Category: Global

Glob­al

August 2, 2009: ELF Sabotages Telmex Cable Line in SW Mexico City

August 2, 2009: ELF Sab­o­tages Telmex Cable Line in SW Mex­i­co City

SABOTAGE OF EARTH-DESTROYING COMPANY, MEXICO

ELF Cuts Wire in SW MexicoAugust 2, 2009: ELF Sab­o­tages Telmex Cable Line in SW Mex­i­co City

SABOTAGE OF EARTH-DESTROYING COMPANY, MEXICO

Once again, the earth-destroy­ing Telmex com­pa­ny was sab­o­taged in the south­west of Mex­i­co City around 2:30 in the morn­ing on Sun­day, August 2 by the Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra. The idea was to cut the cables of the posts and then to cut the same post with a saw. It did not mat­ter that it was slow and ardu­ous work. The cable went through the branch­es of a tree obstruct­ing its free growth. We climbed the tree and with cut­ters cut the cable, then we took a saw and began to cut the pole halfway through and with a cord tied to the pole we pulled, but unfor­tu­nate­ly we could not move it since the move­ment of the cable that was con­nect­ed to the next post was very notice­able, which caused near­by neigh­bors to call the police. This pre­vent­ed us from con­tin­u­ing to pull the pole at the risk of run­ning into the police; final­ly we left a mark on the post with spray­paint: ELF and Earth First.

For every tree that is ripped from the earth to serve Telmex there will be thou­sands of sab­o­tages; we will not stop until we see dis­gust­ing civ­i­liza­tion, progress and all those who spread it destroyed!

The dark­ness did not allow us to record the action but there is no excuse for not shar­ing the plea­sure and the courage so we returned at dawn to take pic­tures of the action.

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Eco-piró­manos por la Lib­eración de la Tier­ra [Eco-arson­ists for the Lib­er­a­tion of Earth] are fight­ing!

Latest EF! Action Update bursts forth

Car tyres deflate in the night, dig­gers halt­ed in their tracks, build­ings and MPs cov­ered in slime…airports plagued by crazy golf, pic­nics, city gents and hostage-taking…eco-villages and oth­er autonomous spaces sprout, as oth­ers are under threat…tree-sits, banks evict­ed, fake phone-masts and whal­ing ships sunk.…it must be time for anoth­er Earth First! Action Update, bring­ing you a con­cen­trat­ed quar­ter­ly blast of inspi­ra­tion and con­tacts to get out there and take direct action against the bas­tards threat­en­ing this plan­et and its inhab­i­tants.

News from the front-lines — per­ma­nent protest camps old and new, and tem­po­rary gath­er­ings in a field near you, all the dates and info you need for a sum­mer of blis­ter­ing action and tor­ren­tial out­pour­ings!

Suc­cess­es here, across the pond and round the very oth­er side of the world.

People stop logging trucksCar tyres deflate in the night, dig­gers halt­ed in their tracks, build­ings and MPs cov­ered in slime…airports plagued by crazy golf, pic­nics, city gents and hostage-taking…eco-villages and oth­er autonomous spaces sprout, as oth­ers are under threat…tree-sits, banks evict­ed, fake phone-masts and whal­ing ships sunk.…it must be time for anoth­er Earth First! Action Update, bring­ing you a con­cen­trat­ed quar­ter­ly blast of inspi­ra­tion and con­tacts to get out there and take direct action against the bas­tards threat­en­ing this plan­et and its inhab­i­tants.

News from the front-lines — per­ma­nent protest camps old and new, and tem­po­rary gath­er­ings in a field near you, all the dates and info you need for a sum­mer of blis­ter­ing action and tor­ren­tial out­pour­ings!

Suc­cess­es here, across the pond and round the very oth­er side of the world.

A report back from the Coal Car­a­van, plus info about the com­mu­ni­ties along its route.

Court news — what hap­pened after pro­test­ers planned to shut a coal-fired pow­er plant, and climbed atop a train, plus handy Secu­ri­ty Tips for Going on Actions.

Leav­ing it All in the Ground — news of glob­al fights against the min­ing of gold, cop­per, baux­ite and alu­mini­um — blockad­ing, torch­ing and night-time pix­ieing.

A View from the Trees — a sto­ry from our eco-cen­tric cousins. And indige­nous Peru­vians fight on against the whole­sale onslaught on our world.

And a round-up of your favourite pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions — G20, SmashE­DO and Athen­ian rub­bish dumps!

Read, down­load and print it here, sub­scribe so you get it direct to your door, or look out for it at a cli­mate camp near you.

If you want to be list­ed or get a bunch of them to dis­trib­ute, please get in touch.

Share your inspi­ra­tional news at EF! Action Reports, and it’ll find it’s way into your very own print­ed EF!AU, in good old black and white print.

Borneo tribe mounts new blockades against rainforest destruction

30 July 2009
Dozens of Penan tribes­peo­ple armed with blow­pipes and spears have erect­ed block­ades across the roads cut by log­ging com­pa­nies deep into their for­est in Bor­neo. The block­aders are call­ing for an end to log­ging on their land.

30 July 2009
Dozens of Penan tribes­peo­ple armed with blow­pipes and spears have erect­ed block­ades across the roads cut by log­ging com­pa­nies deep into their for­est in Bor­neo. The block­aders are call­ing for an end to log­ging on their land.

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for recog­ni­tion of the hunter-gath­er­er Penan tribe’s land rights and a halt to all devel­op­ment on their land with­out their con­sent.

Malaysian police are at the block­ades, but no arrests have been report­ed.

One Penan man told Sur­vival, ‘This piece of for­est is the only place left for us to hunt and find food. But there’s only a lit­tle bit left. Last night I went hunt­ing and came back with noth­ing. If we can’t save this bit of for­est, we will have noth­ing to eat.’

The Penan live in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of the island of Bor­neo. They have been strug­gling for more than twen­ty years to stop the com­pa­nies clear­ing their forests. Some have been suc­cess­ful, but many have seen their forests dev­as­tat­ed, their rivers pol­lut­ed and the ani­mals and plants they rely on for food dis­ap­pear.

Now, where the valu­able trees have all been tak­en, the com­pa­nies are start­ing to clear the land com­plete­ly for oil palm plan­ta­tions. Palm oil is used in many foods and cos­met­ics, and increas­ing­ly for bio­fu­els.

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘The log­ging and oil palm com­pa­nies are rob­bing the Penan not just of their forests but of their food and water. It is essen­tial that the Malaysian gov­ern­ment rec­og­nizes the Penan’s rights to their land and stops allow­ing the com­pa­nies to take every­thing in sight.’

The noto­ri­ous Malaysian com­pa­ny Sam­ling is log­ging in the Long Daloh area, and a sub­sidiary of the com­pa­ny KTS is log­ging in the Ba Marong area.

Sur­vival researcher Miri­am Ross vis­it­ed the Penan ear­li­er this year, and is avail­able for inter­view.

