Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Robin Wood Protest at Unilever’s General Assembly

12 May 2010

Fol­low­ing protests in Rot­ter­dam and Ham­burg yes­ter­day,  ROBIN WOOD activists protest­ed today dur­ing Unilever’s gen­er­al assem­bly in Lon­don against trop­i­cal rain­for­est destruc­tion for palm oil. A ban­ner with the mes­sage “Unscrupu­lous Destruc­tion of Rain­for­est and Com­mu­ni­ty for Palm Oil” was unfurled in front of the entrance to the Queen Eliz­a­beth Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. The activists addi­tion­al­ly dis­trib­uted infor­ma­tion to the share­hold­ers and demand­ed that they not absolve the board of direc­tors of their eth­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ties con­cern­ing com­pa­ny pur­chas­es.

Unilever12 May 2010

Fol­low­ing protests in Rot­ter­dam and Ham­burg yes­ter­day,  ROBIN WOOD activists protest­ed today dur­ing Unilever’s gen­er­al assem­bly in Lon­don against trop­i­cal rain­for­est destruc­tion for palm oil. A ban­ner with the mes­sage “Unscrupu­lous Destruc­tion of Rain­for­est and Com­mu­ni­ty for Palm Oil” was unfurled in front of the entrance to the Queen Eliz­a­beth Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. The activists addi­tion­al­ly dis­trib­uted infor­ma­tion to the share­hold­ers and demand­ed that they not absolve the board of direc­tors of their eth­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ties con­cern­ing com­pa­ny pur­chas­es.

The Dutch-British com­pa­ny Unilever is the largest pur­chas­er of palm oil world­wide, most com­ing from plan­ta­tions in Indone­sia. This cheap fat is an ingre­di­ent in prod­ucts from Unilever brands such as Rama, Lang­nese and Knorr. Approx­i­mate­ly 9.4 mil­lion hectares of land have already been trans­formed into palm oil plan­ta­tions in Indone­sia and this area is increased every year by approx­i­mate­ly 600,000 hectares. The palm oil boom has dras­tic con­se­quences due to the destruc­tion of trop­i­cal rain­forests which are irre­place­able for bio­di­ver­si­ty and the world­wide cli­mate.

Addi­tion­al­ly, land­grab for giant mono­cul­tur­al plan­ta­tions threat­ens the liveli­hoods of mil­lions of peo­ple. “We want to put a stop to the palm oil boom. Unilever is the largest pur­chas­er of palm oil world­wide and there­fore a key play­er” said Peter Ger­hardt, ROBIN WOOD’s rain­for­est cam­paign­er. “For this rea­son in an open let­ter to CEO Paul Pol­man we demand­ed that Unilever require its sup­pli­ers to imme­di­ate­ly cease expan­sion of their palm oil plan­ta­tions. Oth­er­wise the com­pa­ny will remain com­plic­it in envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, cli­mate change, and human rights vio­la­tions.”

One of Unilever’s largest sup­pli­ers of palm oil is Wilmar Intl. Wilmar Intl. owns huge palm oil plan­ta­tions in Indone­sia, plans to expand fur­ther, and does­n’t shy away from the use of vio­lence in order to suc­ceed in their expan­sion plans. “Dur­ing our research trip to the Indone­sian province of Jam­bi in 2009, local vil­lagers told us of instances where Wilmar’s hench­men threat­ened them with weapons in order to get them to give up their land for new palm oil plan­ta­tions,” reports Ger­hardt. These are not iso­lat­ed instances. The World Bank dis­con­tin­ued fund­ing of palm oil plan­ta­tions in part due to mas­sive land con­flicts between local vil­lagers and Wilmar Intl. “We demand a ban on the estab­lish­ment of new palm oil plan­ta­tions,” said Nordin, an Indone­sian envi­ron­men­tal activist work­ing togeth­er with ROBIN WOOD. “We are depen­dent on the for­est for pro­tec­tion against flood­ing, ecosys­tem sta­bil­i­ty, and for our own liveli­hoods and food.”

Unilever attempts to appease its crit­ics and cus­tomers with a promise to buy more RSPO-cer­ti­fied palm oil. Palm oil would be cer­ti­fied by the RSPO (Round­table for Sus­tain­able Palm Oil) when it is alleged­ly pro­duced in a sus­tain­able man­ner. How­ev­er, the stan­dards required to receive RSPO cer­ti­fi­ca­tion are uncon­vinc­ing­ly lenient. For exam­ple, log­ging of rain­for­est for the estab­lish­ment of new plan­ta­tions is even allowed. Most palm oil com­pa­nies which are involved with the RSPO fol­low an aggres­sive course of expan­sion to the detri­ment of unique nat­ur­al ecosys­tems.

