Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

The Solitaire arrives in Broadhaven Bay

9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Solitaire9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Local peo­ple have been alarmed to see so many police offi­cers, and sin­is­ter fig­ures in green rain­jack­ets, who may be police (although the Irish Police, the Gar­da Siochá­na, usu­al­ly wear blue) or could be Shell secu­ri­ty or even mem­bers of the Irish Army.

Inter­net access in the area near the Shell com­pound has been cut off, and the main road to the beach has been blocked.

Oppo­si­tion to the pipe lay­ing oper­a­tion con­sists of a num­ber off envi­ron­men­tal and polit­i­cal activists based in the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, local fish­er­men who are wor­ried about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the waters they depend on, and many local peo­ple who are con­cerned that the off­shore sec­tion of the Shell scheme is being put in place while no plan­ning per­mis­sion exists for the onshore sec­tion.

A local school prin­ci­pal has vowed to refuse food until the ship leaves the area. She has parked her car in front of the Shell com­pound. A fish­er­man from near­by Por­turlin who refused to move his crab gear from the path of the Soli­taire has been arrest­ed.

In 2005 a num­ber of local peo­ple were jailed for 94 days for oppos­ing the Shell project as it was then con­fig­ured.

Since then, the project has been dogged by con­tro­ver­sy, with many arrests, court cas­es, injuries, com­plaints to the Gar­da Com­plaints Board and Ombuds­man, and polit­i­cal activ­i­ty both in and out­side the Dáil.

In recent weeks there have been 29 sep­a­rate arrests in thee area around Glen­gad beach, where the pipe is due to make land­fall.

Shell spokes­peo­ple have claimed that the project has not been affect­ed by the protests. They say that recent delays to the project have been caused by severe weath­er.

Some news­pa­pers have claimed that the project, which is being car­ried out by a con­sor­tium of com­pa­nies includ­ing Sta­toil from Nor­way and Marathon Oil from Texas in the Unit­ed States, will ben­e­fit the coun­try, even though all of the nat­ur­al gas will belong to the Cor­rib part­ners and no roy­al­ty will be charged. There is no con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tion for Shell, the scheme’s major share­hold­er and oper­a­tor, to sell any of the gas to Bord Gáis Éire­ann, and so the resource will be sold to the high­est bid­der.

The will be no finan­cial ben­e­fit to Irish con­sumers from the Cor­rib gas field.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists have warned that the onshore sec­tion of the scheme, which includes a huge refin­ery being con­struct­ed nine kilo­me­ters inland at Bel­lan­aboy, will be expand­ed and used to process gas from oth­er fields off the west coast in the the future. They also say that Shell will use the prece­dent of an onshore refin­ery to strong arm their way into installing sim­i­lar schemes in oth­er places around the world.

The Irish gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Green Par­ty Min­is­ters of the Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, has backed Shel­l’s scheme. Last month the Gar­da released fig­ures show­ing that 11 mil­lion euro had been spent polic­ing the project since 2006, more than half the amount the force spent on fight­ing organ­ised crime.

Activists on the ground in Mayo have asked for assis­tance. Those not in a posi­tion to trav­el to Mayo can hold sol­i­dar­i­ty protests (this arti­cle could be used as the basis for leaflets) at the Irish embassy or Shell petrol sta­tions. Green Par­ty politi­cians in Britain may have some influ­ence over their coun­ter­parts in the Irish Green Par­ty.

Shell can only hold onto the rent­ed Soli­taire for a lim­it­ed peri­od of time and all efforts to hin­der its progress will seri­ous­ly dam­age Shel­l’s plans. ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The chop­py waters of Broad­haven Bay will hope­ful­ly aid us in our actions but we need you too!

Come to Erris!

Con­tact: email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com & phone 0851141170
Train + fer­ry from £21 from most cities www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry/rail-and-sail/

Or take action at home

http://www.allseas.com/uk
Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030
(own­ers of the Soli­taire)

Irish Embassy and Shell HQ Lon­don
Shell garages across the coun­try.

For more info see indymedia.ie/mayo

Rossport latest & solidarity actions (Berlin, London

Shell to Sea activists board the Soli­taire
8.09.2008
This after­noon three Shell to Sea activists, one car­ry­ing the Tri­colour, board­ed the Soli­taire to hand deliv­er a let­ter of protest to the Cap­tain of the ship fol­low­ing his fail­ure to respond to pre­vi­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion .

Shell to Sea activists board the Soli­taire
8.09.2008
This after­noon three Shell to Sea activists, one car­ry­ing the Tri­colour, board­ed the Soli­taire to hand deliv­er a let­ter of protest to the Cap­tain of the ship fol­low­ing his fail­ure to respond to pre­vi­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion .

The three men were part of a crew of five Shell to Sea activists in four ves­sels (James Con­nol­ly, Jim Larkin, Bob­by Sands and Geron­i­mo), who pad­dled out to the Soli­taire in Done­gal Bay this morn­ing.

Rep­re­sent­ing the views of many from the com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the Cor­rib gas project, the let­ter asks the Cap­tain of the Soli­taire to recon­sid­er his, and the ship’s, par­tic­i­pa­tion in the devel­op­ment.

