Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Solidarity needed for russian anarchist forest defenders

The Russ­ian move­ment to defend the Khim­ki for­est is a move­ment defend­ing all forests. If cor­po­ra­tions and politi­cians work­ing in the inter­est of a glob­al neolib­er­al and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive mod­el is able to exploit the Khim­ki for­est and con­tin­ue repress­ing the activists in spite of a his­tor­i­cal­ly broad and strong move­ment in Rus­sia defend­ing the for­est, than it can be done any­where.

The Russ­ian move­ment to defend the Khim­ki for­est is a move­ment defend­ing all forests. If cor­po­ra­tions and politi­cians work­ing in the inter­est of a glob­al neolib­er­al and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive mod­el is able to exploit the Khim­ki for­est and con­tin­ue repress­ing the activists in spite of a his­tor­i­cal­ly broad and strong move­ment in Rus­sia defend­ing the for­est, than it can be done any­where. Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the activists is the only way to both stop repres­sion and to save the Khim­ki for­est more per­ma­nent­ly. Please join the action called for by our Russ­ian friends!

Patrick Bond, Cen­tre for Civ­il Soci­ety Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Project, Dur­ban, South Africa

Mark Brown, Art Not Oil/Rising Tide, UK

Car­men Buer­ba de Comite de Defen­sa Eco­log­i­ca Michoa­cana, Mex­i­co

Nico­la Bullard, Focus on the Glob­al South, Thai­land

Ellie Cij­vat, Friends of the Earth Swe­den

Joshua Kahn Rus­sell, Ruckus Soci­ety, USA

Tom Kucharz, Ecol­o­gis­tas en Acción, Spain

Maduresh Kumar, Nation­al Alliance of Peo­ple’s Move­ments, India

Marea Cre­ciente Mex­i­co

Adri­ana Mat­a­lon­ga, Miguel Valen­cia y Mauri­cio Vil­le­gas from Eco­mu­nidades and Klimaforum10, Mex­i­co

Uddhab Pyakurel, South Asian Dia­logue on Eco­log­i­cal Democ­ra­cy, India

Josie Rif­faud, Via Campesina, France

Marko Ulvi­la and Thomas Wall­gren, Democ­ra­cy Forum Vasud­hai­va Kutum­bakam, Fin­land

You find infor­ma­tion and the call for action Sep­tem­ber 17–20 issued by Cam­paign for the Release of the Khim­ki Hostages in many lan­guages at www.khimkibattle.org. Below you find the text in Eng­lish, Span­ish, and French and more links on the issue.

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A Call for Inter­na­tion­al Days of Action in Sup­port of Alex­ei Gaskarov and Max­im Solopov

Sep­tem­ber 17­20, 2010

On July 28, 2010, more than two hun­dred young antifas­cists and anar­chists car­ried out a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion out­side the town admin­is­tra­tion build­ing in Khim­ki, a sub­urb of Moscow. They demon­strat­ed in defence of the Khim­ki For­est, which was at that time in the process of beings cut­ting down
for the needs of big busi­ness. The demon­stra­tion, dur­ing which sev­er­al win­dows were bro­ken, received a great deal of pub­lic atten­tion. The author­i­ties respond­ed with a wave of repres­sions. The day after the demon­stra­tion, two well-known social activists, Alex­ei Gaskarov and Max­im Solopov, were arrest­ed. They are now threat­ened with up to sev­en years in
prison for dis­or­der­ly con­duct, although there is no evi­dence of their com­plic­i­ty in ille­gal activ­i­ties. Mean­while, the police con­tin­ue to hunt down and harass oth­er activists, espe­cial­ly those involved in the antifas­cist move­ment.

