Category: Global

Glob­al

Climate Activists Blockade Oil Terminal, Demand Halt to Crude-by-Rail Traffic in Pacific Northwest

10501739_771642884850_4820811503256859328_n 30th June This morn­ing, cli­mate jus­tice activists with Port­land Ris­ing Tide shut down the ArcLo­gist

10501739_771642884850_4820811503256859328_n 30th June This morn­ing, cli­mate jus­tice activists with Port­land Ris­ing Tide shut down the ArcLo­gis­tics crude oil ter­mi­nal in North­west Port­land.
Port­land res­i­dent Irene Majorie, 22, locked her­self to a 55-gal­lon bar­rel filled with con­crete that was placed on the rail­road track lead­ing into the facil­i­ty.

Train cars enter from a near­by yard to offload oil into 84 stor­age tanks, before it is piped onto ocean­go­ing ships bound for West Coast refiner­ies. Majorie’s arm was locked to a piece of met­al rebar embed­ded in the con­crete, stop­ping trains for four hours before being cut out by police.

Attempts by law enforce­ment to move her and the bar­rel simul­ta­ne­ous­ly risked grave injury; like­wise, any train traf­fic threat­ened her life.

“This is about stop­ping the oil trains,” said Majorie. “But beyond that, it is about an indus­try and an eco­nom­ic sys­tem that places the pur­suit of prof­it before the lives and rela­tion­ships of human beings seek­ing sur­vival and nour­ish­ment, and before the com­mu­ni­ties, ecosys­tems, and plan­et of which we are a part.”

Oil trains are com­ing under increas­ing scruti­ny recent­ly owing to their propen­si­ty to derail in fiery explo­sions. Port­land Ris­ing Tide, how­ev­er, dis­putes the notion that an oil train is ever safe, since crude oil is only trans­port­ed to be burned. What­ev­er the risk of explo­sion, the guar­an­teed result is a wors­en­ing of the cli­mate cri­sis, which is already wreak­ing eco­log­i­cal hav­oc and claim­ing human lives.

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US crude oil pro­duc­tion has risen from ~5 mil­lion bar­rels per day in the late 2000s to ~7 mil­lion bar­rels per day cur­rent­ly. Increased extrac­tion is North Dakota’s Bakken Shale has result­ed in a dra­mat­ic rise in oil train traf­fic, with 250 per­cent more oil trains trav­el­ing Ore­gon rail lines in 2013 than in the pre­vi­ous year.

Gov­er­nor Kitzhaber has expressed “deep con­cern” about oil trains but thus far done noth­ing to stop them. “Soci­ety should be engaged in a rapid, rad­i­cal decline in fos­sil fuel use,” said David Ben­nett. “Instead, policymakers—even those who claim to under­stand the mag­ni­tude of the cli­mate crisis—are forc­ing us to engage in an absurd con­ver­sa­tion about cre­at­ing ‘safe’ oil trains and build­ing more fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture.”

The ArcLo­gis­tics ter­mi­nal, which began oper­a­tion in Jan­u­ary, is one piece of infra­struc­ture facil­i­tat­ing increased oil pro­duc­tion. When ongo­ing con­struc­tion is com­plet­ed, the facil­i­ty will have the capac­i­ty to trans­port 16,250 bar­rels of oil per day.

In April, Port­land Ris­ing Tide entered the Ore­gon Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Quality’s offices in down­town Port­land, issued ter­mi­na­tion let­ters to employ­ees at their desks, and announced the for­ma­tion of a new People’s Agency, which would car­ry out DEQ’s man­date free of cor­po­rate influ­ence. This is the first enforce­ment action of the nascent agency.

“If our pol­i­cy­mak­ers lis­tened, we would demand an imme­di­ate halt to oil train traf­fic in Ore­gon and the clo­sure of all crude oil ter­mi­nals,” said Emma Gould. “Since they don’t, we’re halt­ing oil trains our­selves.” High res­o­lu­tion pho­tos are avail­able for down­load and may be used with attri­bu­tion

Today’s action saw activists from across the con­ti­nent join­ing togeth­er to say no to oil trains, show­ing that oil trains are an inter­na­tion­al issue of con­cern for peo­ple and non­hu­man ani­mals every­where.

