Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

The Coal caravan has arrived in West Yorkshire! AND daily blog

29.04.2009
The coal car­a­van is now in West York­shire and has vis­it­ed Fair­burn Ings which is threat­ened with open cast­ing and Fer­rby­bridge pow­er sta­tion which will burn the coal.

The Coal Car­a­van reach­es Fer­ry­bridge

Coal caravan banner at Shipley open-cast siteCoal caravan somewhere under the rainbow29.04.2009
The coal car­a­van is now in West York­shire and has vis­it­ed Fair­burn Ings which is threat­ened with open cast­ing and Fer­rby­bridge pow­er sta­tion which will burn the coal.

The Coal Car­a­van reach­es Fer­ry­bridge

The Coal car­a­van has arrived in West York­shire! After a day of cycling 54 miles in the rain the car­a­van has set up in Pon­te­fract.

Today activists and locals walked from Pon­te­fract to Fair­burn Ings, a site which will be dev­as­tat­ed by open cast coal min­ing if HJ banks and the Led­stone Estate are giv­en the go ahead to remove coal. On the way we passed the mon­stros­i­ty which is Fer­ry­bridge pow­er sta­tion and were able to see exact­ly where the coal from the Fair­burn Ings area will be burned. The coal tak­en from this area will only pow­er the three local pow­er sta­tions for 11 days, yet it is pre­dict­ed to take 50 years for the area to recov­er. The affects on glob­al warm­ing will be felt indef­i­nite­ly if we don’t move away from a coal based pow­er source, to renew­able tech­nol­o­gy fast.

Last night the Car­a­van had an evening of dis­cus­sion around the his­to­ry of coal and the future of coal. The event was booked to take place at Pon­te­fract New Col­lege, but the police leant on the col­lege and then told the pub­lic the event had been can­celled. Thank­ful­ly we were still able to go ahead with the event in the Town Hall instead! The police have been over­ly present at some aspects of the car­a­van, but this has sim­ply increased the public’s curios­i­ty with our events and shown how much the police waste their time.

This evening the Car­a­van will show the Age of Stu­pid in Pon­te­fract Library.

Tomor­row we cycle North, towards events in Durham and the North East. If you are inter­est­ed in the car­a­van there is still time to come along. We have a full timetable over the bank hol­i­day week­end with the local com­mu­ni­ty and extra hands would be wel­come. Please check out our web­site for details of accom­mo­da­tion and ring the car­a­van on 07729575582 to let us know you are com­ing.

caravan@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.coalcaravan.org.uk

Dai­ly blog dur­ing jour­ney — http://coalcaravan.wordpress.com/

Orissa Tribes stage mass protest against British mining company Vedanta — 25 April 2009

Sev­er­al hun­dred tribes­peo­ple today staged a protest against FTSE-100 com­pa­ny Vedan­ta, as it bids mas­sive­ly to expand its con­tro­ver­sial alu­mini­um refin­ery in Lan­ji­garh, Oris­sa. The refin­ery occu­pies land belong­ing to the Majhi Kondh tribe, and lies at the foot of the Niyam­giri hills, home of the iso­lat­ed Don­gria Kondhs. Both tribes took part in the protests.

Sev­er­al hun­dred tribes­peo­ple today staged a protest against FTSE-100 com­pa­ny Vedan­ta, as it bids mas­sive­ly to expand its con­tro­ver­sial alu­mini­um refin­ery in Lan­ji­garh, Oris­sa. The refin­ery occu­pies land belong­ing to the Majhi Kondh tribe, and lies at the foot of the Niyam­giri hills, home of the iso­lat­ed Don­gria Kondhs. Both tribes took part in the protests.

Over a hun­dred fam­i­lies lost their homes to their refin­ery. Many more lost their farm land and with it their food-secu­ri­ty and self suf­fi­cien­cy.

Vedanta’s refin­ery expan­sion project is inte­gral­ly linked to its plan to mine the Don­gria Kondh’s moun­tain home. Vedanta’s mine is need­ed to pro­vide the refin­ery with a near­by, and cost effi­cient, source of baux­ite – the raw mate­r­i­al for alu­mini­um.

