Category: Global

Glob­al

Japanese whale killers ram and destroy Sea Shepherd protest vessel the Ady Gil

6.1.2010
Ear­ly this morn­ing the Japan­ese whale killing ship Shonan Maru2 rammed and destroyed the Sea Shep­herd protest ves­sel the Ady Gil. It was a mir­a­cle no Sea Shep­herd crew were killed or seri­ous­ly injured.

From Sea Shep­herd CEO Steve Roest.

Sea Shepherd Ady Gil rammed6.1.2010
Ear­ly this morn­ing the Japan­ese whale killing ship Shonan Maru2 rammed and destroyed the Sea Shep­herd protest ves­sel the Ady Gil. It was a mir­a­cle no Sea Shep­herd crew were killed or seri­ous­ly injured.

From Sea Shep­herd CEO Steve Roest.
I was wok­en at 4am GMT to hear that the Japan­ese whaler and secu­ri­ty ves­sel Shonan Maru2 had delib­er­ate­ly rammed the small Sea Shep­herd inter­cept ves­sel Ady Gil. The Ady Gil had lost the front 3 metres of her nose com­plete­ly and it is a mir­a­cle nobody was seri­ous­ly injured or killed.

Cap­tain Wat­son has made the fol­low­ing state­ment to the press:

In an unpro­voked attack cap­tured on film, the Japan­ese secu­ri­ty ship Shonan Maru #2 delib­er­ate­ly rammed and caused cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age to the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Ady Gil.

Six crew crewmem­bers, four from New Zealand, one from Aus­tralia and one from the Nether­lands were imme­di­ate­ly res­cued by the crew of the Sea Shep­herd ship Bob Bark­er. None of the crew Ady Gil crew were injured.

The Ady Gil is believed to be sink­ing and chances of sal­vage are very grim.

Accord­ing to eye­wit­ness Cap­tain Chuck Swift on the Bob Bark­er, the attack hap­pened while the ves­sels were dead in the water. The Shonan Maru #2 sud­den­ly start­ed up and delib­er­ate­ly rammed the Ady Gil rip­ping eight feet of the bow of the ves­sel com­plete­ly off. Accord­ing to Cap­tain Swift, the ves­sel does not look like it will be saved.

“The Japan­ese whalers have now esca­lat­ed this con­flict very vio­lent­ly.” Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “If they think that our remain­ing two ships will retreat from the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary in the face of their extrem­ism, they will be mis­tak­en. We now have a real whale war on our hands and we have no inten­tion of retreat­ing.”

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son onboard the Steve Irwin is rac­ing towards the area at 16 knots but still remains some five hun­dred miles to the north. The Bob Bark­er will has tem­porar­i­ly stop the pur­suit of the Nis­shin Maru to res­cue the crew of the Ady Gil. The Japan­ese ships refused to acknowl­edge the May Day dis­tress of the Ady Gil and used the inci­dent to break away from the scene of the ram­ming.

The inci­dent took place at 64 Degrees and 03 Min­utes South and 143 Degrees and 09 Min­utes East

Until this morn­ing the Japan­ese were com­plete­ly unaware of the exis­tence of the Bob Bark­er. This newest addi­tion to the Sea Shep­herd fleet left Mau­ri­tius off the coast of Africa on Decem­ber 18th and was able to advance along the ice edge from the West as the Japan­ese were busy wor­ry­ing about the advance of the Steve Irwin from the North.

“This is a sub­stan­tial loss for our orga­ni­za­tion,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “The Ady Gil, the for­mer Earth­race ves­sel, rep­re­sents a loss of almost two mil­lion dol­lars. How­ev­er the loss of a sin­gle whale is of more impor­tance to us and we will not lose the Ady Gil in vain. This blow sim­ply strength­ens our resolve, it does not weak­en our spir­it.”

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety is request­ing that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment send a naval ves­sel to restore the peace in the waters of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry. We have 77 crew from 16 nations on three ves­sels, 6 of them were on the Ady Gil. Of these 21 are Aus­tralian cit­i­zens. 16 Aus­tralians on the Steve Irwin and 5 on the Bob Bark­er. Sea Shep­herd believes that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect the lives of Aus­tralian cit­i­zens work­ing to defend whales from ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties.

“Aus­tralia needs to send a naval ves­sel down here as soon as pos­si­ble to pro­tect both the whales and the Aus­tralian cit­i­zens work­ing to defend these whales.” Said Steve Irwin Chief Cook Lau­ra Dakin of Can­ber­ra. “This is Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters and I see the Japan­ese whalers doing what­ev­er they want with impuni­ty down here with­out a sin­gle Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment ves­sel any­where to be found. Peter Gar­rett, I have one ques­tion for you. Where the bloody hell are you?”

http://www.seashepherd.org

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Sea Shep­herd vows to con­tin­ue cam­paign after whalers destroy Ady Gil

Yes­ter­day was a hec­tic day in Com­mon­wealth Bay, near Antarc­ti­ca, in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary. The Ady Gil, while sta­tion­ary, was pupose­ful­ly rammed at speed by the Japan­ese whal­ing secu­ri­ty ves­sel, the Shonan Maru 2. And the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet, and the world dis­cov­ered Sea Shep­herds sur­prise new con­ser­va­tion ship, the Bob Bak­er, an ex-Nor­we­gian Antarc­tic ice-class whal­ing ves­sel that was bought in 2009 and secret­ly refit­ted in South Africa.

In the Antarc­tic ear­ly morn­ing twi­light at 0300 Hours, 6 Jan­u­ary, the Bob Bak­er found the Nis­shin Maru and her four har­poon ves­sels. The Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tion had been caught unawares. They had been focussing on the loca­tion of the Steve Irwin, pay­ing New Zealan­der Glenn Inwood’s Ome­ka Pub­lic Rela­tions com­pa­ny to hire char­ter flights first in Albany, and then in Mel­bourne and Hobart to locate and fol­low the Steve Irwin.

The ‘spy flights’ from Albany were able to direct the Shonan Maru 2 to shad­ow the Steve Irwin when it left Fre­man­tle so that the main whal­ing fleet could avoid a con­flict and do their whale slaugh­ter in peace. The stra­e­gy worked for two weeks, until the Steve Irwin returned to Hobart to refu­el and repro­vi­sion. Leav­ing Hobart on New Years Eve, the Steve Irwin was able to slip past under­cov­er of a thun­der­storm. The spy flights from Mel­bourne and Hobart organ­ised by Glenn Inwood, esti­mat­ed to cost about $18,000, could not locate the Steve Irwin due to the low cloud cov­er.

The Sea Shep­herd also had some unex­pect­ed assis­tance depart­ing Hobart from six peo­ple on a small motor­boat, self iden­ti­fied as ‘Taz Patrol’, who patrolled the perime­ter of the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone (EEZ) locat­ing the Yushin Maru and twit­ter­ing it’s loca­tion to the world (and Sea Shep­herd).

So with the whal­ing fleet locat­ed, New Zealand skip­per of the Ady Gil, Pete Bethune, drove his power­boat around the Nis­shan Maru whal­ing fac­to­ry ship, attempt­ing to foul the fac­to­ry ship’s pro­pel­lors. Evi­dent­ly only one bauble of rot­ten but­ter reached the deck of the Nis­shan Maru, but the green laser pho­ton­ic dis­rupters were also used. In return the Nis­shan Maru fired up its LRAD acoustic weapon and used its water can­non. Stale­mate.

So the Ady Gil retreats with the Nis­shan Maru flee­ing. Sea Shep­herd’s new ves­sel the Bob Bak­er pre­pares to chase the Nis­shan Maru and the fleet, while most of the Ady Gil crew sit on the roof with the ves­sel in a sta­tion­ary idle. The videos show the Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel, the Shonan Maru 2 charg­ing the Ady Gil with water canons blaz­ing. Peter Bethune tells his crew to pre­pare for a drench­ing, lit­tle real­iz­ing the dan­ger he and his crew were fac­ing. While the water can­non sprays the roof of the Ady Gil blind­ing the crew, the Shonan Maru turns sharply to star­board right at the Ady Gil. In the few moments before impact Peter Bethune guns the Ady Gil, but it is far too late with Shonan Maru 2 slic­ing 2 metres off the bow of the Ady Gil, forc­ing the power­boat momen­tar­i­ly under­wa­ter and immers­ing the crew in the icy waters hold­ing on to the roof for their lives.

Even after impact and seper­a­tion of the ships, the Shonan Maru 2 con­tin­ues to pound the bedrag­gled crew hang­ing on to the top of the Ady Gil with water canon blasts.

Video: Japan­ese Whalers film Ady Gil being rammed by Shonan Maru 2

Video: Ady Gil rammed by Shonan Maru 2 filmed by Sea Shep­herd from Bob Bark­er

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Rammed Ves­sel Ady Gil Sinks

Sea Shep­herd Resumes Pur­suit of Ille­gal Whalers

On Jan­u­ary 8, 2010 at 17:20 (GMT) the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel Bob Bark­er report­ed the last known posi­tion of anoth­er Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, the Ady Gil, to the Aus­tralian Res­cue Coor­di­na­tion Cen­ter (ARCC). This report was made because the Ady Gil—which was orig­i­nal­ly going to be towed to a near­by base—is now sink­ing and could pose a nav­i­ga­tion haz­ard for the next two to three hours.

Hav­ing bare­ly sur­vived a vicious attack by the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing ves­sel Shonan Maru No. 2 on Jan­u­ary 6, 2010, the Ady Gil began tak­ing on water. Since that time, Bob Bark­er crew mem­bers have been work­ing around the clock in an attempt to save the ship and remove pos­si­ble envi­ron­men­tal haz­ards in case the ves­sel had fur­ther com­pli­ca­tions while being towed.

Environmental Activists killed by Mining Companies in Latin America

On 26th Decem­ber, Dora Ali­cia Reci­nos Sor­to became the third vic­tim of a wave of vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers in the Cabañas Region of El Sal­vador, where com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are protest­ing against the re-open­ing of a Gold Mine by Cana­di­an Com­pa­ny Pacif­ic Rim.

