Category: Global

Glob­al

UK: 4 new releases from green anarchist zine Return Fire (PDFs)

Just now we’ve sent out the PDF ver­sions of our recent releas­es, for down­load­ing and print­ing (for past issues, see 325).

https://en-contrainfo.espiv.net/2016/06/05/uk-4-new-releases-from-green-anarchist-zine-return-fire-pdfs/ for links to the PDFs

Just now we’ve sent out the PDF ver­sions of our recent releas­es, for down­load­ing and print­ing (for past issues, see 325). To sum­marise, there’s the full length edi­tion of Return Fire vol.3 (Win­ter 2015–2016), full of news, the­o­ry, poet­ry and antag­o­nism (down­load in low-res here); a com­pan­ion piece con­sist­ing of our ‘glos­sary’ entry for the issue, on Coloni­sa­tion; an imposed and print-ready ver­sion of ‘Smarter Prison?’ as a sup­ple­ment to vol.3, which we received from ‘Rad­i­cal Inter­fer­ence’ and released for Decem­ber of 2015; and last­ly, we’ve uploaded one of the fea­ture texts from vol.3, ‘The Veil Drops’, to theanarchistlibrary.org as a sep­a­rate file for read­ing and repro­duc­tion. Also, there is both colour and black-and-white ver­sions of the cov­er includ­ed, in case some com­rades want to do their own print­ing.

Return Fire vol.3

A con­tin­u­a­tion of our project to bring inci­sive anar­chic con­tent from around to world to an anglo­phone read­er­ship. New edi­to­r­i­al con­tent, reprints of things we’ve found use­ful, art­work, action list­ings, for­ag­ing infor­ma­tion, the usu­al.

There’s a few pre­vi­ous­ly-untrans­lat­ed arti­cles in this issue. For exam­ple, one is an extract from the lat­est cov­er sto­ry of Italy’s eco-insur­rec­tionary peri­od­i­cal Ter­ra Sel­vaggia, on ‘The Advance of Urban­i­sa­tion’ and, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, cracks open­ing in the con­crete which we could utilise… Annie Archet mean­while tells a life-sto­ry of evad­ing iden­ti­ty, in Por­trait of the Invis­i­ble Woman in Front of Her Mir­ror. To name some out of the texts we’ve assem­bled from selec­tions of pre-exist­ing ones, David King looks at the reduc­tion­ist and patri­ar­chal impli­ca­tions of mod­ern repro­duc­tive tech­nolo­gies in ‘Into Her Inner Cham­bers’, and Nico­la Gai speaks to act­ing with­in ‘The Max­i­mum That Our Abil­i­ties Allow’ (from his con­tri­bu­tion to the found­ing issue of the Croce Nera Anar­chi­ca).

The con­tent we have har­vest­ed whole includes The Inten­si­fi­ca­tion of Inde­pen­dence in Wallma­pu, John Severino’s poignant reflec­tions on a project with­in an indige­nous Mapuche com­mu­ni­ty; The ‘Wild’ as Will and Rep­re­sen­ta­tion, about com­mod­i­fied and alien­at­ed approach­es in the urgent need for land recon­nec­tion, sim­ply signed M.; and Sean Dunohoe’s har­row­ing (if lim­it­ed) polemic against the Close Super­vi­sion Cen­tres with­in the British prison sys­tem. (We note that this year the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive for the June 11 project of sol­i­dar­i­ty with long-term anar­chist pris­on­ers has called for a focus on such units wher­ev­er they are in the world; hence we’d like to ded­i­cate this ver­sion in that direc­tion.)

As for our usu­al columns… We take a ret­ro­spec­tive look at some Glob­al Flash-Points of insur­gent activ­i­ty in the months fol­low­ing our last vol­ume. Rebels Behinds Bars cov­ers the State’s aggres­sions against our com­rades, and the latter’s thoughts on top­ics from sur­viv­ing incar­cer­a­tion or repres­sion to (anti-)organisation for the attack on author­i­ty. ‘To Cre­ate & Main­tain Their Wealth’ and ‘Sen­su­al­i­ty, Mag­ic & Anar­chist Vio­lence’ address gen­dered and speciesist dom­i­na­tion through reviews of Sil­via Fed­eri­ci, Arthur Evans and Jason Hrib­al.

The Poems for Love, Loss & War are from Rydra Cos­mo, Hen­ry Zegar­run­do, Natasha Alvarez and oth­er appre­ci­a­tors of all things fer­al. For our Mem­o­ry as a Weapon seg­ment, we’ve used Unset­tling America’s spell­bind­ing telling of civilisation’s spread through Europe from the south and beyond, and sub­se­quent tra­jec­to­ry, in The Witch’s Child.

And of course, much more! (All pris­on­er address­es and also some court-case news is now up to date in the PDF ver­sion.)

Coloni­sa­tion

This time, we end­ed up print­ing the ‘glos­sary’ sep­a­rate­ly to the main body of the zine. This size­able essay could be a stand-alone on the sub­ject (one which we feel to be both key and mis­un­der­stood by anar­chists in much of the world) and dis­trib­uted as such, but is also rel­e­vant to sev­er­al items in con­tents of vol.3.

‘Smarter Prison?’

New­ly laid out in A5 imposed for­mat, this explo­ration of the ‘Inter­net of Things’ and the tech­no­log­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy which it advances was first sub­mit­ted to us dur­ing the Black Decem­ber mobil­i­sa­tion. (We’re hap­py that since then, Sil­via, Bil­ly and Cos­ta, who are ref­er­enced in ‘Smarter Prison?’, have been told they will not face tri­al again for their thwart­ed attack on the IBM facil­i­ty.) The strug­gle against the nano-world con­tin­ues…

‘The Veil Drops’

This is a read­er on counter-insur­gency through the lens of ‘cri­sis’, the social and de-civil­is­ing. It’s the longest edi­to­r­i­al piece from vol.3, and up on The Anar­chist Library for wider acces­si­bil­i­ty.

Until next time,
R.F.

First conference of the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement (MEM)

Final Dec­la­ra­tion of the 1st Con­fer­ence hold on April 23–24, 2016, in Wan – North Kur­dis­tan

Final Dec­la­ra­tion of the 1st Con­fer­ence hold on April 23–24, 2016, in Wan – North Kur­dis­tan

On April 23 and 24, 2016, in the city of Wan (Van) the first con­fer­ence of the Mesopotami­an Ecol­o­gy Move­ment (MEM) has been held with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of 100 del­e­gates from the provinces Amed (Diyarbakir), Dîlok (Gaziantep), Riha (San­li­ur­fa), Merdîn, Muş, Wan, Elih (Bat­man), Siirt, Der­sîm and Bedlîs (Bitlis), from Turkey with activists from the fol­low­ing move­ments and groups Gaya mag­a­zine, Anti Nuclear Plat­form, Green Resis­tance, Green News­pa­per, Green and Left Par­ty, Black Sea in Rebel­lion, Defense of North Forests, Water Right Cam­paign, Der­sîm-Ovacik Munic­i­pal­i­ty and with of the Ger­man ICOR and the East-Kur­dis­tan group Green Chiya. Includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the DTK, KJA, HDK and HDP there were in total 170 peo­ple join­ing the first big gath­er­ing of the MEM since its buildup.

