Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Trashing, dashing, bashing, mashing: the new EF! Action Update

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

Maybe you’re in need of a break. But if you’re not, and are just champ­ing at the bit, the return of AUn­tie MIffy’s prob­lem page might help, address­ing what to do if there’s no local group near you. There’s an arti­cle about the begin­nings of EF! in this coun­try, look­ing for­wards to the next 20 years, to help inspire. If you need sup­port to get things going where you live, do get in touch. And if all that’s not enough, here’s a quo­ta­tion, from Paul Wat­son, the Sea Shep­herd cap­tain:

“Future gen­er­a­tions will not have the chance and those that came before us did not have the vision nor the knowl­edge. It is up to us — you and I.”

Print ver­sion
Oth­er issues and extra info

Anti-Coal Protest raft sails down River Seven

On Sun­day 31st res­i­dents from the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp took their mes­sage onto the riv­er Sev­en and sailed it down­stream. The six per­son raft com­plete with a big “No New Coal” ban­ner and UK Coal dig­ger fig­ure­head sailed down the Riv­er Sev­en and past EON’s Build­was B coal fired pow­er sta­tion which is where the coal from Hunt­ing­ton Lane will even­tu­al­ly end up. It then sailed fur­ther down­stream and under the famous Iron Bridge where it was meet with cheers from a crowd of locals and tourists who had gath­ered on the bridge.

No New Coal Raft
On Sun­day 31st res­i­dents from the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp took their mes­sage onto the riv­er Sev­en and sailed it down­stream. The six per­son raft com­plete with a big “No New Coal” ban­ner and UK Coal dig­ger fig­ure­head sailed down the Riv­er Sev­en and past EON’s Build­was B coal fired pow­er sta­tion which is where the coal from Hunt­ing­ton Lane will even­tu­al­ly end up. It then sailed fur­ther down­stream and under the famous Iron Bridge where it was meet with cheers from a crowd of locals and tourists who had gath­ered on the bridge.

There was also a team on land who were rais­ing aware­ness of the camp by talk­ing to the peo­ple on the river­side and bridge about what they were doing and why they where doing it. Gen­er­al­ly most peo­ple were sup­port­ive and pos­i­tive about the cam­paign. The event also had a fair bit of local media over­age with the Shrop­shire Star and Mid­lands Today both cov­er­ing it.

The camp has now been stop­ping work at Hunt­ing­ton Lane almost six months, if you want to help then dona­tions of food, tools and water are always appre­ci­at­ed as are new faces at the camp

West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action
http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/
http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/protest-raft-river-seven/

Waders tie down Shell testing rig in Mayo, Republic of Ireland

30.07.2010
10 peo­ple from the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp delayed Shell’s sur­vey work for the dan­ger­ous and exper­i­men­tal Cor­rib gas pipeline yes­ter­day. The cam­paign­ers wad­ed out to one of the rigs drilling bore­holes in the Sruwad­da­con estu­ary the rig at high tide, fixed rope around the legs of the rig, and occu­pied the space under­neath it to pre­vent the being moved to a new site. Work was delayed for around two hours.

Beat the Boreholes banner30.07.2010
10 peo­ple from the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp delayed Shell’s sur­vey work for the dan­ger­ous and exper­i­men­tal Cor­rib gas pipeline yes­ter­day. The cam­paign­ers wad­ed out to one of the rigs drilling bore­holes in the Sruwad­da­con estu­ary the rig at high tide, fixed rope around the legs of the rig, and occu­pied the space under­neath it to pre­vent the being moved to a new site. Work was delayed for around two hours.

Shell’s secu­ri­ty guards IRMS cut the ropes around the rig, but did not try to remove the pro­test­ers so the occu­pa­tion of the area under the rig con­tin­ued until the Gar­dai arrived. Six of the waders were arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let police sta­tion. Three oth­ers returned to the water in kayaks to make a fur­ther attempt to stop the rig but were blocked by secu­ri­ty in speed­boats – one kayak­er was also arrest­ed. All those arrest­ed were lat­er released with­out charge.

