Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Stalled Korean Mining Operations Face Fresh Protests

Jan 21, 2010 — The Indi­an government’s grant of the final envi­ron­men­tal clear­ance to a Kore­an giant firm, allow­ing it to acquire 3,000 acres of ‘for­est lands’ in the east­ern state of Oris­sa, has prompt­ed a fresh spate of protests from more than 4,000 fam­i­lies that will be affect­ed by a pro­posed min­ing project.

Jan 21, 2010 — The Indi­an government’s grant of the final envi­ron­men­tal clear­ance to a Kore­an giant firm, allow­ing it to acquire 3,000 acres of ‘for­est lands’ in the east­ern state of Oris­sa, has prompt­ed a fresh spate of protests from more than 4,000 fam­i­lies that will be affect­ed by a pro­posed min­ing project.

Pohang Steel Com­pa­ny (POSCO) has been try­ing to set up oper­a­tions in Oris­sa since 2005, which have been stalled since then due to a rash of some­times vio­lent protest move­ments, promi­nent among them being Posco Pratirodh San­gram Sami­ti (PPSS or Com­mit­tee for Resis­tance against POSCO), against the company’s land acqui­si­tions for the project.

The PPSS held its lat­est protest on Jan. 13 after the steel­mak­er obtained the much await­ed clear­ance ear­ly this month. The group is com­posed of local indige­nous or trib­al folk whose com­bined pop­u­la­tion is esti­mat­ed at 22,000.

In June 2005 the state gov­ern­ment and POSCO signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing allow­ing the com­pa­ny to set up a steel plant .

POSCO, which has the largest for­eign direct invest­ment in India so far, at 51,000 crores (11 bil­lion U.S. dol­lars), plans to build a 12-mil­lion-tonne steel plant with a ‘cap­tive’ port in Jagats­ingh­pur dis­trict of Oris­sa, an inte­grat­ed town­ship with water sup­ply infra­struc­ture from two impor­tant bar­rages. The project is expect­ed to gen­er­ate some 45,000 jobs.

India’s gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy on min­ing, cau­tious till 1997, was amend­ed in 2006 to allow full direct invest­ment by for­eign com­pa­nies. It was seen as a means to ‘devel­op­ing’ the coun­try.

Since then, inter­na­tion­al firms like De Beers and Bro­ken Hill Prop­er­ties, both with con­tro­ver­sial human rights and envi­ron­men­tal com­pa­ny prac­tice records in coun­tries like South Africa and Papua New Guinea respec­tive­ly, have acquired huge prospect­ing rights in Oris­sa as well as Mad­hya Pradesh state in cen­tral India.

Along­side China’s demand for iron and steel, fuelled by its furi­ous pace of devel­op­ment , iron ore pro­duc­tion in India jumped from 59 met­ric tonnes in 1993–94 to 154 mil­lion tonnes (mt) in 2005-06, baux­ite from 5 mt to 12 mt in the same peri­od, while coal-pro­duc­tion increased from 267 mt to 437 mt.

Yet, this huge spi­ral­ing pro­duc­tion has con­tributed a mere 2.5 per­cent to the country’s gross domes­tic prod­uct in the last 10 years and yield­ed much small­er rev­enues for the gov­ern­ment than it should have, giv­en its panoram­ic increase, accord­ing to the Cen­tre for Sci­ence and Envi­ron­ment, a well respect­ed New Del­hi-based organ­i­sa­tion that is cam­paign­ing against exploita­tive min­ing.

The Oris­sa state government’s no-holds-barred entry to POSCO gives the com­pa­ny 600 mt of iron ore at half its mar­ket price, enabling it to make sig­nif­i­cant­ly hand­some prof­its. This was based on a study con­duct­ed by envi­ron­men­tal researcher and social activist Man­shi Ash­er of the Nation­al Cen­tre for Advo­ca­cy Stud­ies (NCAS), based in Pune dis­trict in Maha­rash­tra, locat­ed on the west­ern coast of India.

The gov­ern­ment, which also gives the com­pa­ny tax-free sta­tus and incen­tives, will sup­ply iron ore to POSCO at a dis­count of 2,000 rupees (approx­i­mate­ly 44 U.S. dol­lars) per tonne, and allow it to export high-qual­i­ty ore even while it imports low-alu­mi­na con­tent ore.

Brazil and Chi­na had ear­li­er turned down POSCO’s pro­posed deals due to the company’s refusal to buy iron ore at mar­ket prices. The com­pa­ny is now fac­ing protests in Uruguay over land acqui­si­tion for a car­bon seques­tra­tion project.