On 26th Decem­ber, Dora Ali­cia Reci­nos Sor­to became the third vic­tim of a wave of vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers in the Cabañas Region of El Sal­vador, where com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are protest­ing against the re-open­ing of a Gold Mine by Cana­di­an Com­pa­ny Pacif­ic Rim.

Dora Ali­cia was a mem­ber of the Cabañas Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mit­tee, and had been active in oppos­ing the mine. She was eight months preg­nant when she was shot dead, and her two year old son was also wound­ed in the attack.

Her mur­der comes six days after the fatal shoot­ing of Ramiro Rivera Gomez, Vice Pres­i­dent of the Cabañas Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mit­tee, who had sur­vived being shot eight times in August this year. In June, anoth­er envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­er, Gus­ta­vo Marce­lo Rivera Moreno, had been tor­tured and killed. Many oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty have received death threats, includ­ing youth work­ers and jour­nal­ists for the local com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion Radio Vic­to­ria, and the local priest Father Luis Quin­tanil­la nar­row­ly escaped an attempt­ed kid­nap­ping.

In Mex­i­co, Mar­i­ano Abar­ca Rob­lero cam­paigned against the envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive open-pit Bar­i­um mine Black­fire, a World Bank project. He was shot to death on the evening of Novem­ber 27, 2009, in front of his house in Chico­muse­lo, Chi­a­pas. More details.

Whalers and Whale Defenders Clash for the First Time This Season

The first clash between whalers and whale defend­ers took place on Decem­ber 14th when the Steve Irwin and the Shonan Maru #2 exchanged shots with their water can­nons.

Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin & Nisshin Maru playThe first clash between whalers and whale defend­ers took place on Decem­ber 14th when the Steve Irwin and the Shonan Maru #2 exchanged shots with their water can­nons.

The Shonan Maru #2 has been fol­low­ing the Steve Irwin from Fre­man­tle since Decem­ber 9th. At 1400 Hours (Mel­bourne time) the Steve Irwin went around an ice­berg, did a fig­ure eight out of view of the Shonan Maru #2 and re-emerged with­in a quar­ter of a mile of the Japan­ese whaler’s port­side quar­ter catch­ing the whalers com­plete­ly by sur­prise.

A pur­suit began and the Shonan Maru #2 turned on two water can­nons. The crew of the Steve Irwin imme­di­ate­ly respond­ed by plac­ing their water can­non in readi­ness. The Shonan Maru #2 and the Steve Irwin were engaged in a high speed pur­suit for two hours before Cap­tain Wat­son decid­ed to break off the pur­suit to resume course to the coast of Antarc­ti­ca.

The Japan­ese whalers are spend­ing a great deal of mon­ey, first locat­ing the Steve Irwin by air and then direct­ing the Shonan Maru #2 to the coor­di­nates of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel. By stay­ing on the tail of the Steve Irwin, the har­poon ves­sel is able to keep the rest of the fleet aware of the Sea Shep­herd posi­tion. Cap­tain Paul Wat­son needs to lose the tail of the Shonan Maru #2 in order to locate the whal­ing fleet. He is count­ing on heav­ier ice con­di­tions to assist in this effort.

“We will use the ice­bergs and the ice floes to our advan­tage.” Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I’ve observed today that I am a more expe­ri­enced ice nav­i­ga­tor than the Japan­ese cap­tain chas­ing us. We need to get him to fol­low us into the ice fields and let the ice work for us.”

The Steve Irwin crew were left wet, but in good spir­its after the con­fronta­tion.

—-

Sea Shep­herd Evades Pur­suit by Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet Secu­ri­ty Ves­sel

The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin has suc­cess­ful­ly left the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Zone (EEZ) with­out any sign of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet secu­ri­ty ship Shonan Maru No. 2.

The Steve Irwin depart­ed from Hobart at 1800 Hours on Decem­ber 31st and took advan­tage of gale force winds and heavy swells to slip past the wait­ing Japan­ese ves­sel.

“It’s a big ocean down here they have no idea where we are,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I’m now con­fi­dent that we can pro­ceed with our search for the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet with­out fur­ther inter­fer­ence from the Shonan Maru No. 2.”

The Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Ady Gil is patrolling the South­ern Ocean in advance of the Steve Irwin in search of the fleet.

The Shonan Maru No. 2 was wait­ing for the Steve Irwin when it left Fre­man­tle on Decem­ber 7th. The Japan­ese had char­tered an air­craft out of Albany to locate the con­ser­va­tion ves­sel. They then relayed the Steve Irwin’s posi­tion to the Shonan Maru No. 2 to enable the Japan­ese secu­ri­ty ves­sel to inter­cept the Steve Irwin.

The Steve Irwin was unable to lose the pur­suit of the Shonan Maru No. 2 for more than two weeks. Only by return­ing to Tas­ma­nia was the tail lost because Japan­ese whal­ing ships are pro­hib­it­ed from enter­ing Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.

“Thanks to the stormy weath­er, there was no pos­si­bil­i­ty of a char­tered flight locat­ing the Steve Irwin and we were able to pass back into inter­na­tion­al waters with­out any sign of the Shonan Maru No. 2,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “They will be hard pressed to locate us now and with­out them on our tail, I am con­fi­dent that we will be able to track down the whale poach­ers in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.”
“It was awe­some see­ing them run like cow­ards when we turned on them,” said Third Mate Vin­cent Hayes from Williamstown in Vic­to­ria.

New Zealand climate camp report-back

15 Decem­ber 2009

15 Decem­ber 2009
NZ climate camp welcome tentPrepa­ra­tions for New Zealand’s first Cli­mate Camp are going well with peo­ple mov­ing onto the site yes­ter­day. Campers spent the day set­ting up some of the infra­struc­ture required for the camp includ­ing the kitchen and stor­age tents. As the day pro­gressed water lines could be seen snaking across the field, solar pan­els popped up next to tents and by the end of the day hot food was being pre­pared in the kitchen. The site is per­fect, large trees dot the field, a riv­er with swim­ming holes runs beside the camp and there is easy vehic­u­lar access.

NZ climate camp platformCli­mate camp offi­cial­ly kicks off tomor­row (Wednes­day) and will be going until the 21st. The camp will be a work­ing demon­stra­tion of sus­tain­able liv­ing with com­post­ing toi­lets and elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed on site. It will also host work­shops on dozens of sub­jects as well as pro­vid­ing space for peo­ple to organ­ise to take action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change. The 21st will see campers tak­ing to the streets in protests which will be organ­ised at camp. As details of these protests are organ­ised they will be dis­trib­uted wide­ly.

Feel free to bring any­thing you think might be use­ful – tools, bikes, koha to help pay for food and tents etc. The camp is being organ­ised and run by par­tic­i­pants so feel free to make it your own. If you want to run a work­shop or spend a few hours in the kitchen that would be great! Weath­er has been a mixed bag over the past day so a good tent and heaps of warm clothes in case you get wet would be a real­ly good idea. Food will be pro­vid­ed through­out the camp.

So if you have any spare time over the next week be it an after­noon or the entire camp pop on down to Moon­shine park in Upper Hut from today.

For more infor­ma­tion and reg­u­lar updates on how the camp is going please vis­it climatecamp.org.nz

For the days pho­tos please vis­it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45638777@N08/

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NZ Carbon Exchange conference disrupted
Activists dis­rupt pre­sen­ta­tion by head of the New Zealand Car­bon Exchange.
18 Decem­ber 2009

This action coin­cides with New Zealand’s first cli­mate camp in Upper Hut Welling­ton and pecedes mon­days day of direct action against false solu­tions planned for Welling­ton on mon­day.

Yes­ter­day mem­bers of Car­bon Progress Response (CPR) dis­rupt­ed a pre­sen­ta­tion by Stu­art Fraz­er mem­ber of the New Zealand Car­bon Exchange. The pro­test­ers dis­rupt­ed the meet­ing at three points hold­ing ban­ners say­ing “Our Cli­mate Not Your Busi­ness”, “Food Mar­kets Not Car­bon Mar­kets” as well as talk­ing about why car­bon trad­ing would not result in real action being tak­en to pre­vent cli­mate change. Dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion Stu­art Fraz­er talked of how we need to sta­bilise atmos­pher­ic CO2 lev­els at 450ppm and glob­al tem­per­a­tures at a 2 degrees Cel­sius rise. The pro­test­ers point­ed out that at these lev­els hun­dreds of mil­lions of the worlds poor will be affect­ed by drought and famine.

The action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the 100,000 pro­test­ers in Copen­hagen as well as the 300 civ­il soci­ety del­e­gates which walked out of the con­fer­ence.

The CPR activists involved in the dis­rup­tion explained their actions in this way “Car­bon trad­ing, also known as Cap and Trade, allows wealthy, indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries and com­pa­nies to keep pol­lut­ing at the same rates by trad­ing car­bon cred­its amongst them­selves. This allows busi­ness to con­tin­ue as usu­al and encour­ages the dis­ad­van­taged and poor to sell their liveli­hoods for the gain of the rich.”

After the first two groups of pro­test­ers were removed around a dozen pro­test­ers held ban­ners out­side as well as using a siren to empha­sis that we are fac­ing a cli­mate emer­gency. After the pre­sen­ta­tion had fin­ished an activist slipped back into the meet­ing and dis­rupt­ed it for a third time.

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NZ climate camp march
21 Decem­ber 2009
About 150 peo­ple took to the streets ear­ly this morn­ing in Welling­ton as two ban­ners were hung overnight in promi­nent loca­tions. First stop was the Stock Exchange, to dis­rupt busi­ness as usu­al and tell the prof­i­teers of cli­mate change that our cli­mate is not their busi­ness. While peo­ple entered the build­ing a sam­ba band, rad­i­cal cheer­lead­ers and a kids block were out­side all main entrances. There was also a vocal bunch from a group claim­ing to be counter-protest­ing for the right to prof­it from exploit­ing the envi­ron­ment. Nine peo­ple were arrest­ed in a sit-in block­ade but lat­er released with no charge.