Blockade Halts Old-Growth Logging in Mattole Forest

10496184_1431644777121536_4907229880304137323_o30th June A for­est defend­er has tak­en to the trees to defend an impor­tant area of the Mat­tole Riv

10496184_1431644777121536_4907229880304137323_o30th June A for­est defend­er has tak­en to the trees to defend an impor­tant area of the Mat­tole Riv­er water­shed in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Going by the name “Skunk,” the block­ad­er is stop­ping the con­struc­tion of a new log­ging road into old-growth for­est.

Skunk is sup­port­ed by res­i­dents of Hum­boldt coun­ty and allies who have worked for months to stop Hum­boldt Red­wood Company’s plan for 1,000 acres of log­ging in the Mat­tole For­est.

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In April, activists hung a ban­ner across from Hum­boldt Red­woods State Park to protest the log­ging in the Mat­tole.

While Hum­boldt Red­wood Com­pa­ny claims they are not log­ging old-growth, their def­i­n­i­tion restricts log­ging only areas with more than 8 old-growth trees in the span of an acre. They also define old-growth as exist­ing in the year 1800, cut­ting out any trees younger than exact­ly 214 years.

Skunk insists, “Our main demands to Hum­boldt Red­wood Com­pa­ny are very simple—don’t cut unlogged for­est, and don’t cut old-growth. This road threat­ens to destroy for­est that has nev­er been logged before, and will pave the way for log­ging even more impor­tant habi­tat if the com­mu­ni­ty does not rise up to stop it.” 

The Mat­tole pro­vides shel­ter to Gold­en Eagles and Spot­ted Owls, among oth­er rare species, and has long been the home of old-growth Big Leaf Maple, Dou­glas Fir, Tanoak, and Madrone.

This area of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia has a long his­to­ry of for­est defense against Maxxam/Pacific Lum­ber through­out the 1990s. What we are per­haps see­ing is just the begin­ning of a new chap­ter.

 

Karawang Farmers Defend Land From Corporate Eviction

jjjj2 28th June About 1200 peas­ant farm­ers of the vil­lage of Karawang, Indone­sia pre­pared to defend 350 hectares of farm lands that they have tend­ed and sur­vived off of for gen­er­a­tions.

jjjj2 28th June About 1200 peas­ant farm­ers of the vil­lage of Karawang, Indone­sia pre­pared to defend 350 hectares of farm lands that they have tend­ed and sur­vived off of for gen­er­a­tions.  The land in dis­pute has been des­ig­nat­ed by local Indone­sian gov­ern­ment for the expan­sion of a fac­to­ry owned by Agung Podomoro and the peo­ple of Karawang seem to have no recourse except to resist.

On Tues­day the 24th, about 7000 ful­ly equipped riot police forces descend­ed on the vil­lage with two water can­non vehi­cles to enforce the land rul­ing. The local res­i­dents had pre­pared tire bar­ri­cades and hand weapons yet tried first to non-vio­lent­ly resist the encroach­ing forces.

This agrar­i­an con­flict has led to the evic­tion of the 1,200 res­i­dents. It has become evi­dent that the coun­try is in favor to the own­ers of cap­i­tal and indif­fer­ent to ordi­nary peo­ple, such as farm­ers. The proof is the ver­dict of PK No. 160 PK/PDT/2011 des­ig­nat­ing the Pri­ma­ry Water Source (PT SAMP) on land owned by res­i­dents of three vil­lages in the Dis­trict Teluk­jambe.

Based on the deci­sion of the PT SAMP the land has been pur­chased by the Agung Podomoro group and Falkirk Dis­trict Court forced the evic­tion on June 24, 2014, requir­ing 7,000 riot forces.

Results of the inci­dent report­ed by the Con­sor­tium for Agrar­i­an Reform there were 10 work­ers who were assault­ed and one farmer who was shot by riot police and there are 13 peo­ple who were arrest­ed.

The pitch today is still tense as Riot police have set up com­mand posts in dit­i­ga, Marga­mulya and Wanasari Wanaker­ta vil­liages. They also put up a barbed wire fence in the con­flict area, cov­er­ing an area of ​​350 ha. Cur­rent­ly elec­tric­i­ty have been cut into the homes of res­i­dents who inhab­it the land dis­pute.