(The open let­ter to Unilever’s CEO and ROBIN WOOD’s report from the research trip to Indone­sia can be found at http://www.robinwood.de/tropenwald)

Con­tact email: presse@robinwood.de

Activists Occupy Cargill US HQ

May 5, 2010

Update: five activists locked them­selves to the stair­case of the Lake Office, block­ing the entrance to the company’s exec­u­tive offices for over two hours. All five activists were arrest­ed.

–

Nation’s Largest Pri­vate Agribusi­ness Com­pa­ny Under Fire for Rain­for­est Destruc­tion

RAN Cargill occupationMay 5, 2010

Update: five activists locked them­selves to the stair­case of the Lake Office, block­ing the entrance to the company’s exec­u­tive offices for over two hours. All five activists were arrest­ed.

–

Nation’s Largest Pri­vate Agribusi­ness Com­pa­ny Under Fire for Rain­for­est Destruc­tion

Wayza­ta, Minn. – Six activists with Rain­for­est Action Net­work (RAN) have tak­en over the exec­u­tive offices of the nation’s largest pri­vate agribusi­ness com­pa­ny. Play­ing a loud record­ing of chain­saws cut­ting down rain­forests and hold­ing signs read­ing “This is the sound of your sup­ply chain,” and “Mr. Page: Rain­for­est Destruc­tion Stops with You,” the activists have locked them­selves to the stair­case of the Lake Office, block­ing the entrance to the company’s exec­u­tive offices.

A dozen demon­stra­tors are con­duct­ing a sol­i­dar­i­ty vig­il at the front of Cargill’s Wayza­ta head­quar­ters, greet­ing employ­ees as they enter with a 12 ft paper mache orang­utan and a sign read­ing: “Rain­for­est Destruc­tion Starts with Cargill.”

The activists have request­ed a meet­ing with Gre­go­ry Page, Cargill’s CEO, and are refus­ing to leave until he agrees to stop destroy­ing rain­forests and to imple­ment a com­pre­hen­sive palm oil pol­i­cy cov­er­ing its entire sup­ply chain.

“Cargill has been lying to its cus­tomers and to our com­mu­ni­ty,” said Eric Nielsen, local activist par­tic­i­pat­ing in today’s protest. “We want CEO Greg Page to act now to stop Cargill’s destruc­tion of rain­forests before it’s too late.”

The protest comes in the wake of a damn­ing report direct­ly link­ing Cargill, the nation’s largest importer of palm oil, to rain­for­est destruc­tion in Bor­neo. The report, released yes­ter­day, doc­u­ments sys­tem­at­ic fail­ures by Cargill to com­ply with inter­na­tion­al palm oil stan­dards and respect Indone­sian law through­out its palm oil sup­ply chain. The report also doc­u­ments rain­for­est destruc­tion on two plan­ta­tions that Cargill owns, but has hid­den from the Indone­sian gov­ern­ment and its cus­tomers. Over 10,500 hectares of rain­for­est have been destroyed since 2005, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­flict with tra­di­tion­al and Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

“Cargill has destroyed an area of rain­for­est the size of Dis­ney World in Bor­neo, endan­ger­ing orang­utans, pol­lut­ing water­ways and tak­ing land and liveli­hoods from local com­mu­ni­ties,” said Leila Salazar-Lopez of Rain­for­est Action Net­work. “How unsus­tain­able can a com­pa­ny be?”

Palm oil is one of the most com­mon­ly found ingre­di­ents in thou­sands of con­sumer prod­ucts, from soap and lip­stick, to break­fast cere­al and soymilk. Its use is wide­spread and increas­ing around the world, but par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Unit­ed States, where its con­sump­tion has tripled in the last five years. As the nation’s largest importer of palm oil, Cargill sup­plies the com­mon­ly used ingre­di­ent to some of the nation’s largest food com­pa­nies, includ­ing Gen­er­al Mills, Nes­tle, Mars and Kraft, mak­ing it like­ly that almost all Amer­i­cans have bought Cargill’s palm oil some­time with­in the last week.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, palm oil has been tight­ly linked to the destruc­tion of some of the world’s remain­ing rain­forests. Expand­ing con­sump­tion has trig­gered expand­ed pro­duc­tion, replac­ing once lush rain­forests with palm oil plan­ta­tions and endan­ger­ing unique species includ­ing orang­utans and sun bears.