The cam­paign to save the Khim­ki For­est has been going on for the past three years. The author­i­ties had decid­ed to build a seg­ment of a planned Moscow­Saint Peters­burg toll high­way, the first of its kind in Rus­sia, through the for­est. This would lead to the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions in the region, and local res­i­dents and Mus­covites would be deprived of yet anoth­er recre­ation zone. Despite the avail­abil­i­ty of alter­na­tive routes that would not require clear-cut­ting the for­est and
vig­or­ous protests by envi­ron­men­tal­ists and ordi­nary cit­i­zens against the planned route, the author­i­ties f0r a long time ignored the voice of soci­ety and on sev­er­al occa­sions took mea­sures to sup­press their crit­ics.

Khim­ki author­i­ties and the high­way project con­trac­tor have used vio­lence and oth­er tac­tics against Khim­ki For­est defend­ers. They refused to give per­mis­sion for protest demon­stra­tions, recruit­ed nation­al­ist thugs to break
up a peace­ful protest camp orga­nized by envi­ron­men­tal­ists and local res­i­dents, and ille­gal­ly arrest­ed and beat up jour­nal­ists cov­er­ing the sto­ry. Near­ly two years ago, Mikhail Beke­tov, edi­tor-in-chief of the news­pa­per Khimkin­skaya Prav­da and a crit­ic of the local admin­is­tra­tion, was severe­ly beat­en by per­sons unknown; the attack left Beke­tov per­ma­nent­ly
dis­abled. Sergei Pro­tozanov, the lay­out design­er of anoth­er local oppo­si­tion paper, was mur­dered in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances six months lat­er.

After the July 28 demon­stra­tion, the Russ­ian police and secret ser­vices unleashed an unprece­dent­ed drag­net against antifas­cists. Peo­ple who had even just once come to the atten­tion of the Cen­ter for Extrem­ism Pre­ven­tion and
FSB for their involve­ment with the antifas­cist move­ment have been forcibly tak­en in for ques­tion­ing. In sev­er­al cas­es they have been sub­ject­ed to harsh phys­i­cal coer­cion in order to com­pel them to give the tes­ti­mo­ny required by inves­ti­ga­tors. In addi­tion, ille­gal search­es have been car­ried out in their apart­ments. All these actions on the part of law enforce­ment
author­i­ties are vio­la­tions of Russ­ian and inter­na­tion­al law.

Fright­ened by the numer­ous and grow­ing protests against the clear-cut­ting of the Khim­ki For­est, the author­i­ties have final­ly made con­ces­sions by agree­ing to review the advis­abil­i­ty of the planned route for the toll high­way. But this does not mean vic­to­ry. Alex­ei Gaskarov and Max­im Solopov are still in
police cus­tody for no rea­son at all. They are hostages of the author­i­ties.

In late Sep­tem­ber, the next hear­ing in their case will take place. The judge will decide whether to keep them in police cus­tody pend­ing com­ple­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion and tri­al. Every­one who cares about the fate of these two young men must do every­thing in their pow­er to see that they are set free.
The Cam­paign for the Release of the Khim­ki Hostages calls on peo­ple around the world to orga­nize days of action on Sep­tem­ber 17, 18, 19, and 20 to pres­sure the Russ­ian author­i­ties to release Alex­ei and Max­im.

We ask you to hold protests out­side of Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion embassies, con­sulates, trade mis­sions, and cul­tur­al cen­ters, as well as at pub­lic events and con­certs con­nect­ed to Rus­sia. We also ask you to send faxes,e‑mails, and protest let­ters to the court, the pros­e­cu­tor¹s office, and the coun­try¹s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship. In the very near­future we will inform you of
address­es where you can send these protests as well as more details about the ongo­ing repres­sions in Rus­sia. Look for this infor­ma­tion on our web­site

http://khimkibattle.org in Eng­lish, Ger­man, Russ­ian, and French.

Join our cam­paign!