One Don­gria Kondh man said, ‘Min­ing only makes prof­it for the rich. We will become beg­gars if the com­pa­ny destroys our moun­tain and our for­est so that they can make mon­ey. We can­not give our moun­tain, it is our life. And oth­er tribes will also suf­fer, those who live on the rivers that come from our moun­tain.’

Today’s protest is just the lat­est in a string of demon­stra­tions against Vedanta’s activ­i­ties.

More info: www.survival-international.org/tribes/dongria

Whaling Ship Sunk Again by Agenda 21 in Norway & Marine Monkeywrenching Guide

On the evening of the 23rd of April, Agen­da 21 snuck onto a Nor­we­gian whal­ing ship mak­ing repairs, flood­ing the engine room and scut­tling the ship to delay the 2009 killing sea­son.

On the evening of the 23rd of April, Agen­da 21 snuck onto a Nor­we­gian whal­ing ship mak­ing repairs, flood­ing the engine room and scut­tling the ship to delay the 2009 killing sea­son.

anony­mous com­mu­nique:

“APRIL 24, 2009
HENNINGSVAER, NORWAY — WHALING SHIP SUNK

ON THE EVENING OF THE 23RD OF APRIL WE SNUCK ONTO A NORWEGIAN WHALING SHIP MAKING REPAIRS IN THE LOFOTEN ISLANDS IN
PREPARATION FOR THE 2009 WHALING SEASON. TO DELAY THE KILLING SEASON AND TO PROTEST THE CONTINUED ILLEGAL EXPORT OF WHALE MEAT TO JAPAN WE DISASSEMBLED A VALVE AND FLOODED THE ENGINE ROOM. UNFORTUNATELY LOCAL FIREFIGHTERS WERE ABLE TO RESPOND JUST MOMENTS BEFORE THE SHIP SETTLED ON THE BOTTOM BUT NOT BEFORE THE SHIP HAD ALREADY BEEN COMPLETELY FILLED WITH SEA WATER AND THE DAMAGE DONE. FOR BOTH FISHERIES INVESTORS IN TOKYO AND INSURANCE UNDERWRITERS IN OSLO INVESTING IN THE NORWEGIAN WHALING INDUSTRY CAN ONLY LEAD TO SUNKEN PROFITS. AS A DIRECT RESULT OF A GROWING INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES WE CAME TO HENNINGSVAER. WE SAW THE SKARBAKK.

WE SANK THE BASTARD. ‑AGENDA 21″

Source — http://www.directaction.info/news_apr25_09.htm

Pre­vi­ous action
Com­mu­nique — http://www.directaction.info/news_sep11_07.htm
Pic­tures — http://www.directaction.info/news_sep03_07.htm
Vic­to­ry — http://www.directaction.info/news_oct21_07.htm

More info — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21

—-

Check out the Marine Mon­key­wrench­ing Guide

Happy Valley update, New Zealand

SE dis­man­tle Hap­py Camp — so we’re relo­cat­ing to SE front lawn
The Hap­py Val­ley Occu­pa­tion camp has been dis­man­tled by Sol­id Ener­gy and heli­coptered out of the Val­ley. So we’re re-locat­ing — to Sol­id Ener­gy’s Front lawn!

Media Advi­so­ry
Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion
7.00am Fri­day 24 April

Pro­test­ers sleep on coal com­pa­ny lawn

SE dis­man­tle Hap­py Camp — so we’re relo­cat­ing to SE front lawn
The Hap­py Val­ley Occu­pa­tion camp has been dis­man­tled by Sol­id Ener­gy and heli­coptered out of the Val­ley. So we’re re-locat­ing — to Sol­id Ener­gy’s Front lawn!

