President Museveni of Uganda has joined his support to Bidco and Wilmar. calling for Bullets to be used against those who protest the Palm Oil development on the islands of Kalangala.
President Museveni of Uganda has joined his support to Bidco and Wilmar. calling for Bullets to be used against those who protest the Palm Oil development on the islands of Kalangala. The development has meant that 10,000 hecatres of virgin forest has been destroyed leaving environmental damage and economic hardhsip for the people. The words from Museveni come after a renewed protest against Bidco began earlier this year through twitter and Youtube. Further direct action against Vimal Shah the owner of Bidco is expected soon.
Seven women and one man were arrested early on Wednesday in the latest round of arrests in the ongoing battle against building a giant telescope atop a mountain many native Hawaiians consider sacred.
The state department of land and natural resources said 20 of its officers arrested the protesters on Mauna Kea at about 1am. They were enforcing an emergency rule created to stop people from camping on Mauna Kea. The land board approved the rule in July, which restricts access to the mountain during certain nighttime hours and prohibits certain camping gear. It was prompted by protesters’ around-the-clock presence to prevent construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope.
Protesters say officers hauled them away while they were praying. In video footage provided by the state, officers are seen walking toward a group of people huddled in a circle and chanting. A man’s voice is heard saying: “Eh, they’re praying you guys, they’re praying.”
The footage shows officers putting plastic handcuffs on women and putting them into the back of a vehicle. “Why do I have to have my hands behind my back,” a woman asked. “Because you’ll be placed in restraints, ma’am,” an officer responded.
The emergency rule, in place for 120 days, is intended to make the mountain safe for protesters, visitors and workers of the 13 telescopes already on the mountain, the state said. Attorney general Doug Chin told the land board that even though camping is already prohibited on the mountain, a targeted rule is necessary because of bad behavior by some protesters – ranging from putting boulders in the road to threats and harassment – created unsafe conditions.
The nonprofit company building the Thirty Meter Telescope hasn’t indicated when there will be another attempt to resume construction. Workers weren’t able reach the site during two previous attempts when they were blocked by hundreds of protesters, including dozens who were arrested.
This was the fourth time telescope opponents have been arrested on the mountain.
University of Hawaii law school professor Williamson Chang has filed a lawsuit seeking to repeal the rule, arguing it prevents telescope opponents from legally exercising their rights to peacefully protest.
With bows, arrows, GPS trackers and camera traps, an indigenous community in northern Brazil is fighting to achieve what the government has long failed to do: halt illegal logging in their corner of the Amazon.
September 10th, 2015
With bows, arrows, GPS trackers and camera traps, an indigenous community in northern Brazil is fighting to achieve what the government has long failed to do: halt illegal logging in their corner of the Amazon.
The Ka’apor – a tribe of about 2,200 people in Maranhão state – have organised a militia of “forest guardians” who follow a strategy of nature conservation through aggressive confrontation.
Logging trucks and tractors that encroach upon their territory – the 530,000-hectare Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Land – are intercepted and burned. Drivers and chainsaw operators are warned never to return. Those that fail to heed the advice are stripped and beaten.
It is dangerous work. Since the tribe decided to manage their own protection in 2011, they say the theft of timber has been reduced, but four Ka’apor have been murdered and more than a dozen others have received death threats.
Now the Ka’apor are seeking support through NGOs and the media. Earlier this month, the Guardian was among a first group of foreign journalists and Greenpeace activists who were invited to see how they live and operate.
Reaching their land was a long haul. After flying to São Luis, the capital of Maranhão state, it took more than eight hours to drive along a potholed highway flanked by cattle farms and palm plantations before turning off on to a bumpy dirt track through tracts of deforested land, until a dense thicket of jungle marked the limit of Ka’apor territory.
The path was so close to the foliage here that branches constantly scratched and scraped the sides of our 4×4 until finally, just a few minutes before midnight, we emerged into a clearing bathed in moonlight.
This was Jaxipuxirenda, one of eight former logging camps that have been taken over by the Ka’apor and settled by a handful of families so the timber thieves cannot return. It was very simple; six thatched roofs under which families slept in hammocks.
Living in such outposts is a sacrifice. Longer-established villages have electricity, health centres, football pitches and satellite dishes. Jaxipuxirenda is bereft of such creature comforts.
