Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Environmental Activists killed by Mining Companies in Latin America

On 26th Decem­ber, Dora Ali­cia Reci­nos Sor­to became the third vic­tim of a wave of vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers in the Cabañas Region of El Sal­vador, where com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are protest­ing against the re-open­ing of a Gold Mine by Cana­di­an Com­pa­ny Pacif­ic Rim.

On 26th Decem­ber, Dora Ali­cia Reci­nos Sor­to became the third vic­tim of a wave of vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers in the Cabañas Region of El Sal­vador, where com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are protest­ing against the re-open­ing of a Gold Mine by Cana­di­an Com­pa­ny Pacif­ic Rim.

Dora Ali­cia was a mem­ber of the Cabañas Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mit­tee, and had been active in oppos­ing the mine. She was eight months preg­nant when she was shot dead, and her two year old son was also wound­ed in the attack.

Her mur­der comes six days after the fatal shoot­ing of Ramiro Rivera Gomez, Vice Pres­i­dent of the Cabañas Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mit­tee, who had sur­vived being shot eight times in August this year. In June, anoth­er envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­er, Gus­ta­vo Marce­lo Rivera Moreno, had been tor­tured and killed. Many oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty have received death threats, includ­ing youth work­ers and jour­nal­ists for the local com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion Radio Vic­to­ria, and the local priest Father Luis Quin­tanil­la nar­row­ly escaped an attempt­ed kid­nap­ping.

In Mex­i­co, Mar­i­ano Abar­ca Rob­lero cam­paigned against the envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive open-pit Bar­i­um mine Black­fire, a World Bank project. He was shot to death on the evening of Novem­ber 27, 2009, in front of his house in Chico­muse­lo, Chi­a­pas. More details.

Whalers and Whale Defenders Clash for the First Time This Season

The first clash between whalers and whale defend­ers took place on Decem­ber 14th when the Steve Irwin and the Shonan Maru #2 exchanged shots with their water can­nons.

Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin & Nisshin Maru playThe first clash between whalers and whale defend­ers took place on Decem­ber 14th when the Steve Irwin and the Shonan Maru #2 exchanged shots with their water can­nons.

The Shonan Maru #2 has been fol­low­ing the Steve Irwin from Fre­man­tle since Decem­ber 9th. At 1400 Hours (Mel­bourne time) the Steve Irwin went around an ice­berg, did a fig­ure eight out of view of the Shonan Maru #2 and re-emerged with­in a quar­ter of a mile of the Japan­ese whaler’s port­side quar­ter catch­ing the whalers com­plete­ly by sur­prise.

A pur­suit began and the Shonan Maru #2 turned on two water can­nons. The crew of the Steve Irwin imme­di­ate­ly respond­ed by plac­ing their water can­non in readi­ness. The Shonan Maru #2 and the Steve Irwin were engaged in a high speed pur­suit for two hours before Cap­tain Wat­son decid­ed to break off the pur­suit to resume course to the coast of Antarc­ti­ca.

The Japan­ese whalers are spend­ing a great deal of mon­ey, first locat­ing the Steve Irwin by air and then direct­ing the Shonan Maru #2 to the coor­di­nates of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel. By stay­ing on the tail of the Steve Irwin, the har­poon ves­sel is able to keep the rest of the fleet aware of the Sea Shep­herd posi­tion. Cap­tain Paul Wat­son needs to lose the tail of the Shonan Maru #2 in order to locate the whal­ing fleet. He is count­ing on heav­ier ice con­di­tions to assist in this effort.

“We will use the ice­bergs and the ice floes to our advan­tage.” Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I’ve observed today that I am a more expe­ri­enced ice nav­i­ga­tor than the Japan­ese cap­tain chas­ing us. We need to get him to fol­low us into the ice fields and let the ice work for us.”

The Steve Irwin crew were left wet, but in good spir­its after the con­fronta­tion.

—-

Sea Shep­herd Evades Pur­suit by Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet Secu­ri­ty Ves­sel

The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin has suc­cess­ful­ly left the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Zone (EEZ) with­out any sign of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet secu­ri­ty ship Shonan Maru No. 2.

The Steve Irwin depart­ed from Hobart at 1800 Hours on Decem­ber 31st and took advan­tage of gale force winds and heavy swells to slip past the wait­ing Japan­ese ves­sel.

“It’s a big ocean down here they have no idea where we are,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I’m now con­fi­dent that we can pro­ceed with our search for the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet with­out fur­ther inter­fer­ence from the Shonan Maru No. 2.”

The Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Ady Gil is patrolling the South­ern Ocean in advance of the Steve Irwin in search of the fleet.

The Shonan Maru No. 2 was wait­ing for the Steve Irwin when it left Fre­man­tle on Decem­ber 7th. The Japan­ese had char­tered an air­craft out of Albany to locate the con­ser­va­tion ves­sel. They then relayed the Steve Irwin’s posi­tion to the Shonan Maru No. 2 to enable the Japan­ese secu­ri­ty ves­sel to inter­cept the Steve Irwin.

The Steve Irwin was unable to lose the pur­suit of the Shonan Maru No. 2 for more than two weeks. Only by return­ing to Tas­ma­nia was the tail lost because Japan­ese whal­ing ships are pro­hib­it­ed from enter­ing Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.

“Thanks to the stormy weath­er, there was no pos­si­bil­i­ty of a char­tered flight locat­ing the Steve Irwin and we were able to pass back into inter­na­tion­al waters with­out any sign of the Shonan Maru No. 2,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “They will be hard pressed to locate us now and with­out them on our tail, I am con­fi­dent that we will be able to track down the whale poach­ers in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.”
“It was awe­some see­ing them run like cow­ards when we turned on them,” said Third Mate Vin­cent Hayes from Williamstown in Vic­to­ria.

Sabotage at Broken Cross Open Cast Coal Mine (Mainshill Solidarity Action)

In the ear­ly hours of the 25th Decem­ber, a group of autonomous activists deliv­ered their Christ­mas present to Scot­tish Coal. Four machines were sab­o­taged at the Bro­ken Cross open cast site, the largest of its type in Europe, just 5 miles from Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

In the ear­ly hours of the 25th Decem­ber, a group of autonomous activists deliv­ered their Christ­mas present to Scot­tish Coal. Four machines were sab­o­taged at the Bro­ken Cross open cast site, the largest of its type in Europe, just 5 miles from Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.
This is a mes­sage to Scot­tish Coal that regard­less of the time of year, we will resist. Not just at Main­shill, but at all of their sites across South Lanark­shire, which is one of the most heav­i­ly mined areas in Europe.
As the “fes­tive” sea­son comes to an end, the destruc­tive work will com­mence again at Main­shill. Evic­tion is loom­ing as their work pro­gress­es. Num­bers are need­ed as ever on site to help out and fill defences.

UK Coal ’ greenwash’ Durham planner’s! OPENCAST looks likely (near where Winter Moot will be in February)

Mon­ey grab­bing UK coal have over­come one of the largest bar­ri­ers in their plans to open­cast the PONT VALLEY,

OPPONENTS of a large open­cast mine in a pic­turesque val­ley fear the worst now that plan­ning per­mis­sion has been grant­ed to move a colony of Great Crest­ed Newts – a pro­tect­ed species.

Mon­ey grab­bing UK coal have over­come one of the largest bar­ri­ers in their plans to open­cast the PONT VALLEY,

OPPONENTS of a large open­cast mine in a pic­turesque val­ley fear the worst now that plan­ning per­mis­sion has been grant­ed to move a colony of Great Crest­ed Newts – a pro­tect­ed species.

Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil plan­ners agreed to an appli­ca­tion by UK Coal to cre­ate four habi­tat ponds for wildlife near Leadgate, Con­sett, Coun­ty Durham.

The com­pa­ny, which plans to extract 556,000 tonnes from the Bradley site, an area of 73,000 square meters in the Der­went Val­ley between the vil­lages of Leadgate and Dip­ton, was hin­dered by the pres­ence of the tiny ani­mals on a pond in the mid­dle of the area where it wants to mine. Now that coun­cil­lors have approved the plans to cre­ate new ponds UK Coal will pro­ceed with its appli­ca­tion to mine.

A spokesman for the com­pa­ny said: “The pro­pos­als are to cre­ate a site of nature con­ser­va­tion involv­ing addi­tion­al plant­i­ng and land­scap­ing and new ponds on part of the site to form an extend­ed wildlife habi­tat from the adja­cent Billing­side Wood Site of Nature Con­ser­va­tion Impor­tance.

“The appli­ca­tion for habi­tat ponds in con­struc­tion terms is rel­a­tive­ly minor in nature and has the poten­tial for sig­nif­i­cant con­ser­va­tion and habi­tat enhance­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for the local area.”

Eight let­ters of objec­tion includ­ing respons­es from the Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship and the Pont Val­ley Net­work were received.

