Category: Global

Glob­al

More clashes with riot police in Greece over gold mine

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers in Thes­sa­loni­ki have been in involved anoth­er bat­tle with riot police over plans for a gold mine in north­ern Greece’s Halkidi­ki penin­su­la. One police­man and three pro­test­ers were hurt, while 21 pro­test­ers have been detained. Clash­es between protests and local res­i­dents on one side and police and mine work­ers on the oth­er side have become a reg­u­lar occourance since March when plans for the mine were approved. A mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar gold min­ing project in a near­by area was can­celled a decade ago after sim­i­lar protests.

Below is a trans­la­tion of a recent report about the sit­u­a­tion from Indy­media Athens:

In the moun­tains of Halkidi­ki is a huge dis­as­ter at the expense of Moth­er Nature. The Greek state has sold the rights to exploit the gold beneath the pri­mor­dial forests of dark in the com­pa­ny Eldo­ra­do-Greek Gold. That is why the com­pa­ny has already start­ed the despi­ca­ble work: inten­sive defor­esta­tion of 4,000 hectares of for­est and min­er­al pro­cess­ing plant con­struc­tion between vil­lages Olympiad, Stan, Mary and Great Ieris­sos. The state and the com­pa­ny with the work will take away the life of the for­est itself but also by the thou­sands of ani­mals that live in it, clean ground­wa­ter and soil will be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by tox­ic sub­stances such as cyanide. In sim­ple words, a whole liv­ing world would exter­mi­nat­ed for the prof­it of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ment lead­ers, leav­ing behind con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed land and death.

Res­i­dents not com­pla­cent to the dis­as­ter, from pas­sages such as the Olympics and the Great Pana­gia for decades have been strug­gling against min­ing. This year saw the final autho­riza­tion from the gov­ern­ment and the project has now start­ed. From March there have been on going con­flicts with res­i­dents and defend­ers of the for­est on one side and the police and work­ers of the com­pa­ny on the oth­er.

This dom­i­nant behav­ior of cul­ture over nature is a result of the author­i­tar­i­an men­tal­i­ty of anthro­pocen­trism, arbi­trary belief that man is greater than the nat­ur­al ele­ment sur­rounds him. This con­cept is the result of the alien­ation of man from the nat­ur­al world. With the medi­a­tion of the process of civ­i­liza­tion, the build­ing of cities, states and pow­er rela­tions peo­ple ignore the earth-ani­mal-nature, which is direct­ly tied to the exis­tence and devel­op­ment of the nat­ur­al world.

Habi­tats are threat­ened today direct­ly from the mines not only in Halkidi­ki but oth­er parts of north­ern Greece such as Kilkis and Alexan­droupo­lis. But let’s not fool our­selves, the tech­noc­ra­cy and cap­i­tal­ism in today’s world are expressed through a glob­al sys­tem of strik­ing any part of the world over sea or land. But espe­cial­ly in coun­tries of the so-called third world, plun­der of nature and poor peo­ple is unthink­able. Giant multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions with the help of state and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions extort­ing indige­nous pop­u­la­tions by any means (war, food crises, finan­cial mea­sures) to accept invest­ments and work with them in exchange for a mea­ger salary and a short and mis­er­able life. With mod­ern engines cut forests, dis­em­bow­el the earth, pol­lute the air, water and soil. This hunt for “trea­sure” whether min­er­als such as gold or ener­gy (oil, gas, coal) is total­ly dead­locked and destruc­tive. The so-called progress of civ­i­liza­tion and the ide­ol­o­gy of devel­op­ment only serve the tem­po­rary exis­tence of the world’s author­i­tar­i­an sys­tem that dis­solves cul­tures but tens of thou­sands of years, primeval forests, ani­mal com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems that promis­es dystopia.

The destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world not only in Greece but also at the glob­al lev­el does not leave us time tol­er­ances of this sit­u­a­tion. Needs as liv­ing crea­tures to deny us the sys­tem dom­i­nates and fight for its destruc­tion. To rede­fine our rela­tion­ship with the nat­ur­al world and to resist that pre­vents us from liv­ing in har­mo­ny with it. The state, the indus­tri­al sys­tem and mazopoi­isi cities need to be destroyed to flour­ish in the debris an indomitable life for peo­ple, ani­mals and nature.

