Category: Global

Glob­al

Brazil: Kayapo blockade heads into second month

May 23, 2010

It’s been exact­ly one month to the day since a group of Kayapo set up a fer­ry block­ade across the Xin­gu Riv­er in an ongo­ing protest against the con­tro­ver­sial Belo Monte hydro dam.

Kayapo blockadeMay 23, 2010

It’s been exact­ly one month to the day since a group of Kayapo set up a fer­ry block­ade across the Xin­gu Riv­er in an ongo­ing protest against the con­tro­ver­sial Belo Monte hydro dam.

The Kayapo were dis­patched to the site on April 22, the same day Brazil’s gov­ern­ment grant­ed out rights to build the dam

Sad­ly, the effort has received lit­tle media cov­er­age since then, even with a con­stant ref­er­ence to celebri­ty activists Sting and James Cameron.

Nev­er­the­less, as the front line effort heads into its sec­ond month, the Kayapo warn that they have no inten­tion of back­ing down unless the gov­ern­ment can­cels the project.

The Kayapo Continue Blockades in Protest of the Belo Monte Dam

by Inter­na­tion­al Rivers and Ama­zon Watch

For Imme­di­ate Release
May 21, 2010

The Kayapo Continue Blockades of Amazon Highway for the 28th Straight Day in Protest of the Belo Monte Dam
Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples Vow to Block Dam Construction or “Die Fighting for our Rights”

Piaraçu, Xin­gu Nation­al Park, Brazil — A group of Kayapo indige­nous peo­ple led by Chief Megaron Txukar­ramãe have been blockad­ing the Xin­gu Riv­er cross­ing of the BR-80 — a major Ama­zon high­way in Mato Grosso State — since April 23 in protest of the gov­ern­men­t’s plans to build the mas­sive Belo Monte Dam. Dozens of Kayapo war­riors have been block­ing the fer­ry cross­ing over the Xin­gu Riv­er for four weeks and are deter­mined to remain there. Their actions have dis­rupt­ed a major trans­porta­tion artery for com­mer­cial goods in the region.

In a state­ment issued from the block­ade, Chief Megaron referred to Pres­i­dent Lula as “ene­my num­ber one” to Brazil’s indige­nous peo­ples, and vowed to main­tain the block­ade until Belo Monte is can­celed or “die fight­ing for our rights.”

Chief Megaron has been joined in these protests by Kayapo Chief Raoni Metuk­tire, an emblem­at­ic leader for over 20 years of indige­nous resis­tance to the Brazil­ian gov­ern­men­t’s plans to dam the Xin­gu Riv­er. In a May 1st inter­view with the French chan­nel TF1, Chief Raoni said “I have asked my war­riors to pre­pare for war and I have spo­ken of this with oth­er tribes from the Upper Xin­gu. We will not let them [build this dam].”

Lead­ers of the Arara, Xipa­ia and Juruna indige­nous peo­ples of the Low­er Xin­gu echo the vocif­er­ous oppo­si­tion of the Kayapo to the Belo Monte Dam, and have also vowed to lay down their lives to stop the project, which would destroy their com­mu­ni­ties and liveli­hoods. “We are firm in this strug­gle, and con­tin­ue more strong and deter­mined than ever to stop Belo Monte,” said the leader Shey­la Juruna. Attempts to stop the Belo Monte Dam became known around the world last month when film­mak­er James Cameron and mem­bers of the cast of Avatar joined protests in Brasil­ia and vis­it­ed vil­lages on the Xin­gu Riv­er and its trib­u­taries to hear about the plight of the region’s indige­nous peo­ple.

Slat­ed to be the 3rd largest hydro­elec­tric project in the world, Belo Monte would divert over 80 per­cent of the Xin­gu River’s flow through arti­fi­cial canals, flood­ing over 500 sq km of rain­for­est while dry­ing out a 100 km stretch of the riv­er known as the “Big Bend,” which is home to hun­dreds of indige­nous and river­ine fam­i­lies. Though sold to the pub­lic as “clean ener­gy,” Belo Monte would gen­er­ate an enor­mous amount of methane, a green­house gas 20 times more potent than car­bon diox­ide.

Despite legal injunc­tions against the pro­jec­t’s auc­tion, the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment announced that the auc­tion’s win­ning con­sor­tium, “Norte Ener­gia,” would pro­ceed with plans to dam the Xin­gu Riv­er. Pres­i­dent Lula’s insis­tence that the project move for­ward at all costs — in spite of seri­ous social, envi­ron­men­tal and finan­cial con­cerns, as well as a mas­sive local and inter­na­tion­al out­cry — con­tin­ues to be met with fierce denounce­ments from indige­nous peo­ple of the Xin­gu Basin.