The full report on Cargill’s activ­i­ties, enti­tled Cargill’s Prob­lems with Palm Oil, A Burn­ing Threat to Bor­neo, can be down­loaded at: http: www.ran.org/cargillreport

Sabotage stopping Trump

April 29, 2010

New­ly-plant­ed mar­ram grass was ripped up, fences pulled down, diesel sup­plies pol­lut­ed and two JCB dig­gers destroyed, caus­ing an esti­mat­ed £50,000 of dam­age.

The dam­age was dis­cov­ered on Mon­day. More than 1,000sqm of mar­ram grass was ripped out of the ground at the 15th green, while 150 metres of fenc­ing bor­der­ing the hole was also torn down.

April 29, 2010

New­ly-plant­ed mar­ram grass was ripped up, fences pulled down, diesel sup­plies pol­lut­ed and two JCB dig­gers destroyed, caus­ing an esti­mat­ed £50,000 of dam­age.

The dam­age was dis­cov­ered on Mon­day. More than 1,000sqm of mar­ram grass was ripped out of the ground at the 15th green, while 150 metres of fenc­ing bor­der­ing the hole was also torn down.

Just 24 hours before, van­dals had tar­get­ed two heavy dig­gers at the site, cut­ting their wiring, remov­ing bat­ter­ies and pour­ing sand into the engines. About 3,000 litres of diesel were also destroyed when the fuel was mixed with what is thought to be sug­ar.

The mali­cious assault is the lat­est evi­dence that the devel­op­ment is becom­ing increas­ing­ly unpop­u­lar. A poll pub­lished this week sug­gest­ed Scots now oppose the scheme by two to one, despite claims it will boost tourism in the north-east and cre­ate thou­sands of new jobs.

Mr Trump, also known as ‘The Don­ald’, first announced his plans to build the “world’s great­est golf course” in March 2006, but his pro­pos­al took more than two years to gain approval after it was furi­ous­ly opposed by con­ser­va­tion­ists. Crit­ics argue that the resort, which will include two cham­pi­onship golf cours­es, 950 hol­i­day homes and 500 hous­es, will wreck rare sand dunes, which are des­ig­nat­ed as a Site of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est. There are also con­cerns that Mr Trump will use com­pul­so­ry pur­chase orders to force res­i­dents whose hous­es are in the way of his plans out of their homes.

The attack comes less than two weeks after a fire spread across six acres of grass and dunes at the site. The blaze was blamed on a dis­card­ed bar­be­cue. It is not known if the inci­dent was a delib­er­ate act.

Massive “Climate Action Now” Banner unfurled

April 25, 2010

Mas­sive “Cli­mate Action Now” Ban­ner unfurled

DELTA, BC, CANADA — GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter) unfurled a mas­sive ban­ner today that reads “CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on land slat­ed for free­way con­struc­tion.

Climate Action Now!

April 25, 2010

Mas­sive “Cli­mate Action Now” Ban­ner unfurled

DELTA, BC, CANADA — GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter) unfurled a mas­sive ban­ner today that reads “CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on land slat­ed for free­way con­struc­tion.

His­toric homes are being demol­ished, and ancient indige­nous sites are under threat from the South Fras­er Perime­ter Road (SFPR) project here on the Fras­er Riv­er bank. The est. $2 bil­lion SFPR is part of the con­tro­ver­sial Gate­way pro­gram, which would great­ly increase green­house gas emis­sions in BC.

The action took place at Riv­er Road and Cen­tre Street in Delta. It coin­cides with the mul­ti-faith Pil­grim­age to Burns Bog, and is vis­i­ble from the pil­grim­age route across the Alex Fras­er Bridge. Pil­grims and activists aim to raise aware­ness about Burns Bog, a large, car­bon-seques­ter­ing peat bog also under threat from the SFPR free­way.

“Our neigh­bours are being forced out of their homes, and ecosys­tems are being bull­dozed,” says Delta res­i­dent Ernie Baatz. “Schools and pro­grams are being cut across the province to pay for this cli­mate chang­ing free­way. We have to stand up to this appalling waste.”

Baatz and fel­low activists also plant­ed trees at the site today, to high­light the area’s poten­tial as a river­front park, not a river­front free­way. Although prepara­to­ry work has begun on some sec­tions of the SFPR, no build con­tract is in place. A request for pro­pos­als was issued by the Min­istry of Trans­porta­tion in April 2009.

