Category: Global

Glob­al

Three more megaload protesters arrested in Cd’A in USA

28.8.11

Three more pro­test­ers were arrest­ed ear­ly Sat­ur­day in Coeur d’Alene as a mega­load ship­ment of oil exca­va­tion equip­ment passed through the Lake City.

Law enforce­ment offi­cers con­firmed that the arrests were made by Ida­ho State Police, but the names were not released.

28.8.11

Three more pro­test­ers were arrest­ed ear­ly Sat­ur­day in Coeur d’Alene as a mega­load ship­ment of oil exca­va­tion equip­ment passed through the Lake City.

Law enforce­ment offi­cers con­firmed that the arrests were made by Ida­ho State Police, but the names were not released.

One woman tak­en into cus­tody had refused to iden­ti­fy her­self, offi­cials said.

The Coeur d’Alene arrests bring to nine the num­ber of per­sons tak­en into cus­tody in North Ida­ho since the 208-foot-long mega­load left the Port of Lewis­ton on Wednes­day night.

Its per­mit allowed night­time trav­el, accord­ing to the Ida­ho Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment.

Six pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed in Moscow ear­ly Fri­day morn­ing, accord­ing to the Moscow-Pull­man Dai­ly News, which cit­ed court records.

Tier­ra Lin­da, a spokes­woman for the pro­tes­tors, said that con­cerned res­i­dents from North Ida­ho and East­ern Wash­ing­ton con­verged on U.S. High­way 95 when the mega­load ship­ment arrived about 12:30 a.m.

Accord­ing to Ida­ho Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment, the load was sched­uled to leave the Latah/Benewah coun­ty line at 10 p.m. on Fri­day and trav­el through Coeur d’Alene, stop­ping by 5:30 a.m. at a pull­out on Inter­state 90 at mile­post 33.

The load is 413,000 pounds and mea­sures 24 feet in width and 14 feet in height. It was to trav­el at 35 mph. The plan called for allow­ing vehi­cles to pass at more than two dozen loca­tions on the route through North Ida­ho.

Lin­da described the protest as a “non­vi­o­lent pub­lic wit­ness to chal­lenge the ship­ment of Exxon­Mo­bil tar sands strip min­ing equip­ment to Canada’s threat­ened Athabas­ca Riv­er Val­ley.”

She said the peo­ple arrest­ed in Coeur d’Alene were legal­ly fol­low­ing the Exxon­Mo­bil con­voy to mon­i­tor any safe­ty vio­la­tions and did not obstruct the equip­ment.

She described them as observers who were exer­cis­ing their right to dis­sent.

Lin­da said that despite the arrests, the pro­tes­tors planned to con­tin­ue mon­i­tor­ing the mega­loads.

Envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns stem from the destruc­tive nature of strip min­ing and the use of ener­gy to extract oil from the tar sands.

She said it would cre­ate an “Appalachi­an moon­scape over cen­tral Canada’s bore­al forests and riv­er val­leys.

Lin­da, in a news release, quot­ed a NASA sci­en­tist as say­ing the tar sands min­ing could be a tip­ping point for glob­al cli­mate change.

In Latah Coun­ty, court records iden­ti­fied the pro­tes­tors arrest­ed in Moscow as Vin­cent Mur­ray, 61; Brett Haver­stick, 38; Mitchell Day, 40; David Willard, 52; Gre­go­ry Freis­tadt, 26; and William French, 55.

They were all charged with mis­de­meanor unlaw­ful assem­bly, dis­turb­ing the peace and refusal to dis­perse.

French was also cit­ed by the Latah Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office for mali­cious injury to prop­er­ty for alleged­ly break­ing out the side win­dow of the jail van, said Latah Coun­ty Pros­e­cu­tor Bill Thomp­son.

Resistance to fossil fuel infrastructure continues in Western Australia

27.8.11

27.8.11

Wood­side tried to bring heavy machin­ery to the site of their liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) hub at James Price Point in the ear­ly hours of Fri­day morn­ing, August 25. About 50 pro­test­ers blocked the con­voy of equip­ment under police escort head­ing to the mas­sive fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture project in the Kim­ber­ley wilder­ness on the north­ern coast of West­ern Aus­tralia. A 57-year-old woman was arrest­ed after she locked her­self to a low-loader trail­er. Oth­er pro­test­ers clashed with police. The con­voy of about 30 trucks was also blocked by two peo­ple lock­ing them­selves to heavy machin­ery and a con­crete bar­rel.

