Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

North Carolina: ELF Vandalizes Home of Bank of America Director

“North Car­oli­na:
Steve Jones, a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors for Bank Of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States’ pri­ma­ry investor in moun­tain top removal coal min­ing, had his house vis­it­ed twice dur­ing the night recent­ly.

“North Car­oli­na:
Steve Jones, a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors for Bank Of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States’ pri­ma­ry investor in moun­tain top removal coal min­ing, had his house vis­it­ed twice dur­ing the night recent­ly.

On the eve of the Sum­mer Sol­stice, we vis­it­ed him the first time, smash­ing the front win­dow on the cute lamp in his dri­ve­way and leav­ing a stick­er on the post to let him know why we’d vis­it­ed. Also on this night we glued the locks and put stick­ers on a Bank Of Amer­i­ca branch in his town. 2 weeks lat­er, on the eve of the full moon we returned to his house and smashed to bits the rest of the lamp and splat­tered black paint all over the sign with his address/mail box and steps/walkway.

Ani­mal rights activists have long used red paint to mark mur­der­ers of many sorts; we chose black paint because it is black like the coal sludge that cov­ers Ten­nessee, mak­ing the earth tox­ic in a dis­as­ter said to be worse than the Exxon Valdez spill. This dis­as­ter was uncom­mon only in that it got press cov­er­age.

It is black like the water that comes out of the taps when peo­ple in effect­ed com­mu­ni­ties turn on their taps for water. And it is black like your heart. For the kids, for the bears, for the moun­tains, for the wolves, for the fish, for our moth­er, We will be back. ELF.”

Com­mu­nique from the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front Press Office. Click here for the press release.

The View from the Trees — spring & summer in Cascadia, USA,

Hum­boldt Earth First! Canopy Com­mu­nique #1
Cut­ten, South Cas­ca­dia, the McK­ay Tract canopy. The land­scape unfolds below us as a patch­work quilt of war. Look­ing west, one sees the sub­urb, progress enact­ing its will upon the occu­pied coun­try­side. More devel­op­ment is planned, but it is not yet hap­pen­ing. We have pri­mar­i­ly met friend­ly peo­ple who live here, and enjoy hang­ing out in the for­est. We asked them if they want their sub­urb to grow, to con­tin­ue to “devel­op,” and they emphat­i­cal­ly do not.

Cascadia forest blockadeHum­boldt Earth First! Canopy Com­mu­nique #1
Cut­ten, South Cas­ca­dia, the McK­ay Tract canopy. The land­scape unfolds below us as a patch­work quilt of war. Look­ing west, one sees the sub­urb, progress enact­ing its will upon the occu­pied coun­try­side. More devel­op­ment is planned, but it is not yet hap­pen­ing. We have pri­mar­i­ly met friend­ly peo­ple who live here, and enjoy hang­ing out in the for­est. We asked them if they want their sub­urb to grow, to con­tin­ue to “devel­op,” and they emphat­i­cal­ly do not.

Among the sec­ond- and third-growth trees to the south lay a few erro­neous mini-man­sions encroach­ing upon the land­scape, with stumps in their yards wider than any of the three SUVs in their dri­ve­ways. The res­i­dents enjoy a qui­et life until one of them starts run­ning pow­er­tools.

We look east and see the tops of enor­mous old-growth red­woods tow­er­ing above the hun­dred-year-old sec­ond growth. Some friends live here, includ­ing spot­ted owls, ospreys, turkey vul­tures, black bears, newts, voles, fly­ing squir­rels and arbo­re­al humans.

To the north lies a clearcut. Three years ago, Green Dia­mond (GD), for­mer­ly Simp­son Tim­ber Com­pa­ny, came in and cut down every last tree in the unit, leav­ing a few huge burned-out snags. Pam­pas grass and milk­weed grow to human height in the trees’ absence, but this area is dry and get­ting dry­er.

They plant­ed a few baby conifers, red­woods and oth­ers after they cut. Those trees are now three years old, mean­ing they can cut a cou­ple more units and then start re-zon­ing the land from tim­ber­land to res­i­den­tial. More mini-man­sions are planned. So it goes.…

How­ev­er our for­est friends dis­agree with these plans. They want to live, and our solu­tion is to live with them. For the past sev­er­al months, we’ve been occu­py­ing two tree vil­lages in the McK­ay, tying in as many giant trees as pos­si­ble with tra­vers­es to pro­tect them with our own bod­ies from being cut down. Tree-sit­ting has been used to defend forests in Hum­boldt for decades, and tra­vers­es enable a few humans to defend a large num­ber of trees with­out leav­ing the canopy.

We chose this grove because the trees stand direct­ly against the march of Leviathan in the form of sub­ur­ban devel­op­ment, and the neigh­bors (in house down below) stand with us, and give us love and sup­port. The oth­er grove, (also slat­ed to be clearcut), fea­tures an osprey nest, at least one spot­ted owl nest, flocks of turkey vul­tures cir­cling over­head, a trail and camp­site used fre­quent­ly by bears, and a creek that serves as water­shed for the Hum­boldt Bay’s health­i­est pop­u­la­tion of Coho salmon. These crit­ters have also shown much love to the treesit­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fly­ing squir­rels who share our food at night and the owls who hang out, pro­vide moral sup­port and watch us climb.

GD, is now the most-active transna­tion­al tim­ber cor­po­ra­tion remain­ing in Hum­boldt. They have clearcuts sched­uled every year across the North­west, and have large­ly escaped pub­lic scruti­ny by a process of 21st-cen­tu­ry green­wash­ing and alliances with the state. For exam­ple, the GD Habi­tat Con­ser­va­tion Plan for spot­ted owls gives the owls a vague, con­stant­ly shift­ing zone of “habi­tat” on GD land and a few remain­ing “wildlife trees”, usu­al­ly of low mon­e­tary val­ue, on land that they clearcut. In return, GD gets a bunch of “inci­den­tal take” per­mits for owls, which is a license to kill them at will. The GD plan for the McK­ay Tract is clearcut­ting, fol­lowed by res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment to dou­ble the size of Cut­ten, Cal­i­for­nia, adding more res­i­dents to the near city of Eure­ka.

So far, no chain­saws have fall­en upon the McK­ay this year. How­ev­er, Sum­mer oper­at­ing sea­son is upon us, log­ging could begin any day of any week. Neigh­bors are con­tin­u­ing to raise their voic­es in sup­port. They hike, bike, and ride hors­es along the log­ging roads in sol­i­dar­i­ty with res­i­dents of the for­est. Treesit­ters are still need­ed to live in the canopy, pro­tect­ing this last refuge of wild crea­tures from the per­pet­u­al war that is human progress. Any­one wish­ing to spend part or all of the sum­mer up in trees is encour­aged to con­tact Earth First! Hum­boldt at (707) 834‑5170; www.efhumboldt.org.
“May the for­est bewitch you,” the canopy nin­jas of EF! Hum­boldt.