The con­fer­ence in Wan has been orga­nized in a peri­od of inten­sive polit­i­cal strug­gles by peo­ple in Kur­dis­tan for free­dom and self-gov­er­nance which may change sig­nif­i­cant­ly the future of a region, but demands many vic­tims.

Based on the trin­i­ty city-class-state and the method of dom­i­nance-cap­i­tal accu­mu­la­tion, the cap­i­tal­ist moder­ni­ty cre­ates a breath­less and unpro­duc­tive life for the soci­ety as well as it faces the nature with every kind of destruc­tion. On behalf of the exist­ing hege­mon­i­cal sys­tem the nation-state und its gov­ern­ments dis­perse the social-sol­idary char­ac­ter of the soci­ety and impos­es unem­ploy­ment, pover­ty, unhealthy nour­ish­ment via indus­tri­al and GMO’s and the cul­tur­al-social dev­as­ta­tion on the peo­ple. Huge destruc­tive projects like the GAP (South­east­ern Ana­to­lia Project), Ilisu Dam, Mun­zur dams, Green Way, Cer­at­te­pe Min­ing and Kanal Istan­bul are devel­oped and real­ized with the aim to enable the forests for con­struc­tion, to com­mer­cialise the waters, com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the land, to con­trol nature and peo­ple and pro­mote the con­sump­tion of fos­sil fuels which is noth­ing else than the move away and alien­ation of peo­ple to their orig­i­nal nature and life.

Cur­rent­ly, the rul­ing regime in Turkey car­ries out a bru­tal­i­ty which is incom­pa­ra­ble in the recent his­to­ry of Kur­dis­tan and the Mid­dle East and has a new per­fid­i­ous dimen­sion. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple from Sur, Nusay­bin, Hezex, Kerbo­ran, Far­qin, Şır­nak, Gev­er, Silopi and Cizre are dis­placed force­ly from their cities which are under a sys­tem­at­ic destruc­tion. While doing so, the world pub­lic keeps silent on the destruc­tion of nature and cities and all mas­sacres.

The deny­ing and monist men­tal­i­ty of the nation-state and the unlim­it­ed prof­it-com­pe­ti­tion and dom­i­na­tion seek­ing char­ac­ter of the cap­i­tal­ist moder­ni­ty has brought the world into the cur­rent grave state. Thats why social dis­as­ters turn into eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ters and vice ver­sa. The soci­ety and the human­i­ty has to say stop to this devel­op­ment. If this sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues then we will pass over a point from where a turn­about would be not pos­si­ble any more. In this sense also the raise of an eco­log­i­cal resis­tance is very impor­tant.

Despite of the destruc­tive men­tal­i­ty and prac­tice a return is pos­si­ble. It is nec­es­sary to raise the eco­log­i­cal strug­gle both against the wars and the elim­i­na­tion of life areas and our cul­tur­al and social val­ues through destruc­tive and exploita­tive numer­ous projects like dams, coal plants, min­ing. In this line the eco­log­i­cal strug­gle has to be done and spread under the max­im “Lets com­mu­nal­ize our land, waters and ener­gy and set­up the demo­c­ra­t­ic free life”. It is the right time to defend the demo­c­ra­t­ic nation against the nation-state, the com­mu­nal econ­o­my based on anti-caputal­ism and anti-monop­o­lism against cap­i­tal­ist fast prof­it seek­ing log­ic and large indus­tri­al­ism, the organ­ic agri­cul­ture, eco­log­i­cal vil­lages and cities, eco­log­i­cal indus­try, ener­gy and tech­nol­o­gy against agri­cul­ture and ener­gy poli­cies imposed by cap­i­tal­ist moder­ni­ty.

With the con­scious­ness that the eco­log­i­cal strug­gle is the touch­stone for the lib­er­a­tion of the whole human­i­ty we are aware that every action may bring us clos­er to a free indi­vid­ual and free soci­ety. We under­stand that our strug­gle towards reach­ing our nature and soci­etal truth, which are the fun­da­men­tals of our exis­tence jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, is an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion for the lib­er­a­tion of peo­ple and nature in our world. With a big exite­ment, which we feel deeply, we take our posi­tion in this strug­gle.

Our par­a­digm, the her­ald of bright ages of the 21st cen­tu­ry’s and com­ing mil­le­ni­ums, is the one of a rad­i­cal demo­c­ra­t­ic, com­mu­nal, eco­log­i­cal, women lib­er­tar­i­an soci­ety. In this sense the ecol­o­gy strug­gle is beyond being any strug­gle but the vital essence of the free life par­a­digm. With­out ecol­o­gy the soci­ety and with­out human and nature the ecol­o­gy can not exist. Ecol­o­gy, as the essence and self to mil­le­ni­ums old uni­ver­sal dialec­tic of for­ma­tion, dialec­ti­cal­ly weaves all process­es of enti­ties con­nect­ed to each oth­er and like the rings of a chain.

In this sense the strug­gle against cap­i­tal­ist moder­ni­ty; is the strug­gle to devel­op demo­c­ra­t­i­cal, social and lib­er­atar­i­an mind­set, the strug­gle to become a social sub­ject against the sta­tist — sov­er­eignist mind­set. This can only devel­op with social enti­ty, with a strug­gle of free­dom, with a stand against to the sys­tem that puts up the nature-soci­ety-indi­vid­ual for the inter­ests of cap­i­tal-rent and hege­mo­ny.