Over 30 peo­ple have been arrest­ed this sum­mer in sim­i­lar block­ades against the project.

source

Idaho Residents Arrested Blocking Tar Sands Megaloads Bound for Alberta

26.8.11

They spill, they drill and we fight back with the only cur­ren­cy we have—our bod­ies, our minds and a fight­ing spir­it.

26.8.11

They spill, they drill and we fight back with the only cur­ren­cy we have—our bod­ies, our minds and a fight­ing spir­it.

Hun­dreds have been arrest­ed sit­ting in at the White House this week and Alberta’s Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties have been fight­ing Big Oil’s devel­op­ment of tar sands for quite some time , but today res­i­dents in Moscow Ida­ho crossed a line of their own.

Last night in the wee hours of the morn­ing, as the first mega­loads were begin­ning to roll, four men and women with Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide sat down in front of the mas­sive vehi­cles to stop their pas­sage through the high­ways and byways of the North­ern Rock­ies to Alber­ta.

Moscow res­i­dent Brett Haver­stick said- “Big Oil intends to clear-cut and strip mine a place the size of Flori­da, and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly destroys native com­mu­ni­ties and entire water­sheds. I feel oblig­at­ed to speak up and say this is wrong.”

This morning’s action is part of a larg­er cam­paign being waged in Ida­ho and Mon­tana by com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­men­tal­ists to stop the pas­sage of tar sands heavy haul trucks through their region.

Activists Arrest­ed For Block­ing Tar Sands “Mega­load” on US 95

Cit­i­zens Stand In Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Cana­di­an First Nations & Oth­ers In Oppo­si­tion to Extrac­tion of the Alber­ta Tar Sands and the Build­ing of the Key­stone XL Pipeline

Moscow, ID- Ear­ly Fri­day morn­ing, a group of Moscow res­i­dents were arrest­ed for sit­ting in the road and block­ing US 95 to protest an Exxon/Imperial Oil “mega­load” ship­ment des­tined for the Alber­ta Tar Sands. In an act of non-vio­lent, civ­il-dis­obe­di­ence, men and women sat down in the cross­walk of the high­way when the four-hun­dred-thou­sand pound, two-hun­dred foot long, twen­ty-four foot wide, and four­teen-foot tall oil-pro­cess­ing mod­ule entered the down­town area. In a show­ing of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the First Nations peo­ple of Cana­da, and the hun­dreds of peo­ple get­ting arrest­ed in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., the indi­vid­u­als are call­ing for the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion to deny per­mits for con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL Pipeline, which would stretch from Alber­ta, Cana­da to the Gulf of Mex­i­co.

“Not only are peo­ple call­ing the Alber­ta Tar Sands the most unsus­tain­able and destruc­tive project on the plan­et, but also an act of geno­cide against the peo­ple that live in the region, par­tic­u­lar­ly those down-stream of the tail­ing ponds,” said Moscow res­i­dent Brett Haver­stick. “Big Oil intends to clear-cut and strip mine a place the size of Flori­da, and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly destroys native com­mu­ni­ties and entire water­sheds. I feel oblig­at­ed to speak up and say this is wrong.”

With the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion get­ting ready to make a deci­sion on the Key­stone XL Pipeline lat­er this year, the indi­vid­u­als said they have been inspired by the hun­dreds of peo­ple get­ting arrest­ed in Wash­ing­ton D.C. this past week in protest of the Key­stone XL Pipeline.

“Pres­i­dent Oba­ma must deny per­mits for the Key­stone XL Pipeline. Go ask the peo­ple of Mon­tana or the peo­ple of Michi­gan if they want more oil pipelines built across their lands and water­ways, said Moscow res­i­dent Greg Freis­tadt. “Peo­ple are trav­el­ing from Nebras­ka all the way to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. and get­ting arrest­ed this week because the pipeline threat­ens their drink­ing water and liveli­hoods. It’s time for com­mu­ni­ties to come togeth­er and oppose this.”