But it is a key part of a drive to regain territory, independence and respect – all of which have been steadily eroded by loggers for more than two decades. Alto Turiaçu, which covers an area equal to Delaware or three times that of Greater London, is a vulnerable and lucrative target. Although 8% has already been cleared, the indigenous land contains about half of the Amazon forest left in Maranhão state. This includes much sought-after trees, like ipê (Brazilian walnut), which can fetch almost £1,000 ($1,500) per cubic metre after processing and export.
Ka’apor Indians setting up trap cameras in areas used by illegal loggers to invade the indigenous territory. Photograph: Lunae Parracho/Greenpeace
The Ka’apor asked the government to protect their borders, which were recognised in 1982. Last year, a federal court ordered the authorities to set up security posts. But nothing has been done, prompting the community to organise self-defence missions.
In the morning, one of the forest guardians, Tidiun Ka’apor (who, like all of the leaders of the group, asked to have his name changed to avoid being targeted by loggers) explains what happens when they encounter loggers.
“Sometimes, it’s like a film. They fight us with machetes, but we always drive them off,” he says. “We tell them, ‘We’re not like you. We don’t steal your cows so don’t steal our trees.”
The main weapons used by the Ka’apor are bows and arrows and borduna – a heavy sword-shaped baton. One of the group also owns a rusty old rifle. Mostly though, they depend on greater numbers.
Tidiun Ka’apor takes us to a charred truck and tractor that the group burned in a confrontation a little over a week earlier and uses the ashes to paint his face. “This gives us strength,” one of his associates says. The Ka’apor are thought to have set fire to about a dozen loggers’ vehicles. Further along the road, they build a pyre of planks seized inside their land, douse it with gasoline and then watch it burn.
Another of the group’s leaders Miraté Ka’apor says the use of violence – which has resulted in some broken bones but no deaths among the loggers – is justified. “The loggers come here to steal from us. So, they deserve what they get. We have to make them feel our loss – the loss of our timber, the destruction of our forest.”
Compared with the past, he said the missions were effective. “Our struggle is having results because the loggers respect us now.”
But the loggers also appear to be responding with lethal force. On 26 April, a former chieftain, Eusébio Ka’apor was murdered by gunmen on his way back from a visit to his brother. Like most killings of indigenous people and environmental activists in Brazil, the crime has not been solved, but the dead man’s son has little doubt who is responsible and what they were trying to achieve.
Ka’apor Indians stand next to a logging tractor that they discovered and set on fire inside the indigenous territory one month before. Photograph: Lunae Parracho/Greenpeace
“He was a target because [the loggers] thought he was the main leader of the group,” said Iraun Ka’apor. “They thought the Ka’apor would stop if they killed him. But we will continue with our work of protection. I’m not afraid. This is my home, my land, my forest.”
Ten days before we arrived, Iraun received a death threat and was told that the bullet that killed his father had been meant for him.
The authorities in Maranhão – the poorest state in Brazil – warn the Ka’apor that although they are within their rights to protect their land, it is ultimately up to the state to resolve disputes over territory.
“The involvement of the Ka’apor in the defence of their territory against the loggers should be understood as legitimate defence, since the action of the loggers puts their survival at risk,” said Alexandre Silva Saraiva, regional superintendent of the federal police. “But the presence of the state is the only way to diminish the agrarian conflicts and reduce homicides.”
Inside Alto Turiaçu, people are sceptical that the police and government are willing to look after indigenous interests. Last year 70 Indians were murdered in Brazil, a 32% increase on 2013, according to the Missionary Indigenous Council. In many cases the killings were related to land disputes with loggers or ranchers. In their community gathering, many Ka’apor expressed the belief that the authorities were colluding in the sell-off of the forest.
“We are very concerned,” Miraté says. “Even the local authorities are involved. They grant licences to the sawmills and that encourages the loggers. The way the brancos [white or non-indigenous people] are organised also promotes death. They make a profit from this.”
Government officials prefer to focus on the positives: the slowdown in Amazonian deforestation rates over the past 10 years (though in Maranhão’s case this is largely because there is so little forest left) and the progress made in bringing culprits to justice. This year, prosecutors in neighbouring Pará state have broken up an illegal land-clearance ring and arrested corrupt officials in timber-laundering syndicates that supply fake certification to loggers. Elsewhere, satellite monitoring has helped to identify which landowners are tearing down or burning the most trees, though this approach is of less use when it comes to the steady degrading of the forests by invasive loggers.
Pedro Leão, superintendent for Ibama (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) insists his agency is already combating the criminal organisations behind illegal logging and cautions that it is “extremely risky” for the Ka’apor to do the same. He said he hoped Ibama could make greater strides in the future by focusing on sawmills and possibly using GPS trackers.