Vis­it Survival’s web­page about the Penan

For more infor­ma­tion and images please con­tact Miri­am Ross:
T (+44) (0)20 7687 8734 or (+44) (0)7504543367
E mr@survival-international.org

ELF Mexico Targets Former City Councilman’s Truck & Telmex

Plan­e­tary destruc­tion has been at a peak now for sev­er­al years, as this has been hap­pen­ing the enor­mous com­plic­i­ty of gov­ern­ments (what­ev­er form they take: fas­cist, social­ist, demo­c­ra­t­ic, repub­li­can or any oth­er shit­ty one) with pri­vate com­pa­nies, both domes­tic and for­eign, engaged in large scale eco­cide is amaz­ing, leav­ing only rem­nants of what were once large wood­ed regions and green areas of wilder­ness. Civ­i­liza­tion has almost com­plete­ly destroyed it.

ELF Burns Former City Councilman's Truck in Protest of Corruption and Urban Sprawl in Mexico Plan­e­tary destruc­tion has been at a peak now for sev­er­al years, as this has been hap­pen­ing the enor­mous com­plic­i­ty of gov­ern­ments (what­ev­er form they take: fas­cist, social­ist, demo­c­ra­t­ic, repub­li­can or any oth­er shit­ty one) with pri­vate com­pa­nies, both domes­tic and for­eign, engaged in large scale eco­cide is amaz­ing, leav­ing only rem­nants of what were once large wood­ed regions and green areas of wilder­ness. Civ­i­liza­tion has almost com­plete­ly destroyed it.

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front Com­mu­nique: 07.21.09

ELF Burns For­mer City Coun­cil­man’s Truck in Protest of Cor­rup­tion and Urban Sprawl in Mex­i­co

Com­mu­nique:

“Plan­e­tary destruc­tion has been at a peak now for sev­er­al years, as this has been hap­pen­ing the enor­mous com­plic­i­ty of gov­ern­ments (what­ev­er form they take: fas­cist, social­ist, demo­c­ra­t­ic, repub­li­can or any oth­er shit­ty one) with pri­vate com­pa­nies, both domes­tic and for­eign, engaged in large scale eco­cide is amaz­ing, leav­ing only rem­nants of what were once large wood­ed regions and green areas of wilder­ness. Civ­i­liza­tion has almost com­plete­ly destroyed it.

Today, those peo­ple direct­ly con­nect­ed to the destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment for urban­is­tic devel­op­ment con­tin­ue to be tar­gets of the Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra [Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front]. They have names and address­es and we, with rage, con­vic­tion and gaso­line will not stop in our strug­gle against all that destroys the plan­et of which we are a part, along with the ani­mals, the wind, the plants, the water, the trees and all the nat­ur­al ele­ments wor­thy of being respect­ed.

This time the tar­get that we hit was in a small town in Mex­i­co State. A for­mer town coun­cil­man who vot­ed for urban­ist expan­sion in a large sec­tion of green­space, where dozens of trees were cut down to build a pedes­tri­an cor­ri­dor, was vis­it­ed by the FLT.

Upon reach­ing the area around his home, we looked on as this mur­der­er was watch­ing his plas­ma TV, com­fort­able in his lux­u­ry couch­es, enjoy­ing the exploita­tion (this bas­tard also now owns a social event hall where plates of dead ani­mal bod­ies are served) and the cor­rup­tion of his past polit­i­cal admin­is­tra­tion. Our action was to leave a clear mes­sage for this destroy­er of ecosys­tems at the door of his home with a note that read: ‘It will all be paid for some­day’. Lat­er we placed an incen­di­ary device under one of the front tires of his small truck, the device worked well and in a few min­utes a flame was lift­ed to the skies, fill­ing the streets of the town with chaos. Haulers who had been pass­ing through, des­per­ate­ly joined with the evil­born eco­cidist who at that moment shot out of his house to find that his truck was on fire. They man­aged to con­trol the fire and so this time the dam­age was not as we had planned it to be if the fire had spread fur­ther. The result was dam­age to the front sec­tion, the win­dow and the tire of the small truck. Nonethe­less what we have caused is incal­cu­la­ble dam­age, dam­age that can­not be quan­ti­fied, the psy­cho-emo­tion­al dam­age that this destroy­er of the earth will have after watch­ing his truck set on fire right before his nose and after a few min­utes he will see our intim­i­dat­ing mes­sage.

The destroy­ers of the earth will receive what they deserve, not from a judge, nor from the laws that gov­ern Mex­i­co which is cur­rent­ly in the midst of a mil­i­tary siege, but from cells of con­cious peo­ple fed up with the dev­as­ta­tion of the earth, they will receive blows …from the Frente del Lib­eración de la Tier­ra.

‘Years after many dozens of trees were cut down, small flow­ers returned to be reborn from between the cracks in the pave­ment that divides up the city’

ELF Méx­i­co”

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front Com­mu­nique: 07.20.09

ELF Tar­gets Telmex Branch office in Mex­i­co

Com­mu­nique:

“On the last night of July 20th we went to one of the many Telmex branch offices in Mex­i­co State. Its walls were very high and around this was met­al fenc­ing used to pro­tect the prop­er­ty. Police pres­ence a few streets away and the secu­ri­ty cam­eras did not stop us from car­ry­ing out our action. Our action was fast, while one of us sealed the front door with a lot of glue, anoth­er left a clear mes­sage below the door which read:

‘All the paint­ed and cut tele­phones, the tele­phone con­trol box­es set on fire, the burned trucks with punc­tured tires, these are not tech­ni­cal prob­lems, they are acts of sab­o­tage against the bio­ci­dal Telmex com­pa­ny, as is this warn­ing attack.

We are the Lud­di­tas Con­tra La Domes­ti­ca­cion de la Nat­u­raleza Sal­va­je [Lud­dites Against the Domes­ti­ca­tion of Wild Nature] and we form part of a cell of the Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra F.L.T. [Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front E.L.F.], this is only a warn­ing mes­sage, get ready for war!

For the Lib­er­a­tion of the earth
Sabatage the bas­tards!

And in case the threat was not enough for the employ­ees, the day after they were fright­ened by this mes­sage we threw a home­made bomb into the facil­i­ty, ignor­ing the sign hang­ing out­side this office that said that any act that dam­aged the prop­er­ty would be con­sid­ered an attack on the chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in gen­er­al and was there­fore a fed­er­al crime. The bomb det­o­nat­ed a few sec­onds after our escape, the sound was deaf­en­ing and could be heard from two streets away.

We know very well that civ­i­liza­tion will col­lapse one day, but there must be an accel­er­a­tion of that col­lapse.

Atten­tive­ly, The cell of the ELF-LCDNS Méx­i­co”

Source — http://www.elfpressoffice.org

North Carolina: ELF Vandalizes Home of Bank of America Director

“North Car­oli­na:
Steve Jones, a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors for Bank Of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States’ pri­ma­ry investor in moun­tain top removal coal min­ing, had his house vis­it­ed twice dur­ing the night recent­ly.

“North Car­oli­na:
Steve Jones, a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors for Bank Of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed States’ pri­ma­ry investor in moun­tain top removal coal min­ing, had his house vis­it­ed twice dur­ing the night recent­ly.