“The destruc­tion that would be caused by the mas­sive Belo Monte Dam in the glob­al­ly essen­tial Ama­zon Basin would have world­wide ram­i­fi­ca­tions that can’t yet be ful­ly com­pre­hend­ed. Indige­nous peo­ple are deter­mined to dis­rupt the ‘busi­ness as usu­al’ mod­el of destruc­tive devel­op­ment projects that ruin the envi­ron­ment and their tra­di­tion­al ways of life,” said Atossa Soltani of Ama­zon Watch. “Indige­nous groups from the Xin­gu Basin have sent the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment a clear and resound­ing mes­sage that they will not allow the Belo Monte Dam to move for­ward. A Brazil­ian and inter­na­tion­al coali­tion of orga­ni­za­tions and social move­ments stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with these groups, and is mobi­liz­ing fur­ther social and legal actions.”

The new Action Update — full of of action news and analysis

In the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Newcastle flotilla blockadeIn the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Be inspired by our protest camp fea­ture and the recent Tit­nore vic­to­ry. And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against whal­ing ship sab­o­tage, coal port pirates, riots in Zagreb, min­ing firm occu­pa­tions in Bolivia, dam resis­tance in Brazil and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10.pdf

Thousands of Tibetans mobilize to defend Sacred Mountains

May 18, 2010
A mas­sive police crack­down may be immi­nent in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), where thou­sands of Tibetan vil­lagers have mobi­lized to defend their sacred moun­tains from exploita­tion.

Stop Mining Tibet protestMay 18, 2010
A mas­sive police crack­down may be immi­nent in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), where thou­sands of Tibetan vil­lagers have mobi­lized to defend their sacred moun­tains from exploita­tion.

Accord­ing to reports from Radio Free Asia (RFA), the vil­lagers are attempt­ing to halt three sep­a­rate gold mines in Tsong­shen, Choeten, and Deshoe in Markham coun­ty, TAR.

As many as five thou­sand Chi­nese troops have been called in to make sure the min­ing oper­a­tions pro­ceed.

A local Tibetan source, who spoke to RFA on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, says at least five pro­test­ers have already been injured in the protests, while numer­ous oth­ers have been beat­en and tear-gassed by the troops. One also “attempt­ed to kill him­self with a bro­ken bot­tle, the source said.”

Almost exact­ly one year ago, the same Tibetan vil­lagers orga­nized an indef­i­nite road­block to pro­tect one of their sacred moun­tains, known local­ly as “Ser Ngul Lo.”

Trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish as “Year of Gold and Sil­ver”, Ser Ngul Lo has been wor­shipped by the Tibetans for cen­turies and it is the site of impor­tant cer­e­monies con­duct­ed in times of drought.

Gov­ern­ment offi­cials at the time grant­ed a Chi­nese com­pa­ny per­mis­sion to oper­ate a gold mine in the region–most cer­tain­ly, with­out con­sult­ing the Tibetans or gain­ing their con­sent.

In addi­tion to pro­tect­ing the Moun­tain, the vil­lagers were also deeply con­cerned that their drink­ing water would be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by the mine. And with a tense stand-off that ensued, the peace­ful vil­lagers declared that they were “ready to die” to pro­tect the sacred site. The Tibetans feared the worst.

But then, as the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty watched on, the unimag­in­able hap­pened: Gov­ern­ment offi­cials sat down with the Tibetans and reached a peace­ful accord.

For their part, the offi­cials agreed to com­plete­ly aban­don the gold mine and with­draw all troops in the area. In addi­tion, they agreed to build a con­crete bar­ri­er to stop any old min­ing waste from leach­ing into the local water sys­tem.

In return, the Tibetans agreed to end their 24-hour block­ade and return home.

Activists Occupy Cargill US HQ

May 5, 2010

Update: five activists locked them­selves to the stair­case of the Lake Office, block­ing the entrance to the company’s exec­u­tive offices for over two hours. All five activists were arrest­ed.

–

Nation’s Largest Pri­vate Agribusi­ness Com­pa­ny Under Fire for Rain­for­est Destruc­tion

RAN Cargill occupationMay 5, 2010

Update: five activists locked them­selves to the stair­case of the Lake Office, block­ing the entrance to the company’s exec­u­tive offices for over two hours. All five activists were arrest­ed.

–

Nation’s Largest Pri­vate Agribusi­ness Com­pa­ny Under Fire for Rain­for­est Destruc­tion

Wayza­ta, Minn. – Six activists with Rain­for­est Action Net­work (RAN) have tak­en over the exec­u­tive offices of the nation’s largest pri­vate agribusi­ness com­pa­ny. Play­ing a loud record­ing of chain­saws cut­ting down rain­forests and hold­ing signs read­ing “This is the sound of your sup­ply chain,” and “Mr. Page: Rain­for­est Destruc­tion Stops with You,” the activists have locked them­selves to the stair­case of the Lake Office, block­ing the entrance to the company’s exec­u­tive offices.

A dozen demon­stra­tors are con­duct­ing a sol­i­dar­i­ty vig­il at the front of Cargill’s Wayza­ta head­quar­ters, greet­ing employ­ees as they enter with a 12 ft paper mache orang­utan and a sign read­ing: “Rain­for­est Destruc­tion Starts with Cargill.”