Cam­paign for the Release of the Khim­ki Hostages

+7 (915) 053‑5912 * info@khimkibattle.org * http://khimkibattle.org

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Back ground infor­ma­tion:

Chtode­lat news, Khim­ki Ter­ri­to­ry of Law­less­ness
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/khimki-territory-of-lawlessness/

Why we need sol­i­dar­i­ty with Russ­ian envi­ron­men­tal­ists and antifas­cists
http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1748

40 years since Laxá Dam was sabotaged, Iceland

Yes­ter­day, August 25th, 300 peo­ple cel­e­brat­ed that 40 years ago, peo­ple opposed to the build­ing of dams in Laxá in Mývatnssveit, sab­o­taged a
small­er dam that had already been built.

Yes­ter­day, August 25th, 300 peo­ple cel­e­brat­ed that 40 years ago, peo­ple opposed to the build­ing of dams in Laxá in Mývatnssveit, sab­o­taged a
small­er dam that had already been built.

The local peo­ple had opposed this project through legal means but it did not seem to be work­ing. August 25th 1970, most of them were in a funer­al, where the rumour was spread amongst peo­ple – the dam was going to be sab­o­taged. The orig­i­nal plan was to destroy it with tools but short­ly after the work start­ed, peo­ple real­ized they would need some­thing stronger. They knew of dyna­mite, owned by the ener­gy com­pa­ny
Laxávirkjun… so, what a bet­ter way to use that dyna­mite!? “We bor­rowed it” was the answer of one of the bombers, in the evening news yes­ter­day.

More then 120 peo­ple claimed their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the sab­o­tage – 65 of them were lat­er sen­tenced to prison on pro­ba­tion.

Yes­ter­day, a memo­r­i­al stat­ue was put up by the riv­er, where the dam used to stand. The local church choir sang some songs and speech­es were held. The sab­o­tage is remem­bered as a very impor­tant event in Ice­land’s his­to­ry
of nature con­ser­va­tion.

Not every­body agrees with this; Jakob Björns­son, ex-ener­gy direc­tor of Ice­land, said that the cel­e­bra­tion is shame­ful. Well, fuck him!

Here is a video from the evening news, show­ing pho­tos from the day of the sab­o­tage: http://dagskra.ruv.is/sjonvarpid/4498095/2010/08/25/14

People Unite in Opposition to Scottish Coal’s Open Cast Plans in Midlothian

22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

Growing Resistance22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

The protest start­ed in the Vil­lage Hall, with peo­ple gath­er­ing for a speech and wel­come by CAAOC Chair­per­son Dougie McKen­zie. The group then marched through the vil­lage the short dis­tance to the pro­posed open cast site, set in Mid­loth­i­an’s beau­ti­ful coun­try­side, and through the right of way to the cen­tre of the open cast area. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers explained the extent of the bound­aries of the site and the dev­as­ta­tion that would be caused by it.

Fiona Reed, of Coal Action Scot­land, speak­ing to the con­gre­gat­ed crowd, said: “We’ve come here today to con­tin­ue our long term com­mit­ment to sup­port and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with this com­mu­ni­ty and their strug­gle against open cast coal. Across Scot­land com­mu­ni­ties are blight­ed by com­pa­nies like Scot­tish Coal, whether its the health impacts, eco­nom­ic degra­da­tion or the destruc­tion of their local envi­ron­ment they suf­fer. Togeth­er we are stronger!”

Dougie McKen­zie, chair of the cam­paign­ing group, Com­mu­ni­ties Against Air­field Open Cast (CAAOC), said, “We are delight­ed that Coal Action Scot­land is sup­port­ing our cam­paign. Local peo­ple have real con­cerns not only about the impact this mine will have on local busi­ness­es, but also on our safe­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of our chil­dren — the area sur­round­ing the vil­lage of Cous­land is rid­dled with old lime­stone mine work­ings, and we have seri­ous con­cerns about the impact blast­ing will have on the already unsta­ble ground. Already this year we believe there have been 2 land col­laps­es into old mine work­ings in the fields around Air­field, and a few years pre­vi­ous­ly a 15-year old boy nar­row­ly escaped death when the ground in the local play­ing field col­lapsed beneath him .”