AGAINST THE RAPE OF THE NATURAL WORLD
ANYPOCHORITOS STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION AND FOR TOTAL ANARCHY

Coal Seam Gas Banner Drop in Australia

Pro­test­ers from the the Lock the Gate Alliance have tak­en part in a ban­ner drop on Brisbane’s Kan­ga­roo Point cliffs with sev­en giant ban­ners with anti-CSG mes­sages were attached to the cliff face.

Lock the Gate spokesman Innes Larkin said the ban­ners were a demon­stra­tion of the depth of com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to CSG min­ing in south­east Queens­land.

‘‘If the gov­ern­ment and min­ers think rur­al com­mu­ni­ties will just take this lying down, they’re wrong,’’ Mr Larkin said. ‘‘Peo­ple in the bush are angry and they are pre­pared to make a stand to pro­tect where they live, their soil and their water.’’ Lock the Gate have been run­ning a week of protests across the state, which began with a march and con­cert at Mur­willum­bah in north­ern NSW last Sun­day.

Ongoing Protests Over Brazil’s Anti-Indigenous Decree

On July 17, Brazil’s Office of the Solic­i­tor-Gen­er­al (AGU) issued Decree 303/2012, which dra­mat­i­cal­ly scales back indige­nous rights that are guar­an­teed by the country’s con­sti­tu­tion.  The law con­tains a pro­vi­sion that would per­mit the con­struc­tion of “strate­gic” infra­struc­ture projects such as roads, hydro­elec­tric dams and mines in indige­nous ter­ri­to­ry with­out con­sult­ing the affect­ed peo­ples and com­mu­ni­ties.

In addi­tion, the law allows mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion of indige­nous land at any time, pro­hibits any future des­ig­na­tion of indige­nous lands EVER, and oth­er­wise infringes on indige­nous people’s con­trol of their own ter­ri­to­ry.

The law has sparked large protests across Brazil. Accord­ing to Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Cry:

“On August 10, more than 50 indige­nous lead­ers occu­pied the head­quar­ters of the AGU to demand the revo­ca­tion of Decree 303; On August 20, six­teen dif­fer­ent Indige­nous Nations in the State Mato Grosso came togeth­er to show their out­rage against the Decree and the recent gut­ting of the FUNAI, Brazil’s Buer­au of Indi­an Affairs; and on Sep­tem­ber 4, the Gua­ja­jara shut down BR-316, a fed­er­al high­way that con­nects the cities of Belém in the state of Pará, and Maceió in Alagoas. …

“Most recent­ly, on Sep­tem­ber 24, about 500 Pankararu marched against the “anti-indi­an” decree; and on Sep­tem­ber 28, the Tem­bé set fire to ille­gal log­ging machin­ery and trucks with­in their ter­ri­to­ry in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Nova Esper­ança do Pir­iá, Pará, Maran­hão bor­der. As well, on Octo­ber 2, the Gua­ja­jara head­ed out again–this time with the Awa–to occu­py the Cara­jás Rail­way[pt] which links the munic­i­pal­i­ties of Mineir­in­ho and Auzilân­dia in the north­ern state of Maran­hão. The rail­way is owned by min­ing giant Vale.

“The APIB says that many more mobi­liza­tions are on the way in the south, north­east and north of the coun­try.”

(USA) Tar Sands day of action — Over 50 Enter Tree Blockade in Defiance of Police Repression to Defend Tree-Sitters

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2012 – Fol­low­ing a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing in North Texas by Tar Sands Block­ade, many dozens of pro­test­ers and sup­port­ers are ral­ly­ing today at the site of the largest and longest tree sit in Texas his­to­ry to stage the largest walk-on site protest and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence in the his­to­ry of Key­stone XL pipeline con­struc­tion. Sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als are defend­ing the tree sit­ters and the trees by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion equip­ment being used in prox­im­i­ty to the for­est block­ade. Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are also tak­ing place in Wash­ing­ton DC, Boston, Austin and New York City.