The Cap­tain was also invit­ed to Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp for din­ner to give him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with the local com­mu­ni­ty affect­ed by the Cor­rib gas project and to hear their con­cerns.

Today’s board­ing is just one of many recent marine based actions car­ried out by Shell to Sea . Cam­paign­ers have vowed to pre­vent the Soli­taire from car­ry­ing out pipeline work in Broad­haven Bay.

Pro­tes­tor John O Con­nell at Killy­begs stat­ed, “Resis­tance to the Cor­rib gas project will con­tin­ue. New marine activists are join­ing us every day and if nec­es­sary we will block­ade both Killy­begs Har­bor and Broad­haven Bay to stop ves­sels involved in the work. There is no con­sent for Shell’s project and it will not be com­plet­ed.”

—-

On Sun­day 7th Sep­tem­ber, the doors of the Irish Embassy in Berlin were glued shut and graf­fi­ti was left say­ing “Shell Out of Ross­port” and “No Pipeline”. This action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those fight­ing the lay­ing of the pipeline in Ross­port and those fight­ing the destruc­tion of life by gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions every­where.

—-

Rythms of Resis­tance are going to play out­side the Irish embassy at 3.30 this
Wednes­day (10th) in sup­port of our friends in Mayo. If you can come along to 17 Grosvenor Place,
Lon­don, SW1X 7HR, it would be great.

Eight arrested as Shell begin winching operation in Rossport

Late Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea.

Shell winch boatLate Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea. The resis­tance last­ed for 2 hours and was cheered on by a huge local crowd who had gath­ered in sup­port along the cliffs and beach.

Yes­ter­day evening at Glen­gad, eight Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed for oppos­ing the lat­est work being car­ried out by Shell. At approx­i­mate­ly 7pm a barge began work pulling a winch­ing cable into the land­fall area at Glen­gad. This is one of the most cru­cial stages in the off­shore pipeline that can be dis­rupt­ed.

Three squadrons of Shell to Sea ves­sels took to the water to stop the work. They were opposed by fif­teen Shell, Navy and Gar­daí boats. Despite this the winch­ing work was delayed for one and a half hours while Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel worked with Shell secu­ri­ty in arrest­ing sev­en peo­ple from the water. Sub­se­quent­ly an eighth Shell to Sea pro­tes­tor was arrest­ed out­side the gates of the com­pound under the Pub­lic Order Act. All have been released with­out charge.

Dur­ing this action all of the S2S Fleet were rammed by Gar­da or Shell boats, with the excep­tion of the S2S safe­ty boat which was threat­ened with ram­ming by the Gar­daí boats before she with­drew. All of Shel­l’s ‘safe­ty’ boats had Gar­da per­son­nel on board and the Gar­dai, Navy and Shell worked togth­er through­out.

One of those arrest­ed Mary Camp­bell stat­ed “Despite being opposed by 9 Gar­da and Navy boats, we were still able to stop work for one and a half hours. Our com­mu­ni­ty is tak­ing on the might of both Shell and the State but the bat­tle is far from over. We will con­tin­ue to resist this project. There is no con­sent.”

The Shell to Sea ves­sels seized by the Gar­daí and Navy dur­ing the protest were The Niamh Cinn Óir, The Maedbh, The Michael Davitt, The Luke Kel­ly, The Ron­nie Drew, The Robin Hood and The Hypa­tia.

At present, the winch­ing oper­a­tion is only part com­plet­ed. It can’t be pre­dict­ed exact­ly when they will attempt to com­plete the work due to stormy weath­er con­di­tions. Gales are fore­cast for the next few days. How­ev­er, the work WILL hap­pen as soon as the weath­er is fine. There is still time to get to Mayo! Check out www.coribsos.com for more info and www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/ for trav­el and acco­mo­da­tion info

Irish Navy flees from Shell to Sea inflatable boats

3.09.2008
Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in inflat­able Kayaks braved strong winds and rough seas whilst approach­ing the Irish Navy Gun­boat sta­tioned off the coast, to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion with it’s Cap­tain.

Approaching navy boat3.09.2008
Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in inflat­able Kayaks braved strong winds and rough seas whilst approach­ing the Irish Navy Gun­boat sta­tioned off the coast, to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion with it’s Cap­tain.

Today at 1.30pm, eight Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in sev­en inflat­able kayaks braved force 5–6 norther­ly winds and 6 foot waves, to attempt com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Irish Gun Ship, the Le Orla.

Con­cerned by the arrival of a sec­ond Navy ves­sel into Broad­haven Bay, the Shell to Sea crew of the Gran­u­aile (part of the Emer­ald Squadron), attempt­ed to speak to the Cap­tain of the Le Orla.

Fol­low­ing the Cap­tain’s fail­ure to respond to Shell to Sea’s last attempt to estab­lish con­tact on Sat­ur­day, today’s mes­sage was relayed in both Irish and Eng­lish to ensure it would be under­stood. The Cap­tain was asked to declare the Navy’s inten­tions in the bay and why a sec­ond ship had been deployed.

No response was received, instead, the ship fired up its engines, weighed anchor and fled the area.