“We hope this rur­al protest march will raise aware­ness of our cam­paign and will encour­age more peo­ple to object to Scot­tish Coal’s appli­ca­tion. We sus­pect that there will be many peo­ple in Edin­burgh unaware of this pro­posed blot on the beau­ti­ful land­scape so close to the city.”

Huntington Lane needs YOU!

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site.

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site. It has also been dis­cov­ered that jobs at the mine site are being advertised/allocated and local firm McPhilips will begin work­ing on the site infra­struc­ture very soon.
Time is fast run­ning out before an evic­tion notice is served and the camp would like to issue a call out for peo­ple, tools, lock on gear of all kinds (padlocks,D‑locks etc), water and food. If you’re unable to offer any of these things but would like to sup­port the camp, words of sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port are also very grate­ful­ly received 🙂
Camp

OPEN CAST COAL IN THE SHADOW OF THE WREKIN
In Octo­ber of 2009 UK Coal were grant­ed per­mis­sion by the then Sec­re­tary of State, John Den­ham to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal from a site called ‘Hunt­ing­ton Lane Sur­face Mine Site’ near Telford, Shrop­shire – this beau­ti­ful 230 acre site near The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills AONB and is home to a sced­uled ancient mon­u­ment. At least one Coun­ty Wildlife Site and the flo­ra and fau­na of the borough’s largest and most valu­able areas of ancient wood­land are threat­ened by the sur­face mine. The devel­op­ment also involves the dis­tur­bance of four bad­ger setts and the for­ag­ing ter­ri­to­ries of a fur­ther two bad­ger clans.

Not only does the pro­posed mine rep­re­sent a major blot on the beau­ti­ful rur­al land­scape, being clear­ly vis­i­ble from the Wrekin and many oth­er local areas, and also cre­ate three years of noise and dust for local res­i­dents – the sub­se­quent burn­ing of the mined coal will release a min­i­mum of 2,430,000 tonnes of cli­mate chang­ing CO2 emis­sions into the atmos­phere.

In March 2010 pro­test­ers moved onto the site in an effort to resist this destruc­tion at the hands of UK Coal.

huntingtolane1

HOW TO GET THERE
The entry point is actu­al­ly on New Works Lane, New Works, Telford, Shrop­shire. The near­est train sta­tion is Welling­ton (Telford West).

For a map view go to:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tf6+5bs&sll=52.675432,-2.498875&sspn=0.005738,0.013797&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Telford+TF6+5BS,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.675174,-2.499985&spn=0.000724,0.001725&t=h&z=19

The mark­er on the map is not quite in the right place but is very close to the entry point for camp – the stile is actu­al­ly on the oth­er side of New Works Lane, just before the hous­es begin, in the bush­es to the right of a shon­ky old gate! (Please don’t block the gate if you’re com­ing by car/van as it’s still in use by the farmer – park at the side of the road if you can. There is more space to park head­ing north up New Works Lane) If you zoom right in on the map you can see the entrance on Streetview, but be warned – the green­ery around the stile has grown sub­stan­cial­ly since this pic­ture was tak­en! Once over the stile just fol­low the path; it breaks off to the left behind the hous­es and also to the right a lit­tle fur­ther along; ignore these turn­ings and fol­low the straight path which bears to the left after them. Con­tin­ue to fol­low the path until you reach the sign direct­ing you to camp.

HOW TO CONTACT THE CAMP
Tel: 07503 583419 or 07727 295232
Email: defendhuntingtonlane@hushmail.com
Web: http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com

*PLEASE PASS THIS INFOMATION ON TO ANY PERSONS OR GROUPS YOU THINK MAY BE INTERESTED*

Many Thanks!

Growing Resistance – trip to Cousland — Saturday 21st August 2010

Grow­ing Resis­tance is an event organ­ised by Coal Action Scot­land, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Com­mu­ni­ties Against Air­field Open Cast, tak­ing place dur­ing the Camp For Cli­mate Action, which this year is in Edin­burgh.