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Owl in Cascadia forest********News­flash­es:

Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer Con­tin­ues…
July 13th, 2009

The log­ging block­ade in Oregon’s Elliot State for­est was raid­ed by a report­ed 60+ police accom­pa­nied by a bull­doz­er. 27 peo­ple were arrest­ed. This marks only the begin­ning of Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer.

Mean­while, here in Hum­boldt we are steadi­ly con­tin­u­ing the occu­pa­tion of our local rain­for­est canopy to stop Green Dia­mond from log­ging 41 acres of Red­wood for­est over 100 years old. The grove is home to Spot­ted Owls, Osprey and Black Bears. It is a refuge that is sur­round­ed by young tree plan­ta­tions, clearcuts and sub­urbs.

We have set up mul­ti­ple tree-sits and a tra­verse rope net­work tying up a large area of for­est near the Spot­ted Owl nest. The ropes allow above ground trav­el and increase the effec­tive­ness of the tree-sits by link­ing many trees togeth­er.

So far the com­pa­ny has held off from log­ging though the plan has been approved for months. Green Dia­mond says they won’t send climbers up to take activists out of the trees because it’s “too dan­ger­ous”.

If you would like to live and work in the Red­wood for­est canopy or help sup­port our activ­i­ties please give us a call or write us an email.

contactefhum@gmail.com

707–834-5170

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Earth First! Block­ades Log­ging Road in Ore­gon
July 7th, 2009
Ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, a large team of activists (includ­ing Hum­boldt EF!ers) skill­ful­ly and valient­ly block­ad­ed a log­ging road to pro­tect over 70 acres of 100+ year old coastal for­est that was being cut down. This kicks off the “Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer” cam­paign to high­light ongo­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and shut down high­ly destruc­tive log­ging activ­i­ties in the Pacif­ic North­west. Some of our com­rades are locked to the van in the pic­ture as well as bar­rels full of con­crete that block the road. Oth­ers are perched high atop struc­tures that have sup­port ropes that are attached to the gate and to the over­turned van. Any attempt to move the van or gate and the struc­tures would col­lapse and harm the activists. They are still there and have put out the call for more to join the effort.

Here are some links to sto­ries about the ongo­ing action in Cas­ca­dia.

Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer Blog

FD’s Blog (more pic­tures)

News sto­ry 1

News sto­ry 2

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Green Dia­mond Threat­en­ing Tree-sit­ters With Extrac­tion
June 19th, 2009
Ear­ly this morn­ing, tree-sit­ters in the McK­ay Tract recieved threats from Green Dia­mond employ­ees. The GD employ­ees stat­ed that if the activists did not come down that GD would send climbers up to arrest them.

Yes­ter­day, at least 2 GD employ­ees spent near­ly the entire day on the ground around the tree-sits and attempt­ed to get ahold of a rope hang­ing from one of the sits. It was quick­ly pulled high­er by a sit­ter.

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Rainy Spring Days
May 15th, 2009

Update from the woods: There have been no signs of trucks or heavy machin­ery as of yet. Well timed spring rains are keep­ing the roads mud­dy and undriv­able. We are on the look­out for any signs of com­pa­ny activ­i­ty.

What we have seen late­ly are Spot­ted Owls, Osprey, large Black Bear tracks in the mud and a Green Dia­mond sur­vey­or. The wild­ness and beau­ty of this for­est is an inspi­ra­tion. The ongo­ing assis­tance from our local sup­port­ers is cru­cial, thanks for all the help!

If you would like to join us in the for­est or help from town please do, more tree-sit­ters and ground crew are always need­ed.

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Fly­ing Squir­rel Dis­cov­ers Tree-sit­ters
March 17th, 2009

This North­ern Fly­ing Squir­rel arrived at the tree-sits last week. It was the first of it’s species to be seen by activists liv­ing in the Red­wood canopy since the first tree-sit went up in August of last year. The squir­rels are noc­tur­nal and are some­times preyed upon by Spot­ted Owls. They mate in May and June and live in groups in the cav­i­ties of large trees. They have often been seen in the past in tree-sits in old-growth groves.

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Alert- GD Employ­ees In McK­ay Today
March 13th, 2009

Though log­ging hasn’t start­ed, Green Dia­mond is fre­quent­ly vis­it­ing the tree sits, some­times bring­ing sher­rifs along. Today, two activists were chased through the for­est by log­gers but safe­ly got away. Ground sup­port is on alert and tree-sit­ters are pre­pared to defend the tree-vil­lages in the event that log­ging begins. If you want to be part of our action alert list please let us know. You don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to tres­pass to sup­port the tree-sits. There are many things to do in town and one of the sits can be wit­nessed from North­ridge Rd. in Cut­ten, east of Eure­ka.

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McK­ay 09 Update: No Log­ging Yet
March 6th, 2009

Tree-sit­ters are main­tain­ing their vig­i­lance as log­ging could begin any day. More trees have been added to the tra­verse rope net­works, there are now over 20 Red­wood and Sit­ka Spruce trees being defend­ed. They range in age from 70 to over 100 years old. Tree-sit­ters are request­ing camp stoves with re-usable fuel bot­tles, large tarps, climb­ing gear, read­ing mate­r­i­al, and most impor­tant­ly- more peo­ple to join them in the defense of this for­est and our plan­et.

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EF! Hum­boldt Tree-sit Update
Feb­ru­ary 25th, 2009

* Spot­ted Owl nest­ing sea­son pro­tec­tions to begin on March 1st. Green Dia­mond can­not cut with­in 1/4 mile of the Owls nest until they deter­mine whether or not the Owls have suc­cess­ful­ly mat­ed. If they find that the Owls have mat­ed, the so called pro­tec­tion would only last for a mat­ter of months. If not, they can go ahead and log. Green Dia­monds find­ings will most like­ly be kept secret. The fox is guard­ing the hen house.
* Earth First!ers are occu­py­ing part of this ter­ri­to­ry to defend not only the Owls habi­tat but as much of this diverse eco-sys­tem as we can.
* The numer­ous activists occu­py­ing trees here are weath­er­ing the storms and con­tin­u­ing to expand the defend­ed areas.
* Uniden­ti­fied per­sons wear­ing hard hats have made mul­ti­ple threats to cut the trees down.
* The defense of this for­est con­tin­ues…

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More Eco-War­riors Ascend Threat­ened Red­woods in McK­ay Tract
Feb­ru­ary 19th, 2009

There are now two tree-sit vil­lages defend­ing areas of for­est in the threat­ened Red­wood groves of Ryan Creek. Green Dia­mond employ­ees and Hum­bldt Coun­ty Sher­iffs vis­it­ed both sites yes­ter­day and inspect­ed the sit­u­a­tion. Today, dif­fer­ent work­ers appear­ing to be log­gers vis­it­ed at least one site and also inspect­ed the tree-sits. This esca­la­tion of activ­i­ty by the com­pa­ny may indi­cate they are prepar­ing to log very soon.

