Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Fracking In Balcombe: A Community Says No

P1030668Update (24/07/13): Cuadrilla Resources are bring­ing equip­ment onto the site at Bal­combe now and want to start drilling by the week­end.

P1030668Update (24/07/13): Cuadrilla Resources are bring­ing equip­ment onto the site at Bal­combe now and want to start drilling by the week­end. The com­mu­ni­ty is mobil­isat­ing to stop them tomor­row (Thurs) from 7am and needs help. See http://greatgasgala.org.uk/ for details.

The sleepy vil­lage of Bal­combe in West Sus­sex, in the mid­dle of the Weald val­ley, has until recent­ly not been a place you would asso­ciate with indus­tri­al devel­op­ment. The sur­round­ing coun­try­side is among the most pic­turesque you will see out of the train win­dow on the line between Lon­don and Brighton. How­ev­er, in 2008 Cuadrilla Resources acquired a petro­le­um explo­ration and devel­op­ment licence (PEDL 244) for an area of Sus­sex, includ­ing Bal­combe, and acquired an adjoin­ing licence a few years lat­er, bring­ing the total area of Sus­sex coun­try­side they can exploit to over 270 square miles.

Summary

  • Frack­ing threat­en­ing Sus­sex coun­try­side
  • Cuadrilla have licences for 270 square miles
  • Plan­ning per­mis­sion to drill in Bal­combe
  • Tar­get­ing lay­er with­in Kim­meridge Clay
  • Anal­o­gous to Bakken Shale in North Dako­ta
  • Would need thou­sands of wells to extract oil
  • Same severe impacts as in US and Aus­tralia
  • Vil­lagers get­ting organ­ised to resist inva­sion
  • Cuadrilla is try­ing to push ahead regard­less
  • Need per­mits to start, but could be soon
.

In Jan­u­ary 2010 Cuadrilla applied to West Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil for plan­ning per­mis­sion to drill a explo­ration well, on a site where Cono­co pre­vi­ous­ly drilled a well in 1986, with­out suc­cess. Very few peo­ple were aware of this appli­ca­tion and those that were assumed that it would be a sim­i­lar sto­ry to Cono­co, decades ear­li­er. No one had heard of Cuadrilla or frack­ing and a men­tion of “stim­u­la­tion” in the plan­ning appli­ca­tion did not mean any­thing to any­one. There were no objec­tions and three months lat­er per­mis­sion was grant­ed with­out any fuss.

The world has changed since the mid-1980s though and where­as Cono­co were look­ing for con­ven­tion­al oil, in a reser­voir of per­me­able rock, Cuadrilla – spurred by sky high ener­gy prices – are pre­pared to go to much greater lengths to get hydro­car­bons out of the ground. Uncon­ven­tion­al oil and gas tar­gets much less per­me­able rocks, with dense­ly packed (usu­al­ly) hor­i­zon­tal wells and var­i­ous extreme stim­u­la­tion tech­niques, such as hydraulic frac­tur­ing. While in Lan­cashire Cuadrilla are focused on get­ting gas out of the Bow­land Shale, in Sus­sex they are after so called tight (shale) oil, sim­i­lar to the Bakken Shale in North Dako­ta.

 

If this explo­ration leads to full scale devel­op­ment at the well-spac­ing now com­mon in the Bakken, 4 wells per square mile, it could mean 32 wells with­in the parish of Bal­combe and over 300 with­in 5 miles of the vil­lage. Up to 1,200 wells might be drilled in the the whole of Cuadrilla’s licence area. Fur­ther west, in the cen­tre of the Weald val­ley where the for­ma­tions are deep­er, it is pos­si­ble that gas rather than oil may pre­dom­i­nate. Cel­tique Energie, who have licences across much of West Sus­sex, are brag­ging about quan­ti­ties of gas that would require thou­sands of wells to extract.

These devel­op­ments threat­en to indus­tri­alise the Sus­sex coun­try­side with well pads, and asso­ci­at­ed pipelines, com­pres­sor sta­tions and pro­cess­ing plants. One only has to look to the US, Cana­da or Aus­tralia what liv­ing in the mid­dle of such an oil/gasfield is like. Over 100,000 uncon­ven­tion­al wells have been drilled in the US in the last decade, and thou­sands in Cana­da and Aus­tralia. In parts of the US, drilling is start­ing to push into the out­skirts of cities, as they run out of coun­try­side to frack. See this arti­cle Frack­ing Sus­sex: The Threat Of Shale Oil & Gas for more details.