Grow­ing Resis­tance is an event organ­ised by Coal Action Scot­land, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Com­mu­ni­ties Against Air­field Open Cast, tak­ing place dur­ing the Camp For Cli­mate Action, which this year is in Edin­burgh.

For two years the com­mu­ni­ty sur­round­ing Air­field Farm have been object­ing to Scot­tish Coals plans to open cast the area in order to remove two mil­lion tons of coal. In an inde­pen­dent sur­vey 95% of local res­i­dents object to the planned mine. Despite this, Scot­tish Coal is push­ing ahead with the plans, and the very real fear is that Mid­loth­i­an Coun­cil will give them the go ahead. To show the local peo­ple that they are not alone in this strug­gle we are ask­ing peo­ple to join us on Sat­ur­day the 21st on the threat­ened land.

We will have infor­ma­tion from Coal Action Scot­land and the Coal Action Net­work, speak­ers from the local com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in Scot­land plagued by the coal indus­try and a tour of the land under threat. There will be a bike car­a­van set­ting of from Cli­mate Camp, via Edin­burgh, arriv­ing about 3pm, and minibus shut­tles from Cli­mate Camp and the near­by town of Dalki­eth. For trav­el direc­tions see here.

If you want up to date infor­ma­tion about trav­el or get lost call our Trans­port Line num­ber: 07984706188 (only avail­able from Sat­ur­day morn­ing onwards)

If you have any ques­tions please email us at coalac­tion­scot­land [at] riseup.net

If you can’t make the event but still want to help the Cous­land com­mu­ni­ty then please send an objec­tion let­ter.

Climate Camp Cymru invades Nant Helen opencast site

17th August 2010
Activists from Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru invad­ed Nant Helen open cast coal mine in south Wales ear­li­er today.

Despite dis­pro­por­tion­ate polic­ing at the 2010 camp, groups of activists per­sist­ed in their objec­tives to wit­ness the destruc­tive oper­a­tions at Nant Helen open cast mine, owned by Celtic Ener­gy.

17th August 2010
Activists from Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru invad­ed Nant Helen open cast coal mine in south Wales ear­li­er today.

Despite dis­pro­por­tion­ate polic­ing at the 2010 camp, groups of activists per­sist­ed in their objec­tives to wit­ness the destruc­tive oper­a­tions at Nant Helen open cast mine, owned by Celtic Ener­gy.

The activists entered the coal hole at Nant Helen, where 450,000 tonnes of coal per year are dug out of aClimate Camp Cymru invades Nant Helen open cast coal mine hole approx­i­mate­ly 150m deep and 1.5 x 1 km wide. Celtic Ener­gy have applied for plan­ning per­mis­sion for the mine to expand.

This coal is most­ly des­tined for Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion, to be burnt for elec­tric­i­ty, which is one of the dirt­i­est and most car­bon
inten­sive indus­tri­al process­es.

Activist Ffion Dafys said “rip­ping up moun­tains to dig holes hun­dreds of meters deep destroys the land­scape and the local
envi­ron­ment. The coal removed and burnt will gen­er­ate mil­lions of
tonnes of CO2 over the next four years.”

“Coal seams in Glynn Neath will con­tin­ue to be exploit­ed and extend­ed by open cast min­ing cor­po­ra­tions like Celtic Ener­gy, caus­ing envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion until these oper­a­tions cease. Observ­ing from the bot­tom of the coal hole real­ly brought home the enor­mi­ty of the destruc­tion.”

Climate Camp Cymru is evicted long live Climate Camp Cymru

* * * IMPORTANT UPDATE * * *

15-08-2010 20:55 CLIMATE CAMP CYMRU UP AND RUNNING AGAIN. Hav­ing been evict­ed by South Wales police from a site near Glyn-Neath (see below), Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is now estab­lished on a new site on the Gow­er Penin­su­la near Swansea.
If you fan­cy join­ing the camp, give site a call on 07040909147 and they’ll give you direc­tions and a warm wel­come.