In the Mid­dle East, the his­to­ry of ecol­o­gy has­n’t been writ­ten like the his­to­ry of woman. Like for free woman it is nec­es­sary to know the his­to­ry of woman, for a eco­log­i­cal soci­ety it is nec­es­sary to know the his­to­ry of ecol­o­gy. In this sense, by open­ing up ecol­o­gy acad­e­mies, it is necesseary to include eco­log­i­cal con­scious­ness to the pro­grams of all social spheres and aca­d­e­m­ic edu­ca­tions as an essen­tial extent. Like orga­niz­ing our own assem­blies, the respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure the orga­ni­za­tion of social sphere and insti­tu­tion­al stud­ies with eco­log­i­cal con­scious­ness and sen­si­bil­i­ty is vital. In rela­tion to demo­c­ra­t­ic and eco­log­ic soci­ety’s con­struc­tion, impor­tant things been agreed upon in our con­fer­ence. At the same time with the deci­sions, that have been tak­en in our con­fer­ence, an intel­lec­tu­al, organ­i­sa­tion­al and oper­a­tional con­tri­bu­tion has been aimed for the glob­al eco­log­i­cal move­ments. Some ofthe deci­sions that have been tak­en are:

- To estab­lish a strate­gic intel­lec­tu­al, orga­ni­za­tion­al and oper­a­tional
coor­di­na­tion with nation­al and inter­na­tion­al ecol­o­gy move­ments in order
to enhance com­mon dis­cus­sions and actions against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and exploita­tion.
— To strug­gle against the men­tal, phys­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal destruc­tions
in vital things for life such as ener­gy, water, forests, soil,
urban­i­sa­tion, agri­cul­ture-seed, tech­nol­o­gy; based on the approved
poli­cies of the Mesopotami­an Ecol­o­gy Move­ment at the con­fer­ence to rise
the strug­gle with­in the aimed con­struc­tion of a new life
— To fight against the sys­tem that demol­ish­es the urban set­tle­ments, that burns the forests in Kur­dis­tan; to treat pub­li­cal­ly the eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion expe­ri­enced in Kur­dis­tan and to map the dev­as­ta­tions with­in the war.
— To plan actions with oth­er ecol­o­gy move­ments against the destruc­tion of cities in Kur­dis­tan; to ensure active par­tic­i­pa­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty plat­forms that have been estab­lished in these cities.
— To main­tain the strug­gles pro­tect­ing the cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al sites/values that faces extinc­tion such as Hasankeyf, Diyarbakır-Sur, Mun­zur Val­ley, “Gele Goderne” due to ener­gy and secu­ri­ty poli­cies in Kur­dis­tan.
— To devel­op a Kur­dis­tanesque eco­log­i­cal mod­el.
— To be more and reg­u­lar present in print­ed and dig­i­tal media organs and
to estab­lish ecol­o­gy acad­e­mies.
— To car­ry out the legal strug­gles in par­al­lel to ongo­ing actions and cam­paigns.
— To expand the own orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­tures in all Kur­dis­tan and Mid­dle-East.

RWE Stockholders Meeting in ESSEN Germany Disrupted

 RWE Ener­gy (Rheinisch-West­fälis­ches Elek­triz­itätswerk AG Rhine-West­falia) Stock­hold­ers meet­ings was met with out­side protest and con­stant inside dis­rup­tions by over 70 activists from groups rang­ing from Fos­sil Free and Green­peace to groups and projects engag­ing in anti­coal block­ades and direct actions such as Ham­bach­er For­est, Robin Wood and Indige­nous Groups from Siberia resist­ing the evic­tion of their vil­lages by coal min­ing projects linked to RWE.

RWE Ener­gy (Rheinisch-West­fälis­ches Elek­triz­itätswerk AG Rhine-West­falia) Stock­hold­ers meet­ings was met with out­side protest and con­stant inside dis­rup­tions by over 70 activists from groups rang­ing from Fos­sil Free and Green­peace to groups and projects engag­ing in anti­coal block­ades and direct actions such as Ham­bach­er For­est, Robin Wood and Indige­nous Groups from Siberia resist­ing the evic­tion of their vil­lages by coal min­ing projects linked to RWE.  The protests and actions start­ed a day before and dur­ing the night with sten­cils on the pave­ment and walls around the head­quar­ters of RWE and the con­ven­tion cen­ter.  Dur­ing the morn­ing tables, ban­ners and inflat­a­bles were set­t­up out­side of the entrance to the con­ven­tion hall that was being guard­ed by both local police on the out­side and pri­vate secu­ri­ty firms inside.  Approx­i­mate­ly 40 activists got inside as part of the Crit­i­cal Share­hold­ers action to be at first met with pat down and met­al detec­tor search­es fol­lowed by a large dose of green wash­ing dis­plays and pre­sen­ta­tions.  All the com­put­er sta­tions con­tain­ing RWE pro­pa­gan­da were prompt­ly changed to the home page of Ham­bach­er For­est occu­pa­tion http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/information-about-the-forest/ and remained show­ing an eco/defense response  to coal min­ing info atten­tive­ly read through­out the meet­ing by stock­hold­ers next to RWE employ­ees hap­pi­ly hand­ing out cor­po­rate schwag.  Before the actu­al meet­ing begun the set­ting was rather sur­re­al with activist con­nect­ing and tak­ing Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty tours of RWE coal Mines and its dig­gers as wait­ers served drinks to an old­er and more con­ser­v­a­tive demo­graph­ic all around.

From the very beg­ging of the meet­ing and com­mence­ment speech­es the dis­rup­tions begun with sev­er­al pro­test­ers jump­ing on the stage and unfold­ing ban­ners, fol­lowed by oth­ers unfold­ing larg­er ban­ners and chant­i­ng anti­Coal and Cli­mate Jus­tice and pro Ham­bach­er For­est Slo­gans.  One pro­test­ers lacked him­self with soft lock­ons to the rail­ing close to the podi­um and was slight­ly injured when the secu­ri­ty tried to force­ful­ly dis­lodge him, anoth­er pro­test­er was also injured by sus­tain­ing bruis­es on her leg.  Some of the stock­hold­ers also attempt­ed to assault the pro­test­ers by pulling their glass­es and cam­eras and yelling insults while oth­ers insist­ed that thez be alowed to protest.  With over 25 pro­test­ers being tak­en to a hold­ing room under the stage, the atmos­phere turned more fes­tive as con­fet­ti flew, and no one watched the offi­cial live­feed of the speech­es pro­vid­ed on a mon­i­tor show­ing close ups of the faces of the speak­ers only, yet still punc­tu­at­ed with many addi­tion­al paus­es full of con­ster­na­tion as oth­er protests and dis­rup­tions raged on and the ranks in the the hold­ing facil­i­ty con­tin­ued to swell.  All detained in the con­ven­tion cen­ter were even­tu­al­ly released.  Anoth­er group which suc­ceed­ed with a climb of, on this day heav­i­ly guard­ed, RWE Tow­er and a ban­ner drop was detained for sev­er­al hours and then also released.

This year meet­ing had very lit­tle to cel­e­brate as RWE for the first time in over 60 years sus­pend­ed its div­i­dend pay­ments to ordi­nary share­hold­ers, announced its plan to cut 2,000 jobs over the next two years and pre­dict­ed that its rat­ing will be low­ered even fur­ther due to their nuclear waste stor­age remain­ing from shut down atom­ic pow­er plants.  NO div­i­dend this year will espe­cial­ly affect many cash-strapped local munic­i­pal­i­ties in north-west Ger­many with com­bined stake of around 24 per­cent in the RWE group which have remained immune to the mes­sage of the vibrant DeIn­vest move­ment and the glob­al irre­versible effects of the  coal min­ing indus­try on the cli­mate, and gen­er­al health and wel­be­ing of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion and the hor­ren­dous effects its hor­ren­dous effects on bio­di­ver­si­ty.