Alto­geth­er more than 50 block­aders are risk­ing arrest to stop Key­stone XL con­struc­tion and bring atten­tion to TransCanada’s repres­sion of jour­nal­ists attempt­ing to cov­er the block­aders’ side of the sto­ry. They are joined by dozens of sup­port­ers who are ral­ly­ing on pub­lic prop­er­ty with col­or­ful ban­ners and signs along­side the easement’s clos­est high­way cross­ing. A mas­sive media team is in tow to doc­u­ment the day of action and any pos­si­ble police repres­sion.

As the Winns­boro tree block­ade enters its fourth week, the block­aders are resup­ply­ing their friends in the trees with fresh food, water, and cam­eras to fur­ther doc­u­ment their protest despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment. Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree sit­ters have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. That the defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest yet attempt­ed in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that the block­aders will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it their civ­il lib­er­ties.

“Three weeks is a long time to be sit­ting in a tree. The train­ing I got this week­end has me ready to rise up and join the sit­ters in defend­ing Texas homes from the tox­ic tar sands,” shared Glenn Hob­bit, 28. “They’re say­ing we might get sued or worse, but stop­ping this pipeline is too impor­tant.”

Last week, the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion opened a civ­il suit in which it named 19 indi­vid­ual defen­dants, 3 orga­ni­za­tions, and 6 anony­mous tree sit­ters for a total of 28 defen­dants seek­ing an injunc­tion, declara­to­ry relief, and dam­ages. All the named defen­dants are for­mer arrestees of Tar Sands Block­ade actions with the excep­tion of media spokesper­son Ron Seifert, who has yet been arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with a protest, and area landown­er Eleanor Fairchild, who act­ed inde­pen­dent­ly with activist and actor Daryl Han­nah. Han­nah was not named in the suit.

Tar Sands Block­ade is a coali­tion of Texas and Okla­homa landown­ers and cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­ers using peace­ful and sus­tained civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop the con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

“In real­i­ty, Tar Sands Block­ade is not tres­pass­ing on TransCanada’s prop­er­ty. Many of TransCanada’s ease­ment con­tracts were bro­kered through fraud and intim­i­da­tion, and their entire legal foun­da­tion is being chal­lenged in the courts for those rea­sons,” explained Ron Seifert, Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son. “If any­thing Tran­sCana­da is tres­pass­ing on the prop­er­ty of landown­ers who nev­er want­ed any­thing to do with their dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline.”

UPDATE 8:15AM - Sup­port­ers ral­ly near­by to stop the pipeline.

UPDATE 8:20PM- A beau­ti­ful morn­ing in what remains of our East Texas for­est. Tran­sCana­da has clear-cut out­side of their des­ig­nat­ed path­way and around the west side of the tree block­ade leav­ing a mud­dy path of destruc­tion in their wake.

UPDATE 8:35PM-  Over 50 block­aders march through the woods toward the tree block­ade

UPDATE 9:00AM - One block­ad­er arrest­ed after sit­ting down in the path of Key­stone XL and refus­ing to leave.

UPDATE 9:06AM- Three block­aders have been arrest­ed. We out­num­ber TransCanada’s police 3 to 1. Two block­aders have locked down to exca­va­tor equip­ment pro­tect­ing the tree block­ade.

UPDATE 9:20AM- Livestream­er @uneditedcamera (Loren­zo) has been detained and hand­cuffed, but they’re STILL STREAMING! Police are try­ing to flank groups of pro­tes­tors. Watch the stream live NOW!

UPDATE 9:45AM– Small group of ground block­aders break through police line and enter tree block­ade!

UPDATE 10:00AM- 4 arrests so far. Free­lance journalist/livestreamer Loren­zo Ser­na has been released. The ral­ly at the ease­ment near the high­way is going strong with chant­i­ng, singing and lots of col­or­ful ban­ners. Tran­sCana­da is bark­ing orders at the police. We should have video and pic­tures soon.

UPDATE 11:00AM- Today’s first sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Wash­ing­ton DC is begin­ning now out­side the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute!

UPDATE 11:10AM- 6 block­aders have been arrest­ed at the Tree Block­ade.

UPDATE 11:35AM- Pic­ture from the DC sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly. Over six­ty peo­ple turned out over their lunch hour to stand with the Texas block­ade and stop Key­stone XL.