These are already areas where the Ka’apor are active. During this month’s visit, Greenpeace – which also helped the Guardian to reach the area – provided the community with 11 camera traps, 11 GPS trackers and two computers, worth a total of 20,000 reais (£3,480/$5,260).
A Ka’apor Indian sets up a trap camera in an area used by illegal loggers. Photograph: Lunae Parracho/Greenpeace
Marina Lacorte, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace Brazil, said the devices – which are usually used to capture wild animals on film – were intended to enhance the Ka’apor’s success in diminishing illegal logging. “With the cameras, we hope to prove that at a certain time and date in a certain place, the trucks arrived empty and left with timber. We hope the devices can produce more evidence to persuade the authorities to do something to stop the logging and the conflict and the murder.”
For many conservationists, the significance of the Ka’apor’s actions goes beyond their particular case and puts them on the frontline of the battle against climate change. Brazil, like other Amazonian countries, has struggled to tackle deforestation partly because environmental authorities are constantly outnumbered and outgunned by loggers, ranchers and farmers.
Ibama – the main agency dedicated to protecting the forest – has about 1,500 rangers to monitor the Brazilian Amazon, an area that is more than half the size of the US. Many of them have mixed feelings about land clearance. Some are even in the pay of loggers, as recent scandals have revealed.
By contrast, indigenous groups like the Ka’apor have the incentive and the manpower on the ground to resist the decimation of their forests. For them, this is not just a job, but a matter of identity and survival. The benefits can be global. In a recent report, the World Resources Institute noted that when indigenous people have weak legal rights, their forests tend to become the source of carbon dioxide emissions, while those in a strong position are more likely to maintain or even improve their forests’ carbon storage. Underlining this, a research paper published last month in Science, notes that forest dwellers are the best defence against logging and land clearance.
The danger is that such groups might become involved in a proxy war against emissions without the technology, the firepower or the legal authority to overcome more powerful opponents. But Miraté said the community would pick and choose how and when to get involved.
“It’s not that we don’t understand technology. We can drive cars and motorbikes and we can use computers. But we want to do things our way, the Ka’apor way,” he said.
Ka’apor Indians have occupied a site formerly used by illegal loggers. Photograph: Jonathan Watts for the Guardian
The loggers are not the only threat to the tribe’s survival. Previous battles with the authorities and the spread of diseases brought in by outsiders reduced the population – which once stood at several thousand – to little more than 500 at the low point in 1982. The community has since rebounded – largely thanks to the recognition of its territory – and it continues to assert its cultural identity on a variety of fronts.
While many other indigenous groups are plagued by alcoholism, the Ka’apor recently introduced a ban on consumption of beer and spirits (as well as visits by Christian evangelists and political campaigners). If a member violates the rule once, he gets a warning; twice, he must face a full meeting of the tribe; three times and he is sentenced to work in the nearby town. In their relations with the government, the tribe insisted last year on being represented by a member of their own community rather than a bureaucrat from Funai (the National Indian Foundation). They have also moved away from what they say is a Funai-led system of having a single village chief and instead reverted towards collective leadership.
In education, they have ensured that their children are taught entirely in Ka’apor rather than Portuguese until the age of 10. Most creatively, they also recently codified their own calendar, which prioritises planting, harvesting and mating seasons, as an alternative to the solar-based Gregorian system. While they occasionally shop for rice, the Ka’apor says they are largely self-sufficient with crops of manioc, bananas, pumpkin and watermelon. They also raise chickens, and hunt wild boar, deer, capybara and parrots – though only in certain seasons to ensure wild populations remain strong.
But Miraté fears the authorities in Brasília are more concerned about the country’s non-indigenous population and the pressure of a global economy.
“We believe that what the Brazilian government is doing now is wrong. They are following a policy to finish off the indigenous people,” he warns. But “we want to do things our own way, to respect our own culture. That’s the only way to survive.”
As anyone with experience of them knows, prisons are abusive places used to control and threaten people, particularly those of us who are working class, people of colour, or disobedient. We need justice processes based on strong, vibrant communities, not more prisons and cops harming our communities.
The new prison would be the biggest in the UK, and the second biggest in Europe. It aims to open in 2017 and would give the State enough cages to lock up an extra 2100 people.
On Sunday, the August 2015, about 2000 people attended on a demonstration in the mountains of Skouries.