Media Advi­so­ry
Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion
7.00am Fri­day 24 April

Pro­test­ers sleep on coal com­pa­ny lawn

Five Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion mem­bers camped on the front lawn of state-owned coal min­er Sol­id Ener­gy’s Christchurch head­quar­ters last night. Around 30 pro­test­ers helped set up a pup tent on the lawn at 2.00pm yes­ter­day, as a response to the removal of a long-term occu­pa­tion camp on the site of a pro­posed West Coast coal mine.

“It cer­tain­ly was­n’t as peace­ful as a night in Hap­py Val­ley,” says Front Lawn Pro­test­er Anna-Clair Hunter. “We heard cars and trucks instead of weka and kiwi.”

Media are invit­ed to a com­mu­ni­ty break­fast at the Front Lawn site from 7.30–8.30am on Fri­day morn­ing.

The group has spent the past five years protest­ing the plans of the state-owned com­pa­ny to destroy a pris­tine area north of West­port, home to 13 endan­gered species includ­ing /roroa/, great spot­ted kiwi.

ENDS

—-

7.5.09
Sol­i­dar­i­ty for Hap­py Val­ley in Tau­ran­ga
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

3 Lappersfort occupiers released, with deportation notices

Yes­ter­day (fri­day 24th april) the 3 Lap­pers­fort occu­piers arrest­ed on tues­day night were released (orig­i­nal arti­cle about arrest http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22493). Upon sign­ing out of the Brugge prison they were all issued with depor­ta­tion notices, order­ing them to leave the “King­dom of Bel­gium” by mid­night on the 29.04.2009.

Yes­ter­day (fri­day 24th april) the 3 Lap­pers­fort occu­piers arrest­ed on tues­day night were released (orig­i­nal arti­cle about arrest http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22493). Upon sign­ing out of the Brugge prison they were all issued with depor­ta­tion notices, order­ing them to leave the “King­dom of Bel­gium” by mid­night on the 29.04.2009. One of them signed the paper after being threat­ened with being sent back into the cell if refus­ing. The oth­er two refused to sign the paper and were still released, but as yet we’re not sure if the depor­ta­tion notice has any legal grounds or not. Obvi­ous­ly the pigs are using their socalled “posi­tion of author­i­ty” to intim­i­date the occu­piers and those sup­port­ing them, and this attempt­ed depor­ta­tion is sim­ply an extreme and over-the-top expres­sion of their desire to be rid of us before the issues of the lap­pers­fort, of “zonevreemde” forests and police repres­sion get too big for them to han­dle. The notice itself seems extrem­ly dodgy, it has only been signed by the prison direc­tor, refers from a law from 1980, and one is issued with­out the offi­cial name of the per­son to be deport­ed. But these days here in Brugge noth­ing is sur­pris­ing any­more, and the police may take this “chance” to raid the camp to find the “ille­gal” peo­ple there. The facist pig-pro­tec­tors of the “Bel­gian Reich” are again flex­ing their lit­tle mus­cles, and this one case is anoth­er exam­ple of the facism of “fortress Europe” and its pro­tec­tors, and the vio­lent repres­sion prac­tised against those who show any form of resis­tance. Resort­ing to such mea­sures only shows us that the police here feel threat­ened by our pres­ence in the for­est.
Mean­while the pigs still have the ID’s and belong­ings of many peo­ple, and we’re try­ing to find out whether the raid at a local friends house on wen­des­day after­noon was legal or not, and whether or not we have a legal case against the Brugge police. (For orig­i­nal arti­cle about raid http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22512).
Fol­low­ing the release of the 3 we now know more about their arrest on tues­day. At least 6–10 pig­gies had been wait­ing in the bush­es, some dressed in cam­ou­flage and black, some in uni­form, some with bal­a­clavas and at least one dog. They came from behind the bush­es and trees from all direc­tions in a pathet­ic hol­ly­wood-style ambush, vio­lent­ly forc­ing 3 peo­ple to the ground, twist­ing their arms and using pres­sure-points. Fin­ger­prints and pho­tos were tak­en, and after the raid the pigs man­aged to pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy one of the 3. The cop­pers here are using their tac­tics of kid­nap­ping, ambush, vio­lence and lies to crush our camp, our cam­paign, and to make oth­ers afraid of com­ing to vis­it, show sup­port or move in. Spring is hap­pen­ing, and we are try­ing to get ready for a busy sum­mer of cam­paign­ing and actions, despite con­stant police harass­ment. Just last night, while we cel­e­brat­ed the release of our friends, 3 peo­ple were forced to run from police after return­ing to the camp from col­lect­ing bread from a local bak­ery sup­port­ing the occu­piers. The pig­gies, obvi­ous­ly with noth­ing bet­ter to do, wait­ed long in to the night, keep­ing a close eye on the bag of bread dumped in the bush­es by the 3 forced to flee. Upon return­ing to get it lat­er, the sil­ly bug­gers were still wait­ing, but the peo­ple man­aged to get away. Our crim­i­nal bread is now back on site and being enjoyed by all.…
The camp, in this time of police sur­veil­lance and harass­ment and all the rest of it, require a few things which could be very helpful.…Lappersfort wish­list: peo­ple with legal knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly immi­gra­tion law
com­put­er freak to help updat­ing and renew­ing old and neglect­ed web­site
most of all we need more peo­ple in the for­est, to come by and stay as long as they want, to move in and to take part in the camp itself (all peo­ple com­ing over should be aware how­ev­er of strong police pres­ence around the for­est)
please phone for anything.……(++32 741/65.85.44)

