Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Residents protest at Manchester Airport

On Sat­ur­day 3rd Novem­ber around 100 local res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers took part in a protest walk against the pro­posed World Logis­tics Hub at Man­ches­ter Air­port. The pro­test­ers braved the cold to take a route around the 90 acre for­mer green­belt site, which is threat­ened by the plans to build 43 car­go sheds and almost 1,500 car park­ing space

Local res­i­dents, wildlife enthu­si­asts and envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers spoke at var­i­ous points along the walk, shar­ing their expe­ri­ences of fight­ing Man­ches­ter Air­port expan­sion and high­light­ing the numer­ous ways that the plans would affect local peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.

 

The Wildlife Walk came the week after the Wythen­shawe Area Committee‘recommended for approval’ the World Logis­tics Hub plans, on the 25th Octo­ber.  The appli­ca­tion will now be sent to the Plan­ning and High­ways Com­mit­tee at Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil for a final deci­sion on 22nd Novem­ber 2012. A num­ber of atten­dees at the Wildlife Walk, keen for their con­cerns to be brought to this Com­mit­tee, pledged to attend this Novem­ber meet­ing at Man­ches­ter Town Hall.

Sev­er­al Coun­cil­lors of the Wythen­shawe Area Com­mit­tee backed the Logis­tics Hub plans based on the Air­port’s promis­es of local job oppor­tu­ni­ties. How­ev­er cam­paign­ers argue that

job cre­ation fig­ures pro­posed by the Air­port are inflat­ed.

Jane Beet­son from ‘Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port’ cam­paign  said “When Man­ches­ter Air­port first announced plans for a sec­ond run­way, they claimed 50,000 jobs would be cre­at­ed.  No-where near that num­ber of jobs mate­ri­alised.  Just like then, they are mis­lead­ing the pub­lic now.”

She added, “Local Coun­cil­lors say they will force the Air­port to give jobs to local peo­ple but in prac­tice they will have no way of enforc­ing this on the firms that move into the new office and ware­house spaces.  We need to cre­ate green jobs in sus­tain­able indus­tries not dirty avi­a­tion.” 

The Wildlife Walk was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty for wildlife experts to explain that Air­port’s promis­es of pre­serv­ing wildlife are also unre­al­is­tic, and that cre­at­ing a ‘mit­i­ga­tion zone’ is no sub­sti­tu­tion for leav­ing habi­tats untouched.

Along the route, cam­paign­ers encoun­tered the threat­ened habi­tats of numer­ous plant and ani­mal species. Sev­er­al mature oak trees line Sun­bank Lane, pro­vid­ing nest­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for rare birds, and poten­tial roost­ing spots for endan­gered bat species. The site is also home to 12 ponds occu­pied by Great Crest­ed Newts, an endan­gered species found only in the North West of Eng­land. Walk­ers were also able to spot signs of pro­tect­ed ani­mals for exam­ple bad­ger snuf­fle holes and mole hills in the green space around Sun­bank.

Zombie Roads — Hastings

A Combe Haven Defend­ers protest against not only the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road, but all the ‘zom­bie road’ plans pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be dead and buried but res­ur­rect­ed by the UK coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

A Combe Haven Defend­ers protest against not only the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road, but all the ‘zom­bie road’ plans pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be dead and buried but res­ur­rect­ed by the UK coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

Combe Haven Defend­ers protest­ed in the streets of Hast­ings today, cul­mi­nat­ing in a die-in out­side the offices of local MP Amber Rudd, who is fer­vent­ly in favour of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road which will destroy the beau­ti­ful Combe Haven Val­ley if it is built next year.

The Zom­bie Roads, pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be dead and buried but res­ur­rect­ed by the UK coali­tion gov­ern­ment, did meet with some resis­tance, how­ev­er.…

(France) La ZAD prepares for another week of eviction NON A LA AEROPORT

In La ZAD, a zone occu­pied to stop the con­struc­tion of a new air­port for Nantes, the evic­tion looks set to con­tin­ue from tomor­row. La Saulce is now evictable and it is pos­si­ble the police will also tar­get some of the places that require spe­cial forces to evict tree­hous­es and such. Call­out for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against VINCI, the com­pa­ny who will be con­struct­ing. Call­out for peo­ple here to help. All means to increase aware­ness.