In Oris­sa, the com­pa­ny will also receive approx­i­mate­ly 150,000 mil­lion litres of water, affect­ing water sup­ply to the near­est city of Cut­tack and irri­ga­tion to four dis­tricts. It will like­wise get an unspec­i­fied num­ber of ‘cap­tive’ coal mines and over 6,000 acres of land (com­pris­ing the new­ly cleared for­est areas for the Kore­an firm), exclud­ing an unspec­i­fied acreage for estab­lish­ing trans­porta­tion, water and ‘any oth­er project-relat­ed infra­struc­ture facil­i­ties’, as per its agree­ment, accord­ing to Ash­er.

Offi­cial sta­tis­tics indi­cate that mere­ly 438 acres of the land involved is pri­vate, dis­plac­ing 471 fam­i­lies. Gov­ern­ment records, how­ev­er, do not reflect that most of the approx­i­mate­ly 3,000 acres of land belong­ing to the for­est depart­ment have been under cul­ti­va­tion for gen­er­a­tions, or used by com­mu­ni­ties for fod­der and non-tim­bre for­est pro­duce.

Repeat­ed calls by IPS to K.C. Sahu, who is in charge of min­ing oper­a­tions in POSCO’s Indi­an arm at Bhubanesh­war, drew no response.

There are also envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns over defor­esta­tion, destruc­tion of coastal and estu­ar­ine ecosys­tems includ­ing the destruc­tion of a nat­ur­al drainage sys­tem by the con­struc­tion of a cap­tive port.

The Garhir­matha tur­tle sanc­tu­ary in Oris­sa, home to hun­dreds of nest­ing Olive Rid­ley tur­tles every year, faces sig­nif­i­cant risk by the con­struc­tion of POSCO’s cap­tive port.

The PPSS is also wor­ried about the port affect­ing the liveli­hoods of near­ly 30,000 fish­er­folk.

“There are man­groves where the port is planned, and salt mounds that serve to stop sea­wa­ter flow­ing in,” says Prashant Paikare, spokesper­son of PPSS. ” What about nat­ur­al dis­as­ters because of their destruc­tion ?” he asks.

In 1999, a dev­as­tat­ing cyclone killed thou­sands and dis­placed as many on this coast­line, destroy­ing 275,000 homes.

Con­cerns about health also hound the project. Accord­ing to the NCAS study, the local trib­al pop­u­la­tion also faces seri­ous health prob­lems, espe­cial­ly among mine work­ers in the region. Many oth­ers, hav­ing lost their lands and forests, appear to have migrat­ed, with their where­abouts unknown.

“We will offer mass resis­tance,” warns Paikare. “We still don’t believe the reha­bil­i­ta­tion pack­age that the gov­ern­ment has said POSCO must ful­fill will take care of all the issues involved.”

POSCO has yet to announce the com­po­nents of the pack­age, but locals news reports said the com­pa­ny was will­ing to offer land to those who would be dis­placed by its project. No oth­er details were giv­en, how­ev­er.

Soon after the PPSS’s Jan. 13 protest, the gov­ern­ment of Oris­sa announced it was con­ven­ing a reha­bil­i­ta­tion and periph­ery devel­op­ment advi­so­ry com­mit­tee. Steel and mines state sec­re­tary A.M.R. Dal­wai said he would now focus on the reha­bil­i­ta­tion pack­age.

The Indi­an government’s envi­ron­men­tal approval to POSCO comes with 15 rid­ers, includ­ing com­pul­so­ry afforesta­tion; that lands remain with the gov­ern­ment and that no dam­age be caused to flo­ra and fau­na. It also spec­i­fies that the project can­not be under­tak­en with­out the con­sent of the trib­al com­mu­ni­ty liv­ing in the area.

The pro­posed min­ing site in Keon­jhar dis­trict, which will sup­ply POSCO its iron ore, is already reel­ing under the neg­a­tive effects of large-scale min­ing activ­i­ty.

Pro­tect­ed against land alien­ation under India’s con­sti­tu­tion because of its being a trib­al area, Keon­jhar still faces con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions by even state-run organ­i­sa­tions like the Oris­sa Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, tak­en to court for land ille­gal­i­ties.

“We can­not have devel­op­ment which is only about extrac­tion,” says activist Rose­mary Vish­wanath, believ­ing it impov­er­ish­es the affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties and destroys their cul­ture.

Philippine community blocks entry of large mining firm

Jan­u­ary 19, 2010
The com­mu­ni­ty of Anis­la­gan on the island of Min­danao has suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the Philex min­ing com­pa­ny from enter­ing their lands.

Anislagan vs PhilexJan­u­ary 19, 2010
The com­mu­ni­ty of Anis­la­gan on the island of Min­danao has suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the Philex min­ing com­pa­ny from enter­ing their lands.