Indians blockade main Amazon tributary — 24 April 2009

A large num­ber of Indi­ans have block­ad­ed one of the Amazon’s main trib­u­taries, the Napo Riv­er, in response to the vio­la­tion of their rights by oil com­pa­nies and Peru’s gov­ern­ment.

A large num­ber of Indi­ans have block­ad­ed one of the Amazon’s main trib­u­taries, the Napo Riv­er, in response to the vio­la­tion of their rights by oil com­pa­nies and Peru’s gov­ern­ment.

The pro­test­ers have block­ad­ed the Napo with canoes and a cable to stop oil com­pa­ny ves­sels get­ting upriv­er. Accord­ing to sources, two boats, includ­ing one from the Anglo-French com­pa­ny Peren­co, have man­aged to break through the block­ade. Three shots were alleged­ly fired at the Indi­ans who chased after them.

The block­ade of the Napo Riv­er is just one of many protests cur­rent­ly tak­ing place across the Peru­vian Ama­zon. Coor­di­nat­ed by Peru’s Ama­zon Indi­an organ­i­sa­tion, AIDESEP, the protests are in response to gov­ern­ment poli­cies seen by the Indi­ans as dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and threat­en­ing to their com­mu­nal lands. AIDESEP is lob­by­ing for the repeal of sev­er­al laws they claim vio­late their rights, and for the cre­ation of new reserves for uncon­tact­ed tribes.

The gov­ern­ment has respond­ed by send­ing police and sol­diers to areas where protests are tak­ing place. AIDESEP has crit­i­cised these mea­sures, call­ing them ‘intim­i­da­tion’ and say­ing that the protests are peace­ful.

Peren­co is work­ing in a part of the Ama­zon inhab­it­ed by two of the world’s last uncon­tact­ed tribes. The com­pa­ny does not acknowl­edge the tribes exist.

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘All over the world trib­al peo­ples are being forced to resort to block­ades to try and pro­tect their remain­ing land. We’re see­ing this in India and Malaysia as well as South Amer­i­ca.’

www.survival-international.org

Shell security attack Willie Corduff after illegal Glengad compound dismantled

23.04.2009
Shel­l’s ille­gal Glen­gad com­pound was dis­man­tled last night and Gold­man win­ner, Willie Cor­duff was assault­ed by masked Shell secu­ri­ty dur­ing truck protest.

Glengad compound fence torn down23.04.2009
Shel­l’s ille­gal Glen­gad com­pound was dis­man­tled last night and Gold­man win­ner, Willie Cor­duff was assault­ed by masked Shell secu­ri­ty dur­ing truck protest.
Yes­ter­day Shell’s attempts to restart their works on the Cor­rib Gas project were ground to a halt after only eight hours. At 6–30 a work­force of about 20, backed up by around 50 pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards erect­ed fences to re-estab­lish a com­pound. This com­pound is the would-be on-shore pipe instal­la­tion base. Works were seri­ous­ly ham­pered when local peo­ple and sol­i­dar­i­ty camp activists occu­pied machin­ery.

