Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Two Lifelong Oklahomans Halt Construction of Keystone XL Work Site 16th April

BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

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BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

Eric Whe­lan, 26, who grew up in McLoud, Okla., has ascend­ed 40 feet into the air in an aer­i­al block­ade that began at dawn this morn­ing.

Gwen Ingram of Luther, Okla., 56, has locked her­self to heavy machin­ery and shut down the con­struc­tion site.

Today’s event marks the fourth act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence by Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance and comes in the wake of the dis­as­trous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas.  For the last three weeks, over 300,000 gal­lons of tar sands dilut­ed bitu­men have spil –>led into a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood and local water­ways.

“Key­stone XL sound­ed like a bad idea from the begin­ning,” explained Whe­lan. “The Mayflower spill proves that we shouldn’t be trust­ing these mul­ti-nation­al cor­po­ra­tions, like Exxon or Tran­sCana­da, because every spill fur­ther expos­es their crim­i­nal incom­pe­tence. Now, Tran­sCana­da wants to build a tox­ic pipeline through the cen­ter of the coun­try.

“I’m tak­ing action to pre­vent a tragedy like that from hap­pen­ing in Okla­homa.”

The tar sands’ cor­ro­sive nature makes pipelines more prone to leaks than trans­port­ing crude oil, as evi­denced by the Exxon’s Pega­sus pipeline burst in Mayflower, Ark.

When spills inevitably do occur, the heav­ier dilut­ed bitu­men sinks in water and into the water table. Key­stone XL’s pro­posed route cuts through the heart­land of North Amer­i­ca, cross­ing the Arbuck­le Simp­son and Edwards Trin­i­ty Aquifer in Okla­homa.

“The Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline would car­ry the dirt­i­est fuel on the plan­et from Cana­da to America’s Gulf Coast’s refiner­ies and ports, and then over­seas for export,” said Gwen Ingram, before lock­ing her­self to TransCanada’s heavy machin­ery.

“I sim­ply won’t allow this pipeline to cross our pre­cious rivers; the North and South Cana­di­an, The Red Riv­er, The Cim­maron and threat­en our drink­ing water.”

UPDATE 9:00 AM — Eric is hold­ing strong on a tow­er 40 feet off the ground in the mid­dle of the Key­stone XL con­struc­tion site

UPDATE 11:15 AM- Fire­fight­ers have extract­ed Gwen Ingram from the con­struc­tion machin­ery.  Gwen held strong in her non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence act for sev­er­al hours.

Fol­low more of our actions live on our Face­book and Twit­ter. Sign up to join the resis­tance.

See more high res pho­tos on our Flickr account.

 

Halkidiki Gold Mine Protesters Lift Roadblocks 16th April

Road trans­port in the broad­er region of Mount Athos, Halkidi­ki, was large­ly restored on Mon­day after res­i­dents of Ieris­sos lift­ed road­blocks they had set up last week to protest the deten­tion of two fel­low vil­lagers in con­nec­tion with an arson attack in Feb­ru­ary on the offices of a gold-min­ing com­pa­ny.

Despite lift­ing the block­ades, the res­i­dents pledged to con­tin­ue their oppo­si­tion to the ven­ture by Hel­las Gold in near­by Skouries which they claim will dam­age the envi­ron­ment and impov­er­ish locals.

Two local men who have denied any part in a bru­tal arson attack on Hel­las Gold’s premis­es in Feb­ru­ary, where assailants tied up secu­ri­ty guards and doused them with petrol, were remand­ed in cus­tody on Mon­day.

The men, aged 33 and 44, sub­mit­ted depo­si­tions on Sun­day in which they denied any part in the raid.

The 33-year-old said that a woolen hat found near the scene with his DNA had been lost on anoth­er day when he was cut­ting wood in the for­est. The 44-year-old was linked to the attack via a shot­gun found in his house. He said he used the gun to hunt in Skouries for­est.