 

UPDATE 12:50PM-We have now con­firmed that a 70-year-old woman par­tic­i­pat­ing in the block­ade was thrown to the ground and tack­led by TransCanada’s hired thugs. Video will be com­ing soon.

UPDATE 1:55PM – At least eight peo­ple have been arrest­ed after walk­ing onto the Key­stone XL clear cut in defi­ance of recent repres­sion. Two block­aders are still locked to huge exca­va­tor in the path of tox­ic pipeline.

UPDATE 3:20PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Den­ton, TX has begun!

UPDATE 3:45PM- In case you missed it, Tar Sands Block­ade was on Democ­ra­cy Now! this morn­ing. Our spokesper­son Ron Seifert was joined by landown­er Susan Scott and actress Daryl Han­nah to dis­cuss the block­ade, TransCanada’s bul­ly­ing and the SLAPP law­suit against 21 peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with stop­ping tar sands.

UPDATE 3:50 PM — Two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery have been arrest­ed. A crowd of sup­port­ers stood by and cheered for as they were tak­en into police cus­tody to the cheers. These two most recent arrests make eight total for the day.

UPDATE 4:00PM – Our first arrestee has been released with­out charges. He was arrest­ed ear­ly this morn­ing when he sat down in the Key­stone XL’s path­way and refused to move. His defi­ant action helped delay police offi­cers and allowed oth­er block­aders to breach the police line and enter the tree block­ade. After he was arrest­ed he was made to lie face-down in the mud for sev­er­al hours. He con­tin­ued to refuse com­pli­ance with the police and sit­ing health con­cerns had to even­tu­al­ly be removed on a stretch­er. He was lat­er released from the hos­pi­tal with­out charges.

UPDATE 4:15PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty pho­to in front of the Tran­sCana­da offices in West­bor­ough, Mass­a­chu­settes.

UPDATE 4:30PM ‑We’re get­ting sued!

As the Winns­boro, Texas tree block­ade enters its fourth week, over 50 block­aders pub­licly demon­strat­ed on the Key­stone XL ease­ment despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment.

Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree block­aders have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. Today’s defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that we will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it our civ­il lib­er­ties.

Appar­ent­ly we’ve been caus­ing some seri­ous delays of Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

UPDATE 6:00PM- Six of the eight arrest­ed today have been released from jail on charges of crim­i­nal tres­pass which is a class B mis­de­meanor. The bail was $1,500 each, a total of $9,000. The two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery will see a judge in the morn­ing.

UPDATE 8:00PM- Today was our biggest day of action yet! More video and sto­ries will be trick­ling out over the next cou­ple of days as we try and wrap our heads around every­thing that hap­pened today. In the mean­time we have a ton of bril­liant and beau­ti­ful pho­tos that begin to tell the sto­ry. Check them out.

UPDATE 6:00AM – Read the excel­lent cov­er­age about the block­ade in today’s Wash­ing­ton Post.

On Mon­day, after a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing, sup­port­ers of the Tar Sands Block­ade ral­lied in Winns­boro, Tex., where pro­test­ers were hold­ing a “sit-in” 70 feet off the ground in a swath of trees. The trees stand in the mid­dle of a cor­ri­dor already cleared for the pipeline. The tree-climb­ing pipeline foes unfurled a ban­ner that reads: “Rise Up and Defend Your Homes.”

“The only option afford­ed to pow­er­less indi­vid­u­als who have been abused by the sys­tem is this tac­tic of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence,” said Seifert, the Tar Sands Block­ade spokesman. “Every­thing has been done to peti­tion for jus­tice at every lev­el. And the insti­tu­tions failed. This is a clear case of injus­tice, and it’s up to peo­ple to rise up and defend them­selves.”  Read the full sto­ry here.

UPDATE Oct 16th, 7:00AM - Watch our intense action video!

For fur­ther updates vis­it http://tarsandsblockade.org

logging company targetted, USA

Octo­ber 17, 2012

anony­mous report:

“puyallup wet­lands are under attack by a pri­vate log­ging com­pa­ny that I and oth­ers have yet to iden­ti­fy. this attack was car­ried out on canyon rd. short-term dam­age was done to a hydraulic exca­va­tor, as a warn­ing. if they con­tin­ue — our attacks will increase.”

