Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

BP hit by tar sands protests in London, Brighton, Oxford and Cambridge

Sat­ur­day April 10th
BP hit by tar sands protests in Lon­don, Brighton, Oxford and Cam­bridge

Oil com­pa­ny tar­get­ed by nation­wide protests in advance of cru­cial AGM vote

Pro­test­ers demand BP pulls out of “the most destruc­tive project on Earth” — the Cana­di­an tar sands

Sat­ur­day April 10th
BP hit by tar sands protests in Lon­don, Brighton, Oxford and Cam­bridge

Oil com­pa­ny tar­get­ed by nation­wide protests in advance of cru­cial AGM vote

Pro­test­ers demand BP pulls out of “the most destruc­tive project on Earth” — the Cana­di­an tar sands

For pho­tos, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/no-tar-sands and http://www.no-tar-sands.org. Brief reports of the Lon­don and Oxford actions can be seen at http://www.demotix.com/news/297925/bp-party-pumps and http://www.demotix.com/news/298075/bp-tar-sands-protest-oxford.

Today, oil giant BP was struck by mul­ti­ple protests over its con­tro­ver­sial plans to extract oil from the Cana­di­an tar sands (1). Hun­dreds of cli­mate activists in Lon­don, Brighton, Oxford and Cam­bridge (2) tar­get­ed the com­pa­ny with simul­ta­ne­ous demon­stra­tions and street par­ties, includ­ing fore­court inva­sions which closed three BP petrol sta­tions in Lon­don and Brighton (3), (4).

Activists hailed the day as a major suc­cess, stat­ing that the protests would send a strong mes­sage to BP and its investors. Sheila Laugh­lin of the UK Tar Sands Net­work said:

“Today, we did exact­ly what we set out to do – we hit BP’s prof­its by shut­ting down their petrol sta­tions, and we hit their brand by inform­ing thou­sands of peo­ple about their destruc­tive tar sands plans. Near­ly every­one we spoke to was shocked and out­raged by the hor­rif­ic cli­mate, eco­log­i­cal and human impacts of tar sands extrac­tion. If BP want to com­plete­ly alien­ate the UK pub­lic, they’re going about it in exact­ly the right way.”

Mean­while, a share­hold­er res­o­lu­tion ques­tion­ing BP’s role in the tar sands, which is due to be dis­cussed and vot­ed on at their AGM lat­er this week (5), con­tin­ues to attract inter­est from share­hold­ers, with a num­ber of major invest­ment funds stat­ing their sup­port for the anti-tar sands res­o­lu­tion in the last few days (6).

ENDS

Notes to Edi­tors

1) Tar sands are a type of oily soil, which requires large amounts of ener­gy, water, and indus­tri­al pro­cess­ing to extract and trans­form into crude oil. Tar sands extrac­tion in Alber­ta, Cana­da is already the world’s largest indus­tri­al project, requir­ing the removal of vast areas of ancient for­est and con­sum­ing enough nat­ur­al gas per day to heat 3.2 mil­lion Cana­di­an homes. The extrac­tion process emits 3 to 5 times as much car­bon diox­ide as con­ven­tion­al oil drilling, the lakes of tox­ic waste it pro­duces are so large they are vis­i­ble from space, and the pol­lu­tion from the project is harm­ing the health of the Indige­nous peo­ple who live in its shad­ow.
See http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2006_report/som-sum_eng.cfm and http://www.ienearth.org/cits.html

BP was the only major oil com­pa­ny not to be in the tar sands, until in 2007 it pur­chased a stake in the ‘Sun­rise Project’, an extrac­tion project that could pro­duce 200,000 bar­rels of tar sands oil per day. Ear­li­er this year it announced its poten­tial involve­ment in two oth­er, sim­i­lar devel­op­ments, although a final deci­sion as to whether or not to go ahead with them has yet to be made. Over the last six months, an unprece­dent­ed coali­tion of UK cli­mate activists, NGOs and Indige­nous Cana­di­an activists has come togeth­er to stop BP’s plans.