Accord­ing to a press release from the Legal Rights and Nat­ur­al Resources Cen­ter-Kasama sa Kalikasan (LRC-CdO), near­ly the entire com­mu­ni­ty gath­ered to greet Philex, the largest min­ing firm in the Philip­pines, with a makeshift check­point they put togeth­er, on Jan­u­ary 11, 2010.

The com­pa­ny was plan­ning to com­mence work on a “liveli­hood train­ing cen­ter.” How­ev­er, “The Philex 6‑vehicle con­voy backed out after they failed to pass through the thou­sand res­i­dents of Anis­la­gan,” states the LRC-CdO.

To rein­force the check­point, the com­mu­ni­ty formed into a human a human bar­ri­cade, leav­ing the com­pa­ny with nowhere else to go

“Women and chil­dren here are ready any­time to defend our land. This land is where we sur­vived. We should fight for it!” said Riza­li­na Lis­bos, a moth­er of four, who was on the front line of the bar­ri­cade.

Pro­vid­ing some back­ground, the LRC-CdO explains: “Philex start­ed its actu­al min­ing oper­a­tion in the adja­cent Barangay (vil­lage) of Tima­mana, Tubod, Suri­gao del Norte in the 1st quar­ter of 2009. Philex’s oper­a­tion in Tubod, also known as the ‘Bayu­go Project’, start­ed as ear­ly as 1999 for their explo­ration activ­i­ties. There was strong oppo­si­tion from the Tubod peo­ple until the min­ing com­pa­ny start­ed their com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions projects, like liveli­hood, drainage improve­ment, sports activ­i­ties etc. After that peo­ple start­ed to begrudg­ing­ly agree to the min­ing project.”

“How­ev­er, the adja­cent vil­lage of Anis­la­gan sus­tained their oppo­si­tion to min­ing for almost ten years, led by Anis­la­gan Ban­tay Kalikasan Task Force (ABAKATAF), which is com­posed of mul­ti-sec­toral and inter­faith groups in the vil­lage.”

“Anis­la­gan pro­vides irri­ga­tion to rice field in their vil­lage and to adja­cent villages.We don’t need a liveli­hood train­ing cen­ter inside our vil­lage from a min­ing com­pa­ny. What for?” states Mr. Ormega, the new pres­i­dent of ABAKATAF. “We have an exist­ing self-sus­tain­ing and com­mu­ni­ty liveli­hood here. The min­ing com­pa­ny already affect­ed our irri­ga­tion, our rivers, and even to our water sup­ply from their Bayu­go project and now they are propos­ing a liveli­hood cen­ter.”

If the pro­posed “liveli­hood cen­ter” is the insult, than the min­ing project is the injury—and its bit­ter­ly iron­ic: If min­ing in the region goes ahead as planned, it would destroy the com­mu­ni­ties’ liveli­hood and their nat­ur­al resources.

For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it: http://saveanislaganwatershed.blogspot.com and http://lrcksk.org

Drilling-Rig Sabotaged at Mainshill Woods

In the ear­ly hours of Jan­u­ary the 13th an Apex drilling rig at Main­shill Woods was sab­o­taged.

The Machine was one of two drilling rigs work­ing on the site of anoth­er open­cast coal mine planned for South Lanark­shire.
Resis­tance is strong with a series of actions already this year.

See and take action against a list of con­trac­tors work­ing in Main­shill Woods here: mainshill.noflag.org.uk

In the ear­ly hours of Jan­u­ary the 13th an Apex drilling rig at Main­shill Woods was sab­o­taged.

The Machine was one of two drilling rigs work­ing on the site of anoth­er open­cast coal mine planned for South Lanark­shire.
Resis­tance is strong with a series of actions already this year.

See and take action against a list of con­trac­tors work­ing in Main­shill Woods here: mainshill.noflag.org.uk

This action was tak­en by an autonomous group of peo­ple and is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

Rapid Technology Transfer Group to take over the Earth Centre

A cam­paign has been run­ning to reclaim the earth cen­tre in don­cast­er as a com­mu­ni­ty skill share cen­tre. It has come to light that the local coun­cil and a con­glo­morate of many multi­na­tion­als has been plan­ning a take over. They deal in chem­i­cals, con­struc­tion, nuclear, engi­neer­ing, audio­vi­su­al, 3D tech, aero­space, defense and a whole lot more.

A cam­paign has been run­ning to reclaim the earth cen­tre in don­cast­er as a com­mu­ni­ty skill share cen­tre. It has come to light that the local coun­cil and a con­glo­morate of many multi­na­tion­als has been plan­ning a take over. They deal in chem­i­cals, con­struc­tion, nuclear, engi­neer­ing, audio­vi­su­al, 3D tech, aero­space, defense and a whole lot more.