The sin­is­ter over­tone of the con­ven­tion were numer­ous state­ments by the mem­ber of the board that the tur­moil fac­ing con­ven­tion­al ener­gy com­pa­nies could have dev­as­tat­ing effects as it leaves to back up capac­i­ty to bal­ance rather “shal­low and unre­li­able” renew­able ener­gy.  Call­ing it a “hor­ror sce­nario”  a term rather descrip­tive of cli­mate change and chaos on the brink of which the world finds itself to to action of cli­mate crim­i­nals such as RWE, top­ic obvi­ous­ly miss­ing from the speech­es but not the protests,  this above men­tioned cor­po­rate ener­gy appa­ra­tus induced para­noia  and ver­bal gym­nas­tics could hint to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of gov­ern­ment financed bailout and even more inten­sive pro fos­sil fuel sub­si­dies.  It remains more impor­tant for the Cli­mate Jus­tice Strug­gle to keep up the pres­sure through diver­si­ty of tac­tics and protests such as this one.

Sys­tem Change Not Cli­mate Change!!!

Join Us At:

https://www.ende-gelaende.org/en/
http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/
http://lautonomia.blogsport.eu/

and at all oth­er local and region­al Cli­mate Jus­tice and Extreme Ener­gy Strug­gles.

–
The Ham­bach­er For­est a mil­lenar­i­an for­est on the age of the largest open cast lig­nite mine in Europe is being defend­ed with tree occu­pa­tions, bar­ri­cades tow­ers and tun­nels.  We call upon all of you to join us under a ban­ner of Eco-jus­tice and Bio­cen­trism.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty,
 Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers

 

The reality of the UK’s coal industry exposed

Map

A new report from the Coal Action Net­work expos­es the untold human and envi­ron­men­tal sto­ries of the coal sup­ply chain. Ditch Coal calls on the gov­ern­ment to phase out coal faster than its sug­gest­ed end of 2025. The extreme sit­u­a­tions sur­round­ing mines in Rus­sia, Colom­bia, the USA and the UK which sup­ply the UK’s pow­er sta­tions show that coal ener­gy is an extreme ener­gy. 24% of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed in 2015 came from coal.

Grass roots group the Coal Action Net­work has worked with com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­men­tal activists from the four major coun­tries sup­ply­ing the UK’s coal. The report details the ignored social jus­tice issues caused by our addic­tion to coal.

Mining Impacts Abroad

Rus­sia sup­plies 42% of the coal import­ed to the UK. In Rus­si­a’s main coal pro­duc­ing region, the Kuzbass area of Siberia, min­ing is dev­as­tat­ing indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and their cul­tures. Shor and Teleut peo­ples are being forced off their ances­tral lands, break­ing the con­nec­tion with their spir­i­tu­al homes, their cul­ture is being attacked and their lan­guage is fad­ing from use.

Com­pa­nies export­ing coal from Colom­bia have been impli­cat­ed in financ­ing para­mil­i­tary mass mur­ders, exe­cu­tions, and dis­ap­pear­ances. Whole vil­lages have been forcibly evict­ed to make way for mines, with insuf­fi­cient relo­ca­tion plans. Colom­bia pro­duces a third of the coal import­ed here.

In the USA, where 19% of the coal import­ed to the UK is from, extreme­ly destruc­tive min­ing oper­a­tions are destroy­ing huge swathes of land and ecosys­tems, and poi­son­ing local peo­ple. Moun­tain­top removal and dam­ag­ing deep min­ing process­es are used by com­pa­nies export­ing coal to the UK.

Although the UK gov­ern­ment has announced an inten­tion to phase out coal by 2025 Coal Action Net­work do not see this as some­thing to cel­e­brate. This time-frame and the phase out­’s many caveats show that the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to pri­ori­tise our high elec­tric­i­ty demands over oth­ers basic rights such as the safe­ty of ones home, the abil­i­ty to grow food, rights to health, free­doms of reli­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, and bio­di­ver­si­ty.

Mining in the UK

Since the gov­ern­men­t’s coal phase out announce­ment Durham based min­ing com­pa­ny Har­g­reaves have been grant­ed per­mis­sion to mine at Field House Coun­ty Durham. Miller Argent who run the UK’s biggest mine Ffos-y-Fran are appeal­ing a deci­sion against a new mine adja­cent to it. Five oth­er coal mine appli­ca­tions are still wait­ing a deci­sion. We need to stop coal min­ing in this coun­try.

Com­mu­ni­ties in the UK are fight­ing for their areas and against coal pow­er. As envi­ron­men­tal activists we should fol­low their exam­ple and stand up to the com­pa­nies involved and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with front-line com­mu­ni­ties. We can­not sim­ply wait for the gov­ern­ment to sort this out. The coal indus­try is spread wide across our island. Ditch Coal high­lights where the ports import­ing coal are, where pow­er sta­tions are sit­u­at­ed and which com­pa­nies are min­ing in the UK. There are nine pow­er sta­tions burn­ing coal with­out a clo­sure plan.

Coal pow­er used to be a main focus of the UK envi­ron­men­tal move­ment, it still is in Ger­many and remains an issue here. The Coal Action Net­work will be tour­ing the UK with a Russ­ian activist in the spring, you can catch a pre­view at the Earth First Win­ter Moot. The Coal indus­try’s cur­rent­ly in a posi­tion of change, where new tech­nol­o­gy needs to be imple­ment­ed or pow­er sta­tions closed. Join the Coal Action Net­work in fight­ing the indi­vid­ual pow­er sta­tions and work­ing with com­mu­ni­ties, let’s not rely on the gov­ern­ment to take these impor­tant actions.

The whole report can be viewed at www.coalaction.org.uk/ditchcoal as can the two page sum­ma­ry and info­graph­ics. Check out the web­site to see what we are up to or fol­low us on face­book.

actions in Paris at #COP21 & around the world

For all the lat­ests updates on cli­mate direct actions tak­en around the world, includ­ing in Paris par­al­lel to the UN cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions, see our twit­ter feed

For all the lat­ests updates on cli­mate direct actions tak­en around the world, includ­ing in Paris par­al­lel to the UN cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions, see our twit­ter feed

Peruvian Land Defender Killed After 48-Hour Anti-Mining Strike

Sev­en rur­al com­mu­ni­ties orga­nized a gen­er­al strike that immo­bi­lized com­plete­ly the activ­i­ties in Puquio, cap­i­tal of Lucana province, and result­ed in the unfor­tu­nate death of a young mem­ber of the Cccol­lana com­mu­ni­ty: Erick Men­don­za Tumaylle, age 22.