There are mul­ti­ple tra­verse lines through­out both of the tree-sit areas. These are not always clear­ly vis­i­ble from the ground. Activists have put red DANGER tape around many of the trees that, if cut, pose a dead­ly threat to the tree-sit­ters.

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Arbo­re­al Pro­test­ers Occu­py Threat­ened Red­woods
Decem­ber 2nd, 2008

Tree-sit­ters unfurled a large 30 ft. wide ban­ner this morn­ing on the edge of the great Red­wood for­est, east of Eure­ka, Ca. The ban­ner reads “Hey Green Dia­mond, Stop Clear-cut­ting ‑Earth First!”. The sit­ters remain aloft and are occu­py­ing sev­er­al large sec­ond growth trees that are slat­ed for log­ging. We invite the pub­lic to come and see the threat­ened for­est for them­selves. (Direc­tions below).

The Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny plans to log 60 acres of large sec­ond growth and resid­ual old growth Red­woods here in the near future. The two groves rep­re­sent the old­est remain­ing for­est and best habi­tat for old-growth depen­dent species like the North­ern Spot­ted Owl. The owls are nest­ing in the oth­er grove where trees over 1,000 years old still stand. Green Dia­mond has a per­mit to destroy the habi­tat of this endan­gered species. The Green Dia­mond land is locat­ed in the “McK­ay Tract” and totals 7,200 acres. Near­ly the entire Tract (and the entire Cal­i­for­nia Red­wood range) has been clear-cut once already since the 1800’s and over half of the tract has been logged with­in the past 20 years. The McK­ay Tract encom­pass­es the Ryan Creek water­shed. Green Dia­mond also has plans for res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment here, threat­en­ing the health and sur­vival of the largest Coho Salmon pop­u­la­tion in the Hum­boldt Bay water­shed. We’ll have more info and updates on this in the near future.

Direc­tions:

From Arca­ta go South on 101.

Turn Left on Myr­tle Ave.

Turn Right on Har­ri­son.

Har­ri­son turns into Man­zani­ta.

Turn Left on Dol­beer St.

Turn Left onto Wal­nut Dri­ve at 3 the way inter­sec­tion.

Stay on Wal­nut and look for the big green water­tanks.

Short­ly after that turn Left onto North­ridge rd.

The for­est will be on your left and the big white ban­ner is vis­i­ble from the road.

Please be respect­ful to the neigh­bors, thanks.

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OwlMass Extinc­tion — It’s Real — Fight It!
Novem­ber 20th, 2008

Coho Salmon, Chi­nook Salmon, Mar­bled Mur­relets and North­ern Spot­ted Owls are just a few of the species that are rapid­ly declin­ing in our imme­di­ate area. Both North­ern Spot­ted Owls and Chi­nook Salmon are fac­ing assaults from Green Dia­mond, a com­pa­ny we have been build­ing a cam­paign against since this spring.

They have an upcom­ing log­ging oper­a­tion in the “McK­ay Tract”, direct­ly east of Eure­ka. Green Dia­mond is plan­ning to clear-cut Spot­ted Owl nest­ing groves after Feb­ru­ary 15th and is work­ing to get Hum­boldt Coun­ty plan­ners to set in stone plans for future devel­op­ment of the area. Please con­tact us to join mul­ti­lat­er­al grass­roots efforts in build­ing a coali­tion to advo­cate for pro­tec­tion of this area . EF! Hum­boldt is active­ly orga­niz­ing against the upcom­ing log­ging and hous­ing devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. We are seek­ing more par­tic­i­pants, any amount of time or mate­r­i­al con­tri­bu­tions are much appre­ci­at­ed.

Human beings are on the verge of caus­ing a mass extinc­tion of life on Earth. A major­i­ty of the world’s biol­o­gists now believe that if cur­rent trends con­tin­ue, half of all species of plants and ani­mals liv­ing today will be extinct in less than 100 years. The gen­er­al pub­lic, how­ev­er, is almost entire­ly unaware of this cri­sis. — Species Alliance

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Lat­est EF! Hum­boldt Action Press Release
August 25th, 2008

For Imme­di­ate Release: Mon­day, August 25th
con­tact: Jere­my Jensen (707) 834‑5170
Earth First! Turns Atten­tion To Green Dia­mond Resource Co.

Eure­ka, Ca.- A new Earth First! tree-sit in a Green Dia­mond Resource log­ging plan east of Eure­ka end­ed as sud­den­ly as it began.

With the new own­ers of the for­mer Pacif­ic Lum­ber Com­pa­ny pledg­ing to not log Old-Growth trees, a pro­pos­al by Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny to log Ancient Red­woods grabbed the atten­tion of Earth First! Hum­boldt.

Most of the trees range from 80–100 years old but in one of the two groves there are numer­ous scat­tered Old-Growth trees that were not cut dur­ing the orig­i­nal log­ging of the area in the late 1800’

s. The com­pa­ny is also propos­ing res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment in the same area under Option B of the Hum­boldt Coun­ty Gen­er­al Plan Update.

“Clearcut­ting and Old-Growth log­ging are crimes against nature and human­i­ty,” said Jere­my Jensen of EF! Hum­boldt, “Devel­op­ment is the nail in the cof­fin.”

Activists con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple search­es of the area and made sev­er­al dis­cov­er­ies. The loca­tions of sev­er­al Old-Growth red­woods that were slat­ed to be cut, and the pres­ence of at least three North­ern Spot­ted Owls in the threat­ened for­est.

Days after stealth­ily estab­lish­ing a tree-sit in a giant Old-Growth Red­wood that was clear­ly marked to be cut, the sit­ters wor­ried that they had been pre­ma­ture­ly dis­cov­ered when field sur­vey­ors were heard walk­ing around on the for­est floor.

Though no words were exchanged, a dan­gling clus­ter of white 5 gal­lon buck­ets made the tree-sit high­ly vis­i­ble.