Today’s action is part of a week of events dubbed “Earth Action Week” by GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter). For the full list of events see www.gatewaysucks.org/earth-action-week-april-1826

Pho­tographs are avail­able at www.gatewaysucks.org/picture-links

Fol­low www.twitter.com/gatewaysucks for updates

For more infor­ma­tion about the Pil­grim­age to Burns Bog see www.pilgrimage2burnsbog.org

» Big shout out to UK roads activists past and present. You inspire us!

PARTY AT THE PUMPS PART 2… THIS TIME IT’S SHELL!

MASS ACTION CALL OUT

When: Sat­ur­day, 15th May
Meet: 1PM at Oxford Cir­cus
Bring: a zone 1–2 tube pass, noise­mak­ers, your friends & fam­i­ly and your
danc­ing shoes
Oxford Cir­cus meet­ing point map: http://tinyurl.com/OCnw-SVmap

MASS ACTION CALL OUT

When: Sat­ur­day, 15th May
Meet: 1PM at Oxford Cir­cus
Bring: a zone 1–2 tube pass, noise­mak­ers, your friends & fam­i­ly and your
danc­ing shoes
Oxford Cir­cus meet­ing point map: http://tinyurl.com/OCnw-SVmap

Shut­ting down a petrol sta­tion for 5 hours on a sun­ny Sat­ur­day after­noon was so much fun we’re going to do it again. Shell’s Hell – in the tar sands and beyond — is next in the fir­ing line.

Par­ty 1 had Sam­ba, twin sound sys­tems, a live Ceilidh band, face-paint­ing, free cakes and 200 peo­ple. Par­ty 2 will be big­ger and bet­ter, with activists join­ing us from Brighton, Oxford and beyond.
See here for a video of Par­ty at the Pumps Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An6-tdxd12M

And for all you cyclists out there, there will be a spe­cial Par­ty at the Pumps Crit­i­cal Mass mak­ing its way to the par­ty. Meet 1PM at Mar­ble Arch (under the arch).

Get ready for sun­shine, music, and danc­ing on the fore­court!

Why tar­get Shell?

Par­ty at the Pumps Part 2 is tak­ing place just three days before Shell’s AGM, where the com­pa­ny will come under fire from share­hold­ers over its plans in the Cana­di­an tar sands; and a week before the Merthyr to Mayo sol­i­dar­i­ty bike ride, which will link two com­mu­ni­ties in Wales and Ire­land resist­ing fos­sil fuel extrac­tion.

Par­ty at the Pumps is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties around the world who are resist­ing Shell’s destruc­tion of lives and liveli­hoods, poi­son­ing of lands and waters, and fuelling of cli­mate chaos. In North­ern Cana­da, Shell’s tar sands projects are ignor­ing First Nations treaty rights, caus­ing rare forms of can­cer and killing wildlife (http://www.ienearth.org/tarsands.html). In Ross­port, Ire­land, a dan­ger­ous onshore pipeline and mas­sive refin­ery are trans­form­ing an area of out­stand­ing nat­ur­al beau­ty into an envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter zone with seri­ous pub­lic health and safe­ty impli­ca­tions (http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org). And in Nige­ria, where Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogo­ni col­leagues were hung by the Niger­ian state for cam­paign­ing against Shell’s dev­as­ta­tion of the Niger Delta, resis­tance to Shell and Big Oil con­tin­ues (http://www.remembersarowiwa.com).

These strug­gles may be hap­pen­ing in dis­tant places, but they are dri­ven from Shell HQ. On May 15th, we bring the resis­tance to the heart of Lon­don.

This action is joint­ly called by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide/London Tar Sands Net­work and Cli­mate Camp Lon­don.
http://www.no-tar-sands.org
http://www.risingtide.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/london

People Needed to Stop the Slaughter — Save the Welsh Badgers

The Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to slaugh­ter thou­sands of bad­gers, in South West Wales,over the next five years as part of their “plan” to erad­i­cate bovine TB. This despite all the evi­dence from pre­vi­ous culls that bad­gers do not con­tribute to the spread of the dis­ease.

Get direct­ly involved in stop­ping the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­men­t’s ille­gal and immoral slaugh­ter of Welsh bad­gers.

The Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to slaugh­ter thou­sands of bad­gers, in South West Wales,over the next five years as part of their “plan” to erad­i­cate bovine TB. This despite all the evi­dence from pre­vi­ous culls that bad­gers do not con­tribute to the spread of the dis­ease.

Get direct­ly involved in stop­ping the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­men­t’s ille­gal and immoral slaugh­ter of Welsh bad­gers.

The five year slaugh­ter, cost­ing mil­lions to the tax pay­er, is noth­ing more than a sop to the dairy farm­ing indus­try which refus­es to accept that its own bad prac­tices and poor hus­bandry are caus­ing the spread of the dis­ease and is look­ing for a scape­goat.

If this cull is deemed a suc­cess it may well be rolled out to the rest of the UK so it is impor­tant we act now to stop the whole­sale slaugh­ter of this harm­less, native ani­mal.

Please con­tact us at: savethewelshbadger@googlemail.com if you wish to get direct­ly involved in stop­ping the cull.

For more infor­ma­tion on the cull please see:
http://www.badger-killers.co.uk/
http://www.pembrokeshireagainstthecull.org.uk/
http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/wildlife//2283/

Indigenous People take over mining firm in the wake of Climate Change conference

April 19, 2010

With the Glob­al People’s Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change and the Rights of the Moth­er Earth set to begin in Cochabam­ba, Bolivia, a group of Indige­nous peo­ple have occu­pied the offices of a min­ing firm in the south­east­ern province of Poto­si near the Chilean bor­der.

April 19, 2010

With the Glob­al People’s Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change and the Rights of the Moth­er Earth set to begin in Cochabam­ba, Bolivia, a group of Indige­nous peo­ple have occu­pied the offices of a min­ing firm in the south­east­ern province of Poto­si near the Chilean bor­der.

The occu­pa­tion began sev­er­al days ago, on April 12, with rough­ly 700 Qul­la Peo­ple block­ing access to a key rail­way line that leads away from the San Cristo­bal sil­ver-zinc-lead mine, owned by Japan’s Sum­it­o­mo Cor­po­ra­tion.

The Qul­la say that Sum­it­o­mo is dump­ing mine waste direct­ly into the Madera Riv­er, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the land and threat­en­ing their water sup­plies; and con­struct­ing roads that are tram­pling on the rights of Moth­er Earth. They are demand­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and call­ing on the Poto­si gov­ern­ment to hon­our their agree­ments, which includes pro­vid­ing help with some local infra­struc­ture.

“Our demands are fair and must be met. The mine is ran­sack­ing our nat­ur­al resources. We want com­pen­sa­tion for the dam­age and … we want help with our devel­op­ment,” says protest leader Mario Mamani. Since the protest began, some 80 con­tain­ers loaded with ore have also been seized and they have occu­pied the company’s offices. Accord­ing to lat­est reports, the Qul­la set fire to the offices and they have start­ed to over­turn the con­tain­ers.

At the same time, the Qul­la are also express­ing frus­tra­tion over Pres­i­dent Evo Morales’ refusal to let them set up “Table 18″ at the Cli­mate Con­fer­ence.

Accord­ing to the Acha­cachi Post, which is spon­sored by the US gov­ern­ment, the Nation­al Coun­cil of Ayl­lus and Markas of Qul­la­suyu (CONAMAQ) wants the table to dis­cuss envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems in Bolivia, includ­ing Sumitomo’s pol­lu­tion of the Madera Riv­er and the con­cern about Lake Intik­jar­ka (Titika­ka) being filled up with “sewage from the cities of El Alto, Batal­las, Hua­r­i­na, Tiquina, Acha­cachi, Mina Matilde in Bolivia and Puno and Huan­cane in Peru.” The lake is an impor­tant fish­ing resource for the Qul­las and Uru-chul­lu­nis.

The Boli­vian Deputy Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment, Juan Pablo Ramos, told the Asso­ci­at­ed Press that it’s not their inten­tion to cir­cum­vent the dis­cus­sion, but the world con­fer­ence is not the appro­pri­ate settin,g because it will be focused on glob­al issues.

CONAMAQ, how­ev­er, says they are still going to pro­ceed with Table 18, because “the Earth is our moth­er [and she has her rights], “for exam­ple, not to be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.”

The Rights of Moth­er Earth will be one of the cen­tral focus­es of the Con­fer­ence. Oth­er tables will include dis­cus­sions on Agri­cul­ture and food sov­er­eign­ty, the Kyoto Pro­to­col, Dan­gers of the Car­bon Mar­ket, and estab­lish­ing an Envi­ron­men­tal Court.