* * * IMPORTANT UPDATE * * *

15-08-2010 20:55 CLIMATE CAMP CYMRU UP AND RUNNING AGAIN. Hav­ing been evict­ed by South Wales police from a site near Glyn-Neath (see below), Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is now estab­lished on a new site on the Gow­er Penin­su­la near Swansea.
If you fan­cy join­ing the camp, give site a call on 07040909147 and they’ll give you direc­tions and a warm wel­come.
http://climatecampcymru.org/

CLIMATE CAMP CYMRU EVICTED

Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru, which was due to con­tin­ue until Tues­day 17th August at Glyn-Neath in South Wales, was evict­ed by the police on its sec­ond day (Sat­ur­day 14th) over alleged com­plaints about pos­si­ble dam­age to the site cho­sen by the campers, a Roman Hill Fort.

SPURIOUS GROUNDS FOR EVICTION

Hav­ing stood by use­less­ly for years while the beau­ti­ful land­scape of the Welsh Val­leys has been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly trashed by open­cast min­ing com­pa­nies, South Wales Police seem to have sud­den­ly devel­oped a touch­ing con­cern for the envi­ron­ment, mov­ing in en masse with riot vans and on horse­back to evict the campers on these spu­ri­ous grounds. While Cli­mate Campers have a deserved rep­u­ta­tion for clear­ing up after them­selves and are unlike­ly to have done more dam­age than stick a few tent pegs in the sacred soil, open­cast min­ing com­pa­nies destroy whole moun­tains | 1 | 2 | and impor­tant wildlife habi­tats with­out the cops appear­ing to notice or care.

We are still await­ing first-hand reports from campers, but Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru has issued a press release which states that Cadw, the gov­ern­ment body respon­si­ble for the site and whose aims, inci­den­tal­ly, are ‘to pro­tect and sus­tain, encour­age com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment in and improve access to the his­toric envi­ron­ment of Wales’, had ‘vis­it­ed the site and accept­ed that the camp could go ahead with police mon­i­tor­ing.’ It seems like­ly that the cops inter­pret­ed this to mean they could stop the camp when­ev­er they want­ed. A spokesper­son for the camp said: ‘This just goes to show the pri­or­i­ties of the cur­rent gov­ern­ment, who are more inter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing cli­mate crim­i­nals like Celtic Ener­gy and in repress­ing those tak­ing action on cli­mate change, than on actu­al­ly tack­ling the cli­mate cri­sis them­selves.’

Ffos y fran coal train verdict + action snaps

13 of us were in court today (13.8.10) to be sen­tenced for blockad­ing the rail­way at Ffos y fran mine back in April, when sev­er­al peo­ple locked on to the tracks in order to stop a train car­ry­ing coal to Aberthaw, the dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion in Wales.

13 of us were in court today (13.8.10) to be sen­tenced for blockad­ing the rail­way at Ffos y fran mine back in April, when sev­er­al peo­ple locked on to the tracks in order to stop a train car­ry­ing coal to Aberthaw, the dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion in Wales.

Ffos y fran train 3

We received con­di­tion­al dis­charges and restrain­ing orders away from the mine and the pow­er sta­tion. Four peo­ple were ordered to pay com­pen­sa­tion costs to Miller Argent, the com­pa­ny who owns the mine, The judge acknowl­edged that the action had been car­ried out care­ful­ly to ensure there would be no dan­ger to any­one.

With their hands in the pock­ets of cor­po­ra­tions, it’s not sur­pris­ing that gov­ern­ments failed us at the Copen­hagen cli­mate sum­mit. We can’t rely on their false solu­tions any­more. It’s up to ordi­nary peo­ple tak­ing direct action to stop cli­mate chaos. Fos­sil fuel extrac­tion dev­as­tates com­mu­ni­ties and is being resist­ed around the world, from open­cast min­ing in Merthyr to tar sands oil in Alber­ta, Cana­da.