After 9 arrests the protest took over Lamp­ton Quay to go and sup­port two climbers occu­py­ing the out­side of the Min­istry for For­eign Affairs and Trade with a giant ban­ner denounc­ing Foter­ra for its part in New Zealand’s high emis­sions from agri­cul­ture. The action was tak­en to draw atten­tion to the fact that 51% of New Zealand’s cli­mate chang­ing emis­sions come from agri­cul­ture. The pro­test­ers who were ini­tial­ly at the stock exchange, marched down Lambton Quay to sup­port the two activists hang­ing off MFAT. The two climbers came down lat­er and were not arrest­ed. A Reclaim the Streets style protest con­tin­ued for over half and hour.

The nine from ear­li­er are com­ing out of the police sta­tion now, some or all with­out charge…

OUR CLIMATE IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS!!

http://climatecamp.org.nz/

Copenhagen failure sparks coal terminal blockade

Updates:

4:30pm:

The Koor­a­gang rail line has just reopened, 7.5 hours after the block­ade began

3:00pm:

Australian Copenhagen rail blockade banners 4Australian Copenhagen rail blockade banners 1Updates:

4:30pm:

The Koor­a­gang rail line has just reopened, 7.5 hours after the block­ade began

3:00pm:

Australian Copenhagen rail blockadePolice have removed the final pro­test­er blockad­ing a coal rail bridge in New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia, more than six hours after pro­test­ers shut down the coal deliv­ery line into the world’s biggest coal port.

There were twen­ty three arrests in total at the protest, includ­ing an 86 year old man, a Bud­dhist priest , and an elect­ed New­cas­tle city coun­cil­lor.

12:00pm:

Police have made their first arrests at a dra­mat­ic coal train block­ade on a bridge in New­cas­tle – the world’s biggest coal port.

Australian Copenhagen rail blockade tripodAustralian Copenhagen rail blockade climberThree hours into the block­ade, police have arrest­ed ten peo­ple who were sit­ting on the rail bridge and refus­ing to move. Pro­test­ers expect the block­ade to last for the remain­der of the day and per­haps into the night, with a fur­ther 15 peo­ple still block­ing the bridge in dif­fi­cult to remove posi­tions.

Australian Copenhagen rail lock-onsActivists shut down the rail line at 9am this morn­ing to protest the fail­ure of the UN cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen to pro­duce a just, effec­tive, and legal­ly bind­ing treaty.

9am, Sun­day 20th Decem­ber 2009, New­cas­tle Aus­tralia: Forty cli­mate activists have closed down the rail line into the world’s biggest coal port this morn­ing, protest­ing the fail­ure of the UN cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen to pro­duce a just, effec­tive, and legal­ly bind­ing treaty.

Twen­ty five of the diverse group – aged from 19 to 86 years and includ­ing a Bud­dhist priest, and an elect­ed local coun­cil­lor – are occu­py­ing a rail bridge in New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia, and refus­ing to leave. They have hung large ban­ners read­ing “Greed wrecked Copen­hagen: Now it’s up to us all”, and “You could have done some­thing great.”

“The US, Aus­tralia, and oth­er wealthy coun­tries wrecked the Copen­hagen cli­mate talks,” said Steve Phillips, spokesper­son for protest organ­is­ers Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle.

“They refused to lift their pal­try green­house pol­lu­tion tar­gets to the lev­els required to avoid cat­a­stro­phe. They could have done some­thing great, but they failed. They let greed and self inter­est take prece­dence over the sur­vival of life on earth, and we are here today to con­demn them in the strongest pos­si­ble terms.”

Australian Copenhagen rail blockade banners 2“We put world lead­ers on notice that their con­tin­u­ing fail­ure to solve the cli­mate cri­sis will result in wide­spread direct action against the caus­es of cli­mate change, as we are see­ing here today. We’re tak­ing this action because we have had enough. We’ve seen too much grand­stand­ing, and pre­cious lit­tle action. We won’t con­tin­ue to watch as peo­ple die, as species go extinct because of cli­mate change, while emis­sions con­tin­ue to rise. Politi­cians are fail­ing to act against the caus­es of cli­mate change, so we have come here today to take action our­selves. New­cas­tle coal exports are Aus­trali­a’s sin­gle biggest con­tri­bu­tion to the cli­mate cri­sis.”

Australian Copenhagen rail blockade banners 3New­cas­tle City Coun­cil­lor Michael Osborne is among those occu­py­ing the rail bridge. He explained why: “The peo­ple of New­cas­tle and the Hunter expect­ed a fair, ambi­tious, and bind­ing treaty at Copen­hagen. They have been let down. Aus­tralia has failed to take lead­er­ship on this issue, so now peo­ple from the Hunter are tak­ing it them­selves. It is time we moved away from the fos­sil fuels that are caus­ing this cri­sis and embraced the renew­able indus­tries that can solve it.”

“Our elect­ed lead­ers are fail­ing to take action against the coal indus­try that is caus­ing the cli­mate cri­sis, so we are tak­ing that action our­selves,” con­clud­ed Steve Phillips.

Philippines: NPA Shuts Down Logging Operation, Seizes Arms

Vic­to­ri­ous NPA Offen­sive: Raid on SUDECOR

New People’s Army Front 30 seized 13 auto­mat­ic rifles con­sist­ing of two M14s, five Garands and six car­bines on Novem­ber 11 in a raid on the office of the Suri­gao Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (SUDECOR) in Barangay Pak­wan, Lanuza, Suri­gao del Sur. The guer­ril­las con­duct­ed the dis­arm­ing oper­a­tion with­out fir­ing a sin­gle shot.

Vic­to­ri­ous NPA Offen­sive: Raid on SUDECOR

New People’s Army Front 30 seized 13 auto­mat­ic rifles con­sist­ing of two M14s, five Garands and six car­bines on Novem­ber 11 in a raid on the office of the Suri­gao Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (SUDECOR) in Barangay Pak­wan, Lanuza, Suri­gao del Sur. The guer­ril­las con­duct­ed the dis­arm­ing oper­a­tion with­out fir­ing a sin­gle shot.

After dis­arm­ing the Spe­cial Civil­ian Armed Aux­il­iary (SCAA) and SUDECOR guards, the Red fight­ers con­fis­cat­ed sev­en chain­saws from the com­pa­ny. The people’s guer­ril­las also destroyed four bull­doz­ers, two log yarders, a tim­ber jack, a crane, two dumptrucks and a weld­ing machine.

The objec­tive of this puni­tive action was to put a stop to SUDECOR’s log­ging oper­a­tions, said Ka Maria Malaya, Nation­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Front-North­east­ern Min­danao Region (NDF-NEMR) spokesper­son. She added that it was about time they end­ed the company’s plun­der and relent­less destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment and people’s liveli­hood.

The com­pa­ny uses bull­doz­er drag­ging, a method where bull­doz­ers drag felled logs and destroy small trees in their path. The method like­wise erodes the soil and con­tributes to the sil­ta­tion of rivers. SUDECOR has thus been respon­si­ble for the rapid destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment and has been depriv­ing the nation­al minori­ties and set­tlers of their liveli­hood, said the NDF-NEMR spokesper­son.

That same day, com­bined forces of the 58th IB Philip­pine Army, 1405th PNP Provin­cial Mobile Group (PMG) and SCAA attempt­ed to defend the com­pa­ny and were ambushed. This result­ed in the death of nine 58th IB ele­ments, a police­man and two SCAA ele­ments after they were hit by com­mand-det­o­nat­ed explo­sives (CDX) along Kilo­me­ter 10 of the same town. Twelve oth­er sol­diers were wound­ed.

SUDECOR is owned by the big com­prador bour­geois Puy­at fam­i­ly. It has wrought hav­oc for more than four decades in Surigao’s forest­ed areas. As a result, Suri­gao now has only 3,000 hectares of vir­gin forests, down from the pre­vi­ous 69,000 hectares.

http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/philippines-npa-shuts-down-logging-operation-seizes-arms‑2/

Amazon mega dam delayed following protests

3 Decem­ber 2009

The go-ahead to build the Belo Monte hydro­elec­tric dam, planned for the Xin­gu riv­er in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, has been delayed fol­low­ing protests by Indi­ans and objec­tions by local and inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions.

Kayapo protests against dam3 Decem­ber 2009

The go-ahead to build the Belo Monte hydro­elec­tric dam, planned for the Xin­gu riv­er in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, has been delayed fol­low­ing protests by Indi­ans and objec­tions by local and inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions.

If con­struct­ed, the dam will be the third largest in the world, cost­ing over US$10 bil­lion, bring­ing more than 200,000 work­ers into the area and forc­ing an esti­mat­ed 20,000 peo­ple from their homes.

A large pro­por­tion of those dis­placed will be indige­nous peo­ples who have been liv­ing in the area for cen­turies. Nine mil­lion hectares of rain­for­est will be affect­ed.

The dam was con­demned because it vio­lates human rights and harms the envi­ron­ment, at a hear­ing on dams organ­ised by the Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Human Rights last month.

Kayapó Indi­ans togeth­er with 14 oth­er tribes par­tic­i­pat­ed in a week-long protest in Octo­ber.

After the protest, Indi­an rep­re­sen­ta­tives deliv­ered a let­ter to Pres­i­dent Lula in which they warned, ‘If the Gov­ern­ment decides to go ahead with the con­struc­tion of Belo Monte, we Indi­ans of the Xin­gu will com­mence a war.’

Although FUNAI, Brazil’s Indi­an Affairs agency, acknowl­edges the dam will have a neg­a­tive impact on indige­nous peo­ples, it has giv­en its go-ahead for the project.

The auc­tion when com­pa­nies will bid for con­tracts to build Belo Monte has been delayed owing to prob­lems in acquir­ing an envi­ron­men­tal licence for the project. If the licence is not grant­ed by Jan­u­ary, the con­struc­tion of the dam will be fur­ther post­poned, pos­si­bly until 2014.

On Tues­day, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and oth­ers affect­ed attend­ed a pub­lic hear­ing where the author­i­ties involved in the con­struc­tion of the dam spoke of its impacts. How­ev­er, no rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the gov­ern­ment bod­ies most close­ly linked to the project attend­ed. Anoth­er hear­ing was held yes­ter­day, fol­lowed by a protest by indige­nous lead­ers.