Octo­ber 17, 2012

anony­mous report:

“puyallup wet­lands are under attack by a pri­vate log­ging com­pa­ny that I and oth­ers have yet to iden­ti­fy. this attack was car­ried out on canyon rd. short-term dam­age was done to a hydraulic exca­va­tor, as a warn­ing. if they con­tin­ue — our attacks will increase.”

(Malaysia) Indigenous blockade expands against massive dam in Sarawak

Indige­nous peo­ple have expand­ed their block­ade against the Murum dam in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, tak­ing over an addi­tion­al road to pre­vent con­struc­tion mate­ri­als from reach­ing the dam site. Begin­ning on Sep­tem­ber 26th with 200 Penan peo­ple, the block­ade has boomed to well over 300. Groups now occu­py not just the main route to the dam site, but an alter­na­tive route that the dam’s con­trac­tor, the Chi­na-locat­ed Three Gorges Project Cor­po­ra­tion, had begun to use.

“The major works on the con­struc­tion of the dam have been par­a­lyzed over the last one week. The dri­vers have left home and let their cement tankers, lor­ry trucks and trail­ers with build­ing mate­ri­als had been hauled over and park at the road side near the block­ade site,” the Sarawak Con­ser­va­tion Alliance for Nat­ur­al Envi­ron­ment (SCANE) said in an update on the block­ade. “The access to the con­struc­tion site of Murum hydro­elec­tric dam project is total­ly blocked on all direc­tions with the set­ting-up of sec­ond road block­ade by the Penans.”

The Penan are protest­ing what they say has been dis­dain­ful treat­ment from the gov­ern­ment-owned cor­po­ra­tion over­see­ing the 900 megawatt dam project, Sarawak Ener­gy Berhad (SEB). The dams con­struc­tion, which will inun­date 24,500 hectares of native land, will lead to the invol­un­tary reset­tle­ment of sev­en indig­neous com­mu­ni­ties, who still remain in the dark about many of the details of the reset­tle­ment plan. In addi­tion, the tribe alleges that SEB has been inten­tion­al­ly destroy­ing impor­tant sacred and his­tor­i­cal sites.

“We will not remove the block­ade or move out of here until our demands are resolved and ful­filled by the gov­ern­ment,” Labang Paneh, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Long Wat vil­lage, said in a state­ment.

Fam­i­lies, includ­ing elder­ly and chil­dren, have set up makeshift camps near the block­ade and appear to be in it for the long haul.

A gov­ern­ment min­is­ter spent two days with the Penan inves­ti­gat­ing the block­ade and speak­ing with them about their griev­ances.

“I went in and I saw the sit­u­a­tion from the view of these Penans whose lives are being uproot­ed and whose future looks so uncer­tain,” Liwan Lagang, Sarawak Assis­tant Min­is­ter for Cul­ture and Her­itage, told The Star. “I found out that indeed, they had not been prop­er­ly con­sult­ed and their con­cerns not addressed by those han­dling the con­struc­tion of the project.”

For decades the Penan peo­ple have seen their cus­tom­ary forests felled for log­ging, plan­ta­tions, dams, roads, and oth­er big infra­struc­ture projects with the Sarawak gov­ern­ment refus­ing to rec­og­nize their land rights. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the Penan were nomadic hunter-and-gath­er­ers, but today most live in set­tled vil­lages, but still depend on the forests for their liveli­hood.

Assis­tant Min­is­ter Lagang added that “con­trac­tors involved in the dam project are mak­ing mil­lions of ring­git in the project. They must be con­sid­er­ate and exer­cise bet­ter social cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­i­ty and good pub­lic rela­tions with the local affect­ed natives.”

Sarawak already pro­duces far more ener­gy than the state uses lead­ing crit­ics to allege that numer­ous mas­sive dam projects are mere­ly means for cor­rupt offi­cials to siphon off state funds and col­lect bribes. The state recent­ly com­plet­ed the 2,400 megawatt Bakun Dam, which pro­duces dou­ble the ener­gy con­sumed by Sarawak dur­ing peak times. Bakun result­ed in the forced reset­tle­ment of 10,000 peo­ple.