They planned an open day to our knowl­edge this has not been pub­li­cised and very few peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty are aware so in order that the com­mu­ni­ty not be exclud­ed again! We feel it impor­tant to share this infor­ma­tion and urge you to attend:

Earthw rks
Devel­op­ment Plan­ning 2010
First Quar­ter – Open Days — Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 9th and Wednes­day, March 31st
This is an open invi­ta­tion to all organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als will­ing to con­tribute exper­tise to restore the site of the for­mer Earth Cen­tre as a nation­al resource for research­ing, under­stand­ing and prac­tis­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Please e‑mail mike@therttg.org to reg­is­ter and receive full details. Out­door wear is rec­om­mend­ed. Pho­tog­ra­phy for per­son­al use is per­mit­ted in all areas.

for more details of this sit­u­a­tion please see http://welovetheearthcentre.blogspot.com

Forest occupation against Very High Voltage power lines in Catalonia

Since Octo­ber 17th we’re occu­py­ing a piece of for­est that was meant to host one of the hun­dreds of elec­tri­cal tow­ers that con­form the new Very High Volt­age (MAT) pow­er line, and that will even­tu­al­ly inter­con­nect France, Spain and, time will tell, A

Des dels boscos welcome signDes dels boscos walk-waysSince Octo­ber 17th we’re occu­py­ing a piece of for­est that was meant to host one of the hun­dreds of elec­tri­cal tow­ers that con­form the new Very High Volt­age (MAT) pow­er line, and that will even­tu­al­ly inter­con­nect France, Spain and, time will tell, Africa. The place we now call our home is in an area called Guil­leries (Girona), near Sant Hilari Sacalm vil­lage, at about 1000 metres high and sur­round­ed by moun­tains in a pret­ty iso­lat­ed envi­ron­ment.

The rea­sons for this occu­pa­tion are many: we won’t accept with­out fight­ing yet anoth­er gigan­tic infra­struc­ture that will solve absolute­ly noth­ing and in fact, will wors­en things up. We have to choose which side we’re in: either we stand for west­ern civ­i­liza­tion or we fight against it. It’s time for action. This is an attempt to show that some peo­ple still have what it takes, that chal­leng­ing the estab­lish­ment is a con­di­tion for us to be able to live in this world.

Some of the “prob­lems” this MAT line hopes to solve are: to be able to secure elec­tri­cal pow­er for the tourist vil­lages (espe­cial­ly in sum­mer) of Girona (Cos­ta Bra­va, for exam­ple); elec­tri­cal sup­ply for the TAV/AVE (which would hap­pen to be the first one to need it!); avoid elec­tri­cal black­outs like the one of 2007? in Barcelona… We’re not going to enter the debate are­na in which one side shows an “inde­pen­dent study” that states how much this pow­er line is need­ed and the oth­er side comes yet with anoth­er study that shows the oppo­site. It’s obvi­ous which side we’re with, but we state that it is imper­a­tive to actu­al­ly FIGHT this pow­er line and not just keep debat­ing and mak­ing press con­fer­ences.

In the mean­time, we’re try­ing to build the foun­da­tions of a new world start­ing right here and now, recon­nect­ing with the Earth. Liv­ing what our instincts tell us, hurt­ing the empire and mak­ing pres­sure on its fis­sures. From here, from the forests that have always hid the rebels, maquis, con­spir­a­tors and plot­ters. We can still be kin­da invis­i­ble and feel pro­tect­ed by these forests.

They’ve sold us the idea of progress and sci­ence as a nostrum/panacea that will free human­i­ty of its fears and that will give us com­modi­ties nev­er dreamed before. A com­mod­i­ty that, on the oth­er hand, we nev­er get to catch because progress has to cre­ate new gad­gets every sin­gle minute. What we’re able to see is that progress reduces us to total use­less per­sons, full of inse­cu­ri­ties and pas­siv­i­ty. Every moment we spend in this world we lose knowl­edge about how a life would be with­out all these com­modi­ties they sell to us.

So long the occu­pa­tion is very suc­cess­ful. In this (almost) two months, a lot of struc­tures have been built: many beds on the trees, a com­mu­nal “chill” house in between three trees to read and plot, a com­mu­nal kitchen, a info point, a “ware­house” to store mate­ri­als and keep things dry…and many resis­tance struc­tures that will keep police busy for (we hope) some days when they try to evict us. Also very impor­tant has been the help and involve­ment of many peo­ple we did­n’t know until some weeks ago: local peo­ple from the near­by vil­lages, peo­ple from Barcelona and oth­er cities that show up and help, peo­ple that decide to stay for some days (or even that came to live with us) and bypassers that are curi­ous of what we’re doing.