Over­all, the World People’s Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change is a vital fol­low-up to the failed UN Con­fer­ence in Copen­hagen. And while the Qul­la have been unfor­tu­nate­ly side­lined, per­haps we can take stock in the fact that they won’t be labelled as crim­i­nals and thrown in jail.

We should, nev­er­the­less, pay close atten­tion to the Qul­la. If noth­ing else, they are remind­ing us that we can­not ignore the rivers for the ocean. Instead, we must lead by exam­ple for every tree, riv­er, plant and ani­mal, ecosys­tem, every per­son, com­mu­ni­ty and Nation.

We cer­tain­ly can’t leave it to com­pa­nies like Sum­it­o­mo and Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment or the Unit­ed Nations. It’s up to each and every one of us.

Upcoming action dates & activist gatherings, 2010 — updated

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010
Glob­al Min­ga for Moth­er Earth

12–16 Octo­ber 2010
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice, CJA call-out

13 Octo­ber 2010
It’s Ham­mer­time! — Smash EDO

16 Octo­ber 2010
Crude Awak­en­ing — big oil day of action in Lon­don City

23–24 Octo­ber 2010
Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK Gath­er­ing, Bris­tol

10–12 Decem­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

=========

Old dates from this cal­en­dar:

2010

15–17 Jan­u­ary 2010
Peace News Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

23–26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Main­shill Pre-Evic­tion Gath­er­ing

5–7 Feb­ru­ary 2010
EF! Win­ter Moot, North East Eng­land

12–14 Feb­ru­ary 2010
UK Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

19–21 Feb­ru­ary 2010
Camp for Cli­mate Action nation­al ‘where next?’ gath­er­ing, Bris­tol — region­al ones hap­pen­ing over Jan­u­ary & Feb­ru­ary (details here)

26–28 Feb­ru­ary 2010
No Bor­ders Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

14 March 2010
UK Tar Sands Cam­paign Gath­er­ing, York

11am till 6pm (Veg­an lunch by dona­tion)
With BP’s AGM just 1 month away, and 2 weeks of actions planned for 1st to 15th April, come and con­nect with oth­er UK-based Tar Sands cam­paign­ers, share ideas and cre­ate actions. We’ll be look­ing at strate­gies and actions for tar­get­ing Shell, BP and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land — Britain’s Dirty Three­some on Tar Sands invest­ment.

We’re meet­ing in Der­went Col­lege, York Uni­ver­si­ty, room D/056 — from the sta­tion or city cen­tre, take bus num­ber 4 to the very last stop, walk back about 50 meters, and the road entrance to the col­lege is signed on the left. D/056 is accessed from the out­side, beyond the din­ing hall and ponds.

1 April 2010
Fos­sil Fools Day

1–4 April 2010
The Hunt­ing­ton Lane Fos­sil Fools week­end con­ver­gence

1–15 April 2010
BP Fort­night of Shame
includ­ing Lon­don Mass Action

17–18 April 2010
Social Cen­tres in a Time of Cri­sis, Leeds
A week­end of work­shops, dis­cus­sions and social­is­ing for every­one with an inter­est in rad­i­cal autonomous social cen­tres

22–23 April 2010
anti-avi­a­tion 48 hours of stick­er-whack­ing, sub­ver­tis­ing, adbust­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um

23–26 April 2010
Anti-nuclear Camp, Suf­folk — see lat­est EF!AU for details

6–10 May 2010
Activist Tat train­ing week: putting up mar­quees, erect­ing and mend­ing flat pack toi­lets, as well as tech­ni­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal (pow­er, plumb­ing etc) skill­shar­ing

15 May 2010
Par­ty at the Pumps 2

21 May‑5 June 2010
Merthyr to Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty bike ride — Cli­mate Chains

5–8 June 2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Gath­er­ing, Ire­land

11–19 June 2010
World Naked Bike Ride — 11 June: Man­ches­ter, Southamp­ton; 12 June, Cardiff, Edin­burgh, Lon­don; 13 June: Brighton, Bris­tol; 19 June, Sheffield, York

18–21 June 2010
Out­door Skill­share, Scot­land

19 June 2010
Nation­al Gath­er­ing of the Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work, Lon­don

25 June-31 August 2010
Eco­topia Bike­tour, from Crit­i­cal Mass, Towards Car Free Cities Con­fer­ence, to the French & Ger­man cli­mate camps and much in between.