Shell is cur­rent­ly drilling sur­vey bore­holes to gath­er infor­ma­tion to sup­port its plan to put the gas pipeline through a tun­nel run­ning up the estu­ary. Cam­paign­ers from the local com­mu­ni­ty and the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp have been obstruct­ing the test­ing in a series of protests and actions on water and on land.

‘Beat the Bore­holes’ cam­paign is up and run­ning, invit­ing groups to the camp to take on an action against one of the esti­mat­ed 80 bore­holes. To get involved in the cam­paign, call or email the camp. The ‘Beat the Bore­holes’ guide will be pub­lished soon.

Yesterday’s action coin­cid­ed with Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp mem­ber Niall Harnett’s 100th day in prison. Niall was sen­tenced to five months in prison on a trumped-up charge of assault­ing a police offi­cer, after mak­ing him­self a thorn in Shell’s side with his work on the cam­paign over sev­er­al years.

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

Protesters attack Russian town hall to save forest

2010-07-29
A band of 100 masked peo­ple staged a vio­lent envi­ron­men­tal protest in a qui­et Moscow sub­urb, hurl­ing Molo­tov cock­tails and fire­works at city hall while object­ing to plans for clear­ing a local for­est for high­way con­struc­tion, Russ­ian police said.

2010-07-29
A band of 100 masked peo­ple staged a vio­lent envi­ron­men­tal protest in a qui­et Moscow sub­urb, hurl­ing Molo­tov cock­tails and fire­works at city hall while object­ing to plans for clear­ing a local for­est for high­way con­struc­tion, Russ­ian police said.

The cen­turies-old oak for­est in Khim­ki has been a focus of con­tro­ver­sy for years, as author­i­ties plan to cut down much of the woods to make way for a major high­way along the increas­ing­ly jammed route from Moscow to Shereme­tye­vo Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. In 2008, a local jour­nal­ist who report­ed on the issue was bru­tal­ly beat­en and left crip­pled and brain-dam­aged.

Late Wednes­day about 90 uniden­ti­fied peo­ple attacked Khim­ki city hall, Moscow region­al police said.

Russ­ian tele­vi­sion broad­cast ama­teur video footage show­ing masked attack­ers throw­ing fire­works and bot­tles at the build­ing, on which they had spray-paint­ed “Save Russ­ian forests” and “No to Khim­ki for­est clear­ing.” Khim­ki offi­cials said the attack­ers also threw Molo­tov cock­tails.

City hall secu­ri­ty offi­cers stayed inside the build­ing, and called police after the assailants had left, Khim­ki police chief Vik­tor Tanasiy­chuk said.

“Nat­u­ral­ly, police squads did not find any­one at the scene when they arrived,” he said. Police said the attack­ers then left on a sub­ur­ban train to Moscow.

No one was arrest­ed at the scene, but police lat­er detained nine envi­ron­men­tal­ists who have lived in the for­est to stop log­gers from clear­ing the trees. The activists denied any involve­ment in Wednes­day’s attack, and a police spokesman con­firmed they were not sus­pect­ed in the attack. The spokesman said the activists instead are sus­pect­ed of dis­turb­ing pub­lic order and resist­ing police, but he did not elab­o­rate.

The head of the coun­try’s Union of Envi­ron­men­tal Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Orga­ni­za­tions, Andrey Morgu­ly­ov, accused police of detain­ing the activists to derail their plans to meet Thurs­day with the Russ­ian deputy nat­ur­al resources min­is­ter and to attend a ses­sion Fri­day of the Pub­lic Cham­ber on the Khim­ki for­est.

Envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­ers have become increas­ing­ly vocal in Rus­sia in the recent years.

Thou­sands of peo­ple took to Moscow’s streets after Prime Min­is­ter Vladimir Putin signed an order this year to reopen a paper mill on Lake Baikal, the world’s old­est and deep­est lake now believed to be under seri­ous threat from indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion and devel­op­ment. The lake holds an esti­mat­ed 1,500 unique species of plants and ani­mals.