Objec­tors argued that the appli­ca­tion is part of the inten­tion to open­cast the site, known as the Bradley site and should not be treat­ed sep­a­rate­ly.

But senior plan­ning offi­cer Mike Hemp­sall said the two appli­ca­tions had to be treat­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly.

He said: “The pro­pos­al pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for addi­tion­al habi­tats that would be of eco­log­i­cal and land­scape ben­e­fit to the area and can be car­ried out in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly accept­able man­ner.

“The stat­ed grounds of objec­tion con­cern­ing deter­mi­na­tion of the appli­ca­tion sep­a­rate to the sur­face coal mine appli­ca­tion, archae­o­log­i­cal, land­scape char­ac­ter, effects on pub­lic rights of way and wildlife impact are not con­sid­ered suf­fi­cient to lead to rea­sons to refuse the appli­ca­tion.”

UK Coal says the open­cast pro­pos­al would cre­ate 38 jobs, pro­duce 556,000 tonnes of coal need­ed for the British steel or elec­tric­i­ty indus­try, and pro­vide a new con­ser­va­tion area after min­ing is com­plet­ed with­in three years. It intends to for­mal­ly sub­mit a plan­ning appli­ca­tion in the new year.

But Durham Coun­ty coun­cil­lor Watts Stelling said: “This area has been rav­aged by indus­try in the past and should now be allowed to recov­er.

“Every­body knows the two appli­ca­tions are linked. UK Coal is not build­ing new ponds due to any fond­ness for Great Crest­ed Newts. It wants to dig a great big hole in attrac­tive coun­try­side.”

It should be not­ed that Durham wildlife trust did­n’t even respond when asked for an opin­ion by Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil maybe this is because lots of fund­ing for wildlife trusts comes from the aggre­gate indus­try or maybe their just lazy!

GOOD NEWS!!!
FAMILIES in a rur­al ham­let are call­ing on a devel­op­ment com­pa­ny to aban­don its bid for an open­cast mine in the Northum­ber­land coun­try­side after plan­ners firm­ly reject­ed the con­tro­ver­sial scheme.

Cam­paign­ers in tiny Hal­ton Lea Gate near Halt­whis­tle say they are “over­joyed” after coun­ty coun­cil­lors vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to refuse per­mis­sion to dig 140,000 tonnes of coal from a 75-acre site, with­in the North Pen­nines Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.

They urged appli­cant HM Project Devel­op­ments to “get the mes­sage”, admit defeat and not launch an appeal against the deci­sion.

HM Project Devel­op­ments’ agent, New­cas­tle-based firm Black­ett, Hart and Pratt, did not com­ment.

Tree felled despite protesters underneath & protection agreement

23 Decem­ber 2009
A MAJESTIC 350-year-old oak tree in Steep was chopped down just hours after a deal was struck to save it.

Shocked vil­lagers looked on in hor­ror as con­trac­tors reneged on an agree­ment to save the land­mark oak, which has stood in Ash­ford Chace since the time of Oliv­er Cromwell, by clam­ber­ing up into the high­est branch­es and hack­ing it down last Tues­day after­noon.

23 Decem­ber 2009
A MAJESTIC 350-year-old oak tree in Steep was chopped down just hours after a deal was struck to save it.

Shocked vil­lagers looked on in hor­ror as con­trac­tors reneged on an agree­ment to save the land­mark oak, which has stood in Ash­ford Chace since the time of Oliv­er Cromwell, by clam­ber­ing up into the high­est branch­es and hack­ing it down last Tues­day after­noon.

Pro­tes­tors stand­ing under­neath the canopy were forced to take cov­er when it became clear tree sur­geons had no regard for their safe­ty, as parts of the tree came crash­ing to the ground.

Police were called amid con­fronta­tion­al scenes between vil­lagers and con­trac­tors, before the res­i­dents were forced to watch help­less­ly as the oak was sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly dis­man­tled.

Ash­ford Hang­ers Preser­va­tion Soci­ety tree war­den Drake Hock­ing said: “They start­ed off care­ful­ly and slow­ly and then some­time in the mid­dle of the day they changed tack and start­ed butcher­ing it.
“They did not stop.
“It was trag­ic and the vil­lage is now in shock.”

The oak tree is sit­u­at­ed on the Hang­ers Way and forms part of the right of way for a new four-bed­room house, built by Rolls Royce’s head of human resources Avery Duff and wife Elfri­da of Emp­shott Green.

They intend to turn the site where the oak tree stood into a straight tar­mac dri­ve for their prop­er­ty.