Odd Alliance of Anarchists & Farmers Takes on French Gov’t in Airport Battle 16th April

They hurl sticks, stones and gaso­line bombs. They have spent bru­tal win­ter months for­ti­fy­ing mud­dy encamp­ments. And now they’re ready to ramp up their fight against the prime min­is­ter and his pet project — a mas­sive new air­port in west­ern France.

An unlike­ly alliance of anar­chists and beret-wear­ing farm­ers is cre­at­ing a headache for Pres­i­dent Fran­cois Hollande’s belea­guered gov­ern­ment by mount­ing an esca­lat­ing Occu­py Wall Street-style bat­tle that has delayed con­struc­tion on the ambi­tious air­port near the city of Nantes for months. The con­flict has flared anew at a par­tic­u­lar­ly tricky time for the Social­ist gov­ern­ment, amid a grow­ing scan­dal over tax-dodg­ing rev­e­la­tions that forced the bud­get min­is­ter to resign, and ever-wors­en­ing news about the French econ­o­my.

A protest held over the week­end is like­ly to trig­ger a new round of demon­stra­tions like those that drew thou­sands of pro­test­ers to the remote wood­lands of Brit­tany in the fall. In those ear­li­er protests, heav­i­ly armored riot police bat­tled young anar­chists and farm­ers, caus­ing injuries on both sides. On Mon­day, sim­i­lar clash­es erupt­ed, with three demon­stra­tors injured, accord­ing to the rad­i­cals’ web­site.

The fight has brought togeth­er odd bed­fel­lows: Local farm­ers who rep­re­sent tra­di­tion­al French con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues are col­lab­o­rat­ing with anar­chists, rad­i­cal eco-fem­i­nists and drifters from around Europe — who see the anti-air­port move­ment as a flash­point against glob­al­iza­tion and cap­i­tal­ism. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists and the far-left Green Par­ty also oppose the air­port, argu­ing that it will bring pol­lu­tion.

The clash has been par­tic­u­lar­ly dam­ag­ing for Prime Min­is­ter Jean-Marc Ayrault, Nantes’ long­time may­or and the airport’s high­est-pro­file cham­pi­on. He and the project’s sup­port­ers say the air­port will attract busi­ness at a time when France sore­ly needs an eco­nom­ic boost and job cre­ation. The Aero­port du Grand Ouest is intend­ed to replace the exist­ing Nantes Atlan­tique air­port, with run­ways able to han­dle larg­er air­craft such as the A380 super­jum­bo and room to expand from 4.5 mil­lion pas­sen­gers a year at the open to 9 mil­lion in the longer term.

With an approval rat­ing at his­toric lows, Ayrault’s lever­age to push through the project is shrink­ing. Mean­while the oppo­nents’ threat to remo­bi­lize is lead­ing to new fears of vio­lent clash­es.

Pro­test­ers have spent months ille­gal­ly occu­py­ing the site of the planned Notre-Dame-Des-Lan­des air­port, which is set to start oper­at­ing in 2017. In Novem­ber, more than 500 riot police tried to remove thou­sands of squat­ters in the wood­ed area near this vil­lage 15 miles (24 kilo­me­ters) north of Nantes. Pro­test­ers respond­ed by hurl­ing rocks and Molo­tov cock­tails. Police fired back with tear gas in clash­es that dom­i­nat­ed the nation­al news.

For the farm­ers, it’s all about pro­tect­ing the land.

“This will be a run­way,” says Syl­vain Fres­neau, ges­tur­ing toward the two-sto­ry house built by his grand­fa­ther and the dairy farm that has been in his fam­i­ly for five gen­er­a­tions.

Fres­neau and his cousin Dominique are among the local farm­ers who are hold­ing out, refus­ing to sell up and clear off the land where they have lived and worked their entire lives. Sylvain’s 88 cows pro­duce 550,000 liters (580,000 quarts) of milk a year. “Since Jan­u­ary,” Fres­neau says, “we are squat­ters and so are the cows.”

