Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

ESB powerline work stopped at Clonmore

“I’ll nev­er purge my con­tempt, and I want the ESB stopped. I most cer­tain­ly do!” — mes­sage from Tere­sa Trea­cy, 65 years old, in Moun­tjoy Wom­ens’ Prison.

“I’ll nev­er purge my con­tempt, and I want the ESB stopped. I most cer­tain­ly do!” — mes­sage from Tere­sa Trea­cy, 65 years old, in Moun­tjoy Wom­ens’ Prison.

On Wednes­day the 14th of Sep­tem­ber, con­cerned indi­vid­u­als wish­ing to sup­port Tere­sa Trea­cy arrived at Clon­more, Tul­lam­ore. The fol­low­ing morn­ing the sup­port­ers learned that no tree felling would be car­ried out that week and ESB work­ers had been instruct­ed to leave the site.

On the morn­ing of Sat­ur­day the 17th of Sep­tem­ber, Tere­sa rang from the prison to say that her spir­its had been lift­ed by the news. She has her own cell in the prison thanks to the good graces of the prison staff. After her ini­tial shock she is set­tling in. She said she has no inten­tion of ‘purg­ing her con­tempt’ and is call­ing out for sup­port.

It is the ESB’s intent to fell trees cov­er­ing a total 12 acres of land and amount­ing to 12,000 trees in all, many of which are native species and were hand plant­ed and main­tained by Tere­sa over the years. The end result being a 50m wide cor­ri­dor per­ma­nent­ly sev­er­ing her wood­lands in two for well over one kilo­me­ter. It is the inten­tion of the ESB to fill the felling zone with one 20 metre high met­al tow­er, five dou­ble wood­en poles, a 110Kv sin­gle trans­mis­sion line, and five con­tin­u­ous wires.

Tere­sa has been attempt­ing to nego­ti­ate with the ESB since 2006. She has reluc­tant­ly offered a com­pro­mise of sit­ing the line under­ground to no avail. Hav­ing spent her entire life as a law-abid­ing cit­i­zen, she has tak­en the path of peace­ful direct resis­tance as a course of last resort.

In a call from the prison, Tere­sa has asked for sup­port­ers to become active­ly involved in her strug­gle to pro­tect her land and trees. Tere­sa is com­mit­ted and remains defi­ant. She has no inten­tion of ‘purg­ing her con­tempt’.

Let­ters of sup­port can be sent to: Tere­sa Treacy/ Dochas/ Mon­thjoy Wom­ens’ Prison/ North Cir­cu­lar RD/ Dublin 7/ Eire

To become involved, call Niall on 086 8444966.

For MEDIA, email Sean Ryan at: 2seanryan2@gmail.com
__________________________________________________________

Notes to Edi­tors

1. Both mag­net­ic fields and elec­tri­cal fields are sep­a­rate enti­ties with regard to the health ques­tion, even though they often may well work togeth­er to cause the risks.

2. A lot of argu­ments asso­ci­at­ed with mag­net­ic field expo­sure are
con­tra­dict­ed by the fact that peo­ple who work in this par­tic­u­lar area don’t seem to suf­fer from many of the ill­ness­es asso­ci­at­ed with these fields. The counter argu­ment advances that this is because the brain secretes par­tic­u­lar secre­tions when a per­son is asleep that are not secret­ed when one is awake. Most folks who work in this area are assumed not to be asleep on the job!

3. Mag­net­ic fields can strip radioac­tive par­ti­cles from the atmos­phere and con­cen­trate them in the areas around over­head lines.

4. Elec­tri­cal fields asso­ci­at­ed with high volt­age cre­ate a coro­na that can ionise a very large area (mea­sured in kilo­me­tres) around the con­duc­tors. The body is a con­duc­tor and radioac­tive par­ti­cles can actu­al­ly stick to the body due to this effect.

The fol­low­ing are asso­ci­at­ed with high volt­age over­head lines:
Depression/suicide, child­hood leukaemia, skin can­cer, lung can­cer,
mis­car­riages and many more.

More infor­ma­tion here
http://www.feb.se/emfguru/Elf/calif-power.html
http://www.feb.se/emfguru/Elf/elf-contents.html

—

Tere­sa Trea­cy Ordered to Jail over ESB Pow­er­lines

“You picked the wrong place here” — Tere­sa Trea­cy to ESB con­sul­tant Shane McLough­ney, April 2007.

ere­sa Trea­cy, a 65 year old woman from Tul­lam­ore, Co Offaly has been ordered to jail by High Court Judge Daniel Her­bert at the request of the ESB.

Ms Trea­cy, who shares the fam­i­ly farm with her sis­ter Mary at Wood­field House, Clon­more, Tul­lam­ore, Co Offaly has refused the ESB access to her lands in order to pro­tect the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and the native trees that she has man­aged there for many years.

In Feb­ru­ary 2006 the ESB began plans to con­struct a 110kV trans­mis­sion pow­er­line from Cushal­ing to Thorns­bury. The plans spec­i­fy that dou­ble wood­pole struc­tures and steel tow­ers accom­mo­dat­ing over­head pow­er­lines be built at 200 metre inter­vals over a total dis­tance of 32 kilo­me­tres through the lands of local landown­ers.

Ms Trea­cy out­lined her objec­tions in a num­ber of let­ters to the ESB and arranged a num­ber of meet­ings with them to request that the pow­er­lines be con­struct­ed under­ground for the fol­low­ing rea­sons.

1) The Health & Safe­ty risks, includ­ing can­cer risks which are increas­ing­ly asso­ci­at­ed with over­head pow­er­lines as a result of Elec­tro Mag­net­ic Fields (EMF).

2) The fact that she has always main­tained and improved her land as a nat­ur­al habi­tat which includes native trees, old and new, cared for and/or plant­ed by her­self for future gen­er­a­tions as a sus­tain­able nat­ur­al resource, through which the ESB want to smash.

3) The fact that the under­ground­ing of pow­er­lines is now con­sid­ered to be best prac­tice across Europe. Ire­land and the ESB are at the bot­tom of the league in terms of catch­ing up with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards and the progress which has been made to ensure that under­ground pow­er­lines are the pro­gres­sive way for­ward.