The police have been evict­ing la ZAD for two weeks now, only stop­ping for lunch­break and the week­ends. and the nights.
We are still expect­ing them to return tomor­row to con­tin­ue. Theyve been pass­ing by with the heli­copter today, hav­ing a look around. Since Sat­ur­day night la saulce has become legal­ly evictable. La secherie won an appeal in court, and is now not evictable till decem­ber, and la rosier also is not evictable til the mid­dle of novem­ber.
But it seems like­ly they will come next week for the places they can already evict, and havent already, most­ly la saulce, sabot, and the oth­er cab­ins that dont have a real ‘house’ on the prop­er­ty.
There is a lot more info on the web­site  http://www.zad.nadir.org if you dont read french you can change the langue to eng­lish.
get in con­tact if you want to come over, or just arrive
or do some­thing in your place, the com­pa­ny which build the aero­port is called VINCI (  http://stopvinci.noblogs.org/ ) and they have many things every­where. They are also respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the khim­ki for­est (  http://www.khimkiforest.org/ ) in rus­sia for the con­struc­tion of a high­way and the evic­tion of the protest camp there. There has already been a lot of stuff done to humil­i­ate them in the last weeks it is very cheer­ing.
Let every­one know.
The resis­tance wont end with evic­tion.
Need peo­ple to help with reoc­cu­pa­tion.
Peace and love.

(USA) LOGGING COMPANY HIT AGAIN

anony­mous report:

“Gilliar­di Log­ging and Con­struc­tion have not got­ten the mes­sage. so we poi­soned one of their semi-trucks, car­ry­ing a vicious wood-chip­per. the evict­ed hawks and owls will be pleased.”

anony­mous report:

“Gilliar­di Log­ging and Con­struc­tion have not got­ten the mes­sage. so we poi­soned one of their semi-trucks, car­ry­ing a vicious wood-chip­per. the evict­ed hawks and owls will be pleased.”

EF! Winter Moot 2013: 22–24th February, near Preston

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism. This year we’ll be in Lan­cashire…

 

Update: full trans­port details and pro­gramme at link below.

Read more

(USA) LOGGING COMPANY TARGETED

anony­mous report:

“puyallup wet­lands are under attack by a pri­vate log­ging com­pa­ny that I and oth­ers have yet to iden­ti­fy. this attack was car­ried out on canyon rd. short-term dam­age was done to a hydraulic exca­va­tor, as a warn­ing. if they con­tin­ue — our attacks will increase.”

anony­mous report:

“puyallup wet­lands are under attack by a pri­vate log­ging com­pa­ny that I and oth­ers have yet to iden­ti­fy. this attack was car­ried out on canyon rd. short-term dam­age was done to a hydraulic exca­va­tor, as a warn­ing. if they con­tin­ue — our attacks will increase.”

logging company hit again, USA

Octo­ber 25, 2012
anony­mous report:

“Gilliar­di Log­ging and Con­struc­tion have not got­ten the mes­sage. so we poi­soned one of their semi-trucks, car­ry­ing a vicious wood-chip­per. the evict­ed hawks and owls will be pleased.”

Octo­ber 25, 2012
anony­mous report:

“Gilliar­di Log­ging and Con­struc­tion have not got­ten the mes­sage. so we poi­soned one of their semi-trucks, car­ry­ing a vicious wood-chip­per. the evict­ed hawks and owls will be pleased.”

Wife of Gulf Coast Oilfield Worker Chains Herself to Keystone XL Pipeyard Gate

Draw­ing con­nec­tions to all coastal com­mu­ni­ties threat­ened by tox­ic tar sands devel­op­ment, Cher­ri Foytlin, an indige­nous South Louisiana moth­er of six and wife of a Gulf Coast oil­field work­er, chained her­self to the gate of a Key­stone XL pipeyard. Effec­tive­ly block­ing pipe from being shipped to con­struc­tion sites along the con­tro­ver­sial pipeline’s route, Foytlin’s action coin­cides with the Defend Our Coast activ­i­ties in British Colum­bia, where more than 60 Cana­di­an com­mu­ni­ties are protest­ing a pro­posed tar sands pipeline through their region.