Octo­ber 29th, 2015

Sev­en rur­al com­mu­ni­ties orga­nized a gen­er­al strike that immo­bi­lized com­plete­ly the activ­i­ties in Puquio, cap­i­tal of Lucana province, and result­ed in the unfor­tu­nate death of a young mem­ber of the Cccol­lana com­mu­ni­ty: Erick Men­don­za Tumaylle, age 22. The con­flict occurred at the site of one infor­mal min­ing project where tox­ic run-offs lead direct­ly into fields used by the com­mu­ni­ty for agri­cul­ture.

Lead­ers of the com­mu­ni­ty have report­ed Juan Par­i­ona of Ccol­lao injured as a result of being held hostage by the infor­mal min­ing com­pa­ny in the San Andrés zone.

This theme of con­flict is a recur­ring one through­out the entire south­ern ter­ri­to­ries of Ayacu­cho, Ica, and parts of Are­quipa. Some com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are suing Lay­tau­ma Cor­po­ra­tion for being the main stor­age facil­i­ty for explo­sives, for being the main source of income for infor­mal tran­sient work­ers, and for being the sole pur­chas­er of feed pro­duced in San­cos dis­trict.

Peo­ple are wor­ried about how thou­sands of infor­mal work­ers are affect­ing the Yuar­iviri lagoon, the many springs and water sources. It has been made appar­ent that the cen­ter storm of this con­flict has moved to this zone of the coun­try.

by Obser­va­to­rio de Con­flic­tos Mineros en el Perú /  Con­flic­tos Mineros

trans­lat­ed by Earth First! Newswire

Anti-Dam Activists Celebrate Two Years of Blockades in Malaysia

On Octo­ber 23rd 2015, indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties from around the world gath­ered on the banks of the Baram Riv­er in Sarawak, Malaysia in the con­text of the sec­ond year anniver­sary of the indige­nous-led block­ades against the pro­posed Baram Dam.

On Octo­ber 23rd 2015, indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties from around the world gath­ered on the banks of the Baram Riv­er in Sarawak, Malaysia in the con­text of the sec­ond year anniver­sary of the indige­nous-led block­ades against the pro­posed Baram Dam. Two years ago indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties set up two block­ades and chased work­ers and researchers from the site. The works on the dam have come to a stand­still and last month the gov­ern­ment of Sarawak announced a mora­to­ri­um.

Indige­nous anti-dam activists from Indone­sia, the Philip­pines, Cam­bo­dia, Brazil, the US, Hon­duras, and from around Malaysia unit­ed at the block­ades to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the resis­tance against the Baram Dam and to strength­en ties between their com­mu­ni­ties. The week-long event is called the World Indige­nous Sum­mit on Envi­ron­ment and Rivers, WISER Baram 2015, and was host­ed by the grass­roots net­work SAVE Rivers.

Dur­ing cel­e­bra­tions at the two block­ades, the pro­posed dam site, as well as at a con­fer­ence in the town of Miri, the par­tic­i­pants were unit­ed by the sim­i­lar­i­ties between their strug­gles. “I have gained a lot of expe­ri­ence from all of the del­e­gates. And with such infor­ma­tion, I am con­fi­dent enough such expe­ri­ences will be fun­da­men­tal to us – the Baram Peo­ple – and our strate­gies to con­tin­ue to fight and stop the pro­posed Baram Dam,” said James Nyu­rang, who host­ed the del­e­gates at his vil­lage.

Accord­ing to Berta Cáceres, 2015 Gold­man Prize win­ner from Hon­duras, “this sum­mit on indige­nous peo­ples and rivers has a spe­cial val­ue in that its actions give strength to the his­toric resis­tance of our peo­ples and makes vis­i­ble the grave aggres­sion and con­flict gen­er­at­ed by the pri­va­ti­za­tion of rivers and the con­struc­tion of dams with­in Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and regions.”

The dec­la­ra­tion also calls on gov­ern­ments and insti­tu­tions to stop pre­sent­ing dams as cli­mate neu­tral, and rec­og­nize that dams emit large amounts of green­house gas­es, includ­ing methane.

Par­tic­i­pants in the sum­mit col­lec­tive­ly pro­duced a dec­la­ra­tion that acknowl­edges the wide­spread suf­fer­ing and destruc­tion caused by dams, and stress­es the impor­tance of obtain­ing Free, Pri­or, and Informed Con­sent from com­mu­ni­ties impact­ed by dam build­ing. It urges all stake­hold­ers to act in full account­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and com­pli­ance of all human rights prin­ci­pals and val­ues.

The indige­nous defense of the Baram riv­er stands unit­ed with oth­er com­mu­ni­ties’ strug­gles for land, liveli­hood, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, iden­ti­ty, and com­mu­ni­ty cohe­sion.

protest against British Columbia Hydro Dawson Creek dam — unconnected person wearing anonymous mask gets shot dead

Sept 23, 2015

Sept 23, 2015

Ter­ry Had­land, a Peace Riv­er farmer, says he should have got the police bul­let that killed a man wear­ing a Guy Fawkes mask out­side a Site C open house this sum­mer.

“He cre­at­ed a diver­sion so I could get away,” Mr. Had­land told The Globe and Mail in an inter­view. “He stepped up and took that shot for me, that’s for sure.”

RCMP were called to the open house in Daw­son Creek on July 16 after get­ting calls about a man caus­ing a dis­tur­bance at the British Colum­bia Hydro pub­lic infor­ma­tion ses­sion.

One day after the hack­er group Anony­mous vowed to “avenge one of our own” fol­low­ing the shoot­ing, the group is claim­ing to have crashed parts of the RCMP web­site on Sun­day morn­ing.

A Twit­ter account asso­ci­at­ed with the glob­al activist group has post­ed pho­tos show­ing the Daw­son Creek RCMP web­site serv­er sta­tus list­ed as “down.”

- See more at: http://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/dawson-creek/police-mum-on-link-between-police-shooting-anonymous-group‑1.2005056#sthash.SbEOrEJA.dpuf

Mr. Had­land said he was the man caus­ing trou­ble, but he left before police arrived, and offi­cers con­front­ed anoth­er man, who was report­ed­ly car­ry­ing a knife and wear­ing the trade­mark mask of the hack­tivist group Anony­mous. Moments lat­er, shots were fired, and James McIn­tyre, a dish­wash­er at Le’s Fam­i­ly Restau­rant, was dead out­side the Stone­bridge Hotel’s Fixx Urban Grill.

In response to the shoot­ing, Anony­mous promised ret­ri­bu­tion, sub­se­quent­ly post­ing a 2014 Trea­sury Board memo about Cana­di­an Secu­ri­ty Intel­li­gence Ser­vice fund­ing, and threat­en­ing to leak more mate­r­i­al.

One day after the hack­er group Anony­mous vowed to “avenge one of our own” fol­low­ing the shoot­ing, the group is claim­ing to have crashed parts of the RCMP web­site on Sun­day morn­ing.