The ESB were also point­ed to a recent deci­sion in 2006 to under­ground the Bantry (Colo­mane — Bal­lylick­ey) 38kV pow­er­line, which arose out of intense local protest oppos­ing the over­ground­ing of that line. The ESB were con­tract­ed to that project by a pri­vate wind­farm devel­op­er who suc­ceed­ed in get­ting injunc­tions against local farm­ers but decid­ed not to enforce them. He aban­doned over­ground­ing in favour of under­ground­ing the pow­er­line. See here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77007

When the Cushal­ing – Thorns­bury project was pro­posed for Tul­lam­ore in ear­ly 2006 it appeared that there was stiff oppo­si­tion to the project among the affect­ed 90 landown­ers in Offaly. Under­ground­ing options were dis­cussed as tech­ni­cal pos­si­bil­i­ties and Euro­pean best prac­tice had come to the atten­tion of the pub­lic.

It’s one thing to have a pri­vate devel­op­er opt for under­ground­ing but the ESB, fear­ing that a prece­dent may be set, were clever enough to use the Irish Farm­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (IFA) to nego­ti­ate a com­pen­sa­tion pack­age with the landown­ers, most of them farm­ers.

Tere­sa Trea­cy stood to gain up to approx­i­mate­ly 150,000 euro in 3 staged pay­ments if she agreed to the project and on con­di­tion that no legal costs were incurred by the ESB if they had to go to court, in which case the last 2 pay­ments would be ‘for­feit­ed’.

This deal, nego­ti­at­ed by the IFA over the course of 2 years, seemed to appease most of the landown­ers so by the time a pub­lic meet­ing was called to organ­ise the landown­ers, by Ms Trea­cy in March 2009, less than a dozen peo­ple showed up.

By the sum­mer of 2011 Tere­sa Trea­cy was the only one refus­ing access to the ESB.

The ESB has made a num­ber of appli­ca­tions to the High Court over the sum­mer, includ­ing orders for Ms Trea­cy to unlock her gates and let them in and sub­se­quent­ly an order empow­er­ing the ESB to break the locks after Ms Trea­cy refused to obey the first order. The ESB told the court that Ms Trea­cy “has an emo­tion­al attach­ment to her trees”. When Ms Trea­cy obstruct­ed them from break­ing the locks the ESB decid­ed to go back to court to issue con­tempt pro­ceed­ings against Ms Trea­cy.

Today, Mon­day 12th Sep­tem­ber 2011, Judge Daniel Her­bert told Ms Trea­cy that he had no choice but to uphold the law and ordered that she be jailed for con­tempt of the court orders.

“I’m beg­ging them for years” said Ms Trea­cy today. “5½ years, what a waste of time it was try­ing to talk to them”. Fac­ing jail she said “I feel good, I real­ly do. I just could­n’t let them in to do that. It’s just not right”.

“The route is cut­ting through our for­est and the old Whitethorn hedgerows. For over 25 years I have used all my time and ener­gy get­ting our lands into a place of nat­ur­al beau­ty and overnight it can be destroyed with high pow­ered lines going through forests beside the old bridge, the old laneway and through the new Oak and Ash woods I plant­ed over 20 years ago. I have spent many years replac­ing dead trees and cut­ting gorse with my hands. I filled con­tain­ers with water from the riv­er so that my for­est is a mod­el. All my trees have been pruned indi­vid­u­al­ly by me to pro­mote their growth”

“My heart is bro­ken by the thought that they may be uproot­ed and thrown away. I know I will nev­er see them in their full glo­ry but was sat­is­fied know­ing that oth­ers would enjoy them long into the future”

“We already have 10 ESB poles on our land and feel that we have already done enough for the com­mon good. Our farm is our life’s blood, its scenic beau­ty from the untouched fields to the riv­er and through the bog, all of it nat­ur­al flo­ra and fau­na”.

Ear­li­er court pro­ceed­ings were heard by Judge Mary Laf­foy who grant­ed orders to the ESB. I’m won­der­ing did Judge Laf­foy decide not to be avail­able to the ESB to hear con­tempt pro­ceed­ings. Who would want to send an elder­ly woman to jail in these cir­cum­stances? When judge­ments are made in the High Court they are usu­al­ly pre­sent­ed as ’ … the High Court has ruled such a way …’, and the name of the judge is under­stood to be irrel­e­vant for the pur­pos­es of law. A judge is sim­ply an instru­ment of the law and the law must be applied regard­less of the per­son­al­i­ty or opin­ion of the judge. It is legal­ly cor­rect for a judge to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for ‘dif­fi­cult cas­es’ because that’s their job, and regard­less of good rea­son, and the 3 rea­sons out­lined above, the law must be applied, must­n’t it?!

Ms Trea­cy will remain in jail until she ‘purges her con­tempt’ by agree­ing to com­ply with the court orders. The ESB, how­ev­er, are in a posi­tion to make an appli­ca­tion to the court for her release, but this is unlike­ly, at least until they’ve smashed the trees and con­struct­ed their out­dat­ed pow­er­lines. Her incar­cer­a­tion is in their hands.

Bury the pow­er­lines, not the peo­ple!

Rossport roundup

Gar­daí look on as Shell secu­ri­ty con­tin­ue to use unlaw­ful force on peace­ful pro­tes­tors

Gar­daí look on as Shell secu­ri­ty con­tin­ue to use unlaw­ful force on peace­ful pro­tes­tors

On Thurs­day last, the 15th Sep­tem­ber, Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty force, IRMS con­tin­ued their prac­tice of using force on the pub­lic road as they see fit. Once again the Gar­daí sat close by and wit­nessed this unlaw­ful use of force by IRMS and allowed it to con­tin­ue unim­ped­ed.

At approx­i­mate­ly 2:30pm last Thurs­day, a small num­ber of cam­paign­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp went down to the entrance of the Shell com­pound in Augh­oose to peace­ful­ly protest. Work­ers at the com­pound were attempt­ing to lay tar­mac at the entrace to the com­pound, so the cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to sit down on the edge of the road. How­ev­er the cam­paign­ers were pre­vent­ed from sit­ting down at the edge of the road by IRMS and were pushed, kicked, punched, pulled and car­ried away from sit­ting down at the edge of the road. This con­tin­ued for over 45 min­utes dur­ing which Gar­daí watched the whole sit­u­a­tion from Gar­da vans parked no more than 50 metres away.

Com­ment­ing on the lat­est inci­dent Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way stat­ed “Let’s be clear about this: Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty — IRMS — have absolute­ly no right to use any force on cam­paign­ers who are peace­ful­ly protest­ing on a pub­lic road. The fact that Gar­daí would watch IRMS assault cam­paign­ers for near­ly an hour on a pub­lic road is anoth­er clear exam­ple of the total sus­pen­sion of the rule of law in rela­tion to protest­ing against Shell.”