2) The April 10th day of action was sup­port­ed by the UK Tar Sands Net­work ( http://www.no-tar-sands.org), Ris­ing Tide UK ( http://risingtide.org.uk), the Camp for Cli­mate Action ( http://www.climatecamp.org.uk) and the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work ( http://www.ienearth.org)

3) A brief sum­ma­ry of each of the actions:

Lon­don: Around 150 peo­ple invad­ed BP’s Shepherd’s Bush petrol sta­tion at around 2pm today. They hung ban­ners off the roof, climbed on the pumps and held a ceilidh in the fore­court. The sta­tion remained closed for the rest of the after­noon. There was a heavy police pres­ence, but no arrests.

Oxford: About 25 peo­ple from the Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action group recon­struct­ed the Cana­di­an tar sands on Oxford’s cen­tral shop­ping parade, includ­ing a pipeline and “tox­ic” tail­ings pond com­plete with toy ducks. They used a cycle-pow­ered sound sys­tem to enter­tain and inform thou­sands of shop­pers with music and speech­es, while activists dressed as Cana­da and BP got friend­ly with each oth­er by the pipeline. Around 5,000 anti-BP leaflets were dis­trib­uted, and video mes­sages were col­lect­ed from the pub­lic to send to BP’s AGM.

Brighton: Activists suc­cess­ful­ly invad­ed and shut down two sep­a­rate BP petrol sta­tions. Pho­tos can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wdmbrightonandhove

Cam­bridge: Local activists from the Cam­bridge Tar Sands Net­work led an uncon­ven­tion­al tour group through the city today. They took in the sights of RBS Branch­es, a Super­drug Loca­tion, and Uni­ver­si­ty Facil­i­ties fund­ed by BP, all of which have links to the Cana­di­an Tar Sands. The event drew the atten­tion of many mem­bers of the pub­lic, who took pho­tos, request­ed more infor­ma­tion, or even joined the tour. The event was hailed as a suc­cess­ful pub­lic expose of Cambridge’s dark tar-sand-stained under­bel­ly.

4) This day of action fell near the end of a full two weeks of action against BP and the tar sands, dubbed the “BP Fort­night of Shame”. Oth­er actions since April 1st have includ­ed:

• 22,000 “rebrand­ed” BP logos were deliv­ered to BP HQ – video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNLzN3zld7o
• A BP petrol sta­tion was block­ad­ed in Ply­mouth, with pro­test­ers chain­ing them­selves to petrol pumps. The sta­tion was closed for an hour and a half, and there were two arrests: http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Greens-protest-closes-petrol-station/article-1992261-detail/article.html
• A demon­stra­tion by Youth Against Cli­mate Change in St. Albans, tar­get­ing RBS, who are one of BP’s key fun­ders in the tar sands: http://www.stalbansreview.co.uk/news/6646160.St_Albans_demo_targets__RBS/
• RBS cash machines were ren­dered tem­porar­i­ly out of order by Brighton Against Tar Sands (BATS): http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/04/448446.html
• A walk­ing tree from Alber­ta, Cana­da, turned up at BP HQ (and oth­er key Lon­don loca­tions) to com­plain about tar sands defor­esta­tion – video here: http://vimeo.com/10630598
• “Free mon­ey” stained with oil was giv­en out at a Natwest (owned by RBS) branch in Nor­wich: http://felixinnorwich.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/fossil-fools-day-in-norwich-tar-sand-protest-at-natwest/

5) BP’s Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing will take place at 11.30am on April 15th 2010 at the Excel Cen­tre, Lon­don. Cam­paign­ers will be speak­ing to share­hold­ers out­side the meet­ing, and chal­leng­ing BP inside the meet­ing. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/04/bp-investors-row-tar-sands

6) See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/bpdot/7568809/US-and-Australian-funds-join-BP-rebellion-on-oil-sands.html and http://nachhaltiger.de/index.php/2010/04/10/apg-may-vote-against-bp-shell-on-tar-sands/

UK Tar Sands Net­work
tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://www.no-tar-sands.org

Struggle stepped up as another whaling ship is sabotaged in Norway

“Nor­way announced an increased quo­ta of minke whales so we decid­ed to increase our quo­ta of sunken whalers” — AGENDA 21