 

 

(USA) Lummi and Allies Unite Against Coal Exports

Lum­mi trib­al lead­ers burned a mock cheque from coal com­pa­nies dur­ing a protest at Cher­ry Point, Wa., Oct 2012 (Pho­to by: Alan Bern­er / The Seat­tle Times)

Lum­mi trib­al lead­ers burned a mock cheque from coal com­pa­nies dur­ing a protest at Cher­ry Point, Wa., Oct 2012 (Pho­to by: Alan Bern­er / The Seat­tle Times)

LUMMI INDIAN RESERVATION, BELLINGHAM, Wash.—A fleet of boats pilot­ed by Native and non-Native fish­ers gath­ered today in the waters off Xwe’chi’eXen (Cher­ry Point, Wash.) to stand with the Lum­mi Nation in oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed Gate­way Pacif­ic coal ter­mi­nal at Xwe’chi’eXen.

“We have to say ‘no’ to the coal ter­mi­nal project,” said Cliff Cul­tee, Chair­man of the Lum­mi Nation. “It is our Xw’ xalh Xech­ng­ing (sacred duty) to pre­serve and pro­tect all of Xwe’chi’eXen.”

A cer­e­mo­ny of thank­ful­ness, remem­brance and uni­ty was held on the beach dur­ing the event. Lum­mi Indi­ans main­tain the largest Native fish­ing fleet in the Unit­ed States, and Lum­mi fish­ers have worked in the Cher­ry Point fish­ery for thou­sands of years.

If con­struct­ed, the ter­mi­nal would be the largest coal ter­mi­nal on the West Coast of North Amer­i­ca. It would sig­nif­i­cant­ly degrade an already frag­ile and vul­ner­a­ble crab, her­ring and salmon fish­ery, deal­ing a dev­as­tat­ing blow to the econ­o­my of the fish­er com­mu­ni­ty.

“This is not about jobs ver­sus the envi­ron­ment,” said Jew­ell James of the Lum­mi Nation’s Sov­er­eign­ty and Treaty Pro­tec­tion Office. “It is about what type of jobs are best for the peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.”

Anoth­er gath­er­ing of Lum­mi Indi­ans and non-Indi­an res­i­dents from the local and region­al com­mu­ni­ty was held at Xwe’chi’eXen on Sept. 21 to call for the pro­tec­tion and preser­va­tion of Xwe’chi’eXen, which is the loca­tion of a 3,500 year old vil­lage site, and a land­scape that is eli­gi­ble for reg­istry on the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places.

A Lum­mi Nation Busi­ness Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion declared Lum­mi “will con­tin­ue to safe­guard our ances­tral and his­tor­i­cal areas” and the abil­i­ty of its mem­bers to “exer­cise treaty, inher­ent and inher­it­ed rights.”

The Lum­mi Nation is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a broad inter­trib­al coali­tion to defeat the project and to ensure that the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al lega­cy of Xwe’chi’eXen is pro­tect­ed in per­pe­tu­ity.

This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly appeared on Ter­ri Hansen’s web­site, Moth­er Earth Jour­nal

(Brazil) Indigenous Dam Resisters Launch New Belo Monte Occupation

Con­struc­tion on Brazil’s megadam, Belo Monte, has been halt­ed again as around 150 demon­stra­tors, most of them from near­by indige­nous tribes, have occu­pied the main con­struc­tion site at Pimen­tal. Over a hun­dred indige­nous peo­ple joined local fish­er­men who had been protest­ing the dam for 24 days straight. Indige­nous peo­ple and local fish­er­men say the dam will dev­as­tate the Xin­gu Riv­er, upend­ing their way of life.

“The renewed occu­pa­tion of the project’s earth­en cof­fer­dams par­a­lyzed con­struc­tion works, while indige­nous pro­tes­tors seized the keys of trucks and trac­tors forc­ing work­ers to leave the strate­gic Pimen­tal work camp on foot,” reads a press release from the NGO Ama­zon Watch. Around 900 work­ers were sent home.