On the eve of the Sum­mer Sol­stice, we vis­it­ed him the first time, smash­ing the front win­dow on the cute lamp in his dri­ve­way and leav­ing a stick­er on the post to let him know why we’d vis­it­ed. Also on this night we glued the locks and put stick­ers on a Bank Of Amer­i­ca branch in his town. 2 weeks lat­er, on the eve of the full moon we returned to his house and smashed to bits the rest of the lamp and splat­tered black paint all over the sign with his address/mail box and steps/walkway.

Ani­mal rights activists have long used red paint to mark mur­der­ers of many sorts; we chose black paint because it is black like the coal sludge that cov­ers Ten­nessee, mak­ing the earth tox­ic in a dis­as­ter said to be worse than the Exxon Valdez spill. This dis­as­ter was uncom­mon only in that it got press cov­er­age.

It is black like the water that comes out of the taps when peo­ple in effect­ed com­mu­ni­ties turn on their taps for water. And it is black like your heart. For the kids, for the bears, for the moun­tains, for the wolves, for the fish, for our moth­er, We will be back. ELF.”

Com­mu­nique from the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front Press Office. Click here for the press release.

Eco-arsonists for the liberation of the Earth in Mexico

13th June — 13th July

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More
EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City
EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

13th June — 13th July

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More
EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City
EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More

Com­mu­nique:

“Week­ly Report of eco-arsonists.mexico

Com­mu­nique:
Sat­ur­day, June 13th, fol­low­ing the call to action, attacks against the own­ers of cap­i­tal began. Sat­ur­day, the 13th the win­dow of a bank belong­ing to Sco­tia­bank was stoned, caus­ing mobi­liza­tion by the police in Tlal­pan when the alarm was acti­vat­ed. Sun­day, June 14th an incen­di­ary device was placed at the ATM of a Banamex locat­ed in Mil­pa Alta, which was foiled by the police, how­ev­er in this dis­trict where noth­ing has hap­pened before they no longer sleep in peace; para­noia has been cre­at­ed since sim­i­lar attacks were car­ried out against a BBVA in recent days caus­ing a huge impact on the dis­gust­ing author­i­ties in this com­mu­ni­ty; the police at the ser­vice of the rich did­n’t delay, since then a patrol has been guard­ing the entrance of the BBVA and its sur­round­ings; so as a response anoth­er incen­di­ary device was placed in the hood of a PGJ [Procu­raduría Gen­er­al de Jus­ti­cia] patrol car out­side the dis­trict com­mand head­quar­ters. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it was detect­ed and the action was inter­rupt­ed, but although the goal of burn­ing the patrol was not achieved, pan­ic was cre­at­ed and there is chaos in the streets of this com­mu­ni­ty; where what that they were not expect­ing has hap­pened; now their para­noia will not allow them to sleep. Wednes­day night, June 17, the Tlal­pan road­way was illu­mi­nat­ed with the abo­li­tion­ist fire of eco-arson­ists; the ATM of a BBVA out­side the entrances to the metro was left unus­able when an incen­di­ary device was left. On the same night, near the Metro Chaba­cano there was a sec­ond fire at a Sco­tia­bank ATM; the third attack was at a Banamex near Tax­queña where an explo­sive device was placed at the ATM. The same night a false bomb was left in anoth­er Banamex in Xochim­il­co. On that night it was once again demon­strat­ed that we are every­where, and now we are dogs infect­ed with rage. Thurs­day, June 18, a Banamex ATM in Ciu­dad Neza was burned by an incen­di­ary device; a threat­en­ing note was left on a sheet of paper, demand­ing free­dom for Amadeu Castel­las and claim­ing the action.
We will not stop our­selves, they will not stop us, we will con­tin­ue attack­ing the sym­bols of cap­i­tal­ism, the mur­der­er, tor­tur­er, spon­sor of the destruc­tion of the earth, there will be no turn­ing back; for each banker we have an incen­di­ary device, for each jail­er a bomb; that their mon­ey burns in flames of the abo­li­tion­ist fire of the eco-arson­ists.

We are your worst ene­my, your num­ber one ene­my!

We will be the dog that barks and that bites you!”

»

EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City

Com­mu­nique:

“INCENDIARY ATTACKS ON CARS IN MEXICO

Sat­ur­day, July 4, around 11:30 at night in a place in the south of Mex­i­co City where things seemed to be calm, where there was peace and order on the streets, all those who are our ene­mies had slept qui­et­ly for quite some time yet now they do not; those who passed by in their lux­u­ry cars on the nau­se­at­ing black­top now may not do so; those who have left their con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing cars out­side their homes with­out wor­ry that some eco-arson­ist would attack, now they can be wor­ried because as night fell on Sat­ur­day, July 4, a day before the elec­tions in Mex­i­co we entered the house of a wealthy destroy­er of the earth and we placed an incen­di­ary device at two of his lux­u­ry cars and we stealth­ily slipped away with­out a trace oth­er than the abo­li­tion­ist fire. As expect­ed the police, at the sound of their mas­ter’s voice, act­ed imme­di­ate­ly, imple­ment­ing a mobi­liza­tion in the streets in search of the eco-arson­ists and once again we made a mock­ery of them. We passed before their faces and they could­n’t imag­ine even if they want­ed to that we were their ene­mies, twen­ty min­utes lat­er the fire­fight­ers extin­guished the fire but the cars were already burned.

We will con­tin­ue attack­ing with­out mer­cy! We will not let them sleep in peace!

We will not stop until we see civ­i­liza­tion burned!

ECO-ARSONISTS FOR THE LIBERATION OF THE EARTH (EpLT)”

»

EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

Com­mu­nique:

“INCENDIARY ATTACK AT DISTRICT OFFICE IN MEXICO

On Mon­day night, July 13, at 12:30 we decid­ed to attack the offices of a dis­trict in the south­west of Mex­i­co City. These offices are respon­si­ble for admin­is­ter­ing and orga­niz­ing the pol­lu­tion and destruc­tion of the wood­lands in this com­mu­ni­ty for the Sabri­tas com­pa­ny, pro­duc­ers of trans­genic veg­eta­bles used in junk food. This com­pa­ny has plant­ed fields near the com­mu­nal wood­lands. An incen­di­ary device was left at the door of the build­ing, work­ing suc­cess­ful­ly with­out leav­ing any trace; the abo­li­tion­ist fire con­sumed almost the entire wood­en door, leav­ing the roof and walls marked with black smoke. The author­i­ties have let pass unno­ticed all the actions that have been tak­en by the eco-arson­ists for the lib­er­a­tion of the earth; they know per­fect­ly well why we do it, that we have one objec­tive and that our sab­o­tages are not just an act of van­dal­ism. We will not stop attack­ing the destroy­ers of the earth!

For the lib­er­a­tion of the earth! Total destruc­tion of civ­i­liza­tion!

Eco-arson­ists for the lib­er­a­tion of the earth EpLT”

»

Source — http://www.elfpressoffice.org

The View from the Trees — spring & summer in Cascadia, USA,

Hum­boldt Earth First! Canopy Com­mu­nique #1
Cut­ten, South Cas­ca­dia, the McK­ay Tract canopy. The land­scape unfolds below us as a patch­work quilt of war. Look­ing west, one sees the sub­urb, progress enact­ing its will upon the occu­pied coun­try­side. More devel­op­ment is planned, but it is not yet hap­pen­ing. We have pri­mar­i­ly met friend­ly peo­ple who live here, and enjoy hang­ing out in the for­est. We asked them if they want their sub­urb to grow, to con­tin­ue to “devel­op,” and they emphat­i­cal­ly do not.