Bruised over Teghut: Environmental pressure group defiant after protest breakup, Armenia

29.07.10
Police used force on Wednes­day to break up a protest in Yere­van near a com­mer­cial bank that intends to loan a con­tro­ver­sial min­ing project in north­ern Arme­nia. Activists were at VTB bank to protest its financ­ing of Armen­ian Cop­per Programme’s (ACP) devel­op­ment of a mine in Teghut.

Teghu protest29.07.10
Police used force on Wednes­day to break up a protest in Yere­van near a com­mer­cial bank that intends to loan a con­tro­ver­sial min­ing project in north­ern Arme­nia. Activists were at VTB bank to protest its financ­ing of Armen­ian Cop­per Programme’s (ACP) devel­op­ment of a mine in Teghut.

The activists demand­ed that VTB should stop the fund­ing of the “anti-eco­log­i­cal and ille­gal Teghut project”, pub­li­cize the Bank’s envi­ron­men­tal cri­te­ria [for loan pro­grams] and the names of those who have devel­oped these cri­te­ria. The pro­test­ers fur­ther called for an end to what they call a con­temp­tu­ous atti­tude towards soci­ety, for hon­or­ing the prin­ci­ples of trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty and also demand­ed that clear answers be giv­en to let­ters of envi­ron­men­tal and human rights orga­ni­za­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment made the deci­sion on devel­op­ing the cop­per and molyb­de­num mine in Teghut in Novem­ber 2007, giv­ing ACP a license for 25 years. This is the first case when the gov­ern­ment allows min­ing amid a for­est site. The Teghut mine – in the lush province of Lori – is the sec­ond largest in Arme­nia, after the cop­per and molyb­de­num mine in Kajaran in south­ern Arme­nia. Experts esti­mate that the mine in Teghut con­tains more than 1.6 mil­lion tons of cop­per and 100,000 tons of molyb­de­num.

From the very out­set envi­ron­men­tal­ists in Arme­nia care­ful­ly mon­i­tored the government’s deci­sion to devel­op the mine, con­stant­ly voic­ing con­cerns about pos­si­ble irrepara­ble loss to the envi­ron­ment (dam­age to the eco sys­tem, dis­ap­pear­ance of some of the rare species of flo­ra and fau­na, threats to pub­lic health because of tail­ings, etc.). ACP offi­cials, mean­while, argue that the min­ing indus­try will cre­ate new jobs for the local pop­u­la­tion and will con­sid­er­ably improve the social con­di­tions in the province and gen­er­al­ly will con­tribute to the country’s eco­nom­ic growth. Despite the per­ceived ben­e­fits, how­ev­er, ACP seemed to be expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in find­ing a finan­cial part­ner for the Teghut mine oper­a­tion.

Russ­ian-owned VTB has decid­ed this year to pro­vide ACP with a promised sum of about $300 mil­lion. So far only a small part of the loan has been pro­vid­ed, and the pro­vi­sion of the basic sum has been delayed because of the finan­cial cri­sis.

At first, the activists demand­ed to see VTB man­age­ment, but when nobody approached them, they sat on the bank steps, hin­der­ing cus­tomers and employ­ees from enter­ing. The demon­stra­tors demand­ed that the bank cus­tomers should not use the ser­vices of a bank that pro­motes “the destruc­tion of Arme­nia”.

Police arrived to dis­perse the pro­test­ers. In the ensu­ing scuf­fle, chair­man of the Green Par­ty of Arme­nia Armen Dovlatyan was among those who suf­fered minor scrapes.

The activists also turned to the Ombudsman’s office, whose rep­re­sen­ta­tive heard them and said: “We will decide what to do” – and then left.

Ecol­o­gist Karine Danielyan, who in the end also joined the demon­stra­tors, says that the eco­nom­ic prof­it from the oper­a­tion of the mine will nev­er be near enough to off­set the envi­ron­men­tal dam­ages caused by it. Accord­ing to her, it will take years to com­pen­sate for the forests now being destroyed.