Maebh Hall, one of the crew in the Emer­ald Squadron, said ” I could­n’t believe it. We approached this huge mil­i­tary ship in a few inflat­able boats, and they ran scared. Its crazy here, there’s now two navy ships act­ing for Shell in our bay. Will they with­draw the army from Chad and bring them in next?”

ENDS

http://www.corribsos.com/

Direct Action Camp in the squatted forest near Frankfurt/Germany

The for­est of kel­ster­bach near the air­port of frankfurt/main is occu­pied now since three month. Fra­port (the cor­po­ra­tion run­ning frank­furt air­port) is plan­ning to build a new run­way on this place, cut­ting down every tree on 300ha of land.

Kelsterbach tripodsThe for­est of kel­ster­bach near the air­port of frankfurt/main is occu­pied now since three month. Fra­port (the cor­po­ra­tion run­ning frank­furt air­port) is plan­ning to build a new run­way on this place, cut­ting down every tree on 300ha of land. In total some­thing about 100.000 trees would have to fall for the prof­it of an enor­mous inter­na­tion­al act­ing cor­po­ra­tion. For the peo­ple of this region it will mean twice the flight move­ments per year, at least to a lev­el of one move­ment every 45 sec.

In the first week of sep­tem­ber there will be an action camp on the site of occu­pa­tion, from where we´re going to start count­less direct activ­i­ties in the forests, the streets and the ter­mi­nals.

Pro­gramme
the camp will be an DIY camp, we will pro­vide a kitchen, food and all what is nec­es­sary to cook, but we are not enough peo­ple to cook alone, so we will do this alto­geth­er. The action camp starts mon­day 1.9.08 an will end on sun­day 7.9.08.

Mon­day: 10:00–12:00 Prepa­ra­tion of for­est excur­sions
13:00–17:00 For­est excur­sions
17:00 Info meet­ing
20:30 three months of for­est occu­pa­tion, dis­cus­sion
Doc­u­men­ta­tions of the resis­tance against
Start­bahn 18 West in the 1980´s

Tues­day 10:00–12:00 action train­ing:
dif­fer­ent tech­niques and strate­gies
per­for­mance dur­ing actions
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 walk­a­bout in the camp
dis­cus­sion: luxus for every­body
stan­dards of live in a suit­able world
16:00–18:00 direct action plan­ing
dif­fer­ent block­ade tech­niques +
cre­ative activism
19:00–20:30 Cas­tor 2006 (Cine Rebelde)
mobi­liza­tion for Cas­tor 2008
20:30 nasty tricks of police and jus­tice

Wednes­day
10:00–12:00 hut build­ing
cli­mate pro­tec­tion and veg­an­ism
walk­a­bout in the for­est
paint bombs and cre­ative beau­ti­fi­ca­tion
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 direct action train­ing
lock-on´s, tri-pods, radiobal­let, …
16:00–18:00 open street map
19:00–20:30 Kli­macamp 2006 (Cine Rebelde)
20:30 con­cert (?)

Thurs­day 10:00–12:00 inten­si­fi­ca­tion of our action prepa­ra­tions
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 cli­mate pro­tec­tion from below
16:00–18:00 poems
mas­sage
19:00–20:30 anti-gmo field occu­pa­tions
Docu, film, dis­cus­sion
20:30 The fourth world war (big noise)

Fri­day action day meet you at the air­port
20:30 Poet­ry slam (?)
open stage
cin­e­ma

Sat­ur­day 10:00–12:00 local and inter­na­tion­al net­work­ing
ev. found­ing of a rising.tide net­work ger­many
13:00–16:00 drum ses­sion against fra­port
and train­ing at the lake
16:00–18:00 antifas­cists for­est excur­sions
19:00–20:30 Film about Julia But­ter­fly Hill
20:30 con­cert

Sun­day 10:00–12:00 Kli­macamp 2009
info about the prepa­ra­tions
found­ing of a Rhein-Main Group
13:00–15:00 Freiräume
15:00 mil­i­tant resis­tance against big play­ers
with exam­ples from Start­bahn West and Anti AKW
excur­sion to Start­bahn West
19:00–20:30 eval­u­a­tion
20:30 Par­ty

There is a for­est full of room for your work­shops, films, music and for you!

What to bring: Sleep­ing stuff
Tents
climb­ing equip­ment
and all you can´t miss in a for­est

How to find us:

by train
from frank­furt or mainz with the S‑Bahn to kel­ster­bach
out of the rail­way sta­tion you go left fol­low­ing the rüs­selsheimer straße about 2km with the rail­way on your left
at a cross­ing out of the city you go again left and pass under the rail­way, ignore the road on your right and take the next park­ing place on the right, fol­low the signs

by car
Autoroute 3 Kel­ster­bach
Kel­ster­bach Stadt­mitte
pass through town direc­tion Raun­heim
first cross­ing after you´ve left the town you go left and take the first park­ing on your rigtht
fol­low the signs

waldbesetzung@riseup.net
http://www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

Shell to Sea visit Shell’s boats & picket begins again in Rossport & UK actions call-out

29.8.2008

29.8.2008
Yes­ter­day, with work in Broad­haven Bay still delayed, a small Shell to Sea marine team paid a vis­it to the cur­rent Shell water nerve-cen­tre based at Bal­ly­glass pier. Cur­rent­ly moored off Bal­ly­glass is a barge con­tain­ing winch­ing cable, the recent­ly returned Vlaan­deren VII which ran aground at Glen­gad two weeks ago and also the Zenne which is the back­hoe dredger that last Fri­day dropped tonnes of debris with­in feet of pro­tes­tors. Also around the area were a num­ber of oth­er small­er Shell boats.