The activists have request­ed a meet­ing with Gre­go­ry Page, Cargill’s CEO, and are refus­ing to leave until he agrees to stop destroy­ing rain­forests and to imple­ment a com­pre­hen­sive palm oil pol­i­cy cov­er­ing its entire sup­ply chain.

“Cargill has been lying to its cus­tomers and to our com­mu­ni­ty,” said Eric Nielsen, local activist par­tic­i­pat­ing in today’s protest. “We want CEO Greg Page to act now to stop Cargill’s destruc­tion of rain­forests before it’s too late.”

The protest comes in the wake of a damn­ing report direct­ly link­ing Cargill, the nation’s largest importer of palm oil, to rain­for­est destruc­tion in Bor­neo. The report, released yes­ter­day, doc­u­ments sys­tem­at­ic fail­ures by Cargill to com­ply with inter­na­tion­al palm oil stan­dards and respect Indone­sian law through­out its palm oil sup­ply chain. The report also doc­u­ments rain­for­est destruc­tion on two plan­ta­tions that Cargill owns, but has hid­den from the Indone­sian gov­ern­ment and its cus­tomers. Over 10,500 hectares of rain­for­est have been destroyed since 2005, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­flict with tra­di­tion­al and Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

“Cargill has destroyed an area of rain­for­est the size of Dis­ney World in Bor­neo, endan­ger­ing orang­utans, pol­lut­ing water­ways and tak­ing land and liveli­hoods from local com­mu­ni­ties,” said Leila Salazar-Lopez of Rain­for­est Action Net­work. “How unsus­tain­able can a com­pa­ny be?”

Palm oil is one of the most com­mon­ly found ingre­di­ents in thou­sands of con­sumer prod­ucts, from soap and lip­stick, to break­fast cere­al and soymilk. Its use is wide­spread and increas­ing around the world, but par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Unit­ed States, where its con­sump­tion has tripled in the last five years. As the nation’s largest importer of palm oil, Cargill sup­plies the com­mon­ly used ingre­di­ent to some of the nation’s largest food com­pa­nies, includ­ing Gen­er­al Mills, Nes­tle, Mars and Kraft, mak­ing it like­ly that almost all Amer­i­cans have bought Cargill’s palm oil some­time with­in the last week.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, palm oil has been tight­ly linked to the destruc­tion of some of the world’s remain­ing rain­forests. Expand­ing con­sump­tion has trig­gered expand­ed pro­duc­tion, replac­ing once lush rain­forests with palm oil plan­ta­tions and endan­ger­ing unique species includ­ing orang­utans and sun bears.

The full report on Cargill’s activ­i­ties, enti­tled Cargill’s Prob­lems with Palm Oil, A Burn­ing Threat to Bor­neo, can be down­loaded at: http: www.ran.org/cargillreport

Massive “Climate Action Now” Banner unfurled

April 25, 2010

Mas­sive “Cli­mate Action Now” Ban­ner unfurled

DELTA, BC, CANADA — GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter) unfurled a mas­sive ban­ner today that reads “CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on land slat­ed for free­way con­struc­tion.

Climate Action Now!

April 25, 2010

Mas­sive “Cli­mate Action Now” Ban­ner unfurled

DELTA, BC, CANADA — GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter) unfurled a mas­sive ban­ner today that reads “CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on land slat­ed for free­way con­struc­tion.

His­toric homes are being demol­ished, and ancient indige­nous sites are under threat from the South Fras­er Perime­ter Road (SFPR) project here on the Fras­er Riv­er bank. The est. $2 bil­lion SFPR is part of the con­tro­ver­sial Gate­way pro­gram, which would great­ly increase green­house gas emis­sions in BC.

The action took place at Riv­er Road and Cen­tre Street in Delta. It coin­cides with the mul­ti-faith Pil­grim­age to Burns Bog, and is vis­i­ble from the pil­grim­age route across the Alex Fras­er Bridge. Pil­grims and activists aim to raise aware­ness about Burns Bog, a large, car­bon-seques­ter­ing peat bog also under threat from the SFPR free­way.

“Our neigh­bours are being forced out of their homes, and ecosys­tems are being bull­dozed,” says Delta res­i­dent Ernie Baatz. “Schools and pro­grams are being cut across the province to pay for this cli­mate chang­ing free­way. We have to stand up to this appalling waste.”

Baatz and fel­low activists also plant­ed trees at the site today, to high­light the area’s poten­tial as a river­front park, not a river­front free­way. Although prepara­to­ry work has begun on some sec­tions of the SFPR, no build con­tract is in place. A request for pro­pos­als was issued by the Min­istry of Trans­porta­tion in April 2009.

Today’s action is part of a week of events dubbed “Earth Action Week” by GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter). For the full list of events see www.gatewaysucks.org/earth-action-week-april-1826

Pho­tographs are avail­able at www.gatewaysucks.org/picture-links

Fol­low www.twitter.com/gatewaysucks for updates

For more infor­ma­tion about the Pil­grim­age to Burns Bog see www.pilgrimage2burnsbog.org

» Big shout out to UK roads activists past and present. You inspire us!