“And forests not only in the ter­ri­to­ry of the mine oper­a­tion will be destroyed, but also upper forests, because water will descend into that cav­i­ty and the upper forests will dry out,” says Danielyan, adding that the local water resources also get con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and the bio­di­ver­si­ty of the for­est is van­ish­ing.

Urban development in Mexico attacked by elves

On the night of July 27 we made a bon­fire with prop­er­ty belong­ing to destroy­ers of the Earth.

Mexico ELF attackOn the night of July 27 we made a bon­fire with prop­er­ty belong­ing to destroy­ers of the Earth.

In the Dinamos woods in the Mag­dale­na Con­tr­eras sec­tion of Mex­i­co City, there is an urban expan­sion project that is still in the ear­ly stages of con­struc­tion. It involves the cre­ation of deep wells that would take water from the riv­er with the goal of urban expan­sion and anthro­pocen­tric progress.

For that rea­son veg­an elves are respon­si­ble for the fol­low­ing sab­o­tages:
‑We blocked the wells with stones, bricks, blocks and rub­ble, pre­vent­ing the riv­er water from flow­ing through its pipes.
‑We graf­fi­tied the machines and the con­struc­tion mate­r­i­al with slo­gans such as ‘Stop urban expan­sion’, ‘No more civ­i­liza­tion of wild envi­ron­ments’ and ‘Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra’
‑We burned three machines using incen­di­ary devices, includ­ing: two bull­doz­ers and a small machine that removes rub­ble; the small­est device was placed in the first one at the ped­als, in the sec­ond one the win­dow was shat­tered with rocks and the device was put in the cab­in and in the third machine the device was placed on the cables.

We fled into the night with­out a trace. The dam­age was in the thou­sands of pesos. We want to make it clear that what we did was in defense of the earth, which is destroyed every day by ego-cen­trism and author­i­tar­i­an­ism, but for every wild or semi-wild envi­ron­ment destroyed, hun­dreds of their machines and prop­er­ties will be destroyed and left unus­able. Let this serve as a les­son to the exploiters of the earth!

This action ded­i­cat­ed to the ani­mal lib­er­a­tion war­rior in the Unit­ed States, Wal­ter Bond, recent­ly jailed for three fires against ani­mal exploita­tion com­pa­nies. Ded­i­cat­ed as well in sup­port of Leo in Italy, and to Adri­an and Abra­ham.

Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra /Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front

Beat the Boreholes continues!!

27.7.10
The com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign against Shel­l’s work in the estu­ary is going strong with reg­u­lar actions hap­pen­ing. Last week locals viewed the bore­hole-drilling rigs dur­ing a walk on the strands of the estu­ary at low tide. Shell moved the rigs yes­ter­day but were slowed down by kayak­er action.

Beat Boreholes27.7.10
The com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign against Shel­l’s work in the estu­ary is going strong with reg­u­lar actions hap­pen­ing. Last week locals viewed the bore­hole-drilling rigs dur­ing a walk on the strands of the estu­ary at low tide. Shell moved the rigs yes­ter­day but were slowed down by kayak­er action.

Secu­ri­ty around the rigs has been mas­sive — 6–10 secu­ri­ty boats includ­ing a con­stant day­light-hours watch on the shore near the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp, plus two so-called ‘safe­ty boats’.

Mem­bers of the local com­mu­ni­ty walked close to the drilling barges at low tide and showed their oppo­si­tion to Shel­l’s destruc­tion of Sruwad­da­con estu­ary. The estu­ary is not only a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion and Spe­cial Pro­tect­ed Area – it has been an inte­gral part of life in the com­mu­ni­ty for gen­er­a­tions. Despite this, Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley has giv­en the go-ahead for Shell to dam­age it.
John Gorm­ley minister@environ.ie

Last week 8 com­mu­ni­ty sup­port­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp took their kayaks for a spin out on the water — and were met by a dozen secu­ri­ty boats while hav­ing a clos­er look at the barges.