Yes­ter­day the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation filed a legal chal­lenge to Shell’s pro­posed expan­sion of the Jack­pine Tar Sands Mine in Alber­ta, Cana­da. From It’s Get­ting Hot in Here:

“Fol­low­ing these projects, Coun­cil will con­tin­ue on its six-day No Pipelines, No Tankers Speak­ing Tour, stop­ping in com­mu­ni­ties on or near the routes of the Pacif­ic Trails, Enbridge North­ern Gate­way, and Kinder Mor­gan Trans Moun­tain Pipelines.

” ‘The idea is to build sol­i­dar­i­ty between the dif­fer­ent pipeline cam­paigns,’ says Har­jap Gre­w­al, Pacif­ic Region­al Orga­niz­er of the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans. This includes cam­paigns to stop the pipelines at their source—in the Alber­ta Tar Sands and Frack­ing region in north­east­ern BC.”

Occu­py the Pipeline activists in New York have been strug­gling against the Spec­tra Pipeline which will pump fuel hydrauli­cal­ly-fracked from Pennsylvania’s gas fields into New York City

Foytlin’s arrest is the 32nd arrest since Tar Sands Block­ade‘s actions began more than two months ago and today marks the 31st day of sus­tained protest at the Winns­boro tree block­ade.

“This pipeline is a project of death. From destruc­tive tar sands devel­op­ment that destroy indige­nous sov­er­eign­ty and health at the route’s start to the tox­ic emis­sions that will lay fur­ther bur­den on envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice com­mu­ni­ties along the Gulf of Mex­i­co, this pipeline not only dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affects indige­nous front­line com­mu­ni­ties but its clear that it will bring death and dis­ease to all in its path,” Foytlin declared.

Refus­ing to accept the Gulf Coast’s des­ig­na­tion as the Nation’s Ener­gy Sac­ri­fice Zone, Foytlin, along with many Gulf Coast res­i­dents and indige­nous activists are dis­mayed but not sur­prised to find the con­ver­sa­tions regard­ing Key­stone XL as a whole from nation­al envi­ron­men­tal groups to the Pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns have made lit­tle to no men­tion of the dam­age TransCanada’s Key­stone XL Pipeline will heap upon Gulf Coast com­mu­ni­ties like Hous­ton and Port Arthur, TX, where Key­stone XL will ter­mi­nate. Already over­bur­dened with oil refiner­ies and oth­er dirty ener­gy relat­ed indus­try, this neglect­ful atti­tude dove­tails neat­ly with TransCanada’s reck­less dis­re­gard for the health and safe­ty of fam­i­lies in the refin­ery com­mu­ni­ties and else­where along the pipeline’s route.

The Rayne, Louisiana res­i­dent, who in the Spring of 2011 walked 1,243 miles from New Orleans to Wash­ing­ton DC as a call for action to stop the BP Drilling Dis­as­ter, has been a con­stant voice speak­ing out for the health and ecosys­tems of Gulf Coast com­mu­ni­ties.

She con­tin­ued, “This fight is also about the per­son­al free­doms giv­en to us through the blood of all of our com­bined ances­try. Con­ser­v­a­tives believe gov­ern­ment is too big, that they are chok­ing out our free­doms. The Occu­py Move­ment believes cor­po­ra­tions have kid­napped those same rights in the pur­suit of prof­it over human­i­ty. I believe both groups are right, and this pipeline and the use of emi­nent domain by a for­eign com­pa­ny to seize and lay claim to Amer­i­can land, aid­ed by the silence of the gov­ern­ment, is an epic exam­ple of those truths.”