While some local farm­ers have accept­ed buy­outs from Vin­ci, the giant con­struc­tion firm that was select­ed to build and run the air­port, the Fres­neaus and many of their neigh­bors have fought the project for years.

“It’s not a ques­tion of mon­ey,” Syl­vain Fres­neau says. “You can’t put a price on five gen­er­a­tions of peas­ants. It’s my duty not to accept that mon­ey from any builder.”

He says his 80-year-old father was one of the first to resist the air­port project when the idea sur­faced 40 years ago. Long-moth­balled, the air­port plan gained fresh impe­tus when Ayrault’s Social­ist Par­ty came to pow­er nation­al­ly in the late 1990s. The plan then wound its way through a slow and tor­tur­ous­ly com­plex process of stud­ies, com­mis­sions and advi­so­ry com­mit­tees.

Although Syl­vain Fres­neau claims the farm­ers “could make one call and block Nantes with our trac­tors in half a day,” the real­i­ty is that the farm­ers alone could not have delayed the project as long as they have with­out help from a sur­pris­ing quar­ter: the main­ly 20-some­thing rad­i­cals who call them­selves “ZADists.”

Their name derives from the French acronym for “devel­op­ment zone,” the gener­ic name giv­en to the area where the air­port is to be built. The ZADists have delight­ed in appro­pri­at­ing the acronym for their own use, but with var­i­ous new takes: Zone To Defend, or Zone of Defin­i­tive Auton­o­my, among oth­ers.

Since 2009, the activists have been occu­py­ing the fields where the air­port is to be built. Some squat in aban­doned farm­hous­es or homes opened up to them by locals who refuse to sell. Oth­ers spent the win­ter in inge­nious­ly con­struct­ed cab­ins set up deep in the wood­ed and mud­dy scrub­land out­side the vil­lage.

“With­out the ZADists we wouldn’t have kept the land,” admits Syl­vain Fres­neau.

Up to sev­er­al hun­dred ZADists live on the site at any giv­en time. Police con­trol access to the zone with check­points at road cross­ings, but the ZADists avoid them by sim­ply cut­ting across fields to their camp­sites.

ZADists have also built their own for­ti­fi­ca­tions, ram­shackle assem­blages of wood, wire, mat­tress­es and hay bales. The entrance is con­trolled by ZADists who cov­er their faces with scarves and hoods, not only to ward off the cold but also to hide their iden­ti­ties from the police post­ed at the road cross­ing bare­ly 100 yards (meters) away.

Clash­es between the two sides are com­mon. On a recent vis­it, ZADists who all iden­ti­fied them­selves by the pseu­do­nym “Camille” described an expe­di­tion the night before in which they suc­ceed­ed in splash­ing some police with paint, traces of which were still vis­i­ble on the road.

For the farm­ers, the fight is most­ly a mat­ter of keep­ing their land. The ZADists, on the oth­er hand, say they have wider, lofti­er goals. “Against the Air­port … and its World” is one of the slo­gans spray-paint­ed on signs around the zone.

Some of the ZADists have tak­en part in anti-glob­al­iza­tion and Occu­py move­ments across Europe. They see the move­ment to sup­port the farm­ers of Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des as an exten­sion of their goal of “learn­ing to live togeth­er, cul­ti­vate the land, and increase our auton­o­my from the cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem,” as their web­site explains.

“It’s a bit utopi­an, but some­times you need some utopia,” said Dominique Fres­neau. The farm­ers’ appre­ci­a­tion for the ZADists’ ener­gy and the atten­tion they’ve brought to their fight against the air­port is mixed with bemuse­ment at some of their rad­i­cal posi­tions.

At meet­ings between the two groups of allies, Fres­neau admit­ted that “we clash” some­times. But more often they find ways to work togeth­er. Some farm­ers have used their trac­tors to set up a pro­tec­tive bar­ri­cade around one of the encamp­ments. A ZADist who was also a grad­u­ate stu­dent in agri­cul­tur­al stud­ies helped a farmer com­plete a geo­log­i­cal sur­vey of his land. Farm­ers bring in food and build­ing sup­plies for the ZADists.