Our com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy has been to try to com­mu­ni­cate direct­ly with peo­ple instead of let­ting mass-media por­tray us and manip­u­late us as they want. No work has been done with them. We have used our own means: texts, fly­ers, posters, face-to-face talk­ing with peo­ple of the vil­lages, social move­ments and our own blog (desdelsboscos.blogspot.com). Mass-media are nev­er impar­tial, less when they’re means to enrich them­selves and to keep this cap­i­tal­ist machine run­ning full-speed. That’s why we invite every­one to show up with no cam­eras or micro­phones.

From the for­est, a big hug to all peo­ple try­ing to get rid of this cap­i­tal­ist-indus­tri­al­ist sys­tem and that strug­gle to cre­ate a world with­out any kind of dom­i­na­tion!

How to get there by car, bus or train
Wish list

Des dels boscos web­site — http://desdelsboscos.blogspot.com/

Lappersfort Callout For Eviction

This morn­ing (Thurs­day 7th), the police snipped open part of our fence and broke their way in to the for­est

This morn­ing (Thurs­day 7th), the police snipped open part of our fence and broke their way in to the for­est

On Decem­ber 31st 09, a judge of the Brugge court ruled that the evic­tion notice passed against the occu­piers of 2002 may still be used to evict the present occu­piers of the Lap­pers­fort. On Tues­day last week, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive robot from Fab­ri­com GTI was quot­ed in the media say­ing that they would fol­low the judi­cial path, and were plan­ning to sit down and dis­cuss the evic­tion with the Brugge police. This claim that they will fol­low the “legal” path isn’t some­thing we’re rely­ing on, and we are expect­ing an evic­tion any day now. This morn­ing (Thurs­day 7th), the police snipped open part of our fence and broke their way in to the for­est. Four of them had a lit­tle pig­gy tour, tak­ing pho­tos and being gen­er­al­ly mys­te­ri­ous and stu­pid. One of us heard them sneak­ing around in the night, which means they must have cut the fence at night then snuck in dur­ing the morn­ing. As the police start doing such things here, and the fact that Fab­ri­com Suez already has an evic­tion notice, can only make us think that the evic­tion is just around the cor­ner.….

IN THE FOREST, WE NEED MORE HUMANS WILLING TO STAY HERE A WHILE AND DEFEND THE FOREST AGAINST THE POLICE IN CASE OF EVICTION.
OUTSIDE THE FOREST, WE NEED MORE HUMANS WILLING TO SUPPORT FROM OUTSIDE, TO COME TO BRUGGE AND DEMONSTRATE ON THE DAY OF EVICTION, AND TO TAKE SOLIDARITY ACTIONS AGAINST FABRICOM GTI AND GDF SUEZ. FOR A FREESPACE IN THE WOODS AND FOR THE WOODS, AND FOR WILDERNESS EVERYWHERE, LAPPERSFORT WON’T GO OFF WITHOUT A FIGHT.….
PLEASE TRANSLATE AND SEND ON THIS CALLOUT

lappersfort@riseup.net
http://lappersfort.freehostia.com

Coal Machinery Sabotaged in South Lanarkshire, Scotland

Late one night in ear­ly Jan­u­ary Pen­nile open cast coal mine was vis­it­ed by a num­ber of peo­ple who sab­o­taged machines. A total of 13 pieces of machin­ery were dam­aged, includ­ing one giant earth mover, six giant dumper trucks, four stan­dard sized earth movers and two flood light gen­er­a­tors.

Late one night in ear­ly Jan­u­ary Pen­nile open cast coal mine was vis­it­ed by a num­ber of peo­ple who sab­o­taged machines. A total of 13 pieces of machin­ery were dam­aged, includ­ing one giant earth mover, six giant dumper trucks, four stan­dard sized earth movers and two flood light gen­er­a­tors.

Recent­ly Pen­nile open cast fin­ished min­ing, but the machines Scot­tish Coal had work­ing there were sup­posed to be mov­ing to Main­shill Wood. How­ev­er as we all know Scot­tish Coal’s plans have been sub­stan­tial­ly dis­rupt­ed by the occu­pa­tion of the wood by the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

This action was tak­en by autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with every­one who oppos­es the destruc­tion of Main­shill Wood and it’s devel­op­ment into anoth­er coal mine.

Japanese whale killers ram and destroy Sea Shepherd protest vessel the Ady Gil

6.1.2010
Ear­ly this morn­ing the Japan­ese whale killing ship Shonan Maru2 rammed and destroyed the Sea Shep­herd protest ves­sel the Ady Gil. It was a mir­a­cle no Sea Shep­herd crew were killed or seri­ous­ly injured.

From Sea Shep­herd CEO Steve Roest.

Sea Shepherd Ady Gil rammed6.1.2010
Ear­ly this morn­ing the Japan­ese whale killing ship Shonan Maru2 rammed and destroyed the Sea Shep­herd protest ves­sel the Ady Gil. It was a mir­a­cle no Sea Shep­herd crew were killed or seri­ous­ly injured.