The Shell to Sea pad­dlers were made up of mem­bers of the Sham­rock squadron (the J. Con­nol­ly, J. Larkin, M. Collins) & Emer­ald squadron (the Grainne) along with 2 mem­bers of the inter­na­tion­al flotil­la (the Guy Fawkes of York­shire squadron and the Robin Hood of Not­ting­ham squadron).

The pad­dlers had made their way about the 1km out to the boats before the Shell safe­ty and secu­ri­ty boats react­ed.
After about an hour pad­dling around the area the Shell to Sea team head­ed into Bal­ly­glass Pier to greet the Gar­da boat which was just launch­ing from the RNLI slip­way. The gar­daí polite­ly refused the request of a race from the J. Con­nol­ly (Sham­rock squadron) after which the team then made their way to the pub­lic slip­way where they were met by shore sup­port.

Mean­while marine train­ing con­tin­ued for the activists prepar­ing for the Soli­taire and asso­ci­at­ed boats.

——–

Rossport picketShell to Sea pro­test­ers stepped up their cam­paign against Shell’s off­shore pipe-lay­ing oper­a­tions by mount­ing a pick­et at the Shell com­pound, Glen­gad, Erris Co Mayo, Ire­land.

A dai­ly pick­et was main­tained at the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site from the sum­mer of 2005 till recent­ly. This is the first time since 2005 that a pick­et has been staged at the Shell ‘Secu­ri­ty Zone’ in Glen­gad. The pick­et start­ed at 7am and last­ed till 9am, dur­ing which time Shell secu­ri­ty, who were ready to leave after their overnight shift, remained on site for the dura­tion. Shell work­ers arriv­ing for work at the site remained out­side. The pick­et was stood down vol­un­tar­i­ly at 9am and the work­ers left and entered the com­pound con­se­quent­ly.

The orig­i­nal Bel­lan­aboy pick­et was effec­tive­ly bro­ken by the unlaw­ful and vio­lent behav­iour of An Gar­da Síochá­na which began on Octo­ber 3rd, 2006 and con­tin­ued through 2007. The Bel­lan­aboy pick­et dimin­ished sig­nif­i­cant­ly dur­ing that whole peri­od and into 2008, under­stand­ably, because of a sus­tained assault by the State against its own cit­i­zens, result­ing in much phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal injury to the com­mu­ni­ty and its sup­port­ers.

Today’s pick­et saw the return of many on the receiv­ing end of that attack and it has to be said that the women of Erris, many of whom have been bru­talised by An Gar­da Síochá­na in the past, were the first to return to the camp and the refreshed pick­et.

Mean­while, a Shell to Sea marine team took to the water from Inver pier to pay a vis­it to some Shell & Gar­da boats moored off Bal­ly­glass pier on the oppo­site side of that stretch of water. Apolo­gies, no pics in this report yet of that lit­tle expe­di­tion. Maybe lat­er.

No sign of the Soli­taire yet, prob­a­bly due to the fol­low­ing fac­tors:

1) Bad weath­er.

2) The Chief Pat O’Donnell’s suc­cess­ful defence of his pots from Shell thieves aboard the High­land Nav­i­ga­tor. Pat’s gear remains in the path of the Soli­taire and per­haps only the rul­ing of a judge can resolve that dis­pute, unless the Soli­taire steams through regard­less.

3) Stiff and grow­ing resis­tance.

——

Urgent Call For Actions Against Shell & Allseas

NOW IS THE TIME- Sup­port Shell to Sea, Ire­land. ANY DAY NOW the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world, the Soli­taire, is due to arrive. The ship is owned by ALLSEAS. Shell are attempt­ing to ille­gal­ly con­struct the off­shore sec­tion of the high pres­sure raw gas pipeline. Our com­mu­ni­ty are deter­mined to resist Shell here in Mayo, Ireland…but we need your help!

Actions are ongo­ing and will inten­si­fy with the arrival of the Soli­taire. There is a role for every­one, regard­less of age, expe­ri­ence, avail­abil­i­ty and skill. The areas you can help with are end­less and par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of camp sup­port, water based skills, legal, cook­ing, med­ical, media and of course direct action.

The atmos­phere is resur­gent in the area, with a fresh burst of con­fi­dence evi­dent among both locals, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al Shell to Sea activists. This is a gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty to rein­vig­o­rate the fight against this project in a mean­ing­ful and effec­tive way.

Shell can only hold onto the rent­ed Soli­taire for a lim­it­ed peri­od of time and all efforts to hin­der its progress will seri­ous­ly dam­age Shel­l’s plans. ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The chop­py waters of Broad­haven Bay will hope­ful­ly aid us in our actions but we need you too!