Three days lat­er, a Green Dia­mond employ­ee returned to mark the occu­pied tree and at least two oth­er imper­iled Old-Growth Red­woods as “Wildlife Leave Trees”, seem­ing to indi­cate that they won’t be cut.

This sur­prised EF! Hum­boldt activists because the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Forestry had already approved the log­ging plan.

While the activists sus­pect­ed it was a decep­tive move to trick the tree-sit­ters into com­ing down, anoth­er piece of infor­ma­tion came to light.

An Earth First!er review­ing the log­ging plan doc­u­ment dis­cov­ered that GDRC would not be allowed to log the area until next Feb­ru­ary 19th at the ear­li­est. This is due to the fact that lum­ber com­pa­nies are required by Cal­i­for­nia law to allow trees in adja­cent clearcuts to reach three years of age before log­ging neigh­bor­ing forests.

The Earth First!ers decid­ed to remove the plat­form and gear from the tree, assess the new sit­u­a­tion and re-cal­i­brate the defen­sive strat­e­gy for the threat­ened groves.

“At least now they know we’re seri­ous,” said a tree-sit­ter by the name of “Cross­roads”.

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Very high tree platform in old growth RedwoodsBreak­ing News: EF!H Tree-sit in the McK­ay Tract
August 22nd, 2008

Earth First! tree-sit­ters have been dis­cov­ered in a gar­gan­tu­an Ancient Red­wood by a Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny employ­ee just east of Cut­ten in the “McK­ay Tract”. Green Dia­mond is plan­ning for res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment of large sec­tions of the McK­ay Tract after they log all they can. This is a clas­sic cut-and run strat­e­gy, make mon­ey by tak­ing the trees and then sell the land to devel­op­ers.

The Ancient Red­wood was locat­ed a few weeks ago by EF! Hum­boldt activists dur­ing explorato­ry search­es of the area, trig­gered when the plans to log two Red­wood groves in the Tract were made pub­lic. The tree bore the blue paint des­ig­nat­ing it for cut­ting and was quick­ly occu­pied. Most of the 60 acre log­ging plan is to be clear-cut under Green Dia­monds plan. The Green Dia­mond employ­ee has now report­ed­ly marked the tree as a “Wildlife Tree” and it’s pos­si­ble that it will not be cut. Strange­ly, this log­ging plan has already been approved and we are not assum­ing that the com­pa­ny is sin­cere­ly plan­ning to leave the tree.

This may be a tac­tic to get the sit­ters to come down. There was com­pa­ny activ­i­ty in the area sev­er­al days ago but no con­tact was made. The tree-sit may have been spot­ted at that time and this could be a direct response by the com­pa­ny.

The tree, named “Mil­len­nia” by activists, appears to be well over 200 ft. tall. It is count­less hun­dreds, if not over one thou­sand, years old.

The sit­ters vow to remain in the tree until it is def­i­nite­ly pro­tect­ed. Though the sit­ters occu­py only one giant tree, both of the groves are defac­to wildlife refuges and need be pro­tect­ed in their entire­ty. The mature stands har­bor many ani­mals that have no where else to go in the log­ging-rav­aged land­scape east of Eure­ka, Ca.

Dur­ing the ini­tial search of the area, the activists were vis­it­ed by a North­ern Spot­ted Owl. The Cal­i­for­nia Dept. of Forestry refus­es to pro­tect this area as Owl habi­tat even though the Spot­ted Owls are endan­gered and still in decline. We sus­pect that the Owls are nest­ing here because of the fre­quent vis­its from them, the large num­ber of owl pel­lets on the ground, and the fact that this is one of only 2 or 3 iso­lat­ed groves in the McK­ay Tract where dense stands of large trees remain stand­ing.

The grove where this tree stands is com­prised main­ly of 100 year old Red­woods that grew fol­low­ing the orig­i­nal log­ging of the area around the turn of the cen­tu­ry. This was one of the first places logged due to it’s close prox­im­i­ty to Hum­boldt Bay. The Ancient Red­woods that remain here were left stand­ing due to either an unde­sir­able shaped trunk, tree caves, or the steep­ness and insta­bil­i­ty of the ground around the tree.

The trees in the clear-cut­ting zone are not marked for log­ging, in those areas only the scat­tered trees to be left are giv­en a dis­tin­guish­ing mark. This tree is with­in a geo­log­i­cal­ly unsta­ble area next to a creek were the com­pa­ny is lim­it­ed to only selec­tion log­ging. This type of log­ging requires that the trees select­ed for the cut be marked.

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Looking up at a Redwood treeFor more info & pho­tos, vis­it http://efhumboldt.org

Two climate activists lock on to Bluewaters powerplant in Australia

26th June 2009
Blue­wa­ter Coal-fired pow­er sta­tion protest: lock-ons shut-down and arrests

The fol­low­ing is the media release for yes­ter­day’s action at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie.

Collie coal lock-onCollie coal banners26th June 2009
Blue­wa­ter Coal-fired pow­er sta­tion protest: lock-ons shut-down and arrests

The fol­low­ing is the media release for yes­ter­day’s action at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie.

Two activists locked onto a con­vey­or belt at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie, West­ern Aus­tralia.
The action is to protest Grif­fin Energy’s deci­sion to burn wood from WA native forests for ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The two activists were arrest­ed and lat­er removed from the con­vey­or belt by police, after more than six hours of pre­vent­ing coal from being fed into the pow­er sta­tion. A third activist has also been arrest­ed at the site.

Blue­wa­ters Coal-fired Pow­er Sta­tion brought to a halt by for­est activists

Ear­ly this morn­ing, two activists locked onto a con­vey­or belt at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie. The action is to protest Grif­fin Energy’s deci­sion to burn wood from WA native forests for ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The two activists were arrest­ed and lat­er removed from the con­vey­or belt by police, after more than six hours of pre­vent­ing coal from being fed into the pow­er sta­tion. A third activist has also been arrest­ed at the site.

“Grif­fin Ener­gy is one of WA’s worst con­trib­u­tors to cli­mate change. The com­pa­ny has recent­ly opened yet anoth­er coal-fired pow­er sta­tion and is con­struct­ing anoth­er three,” said Ms Jael John­son, spokesper­son for the action. “To add insult to injury, it now pro­pos­es to burn wood from our pre­cious native forests as fuel and count this as renew­able ener­gy.”