From Sea Shep­herd CEO Steve Roest.
I was wok­en at 4am GMT to hear that the Japan­ese whaler and secu­ri­ty ves­sel Shonan Maru2 had delib­er­ate­ly rammed the small Sea Shep­herd inter­cept ves­sel Ady Gil. The Ady Gil had lost the front 3 metres of her nose com­plete­ly and it is a mir­a­cle nobody was seri­ous­ly injured or killed.

Cap­tain Wat­son has made the fol­low­ing state­ment to the press:

In an unpro­voked attack cap­tured on film, the Japan­ese secu­ri­ty ship Shonan Maru #2 delib­er­ate­ly rammed and caused cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age to the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Ady Gil.

Six crew crewmem­bers, four from New Zealand, one from Aus­tralia and one from the Nether­lands were imme­di­ate­ly res­cued by the crew of the Sea Shep­herd ship Bob Bark­er. None of the crew Ady Gil crew were injured.

The Ady Gil is believed to be sink­ing and chances of sal­vage are very grim.

Accord­ing to eye­wit­ness Cap­tain Chuck Swift on the Bob Bark­er, the attack hap­pened while the ves­sels were dead in the water. The Shonan Maru #2 sud­den­ly start­ed up and delib­er­ate­ly rammed the Ady Gil rip­ping eight feet of the bow of the ves­sel com­plete­ly off. Accord­ing to Cap­tain Swift, the ves­sel does not look like it will be saved.

“The Japan­ese whalers have now esca­lat­ed this con­flict very vio­lent­ly.” Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “If they think that our remain­ing two ships will retreat from the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary in the face of their extrem­ism, they will be mis­tak­en. We now have a real whale war on our hands and we have no inten­tion of retreat­ing.”

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son onboard the Steve Irwin is rac­ing towards the area at 16 knots but still remains some five hun­dred miles to the north. The Bob Bark­er will has tem­porar­i­ly stop the pur­suit of the Nis­shin Maru to res­cue the crew of the Ady Gil. The Japan­ese ships refused to acknowl­edge the May Day dis­tress of the Ady Gil and used the inci­dent to break away from the scene of the ram­ming.

The inci­dent took place at 64 Degrees and 03 Min­utes South and 143 Degrees and 09 Min­utes East

Until this morn­ing the Japan­ese were com­plete­ly unaware of the exis­tence of the Bob Bark­er. This newest addi­tion to the Sea Shep­herd fleet left Mau­ri­tius off the coast of Africa on Decem­ber 18th and was able to advance along the ice edge from the West as the Japan­ese were busy wor­ry­ing about the advance of the Steve Irwin from the North.

“This is a sub­stan­tial loss for our orga­ni­za­tion,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “The Ady Gil, the for­mer Earth­race ves­sel, rep­re­sents a loss of almost two mil­lion dol­lars. How­ev­er the loss of a sin­gle whale is of more impor­tance to us and we will not lose the Ady Gil in vain. This blow sim­ply strength­ens our resolve, it does not weak­en our spir­it.”

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety is request­ing that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment send a naval ves­sel to restore the peace in the waters of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry. We have 77 crew from 16 nations on three ves­sels, 6 of them were on the Ady Gil. Of these 21 are Aus­tralian cit­i­zens. 16 Aus­tralians on the Steve Irwin and 5 on the Bob Bark­er. Sea Shep­herd believes that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect the lives of Aus­tralian cit­i­zens work­ing to defend whales from ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties.

“Aus­tralia needs to send a naval ves­sel down here as soon as pos­si­ble to pro­tect both the whales and the Aus­tralian cit­i­zens work­ing to defend these whales.” Said Steve Irwin Chief Cook Lau­ra Dakin of Can­ber­ra. “This is Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters and I see the Japan­ese whalers doing what­ev­er they want with impuni­ty down here with­out a sin­gle Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment ves­sel any­where to be found. Peter Gar­rett, I have one ques­tion for you. Where the bloody hell are you?”

http://www.seashepherd.org

—

Sea Shep­herd vows to con­tin­ue cam­paign after whalers destroy Ady Gil

Yes­ter­day was a hec­tic day in Com­mon­wealth Bay, near Antarc­ti­ca, in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary. The Ady Gil, while sta­tion­ary, was pupose­ful­ly rammed at speed by the Japan­ese whal­ing secu­ri­ty ves­sel, the Shonan Maru 2. And the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet, and the world dis­cov­ered Sea Shep­herds sur­prise new con­ser­va­tion ship, the Bob Bak­er, an ex-Nor­we­gian Antarc­tic ice-class whal­ing ves­sel that was bought in 2009 and secret­ly refit­ted in South Africa.