In ear­ly April, a com­mis­sion set up by Ayrault to try to calm the debate over the air­port deliv­ered its report. It rec­om­mend­ed fur­ther eval­u­a­tion of the cost of expand­ing the Nantes Atlan­tique air­port instead of build­ing a new one at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, and sug­gest­ed that addi­tion­al noise, traf­fic and envi­ron­men­tal stud­ies be car­ried out.

The gov­ern­ment wel­comed the commission’s report, say­ing it under­scored the need for the new air­port. Oppo­nents, mean­while, said that on the con­trary it bol­stered their case that the new air­port should be scrapped. In any event, the activists said, all the new stud­ies will delay the start of work on the air­port, like­ly push­ing back its open­ing from the orig­i­nal­ly planned 2017 date.

Ecol­o­gists went as far as to cry vic­to­ry.

“As it stands, car­ry­ing out all the rec­om­men­da­tions called for in these reports amounts to a ‘mis­sion impos­si­ble’ and post­pone the project indef­i­nite­ly,” the Green Par­ty said in a state­ment.

Mean­while in the fields around Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, farm­ers and activists are not going away.

Their next action is Sat­ur­day, when they plan a day of plant­i­ng, clear­ing and repair work at their camp across the site of the future air­port.

Newmont May Abandon Minas Conga Plans, Forbes Predicts 14th April

Forbes has pub­lished an analy­sis spec­u­lat­ing that New­mont Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion may be prepar­ing to cut its loss­es and aban­don its much-embat­tled plans for the Minas Con­ga gold mine in Yana­cocha, Peru:

Accord­ing to the company’s 2012 annu­al report, while it remains com­mit­ted to the $4.8 bil­lion project for the time being, con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion may force it to divert invest­ments else­where. This may be a sign that New­mont is look­ing for an exit strat­e­gy from the project.

The mine, which would be the largest gold mine in Peru, has suf­fered fierce oppo­si­tion from local indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and from the region­al gov­ern­ment, in spite of its pro­mo­tion by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Clash­es over the mine in 2011 led to the deaths of five pro­test­ers. And just a few days ago, 400 pro­test­ers stormed the mine site and set fire to con­struc­tion equip­ment.

That means any­thing to make Newmont’s investors more skit­tish about the Minas Con­ga project — such as protests or more bad pub­lic­i­ty — could help tip the scales. So con­tact New­mont and tell them to aban­don Minas Con­ga. Say no to destruc­tion of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and the mur­der of pro­test­ers!

Forbes also pre­dicts that the com­pa­ny could suf­fer severe finan­cial loss­es if forced to aban­don the project:

We believe that if the Con­ga project gets can­celled, it will have seri­ous ram­i­fi­ca­tions for New­mont. The com­pa­ny will find it extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to meet its annu­al pro­duc­tion tar­get of 7 mil­lion ounces by 2017, up from the present pro­duc­tion lev­els of 5 mil­lion ounces. The pro­duc­tion short­fall has obvi­ous impli­ca­tions for rev­enue as well.

In order to sal­vage its rev­enue growth and gold oper­at­ing mar­gins of $985 an ounce, the com­pa­ny would have to find anoth­er source of pro­duc­tion quick­ly. The com­pa­ny has acknowl­edged in its 2012 annu­al report that any inabil­i­ty to con­tin­ue to devel­op the Con­ga project could have an adverse impact on its growth if it is not able to replace the expect­ed pro­duc­tion.

New­mont point­ed out in the annu­al report that the region­al gov­ern­ment remains stri­dent­ly opposed to the via­bil­i­ty of the project in con­trast to the stand adopt­ed by the cen­tral gov­ern­ment. This it fears could make oper­at­ing dif­fi­cult. It could face more protests as well as new and tougher reg­u­la­tions and tax­es. If unable to con­tin­ue, the com­pa­ny will change pri­or­i­ties and real­lo­cate cap­i­tal to devel­op­ment alter­na­tives in Neva­da, Aus­tralia, Ghana and Indone­sia.