Tar Sands Block­ade is a coali­tion of Texas and Okla­homa landown­ers and cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­ers using peace­ful and sus­tained civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop the con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

“From the Pacif­ic Coast to the Gulf Coast, Tar Sands Block­ade acts in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all com­mu­ni­ties and indige­nous peo­ple ris­ing up to defend their homes from tox­ic tar sands pipelines. The refin­ery com­mu­ni­ties of the Gulf Coast have his­tor­i­cal­ly been and con­tin­ue to be treat­ed as col­lat­er­al dam­age by indus­try and now landown­ers from Cana­da to Texas are learn­ing that real­i­ty, too,” stat­ed Ram­sey Sprague, a Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son born in Houma, Louisiana to a Chiti­macha fam­i­ly. “From start to fin­ish, tar sands devel­op­ment only fur­ther endan­gers com­mu­ni­ties already at far greater risk for death and dis­ease from tox­ic envi­ron­men­tal expo­sure to human-made chem­i­cal pol­lu­tants than com­mu­ni­ties fur­ther away from the petro­le­um refiner­ies and the uncon­scionable min­ing oper­a­tions that define their ori­gins.”

Under the watchful eye of engaged youth, Pangea and the PLA’s “City Concept” plan was halted by tribal council

Saca­ton, AZ- At the Octo­ber 17, 2012 Gila Riv­er Indi­an Com­mu­ni­ty (GRIC) Trib­al Coun­cil ses­sion, Pangea, LLC and the Pecos Landown­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (PLA) attempt­ed to rush for­ward their plans per­tain­ing to the con­struc­tion of a city and free­way with­in the reser­va­tion. Pangea sought the trib­al council’s approval for a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) which grant­ed Pangea and its investors exclu­sive rights to devel­op over 5500 acres of trib­al land on the reservation’s west­ern end along the route of the pro­posed Loop 202 free­way, which GRIC vot­ed against last Feb­ru­ary. The PLA attempt­ed to pres­sure trib­al coun­cil to approve the Pangea corporation’s ini­tia­tive for yet anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty vote on the Loop 202.

But to their sur­prise, Pangea and the PLA were con­front­ed by young peo­ple wear­ing breath­ing masks and No Build 202 shirts who sought to hold both Pangea and the PLA account­able to last February’s Loop 202 vote. In that vote, GRIC vot­ers vot­ed in favor of the No Build option for the free­way. The Gila Riv­er youth, whose breath­ing masks sym­bol­ized the envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins that free­ways bring to the land and air, were at the trib­al coun­cil meet­ing to demand that their elect­ed offi­cials uphold the No Build voice of the peo­ple.

“I can’t vote yet, but if I could, I would have vot­ed No Build too. The peo­ple who want the free­way should think about what my gen­er­a­tion will go through if all we have to inher­it is free­way pollution”said 14 year old Lily Miles, of Komatke and Vah-ki, who was one of the twelve who wore med­ical breath­ing masks and No Build shirts in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the community’s No Build voice.

Since the his­toric Loop 202 vote, many GRIC mem­bers, espe­cial­ly the youth, have felt their trib­al lead­er­ship has not ful­ly upheld the community’s No Build stance. This sus­pi­cion is height­ened since GRIC Gov­er­nor Men­doza allowed Pangea to con­sult with GRIC’s Office of Gen­er­al Coun­sel for their City Con­cept and free­way plans. In addi­tion, Gov­er­nor Men­doza pre­sent­ed the PLA ini­tia­tive that calls for anoth­er Loop 202 vote at the Sep­tem­ber 26th GRIC Leg­isla­tive Stand­ing Com­mit­tee (LSC).

If approved by the GRIC Trib­al Coun­cil, the mas­sive Pangea City Con­cept, the size of over 5000 foot­ball fields, would be the largest con­struc­tion project in the his­to­ry of the Bureau of Indi­an Affairs (BIA) and the Gila Riv­er Indi­an Com­mu­ni­ty. The GRIC No Build sup­port­ers who attend­ed the Wednes­day coun­cil ses­sion were com­pelled to raise their voic­es against Pangea and the PLA in the trib­al coun­cil cham­bers with­out say­ing one word. Their breath­ing masks and No Build 202 shirts, stat­ing “Bio­haz­ard 202” spoke to the loom­ing des­e­cra­tion of Muhadag Do’ag (South Moun­tain) and to the neg­a­tive impacts the pro­posed free­way would bring to the envi­ron­ment and over­all com­mu­ni­ty health.