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So far there has been no response or attempts to pro­vide tem­po­rary hous­ing by the evic­tion com­pa­ny. But offi­cials Falkirk Farm­ers Union (patch) said that the res­i­dents will sur­vive even if the com­pa­ny and Riot police evic­tion use heavy equip­ment.

The Karawang peo­ple demand:
1. Stop the dis­place­ment towards the peas­ants man­dat­ed by state court of Karawang since the land has been plowed and owned legal­ly by the peas­ants who pay tax­es reg­u­lar­ly and obe­di­ent­ly to the states for tens of years.
2. Pull sev­en thou­sands armed mobile brigade back from agrar­i­an con­flict area in Karawang because they intim­i­date and pro­voke the peo­ple.
3. Sol­i­dar­i­ty from all Indone­sians and com­rades in strug­gle who sup­ports the agrar­i­an reform to con­demn the injus­tice suf­fered by the peas­ants.

Villager Wins Court Battle Against Hydroelectric Plant Construction

Screen Shot 2014-06-26 at 12.29.06 PM 26th June An admin­is­tra­tive court in the Black Sea province of Rize has ruled to halt the con­struc­tion of a hydro­elec­tric pow­er plant (

Screen Shot 2014-06-26 at 12.29.06 PM 26th June An admin­is­tra­tive court in the Black Sea province of Rize has ruled to halt the con­struc­tion of a hydro­elec­tric pow­er plant (HES) that was being built on the Andon Riv­er, which pro­vides fresh water to at least 3,000 peo­ple in the vil­lage of Küçükçayır.

Küçükçayır vil­lage was declared an envi­ron­men­tal­ly pro­tect­ed site in 2011. The village’s res­i­dents held a protest in Feb­ru­ary against a HES being con­struct­ed near the riv­er, clos­ing the main road of the vil­lage for hours as part of their protest and not allow­ing con­struc­tion equip­ment to oper­ate at the site.

Accord­ing to a Cihan news agency report on Wednes­day, Kezım Delal, one of the vil­lagers, sold a cow and took a loan from a bank in order to file a law­suit against the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny. Empha­siz­ing that he has been strug­gling in court against the con­struc­tion plan, which is like­ly to harm the envi­ron­ment, Delal said the injunc­tion to halt con­struc­tion stands as an impor­tant step towards pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment from oth­er upcom­ing pow­er plant con­struc­tion projects that might destroy the country’s nat­ur­al beau­ty.

“I have been liv­ing in this vil­lage for 70 years. I was born here. This is my home. I am so hap­py that court ruled in favor of our future. Now, I just want to see the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny leave us alone right away,” he told the press.

Empha­siz­ing that they have been keep­ing watch for almost eight months in order to pre­vent the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny from doing any dam­age, Delal thanked all his friends who did not leave his side dur­ing the protest. “This vic­to­ry belongs to all of us. Now we can move on with our lives,” he added.

Stat­ing that they were tak­en into cus­tody by gen­darmes many times due to the their protests, Yusuf Esir, anoth­er vil­lager, said that he was hap­py to take a stand against the con­struc­tion plans. “In order to intim­i­date us, gen­darmes took us into cus­tody many times. But nobody can deter us. If any­body should leave this vil­lage, it’s the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, not us. Because this is our vil­lage,” Esir stat­ed.

MOBILE SLAUGHTER UNIT SABOTAGED

24th June received anony­mous­ly:

24th June received anony­mous­ly:

“Over the week­end, a mobile slaugh­ter unit oper­at­ed by Shoe’s Mobile
Slaugh­ter and Pro­cess­ing (14515 Coon Hol­low Rd, Sub­lim­i­ty, OR) was
decom­mis­sioned by hav­ing a gal­lon of bleach poured into its fuel tank.
When the liq­uid bleach comes into con­tact with the diesel in the tank it
will cre­ate a chem­i­cal reac­tion that will cause rapid cor­ro­sion to the
unit’s fuel system–forcing it to seize up. For the time being this
slaugh­ter unit will be unable to be used to spill the blood of anoth­er
ani­mal.