The Licens­ing Direc­tor and the Infra­struc­ture and Ener­gy Coor­di­na­tor of Brazil’s Envi­ron­ment Min­istry, key fig­ures in the Belo Monte case, announced their res­ig­na­tion on Tues­day.

For more infor­ma­tion about the Belo Monte dam see Inter­na­tion­al Rivers.

Read more about dams affect­ing oth­er indige­nous peo­ples around the world.

November 30: Global Day of Action on Climate Crisis (mostly in USA, Canada & UK)

Today, on Novem­ber 30, one week before the UN cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen open, and on the 10th anniver­sary of the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion (WTO) protest in Seat­tle in 1999, major protests, lock-ons and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are tak­ing place in cities around the world.

Today, on Novem­ber 30, one week before the UN cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen open, and on the 10th anniver­sary of the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion (WTO) protest in Seat­tle in 1999, major protests, lock-ons and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are tak­ing place in cities around the world.
Cliffside generator lock-on

USA: Con­cerned cit­i­zens block ship­ment of gen­er­a­tor to Cliff­side Coal Plant

Update: Four have been arrest­ed: 2 who were locked down and 2 oth­ers. About 20 oth­ers are still at the site with ban­ners.

For Imme­di­ate Release

Novem­ber 30, 2009

Press Con­tact: Liz Veazey 919–627-7324 ashevillerisingtide@gmail.com
Onsite Con­tact: Atti­la Nemecz
919–889-1261 www.asheville.risingtidenorthamerica.org

Con­cerned cit­i­zens block ship­ment of gen­er­a­tor to Cliff­side Coal Plant.

Greenville, SC Two pro­test­ers have locked them­selves to the 1.5 mil­lion pound gen­er­a­tor des­tined for Duke Ener­gy’s Cliff­side coal plant in Ruther­ford Coun­ty, North Car­oli­na. Pro­tes­tors are vow­ing to pre­vent the gen­er­a­tor, which has been trav­el­ing across South Car­oli­na on a 300 foot trail­er, from reach­ing the coal plant. “Our nation has no choice, we must stop burn­ing coal. The only choice that we can make is whether we do that in time to still have breath­able air, drink­able water, a liv­able cli­mate, and stand­ing moun­tains,” said, Cather­ine Anne. Pro­tes­tors also draped a large ban­ner from the top of the gen­er­a­tor read­ing, “Stop Cliff­side.”

The con­tro­ver­sial Cliff­side coal plant would emit over 6 mil­lion tons of car­bon diox­ide ever year in addi­tion to tox­ic lev­els of heavy met­als such as mer­cury, great­ly exac­er­bat­ing glob­al warm­ing and our abysmal air qual­i­ty. Duke Ener­gy is seek­ing to raise elec­tric­i­ty rates in order to pay for the con­struc­tion of Cliff­side at a time when record num­bers of fam­i­lies are strug­gling to put food on the table due to the reces­sion.

This act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence comes a week before world lead­ers meet in Copen­hagen to hash out a glob­al cli­mate agree­ment. “Any agree­ment made in Copen­hagen will be mean­ing­less if the US con­tin­ues to build coal plants such as Cliff­side. It is time to tear down coal plants, not con­struct new ones,” said Rachel Scara­no. There are cur­rent­ly 43 coal plants pro­posed or under con­struc­tion in the US, though over 100 oth­ers have been can­celled due to wide­spread protests.

Since it was first pro­posed, there has been mas­sive oppo­si­tion to Cliff­side. In the past year and a half over 60 peo­ple have been arrest­ed protest­ing the plant, and they vow to con­tin­ue the fight. “Since politi­cians and cor­po­ra­tions refuse to take seri­ous action to stop cli­mate change, cit­i­zens must step in to shut down coal plants,” said
Atti­la Nemecz. The protest was orga­nized by Asheville Ris­ing Tide and Croatan Earth First! and is part of a nation­al day of action with dozens of protests around the coun­try includ­ing Chica­go, New York City, Wash­ing­ton DC, and San Fran­cis­co.

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Climate activists blockade biomass plant in Port Talbot on 30th November 2009UK: Cli­mate activists block­ade bio­mass plant in Port Tal­bot on 30th Novem­ber 2009

Activists from Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru [1] have block­ad­ed a bio­mass plant in Port Tal­bot to protest against plans to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty from import­ed wood­chips.

Two pro­test­ers used bicy­cle locks to close off the plant’s entrance, stop­ping the hourly 20-tonne deliv­er­ies of wood­chip need­ed to keep the pow­er sta­tion oper­at­ing. A large ban­ner on the gates reads “Bio­mess”. Oth­er activists climbed up the chim­ney to unfurl a giant ban­ner in Welsh read­ing “Clean Ener­gy: Dirty Joke”.

The plant is the first of its kind in the UK, incin­er­at­ing wood­chips to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty. It is a test plant for the large-scale plants that have been announced in Britain. The world’s largest bio­mass plant (350 MW) has already been approved in Port Tal­bot and con­struc­tion is due to start ear­ly next year. The sec­ond largest in the world is planned for Holy­head, Angle­sey.

Rob Good­sell, 33 said, “The Port Tal­bot and Holy­head bio­mass plants will require an area of ded­i­cat­ed bio­mass plan­ta­tions half the size of Wales. A land area this size could feed up to a third of the pop­u­la­tion of Britain. With the world fac­ing seri­ous food secu­ri­ty issues in com­ing years this is crazy.”

Ioan Gwyn, 29 said: “The pow­er com­pa­nies said the wood will come from sus­tain­able sources but the real­i­ty is very dif­fer­ent. In 2008 about 9 mil­lion hectares of indus­tri­al tree plan­ta­tions have been cer­ti­fied as sus­tain­able despite evi­dence of their dev­as­tat­ing effects on peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment [2]. These plan­ta­tions are in fact green deserts: they con­sume vast amounts of water and are emp­ty of native wildlife.”

Melis­sa Har­vey com­ment­ed: “Burn­ing wood is called car­bon neu­tral but this is a myth. [3] It’s hard to believe but burn­ing wood for elec­tric­i­ty is even dirt­i­er than coal. It releas­es one and half as much car­bon diox­ide as burn­ing coal, [4] and the oth­er pol­lu­tion affect­ing air qual­i­ty is near­ly as bad as coal.” [5]

Adam Thoro­good said: “We’re going to cook the world’s remain­ing forests to fight cli­mate change. At this rate, research shows that the world’s forests will be all gone with­in the next 60 years.”

Ioan Gwyn com­ment­ed: “Burn­ing wood releas­es car­bon diox­ide. Each plant will emit about 4 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide a year. This means that Wales’ car­bon diox­ide emis­sions will increase by 20% as soon as Port Tal­bot and Holy­head bio­mass plant open. Whilst sci­en­tists are warn­ing of the fragili­ty of for­est ecosys­tems, the UK gov­ern­ment is sub­si­dis­ing their destruc­tion by giv­ing these two devel­op­ers £400 mil­lion a year. Instead, they should be giv­ing sub­si­dies to tru­ly clean ener­gy, such as wind and solar pow­er.” [6]

Rob Good­sell added: “Forests play a key role in seques­ter­ing car­bon diox­ide from the atmos­phere. The best thing to do is to leave the car­bon locked up as wood, and that means not burn­ing it.”

Melis­sa Har­vey con­clud­ed: “Cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change could be unstop­pable in as lit­tle as 10 years. This is our last win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty. False solu­tions such as bio­mass and car­bon trad­ing mean we’ll have no chance at all. And when we talk about cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, we’re not talk­ing hot sum­mers, we’re talk­ing about the ques­tion of sur­vival.”
Con­tacts for inter­views:

* Pro­test­ers: mobile phone num­bers: 07952 932 626 / 07909 171 951. Address: West­ern Wood Ener­gy Plant, 1 Long­land Lane, Port Tal­bot, SA13 2NR.
* Inter­views in Welsh: Ang­harad Pen­rhyn Jones: 07780 914 369
* Bio­fu­el­watch: Almuth Ern­st­ing: 01224 324797.
* Port Tal­bot Res­i­dents Against Pow­er Sta­tions: Pete Wil­son: 01639 884 820, Jere­my Bai­leys: 07702069561. http://www.pt-raps.co.uk/index.html; info@pt-raps.co.uk
* High-res pho­tos avail­able here.

Notes:

[1] Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru: www.climatecampcymru.org. Take Action 1–7 Decem­ber.
[2] “Can we trust the FSC?” the Ecol­o­gist: http://www.theecologist.org/trial_investigations/325243/can_we_trust_the_fsc.html
[3] “Good­bye to Car­bon Neu­tral” http://www.maforests.org/Carbon.pdf
[4] Bio­mass Fact­sheet from Dr Mary Booth http://massenvironmentalenergy.org/docs/biomass%20factsheet%20from%20MEEA.pdf
[5] Envi­ron­men­tal Impacts of Bio­mass Ener­gy Options: Gov­ern­ment report Sept 2006: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/09/22094104/6
[6] “Fix­ing a Crit­i­cal Cli­mate Account­ing Error” T. Searchinger, S.P. Ham­burg: http://www.princeton.edu/~tsearchi/writings/Fixing%20a%20Critical%20Climate%20Accounting%20ErrorEDITED-tim.pdf
Fur­ther infor­ma­tion:

- In total, at least 2,400 megawatts of wood-fired ener­gy plants have been announced in Britain: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48574

- Back­ground infor­ma­tion regard­ing Holy­head 300MW bio­mass plant pro­pos­al: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/angleseyoct2009.php

- Where would the wood come from?

* Last month at the UN-spon­sored World Forestry Con­gress in Buenos Aires, the agron­o­mist engi­neer Hec­tor Gin­zo, an advis­er of the Kyoto Pro­to­col, stressed that plan­ta­tions could not be clas­si­fied as sus­tain­able. He said UN rules “would nev­er allow of plan­ta­tion of euca­lyp­tus or oth­er fast grow­ing trees for use as pulp or wood to be con­sid­ered a sus­tain­able forestry project, because that kind of pro­duc­tion favours mono­cul­ture forests and the car­bon cap­ture is lost when the trees are cut down”.