The pos­si­ble con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL Pipeline isn’t the only oil pipeline that con­cerns the activists. The North­ern Gate­way Pipeline is sched­uled to be built west from Alber­ta, Cana­da to the Pacif­ic Ocean so that crude oil can be shipped to Chi­na and India.

“The First Nations peo­ple unan­i­mous­ly oppose this pipeline across their lands,” said Moscow res­i­dent Vince Mur­ray. “In addi­tion, super­tankers ply­ing the pris­tine coast­line of north­ern British Colum­bia would endan­ger one of the last unspoiled ocean ecosys­tems in the world.”

The indi­vid­u­als have also been extreme­ly dis­ap­point­ed with their city and state elect­ed offi­cials.

“Mega­loads are ter­ror­iz­ing our high­ways in the North­ern Rock­ies, pipelines are spilling oil into some of our most pre­cious rivers, and our gov­er­nors and Con­gres­sion­al lead­ers will not come to our defense, said Moscow res­i­dent Diana Arm­strong. If lead­ers won’t lead, then it’s up to us to step for­ward.”

More bomb attacks against nanotechnology in Mexico

17.8.11

17.8.11

The same group who took cred­it for anti-tech­nol­o­gy bomb­ing in April, which news sources in Mex­i­co report­ed explod­ing at Uni­ver­si­dad Politéc­ni­ca in Valle de Mex­i­co, has claimed more attacks.

Accord­ing to Time Mag­a­zine, “An anti-tech­nol­o­gy group… was respon­si­ble for a pack­age bomb that injured two uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sors just out­side Mex­i­co City, a state pros­e­cu­tor said Tues­day [August 9, 2011]. Mexico’s Attor­ney General’s Office announced that a sus­pi­cious enve­lope pre­sumbly con­tain­ing explo­sives was found at Mexico’s Nation­al Poly­tech­ni­cal Insti­tute on Tues­day, though it didn’t det­o­nate. The office has opened inves­ti­ga­tions into both inci­dents.”

The Time arti­cle claims the groups is call­ing itself ‘Indi­vid­u­als Tend­ing to Sav­agery’, although a translator’s note on the anar­chist blog War On Soci­ety, which post­ed a trans­la­tion of the com­mu­nique, uses the name ‘Indi­vid­u­al­ists Tend­ing Towards the Wild’ and explains: “The group’s name, Indi­vid­u­al­i­dades ten­di­en­do a lo Sal­va­je [ITS]… more lit­er­al­ly means ‘indi­vid­u­al­i­ties,’ and sal­va­je more lit­er­al­ly means ‘sav­age’… hav­ing more of the con­no­ta­tions of bar­barous undo­mes­ti­cat­ed wild­ness than pure pris­tine wilder­ness, and with­out as much racist con­no­ta­tion as the Eng­lish ‘sav­age’ has.”

As with the April com­mu­nique, ITS is again a bit wordy, with plen­ty of foot­notes, ala Ted Kaczyn­s­ki. Here are some excerpts: “But what’s wrong with cre­at­ing solar ener­gy through mod­i­fied nanopar­ti­cles? some will say. ITS answer: When these mod­i­fied virus­es affect the way we devel­op as the result of a nanobac­te­ri­o­log­i­cal war, by some lab­o­ra­to­ry error, or by the explo­sion of nanocon­t­a­m­i­na­tion that com­pro­mis­es the air, food, trans­porta­tion, water, in short, the entire world, then they will real­ize, all those who defend nan­otech­nol­o­gy and can­not find an appar­ent threat, that it was a grave mis­take to leave it to grow at their leisure.”

“Among the projects at the men­tioned uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus are the Cen­ter for Busi­ness Devel­op­ment and Trans­fer­ence of Tech­nol­o­gy, CEDETEC, which is part of a futur­is­tic phi­los­o­phy called Mis­sion 2015, which is com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing research and tech­nol­o­gy rel­e­vant to nanobioin­dus­tri­al progress for the coun­try in dif­fer­ent areas… CEDETEC is a place where the efforts of com­pa­nies, the State, and the uni­ver­si­ty merge, and which aims to pro­mote job cre­ation, attrac­tion of cap­i­tal, and growth of tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and to increase val­ue for the acad­e­my.”

