Category: Global

Glob­al

Forest defenders take action in the Styx Valley, Tasmania

Two for­est actions took place in the Styx Val­ley this week. On Tues­day morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed work on a new bridge as a for­est defend­er locked onto forestry machin­ery for over 10 hours before being cut off by police. Yes­ter­day, activists con­duct­ed a peace­ful walk in to stop the indus­tri­al scale destruc­tion of ancient forests locat­ed in coupe SX10F.

Tasmania Styx action
Two for­est actions took place in the Styx Val­ley this week. On Tues­day morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed work on a new bridge as a for­est defend­er locked onto forestry machin­ery for over 10 hours before being cut off by police. Yes­ter­day, activists con­duct­ed a peace­ful walk in to stop the indus­tri­al scale destruc­tion of ancient forests locat­ed in coupe SX10F.

See media releas­es and audio links below…
MEDIA RELEASE

Tues­day, 15 Jan­u­ary 2008

For­est defend­ers take action in the Styx Val­ley, Tas­ma­nia

This morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed work on the con­struc­tion of a new bridge across the Styx Riv­er. If built, this bridge will pro­vide increased log truck access to the glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant stands of giant euca­lypts locat­ed in the val­ley.

“Tas­ma­nia is cur­rent­ly in a state of envi­ron­men­tal emer­gency. Vast tracts of old growth forests are being destroyed and sent to the chip­per in order to fur­ther inflate the already gross­ly bulging bank accounts of a select few. Right now, in coupe SX10F, chain­saws and bull­doz­ers are rip­ping apart some of our most pre­cious nat­ur­al her­itage” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“The com­mu­ni­ty is being locked out of their own forests all over the state, while local cli­mate crim­i­nals Forestry Tas­ma­nia employ their usu­al far­ci­cal spin and claim that this bridge will be used pri­mar­i­ly for tourists. What this bridge will do is increase the whole­sale destruc­tion of some of the island’s most sig­nif­i­cant car­bon sinks” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

Recent devel­op­ments at the Bali cli­mate con­fer­ence have fur­ther rein­forced the impor­tance of halt­ing the defor­esta­tion and degra­da­tion of car­bon sinks. Euca­lyp­tus reg­nans old growth forests, such as those locat­ed in the Styx Val­ley, have been shown to store huge amounts of car­bon.

“We are call­ing on the Rudd gov­ern­ment to take seri­ous action and demon­strate to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty that Aus­tralia is imple­ment­ing intel­li­gent, enlight­ened and equi­table strate­gies to com­bat cli­mate change by ensur­ing the imme­di­ate pro­tec­tion of Tasmania’s ancient forests” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

For­est defend­ers will con­tin­ue to take a stand against the destruc­tion of old growth forests locat­ed in the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­leys.

Lis­ten to SWST vs Forestry Tas­ma­nia on ABC Radio http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/15/2138389.htm

MEDIA RELEASE

Thurs­day, 17th Jan­u­ary 2008

For­est activists con­tin­ue their protest in the Styx Val­ley, Tas­ma­nia

Ear­ly this after­noon, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened con­duct­ed a peace­ful walk in to coupe SX10F to doc­u­ment and bear wit­ness to the ongo­ing destruc­tion of old growth forests locat­ed in the Styx Val­ley.

“Some of our most sig­nif­i­cant car­bon sinks are being destroyed at a dis­turbing­ly accel­er­at­ed rate, ren­der­ing Tasmania’s forestry prac­tices an inter­na­tion­al dis­grace. The Rudd gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to endorse the log­ging and burn­ing of ancient forests locat­ed in the Styx Val­ley. Pro­tect­ing Tasmania’s old growth forests is a sim­ple, cheap and intel­li­gent cli­mate change solu­tion” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“SX10F has gained an inter­na­tion­al pro­file over the past few years, becom­ing an icon­ic exam­ple of Tasmania’s glob­al­ly renowned forests. This irre­place­able ecosys­tem, locat­ed with­in 1.5km of the World Her­itage Bound­ary, is being ripped apart by bull­doz­ers and chain­saws to line the pock­ets of greedy wood­chip­pers Gunns Ltd.” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

For­est defend­ers will con­tin­ue to peace­ful­ly protest against the destruc­tion of old growth forests locat­ed in the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­leys.