* Port Tal­bot – 350MW bio­mass plant: “Pren­er­gy is com­mit­ed to obtain­ing feed­stock from a range of over­sea sources”.

* Holy­head project: This pow­er sta­tion would burn 2.4 mil­lion tonnes main­ly import­ed wood every year. This is more than twice the amount of wood which the UK gov­ern­ment states can be obtained from increased wood har­vests in the UK – yet net imports of wood and wood prod­ucts already account for about 80% of our use and indus­tri­al tree plan­ta­tions. In the UK, includ­ing in Wales, mono­cul­ture tree plan­ta­tions have cre­at­ed acidic degrad­ed soils and have had severe impacts on our bio­di­ver­si­ty.

* How­ev­er, the impact on the glob­al South of the UK’s rapid­ly grow­ing demand for wood chips and wood pel­lets will be far more severe, although in this case, they may be pri­mar­i­ly indi­rect impacts. Angle­sey Alu­mini­um Ltd have spo­ken about poten­tial sup­plies from the US and Cana­da, how­ev­er across North Amer­i­ca vast num­bers of wood pow­er sta­tions are already being built which can­not be sup­plied with­out much faster destruc­tion of North America’s nat­ur­al forests. Across the south­ern US, vast areas of native for­est have been destroyed to make way for pulp and paper tree plan­ta­tions, sup­ply­ing much of the US demand for paper. Now, the south­ern US wants to use that wood for bioen­er­gy, includ­ing in the UK. This means that the US is increas­ing­ly look­ing to South Amer­i­ca and oth­er coun­tries in the glob­al South for pulp and paper. Tree plan­ta­tions have already had dev­as­tat­ing effects on peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment across South Amer­i­ca, Indonesia/West Papua and oth­er regions where expan­sion due to our demand for bio­mass is like­ly. More ecosys­tems and more lands on which local com­mu­ni­ties depend for their liveli­hoods will be destroyed as a result of US wood being burned in UK pow­er sta­tions. Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Indonesia/West Papua, Ghana and Argenti­na are amongst the coun­tries like­ly to meet future Euro­pean demand for wood chips and wood pel­lets.

More pic­tures

See video of the action

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Plymouth Barclays lock-onUK: ‘Cli­mate refugees’ d‑locked on Bar­clay’s build­ing’s entrance!

Update: Two activists stayed locked on inside the build­ing entrance for 2 1/2 hours chant­i­ng, singing, and inform­ing Bar­clay’s cus­tomers of Bar­clay’s dodgy invest­ments, before they were arrest­ed. Bar­clays even­tu­al­ly closed their main entrance and mem­bers of the pub­lic were very sup­port­ive.

Today at mid­day, Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth ‘Cli­mate refugees’ have d‑locked them­selves to Bar­clay’s bank build­ing’s entrance to high­light the invest­ments this bank is doing on Coal, Tar Sands and Arms Trade in times of Cli­mate emer­gency.

Coal is the dirt­i­est, most dat­ed and inef­fi­cient fos­sil fuel (1)

Tar Sands Oil is the dirt­i­est and most expen­sive oil in terms of extrac­tion and emis­sions ‑and glob­al oil resources are run­ning out! (2)

The Arms Trade gen­er­ates vio­lence every­where and also green­house gas emis­sions — Bar­clay’s being the largest investor of all UK banks in this sec­tor. (3)

Coal,Tar Sands and the Arms Trade are not only respon­si­ble for a phe­nom­e­nal amount of glob­al Green­house Gas emis­sions but if they do con­tin­ue, it will lead us inevitably to run­away Cli­mate Chaos. We have already more than 20 mil­lion of refugees from envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters caused by glob­al warm­ing.

This action seeks to remem­ber the pow­er of the Peo­ple to con­front issues that endan­ger their future as peo­ple in Seat­tle did 10 years ago(4), when a mas­sive direct action took to the streets of Seat­tle to stop the World Trade Organ­i­sa­tion meet­ing to keep mak­ing prof­its out of our future.

Also, Ris­ing Tide want to raise their voice towards Copen­hagen Cli­mate talks (COP15) where thou­sands of peo­ple will pres­sure for real Cli­mate Jus­tice and to stop the ‘busi­ness as usu­al’ atti­tude towards Cli­mate chaos(5)

Anne Smith, spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth explains: “Our future is under a big threat called Cli­mate Change, we, the peo­ple, need to take respon­si­bil­i­ty to do some­thing about it. Today, tens of thou­sands are mobi­liz­ing to COP15 to say enough is enough. Enough of putting prof­it before life. Enough of ‘busi­ness as usu­al’ at the
expense of our future. Enough of mak­ing excus­es with false solu­tions to keep exploit­ing peo­ple and the plan­et”.

RT PRESS CONTACT: Anne Smith 07990 923 234

Ris­ing Tide is a grass­roots net­work con­fronting the root caus­es of Cli­mate Change with Non-vio­lent direct action and Pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion.

Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth: plymouth@risingtide.org.uk
Web: www.risingtide.org.uk

Notes to Edi­tor:

1. Coal is rec­og­nized as the dirt­i­est, most dat­ed and in-effi­cient fos­sil fuel. See the report “Cash­ing in on coal”: http://www.platformlondon.org/carbonweb/showitem.asp?article=338&parent=9

2. Tar Sands (oil sands)represent unre­strained fos­sil fuel use and unchecked green­house gas emis­sions. See: http://www.tarsandswatch.org/

3. The Arms Trade alone pro­vide 25% of glob­al emis­sions.

4. In Novem­ber 30th 1999 thou­sands of pro­test­ers shut down the WTO meet­ings for 4 days. See: http://www.realbattleinseattle.org/node/18

5. Peo­ple are mobi­liz­ing now. See: http://www.climate-justice-action.org/ and http://climatecamp.org.uk/

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Chicago climate N30 blockadeUSA: Cli­mate Activists tar­get Car­bon Trad­ing @ Chica­go Cli­mate Exchange – 12 arrest­ed

200 Chica­go cli­mate activists returned to the streets today – this time in the finan­cial dis­trict in down­town Chica­go – in a col­or­ful demon­stra­tion against cap and trade, car­bon off­sets and oth­er “false solu­tions” to cli­mate change. Build­ing on the long-term cam­paign to shut down the Craw­ford and Fisk coal-fired pow­er plants in the city, com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal groups from across Chica­go and beyond have come togeth­er to demand just, equi­table, and effec­tive solu­tions to the cli­mate cri­sis.

The main tar­get of today’s action is the Chica­go Cli­mate Exchange, the first and largest car­bon mar­ket in North Amer­i­ca. Sev­er­al oth­er “cli­mate crim­i­nals” were vis­it­ed dur­ing a march, includ­ing JP Mor­gan Chase, one of the lead­ing fun­ders of moun­tain top removal coal min­ing; Mid­west Gen­er­a­tion, the own­er of Chicago’s two coal-fired pow­er plants; and the Board of Trade, which trades in palm oil, one of the lead­ing dri­vers of rain­for­est destruc­tion.

The event kicked off at 11a.m. at Fed­er­al Plaza (Adams and Dear­born Street), and is part of a nation­al day of action called for by the Mobi­liza­tion for Cli­mate Jus­tice in the lead-up to the UN cli­mate sum­mit in Copen­hagen and on the 10-year anniver­sary of the suc­cess­ful shut­down of the WTO in Seat­tle in 1999.

“From Chica­go to Copen­hagen, pow­er­ful com­pa­nies are cash­ing in on the cli­mate cri­sis, tak­ing advan­tage of pub­lic con­cern over cli­mate change in order to make a buck. Car­bon trad­ing insti­tu­tions like the Chica­go Cli­mate Exchange are pri­va­tiz­ing the air we breathe and hand­ing over rights to the atmos­phere to the biggest pol­luters,” stat­ed Ang­ie Viands, of Rain­for­est Action Net­work (RAN) Chica­go. “Car­bon Trad­ing is a fraud­u­lent mar­ket that inten­si­fies social injus­tice, does not reduce emis­sions in a mean­ing­ful way, and acts as a dan­ger­ous dis­trac­tion from the real cli­mate solu­tions we urgent­ly need.”

Event orga­niz­ers seek to high­light the con­nec­tions between the glob­al dri­vers of cli­mate change and local strug­gles for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice and cli­mate sta­bil­i­ty.

“The solu­tion to cli­mate change isn’t car­bon trad­ing; it is a just, rapid tran­si­tion away from the indus­tries that are poi­son­ing our com­mu­ni­ties and the plan­et. We can begin by shut­ting down the Craw­ford and Fisk coal plants right here in Chica­go,” said Dori­an Breuer of the Pilsen Envi­ron­men­tal Rights and Reform Orga­ni­za­tion (PERRO).

While car­bon trad­ing is the cen­ter­piece of plans to deal with the cli­mate cri­sis both in the UN, and in the US Con­gress and Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion, many civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions con­sid­er this mar­ket-based approach to be inef­fec­tive and unac­cept­able from a cli­mate jus­tice per­spec­tive. “The air is not for sale!” declared Abi­gail Singer of the Mobi­liza­tion for Cli­mate Jus­tice. “Cap and trade plans are an unprece­dent­ed and oppor­tunis­tic attempt to pri­va­tize the atmos­phere; in real­i­ty, many off­set projects embody a new form of colo­nial­ism in the devel­op­ing nations that are most heav­i­ly impact­ed by cli­mate change. We reject these plans as inher­ent­ly unjust as well as inef­fec­tive at reduc­ing emis­sions.”

Crit­i­cism of car­bon trad­ing has been mount­ing, most recent­ly from sources like top NASA cli­mate sci­en­tist Dr. James Hansen and EPA attor­neys Lau­rie Williams and Allan Zabel, who between them rep­re­sent over 40 years of expe­ri­ence ana­lyz­ing cap and trade and off­set pro­grams. Both were recent­ly muz­zled by the EPA for their out­spo­ken crit­i­cism of Admin­is­tra­tion plans to pur­sue cap and trade and off­sets which appeared as a Wash­ing­ton Post edi­to­r­i­al.