“…It is log­i­cal we will con­tin­ue with these acts, and oth­er sci­en­tists and the rest of tech­noswillol­o­gy [the orig­i­nal ‘tec­nobazofia’ more seam­less­ly com­bines two words mean­ing ‘tech­nol­o­gy’ and ‘pigswill’ or ‘hog­wash’ — transl.] must pay the con­se­quences of their actions…”

China orders petrochemical plant shutdown after protests

14.8.11

Chi­nese author­i­ties have ordered a petro­chem­i­cal plant to shut down imme­di­ate­ly after tens of thou­sands of pro­test­ers marched through the streets of a near­by city, demand­ing the fac­to­ry be relo­cat­ed.

14.8.11

Chi­nese author­i­ties have ordered a petro­chem­i­cal plant to shut down imme­di­ate­ly after tens of thou­sands of pro­test­ers marched through the streets of a near­by city, demand­ing the fac­to­ry be relo­cat­ed.

The demon­stra­tion in Dalian – one of the biggest in a series of recent Nim­by ral­lies against poten­tial pol­luters in Chi­na – was sparked by the news last week that a pro­tec­tive dike around the Fujia fac­to­ry, in the Jinzhou indus­tri­al com­plex, had been breached by rain and high waves as typhoon Muifa approached.

In a rare con­ces­sion the local Com­mu­nist par­ty chief, Tang Jun, and Dalian’s may­or, Li Wan­cai, promised to move the project out of the city, Xin­hua report­ed.

The pro­test­ers demand­ed a clear timetable for mov­ing the plant, with some refus­ing to leave until a plan was in place, the state-run news agency said.  Read more here

China protest closes toxic chemical plant in Dalian

14 August 2011
Author­i­ties in the north-east­ern Chi­nese city of Dalian have ordered the clo­sure of a chem­i­cal plant after a mass protest over pol­lu­tion.

Scuf­fles had bro­ken out on Sun­day between police and thou­sands of pro­test­ers call­ing for it to be moved.

14 August 2011
Author­i­ties in the north-east­ern Chi­nese city of Dalian have ordered the clo­sure of a chem­i­cal plant after a mass protest over pol­lu­tion.

Scuf­fles had bro­ken out on Sun­day between police and thou­sands of pro­test­ers call­ing for it to be moved.

Offi­cials ordered the plan­t’s clo­sure “imme­di­ate­ly” and pledged to relo­cate it, state news agency Xin­hua said.

Last week a storm broke the dyke around the plant, spark­ing fears the paraxy­lene (PX) it makes could spill.

PX is used in fab­ric man­u­fac­ture and can be high­ly tox­ic.

About 12,000 res­i­dents took part in the protest, some of them mov­ing across the city chant­i­ng slo­gans and wav­ing ban­ners.

Xin­hua said the city’s top offi­cial, Tang Jun, had tried to calm the crowd on Sun­day but the pro­test­ers showed no sign of dis­pers­ing.

There were no reports of injuries in the scuf­fles dur­ing which riot police were deployed to shield the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment office.

Calls for pro­test­ers to gath­er on Sun­day for a “group stroll”, as the ral­ly was termed, had report­ed­ly been cir­cu­lat­ing on social net­works.

“Group strolls” have become a favoured tac­tic for Chi­nese peo­ple to show dis­con­tent with the gov­ern­ment.
‘PX out!’

Pho­tographs post­ed on the inter­net on Sun­day showed pro­test­ers, includ­ing chil­dren, march­ing under such ban­ners as “I love Dalian and reject poi­son” and “Give me back my home and gar­den! PX out! Pro­tect Dalian!”.

One pic­ture showed three men stand­ing on top of a police van in front of Peo­ple’s Square and a per­son in a skele­ton cos­tume sur­round­ed by hun­dreds of men and police­men, Reuters news agency reports.

On Mon­day, res­i­dents liv­ing near the PX plant had to be evac­u­at­ed after storm waves breached a dyke pro­tect­ing it.