“In Octo­ber in Gene­va, the UN Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Review will review Ire­land’s human rights record, and while the Irish Gov­ern­ment give great lip-ser­vice to human rights abus­es in far-away places, they are let­ting Shell and the Gar­daí here in Mayo do what­ev­er they wish to peace­ful pro­tes­tors”. [1][2]

NOTES

[1] UN urged to exam­ine Irish human rights laps­es – Irish Times — 13th August 2011
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0813/1224302379794.html

[2] Shell to Sea high­lights human rights abus­es to UN
http://www.shelltosea.com/content/shell-sea-highlights-human-rights-abuses-un

—

Fence climb­ing, tres­pass­ing, trac­tor climb­ing and more dis­rup­tion of work in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo

Tues­day 13th Sep­tem­ber six peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp went down to Shel­l’s tun­nelling com­pound in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo to dis­rupt work. Work was slowed from three sep­a­rate actions spread over 2 hours as peo­ple inter­fered with fenc­ing work and then two peo­ple got up on a trac­tor mak­ing a deliv­ery to the com­pound.

Over the past cou­ple days Shel­l’s com­pound in Augh­oose has seen some major dam­age to the perime­ter fenc­ing. The heavy duty pal­isade fenc­ing (the green spiky one) is still in place, but a lot of the flim­sy sil­ver har­ris fenc­ing is down, con­crete bol­lards hold­ing oth­er fenc­ing was smashed, and the green fenc­ing pan­els (which is in piles along the road in the pho­tos) came down. As a result of this destruc­tion, Shell has all but stopped mak­ing deliv­er­ies to the com­pound.

On Tues­day after­noon as Shell work­ers were try­ing to repair some of the dam­age done, six peo­ple went down to dis­rupt them. Green fenc­ing pan­els were in piles along the road­side of the com­pound, and peo­ple sat on the piles to pre­vent the work­ers from putting them back up. A dig­ger on the inside of the com­pound was wait­ing to re-erect the pan­els, but the pro­test­ers made this dif­fi­cult and the dig­ger dri­ver gave up.

Shel­l’s secu­ri­ty (IRMS) even­tu­al­ly came over and dragged peo­ple off of the pan­els. This was not on Shel­l’s prop­er­ty but the road verge, so the pri­vate secu­ri­ty had no right to use force on the pub­lic road. Gar­dai were present but did­n’t seem to mind pri­vate secu­ri­ty assault­ing peo­ple on the pub­lic road and at one point even did some labour for Shell, mov­ing fenc­ing pan­els back into place.

After awhile peo­ple went around the side of the com­pound and tres­passed onto Shel­l’s land where work­ers were try­ing to fin­ish the last bit of the heavy duty pal­isade fenc­ing. As soon as peo­ple showed up the work­ers gave up and packed away their tools, the dri­vers got out of the dig­gers and walked away. This last­ed for about an hour until Shell secu­ri­ty dragged and car­ried peo­ple off the land.

One pro­test­er was sex­u­al­ly assault­ed as they were being car­ried by IRMS. Their pants were falling down and they asked secu­ri­ty to put them down so they could pull their clothes back on, but IRMS refused. The secu­ri­ty mem­ber (pic­tured below) who was car­ry­ing the per­son­’s legs shoved both of his hands up into the per­son­’s crotch. He refused to show his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion badge fol­low­ing the assault.

After this a trac­tor car­ry­ing some sort of bog-drainage equip­ment was com­ing down the road towards the com­pound. Peo­ple ran towards it and despite attempts by Gar­dai to keep them off the trac­tor two peo­ple climbed up on top of it. One per­son was dragged down from a con­sid­er­able height, and the oth­er came down after being giv­en a warn­ing under the Pub­lic Order Act. Nei­ther per­son was arrest­ed.

Actions against Shell are pret­ty much con­stant at the moment, with some­times 3 or 4 sep­a­rate actions in a day. Morale is high, and any­time is a good time to vis­it if you’d like to see the area and find out more about what is hap­pen­ing. There is a week­ly protest out­side Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery, with lots of locals and peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. And there’s plen­ty to do aside from protest­ing, includ­ing cook­ing, tend­ing to the three gar­dens, meet­ing locals and loads of building/site main­te­nance!

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose, between Bal­linaboy and Pul­lath­omas. To con­tact the camp, rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com or 085 114 1170

More pho­tos — http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100512

CONSTRUCTION COMPANY VAN TORCHED, SPAIN

13.9.11

anony­mous com­mu­nique, trans­la­tion from This Is Our Job:

13.9.11

anony­mous com­mu­nique, trans­la­tion from This Is Our Job:

“This morn­ing, a van belong­ing to the multi­na­tion­al ‘con­struc­tion com­pa­ny’ PERI was torched. PERI is one of the most pow­er­ful com­pa­nies in the con­struc­tion indus­try, which is ded­i­cat­ed to destroy­ing the Earth through the build­ing of high­ways, pow­er sta­tions, etc.

We no longer rec­og­nize life, col­o­nized as it is by sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. Nor can we talk about life skills, as the dead have replaced the liv­ing. In this tomb of cement and sug­ar, we are sur­round­ed by mil­lions of dead objects. The nan­otech­nol­o­gy and biotech­nol­o­gy indus­tries are the new dic­ta­tor­ships to be top­pled. They are the new mas­ters of the world, patent­ing life and impos­ing a form of non­life devoid of any kind of auton­o­my. In the war against them, we must arm our­selves with every pos­si­ble method and attack inces­sant­ly. We rec­og­nize a part of nature in our­selves, and we fight against whomev­er would take away and destroy that nature. There is no time to lose. Our desire and pas­sion will put an end to every­thing that dom­i­nates us.

Civ­i­liza­tion (not anar­chy!!!!) is the high­est expres­sion of order. There­fore, instead of the order and con­trol that dri­ve us to mad­ness, we embrace chaos, indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, and the unique­ness of every liv­ing thing.

Who­ev­er talks about rev­o­lu­tion and class strug­gle with­out cri­tiquing sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy has a corpse in their mouth.

For Bil­ly, Sil­via, Cos­ta, Mar­co, and our insur­gent broth­ers and sis­ters in Chile, Greece, Mex­i­co, etc.

‘And if your heart isn’t bro­ken by the knowl­edge of what they are doing to the world we love, then I feel sor­ry for you. Maybe you’re no longer alive. But if the death of the plan­et we love makes you cry, then take those tears and turn them into action.’
—Rod Coro­n­a­do”

Span­ish:
“Esta madru­ga­da fue incen­di­a­da una fur­gone­ta de la multi­na­cional ‘con­struc­to­ra’ PERI, una de la empre­sas más fuertes en el sec­tor de la con­struc­ción, que se ded­i­ca a destru­ir la tier­ra medi­ante obras de autopis­tas, cen­trales elelctri­c­as…..