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 75, JANUARY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH & LONDON, 15.12.07
3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA — DECEMBER 2007
25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Just three months to go — are you out prac­tis­ing your rou­tines? rehears­ing your songs? build­ing your props yet? I should get out more over Christ­mas…
How­ev­er, it will soon be time to hatch your mis­chie­vous scheme, so get your friends round and start plot­ting!
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/

2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
In sup­port of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, AMP is organ­is­ing a night of live music at The Oth­ers, Manor Road, Stoke New­ing­ton. Entrance £5.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=38074566

3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
Organ­ised by Ris­ing Tide with speak­ers from Groundswell and Plane Stu­pid.
7pm St. Maw­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Hall, Nr. Newquay, Corn­wall. For more info. email; kernow@risingtide.org.uk

4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
11am — 6pm at The Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham.
This meet­ing came out of the last Cli­mate Camp gath­er­ing in Novem­ber. It is focussed on grow­ing our move­ment — how can we encour­age more groups to form and more actions/campaigns to hap­pen? What things do we want to do to help build a vibrant net­work of region­al action groups doing actions local­ly and nation­al­ly?
For instruc­tion on how to get there: http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html
Also, 11 peo­ple are going to tri­al in Not­ting­ham on Mon­day 14th for ‘shut­ting down’ the local coal pow­er sta­tion, If any­one wants to stay to sup­port them that would be great!

5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/nextmeeting.php

6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
Bio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 1st Feb­ru­ary 2008. We will short­ly update our web­site to pro­vide more back­ground infor­ma­tion about the UK agro­fu­el indus­try and poli­cies, as well as a draft leaflet and oth­er resources. If you would like to get involved or find out more, please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk.
http://biofuelwatch.org.uk/

7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Forum “Cli­mate Change: it’s time to pre­pare”
9.15am at the Methodist Hall, Old­ham St, Cen­tral Man­ches­ter
http://www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk/index.html

8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
On Jan­u­ary 26 self-orga­nized groups from all around the world will take cre­ative action in their com­mu­ni­ty. This will man­i­fest in many ways, from non­vi­o­lent direct action, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, street the­atre, con­ver­gences, teach-ins and oth­er activ­i­ties and events. Grass­roots move­ments around the world are mak­ing their voic­es heard and say­ing “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”. In coor­di­na­tion with the World Social Forum.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
Next course by the Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courseoutlinelowimpactsmallholding.htm

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
For the recent­ly formed Ker­now and Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide groups, this action marked an esca­la­tion in their fight against cli­mate change and for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. How­ev­er the planned rooftop protest at Newquay air­port was giv­en an unlike­ly boost when builders at the air­port left a lad­der propped up!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/248
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7146159.stm

2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH AND LONDON, 15.12.07
Sub­ver­sive Singing San­tas Spread Sea­son­al San­i­ty in Lon­don and Nor­wich On one of the busiest shop­ping days of the year. Ris­ing Tide activists in both Lon­don and Nor­wich dressed up as San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion and hit the high streets to sing a dif­fer­ent tune to the usu­al buy, buy,
buy mad­ness of the hol­i­day sea­son.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/247

3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
A series of actions is being tak­en against the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and Bris­tol Muse­um, in protest at the spon­sor­ship of the event by Shell. A grumpy polar bear vis­it­ed the offices of BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine, then activists dis­rupt­ed Bris­tol Muse­um’s posh recep­tion to kick off the exhi­bi­tion with a Yes Men-style inter­ven­tion. And on the open­ing morn­ing, dozens of humans, polar bears, a snow leop­ard and a tiger gath­ered (com­plete with the Shell’s Wild Lie counter-exhi­bi­tion) in front of the muse­um. They hand­ed out leaflets and cre­at­ed quite a spec­ta­cle. Protests are expect­ed to con­tin­ue through Jan. 13th.
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held on 16th Decem­ber at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.
On the 19th, a small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17942
http://www.corribsos.com/

5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
Over 10,000 cli­mate cam­paign­ers took to the streets to take part in march­es in Lon­don and Glas­gow over the week­end, despite pour­ing rain. Pro­test­ers braved the weath­er in one the biggest demon­stra­tions call­ing for cli­mate jus­tice the UK has ever seen.
http://www.campaigncc.org/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387497.html
Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of the Cli­mate March in Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/
Mean­while, in Man­ches­ter air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to Euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed.