This method of sab­o­tage was cho­sen because it is silent, effec­tive, and
eas­i­ly repro­ducible. Sym­bol­ic protest and con­sumer boy­cotts in and of
them­selves are not suf­fi­cient in address­ing the imme­di­ate vio­lence that is
being car­ried out against non-human ani­mals every sec­ond of every­day.
Direct inter­ven­tion is nec­es­sary to free impris­oned non-humans and to
destroy the machines that facil­i­tate their exploita­tion.

This action is ded­i­cat­ed to the mem­o­ry of Clé­ment Méric, a veg­an and
anti-fas­cist who was beat­en to death by neo-nazis in Paris a lit­tle over a
year ago. Just as we strug­gle against those who abuse and exploit
non-human ani­mals; we also take an uncom­pro­mis­ing stance against the
far-right’s attempts to not only infil­trate the ani­mal lib­er­a­tion and
envi­ron­men­tal move­ments, but also against their attempts to assert
them­selves in soci­ety in gen­er­al. Let Clé­men­t’s trag­ic death be a
reminder of the neces­si­ty for the move­ment to main­tain a strong anti-fas­cist eth­ic and to oppose the fas­cist scum at every turn.

‘Mourn the dead, fight like hell for the liv­ing.’ ”

Indigenous boy protests on pitch during World Cup opening ceremony

An indigenous Guarani boy held up a banner reading 'Demarcation Now!' at the World Cup's opening ceremony. 16th June One of the three Brazil­ian chil­dren who released

An indigenous Guarani boy held up a banner reading 'Demarcation Now!' at the World Cup's opening ceremony. 16th June One of the three Brazil­ian chil­dren who released white doves dur­ing the World Cup open­ing cer­e­mo­ny used the occa­sion to demand recog­ni­tion of Indi­an land rights – but his protest was cen­sored by FIFA.

Imme­di­ate­ly after releas­ing a white dove, Jeguaká Mir­im, an indige­nous Guarani boy, held up a red ban­ner read­ing ‘Demar­ca­tion Now!’ But his coura­geous protest was not broad­cast, as the TV cam­eras swift­ly cut away.

Jeguaká’s father, Guarani author Olívio Jekupe, said that the act “showed the world that we are not stand­ing still… My son showed the world what we need the most: the demar­ca­tion of our lands.”

The Guarani are Brazil’s most numer­ous tribe and they live in five states. Much of their land has been stolen from them and is being used for cat­tle ranch­ing and sug­ar cane pro­duc­tion, whilst many Guarani are forced to live in over­crowd­ed reserves or in road­side camps where mal­nu­tri­tion and dis­ease are rife. Some, like Jeguaká’s com­mu­ni­ty known as Kruku­tu, live near urban areas like São Paulo on almost no land.

As a result of the loss of their land, the Guarani-Kaiowá of Mato Grosso do Sul state suf­fer the high­est sui­cide rate in the world, and their lead­ers are tar­get­ed and killed when they attempt to reoc­cu­py patch­es of their ances­tral land.

The Guarani, Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions are call­ing on the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment to uphold its own con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al law, and map out the Guarani’s land for their exclu­sive use.

Coca-Cola, one of the World Cup’s main spon­sors, has recent­ly become embroiled in the Guarani land scan­dal by buy­ing sug­ar from US food giant Bunge, which sources sug­ar cane from their ances­tral land. The Guarani are urg­ing Coca-Cola to respect their rights and stop this pur­chase imme­di­ate­ly.

Coca-Cola and FIFA's image has been contrasted with an angry Indian man demanding, 'Let the Guarani live!'

To high­light the deep irony of Coca-Cola and FIFA pro­mot­ing the World Cup with an image of a hap­py Indi­an man with the words ‘Wel­come to the World Cup for Every­one’, Sur­vival has cre­at­ed a spoof ad fea­tur­ing Nixi­wa­ka, a Yawanawa Indi­an wel­com­ing the view­er to ‘The Dark Side of Brazil’ and demand­ing ‘Let the Guarani live!’.

See Survival’s web­site on the ‘Dark Side of Brazil’ for more exam­ples of Brazil’s assault on indige­nous rights.

Argentina: Activists Arrested & Brutal Police Repression After Monsanto Law is Approved

14th June The leg­is­la­ture of Cor­do­ba approved a con­tro­ver­sial Mon­san­to Law yes­ter­day. Pro­test­ers from Malv­inas Lucha por la Vida, Madres de Itzuzaingó, and oth­er social orga­ni­za­tions held a peace­ful protest to con­test the law.