Activists will also con­front Mid­west Gen­er­a­tion LLC, own­er of the Fisk and Craw­ford coal-fired pow­er plants in Pilsen and Lit­tle Vil­lage, Chica­go. Local res­i­dents attribute numer­ous adverse health effects to the con­tin­ued oper­a­tion of the plants, prompt­ing com­mu­ni­ty groups LVEJO and PERRO to active­ly cam­paign for their clo­sure. This demand has been heard by Ald. Joe Moore (49th Ward), who announced plans on Octo­ber 24th to intro­duce an ordi­nance which would effec­tive­ly shut the plants down. The Fisk plant was the tar­get of a large com­mu­ni­ty demon­stra­tion in Octo­ber on the 350 Inter­na­tion­al Day of Cli­mate Action. Togeth­er, Fisk and Crawford’s emis­sions rep­re­sent one-fifth of Chicago’s car­bon foot­print.

“We are here today as a com­mu­ni­ty demand­ing a trans­par­ent and tru­ly renew­able clean ener­gy future. Our environment’s future should not be depen­dant on a mar­ket based sys­tem, it should be reli­able to save our future. We demand our voice be heard!” said Kim Wasser­man, Coor­di­na­tor for the Lit­tle Vil­lage Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Orga­ni­za­tion (LVEJO)

“We have lived in the shad­ows of these coal plants for far too long. The recent law­suits against the plants for health vio­la­tions show that gov­ern­ment is will­ing to move, but we need them to move faster and stronger,” Wasser­man said.

“To bring atmos­pher­ic car­bon into the safe zone of 350 parts per mil­lion (ppm), we must phase out dirty coal, invest in clean, decen­tral­ized, renew­able ener­gy, and adopt agri­cul­ture and forestry prac­tices that sequester CO2. False solu­tions like car­bon trad­ing, so-called “clean coal” and nuclear pow­er are not going to solve the cli­mate cri­sis,” states Debra Michaud of Rain­for­est Action Net­work Chica­go.

Orga­niz­ers express oppo­si­tion to cur­rent­ly pro­posed U.S. cli­mate leg­is­la­tion which relies heav­i­ly on can and trade and car­bon off­sets.

“The cur­rent cli­mate leg­is­la­tion is fatal­ly flawed, set­ting weak tar­gets and cre­at­ing inap­pro­pri­ate tools,” remarks David Kraft of Nuclear Ener­gy Infor­ma­tion Ser­vice. “It should be mod­i­fied to exclude false cli­mate solu­tions, or else reject­ed; and cer­tain­ly should NOT in its cur­rent form serve as the blue­print for the U.S. nego­ti­at­ing posi­tion in Copen­hagen,” insists Kraft. A co-signed let­ter in oppo­si­tion will be deliv­ered to the offices of Sens. Richard Durbin and Roland Bur­ris before the ral­ly, and for­mal meet­ings request­ed of the Sen­a­tors before they vote on the Sen­ate ver­sion of the cli­mate bill.

Some par­tic­i­pants will take part in non­vi­o­lent direct action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence at one of the sites along the march route.

Pho­tos and updates from the event will be avail­able at:http://howgreenischicago.org and http://www.actforclimatejustice.org. The pro­ces­sion will include a march­ing band and many col­or­ful ban­ners, props and signs.

Today’s action is one of nine major protests tak­ing place across the US orga­nized by the Mobi­liza­tion for Cli­mate Jus­tice, Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca, and the Cli­mate Pledge of Resis­tance. Local­ly, five orga­ni­za­tions that helped orga­nize the Octo­ber 24th protest ral­ly at the Fisk coal-fired pow­er plant in Chica­go are endors­ing today’s action and are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the march and ral­ly: Rain­for­est Action Net­work Chica­go, Lit­tle Vil­lage Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Orga­ni­za­tion, Nuclear Ener­gy Infor­ma­tion Ser­vice, Pilsen Envi­ron­men­tal Rights and Reform Orga­ni­za­tion, and Eco-Jus­tice Col­lab­o­ra­tive.

In addi­tion to the pho­tos above, check out Joe P. Dick’s gallery here.
—-

USA: 22 arrest­ed in San Fran­cis­co to set the tone for Copen­hagen

A crowd of 200 peo­ple gath­ered at Justin Her­man Plaza at 11:30 AM to pre­pare for the days events. The Rag­ing Grannies (http://www.raginggrannies.com/)kicked off the morn­ing with four sassy songs, fol­lowed by cli­mate sci­en­tist Pay­al Parekh and Rich­mond com­mu­ni­ty leader, Dr. Hen­ry Clark. The pro­gram end­ed with a the­ater piece about cul­tur­al and bio­di­ver­si­ty loss as a con­se­quence of cli­mate dis­rup­tion. The Brass Lib­er­a­tion Orches­tra (http://brassliberation.org/) lead the march down Mar­ket street then turned right on Mont­gomery (a one-way street mov­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion). Peo­ple in cars accept­ed fly­ers and onlook­ers we intrigued by the chant­i­ng mass, “Sys­tem Change, Not Cli­mate Change!” Short­ly there­after, we arrived at Bank of Amer­i­ca. The para­chute ban­ner unfurled, signs were quick­ly post­ed, and both entrances to the bank were tak­en over.

It wasn’t long before police pres­ence grew, but most­ly inside the build­ing, watch­ing from behind the glass. Five con­cerned cit­i­zens were arrest­ed while demand­ing that Bank of Amer­i­ca stop the fund­ing false solu­tions. Over­all, twen­ty-two were arrest­ed. Many stat­ed that this is only the begin­ning and that sup­port for our friends going to Copen­hagen con­tin­ues Decem­ber 7th in San Ramon at Chevron’s Head­quar­ters – (http://west.actforclimatejustice.org/upcoming-events/december-7th-chevron-protest/)

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Cana­da: Ontario cli­mate jus­tice sit-in and office occu­pa­tion con­tin­ues

PEOPLE FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

For More Infor­ma­tion Con­tact:

Crys­tal Metham 416–435-3516

Kate­lyn Blacisk 647 929 2400
POLICE ISSUE ULTIMATUM TO PROTESTERS ORDERING THEM TO LEAVE BY END OF DAY OR BE FORCIBLY REMOVED

Novem­ber 30, 2009 (Whit­by, Ontario) — Police have issued an ulti­ma­tum to the sev­en cli­mate activists inside Finance Min­is­ter Jim Flaherty’s Whit­by office, stat­ing they must leave by the end of the day or else be forcibly removed. To speak direct­ly to one of the pro­test­ers cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the office, the fol­low­ing mem­bers of Peo­ple for Cli­mate Jus­tice can be reached via cell phone:

Paul Mero 514–825-9878

Janet McNeill 647–207-3208

The third of a series of peace­ful sit-ins staged by a coali­tion of con­cerned indi­vid­u­als tar­get­ing elect­ed offi­cials, tar sands financiers, and the coal and tar sands indus­tries began at Finance Min­is­ter Jim Flaherty’s office today, locat­ed at: 701 Ross­land Road East- Unit 204, Whit­by. Sev­en mem­bers of the Peo­ple for Cli­mate Jus­tice coali­tion entered the office just after 9:30 refus­ing to leave, demand­ing that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment act to com­bat the cli­mate cri­sis and stem the mil­lions of deaths and dis­place­ments that will result from more inac­tion.

“While our gov­ern­ment stalls, mil­lions of peo­ple will die or become dis­placed due to the cli­mate cri­sis,” said Green­peace Cli­mate and Ener­gy Coor­di­na­tor, Dave Mar­tin from inside the office. “If they fail to reach an agree­ment the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment is say­ing it does not care about the lives of those cur­rent­ly and most affect­ed by cli­mate change. Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty must put pres­sure on the Gov­ern­ment to act and push for a just, ambi­tious, and bind­ing deal in Copen­hagen with sci­ence based tar­gets, that is led by the voic­es of those who are most direct­ly impact­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis.”

Inac­tion on cli­mate change is already dis­plac­ing and killing mil­lions, and send­ing many into pover­ty. The UN esti­mates there will be 150 mil­lion cli­mate refugees by 2050.

“Despite the grow­ing cri­sis, the Harp­er Gov­ern­ment is try­ing to sab­o­tage efforts to solve this glob­al prob­lem, expand­ing the tar sands rather than lead­ing the push for and financ­ing of real solu­tions. We will not let our gov­ern­ment delay any fur­ther while mil­lions die and are dis­placed. Their behav­iour is unac­cept­able, we need gov­ern­men­tal lead­er­ship for cli­mate jus­tice now,” said par­tic­i­pant, Indra Noyes.

The indi­vid­u­als inside have mul­ti­ple affil­i­a­tions. They pre­sent­ed a let­ter addressed to Finance Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty out­lin­ing their con­cerns and demands (Attached). The sit-in of office is ongo­ing. The police have been called and there is the poten­tials for arrests. A group of local and region­al sup­port­ers have also gath­ered out­side of the Finance Minister’s office.

“Let­ter writ­ing, ral­lies, meet­ings, and phone calls are all impor­tant actions, but our Government’s inac­tion indi­cates that these tac­tics are not enough. We must step up the pres­sure so we are engag­ing in peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, like those before us, to ensure we do our part to solve the great­est envi­ron­men­tal threat of our time,” stat­ed for­mer con­stituent Janet McNeill.

For pho­tos of the action, seehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/canadaclimatejustice

Infor­ma­tion about the call for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence for cli­mate jus­tice, as well as updates on actions set to take place across Cana­da in the com­ing weeks is online at:
http://canadaclimatejustice.wordpress.com/

DEMAND LETTER:

Hon­ourable Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty:

We are hold­ing a sit-in at in your con­stituen­cy office today because the Con­ser­v­a­tive Gov­ern­ment is stalling progress to build a just, mean­ing­ful, and bind­ing cli­mate treaty this Decem­ber
in Copen­hagen.