This may mean that New­mont will fight as hard as pos­si­ble to hold onto Minas Con­ga, although its skit­tish­ness sug­gests it may already be reach­ing its lim­it. In any case, if you live in one of the “alter­na­tive” areas list­ed above, get ready to fight New­mont on the ground at home.

Peguis First Nation to Block Berger Peat Mine Road

APRIL 14, 2013

APRIL 14, 2013

peguis first nationPEGUIS FIRST NATION, MANITOBA – Peguis First Nation, togeth­er with cot­tagers, prop­er­ty own­ers, and Fish­er Riv­er First Nation, are block­ing the road into Washow Penin­su­la Tues­day April 16, 2013. Berg­er Peat Moss Ltd ignored pro­vi­sions in its envi­ron­ment licences for a new peat mine, and is clear­ing forests and road build­ing. Their clear­ing and road build­ing should not hap­pen before the required plant study and inven­to­ry, includ­ing for med­i­c­i­nal plants.

Despite a mora­to­ri­um on new peat mines put in place June 2011 this peat mine was licensed in sum­mer 2011. Despite many months of for­mal appeals of the license, and com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tions by First Nations affect­ed by the mine pro­pos­al, new licences were issued at the end of Feb­ru­ary.

Berg­er Peat Moss may ignore or breach its licence fur­ther. The Washow Penin­su­la is a ‘kid­ney’ for Lake Win­nipeg, and pro­vides moose habi­tat, med­i­c­i­nal plants, and a range of tourism oppor­tu­ni­ties.

No noti­fi­ca­tion, or con­sul­ta­tion by the Man­i­to­ba gov­ern­ment with affect­ed First Nation occurred before the leas­es for the mine or the license for the mine.

The Washow Penin­su­la is sit­u­at­ed with­in the Treaty Land Enti­tle­ment notice area for Peguis First Nation, and is a shared tra­di­tion­al use area for both First Nations.

“We have tak­en every step with the Man­i­to­ba gov­ern­ment in good faith. This peat mine, and the oth­ers intend­ed for the Penin­su­la, are not right. Our First Nations, and our sup­port­ers know we need a real peat mine mora­to­ri­um in Man­i­to­ba. Berg­er talks one way and acts anoth­er way. It is time for some respect for our lands and waters from the com­pa­ny and the gov­ern­ment.”

Muskrat Falls Inuit Arrested Battling Churchill River Hydroelectric Project in Labrador 13th April

A 74-year old Inu­it elder has end­ed a hunger strike and been released from jail after being arrest­ed along with sev­en oth­ers protest­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Muskrat Falls hydro­elec­tric dam on the Churchill Riv­er in Labrador.

A 74-year old Inu­it elder has end­ed a hunger strike and been released from jail after being arrest­ed along with sev­en oth­ers protest­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Muskrat Falls hydro­elec­tric dam on the Churchill Riv­er in Labrador.

But anoth­er of the arrestees says the pro­test­ers, who have been fight­ing for decades to gain full nation­al recog­ni­tion as Inu­it descen­dants in Canada’s east­ern­most province, are undaunt­ed.

“We’ve been pushed around for gen­er­a­tions,” said Todd Rus­sell, pres­i­dent of the NunatuKavut Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil (for­mer­ly the Labrador Métis Asso­ci­a­tion), who was tak­en into cus­tody along with Elder James Learn­ing for block­ing roads to protest the con­tro­ver­sial Muskrat Falls hydro­elec­tric project. “We will defend our­selves in the court sys­tem, but we will con­tin­ue to assert our abo­rig­i­nal rights to our tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry, and we will con­tin­ue to mount protest after protest if that’s what it takes to have our views known and our rights respect­ed.”

At issue is the Muskrat Falls pow­er project, a $7.7‑billion plan to build a hydro­elec­tric pow­er sta­tion and a new dam on the Churchill Riv­er. The project would also see mas­sive trans­mis­sion lines installed to sup­ply pow­er to Nova Sco­tia and New­found­land.