Cascadia forest blockadeHum­boldt Earth First! Canopy Com­mu­nique #1
Cut­ten, South Cas­ca­dia, the McK­ay Tract canopy. The land­scape unfolds below us as a patch­work quilt of war. Look­ing west, one sees the sub­urb, progress enact­ing its will upon the occu­pied coun­try­side. More devel­op­ment is planned, but it is not yet hap­pen­ing. We have pri­mar­i­ly met friend­ly peo­ple who live here, and enjoy hang­ing out in the for­est. We asked them if they want their sub­urb to grow, to con­tin­ue to “devel­op,” and they emphat­i­cal­ly do not.

Among the sec­ond- and third-growth trees to the south lay a few erro­neous mini-man­sions encroach­ing upon the land­scape, with stumps in their yards wider than any of the three SUVs in their dri­ve­ways. The res­i­dents enjoy a qui­et life until one of them starts run­ning pow­er­tools.

We look east and see the tops of enor­mous old-growth red­woods tow­er­ing above the hun­dred-year-old sec­ond growth. Some friends live here, includ­ing spot­ted owls, ospreys, turkey vul­tures, black bears, newts, voles, fly­ing squir­rels and arbo­re­al humans.

To the north lies a clearcut. Three years ago, Green Dia­mond (GD), for­mer­ly Simp­son Tim­ber Com­pa­ny, came in and cut down every last tree in the unit, leav­ing a few huge burned-out snags. Pam­pas grass and milk­weed grow to human height in the trees’ absence, but this area is dry and get­ting dry­er.

They plant­ed a few baby conifers, red­woods and oth­ers after they cut. Those trees are now three years old, mean­ing they can cut a cou­ple more units and then start re-zon­ing the land from tim­ber­land to res­i­den­tial. More mini-man­sions are planned. So it goes.…

How­ev­er our for­est friends dis­agree with these plans. They want to live, and our solu­tion is to live with them. For the past sev­er­al months, we’ve been occu­py­ing two tree vil­lages in the McK­ay, tying in as many giant trees as pos­si­ble with tra­vers­es to pro­tect them with our own bod­ies from being cut down. Tree-sit­ting has been used to defend forests in Hum­boldt for decades, and tra­vers­es enable a few humans to defend a large num­ber of trees with­out leav­ing the canopy.

We chose this grove because the trees stand direct­ly against the march of Leviathan in the form of sub­ur­ban devel­op­ment, and the neigh­bors (in house down below) stand with us, and give us love and sup­port. The oth­er grove, (also slat­ed to be clearcut), fea­tures an osprey nest, at least one spot­ted owl nest, flocks of turkey vul­tures cir­cling over­head, a trail and camp­site used fre­quent­ly by bears, and a creek that serves as water­shed for the Hum­boldt Bay’s health­i­est pop­u­la­tion of Coho salmon. These crit­ters have also shown much love to the treesit­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fly­ing squir­rels who share our food at night and the owls who hang out, pro­vide moral sup­port and watch us climb.

GD, is now the most-active transna­tion­al tim­ber cor­po­ra­tion remain­ing in Hum­boldt. They have clearcuts sched­uled every year across the North­west, and have large­ly escaped pub­lic scruti­ny by a process of 21st-cen­tu­ry green­wash­ing and alliances with the state. For exam­ple, the GD Habi­tat Con­ser­va­tion Plan for spot­ted owls gives the owls a vague, con­stant­ly shift­ing zone of “habi­tat” on GD land and a few remain­ing “wildlife trees”, usu­al­ly of low mon­e­tary val­ue, on land that they clearcut. In return, GD gets a bunch of “inci­den­tal take” per­mits for owls, which is a license to kill them at will. The GD plan for the McK­ay Tract is clearcut­ting, fol­lowed by res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment to dou­ble the size of Cut­ten, Cal­i­for­nia, adding more res­i­dents to the near city of Eure­ka.

So far, no chain­saws have fall­en upon the McK­ay this year. How­ev­er, Sum­mer oper­at­ing sea­son is upon us, log­ging could begin any day of any week. Neigh­bors are con­tin­u­ing to raise their voic­es in sup­port. They hike, bike, and ride hors­es along the log­ging roads in sol­i­dar­i­ty with res­i­dents of the for­est. Treesit­ters are still need­ed to live in the canopy, pro­tect­ing this last refuge of wild crea­tures from the per­pet­u­al war that is human progress. Any­one wish­ing to spend part or all of the sum­mer up in trees is encour­aged to con­tact Earth First! Hum­boldt at (707) 834‑5170; www.efhumboldt.org.
“May the for­est bewitch you,” the canopy nin­jas of EF! Hum­boldt.

——–

Owl in Cascadia forest********News­flash­es:

Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer Con­tin­ues…
July 13th, 2009

The log­ging block­ade in Oregon’s Elliot State for­est was raid­ed by a report­ed 60+ police accom­pa­nied by a bull­doz­er. 27 peo­ple were arrest­ed. This marks only the begin­ning of Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer.

Mean­while, here in Hum­boldt we are steadi­ly con­tin­u­ing the occu­pa­tion of our local rain­for­est canopy to stop Green Dia­mond from log­ging 41 acres of Red­wood for­est over 100 years old. The grove is home to Spot­ted Owls, Osprey and Black Bears. It is a refuge that is sur­round­ed by young tree plan­ta­tions, clearcuts and sub­urbs.

We have set up mul­ti­ple tree-sits and a tra­verse rope net­work tying up a large area of for­est near the Spot­ted Owl nest. The ropes allow above ground trav­el and increase the effec­tive­ness of the tree-sits by link­ing many trees togeth­er.

So far the com­pa­ny has held off from log­ging though the plan has been approved for months. Green Dia­mond says they won’t send climbers up to take activists out of the trees because it’s “too dan­ger­ous”.

If you would like to live and work in the Red­wood for­est canopy or help sup­port our activ­i­ties please give us a call or write us an email.

contactefhum@gmail.com

707–834-5170

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Earth First! Block­ades Log­ging Road in Ore­gon
July 7th, 2009
Ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, a large team of activists (includ­ing Hum­boldt EF!ers) skill­ful­ly and valient­ly block­ad­ed a log­ging road to pro­tect over 70 acres of 100+ year old coastal for­est that was being cut down. This kicks off the “Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer” cam­paign to high­light ongo­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and shut down high­ly destruc­tive log­ging activ­i­ties in the Pacif­ic North­west. Some of our com­rades are locked to the van in the pic­ture as well as bar­rels full of con­crete that block the road. Oth­ers are perched high atop struc­tures that have sup­port ropes that are attached to the gate and to the over­turned van. Any attempt to move the van or gate and the struc­tures would col­lapse and harm the activists. They are still there and have put out the call for more to join the effort.

Here are some links to sto­ries about the ongo­ing action in Cas­ca­dia.