Inac­tion on cli­mate change is already dis­plac­ing and killing mil­lions, and send­ing many into pover­ty. In Cana­da, cli­mate change is harm­ing the land and lives of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in the Far North.
Glob­al­ly, recent declines in food pro­duc­tion due to cli­mate-cat­alyzed droughts, is caus­ing food short­ages in some poor coun­tries and esca­lat­ing glob­al hunger. Cli­mate caused events like floods, melt­ing glac­i­ers, and sea lev­el rise, are forc­ing mil­lions to per­ma­nent­ly flee their homes, from Pacif­ic islanders to sub­sis­tence farm­ers in India. The UN esti­mates there will be 150 mil­lion cli­mate refugees by 2050.

We call on you Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty to pub­licly com­mit to do every­thing in your pow­er to mean­ing­ful­ly and fair­ly address the glob­al cli­mate cri­sis.

We call on you Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty to make sure the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment sup­ports a just, mean­ing­ful, and bind­ing cli­mate treaty this Decem­ber in Copen­hagen.

We call on you Min­is­ter Fla­her­ty to pub­licly com­mit to pass the Cli­mate Change Account­abil­i­ty Act, which calls on Cana­da to dras­ti­cal­ly reduce its green­house gas emis­sions and do its’ part to solve cli­mate change.

Final­ly, we demand that you pub­licly com­mit to sign the UN Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ple. Cli­mate change is a human rights issue, and First Nations in Cana­da are feel­ing
cli­mate change worst and first.

The glob­al cli­mate cri­sis is threat­en­ing our future, and human­i­ties’ future. We have passed the time for inac­tion. We demand change.

Yours,

Peo­ple For Cli­mate Jus­tice

CITIZENS OCCUPY RONA AMBROSE’S EDMONTON OFFICE
CALL FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE IN LEAD-UP TO COPENHAGEN TALKS

Novem­ber 25, 2009 (Edmon­ton, Alber­ta) — The sec­ond of a series of peace­ful sit-ins tar­get­ing elect­ed offi­cials, tar sands financiers, and the coal and tar sands indus­tries began at 11:00 am at Labour Min­is­ter Rona Ambrose’s Edmon­ton con­stituen­cy office (6801 170 St.) today. 10 peo­ple entered the office and have staged a peace­ful sit-in – refus­ing to leave until the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment com­mits to com­bat­ing the cli­mate cri­sis and stems the deaths and dis­place­ments of mil­lions that will result from fur­ther inac­tion. The occu­pa­tion fol­lows a sim­i­lar occu­pa­tion that was held on Mon­day at Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Jim Prentice’s office in Cal­gary.

“While our gov­ern­ment delays mil­lions of peo­ple will die or become dis­placed due to the cli­mate cri­sis. By stalling and block­ing progress the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment is say­ing it doesn’t care about the lives of those cur­rent­ly and most affect­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis,” said Mar­tin Tweedale, one of the peo­ple occu­py­ing the office. “Rona Ambrose must put pres­sure on the Gov­ern­ment to act and push for a just, ambi­tious, and bind­ing deal that lis­tens to the sci­ence, and is led by those most direct­ly impact­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis.”

Inac­tion on cli­mate change is already dis­plac­ing and killing mil­lions, and send­ing many into pover­ty. The UN esti­mates there will be 150 mil­lion cli­mate refugees by 2050.

“Canada’s econ­o­my is being left behind, our envi­ron­ment is being dec­i­mat­ed and we are telling those most vul­ner­a­ble that their lives don’t mat­ter. Rona Ambrose should be invest­ing in green jobs not car­bon inten­sive indus­tries like the tar sands. The US gov­ern­ment invest­ed 14 times more per per­son in renew­able ener­gy than Cana­da last year,” said Keely Kid­ner. “We’ve held ral­lies, phone-ins, flash mobs, we’ve writ­ten and talked to our MP’s and noth­ing has changed. Now we are tak­ing the next step, in the tra­di­tion of Gand­hi and the Civ­il Rights Move­ment to do our part to solve the great­est envi­ron­men­tal threat of our time.”

The sit-in is still ongo­ing. The police have been called and there is poten­tial for arrest.

Infor­ma­tion about the call for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence for cli­mate jus­tice, as well as updates on actions set to take place across Cana­da in the com­ing weeks is online at:
http://canadaclimatejustice.wordpress.com/

For More Infor­ma­tion Con­tact:
Keely Kid­ner: 780 695 9057
Mar­tin Tweedale: 780 490 8015

—-

USA: Seat­tle lock-down at Bank of Amer­i­ca and Chase

—-

There were oth­er protests, most­ly in North Amer­i­ca, but also around the world: march­es in Mehdi­ganj (India), Phoenix, Wash­ing­ton, DC, and also in San Fran­ciso (USA); die-ins in Den­ver, Boston (USA); street-the­atre in Den­mark and New York; ban­ner-drops in Char­lottesville and ral­lies in Burling­ton, Bal­ti­more (USA) and Mon­tre­al, Que­bec (Cana­da), leaflett­ted in Lon­don and mooned at the Cana­di­an fed­er­al par­lia­ment in Ottawa.

—-

MCJ is a broad and diverse coali­tion of orga­ni­za­tions work­ing for social, envi­ron­men­tal, eco­nom­ic and racial jus­tice is call­ing for urgent action on the glob­al cli­mate cri­sis, based on equi­table, demo­c­ra­t­ic and sci­ence-based solu­tions.

As world lead­ers gath­er in Copen­hagen, the peo­ple hit hard­est by this cri­sis and the least respon­si­ble for its cause — work­ing class, Indige­nous and peo­ple of col­or com­mu­ni­ties around the world — have been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly exclud­ed and are demand­ing a voice at the table.

Mean­while, the world’s major cor­po­ra­tions have been dom­i­nat­ing inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic cli­mate pol­i­cy — as they did in the inter­na­tion­al trade pol­i­cy are­na. Car­bon-trad­ing and car­bon off­set projects have already allowed these pol­luters to avoid cut­ting emis­sions and expand their mar­kets into poor coun­tries, accel­er­at­ing cor­po­rate take-over of the world’s resources at the expense of local and Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

“We can­not allow the world’s largest cor­po­rate pol­luters to con­tin­ue rob­bing our chil­dren’s future,” stat­ed Car­la Perez of Move­ment Gen­er­a­tion Jus­tice and Ecol­o­gy Project, who will be march­ing with her daugh­ter in a parade of chil­dren and the Rag­ing Grannies. “US cor­po­ra­tions have been hold­ing real cli­mate solu­tions hostage, while bur­den­ing our com­mu­ni­ties with ongo­ing attacks on our health and liveli­hoods.”

Look­ing to get involved in the next action? Please fol­low www.actforclimatejustice.org to get involved!

Send in Action Reports!

Support the Eco-Prisoners (December 2009)‏

Spir­it of Free­dom (Decem­ber 2009)
Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Earth Liberation Prisoners logoSpir­it of Free­dom (Decem­ber 2009)
Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Decem­ber 2009 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. A few months ago ELP report­ed the arrest of the Amer­i­can, Justin Solondz in Chi­na. As peo­ple will be aware Justin is want­ed for ques­tion­ing in con­nec­tion to an FBI inves­ti­ga­tion into the ELF that led to the Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton Tri­als.

When ELP first heard of the arrest we wrong­ly believed, like many oth­ers, that Justin would be extra­dit­ed to Amer­i­ca where he would be remand­ed to stand tri­al for his alleged ELF activ­i­ty. How­ev­er, a cou­ple of days ago ELP learnt that rather than extra­dit­ing him, the Chi­nese decid­ed to put Justin on tri­al accused of drugs relat­ed activ­i­ty. Justin was duly found Guilty and sen­tenced to three years impris­on­ment fol­lowed by depor­ta­tion. This is of course very bad news for Justin and if any­one has any con­tact details for Justin (or knows what prison he is held in, in Chi­na, please con­tact ELP as soon as pos­si­ble).

Besides Justin’s impris­on­ment, sad­ly over the past few weeks ELP has learnt about the impris­on­ments of a num­ber of peo­ple across Europe and North Amer­i­ca accused of a vari­ety of activ­i­ty, this includes the impris­on­ment of for­mer Ital­ian ALF pris­on­er Ser­gio Ste­fani who has been accused of steal­ing a car and charged with “sub­ver­sive con­spir­a­cy” and placed in a jail specif­i­cal­ly designed for polit­i­cal activists! ELP encour­ages every­one to write urgent let­ter of sup­port to all of the new pris­on­ers on our list and remind them we are behind them. But also please don’t for­get our exist­ing pris­on­ers. All of the pris­on­ers list­ed below wel­come let­ters of sup­port.
So please, regard­less of what lan­guages you speak and regard­less of where you live in the world, your let­ters of sup­port real­ly do make the world of dif­fer­ence to the pris­on­ers. So please sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

If any­one notices any of ELP’s pris­on­er details is out of date or we do not list a pris­on­er who we should list, please let ELP know as soon as pos­si­ble.
ELP is run by a small group of vol­un­teers and although we try to ensure our lists are accu­rate, we admit we do make mis­takes. So help us help keep the lists accu­rate by let­ting us know of any changes we need to make.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Niall Har­nett, Castlerea Prison, Har­ris­town, Castlerea, Co. Roscom­mon, Repub­lic of Ire­land. Sev­er­ing 4 months for non-pay­ment of a fine. The fine was issued fol­low­ing Mau­ra’s involve­ment in an anti-Shell petrol com­pa­ny protest. (Diet unknown).

Mau­ra Har­ringon, Dochas Cen­tre, Moun­tjoy Gaol, North Cir­cu­lar Road, Dublin 7, Repub­lic of Ire­land. Sev­er­ing 8 months for non-pay­ment of a fine. The fine was issued fol­low­ing Mau­ra’s involve­ment in an anti-Shell petrol com­pa­ny protest. (Diet unknown).