Yes­ter­day signs that Shell were prepar­ing to move the rigs to a new posi­tion led to a spon­ta­neous action by a small group of kayak­ers from the camp. Although they were pre­vent­ed from get­ting near the rig by the mas­sive secu­ri­ty pres­ence, work seemed to stop while the kayaks were in the water.

Both rigs have now been moved a few miles upriv­er towards Aghoos, and are posi­tioned oppo­site the house of Ross­port 5 mem­ber Willy Cor­duff — a move some peo­ple are view­ing as provoca­tive.

Come to sup­port and be part of com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance. Beat the Bore­holes is up and run­ning, sign up for your bore­hole or find out how you can help – get in touch with Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp!

Beat the Bore­hole guide com­ing soon.

For more info www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

Beat the bore­holes land divi­sion — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KULXgsqD18w
Beat the bore­holes water divi­sion — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsuLn6iiWuw

Earth First! Summer Gathering set-up plans announced

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We also have a mobile num­ber for set­up which is 07766 947852. This will be on-site from Sat­ur­day lunchtime, and may well get answered in the few days before­hand but please don’t try ring­ing until then — e‑mail will remain the main con­tact point until near­er the time — sum­mer­gath­er­ing -{at}- earthfirst.org.uk

What we need to know:

*Please can you let us know when you are com­ing? — this helps us plan foods, facil­i­ties and what jobs to do when.

*It is also help­ful if you can let us know if you have any par­tic­u­lar skills or inter­ests with respect to set-up — we might need dri­vers, so if you are over 25, hold a clean licence, are con­fi­dent dri­ving a 3.5 tonne Luton AND can bring along both parts of your dri­ving licence please let us know.

*Sim­i­lar­ly if you are arriv­ing in a vehi­cle and could poten­tial­ly pro­vide lifts, trans­port equip­ment en route or run errands from site once you arrive please let us know. In this case it is very help­ful if you are able/willing to sup­ply us with a con­tact phone num­ber.

How to get there

As you maybe aware that we do not announce the exact site of the gath­er­ing until one week before the main event, this means direc­tions will be avail­able on the web­site http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/ from Wednes­day, 27 July. We realise this will be short notice for peo­ple arriv­ing on the Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er to make things eas­i­er we will e‑mail direc­tions to set-up crew on that day (that still 4 days to check a map!).

The near­est train sta­tion is Der­by if you want to pre-book train tick­ets, you will also need to take a local bus ser­vice from Der­by (these are fre­quent). We are aim­ing to have a vehi­cle on site that can assist if peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ties between Der­by and the site, so hope­ful­ly every­one will be able to get there okay.

There may be a very small num­ber of lifts avail­able from the Not­ting­ham area across the week­end of Sat­ur­day 31st July/Sunday first of August. There may also be lifts from the Leeds area first thing on 31 July. Let us know if this may be of inter­est to you.

What to bring

*Every­thing you need to the gath­er­ing, tent sleep­ing bags etc. and espe­cial­ly a torch

*It may be wise to come a bit more self-suf­fi­cient in food and snacks than you would need to for the main gath­er­ing — we will have a basic kitchen but Veg­gies and the tuck shop are not arriv­ing until Wednes­day

*If you are able to bring any tools, espe­cial­ly for basic car­pen­try, these are often use­ful

Big thanks for offer­ing to help out

Do get in touch if you have any ques­tions

Love & rage

The EF! Gath­er­ing crew

STOP VEDANTA’S AGM! 28th July

STOP VEDANTA’s KILLINGS, DISPLACEMENT AND DEVASTATION!
THROW THEM OUT OF INDIA AND the UK!

STOP VEDANTA’S AGM!

3pm, Wednes­day, 28 July 2010,
The Insti­tute of Civ­il Engi­neers, 1, Great George Street, Lon­don SW1P 3AA

Vedan­ta plc’s record in Oris­sa, India:

STOP VEDANTA’s KILLINGS, DISPLACEMENT AND DEVASTATION!
THROW THEM OUT OF INDIA AND the UK!

STOP VEDANTA’S AGM!