Mean­while, Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru set up camp today near Nant Helen and Sel­er open­cast mines, else­where in south Wales.

http://www.risingtide.org.uk

Ffos y fran train 2

Ffos y fran train 1

More cool pho­tos

Climate Camp Cymru meetup point announced

*Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru*
*13 — 17 August*

Open­cast is trash­ing the south Wales land­scape — it’s time to take action…

From mid­day on Fri­day 13th August you are invit­ed to a con­ver­gence space in cen­tral Cardiff. The loca­tion of this space is Cardiff Quak­er Meet­ing House, 43 Charles Street, Cardiff.

*Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru*
*13 — 17 August*

Open­cast is trash­ing the south Wales land­scape — it’s time to take action…

From mid­day on Fri­day 13th August you are invit­ed to a con­ver­gence space in cen­tral Cardiff. The loca­tion of this space is Cardiff Quak­er Meet­ing House, 43 Charles Street, Cardiff.

From here peo­ple will be direct­ed to a train sta­tion, where minibus­es will be avail­able to trans­port peo­ple to the the site. Expe­ri­enced cyclists may wish to bring bikes and cycle to the site.
NB: you will need £4.50 each way for the train fare.

The loca­tion of the site will be announced at approx­i­mate­ly 2pm on Fri­day 13th August.

At 2pm on 13th August peo­ple will be sen­tenced at Merthyr Crown Court for the lock-on to the rail­way line between Ffos-y-Fran and Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion. It would be great if peo­ple could go to the court to sup­port them. Trans­port will be arranged to the site after.

The con­ver­gence space in Cardiff will be open until 5pm. We encour­age every­one who can to reach the site on Fri­day night, although the minibus­es will be avail­able through­out Sat­ur­day from the train sta­tion.

Please watch this space for more detail.

Things to bring:
Tent
Sleep­ing bag
Warm clothes and water­proofs
Plate, bowl, mug and cut­lery
Loo roll

and a bike could be use­ful too

www.climatecampcymru.org
info@climatecampcymru.org
07040 909 147

Legal sup­port phone con­tact dur­ing the camp will be 07587 220197

3 days of action for Beat the Boreholes in Rossport

Shell drilling stopped for an hour and a half

6.08.2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers go out before 7am and suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent work­ers from access­ing the drilling plat­forms.

rossport-wadersShell drilling stopped for an hour and a half

6.08.2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers go out before 7am and suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent work­ers from access­ing the drilling plat­forms.

9 Campers wadded and kayaked out to the plat­forms this morn­ing and halt­ed work for 1 and half hours. IRMS work­ers even­tu­al­ly secured the area by push­ing peo­ple away and drag­ging their kayaks down the estu­ary. Kayaks were deflat­ed by secu­ri­ty and some peo­ple were dan­ger­ous­ly forced to swim in high cur­rents. There were no arrests.

We real­ly need more peo­ple to come and take part in actions over the next two months. Please get in touch if you think you would be able to come down and help stop Shell.

http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

—-
Shell drilling stopped for 5 hours – as Beat the Bore­holes con­tin­ues

05.08.2010
Yes­ter­day morn­ing 11 peo­ple from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp wad­ed and kayaked out from the camp to again delay Shell’s sur­vey work in Sruwad­da­con Estu­ary. Over­all drilling work was stopped for over 5 hours, with one per­son climb­ing up one of the legs of the drilling plat­forms. Sev­er­al peo­ple also attached them­selves to the 2 out­er drilling poles which are under the plat­forms.