 

Sev­er­al months after a judge issued an unusu­al per­ma­nent injunc­tion against dis­rup­tion of dam con­struc­tion, mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty blocked the Trans-Labrador High­way on April 5 in protest over what they see as being shut out of any nego­ti­at­ing process­es, the com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil said.

“It’s the area where we hunt, where we fish, where we have built homes, where our peo­ple have trapped,” said Rus­sell, a for­mer Lib­er­al Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. “There are areas of a sacred, and very spe­cial, nature there. The gov­ern­ment will not rec­og­nize that there are over­lap­ping and con­flict­ing inter­ests with this hydro­elec­tric devel­op­ment.”

Dur­ing his arrest Rus­sell was dragged by mem­bers of the Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Police (RCMP) after he lay down along­side the oth­er pro­test­ers, all arrest­ed on obstruc­tion charges. Though sev­en were released on bail the same day, Learn­ing refused to sign a writ­ten promise to stay off the land on the grounds that doing so would extin­guish his abo­rig­i­nal title and rights to his people’s tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries.

Learning’s fam­i­ly released a state­ment express­ing con­cerns over his incar­cer­a­tion, not only because he has been on a hunger strike since his arrest on April 5 but also because the Inu­it elder has prostate can­cer that has spread to his bones. Learn­ing was impris­oned at Labrador Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­tre, in Goose Bay. He was released on April 9.

“It is trag­ic that our father has had to risk death through hunger to protest the destruc­tion of his home­land and cul­ture, of NCC ter­ri­to­ry and cul­ture,” said Learning’s daugh­ter, Car­ren Dujela, in a state­ment before his release. “How do you tell your chil­dren their grand­fa­ther is in jail and on a hunger strike? With tears in your eyes and pride in your heart!”

The com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil has been locked in a bat­tle for gov­ern­ment recog­ni­tion for years. Also known as Inu­it-Métis or Labrador Métis, the com­mu­ni­ty traces its lin­eage to Inu­it peo­ple liv­ing along the Atlantic coast in Labrador who signed a treaty with Euro­peans in 1765. When research revealed in 2006 that the Labrador Métis, though mixed blood, are direct descen­dants of the Inu­it, the Labrador Métis Asso­ci­a­tion renamed itself the NunatuKavut Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil, mean­ing “our ancient land.”

Now, the com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil wants the gov­ern­ment to enter talks over devel­op­ment on lands claimed as tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries. In Cana­da, though the courts have not grant­ed Indige­nous Peo­ples a veto over indus­tri­al projects, they have gen­er­al­ly upheld the right to be con­sult­ed and accom­mo­dat­ed. But the coun­try is a sig­na­to­ry to the Unit­ed Nations Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples, which guar­an­tees abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ties the right to “free, pri­or and informed con­sent” over devel­op­ment on their land.

“You can’t keep putting our peo­ple in jail, or keep arrest­ing our peo­ple, or forc­ing our peo­ple to go on hunger strikes to have our rights rec­og­nized,” Rus­sell added. “We know, and the gov­ern­ment knows, that all of these things end in nego­ti­a­tions. It’s about time the gov­ern­ment real­ized it’s bet­ter to do that now than put our peo­ple through these ter­ri­ble expe­ri­ences of being incar­cer­at­ed.”

Protests, Lawsuits and Arson: South American Mine Resistance 12th April

• Four hun­dred pro­test­ers stormed the planned site of the Minas Con­ga mine in Yana­cocha, Peru, and set fire to con­struc­tion equip­ment yes­ter­day. Minas Con­ga would be the biggest gold mine in Peru, and has been the tar­get of sus­tained protests from local indige­nous res­i­dents who say the mine would destroy their water sup­ply. In July, police killed five pro­test­ers in anti-mine clash­es; the deaths led to a pend­ing com­plaint to the Inter-Amer­i­can Human Rights Court.