3pm, Wednes­day, 28 July 2010,
The Insti­tute of Civ­il Engi­neers, 1, Great George Street, Lon­don SW1P 3AA

Vedan­ta plc’s record in Oris­sa, India:
· More than 100 men, women and chil­dren have been killed in acci­dents, police fir­ings, forced dis­place­ment, injury and ill­ness
· More than 1000 peo­ple have been dis­placed and more than 8000 under threat
· More than100 square miles of land have been dev­as­tat­ed and an equal area of for­est under threat
· Rivers and streams which are the life­line for tens of thou­sands of peo­ple are dry­ing up
· Thou­sands of acres of fer­tile agri­cul­tur­al land have been destroyed in a region which has seen famines every year since 2007
· Drink­ing water sources are being con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by dump­ing of fly ash and tox­ic red mud into riv­er streams
· The Niyam­giri hills – known as the most beau­ti­ful moun­tains in India — are under threat. The ancient civ­i­liza­tion of the Don­gria Kondh adi­vasi com­mu­ni­ty, who regard the Niyam Don­gar moun­tain and forests of the area as their Gods, is being wiped out
· Vedan­ta is caus­ing mass unem­ploy­ment and des­ti­tu­tion as farm­ers, fish­ing com­mu­ni­ties and for­est dwellers are being dis­placed and aban­doned in shan­ty-towns

Why is this hap­pen­ing?

Mega-prof­its for bil­lion­aires with blood on their hands
Anil Agar­w­al, bil­lion­aire CEO of Vedan­ta is deter­mined to mine for baux­ite in Niyam­giri despite mas­sive oppo­si­tion of the local peo­ple, and a nation­al and inter­na­tion­al cam­paign against it, which recent­ly led
share­hold­ers includ­ing the Church of Eng­land and Rown­trees, to pull out.
Lon­don –based Anil Agar­w­al is worth 4.1billion pounds and is cur­rent­ly the tenth rich­est per­son in Britain, whose per­son­al wealth has grown even in the reces­sion by 583%. Agarwal’s empire – Vedan­ta Resources – now spans four con­ti­nents, with offices in Lon­don and oper­a­tions in Zam­bia, Aus­tralia and India. Vedan­ta and Agar­w­al have been accused of ‘cor­rup­tion, fraud, forgery, manip­u­la­tion of share prices, and insid­er trad­ing.’ as Norway’s Coun­cil of Ethics describes.

Who else is ben­e­fit­ting?
Anil Agar­w­al and Vedan­ta have close links with the Sangh Pari­var, the umbrel­la group of Hin­du right-wing orga­ni­za­tions in India. These orga­ni­za­tions have been held respon­si­ble for geno­ci­dal attacks on India’s
minor­i­ty Mus­lim and Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ties, in Oris­sa, Gujarat and else­where.
Vedan­ta has con­nec­tions with many pow­er­ful fig­ures. Its Board mem­bers have includ­ed P.Chidambaram, India’s Home Min­is­ter, Naresh Chan­dra, for­mer Indi­an Ambas­sador to the US, and David Gore-Booth, for­mer British
Ambas­sador to Sau­di Ara­bia and High Com­mis­sion­er of India.

What is the role of the British Gov­ern­ment?
Vedan­ta was launched on the Lon­don Stock Exchange in Decem­ber 2003 with the help of Britain’s Depart­ment of Trade and Indus­try and the Depart­ment for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (DfID). More recent­ly, mas­sive pub­lic­i­ty of Vedanta’s crimes forced the British gov­ern­ment to crit­i­cize it for not hav­ing a human rights pol­i­cy.

BUT the British Gov­ern­ment has con­tin­ued to active­ly sup­port Vedan­ta. For exam­ple, DfID has set up and con­tin­ues to fund Busi­ness Part­ners for Devel­op­ment (Now renamed as Build­ing Part­ner­ships for Devel­op­ment) whose aim is to counter the effect of the pow­er­ful people’s move­ment against the com­pa­ny. And in 2005 DfID com­mis­sioned “Oris­sa Dri­vers for Change” a research project which urges min­er­al inten­sive indus­tri­al­iza­tion of the region and sup­ports Vedan­ta and oth­er com­pa­nies.