By 4 o clock Ross­port Five mem­ber Willie Cor­duff was still refus­ing to leave the from under the truck, which he had occu­pied in the com­pound and all work had ground to a halt. Shell were unable to con­tin­ue as Willie was pre­vent­ing nec­es­sary equip­ment being used.

As the evening drew to a close Willie was res­olute that he would stay and the com­mu­ni­ty ral­lied around in sup­port. Through­out the evening sup­port­ers gath­ered at the com­pound to show sup­port for the cam­paign and Willie Corduff’s stand bring­ing blan­kets and hot water bot­tles.

As the crowd gath­ered ten­sions rose as Erris peo­ple saw first hand Shell’s attempt to dev­as­tate their com­mu­ni­ty for a tenth year in a row. The fence beside the truck where Willie was posi­tioned was removed and the activists made their way to Willie to ensure he was ok. Soon the entire south­ern exte­ri­or perime­ter was dis­man­tled. Shell’s ini­tial works were almost undone.

At this point peo­ple returned to see Willie who was cold and still but all things con­sid­ered was in good spir­its. Erris activists had checked Shell’s attempts to restart work. Peo­ple sat around talk­ing and were in high spir­its.

Pro­test­ers Attacked

Around 3am the vig­il of sup­port­ers were gath­ered on the road and Willie was accom­pa­nied at the truck only by his broth­er- in-law. Willie had briefly got­ten out from under the truck to stretch his legs. The two men were stand­ing beside the truck when up to ten Shell secu­ri­ty per­son­nel in black and wear­ing bal­a­clavas “appeared out of nowhere”. The men pushed Willie to the ground and start­ed kick­ing him and hit­ting him with a heavy object that appeared to be a baton or torch. They knelt on his head and twist­ed his arms behind his back as they beat him. His broth­er-in-law attempt­ed to aid Willie but was pushed back repeat­ed­ly and forcibly removed by the masked Shell secu­ri­ty into an adja­cent field where he was then knocked to the ground, kicked and beat­en.

A Shell medic stayed with Willie for a peri­od. Local peo­ple, who arrived on the scene short­ly after the two men were assault­ed, were so fright­ened of the Shell secu­ri­ty per­son­nel that they called the Gar­daí who were patrolling the area. Willie was removed by an ambu­lance to Castle­bar Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he is being treat­ed for nau­sea and severe bruis­ing to the head and body. A Gar­da state­ment con­firmed the iden­ti­ty of Willie and his brother-in-law’s attack­ers stat­ing that “A pro­test­er [Willie] who was present on the site since yes­ter­day was this morn­ing removed from the com­pound by secu­ri­ty staff.”

Works as we write appears to be sus­pend­ed. Willie Cor­duff is in hos­pi­tal, the area is on a knife-edge as a mix­ture of fear and anger brews.

Peo­ple are urged to trav­el to Erris now to stand with Erris peo­ple to make a stand against Shell.

Lappersfort- Police out of control

Fol­low­ing the ambush & arrest of 3 lap­pers­fort occu­piers on the night of 21st April, the Brugge police yes­ter­day con­duct­ed a raid on the house of a local sym­pa­this­er.