“The WA pub­lic has a right to renew­able ener­gy. Here we have an abun­dance of wind, solar and wave ener­gy. CETO, a wave ener­gy com­pa­ny, has cho­sen to be a part of this renew­able rev­o­lu­tion. Grif­fin also has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to join West­ern Aus­tralian busi­ness­es com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able solu­tions. There is no place for coal-fired pow­er sta­tion or native for­est log­ging in a sus­tain­able WA,” said Ms John­son.

Grif­fin Ener­gy recent­ly won a ten­der from the For­est Prod­ucts Com­mis­sion (FPC) to buy between 250,000 and 400,000 tonnes of native for­est logs a year.

Our native forests pro­vide the WA com­mu­ni­ty with clean air and water, bio­di­ver­si­ty, and homes for unique WA plants and wildlife. Native Forests also store huge amounts of car­bon. After log­ging and burn­ing, the car­bon is released into the atmos­phere. Glob­al­ly, defor­esta­tion and log­ging con­tribute about 27% of all cli­mate change-caus­ing green­house gas­es.

“Research in the east­ern states shows that if native forests are left undis­turbed, they can play a vital role in stor­ing car­bon and con­tribut­ing to a cli­mate change solu­tion.

“Instead of pro­tect­ing them for their vital role in reduc­ing cli­mate change, Forestry Min­is­ter Ter­ry Red­man pro­pos­es to allow Grif­fin to burn native for­est logs, there­by releas­ing mas­sive amounts of GHG and accel­er­at­ing run-away cli­mate change. This is an atro­cious dis­tor­tion of a sys­tem that should be lead­ing us towards a zero-car­bon econ­o­my, not fur­ther away from it.

“The peo­ple of WA will have to pay for Griffin’s reck­less cor­po­rate behav­iour long after its share­hold­ers are done lin­ing their pock­ets. So we will con­tin­ue to dis­rupt the oper­a­tions of organ­i­sa­tions like Grif­fin for as long as they con­tin­ue to dis­play such cor­po­rate reck­less­ness and short-sight­ed­ness.

“At the same time we sup­port the calls from the Aus­tralian Man­u­fac­tur­ers Work­ers Union and the Aus­tralian Coun­cil of Trade Unions for a just tran­si­tion to a renew­able soci­ety that leaves no work­er or com­mu­ni­ty behind,” said Ms John­son.

MEDIA CONTACTS ON SITE
Ms Jael John­son: Mbl: 0438 856 981
Ms Emma McIn­tyre: Mbl: 0415 258 301

Mainshill Solidarity Camp latest

11th July 2009
We’ve made it to the week­end with­out being evict­ed and we’ve been rebuild­ing the defences which were dis­man­tled by Scot­tish Coal and the police. We’ve been invent­ing new cre­ative for­ti­fi­ca­tions to dupe the cops and stop the destruc­tion of Main­shill. The sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty has con­tin­ued to be fan­tas­tic — we’d like to say a big thank you.

Mainshill defencesMainshill info board11th July 2009
We’ve made it to the week­end with­out being evict­ed and we’ve been rebuild­ing the defences which were dis­man­tled by Scot­tish Coal and the police. We’ve been invent­ing new cre­ative for­ti­fi­ca­tions to dupe the cops and stop the destruc­tion of Main­shill. The sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty has con­tin­ued to be fan­tas­tic — we’d like to say a big thank you.

Now is the time to come to Main­shill — we need to be pre­pared for evic­tion and need more peo­ple to come and stay in our tree­hous­es. Here are some pics from the last cou­ple of days — there’s some­thing for every­one!

Also, we’re cel­e­brat­ing our one month birth­day on Sun­day 19th July with anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic — all are wel­come.

Victories in Virginia, US of A

In the past sev­er­al months, three efforts that Earth First! (EF!) has con­tributed action and ener­gy to in Vir­ginia have gained sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ries. In each of these cas­es, our involve­ment has been rel­a­tive­ly small com­pared to the efforts of oth­er groups, and all cred­it is due to them for doing the un-sexy, demand­ing work of drag­ging these indus­tries through the courts and reg­u­la­to­ry process­es where these vic­to­ries were ulti­mate­ly won. While we envi­sion and work to cre­ate a world where destruc­tive projects are stopped by sheer force of grass­roots direct action, we do indeed believe in using every tool in the tool­box.

Dominion BlockadeIn the past sev­er­al months, three efforts that Earth First! (EF!) has con­tributed action and ener­gy to in Vir­ginia have gained sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ries. In each of these cas­es, our involve­ment has been rel­a­tive­ly small com­pared to the efforts of oth­er groups, and all cred­it is due to them for doing the un-sexy, demand­ing work of drag­ging these indus­tries through the courts and reg­u­la­to­ry process­es where these vic­to­ries were ulti­mate­ly won. While we envi­sion and work to cre­ate a world where destruc­tive projects are stopped by sheer force of grass­roots direct action, we do indeed believe in using every tool in the tool­box.

Here’s a brief syn­op­sis of some of those tools being put to work over the past two years:

The first action tak­en by the cur­rent incar­na­tion of Blue Ridge Earth First! (BREF!) was a demon­stra­tion at the home of a devel­op­er dri­ving efforts to build a Wal-Mart in Blacks­burg, Vir­ginia. There was nev­er a long-term direct action strat­e­gy hashed out to defeat this project. While an emerg­ing com­mu­ni­ty group devel­oped sup­port and momen­tum towards leg­is­lat­ing and lat­er lit­i­gat­ing their oppo­si­tion into law, our action served chiefly as a reminder that civ­il dis­course with those who would des­e­crate our com­mu­ni­ties for a buck is no virtue. The demon­stra­tion was also the com­ing-out par­ty for a new EF! chap­ter ready to give some teeth to the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in the hills of Vir­ginia.

As BREF! shift­ed our focus to oth­er projects, efforts to stop the Wal-Mart through any well-man­nered, gov­ern­ment-sanc­tioned and tru­ly bor­ing means nec­es­sary, per­sist­ed and ulti­mate­ly reigned tri­umphant by way of appeal­ing a local zon­ing ordi­nance all the way to the Supreme Court of Vir­ginia. While the parade of Earth First!ers mak­ing mer­ry in devel­op­er Jean­nie Stosser’s front yard played a small part in the whole turn of events, it is nonethe­less a grat­i­fy­ing vic­to­ry for our more well-behaved allies and a pleas­ant reminder that, when pres­sure builds, it even­tu­al­ly breaks.
On the moun­tain­top removal (MTR) front, a bit­ter­sweet vic­to­ry was won on May 7, when the Army Corps of Engi­neers, respond­ing to a prompt by the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA), rescind­ed a per­mit for A&G coal’s Ison Rock mine. Over the past sev­er­al years, the South­ern Appalachi­an Moun­tain Stew­ards, a local com­mu­ni­ty group has clogged reg­u­la­to­ry process­es and spo­ken out loud­ly against this mine. In 2004, A&G’s fail­ure to con­form to the laws for exact­ly how a moun­tain is sup­posed to be destroyed result­ed in a boul­der rolling off of a MTR mine and killing a three-year old boy asleep in his bed, prompt­ing Kat­u­ah Earth First! to chain, lock and glue the gates to that mine closed. In 2007, this same cor­po­ra­tion was the tar­get of sab­o­tage at one of it’s Wise Coun­ty moun­tain-top removal sites by a group call­ing itself the “Com­mit­tee to Defend the Land and Peo­ple.”