Organ­ised by FOIL VEDANTA

Sup­port­ed by: South Asia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group, South Asian Alliance, All India Cen­tral Coun­cil of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Ravi Dass Human Rights Organ­i­sa­tion (UK), Hilling­don Wom­ens Cen­tre, Cam­paign Against
Crim­i­nal­is­ing Com­mu­ni­ties (CAMPACC), Peo­ples Glob­al Action, Com­mu­ni­ties Empow­er­ing Net­work, Glob­alise Resis­tance

Details: sasg@southasiasolidarity.org

Last resort?: Gegharkunik residents turn into live shield to protect their river, Armenia

A live shield appeared yes­ter­day, July 19, on the Yere­van-Sevan high­way, when the res­i­dents of the Gegharku­nik province blocked the road to express their protest against the con­struc­tion of a hydropow­er plant on the Gay­lad­zor stream of the Argitchi Riv­er.

River ArgitchiA live shield appeared yes­ter­day, July 19, on the Yere­van-Sevan high­way, when the res­i­dents of the Gegharku­nik province blocked the road to express their protest against the con­struc­tion of a hydropow­er plant on the Gay­lad­zor stream of the Argitchi Riv­er.

Since the morn­ing about 500 res­i­dents from six vil­lages blocked the Yere­van-Mar­touni sec­tion of the Sevan high­way for about five hours par­a­lyz­ing traf­fic for more than 1,000 cars. Lat­er on, Gegharku­nik marzpetaran (local admin­is­tra­tion body) employ­ees arrived, and asked for ten days to set­tle the issue.

“Res­i­dents turned to all com­pe­tent gov­ern­ment bod­ies, and they had noth­ing else left to do in this respect. They are ready to repeat the same step in ten days unless some­thing is changed for the bet­ter,” Lian­na Asoy­an, coor­di­na­tor of the Aarhus Cen­ter in Armenia’s Gegharku­nik province, told Arme­ni­aNow.

The riv­er Argitchi is the biggest among 28 rivers flow­ing into Lake Sevan. It secures 12 cen­time­ters for the rise of the lake lev­el annu­al­ly. The riv­er pro­vides irri­ga­tion water for more than 30,000 res­i­dents of six vil­lages in Geghark­ounik province. If the project of chang­ing the course of the Gay­lad­zor stream flow­ing to the riv­er Argitchi is imple­ment­ed, about 40 per­cent of Argirchi water will be direct­ed to Vay­ots Dzor province, which is in the oppo­site side of Lake Sevan.

Asoy­an says that Zange­zour Eximp LLC is ille­gal­ly con­duct­ing the con­struc­tion of a small hydropow­er plant on the Argitchi Riv­er though the per­mit issued to this com­pa­ny says it is enti­tled to car­ry out con­struc­tion only on the trib­u­tary of the Eghegis Riv­er in Kapuyt Berd, while con­struc­tion works on the riv­er Argitchi are ille­gal.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists are sure that by means of chang­ing the course of the riv­er, the lev­el of Lake Sevan – the largest sweet water basin in Arme­nia – will be dropped. The rise of Lake Sevan’s lev­el influ­enced the lucra­tive busi­ness­es found­ed along the lakeshore dur­ing recent years. Besides, the abrupt rise of Lake Sevan’s lev­el is con­sid­ered to be one of the most impor­tant envi­ron­men­tal issues for Arme­nia, where Lake Sevan is the main ele­ment of the whole ecosys­tem.

The RA Law on Lake Sevan, which pro­hibits the use of the lake’s basin water for oth­er pur­pos­es, be it a hydro-pow­er plant, irri­ga­tion or some oth­er pur­pose, is being vio­lat­ed because of the con­struc­tion of the hydropow­er plant. Besides, it is also dan­ger­ous for fish, espe­cial­ly trout, since they spawn at the source of the riv­er Argitchi.