The tree was con­sid­ered rot­ten by East Hamp­shire Dis­trict Coun­cil’s arbo­cul­tur­al team, so was not pro­tect­ed by a tree preser­va­tion order.

Mr Hock­ing explained an agree­ment had been thrashed out on Mon­day evening with the Duf­f’s con­trac­tors Pega­sus Builders, which stat­ed it would only remove about a third of the tree.

How­ev­er, the promise was bro­ken with­in 24 hours.

“It appears the Duf­f’s archi­tect went over the head of the con­trac­tor and insist­ed the tree should be cut,” he said.

Kate Burke, of Ash­ford Chace, said: “It is shock­ing, absolute­ly shock­ing.
“I am so upset about it and the way the sit­u­a­tion has been han­dled.
“I can­not under­stand how some peo­ple can have such dis­re­gard for the coun­try­side.
“If it had been a dif­fer­ent own­er or a dif­fer­ent arbi­cul­tur­al offi­cer at the coun­cil then I think the out­come would have been very dif­fer­ent.”

She added when she went to inspect the tree after it was felled, the rot inside was only the size of her cupped hands.

“As a pro­por­tion of the whole cir­cum­fer­ence of the tree, it was noth­ing,” Mrs Burke said.
“It is so, so sad.”

Anoth­er angered res­i­dent, Jes­si­ca Pocock, said: “I think I can speak for all those present when I say that we have all been tru­ly shak­en and appalled by the crass and dis­dain­ful atti­tude dis­played to to the peo­ple of Steep, many of whom tried to nego­ti­ate with the Duffs for over two years, and to the mag­nif­i­cent oak tree, which has been felled for no good rea­son.

“We did con­sid­er tak­ing up a stance again to try and pre­vent the work being done, but in truth, we have no chance of stop­ping such ruth­less behav­iour, and the strain of the last few days has been con­sid­er­able.”

On Mon­day a sign was placed beside the tree which quot­ed the famous war poet Edward Thomas, who lived in Steep 100 years ago.

It read: “In the sun and in the snow, there are no more sins to be sinned on the dead oak tree bough.”

Avery Duff was unavail­able for com­ment when The Post went to press.

Save Titnore Woods!

With the threat of devel­op­ment on Tit­nore Woods, one of the two remain­ing semi-ancient wood­lands left on the West Sus­sex coastal plain fast approach­ing, now is the time to rise up and resist the destruc­tion of our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment by cor­po­rate greed.

With the threat of devel­op­ment on Tit­nore Woods, one of the two remain­ing semi-ancient wood­lands left on the West Sus­sex coastal plain fast approach­ing, now is the time to rise up and resist the destruc­tion of our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment by cor­po­rate greed.

West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium, which con­sists of Per­sim­mon Homes, Tay­lor Wimpy and Heron Homes could be giv­en the go ahead to build a 1250 home devel­op­ment and a road in the new year. Pre­vi­ous­ly 875 homes where to be built, so clear­ly their eyes are see­ing more pound signs as they envi­sion more clear­ance of the pre­cious land. The project is esti­mat­ed to cost over 3 bil­lion pounds to build and take 6 years to com­plete which is utter mad­ness when Wor­thing is report­ed to have over 1000 emp­ty build­ings! If plan­ning per­mis­sion is grant­ed West Dur­ring­ton will no longer home a semi- ancient wood­land with it’s rich diver­si­ty in rare species, flo­ra and fau­na or it’s sur­round­ing farm­land but a mas­sive hous­ing devel­op­ment, road, a giant Tesco and pos­si­bly 2 schools and a health cen­tre.

Already the destruc­tion is evi­dent when you vis­it Tit­nore. Just across the field from the protest site the eye sore that will be Tesco is well under way and is due to open in February/March 2010. West Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil gave per­mis­sion on Decem­ber 9th 2009 to close the pub­lic foot­path reach­ing Tinore woods from Full­beck Avenue. No per­sons are allowed to use this right of way to vis­it the woods now as it is viewed as a pub­lic safe­ty haz­ard until the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium project is com­plet­ed. Also trees and bush­es have been cleared here, although none are of the semi ancient woods this is still a haunt­ing reminder that con­struc­tion is immi­nent.

On Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 28th 2010 at 6pm the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium will meet at Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil’s Con­trol Com­mit­tee to push for per­mis­sion to begin devel­op­ment. If they win then it’s full steam ahead for the bull­doz­ers and a very sad day for the hard work­ing folk of Camp Tit­nore who have occu­pied the woods in resis­tance of the destruc­tion for the last 3 and a half years, and also for the local Wor­thing res­i­dents who strong­ly oppose the plans and wish to see their ancient wood­land left stand­ing.

To show that you oppose their plans to tear down an irre­place­able nat­ur­al space come and join the counter demo at 5.30pm out­side Assem­bly Hall, Stoke Abbott Road, Wor­thing on Jan­u­ary 28th 2010.
Please vis­it Camp Tit­nore. Enjoy its beau­ty, help to build new defences and walk­ways. Dona­tions of wood, nails, polyprop and cor­ru­gat­ed iron would be much appre­ci­at­ed.

Camp Tit­nore needs you!

See Tit­nore con­tact links for direc­tions and so on

Mainshill Celebrates 6th Month of Resistance! Come celebrate with us over Christmas!

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will cel­e­brate its 6th month of resis­tance against Scot­tish Coal and fat cat inter­ests this Fri­day the 18th of Decem­ber!

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will cel­e­brate its 6th month of resis­tance against Scot­tish Coal and fat cat inter­ests this Fri­day the 18th of Decem­ber!

The win­ter is draw­ing in, but the tem­po­rary autonomous tree sit at Main­shill is warmer and cosier than ever! With a new log cab­in com­mu­nal and wood burn­ing stove there’s nowhere bet­ter to spend x‑mas than in the ice encrust­ed woods in the com­pa­ny of deer, robins, and oth­er wildlife whose habi­tat is slow­ly being defor­est­ed by Scot­tish Coal.

Join us this week­end to cel­e­brate 6 months of occu­pa­tion in resis­tance to a new open cast coal mine in an area already blight­ed by sev­er­al such devel­op­ments.

Direc­tions

Bus­es run to Dou­glas from Lanark and Hamil­ton. Both Lanark and Hamil­ton have train and bus sta­tions and are easy to get to from either Glas­gow Cen­tral Train Sta­tion or Buchan­non Street Bus Sta­tion. From South of the bor­der, going to Glas­gow is the eas­i­est way to get to Dou­glas. Bus­es from Lanark to Dou­glas are much more fre­quent!

Bus from Lanark:

The Ser­vice Num­ber 9 (William Stokes & Sons) runs from Lanark – Gle­spin, stop­ping in Dou­glas (ser­vice every 49mins past each hour). Ask to be dropped of out­side the camp – dri­vers are usu­al­ly hap­py to do this. Oth­er­wise, get off at the Egger­ton Bridge stop just before Dou­glas – you’ll see the camp on your left just after the M74 under­pass!

Bus from Hamil­ton:

The X50 (Hen­der­son Trav­el – http://www.henderson-travel.co.uk/) Hamil­ton-Gle­spin runs Hamil­ton, Inter­change – Les­ma­hagow, Church Hall – Rig­side – Dou­glas, leav­ing Hamil­ton at 17:05 (one ser­vice per day)

From Dou­glas:

The bus will stop before Dou­glas at Egger­ton Bridge and you will see the camp on your left after the M74 under­pass. If you miss this stop get off in Dou­glas and walk North East back up the A70 for 1km and the camp will be on your right just before the M74.

Hitch­ing:

If you hitch, the camp is right next to the M74 which runs from Glas­gow to Carlisle. Get dropped of at junc­tion 12 and walk South West down the A70 towards Dou­glas and the camp is a few hun­dred metres on your left. Hap­pen­don ser­vices are close to junc­tion 12 – if you end up there­walk South down the B7078, turn right onto the A70 towards Dou­glas, which takes you under the M74 and as above.

If you need a ride…

…from some­where close by call the site phone and we’ll try to sort you out.
Con­tact Us

Call the site phone on: 07806926040

Email us on: mainshill@riseup.net

Contractor’s van sabotaged at Mainshill

On Wednes­day 16th, con­trac­tors parked in front of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp returned to find their van sab­o­taged.

Mainshill van sabbedOn Wednes­day 16th, con­trac­tors parked in front of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp returned to find their van sab­o­taged.

The Rae­burn work­ers turned up at 2.30 with the estate man­ag­er and left their vehi­cles unat­tend­ed while they took soil sam­ples with­in the camp. In less than ten min­utes, though the work van win­dows were smashed and ‘out of main­shill’ and ‘no more coal’ sprayed on the sides. A buck­et of com­post was tipped over the bon­net. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the estate man­ager’s 4x4 only got a small scratch.