“Nor­way announced an increased quo­ta of minke whales so we decid­ed to increase our quo­ta of sunken whalers” — AGENDA 21

Anoth­er whal­ing ves­sel was sab­o­taged a few days ago, on April 2nd, near­ly a year since the last attempt­ed sink­ing of the Skar­bakk, anoth­er Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel. The attack was claimed by Agen­da 21, a group respon­si­ble for last years sab­o­tage and a string of oth­er actions against Nor­way’s whal­ing indus­try. Using the name of a 1992 Unit­ed Nations Con­fer­ence on the Envi­ron­ment, the group is a spin off from the more known Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and promised Nor­way that if they did not com­ply with inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law, they would sink their whal­ing ships.

It was­n’t an emp­ty threat, with Cap­tain Paul Wat­son super­vis­ing the sink­ing of two ships; the Nybrae­na in 1992 and the Senet in 1994. The anony­mous and covert goup Agen­da 21 then took over with the scut­tling of the Elin-Toril in 1996. Claimed on the web­site of ani­mal rights mag­a­zine Bite Back, the activists explain: “Entry was made through the wheel­house. The engine room was accessed by remov­ing the locked door from its frame using axe and crow­bar. Two sea valves were opened ful­ly sub­merg­ing the engine and elec­tri­cal sys­tems.”

Relat­ed Fea­tures: Schnews: Ships in the Fight | Nor­we­gian Whal­ing Ship Scut­tled | The Whale Wars — Sea Shep­herd Returns From Antarc­ti­ca | Japan issues arrest war­rant for Not­ting­ham activist | Arrests As Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion Fails To Pro­tect Whales | Not­ting­ham Activist Returns From Whale Sav­ing Mis­sion In Antar­ti­ca | Sea Shep­herd activists injured as Japan­ese mil­i­tary open fire | Activists Held Hostage By Japan­ese Whalers In South­ern Ocean | Whalers use Pub­lic Rela­tions to twist the truth

Links: Unit­ed Nations Agen­da 21 | Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety | Ocean Defence top­ic page

Local news media report­ed that the sab­o­tage was dis­cov­ered before the ship could sink. An alarm alert­ed the ship’s own­er, Leif Einar Karlsen, who lives near­by. He attempt­ed to slow the water that was com­ing in through the open valves, but by the time the fire depart­ment arrived, the engine room was under sev­er­al feet of water. Karlsen has pledged to repair the Sofie and begin killing minke whales in May.

It has been one year since the last attempt­ed sink­ing of a whal­ing ship in Nor­way. In April 2009, an attempt was made to sink the whal­ing ship “Skar­bakk” when it was moored at Hen­ningsvaer, Nor­way. In August 2007, the whal­ing ship “Willassen Senior” was sunk in the har­bor in Svolvaer (the boat was only a stone’s throw away from where the Sofie was docked).

The Sofie is the sev­enth Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel to come under attack for ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties since 1992. After the attack on the Sofie, the head of a Nor­we­gian whal­ing orga­ni­za­tion com­plained to the Nor­we­gian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, “It is out­ra­geous that this can be done year after year with­out any­one being caught.”

The Earth First! Journal is celebrating 30 years in print this Winter!

30 years of no-bull report­ing, direct actions, exten­sive bio-diver­si­ty cov­er­age from those with­in the Earth First! move­ment who refuse to com­pro­mise in defense of Moth­er Earth!

30 years of no-bull report­ing, direct actions, exten­sive bio-diver­si­ty cov­er­age from those with­in the Earth First! move­ment who refuse to com­pro­mise in defense of Moth­er Earth!

The EF! Jour­nal Col­lec­tive is look­ing for your help in cap­tur­ing a wicked part of the his­to­ry of this move­ment- the UK chap­ter of direct action, Earth First! orga­niz­ing, EF! gath­er­ings and some of the best for­est defense cam­paigns on the plan­et!

If you’re inter­est­ed in writ­ing an arti­cle for the 30 year anniver­sary please send an e‑mail to: collective@earthfirstjournal.org and we can talk more about word length, con­tent and dead­lines.