“Our trib­al lead­ers must be held account­able for where their alle­giances lie,” said Renee Jack­son of Vah-ki, who was one of the No Build sup­port­ers who wore breath­ing masks and Bio­haz­ard 202 shirts dur­ing the meet­ing. “Our rep­re­sen­ta­tives must be trans­par­ent in where they stand on the issue of the free­way”.

While coun­cil went to exec­u­tive ses­sion to decide the mer­it of Pangea’s MOU and the PLA vot­ing ini­tia­tive, the twelve youth engaged pro-free­way Gila Riv­er landown­ers in the hall­ways out­side coun­cil cham­bers. The youth shared their con­cerns regard­ing the envi­ron­men­tal, health and cul­tur­al impacts the City Con­cept would bring to their future while coun­cil was in exec­u­tive ses­sion and closed to the pub­lic. The mere pres­ence of these twelve helped give a voice to the 720 GRIC mem­bers who vot­ed for No Build, and their breath­ing masks showed the poten­tial dan­ger the free­way would bring.

“Today we showed where the youth stand and we showed that there are youth who care. Pangea and the PLA’s city con­cept is a dan­ger to our future and both are bio­haz­ards to the land and to the moun­tain,” said Andrew Pedro, 18 years old, from Saca­ton, who print­ed the Bio­haz­ard shirts. “Peo­ple were ask­ing me for more t‑shirts, and I believe that this is the first of more visu­al demon­stra­tions to come.”

“I felt like it was my respon­si­bil­i­ty to be here and get informed about what is hap­pen­ing around me and in my com­mu­ni­ty because I will be inher­it­ing this land too.” said Kar­ma Miles, 11 years old, from Komatke and Vah-ki.

Despite the dif­fer­ences the youth had with fel­low GRIC landown­ers, the youth pre­sent­ed them­selves in a respect­ful mat­ter, and even helped PLA elders by set­ting up chairs dur­ing exec­u­tive ses­sion.

After near­ly an hour in exec­u­tive ses­sion, Trib­al Coun­cil decid­ed that eleven key points need­ed to be met before any MOU regard­ing Pangea’s land use plans could be approved. The eleven points cen­ter around pub­lic safe­ty, bud­get­ing, juris­dic­tion, and land man­age­ment issues that were not addressed with­in the MOU sub­mit­ted by Pangea. Coun­cil clear­ly declared that all points must be met before Pangea’s MOU could be brought back before the coun­cil. Addi­tion­al­ly, the mis­lead­ing Save the Moun­tain ini­tia­tive was held to stan­dard GRIC Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Secretary’s Office (CCSO) pro­ce­dure regard­ing sig­na­tures ver­i­fi­ca­tion. The PLA sub­mit­ted their Pangea-backed ini­tia­tive to the GRIC Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Secretary’s Office (CCSO) on Sep­tem­ber 27 with the back­ing of 1,527 landown­er sig­na­tures. Trib­al coun­cil declared that each sig­na­ture must be ver­i­fied first before coun­cil would con­sid­er the ini­tia­tive. As with the per capi­ta ini­tia­tive, a pre­vi­ous people’s ini­tia­tive in Gila Riv­er, the sig­na­tures could take the CCSO four to six months to ver­i­fy, espe­cial­ly with reports of miss­ing trib­al enroll­ment num­bers with the sig­na­tures sub­mit­ted, as report­ed by Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Sec­re­tary Lin­da Andrews at the coun­cil meet­ing. The Save the Moun­tain ini­tia­tive, which Pangea and PLA deemed” first ever Peo­ples Ini­tia­tive through the People’s rights under the GRIC Trib­al Con­sti­tu­tion”, does not save the moun­tain because it calls for the reject­ed free­way to be con­struct­ed on trib­al lands along the foothills of Muhadag Do’ag (South Moun­tain).