The dyke was repaired but con­cern rose among local peo­ple, and reports sug­gest­ed the plant may have been oper­at­ing ille­gal­ly months before it received manda­to­ry envi­ron­men­tal approval.

PX is used to make plas­tics, poly­ester and clean­ing prod­ucts, and can dam­age vital organs after long-term expo­sure.

A Dalian res­i­dent, who declined to be named, told Reuters news agency: “We know that the typhoon caused some leak of poi­so­nous chem­i­cals from the PX project and we are all wor­ry­ing about it because it is a threat to our life.”

Local peo­ple hoped their protest would “push the gov­ern­ment to do some­thing as soon as pos­si­ble to dis­pel” the con­cern, the res­i­dent added.

Wei­bo, Chi­na’s ver­sion of Twit­ter, was being cen­sored by the author­i­ties to block search­es for the terms “PX”, “Dalian” and “Dalian protests”.

New canopy occupation in the Willamette National Forest

8 Aug 11

An action-filled sum­mer con­tin­ues as a new call out for sup­port comes from the Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers: “…Look­ing for expe­ri­enced tree sit­ters to occu­py a sit we have put up in the North Deere tim­ber sale in the Willamette Nation­al For­est.

8 Aug 11

An action-filled sum­mer con­tin­ues as a new call out for sup­port comes from the Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers: “…Look­ing for expe­ri­enced tree sit­ters to occu­py a sit we have put up in the North Deere tim­ber sale in the Willamette Nation­al For­est.

“It is an old growth sale that is about to be logged and we need help defend­ing it!  Get your­self to Eugene and we will help you out with the rest (aka a place to stay, a ride to the for­est, etc).  Reply to forestdefensenow@gmail.com if you can come now… Come be part of the move­ment to stop saws and change minds!”

Learn more about the Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers here

Protesters urge federal minister to stop Australian gas hub; 29 Arrested

7.8.11

7.8.11

The Fed­er­al Min­is­ter for Envi­ron­ment arrived in the Kim­ber­ley the morn­ing of August 2nd as three arrests were made at the pro­posed James Price Point nat­ur­al gas hub site. The mas­sive new project is being forced on the com­mu­ni­ty by the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment on behalf of Big Oil includ­ing Wood­side Petro­le­um, Chevron, Shell, and BP.

There have now been 29 arrests in protest to the pro­pos­al which would sig­ni­fy the begin­ning of the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of the Kim­ber­ley. Two weeks ago, 5,000 peo­ple attend­ed a protest at Cable Beach against the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of the Kim­ber­ley and the threat of turn­ing Broome into a min­ing town.

Envi­rons Kim­ber­ley Direc­tor Mar­tin Pritchard said: “An extreme­ly dam­ag­ing 30 year ‘for­est war’ is com­ing to an end in Tas­ma­nia and the Prime Min­is­ter and Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Tony Burke have seen first­hand how dam­ag­ing this has been envi­ron­men­tal­ly, social­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly. What we are see­ing here now is the begin­ning of the fight against large scale indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of the Kim­ber­ley.”

 

“Min­is­ter Burke has to decide on what his lega­cy will be for this spec­tac­u­lar part of the world–industrialisation or the pro­tec­tion of the out­stand­ing inter­na­tion­al wilder­ness val­ues of the Kim­ber­ley… Wilder­ness areas across the plan­et are being destroyed and we are lucky here in Aus­tralia that we can make a choice to pro­tect the Kim­ber­ley. We are call­ing on the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to step in and save this place.”

 

For more infor­ma­tion:

Links to more news from Kim­ber­ley:

Arrests at gas hub site

Three women have been arrest­ed and charged with obstruct­ing police dur­ing a protest near a pro­posed $30 bil­lion gas hub site in the Kim­ber­ley.

Protesters urge federal minister to stop gas hub

Fed­er­al Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Tony Burke arrived in Broome this morn­ing to a rap­tur­ous recep­tion from anti-gas pro­tes­tors, who have pinned their hopes on him refus­ing to grant envi­ron­men­tal approval to the State Government’s pro­posed pro­cess­ing precinct at James Price Point.