Indigenous People take over mining firm in the wake of Climate Change conference

April 19, 2010

With the Glob­al People’s Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change and the Rights of the Moth­er Earth set to begin in Cochabam­ba, Bolivia, a group of Indige­nous peo­ple have occu­pied the offices of a min­ing firm in the south­east­ern province of Poto­si near the Chilean bor­der.

April 19, 2010

With the Glob­al People’s Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change and the Rights of the Moth­er Earth set to begin in Cochabam­ba, Bolivia, a group of Indige­nous peo­ple have occu­pied the offices of a min­ing firm in the south­east­ern province of Poto­si near the Chilean bor­der.

The occu­pa­tion began sev­er­al days ago, on April 12, with rough­ly 700 Qul­la Peo­ple block­ing access to a key rail­way line that leads away from the San Cristo­bal sil­ver-zinc-lead mine, owned by Japan’s Sum­it­o­mo Cor­po­ra­tion.

The Qul­la say that Sum­it­o­mo is dump­ing mine waste direct­ly into the Madera Riv­er, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the land and threat­en­ing their water sup­plies; and con­struct­ing roads that are tram­pling on the rights of Moth­er Earth. They are demand­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and call­ing on the Poto­si gov­ern­ment to hon­our their agree­ments, which includes pro­vid­ing help with some local infra­struc­ture.

“Our demands are fair and must be met. The mine is ran­sack­ing our nat­ur­al resources. We want com­pen­sa­tion for the dam­age and … we want help with our devel­op­ment,” says protest leader Mario Mamani. Since the protest began, some 80 con­tain­ers loaded with ore have also been seized and they have occu­pied the company’s offices. Accord­ing to lat­est reports, the Qul­la set fire to the offices and they have start­ed to over­turn the con­tain­ers.

At the same time, the Qul­la are also express­ing frus­tra­tion over Pres­i­dent Evo Morales’ refusal to let them set up “Table 18″ at the Cli­mate Con­fer­ence.

Accord­ing to the Acha­cachi Post, which is spon­sored by the US gov­ern­ment, the Nation­al Coun­cil of Ayl­lus and Markas of Qul­la­suyu (CONAMAQ) wants the table to dis­cuss envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems in Bolivia, includ­ing Sumitomo’s pol­lu­tion of the Madera Riv­er and the con­cern about Lake Intik­jar­ka (Titika­ka) being filled up with “sewage from the cities of El Alto, Batal­las, Hua­r­i­na, Tiquina, Acha­cachi, Mina Matilde in Bolivia and Puno and Huan­cane in Peru.” The lake is an impor­tant fish­ing resource for the Qul­las and Uru-chul­lu­nis.

The Boli­vian Deputy Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment, Juan Pablo Ramos, told the Asso­ci­at­ed Press that it’s not their inten­tion to cir­cum­vent the dis­cus­sion, but the world con­fer­ence is not the appro­pri­ate settin,g because it will be focused on glob­al issues.

CONAMAQ, how­ev­er, says they are still going to pro­ceed with Table 18, because “the Earth is our moth­er [and she has her rights], “for exam­ple, not to be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.”

The Rights of Moth­er Earth will be one of the cen­tral focus­es of the Con­fer­ence. Oth­er tables will include dis­cus­sions on Agri­cul­ture and food sov­er­eign­ty, the Kyoto Pro­to­col, Dan­gers of the Car­bon Mar­ket, and estab­lish­ing an Envi­ron­men­tal Court.

Over­all, the World People’s Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change is a vital fol­low-up to the failed UN Con­fer­ence in Copen­hagen. And while the Qul­la have been unfor­tu­nate­ly side­lined, per­haps we can take stock in the fact that they won’t be labelled as crim­i­nals and thrown in jail.

We should, nev­er­the­less, pay close atten­tion to the Qul­la. If noth­ing else, they are remind­ing us that we can­not ignore the rivers for the ocean. Instead, we must lead by exam­ple for every tree, riv­er, plant and ani­mal, ecosys­tem, every per­son, com­mu­ni­ty and Nation.

We cer­tain­ly can’t leave it to com­pa­nies like Sum­it­o­mo and Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment or the Unit­ed Nations. It’s up to each and every one of us.

The Earth First! Journal is celebrating 30 years in print this Winter!

30 years of no-bull report­ing, direct actions, exten­sive bio-diver­si­ty cov­er­age from those with­in the Earth First! move­ment who refuse to com­pro­mise in defense of Moth­er Earth!

30 years of no-bull report­ing, direct actions, exten­sive bio-diver­si­ty cov­er­age from those with­in the Earth First! move­ment who refuse to com­pro­mise in defense of Moth­er Earth!