P1030733 P1030724 P1030703

It was only fol­low­ing the pub­lic­i­ty around Cuadrilla’s mis­for­tunes in Lan­cashire (break­ing their first test well with an earth­quake they caused) that Bal­combe res­i­dents became aware of what was planned, and a pub­lic meet­ing was called in the vil­lage hall in Jan­u­ary 2012. Cuadrilla man­aged to invite them­selves to the meet­ing and came in will their PR team to smooth things over. After they had been grilled for sev­er­al hours by hun­dreds of angry locals, they retreat­ed to lick their wounds. How­ev­er with their tem­po­rary plan­ning per­mis­sion due to expire in Sep­tem­ber this year, they are now keen to pro­ceed as soon as pos­si­ble.

Recent­ly Cuadrilla returned to Bal­combe and held a “con­sul­ta­tion”, to explain their plans. Wary of their pre­vi­ous­ly recep­tion they booked a small hall for the after­noon that could only hold a few peo­ple at a time, and packed it with exec­u­tives. The vil­lage respond­ed, coat­ing the area in anti-frack­ing signs, organ­is­ing a kids anti-frack­ing pic­nic and mount­ing a con­tin­u­ous protest out­side the venue. As usu­al Cuadrilla were less than con­vinc­ing, with a Cuadrilla exec­u­tive even caught on tape admit­ting that every­thing they said sound­ed like “utter fuck­ing bull­shit”.

Mean­while secu­ri­ty guards, from the third worst com­pa­ny in the world G4S, have been present at the site 24 hours a day for sev­er­al weeks. Last week a small drilling rig arrived on site to drill a water mon­i­tor­ing well, in prepa­ra­tion for the main event. In response the locals begain organ­is­ing a Rig­watch out­side the site entrance, to keep track of what Cuadrilla are up to. On Mon­day a tea par­ty was held out­side to site, to protest Cuadrilla’s pres­ence.

Picnic at Lower Stumble. July 2013

Pic­nic at Low­er Stum­ble. July 2013

Cuadrilla have still not cleared all the hur­dles they need to in order to com­mence drilling, how­ev­er. They require min­ing waste and radioac­tive sub­stances per­mits in order to dis­pose of the tox­ic and radioac­tive waste the drilling will gen­er­ate. In Lan­cashire the Envi­ron­ment Agency waved the require­ment for a per­mit allow­ing Cuadrilla to dump radioac­tive sludge from their Preece Hall site into the Man­ches­ter Ship Canal, but there is no infor­ma­tion about any plans for where this waste would go. The Envi­ron­ment Agency have launched a month long con­sul­ta­tion on the per­mits, poten­tial­ly delay­ing drilling into July.

Regard­less of these legal issues, Cuadrilla are faced with hav­ing to try to push through the drilling despite the near unan­i­mous oppo­si­tion of the local com­mu­ni­ty. Across Sus­sex peo­ple are equal­ly unkeen on the threat­ened indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of the coun­ty. In Aus­tralia, where three gas com­pa­nies have already been forced out of New South Wales, com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion has been high­ly effec­tive. The indus­try is sug­gest­ing black­mail­ing com­mu­ni­ties with the threat of with­hold­ing pub­lic ser­vices, or brib­ing them with cash pay­ments, to acqui­esce to the destruc­tion of their envi­ron­ments. They are clear­ly wor­ried by the mount­ing oppo­si­tion.

You can object to Cuadrilla’s “Min­ing Waste” appli­ca­tion here…

You can object to Cuadrilla’s “Radioac­tive Wastes” appli­ca­tion here…

 

Indian tribe blocks Pan-American Highway to protest land invasion

23 July 2013 Cross post­ed from Sur­vival

 

23 July 2013 Cross post­ed from Sur­vival

 

A key South Amer­i­can high­way con­nect­ing Paraguay and Bolivia is being blocked by an Indi­an tribe angry at the destruc­tion of their rapid­ly-shrink­ing island of for­est.