August 27th, 2015
On Sunday, the 23rd August 2015, about 2000 people attended on a demonstration in the mountains of Skouries. During this heavy clashes between demonstrators and the police took place, with police making massive use of teargas and shock grenades. 78 persons were detained, of which four are still being held in custody.
The demonstration was organised by the anti-authoritarian platform against capitalism, Beyond Europe, together with activist committees of the local villages in the area of Skouries. This protest march was the practical culmination of the international Beyond Europe camp, which has been taking place at the beach of Ierissos close to the area of Skouries. At this camp, 400–500 anti-authoritarians from all over Europe came together in order to exchange ideas with each other and discuss political analyses and practices. The location was chosen very consciously in order to support the ongoing ecological-social struggles against the extraction of gold and other heavy metals in Skouries. and of course we are not only active on behalf of but alongside the local activists. For a long time now, Beyond Europe activists have been engaged in practical solidarity and support for this struggle. It has a strong impact for social movements in Greece and the whole of Europe as an important frontline in the struggle against the reconfiguration of European capitalism through the Troika on the back of the many.
For us, the camp and especially the demonstration is a political success, by being set in the right place at the right time. In January 2015 the left party Syriza took over power and evoked hope in many Leftists. Concerning the issue of Skouries, Syriza played the role of the party of the movement during opposition, but has acted very different since it has been in power. Shortly before the march the Alexis Tsipras’ government resigned, only two days after the start of the Beyond Europe camp and since Syriza had learned about our demonstration. Meanwhile the energy minister Panos Skourletis ordered to suspend the mining operations in Chalkidiki on 19th August, claiming the company violated environmentalcontract terms. We attribute the announcement to close the mine as a result of us choosing to organise a camp here, but we did not rely on the government’s announcement as being the end of the struggle– which we have seen to be justified. One day after the announcement, during our walk from the camp to the mountain by the village Megali Panagia we could see that the works at the mines were continuing. This was just one more expression of the most basic but important lesson in the questions of relation between parties and the movements: although they may improve tiny things within their limited capacity, the possibility to create real progress and emancipation lies in our hands. Delegating desires for change towards parties will always be a dead end, since parties in power will always need to work to enact national interest. We agree with Syriza that the mines in Skouries need to be closed, but it is up to us to fulfill this task. Our action sent this message to any party which will take power in the Greek re-elections in September.
Sunday’s demonstration put the important and vital struggle of Skouries back on the table. Its impact was felt deeply all over Greece and beyond. We see this as a political success as now, since the first time after the huge general strike of 2012, a new political dynamic from below is being created in Greece. After a droughtof social movements since that year, Syriza’s seizure of power seemed to have paralyzed large parts of it due to a position of granting the Tsipras’ government time. Our camp and demonstration was an effort to put an end to this drought and rely on our strongest weapon – self-organisation and social struggles.
As always when social struggles are effective, the state’s repression also continued yesterday. In the several years in the ongoing issue of Skouries, police and secret services have been heavily trying to oppress the local movement by harassment, arrests and juridical prosecution. Yesterday again, the police violently dispersed the demonstration, arrested 78 people and injured several. One person suffered a broken leg while being arrested by the cops. Our wishes for a quick recovery are with her and with everyone else suffering beating or gas injuries. And of course we are in solidarity with the four still detained, as well as all the other activists being prosecuted in the last years. This might only have been a small step towards an anti-authoritarian organisation beyond borders and against the sadness of real existing capitalism, but it was a step nonetheless. And there is more to come.
With the restart of the war in North-Kurdistan by Turkish state in end of July 2015 the Turkish Army has started to burn down forests.
With the restart of the war in North-Kurdistan by Turkish state in end of July 2015 the Turkish Army has started to burn down forests. After 2,5 years of negotiations about the start of a peace process between the Turkish government and the Kurdish Freedom Movement, the Turkish side decided to attack the PKK Guerrilla HPG (Peoples Defense Forces) and legal political activists.
In a planned and systematic manner the Turkish Army shoots with munition and bombs which result in forest fires. Particularly in the provinces of Dersim (Tunceli), Sirnex (Şırnak) and Amed (Diyarbakır) the Army has burned down several ecologically highly sensitive forests in its operations against the HPG. Thereby the Turkish Army hopes to limit the mobility of HPG. This method in fighting the long-lasting Kurdish rebellion has been used widely already in the 90’s in North-Kurdistan. Almost every greater forest in the contested regions has been burned down in that years.