We are also look­ing for more con­tri­bu­tions: direct action pho­tos for 2011 Direct Action Cal­en­dar and music for a new EF! music com­pi­la­tion. Send high res­o­lu­tion pho­tos with a cap­tion to the col­lec­tive e‑mail address, as well as your sug­ges­tions for songs/songwriters/bands for the new com­pi­la­tion!

Cheers!

For the Wild,
‑the EF! Jour­nal Col­lec­tive”

Earth First! Summer Gathering, 4th — 9th Aug 2010, Derbyshire — location & programme announced/set-up plans & call-out

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme
Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

What’s hap­pen­ing?
Over 80 work­shops, dis­cus­sions, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘where next’ ses­sions:

*Share and learn skills for kick-ass actions on land and water.
Small boat han­dling and blockad­ing using kayaks / Blockad­ing — tripods, lock-ons/ Fences / Climb­ing skills / Action recon­nais­sance / Secu­ri­ty for Activists / Strat­e­gy and tac­tics / How to research cor­po­ra­tions /

*Net­work cur­rent cam­paigns against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion
Open-cast min­ing / Genet­ic engi­neer­ing / Agro­fu­els / Sav­ing Ice­land / Cli­mate actions / Pipeline resis­tance in Ross­port / Anti-nuclear / Air­port expansion/ Tar Sands

*Think about eco-cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tive ways of organ­is­ing
Deep green ethics / Anar­chist eco­nom­ics / Anar­chist his­to­ry / Rad­i­cal Pol­i­tics / Work­ing with­out leaders/ Con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing

*Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy / Restora­tion ecol­o­gy / Flo­ra and Fau­na iden­ti­fi­ca­tion / Veg­an Cake mak­ing / Pow­er from solar and wind / wild food / Squat­ting / Bike main­te­nance

As well as inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns round-up, net­work­ing and plan­ning for future actions.

Cost and prac­ti­cal things
£20–30 accord­ing to what you can afford.
The gath­er­ing is in Der­byshire, the exact loca­tion will be announced the week before. More info on our web­site.

Find out more and join in!

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

We have now a stack of fresh­ly print­ed posters adver­tis­ing the gath­er­ing. If you’d like to send you some to stick up in your area or to take to events, fes­ti­vals and the like, please email us. Alter­na­tive­ly you can also down­load the files and print your own. They are fair­ly large files! EF! gath­er­ing poster (A4)

We are now look­ing for peo­ple to run work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the gath­er­ing. Please con­tact us if you can offer some­thing. Have a look at our pro­gramme page to see the kind of thing we’re look­ing for.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ NOSPAM _ @ _ NOSPAM earthfirst.org.uk

Penan step up campaign to defend Heart of Borneo nature reserve

6, April, 2010
Penan natives from Sarawak’s Upper Baram region in the Malaysian part of Bor­neo have erect­ed two log­ging road block­ades to pre­vent their last remain­ing vir­gin jun­gle from being logged by the Sam­ling Group, a Malaysian tim­ber giant.

6, April, 2010
Penan natives from Sarawak’s Upper Baram region in the Malaysian part of Bor­neo have erect­ed two log­ging road block­ades to pre­vent their last remain­ing vir­gin jun­gle from being logged by the Sam­ling Group, a Malaysian tim­ber giant.
The block­ades have been erect­ed at two strate­gi­cal loca­tions on log­ging roads near the Penan vil­lages of Long Sabai and Ba Ker­ameu on the upper reach­es of the Akah riv­er. Accord­ing to com­mu­ni­ty sources, sur­vey­ors of the Sam­ling cor­po­ra­tion had repeat­ed­ly been asked by vil­lagers of Long Sabai to stop work­ing on the Penan’ s native lands but had refused to do so. As a con­se­quence, the vil­lagers erect­ed two block­ades that have been in place since 24 March and 31 March respec­tive­ly.
Aya Lud­ing, a spokesman for the Long Sabai com­mu­ni­ty, said: “We know that we are weak­er than the Sam­ling bull­doz­ers. But we are deter­mined to fight for our next gen­er­a­tion because we can­not sur­vive with­out the for­est. If we let the com­pa­ny in and do some log­ging, they will want to take all of our for­est.”
Last Novem­ber, sev­en­teen Penan com­mu­ni­ties of the Upper Baram region had declared their native lands a self-admin­is­tered nature reserve. The “Penan Peace Park” cov­ers an area of 163,000 hectares of high con­ser­va­tion val­ue rain­for­est and tra­di­tion­al­ly used agri­cul­tur­al land near the inter­na­tion­al bor­der between Malaysia and Indone­sia. ”