Ya no recono­ce­mos la vida, col­o­niza­da por la cien­cia y la tec­nolo­gia, más bien podri­amos hablar de la tec­ni­ca de la vida, donde lo muer­to ha susti­tu­i­do a lo vivo, rodea­d­os de mil­lones de obje­tos muer­tos, en esta tum­ba de cemen­to y azu­car. Las empre­sas de nano y biotec­nolo­gia son las nuevas dic­taduras a las que der­rib­ar, son ellas las nuevas amas del mun­do, quienes paten­tan la vida y quienes nos impo­nen una for­ma de no-vida en la que desa­parece cualquier for­ma de autonomía, es en la guer­ra con­tra ellas en la que debe­mos armarnos de todos los medios posi­bles y atacar sin cesar, recono­cer­nos una parte de la nat­u­raleza y luchar con­tra quién nos ale­ja de ella y la destruye. No hay tiem­po que esper­ar es nue­stro deseo y pasión acabar con­tra todo lo que nos dom­i­na.

La civ­i­lización (y no la anar­quia!!!!) es la máx­i­ma expre­sión del orden, por eso abrazamos el caos, la indi­vid­u­al­i­dad y la pecu­liari­dad de cada ser vivo, con­tra el orden y el con­trol que nos lle­van a la locu­ra.

Quien habla de rev­olu­ción y de lucha de clases sin criticar la cien­cia y la tec­nolo­gia tiene un cadav­er en la boca.
A Bil­ly, Sil­via, Cos­ta, Mar­co, a nues­tras her­manxs insur­rec­txs en Chile, Gre­cia, Mex­i­co……

‘Y si no se te parte el corazón al saber lo que le están hacien­do al mun­do que amamos, sien­to lás­ti­ma por ti, quizás ya no estés vivx. Pero si la muerte del plan­e­ta que amamos te hace llo­rar, entonces toma esas lágri­mas y con­viérte­las en acción.‘
Rod Coro­n­a­do.”

ELF ACTIONS IN RUSSIA APRIL/MAY 2011

received anony­mous­ly:

received anony­mous­ly:

“Dur­ing the night of may 4th we sneaked upon anoth­er tree har­vester and torched it, using the heavy rain as cov­er. 15 min­utes lat­er it explod­ed (we sus­pect fire in hydraulics to be the cause). Police and city offi­cials con­firmed the suc­cess­ful torch­ing and evac of the destroyed vehi­cle (link to the eco-cam­paign site with cita­tions: http://ecmo.ru/news/n‑1778/).

This spring saw works to clearcut a huge Khim­ki for­est con­tin­ue unabat­ed. In spite of numer­ous and mas­sive peo­ple protests, all the legal and lib­er­al stuff (polls, peti­tions, law suits, con­certs, demos, vig­ils, etc.), author­i­ties, law enforce­ment, and their fas­cists and mafia lack­eys (for­ev­er togeth­er in Rus­sia) push for the com­ple­tion of clear-cuts so that they may get on to the actu­al road-build­ing. And in one part of the for­est they’ve already redi­rect­ed a flow of a riv­er (a sin­gle and major body of water and site of sig­nif­i­cant avian pop­u­la­tion in the area) to facil­i­tate con­struc­tion of a road junc­tion link: (in russ­ian, but has pho­tos http://ecmo.ru/news/n‑1772/).

We ask of all whom it may con­cern to con­sid­er actions against Vin­ci, France (the inter­na­tion­al con­sor­tium financ­ing this defor­esta­tion project), as it seems the only viable tar­get out­side Rus­sia. Appre­ci­a­tion for your sol­i­dar­i­ty out there, peo­ple, and our sol­i­dar­i­ty with your local fights of our glob­al resis­tance!

- ELF-Rus­sia, Inter­na­tion­al Net­work of Action and Solidarity/ Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion”

—–

report­ed by activists in Rus­sia:

“An ELF group claims respon­si­bil­i­ty for torch­ing of a work­ers’ shed (the build­ing was checked to ensure it was unoc­cu­pied pri­or to the attack) at a tree­cut site in south­ern Moscow (Bitcevs­ki for­est) on the night of april the 11th. An 5 litres of gaso­line and incen­di­ary device for time delay were used because of close prox­im­i­ty to guard­house and seri­ous sen­try pres­ence in the region. The for­est has seen numer­ous eco­tage actions (spik­ing, torch­ings of vehi­cles and stor­age sheds, etc), hence intense police atten­tion. No pho­tos or videos were released. The shed and its con­tents explod­ed 5 min­utes lat­er for unknown rea­sons.
— ELF-Rus­sia, Inter­na­tion­al Net­work of Action and Sol­i­dar­i­ty — Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion”

—–
Bitcevs­ki

“Urban gueril­las” in Moscow have claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the torch­ing of a large exca­va­tor at a con­do­mini­um con­struc­tion site near the Bitcevs­ki for­est on April 9. The con­do­mini­um is being built in part by the Russ­ian Mil­i­tary Intel­li­gence Ser­vice. Mil­i­tary per­son­nel are sup­posed to be sta­tioned in the build­ing. Video from the action and the Russ­ian com­mu­nique avail­able here: http://blackblocg.info/index.php/protestnye-dejstviya/93-gorodskie-partizany-atakovali-tochechnuyu-zastrojku-v-yasenevo

—–

anony­mous report:
“On the night of april the 5th, 2011, an exca­va­tor was set aflame and explod­ed 10 min­utes lat­er at the high­way con­struc­tion site that cuts through forests of Moscow region.

- ELF-Rus­sia”

VILLAGERS RESIST POWER PLANT, DRILLING VEHICLE BURNED, TURKEY

report­ed by activists in Turkey:

report­ed by activists in Turkey:

“On 5th of Sep­tem­ber, drilling vehi­cles of Anadolu Group (this group is the biggest part­ner of McDon­alds Turkey, Coca Cola Turkey) which tries to build a ther­mic pow­er plant to Gerze-Sinop tried to enter Yayk­il vil­lage. Local peo­ple and eco-activists bar­ri­cad­ed the roads to vil­lage for defend­ing their land, but police and gen­darme attacked peo­ple with tear gas, pep­per spray, water can­nons and batons. Activists answered this attack with stones and slo­gans. Dur­ing the police attack some build­ings, barns, farms and bush­es caught fire; 25 activists and 4 police­men injured.