Come to Erris!
Con­tact: email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com & phone 0851141170

Or take action at home

http://www.allseas.com/uk
Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030

Irish Embassy and Shell HQ Lon­don
Shell garages across the coun­try.

SMASH SHELL
rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
http://www.indymedia.ie/mayo,
http://www.shelltosea.com
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp110mb.com

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 82, AUGUST 2008

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK, 13–14.09.08

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK, 13–14.09.08
6) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER, 26–28.09.08
7) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
8) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY 2009, 01.04.09

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

1) CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION, KINGSNORTH, KENT, 3–11.08.08
2) DERBYSHIRE COAL MINE EVICTED, 14.08.08
3) US CLIMATE CAMPS, JULY/AUGUST
4) SAVING ICELAND CAMP, JULY/AUGUST
5) AIRPORT OCCUPATION, GERMANY, ONGOING
6) STICKING IT TO THE PM, LONDON, 22.07.08
7) 32 4x4s DISARMED, OXFORD, 18.07.08
8) NEW RISING TIDE LEAFLET
9) NEW REPORT: CASHING IN ON COAL

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
‘These camps are going to take place in or near Ham­burg. It’s two dif­fer­ent camps, but prob­a­bly on the same camp site and doing togeth­er at least two mass actions like block­ades: on 22nd August at the depor­ta­tion air­port of Ham­burg and on 23rd at the har­bour or at the new coal pow­er plant. http://klimacamp08.org

2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
The Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Mem­bers of the ‘Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta’ recent­ly deployed at the E.ON coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in
Kent, Eng­land, have made their way from Cli­mate Camp UK to Erris, in order to assist Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers in their oppo­si­tion to this pipeline con­struc­tion at Glen­gad.

3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions in a beau­ti­ful field in Nor­folk. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing. www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk

4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
St Wer­burghs Cen­tre, 10am to 5pm, free entry. With a work­shop by Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide: Why direct action? Social change not cli­mate change? www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK 13–14.09.08
Join the first inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing in Copen­hagen from the 13–14th of Sep­tem­ber 2008. The meet­ing aims at prepar­ing a large mobil­i­sa­tion for direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change in Copen­hagen and through­out the world dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence (30 Nov-11 Dec 2009). More info:
http://klimax2009.org/?p=33&langswitch_lang=en Tell them you’re com­ing:
sept08@klimax2009.org

6) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER 26–28.09.08
All are invit­ed to the first Post-Cli­mate Camp Nation­al Gath­er­ing. The gath­er­ing will offer a chance to reflect on where we are at, decide where we go from here, and pro­vide info as to how to get involved in the ongo­ing direct action cam­paign to stop Kingsnorth.
Ques­tions? Email process@climatecamp.org.uk

7) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
A meet­ing to bring togeth­er groups and com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing coal in the UK – from open cast and deep coal mines, to pow­er sta­tions and coal imports. Share infor­ma­tion, plan for action, and build a strong net­work of resis­tance. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

8) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY 2009, 01.04.2009
Four con­ti­nents, 150 actions, and an April Fool’s Day with a fan­tas­ti­cal­ly sub­ver­sive (and rad­i­cal­ly nec­es­sary) twist – we’re def­i­nite­ly doing that again! So Fos­sil Fools Day 2009 is a go – start pick­ing your fos­sil fuel tar­get now! Info and resources will be post­ed on the web­site soon, and look out for leaflets to dis­trib­ute in Decem­ber.

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
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1) CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION, KINGSNORTH, KENT, 3–11.08.08
From the Heathrow Con­fer­ence to the Car­a­van, from the work­shops to beau­ti­ful camp life, from the GRRR pirates to the fence breach­ers to the bail break­ers, and the flur­ry of affin­i­ty group actions before, dur­ing and after the camp, the 2008 Camp for Cli­mate Action was a roar­ing suc­cess. We out­smart­ed 26 police forces to run the biggest cli­mate camp ever. We cov­ered the riv­er in boats, filled the streets with peo­ple, cov­ered the pow­er sta­tion gates with ban­ners and hit at least eight oth­er tar­gets with autonomous actions. We flood­ed the nation­al, local and inde­pen­dent media with our sto­ries and mes­sages. E.ON and the Gov­ern­ment threw every­thing they could at us, and they still couldn’t hold us back. Actions, in no par­tic­u­lar order, includ­ed: an office inva­sion of min­ing com­pa­ny BHP Bil­ton, tak­ing over an incin­er­a­tor site in Newhaven, a block­ade of Cargill over its rain­for­est destruc­tion and land-grab­bing, a pro-veg­an roof occu­pa­tion and ban­ner drop at Smith­field Meat Mar­ket, a protest at US air base Milden­hall to high­light mil­i­tary CO2 emis­sions, a ban­ner drop from an elec­tric­i­ty pylon, a naked protest at DBERR, the world’s small­est pro­test­ers climb­ing E.ON’s smoke­stack (at Legoland), actions at Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (not once but twice – stu­dents do a die-in and Ris­ing Tiders bust out the super­glue), a demo at Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion in Fife, a mul­ti-pronged attack on Gatwick by Plane Stu­pid, the shut­ting down of the South’s biggest bio­fu­el stor­age facil­i­ty, and in
a sin­gle day of may­hem in the City, the Cli­mate Car­a­van tar­get­ed RBS and the PR firms for Shell, BAA & E.ON.
www.climatecamp.org.uk
Pho­to slide show: http://blip.tv/file/1167973
Video: http://www.undercurrents.org/visionon/