Source: http://www.bmf.ch/en/news/?show=200

Huntington Lane Fossil Fools Weekend roundup

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

Fossil Fools Weekend

A day before Fos­sil Fools Days saw the camp attacked dur­ing the night by three loud bangs, which it is thought came from some­one either throw­ing fire­works or an air bomb into the camp. The camp which includ­ed young chil­dren were ter­ri­fied after being wok­en up dur­ing the dead of night. One camper said

“It was ter­ri­fy­ing, real­ly ter­ri­fy­ing. It was in the dead of night, death­ly qui­et, and then all of a sud­den we heard these three thun­der­ous bangs quick­ly one after the oth­er.”

As a result of the attack a 24 hour watch has now been estab­lished at the camp

Huntington Lane Camp

The week­end saw a steady stream of peo­ple vis­it the camp which has now grown to include two com­mu­nal tip­is and a third shel­tered com­mu­nal area is under con­struc­tion which when fin­ished will have raised floor­ing.

Fri­day the 2nd April saw two cam­paign­ers hang a ban­ner from the famous Iron Bridge World Her­itage Site land­mark in view of thou­sands of Bank Hol­i­day vis­i­tors.

“We are try­ing to raise aware­ness. We are still find­ing a large amount of peo­ple do not know pro­pos­als for a coal mine are in exis­tence, let alone it being so close to an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.”

Over­all the mood at the camp is pos­i­tive but we still need as many peo­ple at the camp as pos­si­ble and any­thing you can donate would be appre­ci­at­ed. We still need Food, Water, Tarp, Ropes, Straw/Sawdust/Woodchips to soak up the mud a lit­tle and Walkie Talkies

http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/fossil-fools-weekend-roundup/

Black Wood protest camp disappears over night to fight another mine, another day

2.4.2010
The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp packed up the night before last and left the site of UK Coal’s new mine at Blair Farm, in Fife. The camp occu­pied the site for a week and a half to show UK Coal and oth­er mine oper­a­tors that no new mine or coal infra­struc­ture is safe and out of reach of pro­test­ers.

2.4.2010
The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp packed up the night before last and left the site of UK Coal’s new mine at Blair Farm, in Fife. The camp occu­pied the site for a week and a half to show UK Coal and oth­er mine oper­a­tors that no new mine or coal infra­struc­ture is safe and out of reach of pro­test­ers.

The inten­tion of the camp from the begin­ning was to hold a short-term occu­pa­tion to bring atten­tion to the issue, make links with local com­mu­ni­ties and cost UK Coal mon­ey. The occu­pa­tion was a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with local res­i­dents who opposed the mine, and with the cur­rent­ly occu­pied Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast site in Shrop­shire.

One of the pri­ma­ry aims of the camp was to cost UK Coal mon­ey and make it more dif­fi­cult for the com­pa­ny to cause such destruc­tion in oth­er places. Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court would inevitably have grant­ed the sum­ma­ry evic­tion of the occu­piers today and, cou­pled with the fact that bailiffs from the Nation­al Evic­tion Team recent­ly vis­it­ed site, the camp had undoubt­ed­ly already hit UK Coal prof­its.

The camp was set up on Sun­day 21st March in protest against the dev­as­tat­ing effects of open cast coal min­ing. Impacts on near­by com­mu­ni­ties will include noise and dust pol­lu­tion, increased traf­fic on the roads through HGV move­ments, the loss of land­scape, local ecol­o­gy and bio­di­ver­si­ty, and loss of access to recre­ation areas, not to men­tion the increased rates of res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases and can­cer from expo­sure to coal dust. The min­ing of this coal will also release over 2 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 into the atmos­phere from com­bus­tion alone at near-by Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion, direct­ly con­tra­dict­ing the Scot­tish government’s tar­gets to reduce emis­sions.

