild salmon travelling to and from nearby spawning grounds.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/first-nations-blockade-halts-anchoring-of-tofino-area-salmon-farm-1.2556934

First Nations blockade Clayoquot Sound salmon farm

This is a media release from UBCIC.

Members of Ahousaht First Nations are currently blockading the attempts of Cermaq to install a new open-net salmon farm at Yaakswiis, north of Tofino BC.

On Wednesday Ahousaht members took boats out to the site and prevented Cermaq from anchoring the controversial new farm, which was assembled off-site and towed to Yaakswiis.

“Wild salmon are in decline everywhere salmon feedlots are in operation around the world. We will stop any future activity at this location”, said Tom Paul, an Ahousaht member. “We will stay out there until we are moved—we will be arrested if need be” he added.

The Ahousaht Fish Farm Committee strongly opposed any fish farms at the Yaakswiis location, due to concerns about proximity to rich seafood resources such as clam beds and wild salmon rivers.

Cermaq is a Norwegian-based corporation recently acquired by Mitsubishi. They currently hold 17 salmon farm tenures in Clayoquot Sound, which was the site of major logging confrontations in 1993.

Cermaq applied in 2014 for two new tenures in Ahousaht First Nations territories. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans approved one application in late July this year, and one was refused.

The salmon farming industry is poised to increase four-fold on the BC coast by 2030. These new applications are the first round of this major expansion.

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/first-nations-blockade-clayoquot-sound-salmon-farm