14th June The leg­is­la­ture of Cor­do­ba approved a con­tro­ver­sial Mon­san­to Law yes­ter­day. Pro­test­ers from Malv­inas Lucha por la Vida, Madres de Itzuzaingó, and oth­er social orga­ni­za­tions held a peace­ful protest to con­test the law.

The police inter­vened vio­lent­ly repress­ing the pro­test­ers and arbi­trar­i­ly detain­ing any­one who looked like a pro­test­er. 26 peo­ple total were arrest­ed includ­ing Sofia Gat­i­ca and many were injured. Sofia Gat­i­ca told Argenti­na Inde­pen­dent the law was cre­at­ed so Mon­san­to can legal­ly move into the province.

The new law has been passed after a 9 month block­ade on con­struc­tion of a new GMO seed pro­cess­ing plant. You can read archives of cov­er­age from Rev­o­lu­tion News of this epic bat­tle against the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion here.

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Climate Change Induced Heat Wave Causes Riots in India

450367372-an-indian-visitor-to-the-landmark-india-gate-monument.jpg.CROP.promo-mediumlarge 14th June

450367372-an-indian-visitor-to-the-landmark-india-gate-monument.jpg.CROP.promo-mediumlarge 14th June

Under relent­less heat, India is reach­ing the break­ing point.

As the coun­try tries to keep cool, the pow­er grid is fail­ing. Riot­ing pro­test­ers in the north of the coun­try set fire to elec­tric­i­ty sub­sta­tions last week­end and held pow­er work­ers hostage, accus­ing the gov­ern­ment of dis­trib­ut­ing scarce pow­er resources based on polit­i­cal pref­er­ence.

From Al Jazeera:

Res­i­dents had been par­tic­u­lar­ly angry about the pow­er cuts after receiv­ing reli­able sup­plies through the Indi­an elec­tions, which end­ed May 16. Since then, only some regions have been guar­an­teed unbro­ken pow­er sup­plies, while oth­ers have received lit­tle to none.

 

The High Court in the city of Alla­habad is now hear­ing a peti­tion alleg­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion in pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion, and has asked the gov­ern­ment to explain why some regions appeared to be receiv­ing pref­er­en­tial treat­ment.

Those regions include the city of Varanasi, the par­lia­men­tary con­stituen­cy of new Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi, as well as con­stituen­cies held by Yadav and oth­er top offi­cials in Uttar Pradesh’s rul­ing par­ty.

As Slate’s Joshua Keat­ing report­ed recent­ly, a study this year by Lak­sh­mi Iyer of the Har­vard Busi­ness School and Petia Topalo­va of the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund found a con­nec­tion between extreme weath­er (par­tic­u­lar­ly lack of rain­fall) and increased crime in India.

Mean­while, the heat con­tin­ues. On Wednes­day, New Del­hi enters day 10 of a blis­ter­ing heat wave that’s bro­ken at least one long-stand­ing record, with part of the city peak­ing at 118 degrees Fahren­heit (47.8 degrees Cel­sius) on Sun­day. Dur­ing that stretch, the aver­age high tem­per­a­ture at the air­port in New Del­hi has been 109.9  Fahren­heit (43.2 Cel­sius), with the aver­age low an aston­ish­ing 84  Fahren­heit (28.9 Cel­sius). Days upon days with night­time low tem­per­a­tures above 80  Fahren­heit can be dead­ly, espe­cial­ly for those with­out a way to keep cool.

If there’s any con­so­la­tion, at least that’s a dry heat. The dew­point—the amount of mois­ture in the air—has been low all week across north­ern India, with dry air help­ing to boost the effec­tive­ness of built-in human air con­di­tion­ing (evap­o­ra­tion of sweat) and mak­ing the tem­per­a­ture feel some­what cool­er in the shade.

Areas far­ther south, near where the mon­soon was advanc­ing, were even more unbear­able. Just after mid­night Wednes­day local time, the heat index was still 110 Fahren­heit (43.3 Cel­sius) in Mum­bai. Yep, 110 degrees. At near­ly 1 in the morn­ing. I sim­ply can’t fath­om exis­tence in those kinds of con­di­tions. Hin­du priests thereper­formed spe­cial prayers for rain to relieve the swel­ter­ing coun­try of its mis­ery.