As envi­ron­men­tal­ists, the camp occu­pants made sure to leave the site as they found it, undam­aged by their activ­i­ties. This was unlike UK Coal – with felling oper­a­tions com­plete, huge areas of birch and oak for­est – des­ig­nat­ed ancient wood­land – have been lost as well as the wildlife with­in it, which includ­ed nest­ing birds, bats and red squir­rels. On top of this, the camp is con­duct­ing an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into alle­ga­tions, sup­port­ed by local wit­ness­es, that fire dam­age to Great Crest­ed Newt areas was car­ried out on behalf of UK Coal to facil­i­tate the newts forced migra­tion as a con­di­tion of plan­ning con­sent.

Fiona Coop­er from the camp said “We will be oppos­ing more open cast coal sites in Scot­land, as well as sup­port­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing the unsus­tain­able and dam­ag­ing growth of the coal indus­try in the UK, such as the Hunt­ing­ton Lane protest site in Shrop­shire.”

The camp would like to thank the peo­ple of Oak­ley and sur­round­ing areas for their sup­port through­out the occu­pa­tion, and remind UK Coal of its oblig­a­tions to restore the site when it is fin­ished with it.

Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
coalactionscotland@riseup.net
http://blackwood.noflag.org.uk/

Outdoor Skillshare//18–21 June, Scotland

**Please for­ward on to your net­works, if you would like some posters/flyers to dis­play, please get in touch**

///Outdoor Skillshare/// 18–21 June

An excit­ing week­end of work­shops and skill­shar­ing in rur­al Scot­land.

Come and learn:
climb­ing and rope access, build­ing tree hous­es, tun­nelling, cook­ing for the mass­es, knot-tying, fire-light­ing, wild foods and more!

**Please for­ward on to your net­works, if you would like some posters/flyers to dis­play, please get in touch**

///Outdoor Skillshare/// 18–21 June

An excit­ing week­end of work­shops and skill­shar­ing in rur­al Scot­land.

Come and learn:
climb­ing and rope access, build­ing tree hous­es, tun­nelling, cook­ing for the mass­es, knot-tying, fire-light­ing, wild foods and more!

At Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp we occu­pied land fac­ing destruc­tion. We lived out­side, grew as a com­mu­ni­ty and took con­tin­u­ous tar­get­ed action.
We want to focus on the skills need­ed to occu­py and defend land with a week­end long event bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to learn and share the skills for liv­ing out­doors as a com­mu­ni­ty, build­ing defences, resist­ing evic­tions and think­ing about strate­gies for action.

These are trans­fer­able skills that can be tak­en away and used in a wide range of cam­paigns and actions.

This skill­share will be a safe, inclu­sive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry envi­ron­ment for learn­ing new prac­ti­cal skills and is open to peo­ple of all abil­i­ties and expe­ri­ences. If you have any queries or spe­cial require­ments, please let us know — we will do our best to accom­mo­date every­one’s needs.

We will be ask­ing for dona­tions toward food and oth­er costs from those that can afford it.

If you want to find out more, or if you have skills you want to share then please con­tact us at: outdoorskillshare@riseup.net

//Workshop Timetable//

Fri­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
11:00 Work­shop Facil­i­ta­tor Drop-in (2 hours, 11–13:00)
12:00 Con­fi­dence Build­ing and Mutu­al Sup­port (1 hour, 12–13:00)
13:00- 14:00 Lunch
14:00 Deal­ing with Prob­lem Behav­iour and Encour­ag­ing Par­tic­i­pa­tion (1
hour, 14–15:00)
16:00–16:30 Tea Break
16:30 Trip to Main­shill (2 hours, 16:30–18:30)
18:30- 19:00 Wel­come Ses­sion
19:00 Din­ner
20:00 Pub Quiz
22:00 Music. Jam. Fire.
00:00 Bed­time