Because of their resis­tance, drilling vehi­cles left the vil­lage. At night police took 6 activists in cus­tody from their homes.

At night of Sep­tem­ber 6, a drilling vehi­cle which was wait­ing in a gas sta­tion near the vil­lage was burned by unknown peo­ple. The vehi­cle is total­ly destroyed. Gen­darme and local police is still search­ing for the arson­ists in Gerze.

For pic­tures you can check out: http://www.gerzegundem.com/son-dakika/yaykilda-kan-akti-h545.html

For the video of police attack:
http://webtv.sabah.com.tr/webtv/videoizle/gerzede-polisten-cevrecilere-sert-mudahale

Ani­mal and Earth Lib­er­a­tion Sup­port­ers from Turkey”

Red women on green rampage – Women’s wing of CPI(Maoist) tells Giridih to stop felling trees

Forests of Pir­tand in Giridih dis­trict have new best friends in the form of CPI(Maoist) women’s wing, Nari Muk­ti Sangh.

Forests of Pir­tand in Giridih dis­trict have new best friends in the form of CPI(Maoist) women’s wing, Nari Muk­ti Sangh.

Since one week, around 70 women of the rebel out­fit are tak­ing out hour-long road­shows in the after­noon across the block, exhort­ing peo­ple not to cut trees. If they do, they bet­ter pay up a fine of Rs 1,000 or face some unspec­i­fied pun­ish­ment, which is like­ly to involve beat­ings. It is green activism that takes itself seri­ous­ly.

“Jun­gle bachana hi hoga var­na aane wale vinaash ke liye hum khud hi zim­me­war honge (we have to save forests at any cost now, oth­er­wise we will be respon­si­ble for nat­ur­al calami­ties),” thun­dered Neela Devi, one of the lead­ers of the out­fit.

The women, armed with axes, sticks and spades, move from vil­lage to vil­lage with grim deter­mi­na­tion, spread­ing the mes­sage of afforesta­tion.

Not only are they slo­ga­neer­ing, they are also tak­ing out ral­lies and stag­ing nukkad (neigh­bour­hood) meet­ings in dif­fer­ent vil­lages of the Maoist strong­hold.

Sources said unlike their male coun­ter­parts, the women don’t believe in vio­lence. But if any­one felling trees is caught red-hand­ed, he might be roughed up, as the women mem­bers have “threat­ened dire con­se­quences” if peo­ple dam­age the area’s green cov­er.
When the women rebels are not issu­ing threats, they are also inform­ing peo­ple about the impor­tance of trees.

“Forests are our real assets. Please realise their impor­tance and save trees. They absorb poi­so­nous gas­es and are the best friends of man and wildlife,” said Devi at a ral­ly on Mon­day.

Vil­lagers, slight­ly bemused, are how­ev­er turn­ing up in large num­bers to hear the women speak.

“We have had good response. Vil­lagers have promised not to fell trees indis­crim­i­nate­ly. But the Sangh will keep its eyes open,” said Devi.

On Mon­day, the Sangh’s road­show passed through dif­fer­ent vil­lages includ­ing Mas­no­tand, Pand­natand, Chil­ga and Pal­gunj, with around 70-odd women armed with pick­ax­es, spades and bam­boo sticks chant­i­ng pro-green slo­gans and hold­ing impromp­tu meet­ings.

At every spot, tens of vil­lagers lis­tened in pin-drop silence that would have been the envy of any green NGO.

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/18848/

Rossport round-up

Shell Con­trac­tor Quar­ry Shut Down For Day
Barret’s Quar­ry in Ban­gor Erris shut down by pro­test­ers

Shell Con­trac­tor Quar­ry Shut Down For Day
Barret’s Quar­ry in Ban­gor Erris shut down by pro­test­ers

On Wednes­day 31st August at 8am 15 peo­ple entered Barrett’s quar­ry, just out­side Ban­gor Erris in Co. Mayo and stopped work for the whole day, leav­ing at 5:30pm. Barrett’s is a sub­con­trac­tor on the Cor­rib Gas Project, cur­rent­ly bring­ing truck­loads of grav­el and hard­core to Shell’s site in Augh­oose.

Enter­ing the quar­ry site Wednes­day morn­ing was easy, as there were only a cou­ple secu­ri­ty guards and there is no fenc­ing around the site aside from the front gate. Once peo­ple were on site work was halt­ed pret­ty quick­ly as peo­ple climbed up onto dig­gers and oth­er machin­ery.

No attempt to remove the pro­test­ers was made, and the day was pret­ty calm. Folks even got up to play­ing were­wolves and cha­rades while on the machin­ery in order to pass the time.

At 5:30 after all the work­ers had gone home and there was no chance of them resum­ing their deliv­er­ies to the Shell site, all the pro­test­ers left through the front gate.

Pro­test­ers have been tar­get­ing Barrett’s lor­ries on the pub­lic road over the last few weeks as they were try­ing to make their stone deliv­er­ies to the Shell com­pound, by stop­ping them and climb­ing on top of them. This occu­pa­tion of the quar­ry itself is a mes­sage to all con­trac­tors work­ing for Shell on this project.

Near­by Lennon’s Quar­ry also sup­ply mate­r­i­al to the site and have also had many of their vehi­cles occu­pied in recent weeks. Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way said today: “Both busi­ness­es will con­tin­ue to be a tar­get of the cam­paign until they end all work at Shell sites.”

—-

Cor­rib protests – if Tues­day was not mad enough try today
26.8.11
MEP assault­ed, work halt­ed for six hours, cam­paign­ers dri­ve into refin­ery and bounced back out again four hours lat­er

Local Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers and their sup­port­ers at Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp are rest­ing after anoth­er bizarre day of lows, highs and out­right idio­cy dur­ing their ongo­ing protest against Shell in co. Mayo.

The day start­ed unpromis­ing­ly with a 6am sor­tie against the com­pound at Aghoos seek­ing to exploit a cou­ple of weak points in the fence. Shel­l’s con­trac­tors Road­bridge and Shevlins are rac­ing to fin­ish the first bit of work in con­struct­ing the fenc­ing and new entrance way. Every moment is count­ing for them. This left a cou­ple of promis­ing gaps which peo­ple from the camp sought to exploit in their dawn raid.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it was not to be. Secu­ri­ty from IRMS were aggres­sive from the begin­ning and were drag­ging peo­ple across hard-core and the road. Though the main tar­get failed, a sec­ondary one saw two peo­ple get in. As oth­er weak points were probed, one pro­test­er who was on the road was delib­er­ate­ly charged from behind, trip­ping them face-first onto the road. This was all pho­tographed; a com­plaint to a Sergeant import­ed from Gal­way was nat­u­ral­ly treat­ed with dis­dain, the gar­daí hap­pi­ly tak­ing their place as part of Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty. This has already been report­ed to the Amnesty/Frontline human rights observ­er in the area and will be pur­sued.