The good news: The end of this scorcher is in sight as the mon­soon con­tin­ues to advance north­ward. The bad news: In some of the hard­est-hit places, like Del­hi, that end is still a week away. High tem­per­a­tures there are expect­ed to stay above nor­mal until next Tues­day.

A devel­op­ing trop­i­cal cyclone is help­ing to surge mon­soon mois­ture north­ward along India’s West Coast this week, though it’s still going to be quite some time before the cool­ing mon­soon breezes break this heat wave for good. India’s mon­soon was five days late and is expect­ed to bring below nor­mal rain­fall this sea­son, in part because of a build­ing El Niño.

Since the fore­cast of a weak mon­soon, India’s gov­ern­ment has ini­ti­at­ed a con­tin­gency plan designed to relieve pres­sure on its over­taxed pow­er grid, report­ed the Times of India on Tues­day. Two years ago, India suf­fered the worst black­out in world his­to­ry, putting some 600 mil­lion res­i­dents in the dark. Much of India’s elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion comes via hydro­elec­tric pow­er. The mon­soon sea­son in 2012 was also below aver­age, and demand for elec­tric­i­ty is soar­ing as a bur­geon­ing mid­dle class buys more and more air con­di­tion­ers.

As the New York Times’ Elis­a­beth Rosen­thal wrote at that time, “We can’t live with air-con­di­tion­ing, but we can’t live with­out it.” In a more tem­per­ate cli­mate, Amer­i­cans use more elec­tric­i­ty on air con­di­tion­ing than the rest of the world com­bined. Rapid­ly expand­ing use of air con­di­tion­ing in trop­i­cal coun­tries will fur­ther boost glob­al warm­ing through the release of heat trap­ping gas­es. It’s a Catch-22.

India, for one, is warm­ing to air con­di­tion­ing. In 2007, only 2 per­cent of India had air con­di­tion­ing, but that num­ber is rapid­ly increas­ing. The hot weath­er of the past few weeks has boost­ed sales of air con­di­tion­ers by 15 to 20 per­cent com­pared with last year.

This month’s oppres­sive heat wave already bears the fin­ger­print of glob­al warm­ing. Over the last 100 years, India’s aver­age tem­per­a­ture has warmed by about half a degree Cel­sius (PDF), and mon­soons are get­ting more extreme. The warmest time of the year is typ­i­cal­ly just before the mon­soon hits, when tem­per­a­tures rou­tine­ly top the triple dig­it mark in the oth­er­wise semi-arid north.

This year, though, has been any­thing but rou­tine.

 

Sea Shepherd to Deploy Drones to Stop Massive Whale Slaughter

(Photo: Andrija Ilic/Reuters) 13th June In recent years, the annu­al dol­phin hunts in Tai­ji, Japan, have gar­nered head­lines world­wide and sparked out­rage among activists, sci­en­tists, celebri­ties,

(Photo: Andrija Ilic/Reuters) 13th June In recent years, the annu­al dol­phin hunts in Tai­ji, Japan, have gar­nered head­lines world­wide and sparked out­rage among activists, sci­en­tists, celebri­ties, and diplo­mats. But half a world away, in the North Atlantic nation of the Faeroe Islands, a sim­i­lar slaugh­ter has received far less scruti­ny.

That’s about to change. On Fri­day, Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety USA will unveil details of a new hi-tech ini­tia­tive aimed at dis­rupt­ing and halt­ing the whale hunts, which begin this month and con­tin­ue through Sep­tem­ber.

The annu­al hunts are known as “grinds.” As part of “Oper­a­tion Grind­Stop 2014,” a land-based cam­paign, Sea Shep­herd USA will deploy drones and livestream video to hin­der the slaugh­ter. Oth­er Sea Shep­herd orga­ni­za­tions will launch simul­ta­ne­ous water-based cam­paigns.

Why the drones? They are “pri­mar­i­ly for sur­veil­lance and doc­u­men­ta­tion,” Sea Shep­herd founder Paul Wat­son said in an email. “They are inex­pen­sive and easy to oper­ate, and they can get us into places we could not oth­er­wise get to.”