The Ison Rock mine would have totaled 1,300 acres in scope and would have buried three miles of streams. This is the first time that a MTR per­mit has ever been rescind­ed due to inter­ven­tion by a fed­er­al reg­u­la­to­ry body—evidence that the mount­ing and increas­ing­ly mil­i­tant oppo­si­tion to MTR of the past sev­er­al years is hav­ing an effect on pol­i­cy deci­sions. The EPA and Army Corps rea­soned that the sprawl­ing mine would vio­late the Clean Water Act if it dumped min­ing waste into streams, a prac­tice that always accom­pa­nies MTR oper­a­tions known as “val­ley fills.” The bit­ter­ness of this win comes with the fact that, short­ly after Obama’s EPA rescind­ed this and five oth­er per­mits, the coal indus­try applied pres­sure for the admin­is­tra­tion to give word on 42 oth­er pend­ing MTR per­mits, which result­ed in the EPA declar­ing that they’re all fine to pro­ceed. Why are six MTR/valley fill mines in vio­la­tion of the clean water act and 42 aren’t? Pol­i­tics. They’re throw­ing us a bone here. We’ll take that bone, and then we’ll beat them sense­less with it. All MTR buries streams! Until all MTR per­mits are revoked, we won’t stop!

In anoth­er case of the Clean Water Act final­ly being enforced, Domin­ion Power’s plans to add a third reac­tor to its Lake Anna nuclear plant were thwart­ed by a law­suit brought forth by the Blue Ridge Envi­ron­men­tal Defense League (BREDL) in Feb­ru­ary. Lawyers for BREDL, an orga­ni­za­tion sup­port­ing envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice strug­gles through­out the south­east, proved in court that oper­a­tions at the plant are rais­ing tem­per­a­tures in Lake Anna to over 100 degrees in the sum­mer­time. This is the same pow­er plant where EF!, Ris­ing Tide and oth­ers staged a sit-in dur­ing last summer’s South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action.

In the near­ly two years that our small EF! col­lec­tive has exist­ed, we’ve made a delib­er­ate effort to exe­cute direct actions with a tim­ing and sen­si­bil­i­ty that work con­cur­rent­ly with the cam­paigns of our friends, neigh­bors and allies who have the stom­ach to tan­gle up the state with­in the para­me­ters of its own pro­ce­dures. We do not have the time, taste, exper­tise or resources to spear­head these efforts our­selves but we see how they can be uti­lized effec­tive­ly. The prob­lem with any vic­to­ry won by virtue of state approval is that the state retains the pow­er to reverse that judg­ment. By bypass­ing the “des­ig­nat­ed chan­nels” to express our dis­sent and employ­ing actions that direct­ly dis­rupt the oper­a­tions we oppose, we demon­strate a readi­ness among the gen­er­al pub­lic to reject the rules of our oppres­sors and defend our­selves as is our nat­ur­al right. This pres­ence rein­forces the truth that favor­able gov­ern­ment actions are forced by the will of the peo­ple rather than being hand­ed down by the benev­o­lence of the rul­ing class. If we treat these wins as the end of a sto­ry and allow the hard-earned and slow­ly-built grass­roots pow­er that pro­duced these vic­to­ries to whith­er, then this is as close to jus­tice as we will ever get. If, instead, we under­stand them as mark­ers in the move­ment towards achiev­ing all pow­er to all peo­ple, then onward. It is the prop­a­ga­tion of this sen­ti­ment as well as the spe­cif­ic points of impact result­ing from our actions that we con­tribute to the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in the moun­tains of Appalachia.

Victory Over Mexico’s La Parota Dam

Inter­view: June 30, 2009
From June 2009 World Rivers Review

Inter­view: June 30, 2009
From June 2009 World Rivers Review

Since 2004, thou­sands of Mex­i­can farm­ers have been fight­ing the con­struc­tion of La Paro­ta Dam in the state of Guer­rero. They have staged block­ades, protests and legal actions and have faced vio­lent police repres­sion in return. In May, the Mex­i­can press report­ed that the gov­ern­ment would post­pone La Paro­ta Dam until after 2018. World Rivers Review inter­viewed Rodol­fo Chavez Galin­do, a leader of the vibrant move­ment to stop the dams, about the bat­tle over La Paro­ta.

WRR: How is the local move­ment orga­nized?
RCG: The Coun­cil of Com­mu­nal Lands and Com­mu­ni­ties Opposed to La Paro­ta Dam (CECOP) was cre­at­ed by farm­ers and indige­nous peo­ples to defend their lives, land, water and nat­ur­al resources. It is com­posed of more than 5,000 men and women from 39 vil­lages. Its prin­ci­pal strength is that deci­sions are made in a com­mu­nal way, in assem­blies that have been held every Sun­day with­out fail dur­ing the six years we have been fight­ing the project.

The move­ment began on July 28, 2003, when the peas­ants of three vil­lages blocked engi­neers with the Fed­er­al Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (CFE) from enter­ing com­mu­ni­ty lands. The CFE had ille­gal­ly entered the com­mu­ni­ty’s land with­out peo­ple’s per­mis­sion. The land com­pen­sa­tion process had not start­ed, nor the envi­ron­men­tal licens­ing process. The CFE cleared thou­sands of trees — which is a fed­er­al crime — opened roads, and brought in heavy machin­ery to begin con­struc­tion. Peo­ple got angry when they cut trees, fences and crops.

WRR: What was the reac­tion of the gov­ern­ment?
RCG: The CFE removed the machin­ery from the peas­ants’ lands. The com­mu­ni­ty set up guard posts to ensure the CFE would not return. The CFE has not been able to re-enter these lands since 2003. The resis­tance was strength­ened by law­suits, which have sus­pend­ed the project until now.