Despite the steps that are legal­ly required to approve a vot­er ini­tia­tive, a Pangea rep­re­sen­ta­tive pres­sured coun­cil to move for­ward and approve the pro-free­way ini­tia­tive. GRIC mem­ber Joey Perez of Pangea attempt­ed to have coun­cil set a much short­er time frame for approval, by cit­ing the 14th amend­ment of the GRIC con­sti­tu­tion, which declares coun­cil has 60 days to make a deci­sion on any ini­tia­tive bought forth to them. The Pangea corporation’s inter­pre­ta­tion, as stat­ed by Perez, was that the 60 days start­ed on Sep­tem­ber 27, when the sig­na­tures were sub­mit­ted, which would force coun­cil to pos­si­bly recon­sid­er anoth­er Loop 202 vote by the end of the year. But Perez, Pangea and the PLA were soon con­front­ed with stan­dard GRIC pro­ce­dures regard­ing ini­tia­tives: sig­na­tures must be ver­i­fied before the ini­tia­tive can be con­sid­ered by the coun­cil.

The rea­son why the Pangea cor­po­ra­tion and pro-build sup­port­ers dis­re­gard the No Build vic­to­ry and are attempt­ing to rush the trib­al coun­cil to sched­ule anoth­er vote on the pro­posed free­way is because in 2013 fed­er­al land leas­ing reg­u­la­tions for trib­al allot­ted lands become much more restric­tive. Changes to Title 25 of the BIA’s Code of Fed­er­al Reg­u­la­tions will require 100 per­cent of landown­er con­sents before the BIA will approve any new leas­es per­tain­ing to the use of trib­al allot­ted lands for busi­ness­es. This would make the Pangea City Con­cept, which is cen­tered around the con­struc­tion of the Loop 202, sub­ject to height­ened fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions.

The deci­sion by Coun­cil to hold Pangea and the PLA trans­par­ent and account­able to the process was a long over­due first step in revers­ing its nine months of inac­tion regard­ing the No Build vote. Pangea and the PLA were expect­ing to walk out of the trib­al coun­cil meet­ing with anoth­er Loop 202 vote sched­uled, and their land devel­op­ment plans to be unop­posed. But Pangea and the PLA left the Octo­ber trib­al coun­cil ses­sion in defeat when con­front­ed with the gap­ing holes of their fraud­u­lent cam­paign to bull­doze over 5500 acres for a Pangea city, and by the faces of the young peo­ple whose future health depends on the preser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of Muhadag Do’ag, and their lands.

“It was a won­der­ful day, a small vic­to­ry once again,” said Lori Thomas, of Gila Riv­er Alliance for a Clean Envi­ron­ment. “The youth who were present were awe­some. It was good to see them engage in the issue. A small bat­tle was won but the fight still rages on.”

For the youth who attend­ed this round of the big­ger fight to com­plete­ly stop the Loop 202, it showed that their involve­ment will be cru­cial for the future of the com­mu­ni­ty, and that a new form of expres­sion is need­ed so that their voic­es can be heard by the Pangea cor­po­ra­tion, the PLA, as well as by the GRIC trib­al coun­cil and Gov­er­nor Men­doza.

“We made an impact by rep­re­sent­ing all the No Build sup­port­ers who can’t be here, to go to these meet­ings and be heard,” said Ana Mor­a­go, 18 years old, of Sto­ton­ic. “We aren’t bused in, like the way Pangea brings in their peo­ple. And even though we didn’t speak, our actions and how we pre­sent­ed our­selves spoke loud­er”.

For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing the strug­gle against the Loop 202, please con­tact us at: gricagainst202(at)gmail.com or at our Face­book page: Gila Riv­er Against the Loop 202

More clashes with riot police in Greece over gold mine

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers in Thes­sa­loni­ki have been in involved anoth­er bat­tle with riot police over plans for a gold mine in north­ern Greece’s Halkidi­ki penin­su­la. One police­man and three pro­test­ers were hurt, while 21 pro­test­ers have been detained. Clash­es between protests and local res­i­dents on one side and police and mine work­ers on the oth­er side have become a reg­u­lar occourance since March when plans for the mine were approved. A mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar gold min­ing project in a near­by area was can­celled a decade ago after sim­i­lar protests.