Fol­low­ing the ambush & arrest of 3 lap­pers­fort occu­piers on the night of 21st April, the Brugge police yes­ter­day con­duct­ed a raid on the house of a local sym­pa­this­er. Atleast 6 pigs entered the home after show­ing a war­rant, and took with them many per­son­al items from the occu­piers, includ­ing pass­ports, oth­er forms of ID and even per­son­al let­ters and jour­nals. The police are tak­ing every oppor­tu­ni­ty to weak­en local sup­port through the media cir­cus and also to gath­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the occu­piers. The belief is that they are gath­er­ing the id’s in order to be able to charge peo­ple with the costs of the evic­tion (after evic­tion in 2002, 13 occu­pi­er who had giv­en their names were threat­ened with hav­ing to pay the evic­tion costs of 50,000euros if they are caught again in the for­est) . We aren’t sure if this means the evic­tion is com­ing any soon­er now, but the camp is under con­stant evic­tion threat. There is some spec­u­la­tion as to whether or not the police raid yes­ter­day was done legal­ly or not, and also whether or not they will take the next step of raid­ing the camp….

Mean­while 3 of our friends are still sit­ting in prison in brugge and will face the judge tomor­row. They are accused of scrap­ing some words in wet con­crete, which the pigs have decid­ed deserves the offi­cial charge of “destroy­ing the road”. We are obvi­ous­ly hop­ing they will all be released tomor­row, but the cour­t­house here in Brugge has a rep­u­ta­tion for lock­ing up lap­pers­forters for any­thing they pos­si­bly can. One local paper also report­ed that the secu­ri­ty and dogs who ambushed and arrest­ed the 3 on Tues­day night were request­ed by the may­or him­self.

Life in the for­est is get­ting some­times dif­fi­cult, and the pigs are obvi­ous­ly using their tac­tics of intim­i­da­tion, fear and repres­sion to demor­alise the camp and cause divi­sion between the occu­piers and the local com­mu­ni­ty. But the camp and the cam­paign goes on, spring is hap­pen­ing, and more humans are always wished for and welcome….we wont let the pig­gies stop us, or even slow us down…

The Beechwood Hotel/Squat 201 Bristol Road Edgbaston Birmingham B5 7UB

A day of per­ma­cul­ture work­shops, fol­lowed by a BBQ and par­ty. Then stay and help us resist the bailiffs.

Per­ma­cul­ture Day at the Social Jus­tice cen­tre, 201 Bris­tol Road, B5 7UB.

The Social Jus­tice cen­tre at Bris­tol Road is host­ing a per­ma­cul­ture day on Sat­ur­day 25th April.
The event is sched­uled for 11am till late . There will also be a bar­be­cue and music for your plea­sure.

A day of per­ma­cul­ture work­shops, fol­lowed by a BBQ and par­ty. Then stay and help us resist the bailiffs.

Per­ma­cul­ture Day at the Social Jus­tice cen­tre, 201 Bris­tol Road, B5 7UB.

The Social Jus­tice cen­tre at Bris­tol Road is host­ing a per­ma­cul­ture day on Sat­ur­day 25th April.
The event is sched­uled for 11am till late . There will also be a bar­be­cue and music for your plea­sure.

The Cen­tre is a squat­ted for­mer hotel and con­ser­va­tion area, which has been run down by the own­er and for­mer man­agers. The occu­piers are keen to turn this sit­u­a­tion around and restore the grounds to prop­er eco­log­i­cal man­age­ment, and are work­ing with local stake­hold­ers to this end. In the mean­time, prac­ti­cal steps tak­en include the plant­i­ng of a veg­etable plot.

The day on Sat­ur­day will involve vol­un­teers from the neigh­bour­ing Meta­mor­pho­sis at the Mar­tineau Gar­dens. We will be shar­ing envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion skills while doing prac­ti­cal work to restore the con­ser­va­tion area to prop­er envi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment to the best of our col­lec­tive abil­i­ties on the day. We will be con­tin­u­ing to lay path­ways too.

Call­ing all per­ma­cul­ture activists and eco-war­riors: come along and share your skills and expe­ri­ence, and of course nat­u­ral­ly please bring any tools or seeds you want to use for a nat­u­ral­ly nat­ur­al expe­ri­ence.

The Beech­wood Hotel/Squat
201 Bris­tol Road
Edg­bas­ton
Birm­ing­ham
B5 7UB

For more infor­ma­tion call Lee 07874 180014

Shell return to Glengad in force

Pro­tes­tors beat­en by Gar­dai

22nd April 2009 UPDATE UPDATE
Today’s fenc­ing (and gates?) in Glen­gad is right now being removed by the com­mu­ni­ty.