In the Antarc­tic ear­ly morn­ing twi­light at 0300 Hours, 6 Jan­u­ary, the Bob Bak­er found the Nis­shin Maru and her four har­poon ves­sels. The Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tion had been caught unawares. They had been focussing on the loca­tion of the Steve Irwin, pay­ing New Zealan­der Glenn Inwood’s Ome­ka Pub­lic Rela­tions com­pa­ny to hire char­ter flights first in Albany, and then in Mel­bourne and Hobart to locate and fol­low the Steve Irwin.

The ‘spy flights’ from Albany were able to direct the Shonan Maru 2 to shad­ow the Steve Irwin when it left Fre­man­tle so that the main whal­ing fleet could avoid a con­flict and do their whale slaugh­ter in peace. The stra­e­gy worked for two weeks, until the Steve Irwin returned to Hobart to refu­el and repro­vi­sion. Leav­ing Hobart on New Years Eve, the Steve Irwin was able to slip past under­cov­er of a thun­der­storm. The spy flights from Mel­bourne and Hobart organ­ised by Glenn Inwood, esti­mat­ed to cost about $18,000, could not locate the Steve Irwin due to the low cloud cov­er.

The Sea Shep­herd also had some unex­pect­ed assis­tance depart­ing Hobart from six peo­ple on a small motor­boat, self iden­ti­fied as ‘Taz Patrol’, who patrolled the perime­ter of the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone (EEZ) locat­ing the Yushin Maru and twit­ter­ing it’s loca­tion to the world (and Sea Shep­herd).

So with the whal­ing fleet locat­ed, New Zealand skip­per of the Ady Gil, Pete Bethune, drove his power­boat around the Nis­shan Maru whal­ing fac­to­ry ship, attempt­ing to foul the fac­to­ry ship’s pro­pel­lors. Evi­dent­ly only one bauble of rot­ten but­ter reached the deck of the Nis­shan Maru, but the green laser pho­ton­ic dis­rupters were also used. In return the Nis­shan Maru fired up its LRAD acoustic weapon and used its water can­non. Stale­mate.

So the Ady Gil retreats with the Nis­shan Maru flee­ing. Sea Shep­herd’s new ves­sel the Bob Bak­er pre­pares to chase the Nis­shan Maru and the fleet, while most of the Ady Gil crew sit on the roof with the ves­sel in a sta­tion­ary idle. The videos show the Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel, the Shonan Maru 2 charg­ing the Ady Gil with water canons blaz­ing. Peter Bethune tells his crew to pre­pare for a drench­ing, lit­tle real­iz­ing the dan­ger he and his crew were fac­ing. While the water can­non sprays the roof of the Ady Gil blind­ing the crew, the Shonan Maru turns sharply to star­board right at the Ady Gil. In the few moments before impact Peter Bethune guns the Ady Gil, but it is far too late with Shonan Maru 2 slic­ing 2 metres off the bow of the Ady Gil, forc­ing the power­boat momen­tar­i­ly under­wa­ter and immers­ing the crew in the icy waters hold­ing on to the roof for their lives.

Even after impact and seper­a­tion of the ships, the Shonan Maru 2 con­tin­ues to pound the bedrag­gled crew hang­ing on to the top of the Ady Gil with water canon blasts.

Video: Japan­ese Whalers film Ady Gil being rammed by Shonan Maru 2

Video: Ady Gil rammed by Shonan Maru 2 filmed by Sea Shep­herd from Bob Bark­er

—

Rammed Ves­sel Ady Gil Sinks

Sea Shep­herd Resumes Pur­suit of Ille­gal Whalers

On Jan­u­ary 8, 2010 at 17:20 (GMT) the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel Bob Bark­er report­ed the last known posi­tion of anoth­er Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, the Ady Gil, to the Aus­tralian Res­cue Coor­di­na­tion Cen­ter (ARCC). This report was made because the Ady Gil—which was orig­i­nal­ly going to be towed to a near­by base—is now sink­ing and could pose a nav­i­ga­tion haz­ard for the next two to three hours.