Peo­ple returned to camp to get a bit of rest and recu­per­ate. Just before mid­day, Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy (of the Social­ist Par­ty) and a num­ber of sup­port­ers turned up. They were shown the camp and giv­en an update as to how the cam­paign has been going.

While this was hap­pen­ing a group of peo­ple wait­ed near the junc­tion near Gle­n­amoy, a key turn­ing point for the vehi­cles com­ing between the refin­ery at Bel­linaboy and the Aghoos com­pound. Most trucks and trac­tors along this route are escort­ed by gar­daí, who have placed offi­cers along this route, and whose vans reg­u­lar­ly fol­low peo­ple walk­ing it.

Despite all this atten­tion from gar­daí, quick think­ing meant that one per­son was able to jump on top of a Bar­retts Quar­ry truck – the firm pro­vid­ing much of the hard-core – at around 1pm. It was a beau­ti­ful moment. Campers, locals, Paul Mur­phy & co all con­verged on the site. A good natured protest ensued, with peo­ple laugh­ing, jok­ing, singing, chil­dren mak­ing water bal­loons and the per­son on top of the truck giv­ing us a ren­di­tion of “Which Side Are You On”, re-word­ed to take in Shell.

In the refin­ery a back­log of trucks and oth­er vehi­cles began to build up. The pub­lic order team turned up with their cher­ry pick­er to remove the per­son on top of the truck. Those in the road sat down and formed two lines wrap­ping arms and legs around each oth­er with the aim of stop­ping the cher­ry-pick­er com­ing in. The thugs from the pub­lic order team wad­ed in, as ever, drag­ging peo­ple out, rip­ping cloth­ing and using pres­sure points on the ear. Paul Mur­phy, who was involved in the line was among those assault­ed in this fash­ion. Nat­u­ral­ly he was livid. Word is that the sto­ry is going ‘viral’.

Not to be deterred, after the per­son on the truck was removed and arrest­ed, peo­ple decamped to the front of the refin­ery. Num­bers grew to over 50 as more locals came to sup­port. It was fan­tas­tic to see old faces again, some­thing that real­ly boost­ed the campers. It was clear there was a buzz despite the rain that came on. There was more play­ing in front of the gates, and a deter­mi­na­tion to resist in the air. For those who had been at the morn­ing protest, it was such a lift. Gar­daí and secu­ri­ty stayed clear; the line of trucks backed up inside the refin­ery grew longer. The per­son who had been arrest­ed was charged, released and came to join the protest.

Even­tu­al­ly Shell caved in. They parked up the trucks and shut up shop at Aghoos at 6.30pm. Though hav­ing pushed their work­ers to keep to the exist­ing timetable, the day was lost to the cam­paign­ers. Fear­ing that they might try and take some of the vehi­cles out the back gate, peo­ple drove around, dri­ving up close to the back gate. Two of these cars dri­ven by locals (well known to secu­ri­ty) and con­tain­ing just as recog­nis­able peo­ple were waved through the refin­ery gates by secu­ri­ty. So, we sus­pect, heads are going to roll. One car drove around and back out again with­out secu­ri­ty actu­al­ly being aware of this. The oth­er stayed in and drove around the refin­ery, two fin­gers up to all who think they can run rough-shod over the peo­ple of Erris. Nat­u­ral­ly, the gar­daí, late to the par­ty this time, then began stop­ping work­ers going in. It was a great turn around to a long day. Now, for anoth­er plan­ning meet­ing…

For Paul Mur­phy’s own account:
I was just about to fin­ish this report when we heard… two IRMS (Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty) minibus­es were blocked for an hour. And the car was still in the refin­ery as of 8pm. So down we head again, bare­ly fin­ish­ing inner. Secu­ri­ty had sur­round­ed the car at the inner perime­ter fence as it was try­ing to leave. For some very bizarre rea­son they would not let the car leave by the gate direct­ly in front of it, but want­ed it to go all the way to the back gate.

The occu­pants refused that option as they were wor­ried they would be ambushed. A trac­tor was brought and attached to the back of the car by a rope. For the next hour and a half the car was bounced back­wards across the site. The idio­cy of the peo­ple doing this meant that the car was con­stant­ly bounc­ing and knock­ing against the back of the trac­tor. Once occu­pant phoned the gar­daí for help but the per­son answer­ing the 999 call laughed. It is not hard to see why the gar­daí in Erris are not trust­ed by the peo­ple who live there.

By 9pm a crowd of locals and peo­ple from the camp had assem­bled out­side the back gate in sup­port. Num­bers swelled to forty by 10pm when the trac­tor final­ly brought the car out — gar­daí and secu­ri­ty filled out into the road — the secu­ri­ty clear­ly act­ing like cops again – push­ing con­cerned friends and fam­i­ly away. It was a relief to see our friends safe again.

A long, exhaust­ing day, but amaz­ing in so many unex­pect­ed ways. Wel­come to Mayo.
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

—-

Mayo Road Block­ad­ed in Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Protest
August 26 2011
From 6.00am to 9.30am this morn­ing, three cam­paign­ers occu­pied Aghoos Road, as part of the ongo­ing protests against the con­tro­ver­sial Shell refin­ery at Bel­linaboy. They formed a tri­an­gle in the mid­dle of the road using a set of espe­cial­ly made arm-tubes. This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.
From 6.00am to 9.30am this morn­ing, three cam­paign­ers occu­pied Aghoos Road, as part of the ongo­ing protests against the con­tro­ver­sial Shell refin­ery at Bel­linaboy. They formed a tri­an­gle in the mid­dle of the road using a set of espe­cial­ly made arm-tubes. This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.

One of those occu­py­ing the road said, “I’m doing this in sup­port of a sim­i­lar protest that took place in Broome Com­mu­ni­ty, Aus­tralia last night. This is a pow­er­ful way to show that strug­gles from Ogo­ni­land in Nige­ria, to the Tar Sands in Cana­da, Aus­tralia, to Erris, Mayo and now to Aus­tralia are linked in com­mon cause. Once we heard about the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty actions we had to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. It feels real­ly pow­er­ful to be part of this.”