The CFE tried oth­er tac­tics, pay­ing off gov­ern­ment offi­cials to try and expro­pri­ate the land. They con­vened fraud­u­lent assem­blies. When the farm­ers who were the own­ers of the lands tried to enter these assem­blies, the CFE imped­ed their entry with 1,500 police that repelled the farm­ers with tear gas. Instead, the CFE filled the meet­ings with peo­ple they brought from the cities who were not farm­ers, a move that was total­ly ille­gal.

WRR: Besides road blocks, what oth­er tac­tics have you used to fight the project?
RCG: Faced with these seri­ous vio­la­tions, the move­ment turned to the law. They asked the courts to nul­li­fy the assem­blies and after three years won a court order. In 2008, the CFE admit­ted that it could not begin work on the dam because it had not obtained the required per­mis­sions, and it had been defeat­ed in the courts.

Law­suits were also brought on envi­ron­men­tal grounds based upon CFE’s ille­gal defor­esta­tion and on crim­i­nal grounds based upon forged sig­na­tures used by CFE to legit­imize the fraud­u­lent assem­blies. Using the law has been one of the move­men­t’s strongest weapons, but the most impor­tant has been the strength and deter­mi­na­tion of the move­ment itself.

WRR: Has CECOP pre­sent­ed its case at an inter­na­tion­al lev­el?
RCG: We pre­sent­ed the case of La Paro­ta to the Unit­ed Nations Depart­ment of Eco­nom­ic and Social Affairs (DESA) through a peti­tion signed by 102 Mex­i­can orga­ni­za­tions. The DESA Com­mit­tee issued a rec­om­men­da­tion that the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment respect the deci­sions won by the farm­ers in the courts, that they respect their legit­i­mate prop­er­ty rights and that any deci­sion be based on a process of free, pri­or and informed con­sent by the farm­ers.

Oth­er UN offi­cials vis­it­ed the area and rec­og­nized the farm­ers’ rights to defend their land. They also con­firmed vio­la­tions of the rights of indige­nous peo­ples and the right to infor­ma­tion and con­sul­ta­tion.

WRR: How did farm­ers react when the Mex­i­can press report­ed that the gov­ern­ment is post­pon­ing La Paro­ta until 2018? Is this true?
RCG: We have received no offi­cial infor­ma­tion about this from the CFE. And, our demand is that the project be can­celled once and for all, not post­poned!

After deliv­er­ing a peti­tion to Pres­i­dent Calderón demand­ing a meet­ing with the CFE, we met with them on May 21, 2009. Our posi­tion is that La Paro­ta Dam in Guer­rero state, the Paso de la Rey­na Dam in Oax­a­ca, and the Arce­di­ano and El Zapotil­lo dams in Jalis­co must be can­celled, and that those dis­placed by El Cajón Dam in Nayarit must receive just com­pen­sa­tion.

To win, we will need uni­ty among diverse move­ments, begin­ning with dam-affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties. We must inte­grate our strug­gle with oth­ers suf­fer­ing from envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion in Mex­i­co and in oth­er coun­tries. And, we must strength­en the strug­gle for an alter­na­tive ener­gy pol­i­cy.

More infor­ma­tion:

Inter­na­tion­al Rivers’ La Paro­ta Cam­paign

Solidarity for Happy Valley in Tauranga

7 May 2009
Ban­ner Hung to High­light Cli­mate Crimes

Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis con­tin­ue to prof­it from coal min­ing in New Zealand despite their “mil­lion dol­lar” green­wash mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

Hap­py Val­ley is a pris­tene native wet­land near West­port, on the west coast of the South Island. Sol­id Ener­gy plan to extend their already mas­sive open-cast coal mine at Stock­ton into Hap­py Val­ley.

7 May 2009
Ban­ner Hung to High­light Cli­mate Crimes

Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis con­tin­ue to prof­it from coal min­ing in New Zealand despite their “mil­lion dol­lar” green­wash mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

Hap­py Val­ley is a pris­tene native wet­land near West­port, on the west coast of the South Island. Sol­id Ener­gy plan to extend their already mas­sive open-cast coal mine at Stock­ton into Hap­py Val­ley.

Two years ago a group of peo­ple con­cerned about cli­mate change and the native ecosys­tems set up an occu­pa­tion camp to pro­tect Hap­py Val­ley. On the 21st April this year the camp was forcibly removed by Sol­id Ener­gy.

Tau­ran­ga port is a key loca­tion for the traf­fick­ing of coal in and out of New Zealand by Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis. This ban­ner was hung on a mega bill­board (bear­ing a poignant mes­sage!) along a major road and rail­way used for trans­port­ing coal, in order to high­light the con­tin­ued cli­mate crimes com­mit­ted by Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis in this time of glob­al and eco­log­i­cal emer­gency.

http://www.savehappyvalley.org.nz/

Rossport solidarity demo at Irish Embassy

2nd July 2009

2nd July 2009
Peo­ple gath­ered in Lon­don out­side the Irish Embassy at 1pm yes­ter­day to protest at the dra­con­ian jail­ing of 7 Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors in Co. Mayo, Ire­land. The 4 women and 2 men were arrest­ed on Sun­day June 28th for their part in the ongo­ing cam­paign against the con­struc­tion of the Shell Cor­rib gas pipeline in Erris, Mayo. They were remand­ed on Mon June 29th to appear at court this Fri­day, 3rd July at 10.30am. Those being held on remand were all charged with minor pub­lic order offences (sec­tion 6: breach of the peace, sec­tion 8: refus­ing instruc­tions of a guard and sec­tion 9: will­ful obstruc­tion of a high­way — 3 of them were arrest­ed for sim­ply walk­ing across the road). None of these offences would usu­al­ly result in some­one being put on remand. We are con­cerned that the treat­ment of the pro­tes­tors has been unjust for the fol­low­ing rea­sons;

- None of the pro­tes­tors had pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, yet they were refused nor­mal bail con­di­tions
— Judge Devins denied and/or deferred deci­sions on their kegal aid, although it was evi­dent that some of the pro­tes­tors are not able to afford their legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.
— Judge Devins has shown her dis­dain and bias against Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors. Send­ing peo­ple to jail whose first offence is to be arrest­ed for not obey­ing the direc­tions of a guard is ridicu­lous and unprece­dent­ed.

We deliv­ered a let­ter to the Irish Ambas­sador call­ing for him to ensure that the pro­tes­tors are treat­ed fair­ly, released from remand, and are allowed access to the legal aid to which they are enti­tled. It also express­es gen­er­al con­cerns regard­ing the recent treat­ment of pro­tes­tors by the Gar­dai and by the secu­ri­ty that Shell have employed have employed to pro­tect their gas project — Inte­grat­ed Risk Man­age­ment Ser­vices. I‑RMS have been con­tin­u­al­ly accused of using exces­sive force against the pro­tes­tors. The let­ter also calls for a fair and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into the recent alle­ga­tions and for assur­ances that cam­paign­ers who are car­ry­ing out their demo­c­ra­t­ic right to protest are treat­ed fair­ly and their human rights upheld.