Ayoreo Indi­ans today blocked the Trans-Cha­co High­way, which forms part of the Pan-Amer­i­can High­way, and have vowed to main­tain their protest until out­siders who have occu­pied their land are removed.

The Indi­ans are angry about the ille­gal inva­sion of their land by two Paraguayan farm­ers, in an area to which the Ayoreo secured offi­cial land title 16 years ago.

The farm­ers and their work­ers have erect­ed cat­tle fences and bull­dozed wide tracks, and claim that the land belongs to them. They were guard­ed by police, to pre­vent any attempt on the Ayore­os’ part to stop the work.

The land is titled to the Ayoreo, but the farmers have erected cattle fences and bulldozed wide tracks.
The land is titled to the Ayoreo, but the farm­ers have erect­ed cat­tle fences and bull­dozed wide tracks.
© Sur­vival

Although most mem­bers of the Ayoreo tribe are con­tact­ed, some groups are known to remain uncon­tact­ed in the for­est in the area now under threat.

The Ayoreo have said to Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al, ‘We don’t want any out­siders in our ter­ri­to­ry – it’s dan­ger­ous for us, and dan­ger­ous for our rel­a­tives in the for­est. We’ll stay here [on the road] until all the out­siders leave our land.’

Uncon­tact­ed Cha­coA spe­cial report from the Paraguayan Cha­co. Recent­ly con­tact­ed Ayoreo Indi­ans are wor­ried for the future of their uncon­tact­ed rel­a­tives.

Survival’s Direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘The Ayoreo are extreme­ly angry that one of the few parts of their ter­ri­to­ry that they had man­aged to secure is now being invad­ed by out­siders, with the con­nivance of the local police. It seems like the author­i­ties in Paraguay favor the rich and pow­er­ful over peo­ple like the Ayoreo, who sim­ply try to live in peace on their own land.’

Michigan Activists Locking Down to Halt Tar Sands Pipeline Construction

Brooklyn & Barb locked down

From MI-CATS Press Release:

Mon­day, July 22nd, 2013

Brooklyn & Barb locked down

From MI-CATS Press Release:

Mon­day, July 22nd, 2013

This morn­ing Michi­gan Coali­tion Against Tar Sands (MI-CATS) is tak­ing direct action near Stock­bridge ‘to halt con­struc­tion of the Tar Sands pipeline 6B expan­sion project of Cana­di­an cor­po­ra­tion Enbridge. Over 40 Michi­gan­ders have come to oppose the infa­mous corporation’s fla­grant expan­sion of the very same pipeline that spilled out into the Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er only three years ago. Enbridge claims they have restored the riv­er after a spill is no excuse to expand the pipeline, expand­ing the pipeline increas­es the risk for every­one.

Res­i­dents are cur­rent­ly halt­ing Enbridge’s con­struc­tion plans by putting their bod­ies on the line in an act of non vio­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence against Enbridge’s plans. At least 6 peo­ple have been arrest­ed so far as police attempt to shut down the protest. 4 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly locked down to con­struc­tion equip­ment and refus­ing to move. Police have arrest­ed their med­ical sup­port team and threat­en to arrest any­one who tries to approach them.

 

These mea­sures come after the exhaus­tion of every method with­in the law, as it has has become appar­ent from our expe­ri­ences all through­out the state. Our state gov­ern­ment is ready to set aside its own laws and legal process­es to accom­mo­date this for­eign cor­po­ra­tion.

Enbridge itself has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed that their sole pri­or­i­ty is their own bot­tom line, not the health and safe­ty of the peo­ple of Michi­gan, our ecosys­tem, and even their own work­ers.

Michi­gan Coali­tion Against Tar Sands seeks to unite the peo­ple of Michi­gan toward the com­mon goal of stop­ping all trans­porta­tion of tar sands oil in the state and advo­cat­ing against the pro­duc­tion and trans­porta­tion of tar sands every­where. We work in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the glob­al move­ment against harsh fos­sil fuel extrac­tive prac­tices.