Leonar­do Lan­di, Carcere San­re­mo, Via Armea, 144, 18038 San­re­mo (IM), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of rob­bery. (Leonar­do is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Marie Jeanette Mason, #04672–061, FCI Wase­ca, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1731, Wase­ca, MN 56093, USA. Serv­ing 21 years and 10 months for her involve­ment in an ELF arson against a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing car­ry­ing out Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied crop tests. Marie also plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing to car­ry out ELF actions and admit­ted involve­ment in 12 oth­er ELF actions. (Marie is a veg­an).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097, FCI Vic­torville, Medi­um II, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal
dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, 63794–053, USP Mar­i­on, US Pen­i­ten­tiary, PO Box 1000, Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Steve Mur­phy #39013177 (for his most cur­rent prison address check out the web­site http://supportsteve.org/ ). On remand accused of attempt­ed arson and crim­i­nal dam­age at a town house con­struc­tion site in 2006. The FBI claim the action was done under the ban­ner of the ELF. (Steve is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Justin Solondz (Address Unknown — Chi­na). Amer­i­can Green Scare defen­dant accused of direct action activ­i­ty in Amer­i­ca. Serv­ing 3 years in Chi­na for drugs relat­ed offences then due to be deport­ed back to Amer­i­ca. His exact prison loca­tion is cur­rent­ly unknown. (Diet unknown).

Jonatan Strand­berg, Box 248, 59323, Väster­vik, Swe­den. Serv­ing 15 months impris­on­ment after admit­ting dam­ag­ing a com­mu­ni­ca­tion tow­er used by the Depart­ment of Defence, cut­ting the cables on a crane used in cre­at­ing urban sprawl, and dam­ag­ing a vehi­cle used in the log­ging indus­try. Jonatan is a dia­bet­ic and fol­lows a paleo diet, demand­ing local­ly sourced food).

Michael Sykes 696693, Richard A. Hand­lon Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, 1728 Blue­wa­ter High­way, Ionia, MI 48846, USA. Serv­ing four to ten years for anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age to a util­i­ty pole, spray-paint­ing polit­i­cal graf­fi­ti and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

Bri­ana Waters 36432–086, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route 37, Dan­bury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

Anony­mous Female Pris­on­er One (E‑mail mes­sages of sup­port to
holland@die-tierbefreier.de ) Ger­man woman held on Remand accused of raid­ing a mink farm in Hol­land. (She is a veg­an).

Anony­mous Female Pris­on­er Two (E‑mail mes­sages of sup­port to
dbf-sg@riseup.net ) Dutch woman held on Remand accused of raid­ing a mink farm in Hol­land. (She is a veg­an).

Jon­ny Able­white TB4885, H.M. Prison, Hewell Lane, Red­ditch, Worcs B97 6QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Jon is a veg­an).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Guys Marsh, Shaftes­bury, Dorset, SP7 0AH, Eng­land. Serv­ing 4 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Cold­in­g­ley, Shaftes­bury Road, Bis­ley, Wok­ing, Sur­rey GU24 9EX, Eng­land. Serv­ing 9 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Send, Rip­ley Road, Wok­ing, Sur­rey, GU23 7LJ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 9 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

Mel Broughton A3892AE, HMP Fran­k­land, Bras­side, Durham, Coun­ty Durham DH1 5YD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 10 years for “con­spir­a­cy to com­mit arson” against Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion depart­ment. (Mel is a veg­an).

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

Alex Hall, Inmate #2009–06304, Davis Coun­ty Jail, 800 West State St., Farm­ing­ton, UT 84025, USA. On Remand accused of raid­ing a mink farm. Also accused of breach­ing bail con­di­tions whilst on bail. (William is a veg­an).

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Robert Lewis (address unknown — Eng­land). Serv­ing 18 months for send­ing threat­en­ing let­ters to a com­pa­ny linked to drugs test­ing. (Diet Unknown).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Robert Grif­fiths (address unknown — Eng­land). Serv­ing 18 months for send­ing threat­en­ing let­ters to a com­pa­ny linked to drugs test­ing. (Diet unknown).

Gavin Medd-Hall WV9475, HMP Cold­in­g­ley, Shaftes­bury Road, Bis­ley, Wok­ing, Sur­rey GU24 9EX, Eng­land. Serv­ing 8 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gavin is a veg­an).

Heather Nichol­son VM5859, HMP Fos­ton Hall, Fos­ton, Der­by, Der­byshire, DE65 5DN, Eng­land. Serv­ing 11 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Heather is a veg­an).

Kevin Olliff, #1300931, TTCF 161 D‑Pod, 450 Bauchet St., Los Ange­les, CA 90012, USA. On remand accused of stalk­ing. Exact details of the indict­ment have not yet been revealed but the charges appear to relate to a per­son employed by an edu­ca­tion­al facil­i­ty so may be linked to vivi­sec­tion. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

Ster­gio Ste­fani — See Oth­er Polit­i­cal Pris­on­er List.

William James Viehl, Inmate #2009–05735, Davis Coun­ty Jail, 800 West State St., Farm­ing­ton, UT 84025, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing plead­ed guilty to raid­ing a mink farm. He is due to be sen­tenced in Decem­ber. (William is a veg­an).

Nicole Vosper VM9385, HMP Bronze­field, Wood­hthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of black­mail­ing Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nicole is a veg­an).

Dan Wad­ham, A5705AA, HMP Camp Hill, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5PB, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an).

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

GRAND JURY RESISTERS
The fol­low­ing peo­ple have been jailed for refus­ing to tes­ti­fy before Grand Juries in Amer­i­ca which are inves­ti­gat­ing ALF & ELF activ­i­ty.

Car­olyn Feld­man, Wash­ing­ton Coun­ty Jail., 2185 Lex­ing­ton Blvd. PO Box 6, Wash­ing­ton, IA 52353, USA. (Diet unknown).

Mus­ca­tine Coun­ty Jail Inmate, c/o “Scott DeMuth”, 400 Wal­nut Street, Mus­ca­tine, Iowa 52761, USA. Scott has also recent­ly been indict­ed for con­spir­a­cy under the Ani­mal Enter­prise Ter­ror­ism Act. (Scott is a meat eater who advo­cates bow hunt­ing).

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials. (Diet unknown).

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

Eli­ja Smith VP 7551 HMP Lewes, 1 Brighton Rd, Lewes, Sus­sex, BN7 1EA, Eng­land. On remand accused of dis­arm­ing a weapons fac­to­ry, which, amongst oth­er things, makes Hell­fire Mis­siles. The action was in protest at Israel mil­i­tary action against Gaza. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE DEFENDANTS
The Lec­ce Defen­dants have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Alek­sey Bychin, FBU OIK‑2 IK‑7 otryad No. 7, ul. Kar­nal­li­to­vaya d. 98, g. Solikam­sk Permskiy Kray, 618545 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 5 years for defend­ing him­self against neo-nazis. (Diet unknown).

Andrei Mergen­ov, FGU IZ 64/1 OKB 2 komn. 73, Up. Kutyako­va 107, 410601 Sara­tov, Rus­sia. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown)

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland. Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self. (Tomasz is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

OTHER PRISONERS

Pavel Deli­don, ul. Timiryazeva‑1, FGU IK‑7, 309990 Val­uy­ki Rus­sia. Anarchist/Animal Rights activist jailed for attempt­ing to obtain wages owed to him, but which had not been paid to him by his employ­er. IMPORTANT: Pavel can only receive let­ters writ­ten in Russ­ian. He is pun­ished by the prison if he receives a let­ter not writ­ten in Russ­ian so please, only send let­ters writ­ten in Russ­ian. (Diet unknown).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they did­n’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Alessan­dro Set­tepani, Carcere San Michele, Via Casale, 50/A, 15122 San Michele (AL), Italy. Co-defen­dant of Ser­gio Ste­fani. Arrest­ed for steal­ing a car and then remand­ed for “Sub­ver­sive Con­spir­a­cy” and remand­ed into a prison for polit­i­cal activists. (Alessan­dro is a veg­an).

Ser­gio Maria Ste­fani, Carcere San Michele, Via Casale, 50/A, 15122 San Michele (AL), Italy. For­mer ALF pris­on­er arrest­ed for steal­ing a car and then remand­ed for “Sub­ver­sive Con­spir­a­cy” and remand­ed into a prison for polit­i­cal activists. (Ser­gio is a veg­an).

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915, CCC, 3151 Lit­ton Dri­ve, Chill­i­cuthe, MO 64601, USA. Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions includ­ing assault and mur­der. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp4321@hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail
elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail
yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

Three Remain in Jail Following Anti-Coal Resistance

Yes­ter­day, four indi­vid­u­als halt­ed blast­ing on Coal Riv­er Moun­tain. They are now charged with tres­pass­ing, con­spir­a­cy, obstruc­tion, and lit­ter­ing; bail has been set at $2,000 cash-only per-per­son.

Yes­ter­day, four indi­vid­u­als halt­ed blast­ing on Coal Riv­er Moun­tain. They are now charged with tres­pass­ing, con­spir­a­cy, obstruc­tion, and lit­ter­ing; bail has been set at $2,000 cash-only per-per­son.

Ear­ly this morn­ing, we were able to bail Nick Mar­tin out of jail. He glad­ly gave his thoughts on the action, “I’m proud to have been part of some­thing that suc­cess­ful­ly stopped blast­ing. This act of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence is only a small piece of a resound­ing call to save Coal Riv­er Moun­tain.”

The pow­er­ful actions of our friends did not go unno­ticed by com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. Bo Webb, a res­i­dent of Nao­ma said, “The peo­ple of the Coal Riv­er Val­ley who are threat­ened by this sludge dam fail­ure are appre­cia­tive, at least I am very appre­cia­tive, and proud of these folks to risk arrest of them­selves in order to pro­tect this com­mu­ni­ty.”

In light of his return home, Nick fur­ther stat­ed, “I am glad to be out of jail and back in a lov­ing com­mu­ni­ty of friends, thanks to every­one who sup­port­ed us dur­ing this action. I can’t wait to see the oth­ers and I hope we can bail them out soon.”

Lau­ra Von Dohlen, Grace Williams, and Dea Gob­lirsch will remain in jail until we can gath­er enough dona­tions to bail them out as well.

Donate imme­di­ate­ly via pay­pal to:

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=4pPTofeW-F6XgKLYddqikPYPPq3YKsuU3mEAUScvmO07REnYgOYcfjPZeSq&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1ffc45dc241d84e953d0e88f8d71535079b246201019c8adab

Please spec­i­fy that the mon­ey is going to aid with bail.

Please actu­al­ly donate as soon as pos­si­ble.