The EF! Jour­nal Col­lec­tive is look­ing for your help in cap­tur­ing a wicked part of the his­to­ry of this move­ment- the UK chap­ter of direct action, Earth First! orga­niz­ing, EF! gath­er­ings and some of the best for­est defense cam­paigns on the plan­et!

If you’re inter­est­ed in writ­ing an arti­cle for the 30 year anniver­sary please send an e‑mail to: collective@earthfirstjournal.org and we can talk more about word length, con­tent and dead­lines.

We are also look­ing for more con­tri­bu­tions: direct action pho­tos for 2011 Direct Action Cal­en­dar and music for a new EF! music com­pi­la­tion. Send high res­o­lu­tion pho­tos with a cap­tion to the col­lec­tive e‑mail address, as well as your sug­ges­tions for songs/songwriters/bands for the new com­pi­la­tion!

Cheers!

For the Wild,
‑the EF! Jour­nal Col­lec­tive”

Earth First! Summer Gathering, 4th — 9th Aug 2010, Derbyshire — location & programme announced/set-up plans & call-out

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme
Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

What’s hap­pen­ing?
Over 80 work­shops, dis­cus­sions, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘where next’ ses­sions:

*Share and learn skills for kick-ass actions on land and water.
Small boat han­dling and blockad­ing using kayaks / Blockad­ing — tripods, lock-ons/ Fences / Climb­ing skills / Action recon­nais­sance / Secu­ri­ty for Activists / Strat­e­gy and tac­tics / How to research cor­po­ra­tions /

*Net­work cur­rent cam­paigns against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion
Open-cast min­ing / Genet­ic engi­neer­ing / Agro­fu­els / Sav­ing Ice­land / Cli­mate actions / Pipeline resis­tance in Ross­port / Anti-nuclear / Air­port expansion/ Tar Sands

*Think about eco-cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tive ways of organ­is­ing
Deep green ethics / Anar­chist eco­nom­ics / Anar­chist his­to­ry / Rad­i­cal Pol­i­tics / Work­ing with­out leaders/ Con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing

*Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy / Restora­tion ecol­o­gy / Flo­ra and Fau­na iden­ti­fi­ca­tion / Veg­an Cake mak­ing / Pow­er from solar and wind / wild food / Squat­ting / Bike main­te­nance

As well as inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns round-up, net­work­ing and plan­ning for future actions.

Cost and prac­ti­cal things
£20–30 accord­ing to what you can afford.
The gath­er­ing is in Der­byshire, the exact loca­tion will be announced the week before. More info on our web­site.

Find out more and join in!

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

We have now a stack of fresh­ly print­ed posters adver­tis­ing the gath­er­ing. If you’d like to send you some to stick up in your area or to take to events, fes­ti­vals and the like, please email us. Alter­na­tive­ly you can also down­load the files and print your own. They are fair­ly large files! EF! gath­er­ing poster (A4)

We are now look­ing for peo­ple to run work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the gath­er­ing. Please con­tact us if you can offer some­thing. Have a look at our pro­gramme page to see the kind of thing we’re look­ing for.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ NOSPAM _ @ _ NOSPAM earthfirst.org.uk

Penan step up campaign to defend Heart of Borneo nature reserve

6, April, 2010
Penan natives from Sarawak’s Upper Baram region in the Malaysian part of Bor­neo have erect­ed two log­ging road block­ades to pre­vent their last remain­ing vir­gin jun­gle from being logged by the Sam­ling Group, a Malaysian tim­ber giant.

6, April, 2010
Penan natives from Sarawak’s Upper Baram region in the Malaysian part of Bor­neo have erect­ed two log­ging road block­ades to pre­vent their last remain­ing vir­gin jun­gle from being logged by the Sam­ling Group, a Malaysian tim­ber giant.
The block­ades have been erect­ed at two strate­gi­cal loca­tions on log­ging roads near the Penan vil­lages of Long Sabai and Ba Ker­ameu on the upper reach­es of the Akah riv­er. Accord­ing to com­mu­ni­ty sources, sur­vey­ors of the Sam­ling cor­po­ra­tion had repeat­ed­ly been asked by vil­lagers of Long Sabai to stop work­ing on the Penan’ s native lands but had refused to do so. As a con­se­quence, the vil­lagers erect­ed two block­ades that have been in place since 24 March and 31 March respec­tive­ly.
Aya Lud­ing, a spokesman for the Long Sabai com­mu­ni­ty, said: “We know that we are weak­er than the Sam­ling bull­doz­ers. But we are deter­mined to fight for our next gen­er­a­tion because we can­not sur­vive with­out the for­est. If we let the com­pa­ny in and do some log­ging, they will want to take all of our for­est.”
Last Novem­ber, sev­en­teen Penan com­mu­ni­ties of the Upper Baram region had declared their native lands a self-admin­is­tered nature reserve. The “Penan Peace Park” cov­ers an area of 163,000 hectares of high con­ser­va­tion val­ue rain­for­est and tra­di­tion­al­ly used agri­cul­tur­al land near the inter­na­tion­al bor­der between Malaysia and Indone­sia. ”