Accord­ing to one per­son who is par­tic­i­pat­ing in this action “This pipeline is a dis­as­ter for Michigan’s water and the glob­al cli­mate. I’m blockad­ing this pipeline to  pre­vent the next spill because I care about Michigan’s air and water. Peo­ple all over the world are tak­ing action in their own com­mu­ni­ty this Fear­less Sum­mer. We need to leave all fos­sil fuels in the ground.” – William Lawrence of East Lans­ing

We will not allow Cana­di­an tar sands to pass through our back­yards. We will no longer allow the same Cana­di­an cor­po­ra­tion respon­si­ble for the tar sands which still lie at the bot­tom of our Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er to place all of us at risk. We are tak­ing this action to pro­tect from anoth­er spill and to ensure a liv­able plan­et for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Loca­tion of the action is the Enbridge 6B ease­ment off of Grimes west of M‑52 near Stock­bridge, MI. Look for the orange con­struc­tion signs and the police pres­ence. ‪#‎micat­s­act‬. Updates on the action will con­tin­ue, as events unfold.

This is MI-CATS’ sec­ond action at the Enbridge 6B pipeline this sum­mer; in the first an activist climbed inside the Enbridge 6B pipe. Fol­low @MichiganCats and @efjournal on twit­ter for updates

Mapuche, Human Rights Activists Slam Argentina’s Chevron Deal

18 July 2013 The Argen­tine government’s long-sought deal with Chevron Corp.

18 July 2013 The Argen­tine government’s long-sought deal with Chevron Corp. to exploit shale oil reserves in Patag­o­nia was strong­ly crit­i­cized Wednes­day by Mapuche Indi­ans, human rights activists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists and left­ists who called it a sell­out to the U.S. that could drain and pol­lute the nation’s resources.

The $1.5 bil­lion joint ven­ture with Chevron was made pub­lic in a brief announce­ment by the state-owned YPF oil com­pa­ny Tues­day night. Pres­i­dent Cristi­na Fer­nan­dez said the deal will pro­mote ener­gy inde­pen­dence for Argenti­na, but many of her one-time allies warned that it would do the oppo­site.

“It’s an irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty and a lack of con­scious­ness that the nation­al gov­ern­ment hands over these resources to Chevron,” said Nilo Cayuqueo, who leads a Mapuche com­mu­ni­ty in Neuquen province, where the Vaca Muer­ta shale oil basin is. “We’re talk­ing about mon­ey here, noth­ing else. They don’t talk about the envi­ron­ment, or of future gen­er­a­tions.”

Mapuch­es say the land belongs to them and con­tend they weren’t con­sult­ed about the deal in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al treaties cov­er­ing indige­nous peo­ples. YPF denied that claim Tues­day.

Adol­fo Perez Esquiv­el, an Argen­tine rights activist award­ed the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, said the deal would hurt the coun­try.

“We Argen­tines,” he said, “are giv­ing our resources to the Unit­ed States and con­vert­ing YPF into a high­ly pol­lut­ing com­pa­ny that will use this method known as frack­ing,” which requires mil­lions of gal­lons of fresh water pumped at high pres­sure to extract oil and nat­ur­al gas from oth­er­wise unpro­duc­tive wells deep under­ground in shale deposits.

Perez Esquiv­el said he would file suit demand­ing to see envi­ron­men­tal impact stud­ies and try to block the oil devel­op­ment. But he said he had lit­tle hope of suc­cess since the court sys­tem recent­ly over­turned an injunc­tion seiz­ing any Chevron prof­its in Argenti­na if the com­pa­ny didn’t pay a $19 bil­lion dam­age judg­ment won by plain­tiffs in Ecuador, where the Tex­a­co oil com­pa­ny since bought by Chevron was judged to have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed parts of the Ama­zon.

The deal reached with Chevron is the biggest for­eign invest­ment that Argenti­na has attract­ed since expro­pri­at­ing YPF from con­trol of the Span­ish com­pa­ny Grupo Rep­sol last year. Rep­sol is demand­ing $10 bil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion and threat­ens to sue any oil com­pa­ny that takes over the wells.

Protest call out! Vedanta AGM, 1st August, London.

1st August, 2pm. The London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, W1K 6JP.

Please spread the word and join us for this year’s Vedan­ta AGM demo (fly­er attached). Affin­i­ty group actions/street theatre/banners etc encour­aged.