The campers went out before 7am to pre­vent work­ers get­ting access to the plat­form and held the plat­form for about 4 hours before being removed by IRMS secu­ri­ty. Despite only 11 pro­test­ers being present, it took 50 IRMS to come before they could secure the area. After about 5 hours the drilling work­ers got on board and start­ed prepar­ing the drilling oper­a­tion. Even­tu­al­ly they start­ed drilling at around 1pm, despite the climber still being perched at the side of the plat­form. They drilled for approx­i­mate­ly an hour before the climber came down and swam back to shore.

The drilling plat­forms are cur­rent­ly in a vital part of the SAC; close to bird feed­ing and nest­ing sites. At this time the estu­ary is also used as a migra­tion route for Atlantic Salmon which are an Annex 1 species (the most pro­tect­ed EU cat­e­go­ry). They are very vul­ner­a­ble to suf­fo­ca­tion by sus­pend­ed solids in the water clog­ging their gills and today we saw evi­dence of sed­i­ment spew­ing into the estu­ary from the bore­holes. Move­ment of the plat­forms will also release sus­pend­ed solids; endan­ger­ing the sup­pos­ed­ly pro­tect­ed salmon. This direct­ly con­tra­venes the pur­pose of the SAC which Min­is­ter Gorm­ley seems to con­ve­nient­ly for­get when it comes to facil­i­tat­ing big busi­ness here in Mayo but likes to remind us at oth­er times such as on 2nd August in rela­tion to restrict­ing leisure activ­i­ties to pro­tect SAC’s, the Min­is­ter said;
“Along with oth­er EU States, Ire­land has des­ig­nat­ed cer­tain areas for nature pro­tec­tion and, in those areas, that must be our pri­or­i­ty. Many peo­ple, indeed, find recre­ation in the enjoy­ment of undis­turbed nature,” he con­clud­ed .
Indeed Gorm­ley, that is what the peo­ple of Erris have been say­ing for 10 years; its time to pro­tect this SAC from Shell!

John Gorm­ley’s recent press release:
http://www.environ.ie/en/Heritage/NationalParksandWildl…n.htm

rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org, www.shelltosea.com

—-

Shell dis­rupt­ed — Beat the Bore­holes con­tin­ues

9.8.2010
Yes­ter­day at about 2.30pm Shell began to low­er “Jack — 1” — one of two sur­vey barges cur­rent­ly in Sruth Fha­da Chonn estu­ary SAC (Spe­cial Area of Pro­tec­tion) — in order to tug it to anoth­er part of the estu­ary.

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was ready and will­ing to claim free pas­sage of the pub­lic estu­ary and in the process upset the oper­a­tion. Over a dozen Shell secu­ri­ty boats and two Gar­da RIBS could­n’t keep the 6 kayk­ers out, with two of them reach­ing the mov­ing barge after an hour and a half of chase.

Shel­l’s jack-up barges are dam­ag­ing Sruth Fha­da Chonn estu­ary SAC (Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion) by drilling sur­vey bore­holes for the pro­posed Onshore Cor­rib Gas Pipeline tun­nel — the lat­est route offered by Shell as a means to hook up the refin­ery to the well. At each new loca­tion the barges mas­sive legs are low­ered into the estu­ary crush­ing life beneath the sand. Estu­ary water is being used to lubri­cate the work, and and out­fall pipe is dis­charg­ing it back in to the sup­pos­ed­ly pro­tect­ed waters.

The Gar­daí seemed hap­py to let IRMS do as they pleased on the water, with kayak­ers being unlaw­ful­ly rammed, grabbed, towed against their will — all on a pub­lic water­way. At one stage an IRMS boat stole one kayak from under its own­er, cap­siz­ing him into the water. The Gar­daí issued many Sec­tion 8 warn­ing under the pub­lic order act (to the kayk­ers) but no arrests were made, despite one kayak­er mak­ing it onto the mov­ing rig.

Beat the bore­holes con­tin­ues, now both rigs are in the upper estu­ary — on the sand at low tide and acces­si­ble by walk­ing.

rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org, www.shelltosea.com