Source: http://www.bmf.ch/en/news/?show=200

Fossil Fools Day round-up

In the UK —

BP ad cam­paign hoax kicks off the Fort­night of Shame

In the UK —

BP ad cam­paign hoax kicks off the Fort­night of Shame
BP Back to Black logo smallBP Hoax 1BP Hoax 2
BP today had to halt the launch of a mul­ti-mil­lion pound ‘Back to Black’ ad cam­paign. That’s right, BP’s award-win­ning ‘beyond petro­le­um’ brand took a hit today when a, pre­vi­ous­ly unknown, PR agency deliv­ered 22,000 revamped BP logos and a new sign to the company’s head­quar­ters in St. James’ Square.The ad agency mis­in­ter­pret­ed the brief to come up with a new logo that took account of BP’s deci­sion to invest in the Cana­di­an tar sands, and launched the mul­ti-mil­lion pound ‘Back to Black’ cam­paign.

… What day is it? April Fools Day, a day for pranks both sil­ly and seri­ous.
So here’s what real­ly hap­pened:

Pos­ing as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a PR com­pa­ny, cli­mate cam­paign­ers played a Fos­sil Fools Day prank on BP today by deliv­er­ing 22,000 new logos – one for every BP logo in the UK – to the company’s HQ.

The cam­paign­ers, from Lon­don Ris­ing Tide and the UK Tar Sands Net­work, piled box­es of ‘Back to Black’ logos on BP’s doorstep and d‑locked a match­ing sign onto the build­ing in protest at the company’s rever­sal of its deci­sion to stay out of Canada’s con­tro­ver­sial tar sands.

BP’s ‘beyond petro­le­um’ brand was nev­er more than a slick cha­rade and BP’s plans to move into the tar sands reveal the company’s true colours. We vis­it­ed BP today to present a logo that’s more fit­ting for a com­pa­ny about to invest in the most destruc­tive project on the plan­et.

Today marks the start of the BP Tar Sans Fort­night of Shame, which will see actions tak­ing place up and down the coun­try, all with a com­mon mes­sage. Extrac­tion in the Cana­di­an tar sands is fuelling cli­mate chaos and tram­pling indige­nous rights, and we won’t let BP go into the tar sands with­out a fight.

If you want to get involved then come along to the BP Tar Sands: Par­ty at the Pumps on Sat­ur­day 10th April, meet 1pm, Oxford Cir­cus – more info at: www.risingtide.org.uk

tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://www.tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com

Video

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Ris­ing Tide dis­rupt Shell in Bris­tol
Bristol Shell petrol station protest
Activists from Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed the Shell garage in Muller Road, East­ville at 8.30am yes­ter­day to high­light the repres­sion expe­ri­enced by com­mu­ni­ties in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land who are try­ing to stop Shell build­ing an onshore high pres­sure pipeline and gas refin­ery.

The com­mu­ni­ty in Erris, Coun­ty Mayo has seen con­tin­ued harass­ment and intim­i­da­tion by Gar­dai and Shell secu­ri­ty, as well as the unlaw­ful arrest and tar­get­ed jail­ing of key cam­paign­ers. In Feb­ru­ary fish­er­man Pat O’Don­nell was sen­tenced to 7 months in jail for con­vic­tions of “breach of the peace” and of “obstruct­ing a Gar­da”. The com­mu­ni­ty has been fight­ing this project for over a decade. Con­struc­tion of the gas refin­ery has result­ed in the pol­lu­tion of the local drink­ing water. Untreat­ed waste chem­i­cals from the refin­ery, includ­ing lead, mer­cury, arsenic and radon would be pumped into Broad­haven Bay despite it being a des­ig­nat­ed Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion. 1

The action was part of Fos­sil Fools Day, a glob­al day of cre­ative action against cor­po­ra­tions who con­tribute to and prof­it from cli­mate change. 2

Rachel Keevil from Ris­ing Tide, chas­ing anoth­er activist with a large sec­tion of pipe, said “Shell are cli­mate crim­i­nals. The gas pipeline in Coun­ty Mayo will dam­age the envi­ron­ment and threat­en the health and liveli­hoods of local peo­ple; all for the prof­it of Shell. It’s a pipeline to dis­as­ter.”

This street the­atre was clear­ly a ridicu­lous rep­re­sen­ta­tion of very seri­ous events but opened up a space for talk­ing with the pub­lic about the issues, many of whom took gen­uine inter­est, some say­ing they were inspired to write to Pat in prison.

Notes
1 http://www.shelltosea.com/node/21
2 http://risingtide.org.uk/node/336

Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide
bristol@risingtide.org.uk
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

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Eon switch on to com­mu­ni­ty renew­ables

PRESS RELEASE 01-04-2010

GREEN ENERGY GIFT FOR MEDWAY
Medway Renewables 2Medway Renewables 1
Ger­man ener­gy giant EON have announced that they are shelv­ing con­tro­ver­sial plans for a mas­sive expan­sion of coal and gas
elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion in the Med­way region. The sur­pris­ing news emerged today as Eon con­trac­tors broke ground at the offices of Med­way Coun­cil on Dock Road, Chatham, and start­ed installing wind tur­bines and solar pan­els.