2) DERBYSHIRE COAL MINE EVICTED, 14.08.08
The squat in Der­byshire, a protest on the site of a pro­posed new open-cast coal mine, came to end with the evic­tion of the remain­ing two pro­test­ers, who had res­olute­ly resist­ed attempts to clear the site by furi­ous­ly dig­ging for vic­to­ry. Come to the nation­al Leave it in the Ground meet­ing in Octo­ber to help with the next steps. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

3) US CLIMATE CAMPS, JULY/AUGUST
All three US Cli­mate Camps have now wound down, with action high­lights includ­ing the South­east Cli­mate Con­ver­gence occu­py­ing a nuclear facil­i­ty in Vir­ginia, the Bil­lion­aires for Coal strik­ing Bank of Amer­i­ca 4 times in 3 days and a protest at NW Nat­ur­al Gas fol­low­ing the West Coast Con­ver­gence. And check out http://www.uncampement.net/?q=en/node/775 for
the ongo­ing (8–24 August) camp in Que­bec, Cana­da.

4) SAVING ICELAND CAMP, JULY/AUGUST
Sav­ing Iceland’s fourth action camp is now over but the fight goes on. The three-week camp was at Hell­isheiði, where Reyk­javík Ener­gy is expand­ing their geot­her­mal pow­er plant, first of all to sup­ply ener­gy to alu­mini­um smelters. Actions includ­ed: work on the Cen­tu­ry Aluminum’s exist­ing smelter as well as a steel fac­to­ry were block­ad­ed, hold­ing up a shift
change for sev­er­al hours. A Reyk­javik Ener­gy geot­her­mal drill site at Hell­ishei­di, being built for Cen­tu­ry, was com­plete­ly shut down for a day as activists locked to machines, climbed the drill and occu­pied the pow­er con­trol room. The nation­al pow­er com­pa­ny Landsvirkjun had it’s office invad­ed, and it’s CEO Fridrik Sophus­son had his home vis­it­ed. Sav­ing Ice­land nailed an evic­tion notice to his door. www.savingiceland.org

5) AIRPORT OCCUPATION, GERMANY, ONGOING
In Ger­many cli­mate activists have been squat­ting a wood­land since the begin­ning of June to stop the con­struc­tion of yet anoth­er new run­way for the already mas­sive Frank­furt air­port. The camp con­tin­ues to grow with over 30 peo­ple liv­ing on site and has the sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty. Demos and actions are being organ­ised togeth­er with local res­i­dents’ groups
against air­port expan­sion. Amaz­ing tree­hous­es, walk­ways and funky ground shel­ters have been con­struct­ed to make life pleas­ant in the woods and to resist evic­tion as long as pos­si­ble. Peo­ple are wel­come to join in. www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

6) STICKING IT TO THE PM, LONDON, 22.07.08
On 22nd July a Plane Stu­pid cam­paign­er super­glued him­self to Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown in 10 Down­ing Street. He’d been invit­ed to receive an award for protest­ing, so prompt­ly decid­ed to car­ry on in that vain! Whilst ask­ing Gor­don about refus­ing to meet West Lon­don
res­i­dents opposed to the con­struc­tion of a third run­way at Heathrow, the intre­pid pro­test­er put his super­glue cov­ered hand onto Brown’s poly­ester suit. When Brown went to turn away he found he was stuck and for once had no option but to lis­ten. www.planestupid.com

7) 32 4x4s DISARMED, OXFORD, 18.07.08
32 SUV own­ers woke up in Oxford on 18th July to dis­cov­er that their envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive vehi­cles had been dis­abled using the ‘mung bean trick’ to let down their tires.

8) NEW RISING TIDE LEAFLET
At long last, Ris­ing Tide has a new leaflet – who we are, what we do and why we do it, wrapped up in an inspir­ing pho­to col­lage pack­age. Sneak a peak at , or email info@risingtide.org.uk to get a bunch post­ed to you for dis­tri­b­u­tion in your local area.

9) NEW REPORT: CASHING IN ON COAL
High street banks are mak­ing mil­lions by pro­vid­ing the finan­cial fuel that dri­ves the expan­sion of coal extrac­tion and com­bus­tion. This report exam­ines the role in the last two years of the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (RBS), HSBC and Bar­clays in pro­vid­ing and arrang­ing the finan­cial means to the coal indus­try to extract and burn vast quan­ti­ties of coal. The report reveals that RBS has helped lend more mon­ey to the coal indus­try, in more deals, than any oth­er major UK bank. www.carbonweb.org

—————–
Ris­ing Tide UK,
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street,
Lon­don E1 1ES
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk
www.fossilfoolsday.org
Tel: 07708 794665

See also the Camp for Cli­mate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk), Net­work for Cli­mate Action (www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk) and Cli­mate Indy­media (www.climateimc.org)

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Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

Good news from Titnore + stalls, tidy-ups and open day/tours

Fur­ther suc­cess for the inspir­ing Tit­nore Woods cam­paign­ers report­ed in todays press

Trees saved from axe
Sun­day 24th August 2008

A con­tro­ver­sial hous­ing devel­op­ment has been revised to save hun­dreds of trees.