Com­bined with livestream­ing video, drone tech­nol­o­gy  “will allow us to cov­er the more than two dozen beach­es in the Faeroes where whales may be killed,” Wat­son added. “The Faeroes present some logis­ti­cal chal­lenges, and we need to be able to deploy in such a way that all pos­si­ble kill sites are mon­i­tored at all times.”

Drones might also detect approach­ing whales, he said, which would “allow us to take our boats to deflect the pods away from the islands.” (The Faeroe Islands cam­paign is fund­ed in part by the Skoll Foun­da­tion, part of the Jeff Skoll Group, which includes Par­tic­i­pant Media, TakePart’s par­ent com­pa­ny.)

Sea Shep­herd USA will place four teams of at least 15 activists each on the ground.
Res­i­dents of the windswept Faeroes, a self-gov­ern­ing arch­i­pel­ago of Den­mark between Nor­way and Ice­land, have been killing fin whales, pilot whales, Atlantic white-sided dol­phins, and oth­er small marine mam­mals for cen­turies. Though the slaugh­ter has received a smat­ter­ing of atten­tion in the glob­al media, the Faeroes hunt has been large­ly over­shad­owed by the dol­phin dri­ves in Tai­ji, which were chron­i­cled in the Oscar-win­ning doc­u­men­tary The Cove.

As many as 1,000 endan­gered long-finned pilot whales, along with mem­bers of oth­er species, are killed each year in the Faeroes dur­ing the “tra­di­tion­al” hunt, called grindadráp (“grind”) by islanders.

The hunt is even pro­mot­ed as a tourist attrac­tion. Accord­ing to the Vis­it Faroe Islands web­site, one of the country’s main attrac­tions is whal­ing.

“The pilot whale hunt in the Faroes is, by its very nature, a dra­mat­ic sight,” it states. “Entire schools of whales are killed on the shore and in the shal­lows of bays with knives which are used to sev­er the major blood sup­ply to the brain.”

The method is “the most effi­cient and humane” means of killing “under the cir­cum­stances,” the web­site reas­sures poten­tial­ly queasy tourists, “but it nat­u­ral­ly results in a lot of blood in the water.”

This is not the first time that Sea Shep­herd, which has been fight­ing against the Faeroes slaugh­ter for more than 30 years, has used drones in a cam­paign, accord­ing to Jake Weber, Sea Shep­herd drone spe­cial­ist. But it is the first drone deploy­ment in the Faeroes, he said in an email. “A great advan­tage they will pro­vide is the abil­i­ty to get [high-def­i­n­i­tion] footage and still pho­tos very close to the grind with­out endan­ger­ing our vol­un­teers or their equip­ment.”

Environmentalists Halt Leard Forest Clearance for the Winter

leard-forest-protest-1200-640x426 13th June Aus­tralia White­haven Coal yes­ter­day announced it would halt its clear­ing of Leard State For­est until Sep­tem­ber fol­low­ing an injunc­ti

leard-forest-protest-1200-640x426 13th June Aus­tralia White­haven Coal yes­ter­day announced it would halt its clear­ing of Leard State For­est until Sep­tem­ber fol­low­ing an injunc­tion in the NSW Land and Envi­ron­ment Court by the Maules Creek Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil.

The group, aid­ed by the EDO, specif­i­cal­ly appealed over the fact that many ani­mals in the for­est hiber­nate over win­ter and there­fore were more like­ly to be killed by clear­ing dur­ing win­ter months.

The com­pa­ny vol­un­tar­i­ly called a halt to clear­ing yes­ter­day after­noon, just as the court’s deci­sion on the injunc­tion was due, until the results of a full hear­ing on the mat­ter.

Maules Creek Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil spokesper­son, Phil Laird said, ‘We are pleased that White­haven has been forced to respond to our legit­i­mate chal­lenge in the court by today under­tak­ing to stop clear­ing in Leard State For­est’.

The Maules Creek Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil is argu­ing that White­haven is in breach of its devel­op­ment con­sent by winter/spring clear­ing of the for­est. A breach of devel­op­ment con­sent con­tra­venes the Envi­ron­men­tal Plan­ning and Assess­ment Act 1979.