1st August, 2pm. The London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, W1K 6JP.

Please spread the word and join us for this year’s Vedan­ta AGM demo (fly­er attached). Affin­i­ty group actions/street theatre/banners etc encour­aged. This will be an inter­na­tion­al day of action and is usu­al­ly well cov­ered in Indi­an and UK news­pa­pers.

We will bring the defiant energy of the Dongria Kond tribe to London, as they fight the final stages of their 10 years battle for survival against Vedanta’s planned mega mine.

Parallel demonstrations are already planned in Odisha and Delhi in India on this international day of action.

Bring drums, placards, banners and lots of energy!

JOIN OUR GRASSROOTS SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT TO STOP THIS KILLER CORPORATE!

Vedan­ta Resources is a FTSE 100 British-Indi­an min­ing com­pa­ny guilty of thou­sands of deaths, envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion, anti union action, cor­rup­tion and dis­dain for life on earth. They have become one of the most hat­ed and con­tentious com­pa­nies in the world.

In Odisha, India they are try­ing to mine a moun­tain inhab­it­ed by an ancient tribe – the Don­gria Kond – who have suc­cess­ful­ly fought them off for more than 10 years. Their fight is in its final stages, and we need to mobilise all our ener­gy to ensure Vedan­ta is kicked out of the Niyam­giri moun­tains for­ev­er.

Vedan­ta is now diver­si­fy­ing into oil and gas, and expand­ing into Africa, Sri Lan­ka and pos­si­bly even the Arc­tic. They cur­rent­ly oper­ate in Zam­bia, South Africa, Liberia, Namib­ia, Aus­tralia, Sri Lan­ka, and across India.

Cov­er­age of last year’s AGM demo in the Guardian news­pa­per

Since last year’s AGM Vedan­ta are guilty of a major tox­ic gas leak affect­ing thou­sands of peo­ple at their Ster­lite sub­sidiary cop­per smelter in Tuti­corin, Tamil Nadu. At their Jhar­sug­u­da Alu­mini­um com­plex they released fly ash over farm­land pol­lut­ing rivers and vil­lages. In Zam­bia they tried to fire 2000 work­ers from their Konko­la Cop­per mines and smelter before being stopped by the Zam­bian Gov­ern­ment. One Zam­bian employ­ee was shot dead at the plant.

At Niyam­giri, Odisha, Vedan­ta with it’s cronies in the Odisha state gov­ern­ment are try­ing to force their mega baux­ite mine through at any cost. They are using police harass­ment, manip­u­la­tion, threats and dis­tor­tion of the legal sys­tem to pre­vent the Don­gria Kond from vot­ing against the project in the com­ing weeks. Forces have even opened fire on women and chil­dren threat­en­ing them not to oppose the mine. But the Don­gria are stronger than ever and pre­pared to fight tooth and nail to save their moun­tain in these final stages.

Vedan­ta are sup­port­ed by the British gov­ern­ment, as well as our banks, pen­sion funds and finan­cial insti­tu­tions. Vedan­ta is 64.9% owned by CEO Anil Agar­w­al and his fam­i­ly via var­i­ous tax havens. Top share­hold­ers include Stan­dard Life, Black­rock inc. and JP Mor­gan – the same financiers of South African min­er Lon­min who shot and killed 34 protest­ing mine work­ers in August 2012.

 

Last year’s AGM demo

Foil Vedan­ta is a sol­i­dar­i­ty move­ment work­ing direct­ly with those affect­ed by Vedan­ta in India and else­where. We are cur­rent­ly try­ing to get Vedan­ta de-list­ed from the Lon­don Stock Exchange.

Please join activists who will be ral­ly­ing in Odisha, Goa and Del­hi on 1st August as part of an inter­na­tion­al day of action to stop this killer cor­po­rate and it’s sup­port­ers.

We will be ral­ly­ing out­side Vedanta’s Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Don­gria Kond tribe of Odisha.

Tanks Move in Around Earth’s Most Threatened Tribe

Brazil’s mil­i­tary has moved in to stop ille­gal log­ging around the land of Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.
© Exérci­to Brasileiro

Cross Post­ed from S

Brazil’s mil­i­tary has moved in to stop ille­gal log­ging around the land of Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.
© Exérci­to Brasileiro

Cross Post­ed from Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al has received reports that Brazil’s mil­i­tary has launched a major ground oper­a­tion against ille­gal log­ging around the land of the Awá, Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.