The Broome Com­mu­ni­ty are oppos­ing a gas project that par­al­lels the sit­u­a­tion in north-west Mayo. Like Mayo, Shell is one of the com­pa­nies being resist­ed by local com­mu­ni­ties. Links between the two com­mu­ni­ties are being estab­lished, and award win­ning film “The Pipe”, which doc­u­ments the Mayo sit­u­a­tion is being shown at events in Aus­tralia.

Yes­ter­day saw a series of events tar­get­ing the Shell refin­ery in Aghoos and Bel­linaboy. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was vis­it­ed by Paul Mur­phy, MEP who came to learn more about local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to the project. While tak­ing part in a peace­ful sit-down protest in front of a truck he was assault­ed and had his clothes torn by gar­dai.

Con Cough­lan, from the Camp said, “The deter­mi­na­tion we are feel­ing is incred­i­ble; know­ing that peo­ple in Aus­tralia were doing their protests while we were doing ours was inspir­ing for us all. We send our best wish­es out to them.”

ENDS

*FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:*
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp 085 1141170

Notes
1. For more infor­ma­tion on the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty protests see http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com/

2. For reports of events on Thurs­day, 25th August, see
Relat­ed Link: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

—–

Dai­ly Protests in Mayo, Num­bers Build­ing
Actions are con­stant, some­times 3 or 4 in a day

Between lock-ons, mass tres­pass­es, lor­ry climb­ing and a breach of secu­ri­ty at Shel­l’s refin­ery, this week brought a lot of peo­ple out protest­ing. Locals who haven’t been out on the roads in years have come out this week, and momen­tum is build­ing.

Here are some pho­tos from Wednes­day 24th August that haven’t been post­ed. Tues­day and Thurs­day were so full of events that these pho­tos did­n’t make it up. But things are hap­pen­ing every day, keep look­ing at the shelltosea.com web­site, twit­ter, and indy­media to stay post­ed.

Wednes­day’s events began with a 6am tres­pass onto Shel­l’s com­pound in Augh­oose. Soon after a few peo­ple went to join the locals who are at the refin­ery gates every morn­ing, and 6 peo­ple sat down in the road wrap­ping arms and legs around each oth­er to stop a trac­tor. Gar­dai dragged peo­ple out of the road for the trac­tor to pass. After this one per­son man­aged to climb on top of a truck deliv­er­ing bog­mats out­side the refin­ery. The per­son stayed up for about 10 min­utes but when a gar­da climbed onto the lor­ry and wres­tled her D‑lock away, pre­vent­ing her from lock­ing on, she came down and was not arrest­ed.

Lat­er that day Shell ille­gal­ly extend­ed their Augh­oose com­pound into the pub­lic road, using har­ris fenc­ing to reduce the road to one lane. Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty then stood in the pub­lic road, and work­ers yet again stopped traf­fic when­ev­er a deliv­ery was being made to the com­pound (which hap­pens 3–4 times an hour and can mean 5–30 min­utes of road clo­sure). When peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp saw them putting up fenc­ing in the road peo­ple went down to take advan­tage of the nar­row road for the next trac­tor deliv­ery. How­ev­er once again Gar­dai and IRMS worked togeth­er to push peo­ple into ditch­es, con­tain peo­ple, and clear the road.

Hon­est to god direct quote from MY 31 Sergeant Richard Maho­ny, explain­ing why peo­ple must clear the road, “For your own health and safe­ty, or we’ll throw you in the ditch.”

Apolo­gies for the belat­ed­ly post­ed pho­tos, it is not easy keep­ing up with media stuff when actions are hap­pen­ing con­stant­ly! There is plen­ty to do that does­n’t involve protest­ing as well, includ­ing tend­ing to the three gar­dens, cook­ing the com­mu­nal meals, main­tain­ing the wind tur­bines, and every­thing else it takes to main­tain the camp!

The camp is locat­ed in a field over­look­ing the Shell com­pound in Augh­oose, between Bel­lan­aboy and Pul­lath­omas. Come for a vis­it any­time! Con­tact the camp at rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com or 085 114 1170

—-

Mayo Road Block­ad­ed in Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Protest
From 6.00am to 9.30am Fri­day 26th August, three cam­paign­ers occu­pied Aghoos Road, as part of the ongo­ing protests against the con­tro­ver­sial Shell refin­ery at Bel­linaboy. They formed a tri­an­gle in the mid­dle of the road using a set of espe­cial­ly made arm-tubes.

This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.

One of those occu­py­ing the road said, “I’m doing this in sup­port of a sim­i­lar protest that took place in Broome Com­mu­ni­ty, Aus­tralia last night. This is a pow­er­ful way to show that strug­gles from Ogo­ni­land in Nige­ria, to the Tar Sands in Cana­da, Aus­tralia, to Erris, Mayo and now to Aus­tralia are linked in com­mon cause. Once we heard about the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty actions we had to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. It feels real­ly pow­er­ful to be part of this.”

The Broome Com­mu­ni­ty are oppos­ing a gas project that par­al­lels the sit­u­a­tion in north-west Mayo. Like Mayo, Shell is one of the com­pa­nies being resist­ed by local com­mu­ni­ties. Links between the two com­mu­ni­ties are being estab­lished, and award win­ning film “The Pipe”, which doc­u­ments the Mayo sit­u­a­tion is being shown at events in Aus­tralia.

Yes­ter­day saw a series of events tar­get­ing the Shell refin­ery in Aghoos and Bel­linaboy. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was vis­it­ed by Paul Mur­phy, MEP who came to learn more about local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to the project. While tak­ing part in a peace­ful sit-down protest in front of a truck he was assault­ed and had his clothes torn by gar­dai.

Con Cough­lan, from the Camp said, “The deter­mi­na­tion we are feel­ing is incred­i­ble; know­ing that peo­ple in Aus­tralia were doing their protests while we were doing ours was inspir­ing for us all. We send our best wish­es out to them.”

ENDS

Notes
1. For more infor­ma­tion on the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty protests see http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com/

2. For reports of events on Thurs­day, 25th August, see
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100407 and
This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.

One of those occu­py­ing the road said, “I’m doing this in sup­port of a sim­i­lar protest that took place in Broome Com­mu­ni­ty, Aus­tralia last night. This is a pow­er­ful way to show that strug­gles from Ogo­ni­land in Nige­ria, to the Tar Sands in Cana­da, Aus­tralia, to Erris, Mayo and now to Aus­tralia are linked in com­mon cause. Once we heard about the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty actions we had to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. It feels real­ly pow­er­ful to be part of this.”