Hav­ing bare­ly sur­vived a vicious attack by the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing ves­sel Shonan Maru No. 2 on Jan­u­ary 6, 2010, the Ady Gil began tak­ing on water. Since that time, Bob Bark­er crew mem­bers have been work­ing around the clock in an attempt to save the ship and remove pos­si­ble envi­ron­men­tal haz­ards in case the ves­sel had fur­ther com­pli­ca­tions while being towed.

videos from Mainshill and German treesit against a proposed pipeline

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp presents:

*Off With Their Heads!*

Hold­ing the politi­cians behind Main­shill Open Cast Coal Mine to account

Fea­tur­ing: Jim Hood MP, Karen Gillon MSP, Coun­cil­lor Dan­ny Meik­le and Lord Home

Snow and Anarchy at MainshillThe Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp presents:

*Off With Their Heads!*

Hold­ing the politi­cians behind Main­shill Open Cast Coal Mine to account

Fea­tur­ing: Jim Hood MP, Karen Gillon MSP, Coun­cil­lor Dan­ny Meik­le and Lord Home

This short film doc­u­ments the cor­rup­tion, con­flict of inter­est and hypocrisy dom­i­nat­ing the pol­i­tics of South Lanark­shire, that result in Scot­tish Coal receiv­ing approval for coal mine after coal mine in the Dou­glas Val­ley. With no regard for com­mu­ni­ty health, local democ­ra­cy, the envi­ron­ment or cli­mate change, Scot­tish Coal are allowed to run roughshod over the peo­ple of the Dou­glas Val­ley. The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp occu­pied the site of Main­shill Wood over six months ago to help local com­mu­ni­ties fight off Scot­tish Coal and the landown­er Lord Home.

The strug­gle con­tin­ues!

Watch it here: http://www.politube.org/show/23788

—

Since the 18.12.09 ROBIN WOOD-Activists squat sev­er­al trees in the Gäh­ler­park in Ham­burg Altona to impende the con­truc­tion of a heat­ing pipeline for the planned coal pow­er plant Ham­burg Moor­burg, which would mean the loss of the trees in the park. The com­pa­ny propos­ing the pipeline is Vat­ten­fall, a Swedish cor­po­ra­tion. With their protest they sup­port two res­i­dents who have squat­tet two trees already at 3rd of decem­ber.

(Ger­man with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJeo631Pyv4

Lappersfort Eviction Notice Confirmed By Judge

On Decem­ber 31st 09, the Brugge court gave a ver­dict con­cern­ing the 3 pre­vi­ous occu­piers who signed a con­tract with the own­er, GDF Suez, and also con­cern­ing the evic­tion notice for the present occu­piers of the Lap­pers­fort.

Accord­ing to the judge, Suez can not hold the 3 pre­vi­ous occu­piers respon­si­ble for the new occu­pa­tion, and there­fore their claim against them has been dis­missed.

On Decem­ber 31st 09, the Brugge court gave a ver­dict con­cern­ing the 3 pre­vi­ous occu­piers who signed a con­tract with the own­er, GDF Suez, and also con­cern­ing the evic­tion notice for the present occu­piers of the Lap­pers­fort.

Accord­ing to the judge, Suez can not hold the 3 pre­vi­ous occu­piers respon­si­ble for the new occu­pa­tion, and there­fore their claim against them has been dis­missed.
How­ev­er, the judge has declared that the evic­tion notice issued in 2002, dur­ing the first occu­pa­tion of the Lap­pers­fort, is still valid and may be used to evict the cur­rent occu­piers. This, despite the fact that the first evic­tion notice was issued to 13 peo­ple iden­ti­fied by the court, and who were threat­ened after the first evic­tion with a €50,000 fine if they re-entered the for­est or were involved in any oth­er actions against Fab­ri­com / Suez. None of these 13 peo­ple have any­thing to do with the cur­rent occu­pa­tion and there­fore an evic­tion notice based on a ver­dict passed against them should not be able to be used against us, the present occu­piers. Suez had, before this tri­al, appar­ent­ly already approached a bailiff with the evic­tion notice from 2002, but the bailiff refused to enforce it, as it was doubt­ful whether they could still legal­ly use it. The judge’s ver­dict on the 31st has giv­en them bla­tant right to enforce this notice, claim­ing that the right to pri­vate prop­er­ty is one of the pil­lars of our soci­ety and there­fore must be upheld by the law enforcers blablabla.
As it stands, Suez now have a notice allow­ing them to evict the Lap­pers­fort, which they will have to present to a bailiff who will then have to acti­vate the remote-con­trol pig cir­cus. We are on evic­tion alert every day, and are well pre­pared, after 16 months of occu­pa­tion. We’re not sure how long the process will take from here, and we now need more humans inside the for­est, aswell as oth­ers sup­port­ing from the out­side. If Suez wants to destroy the Lap­pers­fort, now is the time to come togeth­er to make their job as dif­fi­cult as pos­si­ble.

Love respect and sol­i­dar­i­ty to our friends in Tit­nore Woods (eng­land), Des­dels­boscs (spain), Main­shill (scot­land), Tas­ma­nia (aus­tralia), also under evic­tion threat; to the peo­ple of the Brazil­ian Ama­zon fight­ing against the GDF Suez Jirau dam project, and to all oth­er humans defend­ing wilder­ness and nature across the plan­et.…

lap­pers­fort
— e‑mail: lappersfort@riseup.net