Eon media rela­tions offi­cer, Joe King announced, “We realise that con­tin­ued invest­ment in fos­sil fuels is a dan­ger­ous dis­trac­tion from the urgent need to devel­op tru­ly sus­tain­able tech­nolo­gies so we’ve aban­doned our dat­ed plans to con­tin­ue burn­ing gas and coal. This wind farm for Med­way coun­cil is just the begin­ning, we’re also offer­ing all our cus­tomers heav­i­ly dis­count­ed shares in future com­mu­ni­ty wind farm schemes, so they’ll actu­al­ly co-own the sys­tems that pro­vide their pow­er”.

In a leaflet passed out to passers by, Eon admit­ted that until now, only a triv­ial amount of their invest­ments had gone into renew­ables but promised that would now change. Acknowl­edg­ing the urgent need to dras­ti­cal­ly cut emis­sions in order to curb glob­al warm­ing and avoid dis­as­trous cli­mat­ic tip­ping points, the com­pa­ny promised they’d aban­don their plans to turn Med­way into a CO2 pump­ing hub, end fur­ther invest­ment into fos­sil fuels, and instead com­mit to tru­ly sus­tain­able ener­gy such as wind and sun.

How­ev­er, a local activist Ben­nie Fac­tor, expressed dis­be­lieve, “This is a joke! All this renew­able ener­gy rhetoric rep­re­sent noth­ing more than cycli­cal green­wash from these ener­gy giants. Sad­ly, the real­i­ty is that they are still com­mit­ted to busi­ness as usu­al, damn­ing us all to con­tin­ued green­house gas emis­sions and cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.”

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The FOSSIL FOOLS FARCE … is here!

Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth & Art Not Oil-Ply­mouth took the Ply­mouth city cen­tre streets to bring you the big “Fos­sil Fools Farce”, to remind us there are facts and names behind the Cli­mate dra­ma.

Today, on “Fos­sil Fools Day”, we bring you:

*The BIG OIL evil clown – Oil indus­try is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the ‘tax­pay­er sup­port­ed’ glob­al expan­sion into the far reach­es of the plan­et. Unless fur­ther explo­ration to find and exploit more oil and oth­er fos­sil fuels is stopped, and instead accel­er­ate the trans­fer of invest­ment into renew­able ener­gy, the planet’s cli­mate will not be able to with­stand. Apart of mas­sive CO2 emis­sions, the oil indus­try has been respon­si­ble for mas­sive scale defor­esta­tion, local mor­tal dis­eases in oil field areas, eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ters, over­rid­ing indige­nous rights and more human rights vio­la­tions. All in the name of their prof­it.

Cur­rent­ly BP & Shell are invest­ing in the trag­ic TAR SANDS project in Cana­da, which is the dirt­i­est and most expen­sive oil in terms of extrac­tion and emis­sions that will lead us inevitably to run­away Cli­mate Chaos ‑at a time when glob­al oil resources are run­ning out!

*The Crazy AVIATOR – In terms of dam­age to the cli­mate, fly­ing is ten times worse than tak­ing the train. It’s respon­si­ble for 13% of the UK’s impact on the cli­mate and it’s the fastest grow­ing source of emis­sions in this coun­try; between 1990 and 2050, emis­sions from avi­a­tion are set to quadru­ple, which sci­en­tists say could wipe out all oth­er emis­sions sav­ings we make in every oth­er sec­tor! The main cause of this mas­sive growth in the UK is the pro­lif­er­a­tion of short haul routes — often unnec­es­sary domes­tic ones.

In Ply­mouth we have Air South West ( owned by Sut­ton Har­bour group — who also man­age Ply­mouth air­port!) pub­li­cis­ing aggres­sive­ly domes­tic flights between Ply­mouth-Lon­don and Newquay. Their ‘cheap’ price offers don’t tell you what we’ll all have to pay after­wards — the REAL price behind it: a plan­et that will nev­er stop warm­ing up. Besides, trains to Corn­wall aren’t expen­sive! – and it’s a great land­scape.

Fos­sil fuels are the main source of Green­house Gas emis­sions. How­ev­er last Decem­ber in Copen­hagen the politi­cians sold us out to the fos­sil­fools, cor­po­rate lob­by­ists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green cap­i­tal­ism,” a deeply unjust car­bon mar­ket and con­tin­ued assaults on our com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems.

The stakes couldn’t be high­er: desta­bil­i­sa­tion of the glob­al cli­mate, local com­mu­ni­ties destroyed by dirty ener­gy extrac­tion and com­bus­tion, dev­as­tat­ing freak storms, droughts, floods, the list goes on …

If we’re going to stop cli­mate chaos, the only real solu­tion is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

Join the pos­i­tive char­ac­ters of this dra­ma and change the script of our future!