Hun­dreds of sol­diers, police offi­cers and Envi­ron­ment Min­istry spe­cial agents have flood­ed the area, backed up with tanks, heli­copters and close to a hun­dred oth­er vehi­cles, to halt the ille­gal defor­esta­tion which has already destroyed more than 30% of one of the Awá’s indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries.

Since the oper­a­tion report­ed­ly start­ed at the end of June, 2013, at least eight saw mills have been closed and oth­er machin­ery has been con­fis­cat­ed and destroyed.

Little Butterfly, an Awá girl. The Awá have pleaded for all illegal invaders to be evicted from their forest.
Lit­tle But­ter­fly, an Awá girl. The Awá have plead­ed for all ille­gal invaders to be evict­ed from their for­est.
© Sarah Shenker/Survival

The oper­a­tion comes at a crit­i­cal time for the Awá, one of the last nomadic hunter-gath­er­er tribes in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, who are at risk of extinc­tion if the destruc­tion of their for­est is not stopped as a mat­ter of urgency.

But while the oper­a­tion is mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for log­gers to enter Awá ter­ri­to­ry and remove the valu­able tim­ber, the forces have not moved onto the Awá’s land itself – where ille­gal log­ging is tak­ing place at an alarm­ing rate and where quick action is cru­cial.

Amiri Awá told Sur­vival, ‘The invaders must be made to leave our for­est. We don’t want our for­est to dis­ap­pear. The log­gers have already destroyed many areas.’

Tanks, helicopters and close to a hundred vehicles have been deployed to protect the forest.
Tanks, heli­copters and close to a hun­dred vehi­cles have been deployed to pro­tect the for­est.
© May­con Alves

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple world­wide, includ­ing many celebri­ties, have joined Sur­vival International’s cam­paign urg­ing the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment to send forces into the Awá’s ter­ri­to­ries to evict the ille­gal invaders, stop the destruc­tion of the Awá’s for­est, pros­e­cute the ille­gal log­gers and pre­vent them from re-enter­ing the area.

Survival’s Direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘Brazil has tak­en a promis­ing first step towards sav­ing the world’s most threat­ened tribe, and it’s thanks to the many thou­sands of Awá sup­port­ers world­wide. This is proof that pub­lic opin­ion can effect change. How­ev­er, the bat­tle is not yet won: the author­i­ties must not stop until all ille­gal invaders are gone.’

Honduran Army Kills Indigenous Leader of COPINH Who Resisted Dam in Rio Blanco

16 July 2013 On Mon­day July 15th, while the Lenca com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co, in Hon­duras, marked 106 days of resis­tance to the build­ing of Agua Zarca hydro­elec­tric dam, the Army indis­crim­i­nate­ly shot at the demon­stra­tors killing one of the l

16 July 2013 On Mon­day July 15th, while the Lenca com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co, in Hon­duras, marked 106 days of resis­tance to the build­ing of Agua Zarca hydro­elec­tric dam, the Army indis­crim­i­nate­ly shot at the demon­stra­tors killing one of the lead­ers of the resis­tance, Tomas Gar­cia, and seri­ous­ly injur­ing his son (pho­to).

Tomas was a Lenca indige­nous leader who was part of his community’s Indige­nous and Aux­il­iary Coun­cil and of the Nation­al Coun­cil of the Civic Coun­cil of Pop­u­lar and Indige­nous Orga­ni­za­tions of Hon­duras (COPINH).

The Hon­duran activist was shot dead while he was walk­ing with oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to the project’s facil­i­ties owned by Desa and Sino­hy­dro com­pa­nies, while his son, who was seri­ous­ly injured by a high-cal­i­bre bul­let, is in hos­pi­tal and his life is in dan­ger, Berta Cac­eres, leader of COPINH, told Real World Radio.