6–12 July 2010
Anti-Indus­tri­al Land Defence Action Camp, Cat­alo­nia
Go only if you can speak Cata­lan or Span­ish — http://acampadaderesistencies.blogspot.com

14–22 July 2010
Nordic cli­mate action camp, South­ern Swe­den

22 July‑1 August 2010
French Camp Action Cli­mat, near Le Havre

22 July‑2 August 2010
Swiss cli­mate camp Fr / De

23–27 July 2010
Peace News Sum­mer Camp, Oxford­shire

29 July‑4 August 2010
Bel­gian Cli­mate Camp, near Liege

4–9 August 2010
EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Der­byshire

12–16 August 2010
Irish Cli­mate Camp, Coun­ty Tyrone

13–17 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru

21–24 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp tar­gets RBS in Edin­burgh: Action Days

21–29 August 2010
Ger­man Kli­macamp, near Erke­lenz

27–30 August 2010
Nation­al Ani­mal Rights Gath­er­ing, near Northamp­ton

27–29 August 2010
Dutch Earth First! Gath­er­ing and CJA meet­ing — Groen Front!

Peat Bog Extraction halted in Greater Manchester

15.04.2010
Update:

Chat Moss peat protest 1Chat Moss peat protest 215.04.2010
Update:

As you know, we locked on around 10:30. Some of the work­ers ini­tial­ly react­ed aggres­sive­ly, try­ing to move the dig­ger while peo­ple were on it, using abu­sive lan­guage and assault­ing one of our group — though we were empha­sis­ing that we were peace­ful and that they were break­ing the law by act­ing dan­ger­ous­ly towards us. After about 20 mins of sev­er­al mem­bers of our group talk­ing calm­ly to them, they stood down and wait­ed for the police to arrive. The police turned up short­ly after, try­ing to talk us down, but we stayed locked on until the Tac­ti­cal Aid Unit arrived with Bolt cut­ters to extract us.
Inter­est­ing­ly, it seemed they want­ed every­one else out of the way, so they could ‘deal’ with us and get the job done as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. We’ve found out that lots of local peo­ple tried to join us, but were being stopped by the police well out of vis­i­ble dis­tance. The police tac­ti­cal aid unit also showed lit­tle regard for our safe­ty — their inten­tion was to sim­ply remove me from the dig­ger by any means nec­es­sary — which was effec­tive­ly to try to throw me off it.

An ambu­lance also turned up pre­emp­tive­ly, which sug­gests they were antic­i­pat­ing that our extrac­tion would neces­si­tate the use of force, and unnec­es­sary harm to our per­sons.

I think we man­aged to stay there for a good while to halt the destruc­tion of the bog and to get the mes­sage out.

After the police released us, we met up with some of the local cam­paign­ers (Save Our North­west Green­belt), who’d had a meet­ing in the evening, which was real­ly empow­er­ing.

At first I was arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass, but then de-arrest­ed and re-arrest­ed after being cut free under new charges.

We’ve been charged, odd­ly, under sec­tion 4A of the Pub­lic order act, which cov­ers using words/behaviour to cause harassment/distress, even though our protest was com­plete­ly non-vio­lent and good humoured.

Our court date is May 10th, 9:30am at Sal­ford Mag­is­trate’s court — a sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tion is being planned for this date, and any sup­port would be grate­ful­ly wel­comed!

——-
Activists shut down extrac­tion on a Peat Bog extrac­tion site by lock­ing onto a lor­ry and a dig­ger. Work was still halt­ed at the time of writ­ing.

Earth First activists shut down Peat Bog extrac­tion at Chat Moss in Greater Man­ches­ter. They entered the site at 10.30 am, locked onto a lor­ry and dig­ger which was being used to remove peat from the site. As of 2pm two activists were still locked onto the vehi­cles, with around 5 cops in atten­dance.

Peat bogs have recent­ly become the focus of inter­na­tion­al atten­tion because they act as huge ‘car­bon sponges’: as peat is formed it locks away car­bon that has been absorbed by plants as they grow, there­by help­ing to reduce the car­bon in the atmos­phere and slow glob­al warm­ing. The drain­ing and extrac­tion of this unique habi­tat caus­es the release of thou­sands of years worth of stored car­bon. Glob­al­ly, peat bogs cov­er just 3% of the world’s sur­face but store twice as much car­bon as all the world’s forests com­bined.