• On April 3, 30 pro­test­ers crashed the open­ing of the Expom­i­nas trade fair in Quito, Ecuador, where the gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to coax new invest­ments in min­er­al and oil min­ing. Pro­test­ers crashed the inau­gur­al speech by singing a rewrit­ten ver­sion of the pop­u­lar hip-hop song “Lati­noaméri­ca” by Calle 13: “You can­not buy Intag, you can­not buy Mirador, you can’t buy Kim­sacocha, you can’t buy my Ecuador.”

Ecuador is home to a pow­er­ful (large­ly indige­nous) anti-mines move­ment. Left­ist Pres­i­dent Rafael Correa’s sup­port for big min­ing has been a major fac­tor cost­ing him sup­port from much of his for­mer base.

• A Chilean court has sus­pend­ed con­struc­tion of Bar­rick Gold’s long- embat­tled Pas­cua Lama mine, based on com­plaints from local indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties that the mine will destroy their water sup­ply. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the injunc­tion does not affect con­struc­tion in the Argen­tinean por­tion of the project, includ­ing the process plant and tail­ings stor­age facil­i­ty.

Chile suspends Barrick Gold mine on indigenous fears of pollution 11th April

A Chilean court on Wednes­day sus­pend­ed Bar­rick Gold Corp.’s Pas­cua-Lama mine after indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties com­plained that the project is threat­en­ing their water sup­ply and pol­lut­ing glac­i­ers.

A Chilean court on Wednes­day sus­pend­ed Bar­rick Gold Corp.’s Pas­cua-Lama mine after indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties com­plained that the project is threat­en­ing their water sup­ply and pol­lut­ing glac­i­ers.

The appeals court in the north­ern city of Copi­apo charged the Toron­to-based gold min­er with “envi­ron­men­tal irreg­u­lar­i­ties” dur­ing con­struc­tion of the world’s high­est-alti­tude gold and sil­ver mine.

Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Andres Chad­wick wel­comed the mine’s sus­pen­sion and said he hopes the world’s top gold min­ing com­pa­ny can now fix prob­lems at Pas­cua-Lama.

“We’re not sur­prised at all and we think it is good that through a legal organ­ism, con­struc­tion work is sus­pend­ed while Pas­cua effec­tive­ly attends to the charges already made by the envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tor,” Chad­wick told local Radio Coop­er­a­ti­va.

Bar­rick (TSX:ABX) said Wednes­day it was still await­ing for­mal noti­fi­ca­tion of the injunc­tion halt­ing con­struc­tion on the Chilean side of the Pas­cua-Lama min­ing project and would assess the poten­tial impli­ca­tions when it came.

How­ev­er, it said con­struc­tion activ­i­ties in Argenti­na, where the major­i­ty of the project’s crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture is locat­ed, includ­ing the process plant and tail­ings stor­age facil­i­ty, are not affect­ed.

Mean­while, the start date for the mine strad­dling the Andean bor­der with Argenti­na has already been delayed by more than six months to the sec­ond half of 2014. Cost over­runs have seen the price tag rise from $3 bil­lion to more than $8 bil­lion.

The injunc­tion stems from a con­sti­tu­tion­al rights pro­tec­tion peti­tion filed with the court on Oct. 22 by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a Dia­gui­ta indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er indi­vid­u­als against Barrick’s Chilean sub­sidiary and the region­al Envi­ron­men­tal Eval­u­a­tion Com­mis­sion.

That move fol­lowed a sim­i­lar peti­tion filed in late Sep­tem­ber by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of four Dia­gui­ta indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties against the Bar­rick sub­sidiary, Com­pa­nia Min­era Neva­da, with the EEC.

The plain­tiffs allege non-com­pli­ance with aspects of the project’s envi­ron­men­tal approval in Chile that have result­ed in neg­a­tive impacts on water sources and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, or at least the risk of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, of the Estre­cho and Huas­co rivers, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion sup­plied by Bar­rick.