Berta described the act as “a des­per­ate and crim­i­nal reac­tion” by the com­pa­nies that want to build a dam on Riv­er Gual­caeque, seri­ous­ly affect­ing the com­mu­ni­ties liv­ing there. The Hon­duran army sup­ports the com­pa­nies, said Berta, and they even pay for the trans­porta­tion and main­te­nance of troops deployed by the Hon­duran gov­ern­ment in Tegu­ci­gal­pa in Rio Blan­co.

On Mon­day night, COPINH report­ed of more mil­i­tary troops being deployed in Zaca­pa, San­ta Bar­bara, and there were fears of new shoot­ings against civil­ians dur­ing the wake of the mur­dered indige­nous leader.

“The com­mu­ni­ty is out­raged. We are in great sor­row, also because we believe we have to con­tin­ue our strug­gle”, said Berta dur­ing a phone inter­view. “As the elec­tions approach (in Novem­ber) they want to teach COPINH a les­son”, she explained and said the com­mu­ni­ty decid­ed to con­tin­ue occu­py­ing the access to the dam.

A few hours after the inci­dents, COPINH had report­ed that since Fri­day 12, top exec­u­tives of the com­pa­ny Desar­rol­lo Energéti­co Sociedad Anón­i­ma (DESA)- which is in charge of the project togeth­er with the orig­i­nal group Sino­hy­dro – trav­elled to meet with local hit­men, who are respon­si­ble for direct threats against sev­er­al mem­bers of the indige­nous coun­cil, includ­ing Tomas Gar­cia.

Before they start­ed shoot­ing at civil­ians, the mil­i­tary made no attempt to talk with the activists, said Berta.

The leader of COPINH was ille­gal­ly arrest­ed in May and sub­mit­ted to a tri­al for pur­port­ed­ly hav­ing an ille­gal weapon, some­thing that the court could not prove and the case was final­ly dis­missed.

The leader high­light­ed that in the new cas­es of repres­sion against res­i­dents of the com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co, we urgent­ly need inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty to report the civic and mil­i­tary author­i­ties and both com­pa­nies for mur­der.

“We are aware that we are con­front­ed with an impuni­ty strat­e­gy in a con­text that seems to be wors­en­ing”, said Berta. She said the com­mu­ni­ties’ deter­mi­na­tion to defend their ter­ri­to­ry is strength­ened in these sit­u­a­tions of state and pri­vate vio­lence.

In fact, riv­er Gual­car­que is con­sid­ered an essen­tial part of the Lenca spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and the com­mu­ni­ties are con­fronting the busi­ness projects as a trib­ute to their culture’s sym­bol­ic fig­ure: Lem­pi­ra.

“We con­tin­ue fight­ing, we are not afraid, we will not be prey to fear and we will con­tin­ue this peace­ful but strong bat­tle for life”, she con­clud­ed.

Daniel McGowan Loses Lawsuit Against Bureau Of Prisons

16 Jult 2013 A fed­er­al court has dis­missed an envi­ron­men­tal activist’s claims against the U.S.

16 Jult 2013 A fed­er­al court has dis­missed an envi­ron­men­tal activist’s claims against the U.S. Bureau of Pris­ons over a restric­tive prison wing he was housed in, but a law­suit filed by oth­er pris­on­ers against the gov­ern­ment over its restric­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion man­age­ment units con­tin­ues.

Daniel McGowan, 39, served sev­en years in fed­er­al prison for arson con­nect­ed with the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front, four of them in the secre­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion man­age­ment units, or CMUs, dubbed “Lit­tle Guan­tanamo” by crit­ics.

Along with dozens of oth­er most­ly Mus­lim inmates, McGowan’s phone calls with the out­side world and phys­i­cal con­tact with his fam­i­ly were severe­ly lim­it­ed. Even after he was released to a halfway house, McGowan was briefly tossed back into prison this year for writ­ing a Huff­in­g­ton Post blog entry detail­ing his case.

McGowan’s lawyers at the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights had argued that his re-jail­ing proved he was still at risk for re-incar­cer­a­tion in the CMUs. But the judge over­see­ing the law­suit dis­agreed, cit­ing a 1990s-era law that severe­ly restricts the rights of fed­er­al pris­on­ers to chal­lenge cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment.

McGowan’s lawyers at the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights said in a state­ment that they were “deeply dis­ap­point­ed” by Senior Judge Bar­bara J. Rothstein’s deci­sion, but that they would push on with the larg­er law­suit.