Sat­ur­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
9:30–10:00 Wel­come Ses­sion
10:00 Cook­ing for the Mass­es (3 hours, 10–13:00)
Fire Build­ing and Light­ing (1 hour, 10–11:00)
Tree climb­ing, gen­er­al rope access skills (2 hours, 10–12:00)
Tripods (2 hours, 10- 12:00)
12:00Tool Use and Care (1 hour, 12–13:00)
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00 Facil­i­ta­tion for Con­sen­sus (2 hours,14–16:00)
Over­com­ing Oppres­sion (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Tun­nelling (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Veg­an Bak­ing (2 hours, 14–16:00)
16:00 Tea Break
16:30 Legal Observ­ing (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Self Defence (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Site Electrics (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Tac­tics and Strat­e­gy for Defence (1 hour, 16:30–17:30)
18:00 Knots (1 hour, 18–19:00)
Pro­tect­ing Your Habi­tat inc. toi­lets (1 hour, 18–19:00)
Radios (1 hour, 18–19:00)
19:00–20:00 Din­ner
20:00 Films Talks, Craft Ses­sion
22:00 Open Mic
00:00 Bed­time

Sun­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
9:30–10:00 Site Meet-up
10:00 First Aid (3 hours, 10–13:00)
Herb and Plant Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (1 hour, 10–11:00)
Map read­ing and Nav­i­ga­tion for begin­ners (2 hours, 10–12:00)
Tree­house Build­ing (2 hours, 10–12:00)
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00 Blockad­ing for Begin­ners (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Fences – get­ting through, over etc. (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Tree climb­ing- advanced, Arbour­ing etc. (2 hours, 14–16:00)
15:00 Comms (1 hour, 15–16:00)
16:00 Tea Break
16:30 Drag­on Dynam­ics Empow­er­ment Skill­share (2 hours 16:30–18:30) Field
Plumb­ing (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Rec­ces (2 hours 16:30–18:30)
Tree climbing,general rope access skills (2 hours 16:30–18:30)
19:00–20:00 Din­ner
20:00 Music — Per­for­mances
00:00 DJ
03:00 Bed­time

Kids’ Work­shops

Sat­ur­day
10:00 Tree Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (2 hours, 10–12:00)
14:00 Tree Climb­ing for Kids (aged 10+) (2 hours, 14–16:00)

Sun­day
14:00 Con­sen­sus for Kids (2 hours, 14–16:00)
16:30 Clang, Bang, ShakeyShake, Crash! Mak­ing Instru­ments Out of Trash!
(2 hours, 16:30–18:30)

Lots more info at http://outdoorskillshare.noflag.org.uk

Eviction bosses show up at Black Wood as court hearing delayed

29.3.2010
Hours after the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp suc­cess­ful­ly pushed back its evic­tion hear­ing at Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court this after­noon, mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team includ­ing Mar­tin Leyshon, Head of Resources, vis­it­ed the site to doc­u­ment its defences and pre­sum­ably to begin the process of evict­ing the camp.

29.3.2010
Hours after the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp suc­cess­ful­ly pushed back its evic­tion hear­ing at Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court this after­noon, mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team includ­ing Mar­tin Leyshon, Head of Resources, vis­it­ed the site to doc­u­ment its defences and pre­sum­ably to begin the process of evict­ing the camp.

The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is just over a week old so the appear­ance of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team at such short notice and before the evic­tion order for the site has even been grant­ed shows that UK Coal want rid of the camp as soon as pos­si­ble. Fur­ther still, the court papers are full of ref­er­ences to the recent­ly evict­ed Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, with police advis­ing UK Coal that the longer the camp exists, the hard­er and more cost­ly it will be to remove it.

And of course, they’re right, but num­bers mat­ter too. Please come and join the camp for as long as you can – even if just for a day, it will be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed. The vibe on the camp is good, with defence-build­ing and bar­ri­cad­ing hap­pen­ing all over the place with plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to get involved and lend a hand. See here for details of how to get the the camp.

The hear­ing for the evic­tion order of the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will take place on Thurs­day 1st April at Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court at 14:00. Come down and show your sup­port for the occu­pa­tion if you can.