This is the sec­ond occu­pa­tion attempt in less than six months. Over the sum­mer some 300 indige­nous peo­ple sus­tained an occu­pa­tion of the dam for 21 days, before break­ing it off though lit­tle head­way was made in talks with con­sor­tium build­ing the dam, Norte Ener­gia.

The Belo Monte dam, which would be the world’s third largest, has been plagued by con­tro­ver­sy from its ori­gin decades ago; the bat­tle for the dam has been fought both in Brazil’s courts and on the inter­na­tion­al stage. If built, the dam will flood an esti­mat­ed 40,000 hectares of present rain­for­est and could push some fish species to extinc­tion. In addi­tion, 16,000 peo­ple will be dis­placed accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, though some NGOs say the num­ber is more like­ly dou­ble that.

Despite the impacts, the dam has been strong­ly sup­port­ed by Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff, and every legal injunc­tion against the dam has been over­turned. Norte Ener­gia has filed with a local court for repos­ses­sion of the con­struc­tion sties.

Indige­nous groups say the con­struc­tion of the dam is already imper­il­ing their way of life, as the Xin­gu riv­er becomes more dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate. They have also said they have no inten­tion of leav­ing until Norte Ener­gia meets their demands.

“We are wit­ness­ing the dev­as­ta­tion of this land. The island of Pimen­tal was com­plete­ly destroyed, with a sole tree left stand­ing, and the water is putrid. It is very shock­ing,” an pro­tes­tor told Ama­zon Watch.

Dams are often described as ‘green’ ener­gy source, how­ev­er in the trop­ics they actu­al­ly release sig­nif­i­cant methane emis­sions due to rot­ting veg­e­ta­tion. Although it has a short­er life than car­bon, methane is a far more potent green­house gas.

(USA) Updates from Ongoing Tar Sands Blockade

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

  • The tar sands block­ade has suc­cess­ful­ly delayed con­struc­tion of the pipeline for two days by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion machin­ery and shut­ting down the con­struc­tion sites. There have been two suc­cess­ful block­ades at con­struc­tion sites in Liv­ingston and Saltil­lo, Texas.
  • Tran­scana­da sur­vey­ors were also pre­vent­ed from prepar­ing for con­struc­tion when landown­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers turned them away north of Winns­boro at an ongo­ing vig­il to pro­tect a local vine­yard which will be destroyed if con­struc­tion begins.
  • Two jour­nal­ists work­ing for the New York Times were hand­cuffed, detained and then turned away from pri­vate prop­er­ty by local law enforce­ment employed as pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards for Tran­sCana­da.
  • Nev­er­the­less, the New York Times still ran a front-page arti­cle about the Tar Sands Block­ade, includ­ing the first tree block­ade in Texas his­to­ry.
  • On August 19th the Tran­scana­da cor­po­ra­tion offi­cial­ly began con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline which will car­ry poi­so­nous tar sands from Alber­ta Cana­da to the Gulf of Mex­i­co despite over­whelm­ing oppo­si­tion from landown­ers and con­cerned res­i­dents, but a broad coali­tion called the Tar Sands Block­ade is orga­niz­ing to stop it.

 

 

(Ukraine) Excavator torched

report­ed by activists in Ukraine:

report­ed by activists in Ukraine:

“Ukraine, Kiev. In the night of 02/10/2012 anony­mous activists attacked a clearcut site on the ‘Bald Moun­tain’. A LIEBHERR exca­va­tor fell vic­tim to their arson. Clearcut coor­di­nates: http://wikimapia.org/#lat=50.3891043&lon=30.5495088&z=16&l=0&m=b
We take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to report about a sim­i­lar action at the same loca­tion on the 20/03/2012 (http://nature-first.info/2012/03/20/forest-svyatoshyno/).”

—

report­ed on http://vk.com/anarcho.ecoline:

“Tree spik­ing in Ternopol munic­i­pal park. Ukraine.

This act of eco­tage is in response to devel­op­ment plans of a local con­struc­tion com­pa­ny: it intends to destroy a pub­lic park to make room for pri­vate liv­ing blocks.

We spiked trees with huge nails, so the devel­op­er will have to bring in heavy equip­ment in order to destroy those trees. But con­struc­tion vehi­cles can be tak­en care of as well!”