Residents raise sinkhole warning signs over Shell tunnel

sinkhole_1.jpgYes­ter­day (14th July), local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers raised signs on Sruwad­da­con estu­ary, warn­ing of the sink­holes that con­tin­ue to appear over Shel­l’s tun­nel.

sinkhole_1.jpgYes­ter­day (14th July), local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers raised signs on Sruwad­da­con estu­ary, warn­ing of the sink­holes that con­tin­ue to appear over Shel­l’s tun­nel. Res­i­dents first noticed the sink­holes begin­ning to appear in the spe­cial area of con­ser­va­tion on the 20th May and numer­ous sink­holes have appeared along the tun­nel route since then.

The warn­ing signs which read “Dan­ger Sink­holes: Keep Back” were erect­ed in order to warn users of the estu­ary of pres­ence of the sink­hole, which have been up to 8 foot deep. Res­i­dents were forced to put up the warn­ing signs after both Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil and the Depart­ment of Ener­gy & Nat­ur­al Resources, despite being con­tact­ed, have failed to take any action.

The Nation­al Parks & Wildlife Ser­vice are also believed not to have inves­ti­gat­ed thus far the pos­si­ble dam­age that may be occur­ring to the ben­th­ic life in the estu­ary, despite the area being both a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion and a Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way stat­ed “When Shell experts were giv­ing evi­dence in the oral hear­ing, there was­n’t a word about sink­holes and the bub­bling up of pos­si­ble con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed mate­r­i­al to the sur­face of the spe­cial area of conservation”.[1]

Shell have pre­vi­ous­ly sent up to 10 work­ers with shov­els out on the estu­ary in a failed attempt to fill in the sink­holes.

Mr Con­way con­tin­ued “We can cur­rent­ly fol­low the path of the tun­nel by the trail of sink­holes that have appeared on the strand. Fail­ure to reg­u­late has caused alot of suf­fer­ing in Ire­land, yet the Gov­ern­ment are still allow­ing Shell to do what­ev­er they want. The sink­holes are fur­ther proof that the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to aban­don their respon­si­bil­i­ty to reg­u­late Shell.”

Links

[1] YouTube Video: What’s hap­pen­ing in Shel­l’s Tun­nel? — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hvz2l27Ooc

[2] Reports of sink­holes above Cor­rib tun­nel inves­ti­gat­ed
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/reports-of-sinkholes-abo…54717

[3] Mid­west Radio Clip about third sink-hole in Sruwad­da­con estu­ary
http://www.shelltosea.com/content/midwest-radio-clip-ab…tuary

 

sinkhole_2.jpg

Bubbling in the water in the foreground while people raise warning signs in the background of photo
Bub­bling in the water in the fore­ground while peo­ple raise warn­ing signs in the back­ground of pho­to

sinkhole_4.jpg

sinkhole_5.jpg

New Tree Sit in Tasmanian Old Growth

15th July Anti-forestry activists have erect­ed a tree sit to halt log­ging in Tasmania’s far south.

15th July Anti-forestry activists have erect­ed a tree sit to halt log­ging in Tasmania’s far south.

Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Centre’s Jen­ny Weber says the wood from the old growth is des­tined for tim­ber proces­sor Ta Ann Tas­ma­nia. 

”The tree sit struc­ture is attached to the log­ging machines, halt­ing them from con­tin­u­ing log­ging today,” Ms Weber said. 

The protest again involves mem­bers of the Aus­tralian Stu­dent Envi­ron­ment Net­work who also shut down Ta Ann’s Smith­ton mill on Fri­day. 

The Smith­ton action was con­demned by peak envi­ron­ment groups who nego­ti­at­ed the forestry peace deal which will lead to 504,000 hectares of forests being pro­tect­ed. 

How­ev­er, it is up to the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil to approve a pro­tec­tion order for the future reserves. MLCs will make their deci­sion after con­sid­er­ing how effec­tive the leg­is­la­tion has been, includ­ing the impact of ongo­ing protests on Tasmania’s wood mar­kets. 

Ta Ann Tas­ma­nia has repeat­ed­ly denied using wood from old-growth forests.