The Broome Com­mu­ni­ty are oppos­ing a gas project that par­al­lels the sit­u­a­tion in north-west Mayo. Like Mayo, Shell is one of the com­pa­nies being resist­ed by local com­mu­ni­ties. Links between the two com­mu­ni­ties are being estab­lished, and award win­ning film “The Pipe”, which doc­u­ments the Mayo sit­u­a­tion is being shown at events in Aus­tralia.

Yes­ter­day saw a series of events tar­get­ing the Shell refin­ery in Aghoos and Bel­linaboy. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was vis­it­ed by Paul Mur­phy, MEP who came to learn more about local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to the project. While tak­ing part in a peace­ful sit-down protest in front of a truck he was assault­ed and had his clothes torn by gar­dai.

Con Cough­lan, from the Camp said, “The deter­mi­na­tion we are feel­ing is incred­i­ble; know­ing that peo­ple in Aus­tralia were doing their protests while we were doing ours was inspir­ing for us all. We send our best wish­es out to them.”

ENDS

Notes
1. For more infor­ma­tion on the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty protests see http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com/

2. For reports of events on Thurs­day, 25th August, see above, or
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100407 and
http://www.paulmurphymep.eu/breaking-news-how-the-gardai-assaulted-me-and-other-peaceful-protestors-in-rossport

The Black Fish is looking for crew members

The marine pro­tec­tion organ­i­sa­tion The Black Fish is look­ing for peo­ple to join its direct action team and future ship’s crew.

The marine pro­tec­tion organ­i­sa­tion The Black Fish is look­ing for peo­ple to join its direct action team and future ship’s crew. “In order to be effec­tive in our marine con­ser­va­tion cam­paigns, we need to be out at sea, oppos­ing the most destruc­tive fish­ing and hunt­ing activ­i­ties, where they hap­pen away from the pub­lic eye.” For this rea­son The Black Fish is work­ing towards the pur­chase of an ocean going ves­sel and is look­ing for crew mem­bers.

“There are pos­si­bil­i­ties open­ing up to us which might see us get­ting access to a ves­sel in the near future. We need a crew for the ini­tial over­haul of this ship and prepar­ing it for its first cam­paign.” accord­ing to Wietse van der Werf, spokesper­son for the organ­i­sa­tion.

The Black Fish has launched a crew appli­ca­tion page where peo­ple can apply for vol­un­tary crew posi­tions. “We are look­ing for peo­ple with sail­ing expe­ri­ence but this is not a neces­si­ty for the entire crew. Will­ing­ness and ded­i­ca­tion to com­mit time and hard work to make future cam­paigns of The Black Fish a suc­cess, that is a must.”

Any ques­tions relat­ed to crew­ing with The Black Fish, please see the crew­ing page on our web­site or con­tact the crew­ing coor­di­na­tor at crew@theblackfish.org

We look for­ward to your appli­ca­tion!

http://www.theblackfish.org/

HIGHWAY PROJECT SABOTAGED

received anony­mous­ly:

“10 kms of inter­state high­way staked out for exten­sion were sab­o­taged last week in North­ern Ukraine.

received anony­mous­ly:

“10 kms of inter­state high­way staked out for exten­sion were sab­o­taged last week in North­ern Ukraine.

Although some could argue that activism like this is not even worth men­tion­ing (that’s our own atti­tude on the mat­ter, for exam­ple, like shoplift­ing or sten­sils), we do find it nec­es­sary to men­tion the act.

First rea­son is an impor­tant notice that usu­al­ly fails to make its way into minds of some of our com­rades. While it is impor­tant to respond to Sys­tem offen­sive actions (like reac­tive attacks that took place in Kharkov and Saint-Peters­burgh and Moscow and basi­cal­ly every­where, where eco-anar­chists RESPOND to rap­ing of Nature), we find it more impor­tant to con­tin­ue our attacks on tech­nol­o­gy and its means of destruc­tion of nature even when no con­crete offense is tak­ing place.
In our case we just hap­pened upon some old high­way exten­sion project, which, like many cost­ly projects in Ukraine, was sus­pend­ed because of awful econ­o­my of the coun­try. Moth­er-Nature has already start­ed reclaim­ing the area, with grass and dirt cov­er­ing plates of con­crete and some sur­vey stakes.

But its obvi­ous for every­one liv­ing in here that projects like this (inter­state high­way between Moscow and Kiev) will be put to life, for exam­ple as soon as next bil­lion of dol­lars gets send by IMF or some­thing.
So our small vagabond group of earth lib­er­a­tionists went to van­dal­ism as soon as sur­vey stakes were noticed. Just to help the Wild and has­ten the process. We do believe the task was worth it.

And the rea­son for this is the thing that’s often lost in com­mu­niques of our com­rades world-wide. Its the most won­der­ful and mag­i­cal feel­ing of com­mu­nion with nature. When one does not only feels invig­o­rat­ed and excit­ed because of his deeds, but some­thing extra­or­di­nary hap­pens, that gives hope and pro­vides the momen­tum nec­es­sary for con­tin­u­a­tion of our project.

Dur­ing the process of (tire­some and dan­ger­ous ’cause of police inter­ven­tion) joy­ful destruc­tion, our hun­gry and thirsty band (rea­sons for our thirst and hunger being banal trav­el from point A to point B) kept stum­bling upon boun­ti­ful bush­es of wild sweet­bri­ar, so that we man­aged to fill our­selves and eat/suck the juices to our delight.
It is in moments like this that one gets to real­ly appre­ci­ate the con­nec­tion that comes into being when one turns away from civ­i­liza­tion and towards untamed Wild.

- Inter­na­tion­al ELF/FAI”

Three Heavy Machines torched at Ukraine Construction Site

30.8.11

report­ed by activists in Ukraine (pho­to from 057.ua):

“In the night of August 28th, 3 wheeled load­ers were torched in Gorky Park (Kharkov, Ukraine).

30.8.11

report­ed by activists in Ukraine (pho­to from 057.ua):

“In the night of August 28th, 3 wheeled load­ers were torched in Gorky Park (Kharkov, Ukraine).

Accord­ing to the chief engi­neer of Gorky Park, Oleg Gri­nenko, the load­ers had just start­ed their work in the park. The equip­ment belonged to a sub­con­trac­tor whose task was to pro­vide for new road infra­struc­ture. One of the destroyed loader’s mar­ket price was esti­mat­ed as $60,000.

Since the begin­ning of con­struc­tion on May 2011 , the con­struc­tion site has seen numer­ous eco­tage actions, expro­pri­a­tions of con­struc­tion equip­ment and mass protests.”