Shell returned in force today to Glen­gad, arriv­ing about 6.45, by about 7 pro­test­ers from the com­mu­ni­ty and camp had start­ed to gath­er.

Pro­tes­tors beat­en by Gar­dai

22nd April 2009 UPDATE UPDATE
Shell's fencingToday’s fenc­ing (and gates?) in Glen­gad is right now being removed by the com­mu­ni­ty.

Shell returned in force today to Glen­gad, arriv­ing about 6.45, by about 7 pro­test­ers from the com­mu­ni­ty and camp had start­ed to gath­er.

On and under the fencing lorryWillie Cor­duff, Gold­man Envi­ron­men­tal Award Win­ner and 2 oth­ers climbed under a truck car­ry­ing pal­isade fenc­ing on the SAC. A camper climbed onto a tele­scop­ic loader, lat­er chang­ing to a 20t excavator/digger used for lift­ing the fenc­ing pan­els.
9 hour digger sit
Mau­ra Har­ring­ton par­tial­ly blocked the front entrance of the com­pound with her car, and through­out the day many folk jumped the fence and tried to stop the destruc­tion of this pris­tine habi­tat.

Shell had dozens of secu­ri­ty and dozens of work­ers, but were severe­ly ham­pered in their activ­i­ties by stiff local resis­tance. The occu­pa­tion of truck and dig­ger meant that they had only lim­it­ed resources for their work, but in the late after­noon they had anoth­er dig­ger and anoth­er truck load of fenc­ing dropped to site.

The Gar­dai tried to talk the dig­ger jumper and Wille & co out but to no avail, they sim­ply kept stat­ing that they want­ed to see Shell’s per­mis­sions to be car­ry­ing out the work. When this failed they took a more direct approach with the men under the lor­ry. They man­aged to pull Willie’s boots off and stared twist­ing his toes, they threw stones at them and beat Willie on the ankle with a rock, while anoth­er lor­ry pro­tes­tor had his had repeat­ed­ly banged off the ground by a thug mas­querad­ing as a Inspec­tor. Willie was also scratched and stuck in the pri­vates by Gar­dai.
Gardai getting under lorry
As the hours ticked by the Gar­dai had Maura’s car towed by plant hire own­er Carey. After 9hrs on the dig­ger the camper was grabbed by secu­ri­ty and forcibly pulled off, severe­ly bruis­ing his legs and arm. The oth­er 2 peo­ple under the lor­ry spent approx 8hrs under it.

The weath­er turned nasty with gale force winds and dri­ving rain, which made life dif­fi­cult for pro­test­ers and work­ers alike.

This evening Willie remains under the lor­ry and the Gar­dai have left. Anoth­er man man­aged to get under the lor­ry with Willie this evening. There is a large secu­ri­ty force still in Glen­gad, with a crowd form­ing of solemn pro­test­ers stand­ing near Willie in the dark but the sit­u­a­tion still seems poten­tial­ly volatile. Rumour is that sev­er­al fire brigade units are on their way to lift the lor­ry and remove him.

The local radio sta­tion, Mid­west Radio, have been open­ly call­ing in their news for Shell to pro­duce doc­u­men­ta­tion to the effect that they have the nec­es­sary per­mis­sions to work in Glen­gad which they don’t seem to have.

Around noon or so the por­taloos that Shell had dropped on the SAC blew over and all their chem­i­cals poured out onto the SAC, no attempt was made to clean up the chem­i­cal spill and the por­taloos were only stood up again about 7pm.

Today Shell even­tu­al­ly man­aged to put up large front gates and cre­ate the top com­pound sec­tion with a 2nd set of gates lead­ing down into the SAC.

Despite telling 1 or 2 peo­ple they were arrest­ed no arrests were made.

Peo­ple are frus­trat­ed & angry but deter­mined, they need all the help they can get, so now is the time to get to Erris if you can, for what­ev­er sup­port you can give.