A Twit­ter account asso­ci­at­ed with the glob­al activist group has post­ed pho­tos show­ing the Daw­son Creek RCMP web­site serv­er sta­tus list­ed as “down.”

- See more at: http://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/dawson-creek/police-mum-on-link-between-police-shooting-anonymous-group‑1.2005056#sthash.SbEOrEJA.dpuf

One day after the hack­er group Anony­mous vowed to “avenge one of our own” fol­low­ing the shoot­ing, the group is claim­ing to have crashed parts of the RCMP web­site on Sun­day morn­ing.

A Twit­ter account asso­ci­at­ed with the glob­al activist group has post­ed pho­tos show­ing the Daw­son Creek RCMP web­site serv­er sta­tus list­ed as “down.”

- See more at: http://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/dawson-creek/police-mum-on-link-between-police-shooting-anonymous-group‑1.2005056#sthash.hTyGNWmh.dpuf

Anony­mous has already begun its retal­i­a­tion cam­paign, knock­ing the main RCMP web­sites offline for sev­er­al hours on Sun­day (19 July).

This is part of the group’s cam­paign to “remove the RCMP cyber infra­struc­ture from the Inter­net” as it calls on mem­bers to “march, cre­ate and sign peti­tions, hack, dox [until] all demand and jus­tice is met”.

The hack­i­tivst col­lec­tive has also offered to raise funds for the vic­tim’s bur­ial.

Doxxing

The group lead­ing the cam­paign — Oper­a­tion Anon Down — also tweet­ed on Mon­day (20 July) that it had accessed doc­u­ments marked “secret” inside the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment, warn­ing: “It’s not just a DDoS op any­more kid­dos.”

#Anon­Down has accessed docs marked “secret” inside Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment. It’s not just a DDoS op any­more kid­dos. More tomor­row. Night all.
— Oper­a­tion Anon Down (@OpAnonDown) July 20, 2015

In an emailed state­ment released over the week­end, Anony­mous vowed to “iden­ti­fy the RCMP offi­cer involved, thor­ough­ly dox him — and release that dox on the Inter­net. Because the world has a right to know every detail about killer cops.”

Anony­mous has a patchy his­to­ry with “doxxing” police offi­cers accused of shoot­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic how­ev­er, with one mem­ber of Anony­mous hav­ing incor­rect­ly iden­ti­fied the offi­cer accused of shoot­ing Michael Brown in Fer­gu­son last year.

Mr. Had­land, 66, said he did not know Mr. McIn­tyre, 48, and regrets that his actions inad­ver­tent­ly brought police into con­flict with him. “It’s trag­ic, that’s for damn sure,” he said. “They were try­ing to get me.”

Mr. Had­land said if police had found him instead of Mr. McIn­tyre, the inci­dent would have end­ed peace­ful­ly. “I would have obeyed them,” he said.

Mr. Had­land, who lives off the grid on a farm in the Peace Riv­er dis­trict, said he went to the open house to protest against the con­tro­ver­sial Site C dam.

“I’d been plan­ning it for a cou­ple of weeks,” he said. “I walked into the room … I thought, ‘I’m just going to push them a bit.’”

Anonymous

Mr. Had­land said BC Hydro offi­cials were talk­ing to mem­bers of the pub­lic at infor­ma­tion tables cov­ered with pam­phlets, maps and posters.

“I flipped a cou­ple [of tables],” he said. “I ripped up the rest of the maps …. They had plac­ards. … I start­ed break­ing up those.”

Mr. Had­land said he was quick­ly sur­round­ed by BC Hydro staff, but the con­fronta­tion did not become vio­lent.

“They didn’t try to push me,” he said. “I made my state­ment and I walked out.”

Mr. Had­land said he assumes 911 calls were made dur­ing his protest, but added that if any­one report­ed a vio­lent inci­dent, then the police were mis­in­formed and may have arrived expect­ing seri­ous trou­ble.

“It was all very peace­ful,” he said. “The police could have showed up and been ami­ca­ble.”

When it was sug­gest­ed that tip­ping over tables and tear­ing up posters might seem threat­en­ing to some, Mr. Had­land agreed.

“Oh, it could have been,” he acknowl­edged.

Mr. Had­land said he passed with­in metres of Mr. McIn­tyre in the park­ing lot but did not see a knife or a mask.

“I thought he was a BC Hydro per­son [because] he kept turn­ing away and try­ing to hide his face,” he said.

Mr. Had­land was wor­ried police were com­ing, so he jumped in his vehi­cle and drove away with­out look­ing back. He said he went to the RCMP the next day, iden­ti­fied him­self as the man who dis­rupt­ed the meet­ing, and told police he was con­cerned some­one had made a 911 call “that wasn’t valid” because his protest was not vio­lent.

Arthur Had­land, a for­mer direc­tor of Peace Riv­er Region­al Dis­trict, con­firmed his cousin was the man who dis­rupt­ed the Site C open house.

The Inde­pen­dent Inves­ti­ga­tions Office (IIO) of B.C. is inves­ti­gat­ing the police shoot­ing of Mr. McIn­tyre.

“It is not our prac­tice to pro­vide spe­cif­ic details about an inves­ti­ga­tion while it is still active – what I can say is that while we obtain all acces­si­ble and avail­able infor­ma­tion we believe is rel­e­vant to the IIO inves­ti­ga­tion, our focus is on the actions of the police offi­cers,” Kel­lie Kil­patrick, an IIO spokesper­son said in an e‑mail.

“Since our inves­ti­ga­tion of the ini­tial dis­tur­bance is a par­al­lel inves­ti­ga­tion to that of the IIO’s inves­ti­ga­tion which is still ongo­ing, it would be inap­pro­pri­ate for me to com­ment at this time,” Cor­po­ral Dave Tyre­man of the RCMP’s North Dis­trict said in a sep­a­rate e‑mail.

BC Hydro spokesman Dave Con­way declined to com­ment on Mr. Hadland’s ver­sion of events.

—

July 2015:

B.C. Hydro Site C protest in Van­cou­ver can­celled due to con­cerns about vio­lence

Ral­ly orga­niz­ers say they’re con­cerned about reac­tion to the recent death of a man in Daw­son Creek

—

Fur­ther info

Indigenous activists celebrate bitter victory over rainforest dam moratorium

22nd Octo­ber 2015

22nd October 2015

As indige­nous activists oppos­ing hydropow­er dams on their ter­ri­to­ries gath­er this week­end in the rain­forests of Sarawak, Malaysia, they have good news to cel­e­brate: a giant dam on the Baram riv­er has been put on hold. But the forests are still being logged, local peo­ple have been stripped of land rights, and a pro­gramme of 12 giant dams is still offi­cial pol­i­cy.