Oklahoma Grandmother Locks Herself to KXL Heavy Machinery 9th April

ALLEN, OK – Tues­day, April 9, 2013, 9:00 AM – Okla­homa grand­moth­er Nan­cy Zorn, 79, from Warr Acres, has locked her­self to a piece of heavy machin­ery effec­tive­ly halt­ing con­struc­tion on TransCanada’s Key­stone

ALLEN, OK – Tues­day, April 9, 2013, 9:00 AM – Okla­homa grand­moth­er Nan­cy Zorn, 79, from Warr Acres, has locked her­self to a piece of heavy machin­ery effec­tive­ly halt­ing con­struc­tion on TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tox­ic tar sands pipeline. This action comes in the wake of the dis­as­trous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower Arkansas, where an esti­mat­ed 80,000 gal­lons of tar sands spilled into a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood and local water­ways.

Using a bike-lock Zorn has attached her neck direct­ly to a mas­sive earth-mover, known as an exca­va­tor, which has brought con­struc­tion of Key­stone XL to a stop.  Zorn is the sec­ond Okla­homa grand­moth­er this year risk­ing arrest to stop con­struc­tion of the pipeline, and her protest is the third in a series of ongo­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence actions led by the Okla­homa-based coali­tion of orga­ni­za­tions, Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance.

“Right now our neigh­bors in Arkansas are feel­ing the tox­ic affect of tar sands on their com­mu­ni­ty. Will Okla­homa neigh­bor­hoods be next?” asked Zorn before tak­ing action today. “I can no longer sit by idly while tox­ic tar sands are pumped down from Cana­da and into our com­mu­ni­ties. It is time to rise up and defend our home. It is my hope that this one small action today will inspire many to pro­tect this land and our water.”

Exxon Mobil’s recent Pega­sus pipeline spill has forced local res­i­dents to evac­u­ate their homes due to life-threat­en­ing tox­ins released into their neigh­bor­hood. Local fam­i­lies have expe­ri­enced episodes of nau­sea, headaches, and res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems due to acute expo­sure to dead­ly chem­i­cals, like ben­zene, that are mixed in with the raw tar sands. Pega­sus was car­ry­ing up to 90,000 bar­rels of tar sands a day before it rup­tured and spilled.  The Key­stone XL pipeline is slat­ed to car­ry over 800,000 bar­rels a day; an alarm­ing 10 times the amount of tar sands.

“In the last two weeks alone there have been at least six dif­fer­ent inland oil spills across the coun­try,” said Eric Wheel­er, an Okla­homa native and spokesper­son for Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance. “It’s time to stop refer­ring to pipeline spills as acci­dents, it’s now abun­dant­ly clear that leaks are just part of busi­ness as usu­al. Tar sands hurt every­one they touch, from the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Alber­ta whose water is being poi­soned, to the Gulf Coast com­mu­ni­ties that are forced to breathe tox­ic refin­ery emis­sions. We’re not going to allow this tox­ic stuff in our beau­ti­ful state.”

UPDATE 10:30AM: Nan­cy Zorn has been extract­ed by local law enforce­ment and tak­en into cus­tody. Please con­sid­er con­tribut­ing to Nancy’s bail fund

Sabotage at Powharnal OCCS

08/04/2013

At some point over the past week­end mul­ti­ple items of plant machin­ery at an exten­sion to the Powhar­nal open cast coal site in East Ayr­shire were put beyond work­ing use. High val­ue tar­gets includ­ing a prime mover and bull­doz­er were also tar­get­ed to cause max­i­mum dis­rup­tion to work­ings at the mine.

08/04/2013

At some point over the past week­end mul­ti­ple items of plant machin­ery at an exten­sion to the Powhar­nal open cast coal site in East Ayr­shire were put beyond work­ing use. High val­ue tar­gets includ­ing a prime mover and bull­doz­er were also tar­get­ed to cause max­i­mum dis­rup­tion to work­ings at the mine.

Scot­tish Coal is falling and not only do we intend to make sure that they go down — but that they stay down too.