Join the inspir­ing WIND FAIRY, play­ing and trust­ing clean ener­gy; the com­mit­ted CYCLIST, who claims the future with ped­al pow­er! and
the down to earth PERMACULTURE, who respects the land, grows their own food and sows the seeds into our chance to be healthy and eco­nom­i­cal­ly inde­pen­dent com­mu­ni­ties!

We can be the prob­lem ..or the solu­tion. That is our stance today.

NOTES:

-Join ‘Tran­si­tion-Ply­mouth’ grass­roots local ini­tia­tive for a sus­tain­able Ply­mouth!
Email: plymouthtransition@nature-mail.com or phone: 01752 222152

- Get the facts on Tar Sands: http://www.tarsandswatch.org/

- Stop sup­port­ing uneth­i­cal fos­sil banks like RBS & Bar­clay’s. Switch your­self to an eth­i­cal one: the Co-oper­a­tive or Tri­o­dos, or see:
http://www.vegansociety.com/Lifestyle-And-Nutrition/Finance/Ethical-Banking.aspx

- More alter­na­tives: http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/positivesolutions

Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth takes cre­ative non-vio­lent direct action and pro­vides pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion to con­front the root caus­es of Cli­mate
Change.

www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk

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Brighton — RBS out of order over Tar Sands

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cash­points have fall­en prey to an April fools prank in protest at RBS’s invest­ments in Cana­di­an tar sands. The cash­points were dis­abled by local activist group Brighton Against Tar Sands (BATS) with signs which read ‘Invest­ing in tar sands is OUT OF ORDER’. The signs were fixed to half a dozen cash­points in Brighton and Lewes in the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day (1st April) morn­ing.

The prac­ti­cal joke had a seri­ous mes­sage. Tar sands oil extrac­tion in Alber­ta, Cana­da is the sin­gle largest indus­tri­al CO2 emit­ter on the plan­et and has been respon­si­ble for destroy­ing an area of ancient for­est the size of Eng­land.

It is also home to First Nation tribes who have lived off the land for mil­len­nia. Due to the pol­lu­tion they now have high rates of can­cer and are los­ing their ancient hunt­ing grounds.

BATS spokesper­son Dan Stars said: “RBS is out of order. Tar sands is like­ly to be respon­si­ble for run­away cli­mate change if the exploita­tion con­tin­ues unchecked. It is whol­ly irre­spon­si­ble for the bank to invest in what amounts to tar­maged­don.”
http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/wdm/4327600119

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Back in the USA —

Col­orado activists pulled an elab­o­rate prank on Xcel Ener­gy today, April Fool’s Day, announc­ing that the util­i­ty com­pa­ny pledged to switch to 100 per­cent renew­able elec­tric­i­ty statewide by phas­ing out not just coal plants, but nat­ur­al gas as well. More

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Pro­test­ers boast­ing signs that read “Break America’s Oil Addic­tion” and “Coal is Dirty” crowd around Bank of Amer­i­ca in down­town Asheville shout­ing and chant­i­ng slo­gans like: “What do we want? No Coal! When do we want it? NOW.” More

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An activist was arrest­ed this after­noon at the Water­loo Branch of RBC Bank. Mark Cor­biere was charged with mis­chief for hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing “Boy­cott RBC” and “Stop the Tar Sands” from the roof of the branch, locat­ed in uptown Water­loo. More
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Pep­co announces plan to shift all pow­er facil­i­ties to wind and solar ener­gy, may can­cel planned rate hikes Pep­co noti­fies its cus­tomers that it wish­es “to serve the ener­gy needs of our cus­tomers for gen­er­a­tions to come — Wash­ing­ton DC. More

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Late last night vol­un­teers with Port­land Ris­ing Tide blast­ed the city with over 3,000 fake news­pa­per cov­ers wrap­ping the Willamette Week. With con­tent includ­ing an inter­view with Big­foot about pipeline plans. More

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Philadel­phia envi­ron­men­tal­ists told morn­ing com­muters not to be “fos­sil fooled” by PNC Bank – a bank that calls itself “A Green Bank with Eco-Friend­ly Ser­vice”. PNC Bank has direct and indi­rect con­nec­tions to moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing. More

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Blame Cana­da

In the spir­it of April Fools day, 13 Cities in Cana­da have pulled cre­ative pranks on fos­sil fuel indus­try sup­port­ers, or “Fos­sil Fools,” pleas­ant­ly con­fus­ing secu­ri­ty guards, police, and the gen­er­al pub­lic. More

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It’s not Down Under — New Zealand/

Camp for Cli­mate Action Auck­land has vis­it­ed the offices of OMFi­nan­cial to present them with this year’s Fos­sil Fools day award for help­ing New Zealand’s biggest pol­luters cheat their way out of deal­ing with cli­mate change. More

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Beware what hap­pens in The Nether­lands

Shell Apol­o­gis­es for Human Rights Vio­la­tions in Niger Delta, The Hague. More

Fos­sil Fools Day 2010