The most forest fires have been initiated in areas which have been declared by the Turkish government as “security areas” just after the restart of the war. That is why local people and activists – like from our movement – have been hindered by the Turkish Army to go to the affected areas and try to extinguish the fires. These initiatives have been created while the responsible governmental bodies did not act. We assume that they have been instructed by the government not to intervene. To date several hundred hectares of forests have been burnt down in North-Kurdistan where the main tree type is the oak.
We call on the international political activists, social movements and NGO’s working on ecological issues to join an international delegation. This delegation could investigate the dimension and impacts of the forest fires of the last weeks, the subsequent behavior of Turkish officials, the efforts of locals to extinguish the fires and if existing the ongoing fires and inform the international public based on their observations. We think that the extremely destructive behavior of the Turkish State in this dirty war must be treated also on international level. The period for the international delegation is planned from the 8th to the 12th September 2015. Write us in case of interest.
Ercan Ayboga
for the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement
Germany: Last Living Barricade in Hambach Forest Evicted
July 28th, 2015
On the 22nd of July the tower – to this date the only remaining living barricade – got evicted. The tower blocked an important access way to the Hambach Forest [previously on S!N]and its occupation.
During the 14 hours of the eviction, four activists were arrested of who three have been released, while one is in detention awaiting trial in the JVA (jail) in Köln-Ossendorf. Jus is accused of resisting the eviction. The cops are trying to justify the detention by claiming that Jus doesn‘t have a legal address and allegedly “no social obligations in Germany”. Therefore, they think that it’s likely that he will “stay away from trial”.
Quebec’s Minister of Aboriginal Affairs is urging members of Natashquan’s Innu Community to stop their blockade near the La Romaine construction site.
The group of protesters set up a barricade Thursday near Havre-Saint-Pierre in eastern Quebec, about 200 kilometres east of Sept-Îles.
It says Hydro-Québec is not respecting an agreement it signed with the community before work on the hydroelectric project began.
The protesters have been letting workers out of the site, but they say they will not let anyone in until Premier Philippe Couillard speaks with them in person on the North Shore.
Rodrigue Wapistan, the chief of Natashquan’s Innu band council, said Hydro-Québec has flooded basins near the worksite without the community’s consent.
He said that will drown more than half the trees in the area.
“They have completely trampled on our rights. It is something that is unacceptable in my book — all while creating a situation that is catastrophic for our next generation,” Wapistan said.
Aboriginal Affairs Minister Geoff Kelley said he recognises there are differences between the Innu community and Hydro-Québec, but said protesters should try to resolve its issues through negotiations.
Ngäbe activists standing in front of the Barro Blanco dam site
Ngäbe activists standing in front of the Barro Blanco dam site (Photo Jennifer Kennedy)
July 14th, 2015
A 30-strong splinter group of Ngäbe from the M10 resistance movement has blocked the entrance to the Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam in western Panama, preventing workers from entering the site. The 15 year struggle of the Tabasará river communities to protect their livelihoods, their culture, and their ancestral heritage now appears to be entering a tense new phase. With negotiations exhausted and the dam 95% complete, M10 has an issued an ultimatum for the government to cancel the project by Monday, June 15, 2015. It is unclear how the government will respond.
“Being Ngäbe-Buglé cultural patrimony,” said Clementina Pérez, part of the group camped at Barro Blanco’s gates. “Our river, our mother earth, our ecology, our existence, we are here to make known to the national and international community that this patrimony belongs to us and to the church of Mama Tata. With the conservation of peace, liberty, justice and unity, liberation and social justice… [we ask] the President of the Republic the cancellation and removal of the dam from our communities, our river and our mother earth, which belong to us as original people of the Americas…”Funded by European banks – the German Investment Corporation (DEG) and the Dutch Development Bank (FMO) – the dam is set to inundate a string of Ngäbe and campesino communities, all of whom have voiced their objections from the outset. The flood will destroy ancestral petroglyphs, fertile agricultural grounds, and Mama Tata cultural centres, including a unique school where the emerging written script of the Ngäbere language is being developed and disseminated. The dam will significantly impact the river’s marine life, wiping out migratory fish species which many communities – both up and down stream – rely upon for essential protein. None of the Tabasará communities have provided their free, informed and prior consent to the dam, a fact recently confirmed by the FMO’s own independent complaints mechanism (ICM).