‘This out­come today sends a strong mes­sage to coal min­ing com­pa­nies across NSW and to the NSW gov­ern­ment: if they will not enforce the law, then the com­mu­ni­ty is pre­pared to step up and do it them­selves’ Mr Laird said.

‘We appre­ci­ate the action tak­en by White­haven today and we will be prepar­ing to vig­or­ous­ly pur­sue the full legal chal­lenge,’ he added.

The new Maules Creek coalmine project involves a total clear­ing of 1664 hectares of for­est, which cur­rent­ly pro­vides habi­tat for threat­ened species includ­ing bats, koalas, for­est owls, the Swift Par­rot and the Regent Hon­eyeater.

The Nature Con­ser­va­tion Coun­cil of NSW has wel­comed White­haven Coal’s deci­sion to adhere to the con­di­tions of its devel­op­ment con­sent.

‘This is a clear vic­to­ry for com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who have been work­ing tire­less­ly to pro­tect this for­est and the region’s water resources,’ cam­paigns direc­tor Kate Smol­s­ki said.

‘The deci­sion to stop win­ter clear­ing does not end the fight to save Leard For­est, but it does at least give hiber­nat­ing native ani­mals a fight­ing chance to escape the bull­doz­ers.

‘It is regret­table the NSW gov­ern­ment did not enforce the con­di­tions of its own con­sent for this atro­cious mine, leav­ing Maules Creek Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil lit­tle alter­na­tive but to take legal action.

‘State and fed­er­al laws have failed to pro­tect this impor­tant nat­ur­al area, demon­strat­ing the need for deep reform to pro­tect impor­tant nat­ur­al places from coal min­ing.

‘Until that reform occurs, com­mu­ni­ty groups will con­tin­ue to seek rem­e­dy in the courts, and ordi­nary peo­ple will feel com­pelled to take direct action in the for­est.

‘The Maules Creek mine will tear out the heart of Leard For­est, destroy one of the largest rem­nant areas of wildlife habi­tat in west­ern NSW, threat­en ground­wa­ter resources, and have a last­ing neg­a­tive impact on the local com­mu­ni­ty of Maules Creek. This project should nev­er have been approved.’

Greens NSW MP and envi­ron­ment spokesper­son, Dr Mehreen Faruqi has also wel­comed news.

‘This deci­sion… proves com­mu­ni­ty con­cerns were jus­ti­fied. It is clear that White­haven saw the writ­ing on the wall and went for an under­tak­ing before it was ordered to by the court,’ Dr Faruqi said.

‘Unfor­tu­nate­ly, much clear­ing has already tak­en place.

‘I have seen with my own eyes just yes­ter­day the sec­tion of the for­est bull­dozed by White­haven Coal, pre­sum­ably in antic­i­pa­tion of a sus­pen­sion.

‘It is out­ra­geous that White­haven Coal was allowed to under­take win­ter clear­ing in the first place. This was com­plete­ly unnec­es­sary.

‘There needs to be an inves­ti­ga­tion into how these approvals were grant­ed by the NSW gov­ern­ment in the first place, as large tracts of endan­gered eco­log­i­cal com­mu­ni­ties have been cleared and can­not be replaced or off­set.

‘I was also dis­turbed to see valu­able pub­lic resources being used to ben­e­fit a min­ing com­pa­ny, with the gov­ern­ment order­ing police to set up road­blocks on pub­lic roads and search cars.

‘The gov­ern­ment should be pro­tect­ing the Leard For­est, not big coal.

‘In a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety, the pub­lic have the right to protest peace­ful­ly and I have been inspired by the activists stand­ing up to pro­tect our envi­ron­ment and our wildlife.

‘The Greens and many in the com­mu­ni­ty are opposed to this mas­sive coal min­ing project because of its destruc­tive impacts on bio­di­ver­si­ty, cul­tur­al her­itage and its mas­sive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change: allow­ing clear­ing dur­ing the win­ter months fur­ther com­pound­ed these dam­ag­ing impacts.

‘Con­grat­u­la­tions to the grass­roots com­mu­ni­ty groups and the Envi­ron­men­tal Defend­ers Office that brought for­ward this legal chal­lenge. The Greens will con­tin­ue cam­paign­ing to stop this coal mine com­plete­ly’ she con­clud­ed.