Cas­ca­dia Sum­mer Blog

FD’s Blog (more pic­tures)

News sto­ry 1

News sto­ry 2

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Green Dia­mond Threat­en­ing Tree-sit­ters With Extrac­tion
June 19th, 2009
Ear­ly this morn­ing, tree-sit­ters in the McK­ay Tract recieved threats from Green Dia­mond employ­ees. The GD employ­ees stat­ed that if the activists did not come down that GD would send climbers up to arrest them.

Yes­ter­day, at least 2 GD employ­ees spent near­ly the entire day on the ground around the tree-sits and attempt­ed to get ahold of a rope hang­ing from one of the sits. It was quick­ly pulled high­er by a sit­ter.

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Rainy Spring Days
May 15th, 2009

Update from the woods: There have been no signs of trucks or heavy machin­ery as of yet. Well timed spring rains are keep­ing the roads mud­dy and undriv­able. We are on the look­out for any signs of com­pa­ny activ­i­ty.

What we have seen late­ly are Spot­ted Owls, Osprey, large Black Bear tracks in the mud and a Green Dia­mond sur­vey­or. The wild­ness and beau­ty of this for­est is an inspi­ra­tion. The ongo­ing assis­tance from our local sup­port­ers is cru­cial, thanks for all the help!

If you would like to join us in the for­est or help from town please do, more tree-sit­ters and ground crew are always need­ed.

.…


Fly­ing Squir­rel Dis­cov­ers Tree-sit­ters
March 17th, 2009

This North­ern Fly­ing Squir­rel arrived at the tree-sits last week. It was the first of it’s species to be seen by activists liv­ing in the Red­wood canopy since the first tree-sit went up in August of last year. The squir­rels are noc­tur­nal and are some­times preyed upon by Spot­ted Owls. They mate in May and June and live in groups in the cav­i­ties of large trees. They have often been seen in the past in tree-sits in old-growth groves.

.…

Alert- GD Employ­ees In McK­ay Today
March 13th, 2009

Though log­ging hasn’t start­ed, Green Dia­mond is fre­quent­ly vis­it­ing the tree sits, some­times bring­ing sher­rifs along. Today, two activists were chased through the for­est by log­gers but safe­ly got away. Ground sup­port is on alert and tree-sit­ters are pre­pared to defend the tree-vil­lages in the event that log­ging begins. If you want to be part of our action alert list please let us know. You don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to tres­pass to sup­port the tree-sits. There are many things to do in town and one of the sits can be wit­nessed from North­ridge Rd. in Cut­ten, east of Eure­ka.

.…
McK­ay 09 Update: No Log­ging Yet
March 6th, 2009

Tree-sit­ters are main­tain­ing their vig­i­lance as log­ging could begin any day. More trees have been added to the tra­verse rope net­works, there are now over 20 Red­wood and Sit­ka Spruce trees being defend­ed. They range in age from 70 to over 100 years old. Tree-sit­ters are request­ing camp stoves with re-usable fuel bot­tles, large tarps, climb­ing gear, read­ing mate­r­i­al, and most impor­tant­ly- more peo­ple to join them in the defense of this for­est and our plan­et.

.…
EF! Hum­boldt Tree-sit Update
Feb­ru­ary 25th, 2009

* Spot­ted Owl nest­ing sea­son pro­tec­tions to begin on March 1st. Green Dia­mond can­not cut with­in 1/4 mile of the Owls nest until they deter­mine whether or not the Owls have suc­cess­ful­ly mat­ed. If they find that the Owls have mat­ed, the so called pro­tec­tion would only last for a mat­ter of months. If not, they can go ahead and log. Green Dia­monds find­ings will most like­ly be kept secret. The fox is guard­ing the hen house.
* Earth First!ers are occu­py­ing part of this ter­ri­to­ry to defend not only the Owls habi­tat but as much of this diverse eco-sys­tem as we can.
* The numer­ous activists occu­py­ing trees here are weath­er­ing the storms and con­tin­u­ing to expand the defend­ed areas.
* Uniden­ti­fied per­sons wear­ing hard hats have made mul­ti­ple threats to cut the trees down.
* The defense of this for­est con­tin­ues…

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More Eco-War­riors Ascend Threat­ened Red­woods in McK­ay Tract
Feb­ru­ary 19th, 2009

There are now two tree-sit vil­lages defend­ing areas of for­est in the threat­ened Red­wood groves of Ryan Creek. Green Dia­mond employ­ees and Hum­bldt Coun­ty Sher­iffs vis­it­ed both sites yes­ter­day and inspect­ed the sit­u­a­tion. Today, dif­fer­ent work­ers appear­ing to be log­gers vis­it­ed at least one site and also inspect­ed the tree-sits. This esca­la­tion of activ­i­ty by the com­pa­ny may indi­cate they are prepar­ing to log very soon.

There are mul­ti­ple tra­verse lines through­out both of the tree-sit areas. These are not always clear­ly vis­i­ble from the ground. Activists have put red DANGER tape around many of the trees that, if cut, pose a dead­ly threat to the tree-sit­ters.

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Arbo­re­al Pro­test­ers Occu­py Threat­ened Red­woods
Decem­ber 2nd, 2008

Tree-sit­ters unfurled a large 30 ft. wide ban­ner this morn­ing on the edge of the great Red­wood for­est, east of Eure­ka, Ca. The ban­ner reads “Hey Green Dia­mond, Stop Clear-cut­ting ‑Earth First!”. The sit­ters remain aloft and are occu­py­ing sev­er­al large sec­ond growth trees that are slat­ed for log­ging. We invite the pub­lic to come and see the threat­ened for­est for them­selves. (Direc­tions below).

The Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny plans to log 60 acres of large sec­ond growth and resid­ual old growth Red­woods here in the near future. The two groves rep­re­sent the old­est remain­ing for­est and best habi­tat for old-growth depen­dent species like the North­ern Spot­ted Owl. The owls are nest­ing in the oth­er grove where trees over 1,000 years old still stand. Green Dia­mond has a per­mit to destroy the habi­tat of this endan­gered species. The Green Dia­mond land is locat­ed in the “McK­ay Tract” and totals 7,200 acres. Near­ly the entire Tract (and the entire Cal­i­for­nia Red­wood range) has been clear-cut once already since the 1800’s and over half of the tract has been logged with­in the past 20 years. The McK­ay Tract encom­pass­es the Ryan Creek water­shed. Green Dia­mond also has plans for res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment here, threat­en­ing the health and sur­vival of the largest Coho Salmon pop­u­la­tion in the Hum­boldt Bay water­shed. We’ll have more info and updates on this in the near future.

Direc­tions:

From Arca­ta go South on 101.

Turn Left on Myr­tle Ave.

Turn Right on Har­ri­son.

Har­ri­son turns into Man­zani­ta.

Turn Left on Dol­beer St.

Turn Left onto Wal­nut Dri­ve at 3 the way inter­sec­tion.

Stay on Wal­nut and look for the big green water­tanks.

Short­ly after that turn Left onto North­ridge rd.

The for­est will be on your left and the big white ban­ner is vis­i­ble from the road.

Please be respect­ful to the neigh­bors, thanks.