* The protest also hoped to raise aware­ness of events in Co. Mayo by hold­ing ban­ners and giv­ing out leaflets ask­ing peo­ple to sup­port the sev­en on remand, and to make their protest against the actions of Shell and the Irish Gov­ern­ment.

For fur­ther info­ma­tiona and updates: www.indymedia.ie and www.corribos.com
Email: info@corribos.com

Shell to Sea spokesper­sons: Ms Mau­ra Har­ring­ton (T.087 9591474) an Mr Ter­rence Con­way (T.086 0866264). Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp media co-ordi­na­tor: Mr Niall Har­nett (T. 086 8444966)

Palm Oil Gala Dinner & Dance pictures

The Cli­mate Rush held a Gala Din­ner and Dance out­side the Mil­len­ni­um Hotel in Grosvenor Square, May­fair, Lon­don last night (1 July 2009) as a protest against the defor­esta­tion of trop­i­cal forests to grow bio­fu­el crops.

Palm Oil protestThe Cli­mate Rush held a Gala Din­ner and Dance out­side the Mil­len­ni­um Hotel in Grosvenor Square, May­fair, Lon­don last night (1 July 2009) as a protest against the defor­esta­tion of trop­i­cal forests to grow bio­fu­el crops.

A jazz band played, and suf­fragettes and orang-utans danced in the street out­side the Mil­len­ni­um Hotel in May­fair as prof­i­teers from glob­al despo­li­a­tion were hav­ing their own par­ty inside.

Trop­i­cal forests are being felled, releas­ing vast amounts of car­bon diox­ide, to grow bio­fu­el crops such as palm oil. Glob­al cor­po­ra­tions are mak­ing huge prof­its, indige­nous peo­ples are ille­gal­ly forced off their land and wildlife in these areas is large­ly elim­i­nat­ed.

As the Cli­mate Rush fly­er states, “90% of orang­utans have dis­ap­peared since the Suf­fragettes first appeared 100 years ago.

The event start­ed with a pic­nic in the park, the gar­den of Grosvenor Square oppo­site the hotel. Then the jazz band began to play and peo­ple moved out onto half of the street, reject­ing the pen police had cre­at­ed “for your safe­ty”. Many demon­stra­tors waved and posed and shout­ed greet­ings to Neil, the police pho­tog­ra­ph­er who was pho­tograph­ing and film­ing the event.

After danc­ing on the street for around half an hour there was a “rush” across the street to the hotel door­way, which made lit­tle impres­sion on the row of police across its front. Many of the police seemed rather amused through­out the event, although there were one or two who slight­ly lost their tem­per in the rush itself, and at one point two peo­ple were rather rough­ly thrown to the ground by a small police charge. Nei­ther seemed bad­ly injured.

Fol­low­ing this, a num­ber of the demon­stra­tors sat down on the road for a while. Half of the police then with­drew and watched from around 100 yards down the road. Even­tu­al­ly peo­ple got up and briefly danced a con­ga, then decid­ed to go back into the park to con­tin­ue their pic­nic, and I went home for din­ner.

Palo Gordo does not want trash from San Marcos, Guatemala

Neigh­bours of Pajopom Vil­lage from Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do don´t want trash from San Mar­cos any­more. From June 15th 2009 they have pre­vent the dis­charge of garbage in an ille­gal garbage dump in their com­mu­ni­ty by hav­ing a pacif­ic protest in front of the com­mu­ni­ty saloon. Adults, young peo­ple and even chil­dren had been rotat­ing since ear­ly in the morn­ing until the sun­set, in order to fight for their lives and a safe envi­ron­ment.

illegal dumpNeigh­bours of Pajopom Vil­lage from Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do don´t want trash from San Mar­cos any­more. From June 15th 2009 they have pre­vent the dis­charge of garbage in an ille­gal garbage dump in their com­mu­ni­ty by hav­ing a pacif­ic protest in front of the com­mu­ni­ty saloon. Adults, young peo­ple and even chil­dren had been rotat­ing since ear­ly in the morn­ing until the sun­set, in order to fight for their lives and a safe envi­ron­ment.

In the after­noon on Fri­day, June 5, a group of neigh­bours rep­re­sent­ing Pojopom Vil­lage from Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do filed a com­plaint against the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ments of San Mar­cos and Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do, because of the ille­gal dump in their com­mu­ni­ty, in the assis­tance office of the Pub­lic Min­istry in the munic­i­pal head, San Mar­cos.
The neigh­bours decid­ed to use said means alter hav­ing exhaust­ed three years of dia­logu­ing with the may­or of San Mar­cos, Mr. Car­los Enrique Bar­rios Sach­er and the may­or of Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do, Mr. Fran­cis­co Roge­lio San­doval. The talks, since Decem­ber 2008, were medi­at­ed by the San Mar­cos’ Human Rights Ombuds­man office. Thanks to the medi­a­tion process an agree­ment had been reached, but which was not act­ed upon by the may­ors, even though they were giv­en an exten­sion.

The com­mu­ni­ty spokesman declared, “We are not in agree­ment that the trash of anoth­er munic­i­pal­i­ty con­tin­ues con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing our land. We will defend the earth that belongs to every­one. We do not want to be accom­plices in the irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of our igno­rant, lying and neg­li­gent offi­cials, who are paid with our tax mon­ey.”
Gra­cias al pron­to actu­ar de los fun­cionar­ios del Min­is­te­rio Pub­li­co se ele­vo la denun­cia a la Fis­calía de Deli­tos con­tra el Ambi­ente en la ciu­dad de Guatemala.

The offi­cials of the Pub­lic Min­istry brought the com­plaint to the Dis­trict Attor­ney of Crimes against the Envi­ron­ment in Guatemala City. An ocu­lar inspec­tion was request­ed to the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al resources, on Mon­day June 15th.
On Tues­day June 23 mem­bers of the Nation­al Civ­il Police, specif­i­cal­ly the Divi­sion for Envi­ron­ment Pro­tec­tion got to the place to inves­ti­gate about dam­aged hous­es, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed rivers and bad odours in the place, caused by the ille­gal dump.

Mean­while, the neigh­bors from Palo Gor­do had been pre­vent­ing more trash dis­charges in the men­tioned area.