Plans to build 875 homes on green fields at West Dur­ring­ton, Wor­thing, sparked fury among envi­ron­men­tal­ists when they were unveiled in 2003.

Fur­ther suc­cess for the inspir­ing Tit­nore Woods cam­paign­ers report­ed in todays press

Trees saved from axe
Sun­day 24th August 2008

A con­tro­ver­sial hous­ing devel­op­ment has been revised to save hun­dreds of trees.

Plans to build 875 homes on green fields at West Dur­ring­ton, Wor­thing, sparked fury among envi­ron­men­tal­ists when they were unveiled in 2003.

Around 275 trees would have been axed under the orig­i­nal pro­pos­als as Tit­nore Lane, a wind­ing coun­try road, was straight­ened.

But the pro­pos­al led to pro­test­ers set­ting set up a per­ma­nent tree camp in woods near Tit­nore Lane.

Now the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium, which con­sists of build­ing firms with a stake in the devel­op­ment, has revised its design so that only 75 trees will be chopped.

It said around 2,350 trees would also be plant­ed on the site.

The new plan­ning appli­ca­tion will be con­sid­ered by Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil lat­er this year.

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That’s real­ly good news about the plans not to cut the trees, but real­ly it’s no time to cel­e­brate. This is by no means a vic­to­ry as the ques­tion of ecol­o­gy in the area goes far beyond the very small patch of wood­land that was plan­ning to be cut down. If these hous­es are built then the area is fucked.

That is also only look­ing at it from an eco­log­i­cal point of veiw, when real­ly this, as with oth­er hous­ing devel­op­ments goes far beyond the eco­log­i­cal issues. The build­ing of 600 unaf­ford­able hous­es (along with the 200 set aside for “key work­ers”) has many effects on the area, it is anoth­er act of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, this bat­tle is about more then trees and nature (for some involved) but part of an anti cap­i­tal­ist strug­gle.

Not to men­tion it is fuck­ing point­less build­ing more hous­es to rot and be unsold, except that we have more to squat in 10 years time.

They are nice trees though, I would be lying if i would say it did­n’t make smile to think at least some them might remain.

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WHEN is a wood not a wood? When it has a road run­ning right through it!

The “new” plan­ning appli­ca­tion for the West Dur­ring­ton devel­op­ment in Wor­thing, West Sus­sex, is being sold to the Wor­thing pub­lic as a “response to pub­lic opin­ion” that will spare many of the Tit­nore trees.

But, like the orig­i­nal plans, it includes access roads that will cut right through the beau­ti­ful ancient wood­land cur­rent­ly occu­pied by the protest camp. A wood is no longer a viable bio-sys­tem with a road cut­ting it in half. Wildlife like dormice and crest­ed newts will not sur­vive in what will be no more than road­side clumps of trees sur­round­ed by tar­mac and exec­u­tive homes.

The devel­op­ers do not men­tion that the lack of road widen­ing was forced on them through legal pres­sure, rather than dreamt up out of the good­ness of their hearts. And they do not men­tion what would be like­ly to hap­pen in a few years’ time, when the mas­sive increase in traf­fic to the new estate and the mega-Tesco would no doubt be expect­ed to force a re-think on Tit­nore Lane for the usu­al “safe­ty” rea­sons.

Need­less to say, the bat­tle against the destruc­tion of our coun­try­side in West Dur­ring­ton goes on! We are urg­ing every­one to send in their let­ters of objec­tion to plan­ning appli­ca­tion WB/04/00040/OUT as soon as pos­si­ble — Octo­ber 9 is the very lat­est dead­line. Write to James Apple­ton, Devel­op­ment Con­trol Man­ag­er, at Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil, Port­land House, Rich­mond Road, Wor­thing BN11 1LF or email planning@worthing.gov.uk

There will also be stalls in Wor­thing town cen­tre, the first being next Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 6, from 11am at Hold­er’s Cor­ner, Mon­tague Street (near Liv­er­pool Gar­dens).

And, of course, the camp is still going strong. There is, how­ev­er, an urgent need for repairs to the infra­struc­ture and defences, which have degrad­ed over the last cou­ple of years. Polyprop rope is bad­ly want­ed — as well as finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions.

If you can spare an hour or two to help at the camp, a tidy-up day is being held on Sun­day Sep­tem­ber 21, from 10am. And then on Sun­day Sep­tem­ber 28 there will be an Open Day, from 2pm. This will includ­ed guid­ed tours, show­ing where the roads and hous­ing are planned to destroy the area. Bring food to share.

More info: www.protectourwoodland.co.uk

Pipeline work stopped in Mayo

21.8.2008
Today at 10am, fif­teen Shell to Sea activists entered the water at Glen­gad Beach to stop pipeline dredg­ing work. Dinghies, surfers and swim­mers sur­round­ed the machine and stopped work.