.…

OwlMass Extinc­tion — It’s Real — Fight It!
Novem­ber 20th, 2008

Coho Salmon, Chi­nook Salmon, Mar­bled Mur­relets and North­ern Spot­ted Owls are just a few of the species that are rapid­ly declin­ing in our imme­di­ate area. Both North­ern Spot­ted Owls and Chi­nook Salmon are fac­ing assaults from Green Dia­mond, a com­pa­ny we have been build­ing a cam­paign against since this spring.

They have an upcom­ing log­ging oper­a­tion in the “McK­ay Tract”, direct­ly east of Eure­ka. Green Dia­mond is plan­ning to clear-cut Spot­ted Owl nest­ing groves after Feb­ru­ary 15th and is work­ing to get Hum­boldt Coun­ty plan­ners to set in stone plans for future devel­op­ment of the area. Please con­tact us to join mul­ti­lat­er­al grass­roots efforts in build­ing a coali­tion to advo­cate for pro­tec­tion of this area . EF! Hum­boldt is active­ly orga­niz­ing against the upcom­ing log­ging and hous­ing devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. We are seek­ing more par­tic­i­pants, any amount of time or mate­r­i­al con­tri­bu­tions are much appre­ci­at­ed.

Human beings are on the verge of caus­ing a mass extinc­tion of life on Earth. A major­i­ty of the world’s biol­o­gists now believe that if cur­rent trends con­tin­ue, half of all species of plants and ani­mals liv­ing today will be extinct in less than 100 years. The gen­er­al pub­lic, how­ev­er, is almost entire­ly unaware of this cri­sis. — Species Alliance

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Lat­est EF! Hum­boldt Action Press Release
August 25th, 2008

For Imme­di­ate Release: Mon­day, August 25th
con­tact: Jere­my Jensen (707) 834‑5170
Earth First! Turns Atten­tion To Green Dia­mond Resource Co.

Eure­ka, Ca.- A new Earth First! tree-sit in a Green Dia­mond Resource log­ging plan east of Eure­ka end­ed as sud­den­ly as it began.

With the new own­ers of the for­mer Pacif­ic Lum­ber Com­pa­ny pledg­ing to not log Old-Growth trees, a pro­pos­al by Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny to log Ancient Red­woods grabbed the atten­tion of Earth First! Hum­boldt.

Most of the trees range from 80–100 years old but in one of the two groves there are numer­ous scat­tered Old-Growth trees that were not cut dur­ing the orig­i­nal log­ging of the area in the late 1800’

s. The com­pa­ny is also propos­ing res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment in the same area under Option B of the Hum­boldt Coun­ty Gen­er­al Plan Update.

“Clearcut­ting and Old-Growth log­ging are crimes against nature and human­i­ty,” said Jere­my Jensen of EF! Hum­boldt, “Devel­op­ment is the nail in the cof­fin.”

Activists con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple search­es of the area and made sev­er­al dis­cov­er­ies. The loca­tions of sev­er­al Old-Growth red­woods that were slat­ed to be cut, and the pres­ence of at least three North­ern Spot­ted Owls in the threat­ened for­est.

Days after stealth­ily estab­lish­ing a tree-sit in a giant Old-Growth Red­wood that was clear­ly marked to be cut, the sit­ters wor­ried that they had been pre­ma­ture­ly dis­cov­ered when field sur­vey­ors were heard walk­ing around on the for­est floor.

Though no words were exchanged, a dan­gling clus­ter of white 5 gal­lon buck­ets made the tree-sit high­ly vis­i­ble.

Three days lat­er, a Green Dia­mond employ­ee returned to mark the occu­pied tree and at least two oth­er imper­iled Old-Growth Red­woods as “Wildlife Leave Trees”, seem­ing to indi­cate that they won’t be cut.

This sur­prised EF! Hum­boldt activists because the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Forestry had already approved the log­ging plan.

While the activists sus­pect­ed it was a decep­tive move to trick the tree-sit­ters into com­ing down, anoth­er piece of infor­ma­tion came to light.

An Earth First!er review­ing the log­ging plan doc­u­ment dis­cov­ered that GDRC would not be allowed to log the area until next Feb­ru­ary 19th at the ear­li­est. This is due to the fact that lum­ber com­pa­nies are required by Cal­i­for­nia law to allow trees in adja­cent clearcuts to reach three years of age before log­ging neigh­bor­ing forests.

The Earth First!ers decid­ed to remove the plat­form and gear from the tree, assess the new sit­u­a­tion and re-cal­i­brate the defen­sive strat­e­gy for the threat­ened groves.

“At least now they know we’re seri­ous,” said a tree-sit­ter by the name of “Cross­roads”.

.…

Very high tree platform in old growth RedwoodsBreak­ing News: EF!H Tree-sit in the McK­ay Tract
August 22nd, 2008

Earth First! tree-sit­ters have been dis­cov­ered in a gar­gan­tu­an Ancient Red­wood by a Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny employ­ee just east of Cut­ten in the “McK­ay Tract”. Green Dia­mond is plan­ning for res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment of large sec­tions of the McK­ay Tract after they log all they can. This is a clas­sic cut-and run strat­e­gy, make mon­ey by tak­ing the trees and then sell the land to devel­op­ers.

The Ancient Red­wood was locat­ed a few weeks ago by EF! Hum­boldt activists dur­ing explorato­ry search­es of the area, trig­gered when the plans to log two Red­wood groves in the Tract were made pub­lic. The tree bore the blue paint des­ig­nat­ing it for cut­ting and was quick­ly occu­pied. Most of the 60 acre log­ging plan is to be clear-cut under Green Dia­monds plan. The Green Dia­mond employ­ee has now report­ed­ly marked the tree as a “Wildlife Tree” and it’s pos­si­ble that it will not be cut. Strange­ly, this log­ging plan has already been approved and we are not assum­ing that the com­pa­ny is sin­cere­ly plan­ning to leave the tree.

This may be a tac­tic to get the sit­ters to come down. There was com­pa­ny activ­i­ty in the area sev­er­al days ago but no con­tact was made. The tree-sit may have been spot­ted at that time and this could be a direct response by the com­pa­ny.

The tree, named “Mil­len­nia” by activists, appears to be well over 200 ft. tall. It is count­less hun­dreds, if not over one thou­sand, years old.

The sit­ters vow to remain in the tree until it is def­i­nite­ly pro­tect­ed. Though the sit­ters occu­py only one giant tree, both of the groves are defac­to wildlife refuges and need be pro­tect­ed in their entire­ty. The mature stands har­bor many ani­mals that have no where else to go in the log­ging-rav­aged land­scape east of Eure­ka, Ca.

Dur­ing the ini­tial search of the area, the activists were vis­it­ed by a North­ern Spot­ted Owl. The Cal­i­for­nia Dept. of Forestry refus­es to pro­tect this area as Owl habi­tat even though the Spot­ted Owls are endan­gered and still in decline. We sus­pect that the Owls are nest­ing here because of the fre­quent vis­its from them, the large num­ber of owl pel­lets on the ground, and the fact that this is one of only 2 or 3 iso­lat­ed groves in the McK­ay Tract where dense stands of large trees remain stand­ing.