Indige­nous anti-dam cam­paign­ers from Brazil, India, Hon­duras, and across South­east Asia are gath­er­ing on the island of Bor­neo to coor­di­nate cam­paigns on the impact of large hydro­elec­tric dams.

The World Indige­nous Sum­mit on Envi­ron­ment and Rivers is now under way in the town of Miri on Baram Riv­er in the Malaysian state of Sarawak — where rain­for­est dams have already drowned thou­sands of square kilo­me­tres of for­est.

Local indige­nous peo­ple belong­ing to Penan, Kenyah, Kayan and oth­er groups have led a two-year block­ade against the pro­posed Baram hydropow­er dam sit­ed on the upper reach­es of the Baram Riv­er, stag­ing encamp­ments at the dam site itself and at a site along its access road.

“We are main­tain­ing the block­ade and we are going to cel­e­brate the anniver­sary on the 23–24 Octo­ber”, said Peter Kallang, con­fer­ence orga­niz­er and coor­di­na­tor of SAVE Rivers Sarawak, a net­work of groups oppos­ing dams.

Baram dam on hold — but the logging rages on

Activists have rea­son to cel­e­brate. In a tele­vi­sion address in July Sarawak’s Chief Min­is­ter Tan Sri Ade­nan Satem declared a mora­to­ri­um on the Baram Dam project. The 400-square-kilo­me­ter (154-square-mile) reser­voir of the 1,200-megawatt Baram Dam would dis­place up to 20,000 peo­ple and sub­merge their lands.

So good news, cer­tain­ly. But despite the mora­to­ri­um, clear­ance of the vast Baram Dam site is pro­ceed­ing quick­ly. The gov­ern­ment has already extin­guished local land rights and issued log­ging per­mits to large Malaysian log­ging com­pa­nies, and log­ging has begun, as Kallang explains:

“The log­gers are going all out to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to cut every­thing in the way. This license for log­ging is a legal license giv­en by the gov­ern­ment under what they call the sal­vage log­ging … under sal­vage log­ging they cut any­thing and every­thing, even the small trees about six inch­es in diam­e­ter.”

Mean­while it appears that the mora­to­ri­um deci­sion may have been forced by sim­ple eco­nom­ics: an inabil­i­ty to raise the bil­lions of dol­lars need­ed for its con­struc­tion.

In the case of the 2,400-megawatt Bakun Dam, which became oper­a­tional in 2011 pri­vate financ­ing fell short and British-Aus­tralian min­ing giant Rio Tin­to backed out of a pro­posed alu­mini­um smelter. The state resort­ed to loan­ing most of the $2.3 bil­lion con­struc­tion cost from state pen­sion funds.

The con­tro­ver­sial dam, Asi­a’s sec­ond largest out­side Chi­na, dis­placed 10,000 peo­ple and sub­merged 700 square kilo­me­tres (270 square miles) of rain­for­est and farm­land. But now it is run­ning at well under half of its capac­i­ty three years after it came online: it is actu­al­ly gen­er­at­ing just 900MW due to lack of domes­tic ener­gy demand.

A plan to export Bakun’s ener­gy to the Malaysian main­land via under­sea trans­mis­sion lines has been shelved. Activists are also keen to high­light the poor record of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion by Sarawak’s Batang Ai dam.

But there’s plenty more dams planned for Sarawak’s rivers

The Baram Dam is only the fourth pro­posed devel­op­ment of twelve large dams slat­ed to be con­struct­ed by 2030 as part of a broad­er hydropow­er-devel­op­ment plan called the Sarawak Cor­ri­dor of Renew­able Ener­gy (SCORE). And there’s no sign that the project is to be aban­doned.

Next in line for con­struc­tion is the 1,295 megawatt, 204-meter (669-foot) high Baleh Dam, which so far has attract­ed less oppo­si­tion because it is not sched­uled to dis­place com­mu­ni­ties. Over the long term, 50 dams will be required to real­ize the Malaysian gov­ern­men­t’s tar­get of 20 gigawatts of hydropow­er capac­i­ty in Sarawak.

“The essence of SCORE is to indus­tri­alise the state by lever­ag­ing on Sarawak’s com­pet­i­tive advan­tage in bulk hydropow­er”, Sarawak’s Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Datuk Amar Haji Awang Ten­gah Ali Hasan said in a speech at the Inter­na­tion­al Hydropow­er Asso­ci­a­tion’s (IHA) con­fer­ence in Chi­na last July.

Hasan argued that the plan would bring jobs and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment to Sarawak, par­tic­u­lar­ly it’s remote areas, accord­ing to the Bor­neo Post. Mongabay con­tact­ed the IHA for its views on SCORE and the Baram mora­to­ri­um but it declined to com­ment.

SCORE, born in 2006 out of the Ninth Malaysia Plan, a gov­ern­ment roadmap for devel­op­ment by 2020, rep­re­sents a for­mi­da­ble scheme to replace indige­nous lands and trop­i­cal rain­forests with heavy indus­try like steel, glass, alu­mini­um, and agri-busi­ness plan­ta­tions.

How­ev­er, the aim to indus­tri­al­ize might not be going accord­ing to plan. “It is all talk­ing non­sense”, said Kallang, explain­ing that Sarawak Ener­gy, the nation­al­ized state ener­gy sup­pli­er that man­ages all of Sarawak’s elec­tric­i­ty, has repeat­ed­ly failed to dis­close a list of com­pa­nies that have signed on to pur­chase elec­tric­i­ty from the 12 planned dams. Kallang sus­pects this is because no such list exists.

Mean­while Sarawak’s 944-megawatt Murum Dam is com­plete but has yet to become oper­a­tional. Kallang explained that con­tro­ver­sy still sur­rounds the project, with dis­placed Penan hunter-gath­er­er indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties claim­ing they have not been paid the com­pen­sa­tion that the Sarawak gov­ern­ment promised them. But anoth­er prob­lem, sure­ly, is that there is no demand for its pow­er.

Still no final decision on Baram dam

Activists remain cau­tious about the Baram mora­to­ri­um and have decid­ed to main­tain their block­ade pend­ing fur­ther con­fir­ma­tion. Kallang thinks the state elec­tions next year might have influ­enced the deci­sion to put the dam on hold. “When politi­cians talk we have to know whether they are real­ly gen­uine or they are fish­ing for votes”, he said.

Sarawak Ener­gy spokesper­son Aha­di­ah Zamhari told Mongabay that a final deci­sion on the dam’s con­struc­tion has yet to be made. “The Chief Min­is­ter of Sarawak has imposed a mora­to­ri­um to all par­ties on mat­ters relat­ed to Baram hydropow­er project pend­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s final deci­sion on the project”, he stat­ed in an email, while declin­ing to be inter­viewed.