21.8.2008
Today at 10am, fif­teen Shell to Sea activists entered the water at Glen­gad Beach to stop pipeline dredg­ing work. Dinghies, surfers and swim­mers sur­round­ed the machine and stopped work.

Around three Gar­dai in a Gar­da boat began arrest­ing the pro­test­ers and tak­ing the boats at 10.55am. With no regard for health and safe­ty pro­to­cols, the Gar­dai entered the sea to wres­tle with pro­test­ers in the water. On at least one occa­sion they worked togeth­er with the Shell secu­ri­ty team who grabbed one pro­test­er and held him until the Gar­dai reached them.

Three pro­test­ers moved onto a rock in the sea near the dredg­ing oper­a­tion. At around 11:40am work start­ed again. The dredg­ing machine picked up large amounts of debris from the sea bed and dumped it with­in inch­es of the pro­test­ers. Despite the clear dan­gers, the Gar­dai did not ask for the work to stop. The three were arrest­ed at around mid­day.

Today’s action was part of a Shell to Sea week of action against the pipeline.

The pipe lay­ing ship, the Soli­taire, is yet to arrive in the bay so actions are like­ly to con­tin­ue well into next week.

Come to Mayo and get involved.

Peru: Amazon Indians Direct Action Against Government

Thou­sands of Ama­zon Indi­ans are protest­ing against the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment. Protests have been going on for more than a week and involve an esti­mat­ed 14,000 Indi­ans from all over the Peru­vian Ama­zon. A road and a riv­er have been block­ad­ed, boats belong­ing to a gas com­pa­ny have been inter­cept­ed, an oil pipeline has been closed, and a hydro­elec­tric plant has been tak­en over.
The protests are in response to new laws passed by the gov­ern­ment. The Indi­ans say the laws under­mine their rights and make it eas­i­er for com­pa­nies to take con­trol of their ter­ri­to­ries.

Thou­sands of Ama­zon Indi­ans are protest­ing against the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment. Protests have been going on for more than a week and involve an esti­mat­ed 14,000 Indi­ans from all over the Peru­vian Ama­zon. A road and a riv­er have been block­ad­ed, boats belong­ing to a gas com­pa­ny have been inter­cept­ed, an oil pipeline has been closed, and a hydro­elec­tric plant has been tak­en over.
The protests are in response to new laws passed by the gov­ern­ment. The Indi­ans say the laws under­mine their rights and make it eas­i­er for com­pa­nies to take con­trol of their ter­ri­to­ries.

‘(We) are the vic­tims of a sys­tem­at­ic vio­la­tion by the Peru­vian state of the fun­da­men­tal rights we have over our ter­ri­to­ries,’ a state­ment from Peru’s nation­al Ama­zon Indi­an organ­i­sa­tion, AIDESEP, said. ‘The per­son respon­si­ble for this is the pres­i­dent, Alan Gar­cia, who has vio­lat­ed Peru’s con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al agree­ments pro­tect­ing indige­nous peo­ples’ rights.’

AIDESEP and oth­er indige­nous lead­ers have been in talks with mem­bers of the gov­ern­ment, but these have since bro­ken down. Peru’s prime min­is­ter has said that talks can resume if the protests are called off.

The protests start­ed on August 9, the UN Day for Indige­nous Peo­ples. One of the Indi­ans’ main com­plaints is that the gov­ern­ment has failed to con­sult them about the new leg­is­la­tion, con­tra­ven­ing inter­na­tion­al law and the recent­ly approved UN Dec­la­ra­tion on Indige­nous Peo­ples’ rights.

AIDESEP has called for the protest to go on ‘indef­i­nite­ly’ until their demands are met. These include the repeal of thir­ty-nine laws.

Protests by thou­sands of Ama­zon Indi­ans across the Peru­vian jun­gle have had major impacts on the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment.

The protests have been in response to new laws passed by the gov­ern­ment that the Indi­ans say under­mine their rights and make it eas­i­er for out­siders to seize con­trol of their ter­ri­to­ries.

Fol­low­ing the protests, Peru’s Con­gres­sion­al Com­mis­sion on Andean, Ama­zon­ian and Afro-Peru­vian peo­ples, the Envi­ron­ment and Ecol­o­gy has pro­posed a bill to repeal the two most con­tro­ver­sial laws — Leg­isla­tive Decrees 1015 and 1073. Con­gress is due to vote today on whether to do so.

Peru’s prime min­is­ter has described the Com­mis­sion’s deci­sion as estab­lish­ing ‘a bad prece­dent’ because it was made in response to the protests. Mean­while, Peru’s pres­i­dent appealed to Con­gress not to repeal the two laws, say­ing it would be a ‘his­tor­i­cal­ly seri­ous mis­take’ and would con­demn Indi­an com­mu­ni­ties to ‘anoth­er cen­tu­ry of back­ward­ness and mis­ery.’

The gov­ern­ment has declared a state of emer­gency in some parts of the Peru­vian Ama­zon. There are reports of police fir­ing bul­lets and spray­ing tear gas to dis­perse crowds, leav­ing some Indi­ans wound­ed.

Reports say that Peru’s nation­al Ama­zon Indi­an organ­i­sa­tion, AIDESEP, has called for a sus­pen­sion of the protests.