The great­est threat to peat bogs is from peat extrac­tion for use in hor­ti­cul­ture. An area the size of 250 Trafal­gar Squares is dug up every year for the UK hor­ti­cul­tur­al indus­try, with 70% of this demand com­ing from ama­teur gar­den­ers. This is despite the fact that there are a wide vari­ety of good qual­i­ty peat-free com­mer­cial com­posts, mean­ing that there is no need for the UK to con­sume any peat at all. The Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens at Kew, for instance, has been peat free since 1992.

Local cam­paign­er Mary Chapel, said:

“We are stop­ping the destruc­tion of Chat Moss bog and to pro­tect this site for the ben­e­fit of present and future gen­er­a­tions. They har­bour a wide vari­ety of birds, plants and ani­mals that can be found nowhere else. Instead of pro­tect­ing this valu­able habi­tat Sinclair’s / Joseph Met­calfe are van­dal­is­ing it in order to make a prof­it when there are count­less alter­na­tives to peat for use in com­post, as well as more sus­tain­able jobs in those indus­tries.”

Anoth­er cam­paign­er Justin Hocks con­tin­ued:

“Peat bogs like Chat Moss store vast amounts of car­bon and are poten­tial­ly one of our best assets in fight­ing cli­mate change. The Coun­cil tell us they are seri­ous about cli­mate change and the envi­ron­ment yet allow valu­able sites like Chat Moss to be bull­dozed. They say they will pro­tect the Green Belt but it’s all just hot air. We have come here today in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local Save Our Green­belt cam­paign, and to pro­tect this valu­able habi­tat and to say enough is enough – leave our bog alone!”

Notes for Edi­tors
[1] Earth First! is a Direct Action protest move­ment first formed in the UK in the ear­ly 1990s against the road build­ing pro­gramme and pro­tect­ing wilder­ness. Lat­er Earth First! groups took Direct Action against the intro­duc­tion of GM crops into Britain, and helped mount the cam­paign to save Thorne and Hat­field Moors, Yorkshire’s most impor­tant peat-bogs.

Over 94% of the UK’s low­land peat bogs have been dam­aged or destroyed, most­ly in the last 50 years, and Nat­ur­al Eng­land esti­mate that 3 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 is emit­ted every year in the UK from our dam­aged peat bogs – the equiv­a­lent to the aver­age emis­sions of 350,000 house­holds.

Pro­tect­ing exist­ing peat bogs and restor­ing dam­aged or degrad­ed ones could lock car­bon in the soil and help to active­ly reduce the UK car­bon foot­print, as well as help­ing to pro­tect many rare species of plants and ani­mals, improve bio­di­ver­si­ty and pro­tect a wild and rare habi­tat.
For copies of Nat­ur­al England’s report: England’s Peat­lands – Car­bon Stor­age & Green­house Gas­es by Nat­ur­al Eng­land. http://naturalengland.etraderstores.com/NaturalEnglandShop/product.aspx?ProductID=335ef60d-241e-4495–9625-094fc3cf9689

Link to high­er qual­i­ty pho­tos — http://www.mediafire.com/?zloylojzlgq

Mainshill Coal Site sabotaged!

12.04.2010
In the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing machin­ery at Main­shill open cast site was sab­o­taged. Two Cater­pil­lar D9T’s and a 170 tonne face scrap­ping earth mover, an O&K RH90, were tar­get­ed, both will be inop­er­a­ble today, and will cost Scot­tish Coal great­ly.

12.04.2010
In the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing machin­ery at Main­shill open cast site was sab­o­taged. Two Cater­pil­lar D9T’s and a 170 tonne face scrap­ping earth mover, an O&K RH90, were tar­get­ed, both will be inop­er­a­ble today, and will cost Scot­tish Coal great­ly.

A sus­tained cam­paign of sab­o­tage has been waged at Main­shill and it was vowed to con­tin­ue even when work on the mine start­ed. The only thing that has changed since the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is that the machines on the site are big­ger and more expen­sive. The machin­ery at the Main­shill site, and any oth­er coal site in Scot­land, are extreme­ly vul­ner­a­ble. Sab­o­tage against the coal indus­try will con­tin­ue until its expan­sion is halt­ed.

This action was done by autonomous envi­ron­men­tal­ists in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of South Lanark­shire who are fight­ing to save their com­mu­ni­ty and their health from the coal indus­try. This is also in sol­i­dar­i­ty with peo­ple around the world, includ­ing Colum­bia and India, who are fight­ing for their lives against the coal indus­try.

Main­shill vive — la lucha sigue!