The grove where this tree stands is com­prised main­ly of 100 year old Red­woods that grew fol­low­ing the orig­i­nal log­ging of the area around the turn of the cen­tu­ry. This was one of the first places logged due to it’s close prox­im­i­ty to Hum­boldt Bay. The Ancient Red­woods that remain here were left stand­ing due to either an unde­sir­able shaped trunk, tree caves, or the steep­ness and insta­bil­i­ty of the ground around the tree.

The trees in the clear-cut­ting zone are not marked for log­ging, in those areas only the scat­tered trees to be left are giv­en a dis­tin­guish­ing mark. This tree is with­in a geo­log­i­cal­ly unsta­ble area next to a creek were the com­pa­ny is lim­it­ed to only selec­tion log­ging. This type of log­ging requires that the trees select­ed for the cut be marked.

.…

Looking up at a Redwood treeFor more info & pho­tos, vis­it http://efhumboldt.org

Two climate activists lock on to Bluewaters powerplant in Australia

26th June 2009
Blue­wa­ter Coal-fired pow­er sta­tion protest: lock-ons shut-down and arrests

The fol­low­ing is the media release for yes­ter­day’s action at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie.

Collie coal lock-onCollie coal banners26th June 2009
Blue­wa­ter Coal-fired pow­er sta­tion protest: lock-ons shut-down and arrests

The fol­low­ing is the media release for yes­ter­day’s action at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie.

Two activists locked onto a con­vey­or belt at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie, West­ern Aus­tralia.
The action is to protest Grif­fin Energy’s deci­sion to burn wood from WA native forests for ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The two activists were arrest­ed and lat­er removed from the con­vey­or belt by police, after more than six hours of pre­vent­ing coal from being fed into the pow­er sta­tion. A third activist has also been arrest­ed at the site.

Blue­wa­ters Coal-fired Pow­er Sta­tion brought to a halt by for­est activists

Ear­ly this morn­ing, two activists locked onto a con­vey­or belt at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie. The action is to protest Grif­fin Energy’s deci­sion to burn wood from WA native forests for ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The two activists were arrest­ed and lat­er removed from the con­vey­or belt by police, after more than six hours of pre­vent­ing coal from being fed into the pow­er sta­tion. A third activist has also been arrest­ed at the site.

“Grif­fin Ener­gy is one of WA’s worst con­trib­u­tors to cli­mate change. The com­pa­ny has recent­ly opened yet anoth­er coal-fired pow­er sta­tion and is con­struct­ing anoth­er three,” said Ms Jael John­son, spokesper­son for the action. “To add insult to injury, it now pro­pos­es to burn wood from our pre­cious native forests as fuel and count this as renew­able ener­gy.”

“The WA pub­lic has a right to renew­able ener­gy. Here we have an abun­dance of wind, solar and wave ener­gy. CETO, a wave ener­gy com­pa­ny, has cho­sen to be a part of this renew­able rev­o­lu­tion. Grif­fin also has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to join West­ern Aus­tralian busi­ness­es com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able solu­tions. There is no place for coal-fired pow­er sta­tion or native for­est log­ging in a sus­tain­able WA,” said Ms John­son.

Grif­fin Ener­gy recent­ly won a ten­der from the For­est Prod­ucts Com­mis­sion (FPC) to buy between 250,000 and 400,000 tonnes of native for­est logs a year.

Our native forests pro­vide the WA com­mu­ni­ty with clean air and water, bio­di­ver­si­ty, and homes for unique WA plants and wildlife. Native Forests also store huge amounts of car­bon. After log­ging and burn­ing, the car­bon is released into the atmos­phere. Glob­al­ly, defor­esta­tion and log­ging con­tribute about 27% of all cli­mate change-caus­ing green­house gas­es.

“Research in the east­ern states shows that if native forests are left undis­turbed, they can play a vital role in stor­ing car­bon and con­tribut­ing to a cli­mate change solu­tion.

“Instead of pro­tect­ing them for their vital role in reduc­ing cli­mate change, Forestry Min­is­ter Ter­ry Red­man pro­pos­es to allow Grif­fin to burn native for­est logs, there­by releas­ing mas­sive amounts of GHG and accel­er­at­ing run-away cli­mate change. This is an atro­cious dis­tor­tion of a sys­tem that should be lead­ing us towards a zero-car­bon econ­o­my, not fur­ther away from it.

“The peo­ple of WA will have to pay for Griffin’s reck­less cor­po­rate behav­iour long after its share­hold­ers are done lin­ing their pock­ets. So we will con­tin­ue to dis­rupt the oper­a­tions of organ­i­sa­tions like Grif­fin for as long as they con­tin­ue to dis­play such cor­po­rate reck­less­ness and short-sight­ed­ness.

“At the same time we sup­port the calls from the Aus­tralian Man­u­fac­tur­ers Work­ers Union and the Aus­tralian Coun­cil of Trade Unions for a just tran­si­tion to a renew­able soci­ety that leaves no work­er or com­mu­ni­ty behind,” said Ms John­son.

MEDIA CONTACTS ON SITE
Ms Jael John­son: Mbl: 0438 856 981
Ms Emma McIn­tyre: Mbl: 0415 258 301

Strike for Climate Justice! December 11th 2009

Envi­ron­men­tal activist & polit­i­cal pris­on­er Jeff ‘Free’ Luers wrote a prison dis­patch in which he made a call out for an Inter­na­tion­al Gen­er­al Strike on Decem­ber 11 2009 in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Inter­na­tion­al Demon­stra­tions on Cli­mate Change dur­ing the Copen­hagen Cli­mate Sum­mit.

Envi­ron­men­tal activist & polit­i­cal pris­on­er Jeff ‘Free’ Luers wrote a prison dis­patch in which he made a call out for an Inter­na­tion­al Gen­er­al Strike on Decem­ber 11 2009 in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Inter­na­tion­al Demon­stra­tions on Cli­mate Change dur­ing the Copen­hagen Cli­mate Sum­mit.

Around the world peo­ple are begin­ning to feel the heat of glob­al warm­ing, entire nations to tiny com­mu­ni­ties are suf­fer­ing the effects of cli­mate change.

Ear­li­er this year dead­ly wild­fires raged across a drought strick­en Aus­tralia where the con­ti­nent con­tin­ues to suf­fer through one of the worst droughts in its his­to­ry. In South Amer­i­ca, the accel­er­at­ed melt­ing of Andean glac­i­ers is threat­en­ing water sup­plies in Bolivia, Colom­bia, Ecuador and Peru. In Tan­za­nia 85% of Mt. Kil­i­man­jaro’s glac­i­ers have already melt­ed, severe­ly affect­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of water in this African nation. A recent study by the Nation­al Cen­ter for Atmos­pher­ic Research (based in Col­orado, USA) has found that glob­al warm­ing has had a much more sig­nif­i­cant and dam­ag­ing impact on the world’s rivers than pre­vi­ous­ly real­ized. The dis­cov­ery now under­scores a grow­ing threat to food and water sup­plies for mil­lions of peo­ple liv­ing in some of the world’s poor­est regions. Mean­while an Oxfam report has warned that by 2015 the num­ber of peo­ple affect­ed by cli­mate relat­ed crises will raise by 54% to 375 mil­lion peo­ple.