26 Arrested in Blockades Outside of DeChristopher Trial

26 July 2011

26 July 2011

Today, Tim DeChristo­pher was sen­tenced to 2 years in prison and tak­en away from the cour­t­house with­out good­byes or the option to self-report. In court, Tim said “You can put me in prison but it will not deter my future of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and it won’t deter oth­ers who are will­ing to fight to defend a liv­able future.”

Blockading the courthouse entrance following Tim's sentencingOut­side the Cour­t­house, hun­dreds of sup­port­ers had gath­ered from the Salt Lake City com­mu­ni­ty, singing, chant­i­ng, and speak­ing out as they bore wit­ness to the sen­tenc­ing. Imme­di­ate­ly after the bang of the gav­el Ashe­ly Ander­son and Ash­ley Sanders were hauled out of the court­room for loud­ly ral­ly­ing peo­ple inside say­ing, “this court has proven itself inca­pable of jus­tice. So the peo­ple will take it back – it is now our court!” fore­shad­ow­ing the civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to come out­side. As Henia Belalia left the Cour­t­house, she made an offi­cial state­ment declar­ing, “If there was ever a day in his­to­ry to take action, this is it.” And peo­ple took action. Peace­ful Upris­ing activists did a sit-in to block­ade the 2 front entrances of the Fed­er­al Cour­t­house, to tell the world “its ours” and empha­size that if Tim was going to jail, they were too, giv­ing mean­ing to the slo­gan “we are all Bid­der 70.” Tak­ing their lead, mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty began to join the block­ade to show their love and out­rage. 26 peo­ple were arrest­ed.

A moth­er who joined the block­ade was with her three chil­dren dur­ing the time of arrest, and said in tears “I need you to see this, its for your future.” Those par­tic­i­pat­ing in the sit-in chose to empha­size their point that busi­ness as usu­al is unac­cept­able by mov­ing to block­ade a major inter­sec­tion in front of the cour­t­house dur­ing rush hour. As sup­port­ers con­tin­ued to sing and sup­port those who locked down, Tim DeChristo­pher was quick­ly rushed out the side door in chains and loaded into a police van. We can only hope he felt our sup­port, and that that sup­port is car­ried to all peo­ple of con­science who do what is right for peo­ple and the plan­et.

Today a true crime was com­mit­ted in every fed­er­al cour­t­house in the Unit­ed States. Why is Tim now in prison for pro­tect­ing our future, while cor­po­rate CEOs walk free with mil­lions of dol­lars for destroy­ing it? We rec­og­nized today that our jus­tice sys­tem has failed us. It, like our econ­o­my and oth­er branch­es of gov­ern­ment, are con­trolled by the fos­sil fuel indus­try. And today we affirm that we stand with mil­lions active­ly tak­ing it back. Please see our offi­cial response to the sen­tenc­ing for action oppor­tu­ni­ties and links to all of the remark­able actions that are being tak­en around the coun­try.

Act! The move­ment is with you.

Tasmania’s forests defense groups ramp up protest action

25 July
Tas­man­ian Still Wild Still Threat­ened activists scaled Par­lia­ment House in Can­ber­ra yes­ter­day in protest at Sunday’s Heads of Agree­ment sign­ing and have pledged to con­tin­ue action.

25 July
Tas­man­ian Still Wild Still Threat­ened activists scaled Par­lia­ment House in Can­ber­ra yes­ter­day in protest at Sunday’s Heads of Agree­ment sign­ing and have pledged to con­tin­ue action.

Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre also vowed to con­tin­ue non-vio­lent actions yes­ter­day, includ­ing ille­gal­ly board­ing wood­chip ships, chain­ing pro­test­ers to forestry equip­ment, block­ing roads with tripods, and com­mu­ni­ty walk-ins.

Envi­ron­ment cen­tre spokes­woman Jen­ny Weber said the agree­ment failed to offer imme­di­ate pro­tec­tion to high con­ser­va­tion areas because ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the final 430,000ha would take months. Ms Weber said it also fell well short of pro­tect­ing the ini­tial 572,000ha that con­ser­va­tion groups iden­ti­fied as high-con­ser­va­tion-val­ue forests.

“We will be main­tain­ing our vig­i­lance and will con­tin­ue to engage in non-vio­lent action until the forests are pro­tect­ed as promised,” she said.