The occu­pa­tion of Main­shill con­tin­ues, and we wel­come oth­ers who wish to join us in resist­ing open cast coal min­ing and the envi­ron­men­tal tox­i­fi­ca­tion it caus­es.

Philippines: NPA Shuts Down Logging Operation, Seizes Arms

Vic­to­ri­ous NPA Offen­sive: Raid on SUDECOR

New People’s Army Front 30 seized 13 auto­mat­ic rifles con­sist­ing of two M14s, five Garands and six car­bines on Novem­ber 11 in a raid on the office of the Suri­gao Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (SUDECOR) in Barangay Pak­wan, Lanuza, Suri­gao del Sur. The guer­ril­las con­duct­ed the dis­arm­ing oper­a­tion with­out fir­ing a sin­gle shot.

Vic­to­ri­ous NPA Offen­sive: Raid on SUDECOR

New People’s Army Front 30 seized 13 auto­mat­ic rifles con­sist­ing of two M14s, five Garands and six car­bines on Novem­ber 11 in a raid on the office of the Suri­gao Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (SUDECOR) in Barangay Pak­wan, Lanuza, Suri­gao del Sur. The guer­ril­las con­duct­ed the dis­arm­ing oper­a­tion with­out fir­ing a sin­gle shot.

After dis­arm­ing the Spe­cial Civil­ian Armed Aux­il­iary (SCAA) and SUDECOR guards, the Red fight­ers con­fis­cat­ed sev­en chain­saws from the com­pa­ny. The people’s guer­ril­las also destroyed four bull­doz­ers, two log yarders, a tim­ber jack, a crane, two dumptrucks and a weld­ing machine.

The objec­tive of this puni­tive action was to put a stop to SUDECOR’s log­ging oper­a­tions, said Ka Maria Malaya, Nation­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Front-North­east­ern Min­danao Region (NDF-NEMR) spokesper­son. She added that it was about time they end­ed the company’s plun­der and relent­less destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment and people’s liveli­hood.

The com­pa­ny uses bull­doz­er drag­ging, a method where bull­doz­ers drag felled logs and destroy small trees in their path. The method like­wise erodes the soil and con­tributes to the sil­ta­tion of rivers. SUDECOR has thus been respon­si­ble for the rapid destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment and has been depriv­ing the nation­al minori­ties and set­tlers of their liveli­hood, said the NDF-NEMR spokesper­son.

That same day, com­bined forces of the 58th IB Philip­pine Army, 1405th PNP Provin­cial Mobile Group (PMG) and SCAA attempt­ed to defend the com­pa­ny and were ambushed. This result­ed in the death of nine 58th IB ele­ments, a police­man and two SCAA ele­ments after they were hit by com­mand-det­o­nat­ed explo­sives (CDX) along Kilo­me­ter 10 of the same town. Twelve oth­er sol­diers were wound­ed.

SUDECOR is owned by the big com­prador bour­geois Puy­at fam­i­ly. It has wrought hav­oc for more than four decades in Surigao’s forest­ed areas. As a result, Suri­gao now has only 3,000 hectares of vir­gin forests, down from the pre­vi­ous 69,000 hectares.

http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/philippines-npa-shuts-down-logging-operation-seizes-arms‑2/

Autonomous Pixie Action in Solidarity with Mainshill

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day the 7th of Decem­ber a drilling rig and oth­er machin­ery was sab­o­taged at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day the 7th of Decem­ber a drilling rig and oth­er machin­ery was sab­o­taged at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

Actions such as these are not mind­less acts of van­dal­ism, but valid respons­es to cor­po­ra­tions like Scot­tish Coal and their bla­tant dis­re­gard for life and com­mu­ni­ties of peo­ple every­where. Such acts dam­age the rich and wealthy in the only place that mat­ters to them – their wal­lets. As life on earth is threat­ened in every direct by the blind pur­suit of prof­it, we look not to politi­cians in Copen­hagen for inde­ci­sion, but take mat­ters into our own hands.

Burn­ing coal under­mines the very abil­i­ty of human beings to live on a healthy vibrant plan­et, a right our ances­tors enjoyed and our chil­dren should inher­it. Yet the cli­mate is chang­ing, the oceans are acid­i­fy­ing, and hun­dreds of species go extinct every sin­gle day because of the greed of a few. Let’s not stand idly by and watch while so much beau­ty is plun­dered and destroyed!

There is no time to act but now. Come to Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and send your own mes­sage to Copen­hagen!