Below is a trans­la­tion of a recent report about the sit­u­a­tion from Indy­media Athens:

In the moun­tains of Halkidi­ki is a huge dis­as­ter at the expense of Moth­er Nature. The Greek state has sold the rights to exploit the gold beneath the pri­mor­dial forests of dark in the com­pa­ny Eldo­ra­do-Greek Gold. That is why the com­pa­ny has already start­ed the despi­ca­ble work: inten­sive defor­esta­tion of 4,000 hectares of for­est and min­er­al pro­cess­ing plant con­struc­tion between vil­lages Olympiad, Stan, Mary and Great Ieris­sos. The state and the com­pa­ny with the work will take away the life of the for­est itself but also by the thou­sands of ani­mals that live in it, clean ground­wa­ter and soil will be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by tox­ic sub­stances such as cyanide. In sim­ple words, a whole liv­ing world would exter­mi­nat­ed for the prof­it of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ment lead­ers, leav­ing behind con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed land and death.

Res­i­dents not com­pla­cent to the dis­as­ter, from pas­sages such as the Olympics and the Great Pana­gia for decades have been strug­gling against min­ing. This year saw the final autho­riza­tion from the gov­ern­ment and the project has now start­ed. From March there have been on going con­flicts with res­i­dents and defend­ers of the for­est on one side and the police and work­ers of the com­pa­ny on the oth­er.

This dom­i­nant behav­ior of cul­ture over nature is a result of the author­i­tar­i­an men­tal­i­ty of anthro­pocen­trism, arbi­trary belief that man is greater than the nat­ur­al ele­ment sur­rounds him. This con­cept is the result of the alien­ation of man from the nat­ur­al world. With the medi­a­tion of the process of civ­i­liza­tion, the build­ing of cities, states and pow­er rela­tions peo­ple ignore the earth-ani­mal-nature, which is direct­ly tied to the exis­tence and devel­op­ment of the nat­ur­al world.

Habi­tats are threat­ened today direct­ly from the mines not only in Halkidi­ki but oth­er parts of north­ern Greece such as Kilkis and Alexan­droupo­lis. But let’s not fool our­selves, the tech­noc­ra­cy and cap­i­tal­ism in today’s world are expressed through a glob­al sys­tem of strik­ing any part of the world over sea or land. But espe­cial­ly in coun­tries of the so-called third world, plun­der of nature and poor peo­ple is unthink­able. Giant multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions with the help of state and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions extort­ing indige­nous pop­u­la­tions by any means (war, food crises, finan­cial mea­sures) to accept invest­ments and work with them in exchange for a mea­ger salary and a short and mis­er­able life. With mod­ern engines cut forests, dis­em­bow­el the earth, pol­lute the air, water and soil. This hunt for “trea­sure” whether min­er­als such as gold or ener­gy (oil, gas, coal) is total­ly dead­locked and destruc­tive. The so-called progress of civ­i­liza­tion and the ide­ol­o­gy of devel­op­ment only serve the tem­po­rary exis­tence of the world’s author­i­tar­i­an sys­tem that dis­solves cul­tures but tens of thou­sands of years, primeval forests, ani­mal com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems that promis­es dystopia.

The destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world not only in Greece but also at the glob­al lev­el does not leave us time tol­er­ances of this sit­u­a­tion. Needs as liv­ing crea­tures to deny us the sys­tem dom­i­nates and fight for its destruc­tion. To rede­fine our rela­tion­ship with the nat­ur­al world and to resist that pre­vents us from liv­ing in har­mo­ny with it. The state, the indus­tri­al sys­tem and mazopoi­isi cities need to be destroyed to flour­ish in the debris an indomitable life for peo­ple, ani­mals and nature.

AGAINST THE RAPE OF THE NATURAL WORLD
ANYPOCHORITOS STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION AND FOR TOTAL ANARCHY