“Lenders should have sought greater clarity on whether there was consent to the project from the appropriate indigenous authorities prior to project approval,” said an ICM report, published on May 29, 2015. “[The plan] contains no provision on land acquisition and resettlement and nothing on biodiversity and natural resources management. Neither does it contain any reference to issues related to cultural heritage…”
The report is the latest in a series of professional analyses that pour a thick layer of scorn over the dam project’s owner, Generadora del Istmo (GENISA). Demonstrably unlawful, GENISA has been condemned by numerous independent investigators, the United Nations, several international NGOs, and Panama’s own environmental agency, ANAM, who found a raft of flaws and short-comings in their environmental impact assessment.
But despite failing their own due diligence, the banks appear to have shrugged off the ICM report with an insipid call for ‘constructive dialogue’ and ‘a solution for a way forward’. In February this year, the FMO chose to threaten the government of Panama after building work was temporarily suspended on the recommendation of ANAM. Writing to the Vice President, the FMO warned that the suspension “May weigh upon future investment decisions, and harm the flow of long-term investments into Panama.”
The government seems to have taken this threat to heart. Panama’s president, Juan Carlos Varela, who was elected to office in 2014, flip-flopped on Barro Blanco before finally falling in line. Last week, while proffering flimsy reassurances about having found a human rights solution, his government left the negotiating table and signaled an end to the suspension of works. M10 claims the work never stopped and has been continuing clandestinely. They are now mobilising for action.
Clementina Perez (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)
“If this situation is not resolved,” said Clementina Pérez, “We will go to the Panamerican highway to ask together, at a national level, the cancellation of Barro Blanco…”
Rising with stark grey walls above the denuded banks of the Tabasará, Barro Blanco has become a symbol of the previous administration, its fundamental violence and contempt for the rule of law. The former President Ricardo Martinelli – now on the run in the United States and facing a corruption probe back home – provoked no less than four major uprisings as he grasped for land and resources in Panama’s indigenous territories. Heavy-handed repression resulted in the deaths of several protesters and bystanders, including an unarmed teenage boy who was shot in the face by police. Barro Blanco is the visible legacy of a proudly thuggish President who serially abused Panama’s Indigenous Peoples and plundered the country at will. Thus far, Varela has been keen to strike a more decent and humane tone. How he now handles the crisis evolving on the banks of the Tabasará River will be a demonstration of his sincerity, or lack of.
A group of locals and environmentalist activists blocked the road to an untouched forested area in the Black Sea province of Artvin to prevent the activities of a mining firm.
Activists and locals guard the mountainous forests of Artvin in separate locations to prevent Forestry Ministry officials from entering the area.
Artvin Forestry Ministry officials, however, aim to enter the area in order to make calculations to complete the procedures for the firm to start its work in the area. Ministry officials attempted to enter the area from a different path, after their previous attempt was stopped by the activists’ road block.
Local activists, who organized themselves via social media in a short time, gathered in the Cerattepe neighborhood, which is located at an altitude of 1,800 meters. They moved trees cut by the forestry officials to the road and blocked traffic, stopping the entry of the officials. They have taken pictures with the tree barricades they have made and shared them via social media. The group called itself “300 Cerattepeli” in reference to the legend of 300 Spartans who stood their ground against the Persians, immortalized in the movie “300.” They are determined at all costs to block any possible construction and mining work in the area.
Green Artvin Association’s head Nur Neşe Karahan said they had to walk the whole way to the forested area, as it was blocked in several locations. “The road was blocked due to a collapse in the tunnel. We had to walk 3 kilometers around it. We came across with the firm’s vehicle, as they are not using the well-known road anymore. They said officials from the firm will come here and we are determined to wait here to talk to them,” said Karahan.
Hakan Akın, a shop keeper in Artvin, said it is a promising development for him to see many people could gather in the area minutes after they heard rumors the firm would start work there.
“The experts said this area is not suitable for mining. We are locals here. We already told them that it is not possible for them to operate here. This place is our green, this is where we live. We have given enough to the dams; we will no longer allow any more construction,” said Akın, among the group.
Hasan Yüksel, a member of Green Arvin Association, said they will continue to hold their posts on multiple roads in the Cerattepe neighborhood to prevent the entry of mining firms.
“They are wrong if they think we will give up. They will come across an Artvin local on every corner of these trees whenever they come here,” said Yüksel.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) provincial branch head Ali Yücel Kurt also held a meeting in the area. He claimed that some people are also burning the vehicles in order to provoke locals by blaming the locals for the arson. “We completely deny such claims,” said Kurt.