Final­ly, UK Coal have claimed that the occu­piers of Black Wood have caused fire dam­age to the site, dis­rupt­ed a Great Crest­ed Newt habi­tat and closed access to a foot­path. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp finds it iron­ic that a com­pa­ny about to pro­vide fuel to a coal-fired pow­er sta­tion, fan­ning the flames of cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, caus­ing the forced migra­tion of a pro­tect­ed Newt species and trash­ing their habi­tat on site, and per­ma­nent­ly remov­ing a right of way for the dura­tion of the mine should accuse the camp of these things. The camp sug­gests that hypocrisy and deceit will get UK Coal nowhere.

Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
coalactionscotland@riseup.net
http://blackwood.noflag.org.uk/

Shell apologises

Shell Apol­o­gis­es for Human Rights Vio­la­tions in Niger Delta

The Hague, 27 March 2010

Today, Roy­al Dutch Shell is hold­ing back the tears no more. Shell apol­o­gis­es to all inhab­i­tants of Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the many years of human rights vio­la­tions, for which Shell takes full respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Shell logo burningShell Apol­o­gis­es for Human Rights Vio­la­tions in Niger Delta

The Hague, 27 March 2010

Today, Roy­al Dutch Shell is hold­ing back the tears no more. Shell apol­o­gis­es to all inhab­i­tants of Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the many years of human rights vio­la­tions, for which Shell takes full respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Con­front­ed with mas­sive evi­dence of human rights vio­la­tions that can only be attrib­uted to its oper­a­tions in the Niger Delta, Roy­al Dutch Shell is extreme­ly proud to be the first inter­na­tion­al petro­chem­i­cal com­pa­ny to pub­licly say:

We are sor­ry.

Since Shell first dis­cov­ered oil in the Niger Delta in 1956, the com­pa­ny has rav­ished the land and pol­lut­ed the envi­ron­ment. “We thought these peo­ple didn’t know what was good for them,” explains Brad­ford Houppe, Vice-Pres­i­dent of Shell’s new­ly estab­lished Eth­i­cal Affairs Com­mit­tee. “We nev­er knew that we were bring­ing them impov­er­ish­ment, con­flict, abuse and depri­va­tion. Now we know.” Shell acknowl­edges that it is respon­si­ble for large-scale oil spills, waste dump­ing and gas flar­ing. Each year, hun­dreds of oil spills occur, many of which are caused by cor­ro­sion of oil pipes and poor main­te­nance of infra­struc­ture. “Our fail­ure to deal with these spills swift­ly and the lack of effec­tive clean-up great­ly exac­er­bate their human rights and envi­ron­men­tal impact,” says Houppe. “And that is wrong. It’s just real­ly wrong.”

More than 60 per cent of the peo­ple in the Niger Delta depend on the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment for their liveli­hood. But due to the oil pol­lu­tion, many of them use pol­lut­ed water to drink and to cook and wash with, and eat fish con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with oil and oth­er tox­ins. Oil spills and waste dump­ing have also seri­ous­ly dam­aged agri­cul­tur­al land.

The destruc­tion of liveli­hoods and the lack of redress have led peo­ple to steal oil and van­dalise oil infra­struc­ture in an attempt to gain com­pen­sa­tion or clean-up con­tracts. Armed groups engage in large-scale theft of oil and the ran­som­ing of oil work­ers. Gov­ern­ment reprisals fre­quent­ly involve exces­sive force and the col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment of com­mu­ni­ties, thus deep­en­ing gen­er­al anger and resent­ment.

Between 2005 and 2008, the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment received around $36 bil­lion in tax­es and roy­al­ties from Shell. “They have nev­er, not in the slight­est, held us to account for all the wrong we did,” says Houppe. “So with­out tak­ing back any of our apolo­gies, by all means: blame them too!”

A com­pre­hen­sive Plan of Action, fea­tur­ing gen­er­al apolo­gies, detailed apolo­gies, apolo­gies in Braille and apolo­gies in rhyme that Shell employ­ees will hang on the walls in their offices, will be pre­sent­ed at Shell’s Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing on 18 May 2010 in The Hague.

http://shellapologises.com/