The impact of glob­al warm­ing will not just be felt by the poor­er nations who are less able to respond to the cri­sis. In March some of the world’s top cli­mate sci­en­tists warned the U.S. Con­gresss that severe drought in the west­ern por­tion of the Unit­ed States could make tracts of land from Cal­i­for­nia to Okla­homa a waste land, with heat waves in north­ern cities that could make life impos­si­ble.

Recent stud­ies in the Arc­tic have shown that the melt­ing of Arc­tic ice is hap­pen­ing faster than any cli­mate mod­els pre­dict­ed. The rapid melt is threat­en­ing to leave the Arc­tic ice free as ear­ly as 2013. The loom­ing cri­sis is threat­en­ing to cre­ate mil­lions of cli­mate refugees. As peo­ple flee drought plagued regions in search of water, oth­ers retreat from coastal regions in order to escape ris­ing flood waters. The impend­ing cat­a­stro­phe demands imme­di­ate action on the part of both indus­tri­al and devel­op­ing coun­tries. How­ev­er, we need more than just polit­i­cal action, the world needs action from the car­bon emit­ting indus­tries them­selves.

Yet, despite the ever grow­ing wealth of sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence that the plan­et is warm­ing at a dis­as­trous rate due to human activ­i­ty, indus­try con­tin­ues to resist caps on CO2 emmis­sions. This resis­tance by the most pow­er­ful multi­na­tion­als is mak­ing strict gov­ern­ment action and reg­u­la­tion on cli­mate change dif­fi­cult. Par­tic­u­lar­ly for lead­ers who fear los­ing cor­po­rate sup­port and mon­ey.

The state of Cal­i­for­nia, how­ev­er, is demon­strat­ing that com­bat­ing cli­mate change is not only nec­es­sary but can be good for the econ­o­my. If Cal­i­for­nia were to be ranked as a nation it would be the 7th largest econ­o­my in the world. The state, under Gov­er­nor Schwarzeneg­ger, has signed laws mak­ing it manda­to­ry to reduce over­all green­house gas emis­sions to 1990 lev­els by 2020, and to 85% of 1990 lev­els by 2050. More over, these cuts are expect­ed to cre­ate an esti­mat­ed one mil­lion jobs.

While most of the world’s gov­ern­ments strug­gle with what, if any, demands to make toward forc­ing imme­di­ate and strict reduc­tions in car­bon emis­sions, the world’s poor con­tin­ue to suf­fer the effects of a warm­ing world. Even the wealth­i­est nations are unable to avoid the heat, and many indus­tri­al coun­tries are begin­ning to suf­fer its effects. In ear­ly May sci­en­tists at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty con­clud­ed a study that revealed the world has already burned half of the car­bon nec­es­sary to bring about a cat­a­stroph­ic rise of 2 degrees cel­sius (3.6 F) in aver­age glob­al tem­per­a­ture. At this tem­per­a­ture near­ly half of the world’s plants and ani­mals will be threat­ened by extinc­tion. The sci­en­tists say that half a tril­lion tonnes of car­bon have been con­sumed since the Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion. In order to avoid a 2 degree cel­sius rise in tem­per­a­ture, the total amount of car­bon burned must be kept below one tril­lion tonnes. At cur­rent rates of con­sump­tion that fig­ure will be reached in forty years. Myles Allen, the cli­mate sci­en­tist who led the study, had this to say about the threat of cli­mate change. “Moth­er Nature does­n’t care about dates. To avoid dan­ger­ous cli­mate change we will have to lim­it the total amount of car­bon we inject into the atmos­phere, not just the emis­sion rate in any giv­en year.”

The world needs to begin the shift toward a non-car­bon based econ­o­my. Sci­en­tists in every nation have reached the same con­clu­sion and are warn­ing that we must take action now to reduce CO2 emis­sions and invest in clean ener­gy if we are to pre­vent a near­ing glob­al envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis. In nations around the globe the pub­lic have demand­ed action on cli­mate change. Yet, all too often their voic­es go unheard. There is a grow­ing cam­paign to change that; reach­ing across bor­ders and beyond polit­i­cal lines and affil­i­a­tions in an effort to bring those who will be most affect­ed by cli­mate change togeth­er in one pow­er­ful voice.

In every nation the work­ing class is the beat­ing heart. It is the work­ers who keep soci­ety run­ning smooth­ly. But, it is the work­ing class and the work­ing poor who will be hit the hard­est by a warmer world. Which means we must har­ness the pow­er at our fin­ger tips and demand imme­di­ate action to be tak­en to curb green­house gas emis­sions. We need cli­mate jus­tice today, not tomor­row. We need deeds and not promis­es.

On Decem­ber 11th in response to the inter­na­tion­al cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen, Den­mark, we ask that every­one con­cerned with glob­al warm­ing and cli­mate change to join us in an Inter­na­tion­al Gen­er­al Strike demand­ing Cli­mate Action. Our work stop­page can have a glob­al impact. Togeth­er, in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty and uni­ty, we can demon­strate to world lead­ers that the glob­al con­sen­sus is for action to stop cli­mate change. They can not ignore our voic­es when we strike.

For one day we will shut the sys­tem down and demand that our gov­ern­ments work togeth­er to act in our best inter­ests. On Decem­ber 11th Strike for Cli­mate Jus­tice, Demand Action!

www.strikeforclimatejustice.org

Shell to Sea activists board supply ship to Solitaire in Killibegs

6th July 2009

Shell to Sea demonstration6th July 2009
This after­noon sev­en Shell to Sea activists in kayaks vis­it­ed the Toisa Inde­pen­dent, which sup­plies pipe to the Soli­taire, a ves­sel used by Shell to lay the Cor­rib gas pipeline. The Soli­taire, which left Broad­haven Bay (1) yes­ter­day after lay­ing the first sec­tion of pipe for the project, has been the tar­get of sev­er­al actions recent­ly in the con­tin­u­al cam­paign against Shell. (2) Despite Shel­l’s increas­ing­ly heavy hand­ed response to protests, Shell to Sea activist’s have con­tin­ued their fight.

Niall Har­nett, speak­ing from the protest in Killy­begs today said “We demand that this port stops sup­port­ing the Cor­rib gas project which is destroy­ing the lives of the peo­ple in Erris. There has been much mis­in­for­ma­tion about the Cor­rib gas pipeline in the media, as cam­paign­ers con­tin­ue to protest in order to bring a halt to this unsafe project which threat­ens the homes and liveli­hoods of many in the local area”. The pipeline would car­ry unprocessed gas across the region to the refin­ery at Bel­lan­aboy. (4)

Har­nett con­tin­ued “We are also act­ing in protest against the theft of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. At a time when unem­ploy­ment lev­els are set to reach record num­bers and the gov­ern­ment attacks ordi­nary peo­ple with levies tax­es and pay cuts it is obscene that Shell are allowed to steal bil­lions of euro’s of our resources.” (5)

St.John O Donob­hain, also on the protest, said. “Shel­l’s attempts to pre­tend the Cor­rib project is a done-deal is mis­lead­ing. This is project is unjust, ille­gal, and immoral. It will fail.”