But Rebekah Shirley, a researcher with the Ener­gy and Resources Group at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, is cau­tious­ly opti­mistic: “I see this recent mora­to­ri­um on works in Baram as pro­gres­sive. It is hope­ful­ly a sig­nal of new lead­er­ship that is keen on lis­ten­ing to the con­cerns of stake­hold­ers — albeit stake­hold­ers that should already be a legit­i­mate part of the deci­sion mak­ing process.”

Shirley’s work with her Berke­ley col­league Daniel Kam­men show­ing the poten­tial of small-scale ener­gy options such as solar and micro-hydro to meet Sarawak’s ener­gy needs with­out build­ing dams has influ­enced the gov­ern­ment.

Their research appears to pro­vide a cost-effec­tive alter­na­tive to big dams with the added advan­tage of reduced envi­ron­men­tal and social con­flicts. After meet­ing with Kam­men, Kallang, and oth­ers in June, Sarawak Chief Min­is­ter Ade­nan said in a tele­vi­sion inter­view last month that he would look into these alter­na­tives.

But in recent years a num­ber of rev­e­la­tions have exposed cor­rup­tion at the high­est lev­els of Sarawak’s Gov­ern­ment. The busi­ness affairs of the for­mer Chief Min­is­ter and cur­rent state Gov­er­nor, Taib Mah­mud, have par­tic­u­lar­ly been in the spot­light. Kallang explained Taib’s links to dam con­struc­tion, which have been well doc­u­ment­ed by the news media:

“If the dams, espe­cial­ly Baram and Baleh are can­celled, it will affect Taib’s com­pa­ny very much because the sole sup­pli­er of cement in the whole of Sarawak is a com­pa­ny called CMS [Cahya Mata Sarawak] which is owned 90% by the Taib fam­i­ly… Also Sarawak Cable is owned by his son, so they are going to sup­ply all the cable required for the trans­mis­sion lines.”

The struggle is global

Dam-build­ing remains wide­spread world­wide. The Inter­na­tion­al Hydropow­er Asso­ci­a­tion in its 2015 report said: “We pub­lish this report at a time of sig­nif­i­cant hydropow­er devel­op­ment, with 37.4 GW of new installed capac­i­ty in 2014 bring­ing the glob­al total to 1,036 GW.”

As part of the con­ver­gence this week, the inter­na­tion­al del­e­ga­tion of activists is due to join vil­lagers on the block­ades in sol­i­dar­i­ty, and over a hun­dred peo­ple are expect­ed to stay in the camp, extend­ed for the occa­sion, at kilo­me­ter 15 of the dam’s access road. “They are going to vis­it the dam site and from there they will vis­it the vil­lages which could be flood­ed if the dam is built. We will stay overnight on the block­ade”, Kallang said.

Anni­na Aeber­li, who is help­ing to orga­nize the events as a cam­paign­er with the Swiss NGO Bruno Manser Fonds, explained the idea behind the ini­tia­tive: “We were real­ly think­ing about what we can do to strength­en [the vil­lagers’] spir­its to fight. So then we came back to this idea to bring inter­na­tion­al dam activists to the Baram area, so that they can show sol­i­dar­i­ty and moti­vate the peo­ple.”

Though the Baram Dam protests appear to have been effec­tive, on Octo­ber 26 Kallang is due in court, where he faces fines and even jail-time in a suit brought by Sarawak Ener­gy against him and 22 oth­ers for alleged­ly chas­ing the com­pa­ny away from the Baram work­site.

What­ev­er the court out­come, Kallang is com­mit­ted to the strug­gle long-term and rec­og­nizes the glob­al dimen­sions of the issue as indige­nous activists bat­tling dams abroad make the long jour­ney to Sarawak:

“We would like to invite them to share their expe­ri­ence in fight­ing against dams. And with this we hope to build bet­ter sol­i­dar­i­ty with them.”

Videos and sources here

 

Ahousaht First Nation Blockade Open Net Salmon Farm

Clayoquot Sound
An aer­i­al view of Clay­oquot Sound, just north of Tofi­no, B.C., is shown in this hand­out pho­to. The Ahousaht First Nation are protest­ing an open-net salmon farm in the area.

Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2015

TOFINO, B.C. — Mem­bers of a Van­cou­ver Island First Nation are vow­ing to risk arrest rather than allow an inter­na­tion­al fish farm­ing com­pa­ny to anchor an open-net salmon farm north of Tofi­no.

Mem­bers of the Ahousaht First Nation say they set up a boat block­ade Wednes­day at the site of the new farm, owned by Nor­we­gian-based Cer­maq.

The Ahousaht say the com­pa­ny holds 17 salmon farm tenures in Clay­oquot Sound and applied for two new tenures in the same area last year.

The First Nation believes the appli­ca­tions sig­nal a new round of fish farm expan­sion on the West Coast, with the Ahousaht Fish Farm Com­mit­tee pre­dict­ing a four-fold increase in the indus­try over the next 15 years.

Pro­test­ers oppose any new fish farms in the area.

They fear pos­si­ble dis­eases bred in fish with­in the open nets could be passed to clam beds or wild salmon trav­el­ling to and from near­by spawn­ing grounds.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/first-nations-blockade-halts-anchoring-of-tofino-area-salmon-farm‑1.2556934

First Nations blockade Clayoquot Sound salmon farm

This is a media release from UBCIC.

Mem­bers of Ahousaht First Nations are cur­rent­ly blockad­ing the attempts of Cer­maq to install a new open-net salmon farm at Yaak­swi­is, north of Tofi­no BC.

On Wednes­day Ahousaht mem­bers took boats out to the site and pre­vent­ed Cer­maq from anchor­ing the con­tro­ver­sial new farm, which was assem­bled off-site and towed to Yaak­swi­is.

“Wild salmon are in decline every­where salmon feed­lots are in oper­a­tion around the world. We will stop any future activ­i­ty at this loca­tion”, said Tom Paul, an Ahousaht mem­ber. “We will stay out there until we are moved—we will be arrest­ed if need be” he added.

The Ahousaht Fish Farm Com­mit­tee strong­ly opposed any fish farms at the Yaak­swi­is loca­tion, due to con­cerns about prox­im­i­ty to rich seafood resources such as clam beds and wild salmon rivers.

Cer­maq is a Nor­we­gian-based cor­po­ra­tion recent­ly acquired by Mit­subishi. They cur­rent­ly hold 17 salmon farm tenures in Clay­oquot Sound, which was the site of major log­ging con­fronta­tions in 1993.

Cer­maq applied in 2014 for two new tenures in Ahousaht First Nations ter­ri­to­ries. The Depart­ment of Fish­eries and Oceans approved one appli­ca­tion in late July this year, and one was refused.

The salmon farm­ing indus­try is poised to increase four-fold on the BC coast by 2030. These new appli­ca­tions are the first round of this major expan­sion.

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/first-nations-blockade-clayoquot-sound-salmon-farm