6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
A col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17893

7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
All Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre were super-glued shut in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et” The UK’s only Hum­mer deal­er­ship, Bauer Mil­lett, was also D‑locked shut.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17887

8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
Activists from Chea­dle-High-Street Against Cli­mate Change held a “A plan­et is not just for Xmas” cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17917

9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
Two adverts pro­mot­ing DVD’s by Top Gear’s Jere­my Clark­son now have large stick­ers stuck on declar­ing “This caus­es cli­mate change”. Also, Fly­Be appears to have spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17937

10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
Women cli­mate activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and coin­cides with the open­ing of their first “con­sul­ta­tion”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17883

11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
A ban­ner with this warning/statement was dropped to wel­come all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17886

12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
More than thir­ty cli­mate activists, includ­ing mem­bers of the Ris­ing Tide net­work, joined with local res­i­dents from Merthyr Tyd­fil in stop­ping exca­va­tion work for a full day on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. Activists evad­ed police and secu­ri­ty before tak­ing over the 1,000 acre site on a hill­top near Cardiff. Dressed as clowns and polar bears, they chained them­selves to bull­doz­ers and oth­er heavy machin­ery to pre­vent work on the mine.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/242

13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90
per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/240
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/03/oil.bp

14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
Four home­less polar bears appeared before Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court on 14th Novem­ber. They were arrest­ed after blockad­ing the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cor­po­rate offices on Avon St. dur­ing the Ris­ing Tide nation­al day of action. After plead­ing guilty to charges of “wil­ful­ly obstruct­ing the pub­lic high­way with a non motor vehi­cle” (i.e. a suit case) they were giv­en a con­di­tion­al dis­charge and went on to pick­et the RBS branch on Bald­win Street!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/243

15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
The only way to fight cli­mate change. A new report by Oil­Watch.
http://www.oilwatch.org/doc/documentos/Keep_oil_underground.pdf
http://www.oilwatch.org/

16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing “nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos” and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17868

17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
Unbur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of her car and pulled a cyclist off his bike.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17889

18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
“Livestock’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.” Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006
find out more at
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/hot/index.php

19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
A free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work.
http://whatbettertime.livejournal.com/

20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­bler­ousi­ness.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17905

21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
For updates on the work of Pacif­ic Envi­ron­ment, a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that pro­tects the Pacif­ic Rim’s wild places and wildlife, see;
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2658

22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
From fan­ta­sy finance to glob­al crash.
Your guide to under­stand­ing the cri­sis that is sweep­ing through the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem and what it means for ordi­nary peo­ple.
Endorsed by Kevin Smith of Car­bon Trade Watch and film­mak­er Ken Loach.
http://www.aworldtowin.net/about/HouseOfCards.html

23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
A new web­site.
http://www.swairaction.org.uk/

24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA is born — DECEMBER 2007
The group had its first meet­ing on 3rd Jan­u­ary and is now swing­ing into action. If you live in the area and want to find out more or get involved con­tact becqke@riseup.net

25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE
Ris­ing Tide action footage has been spring­ing up all over youtube — check out http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RisingTideNetwork for some RT films, some of the lat­est actions and links to oth­er’s videos of RT actions.

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

END

Woman arrested at Tas forestry protest

Jan­u­ary 8, 2008

A 23-year-old woman involved in a forestry protest in Tas­ma­ni­a’s south has been plucked by a crane from her for­est perch, arrest­ed and charged.

A Tas­man­ian police search and res­cue squad arrived at the protest site in a remote for­est in the state’s south about 10am (AEDT) Tues­day to break up a four-day activist vig­il.

Jan­u­ary 8, 2008

A 23-year-old woman involved in a forestry protest in Tas­ma­ni­a’s south has been plucked by a crane from her for­est perch, arrest­ed and charged.

A Tas­man­ian police search and res­cue squad arrived at the protest site in a remote for­est in the state’s south about 10am (AEDT) Tues­day to break up a four-day activist vig­il.

The woman was sit­ting atop a 10-metre tall tree trunk which had been con­cret­ed into the mid­dle of a major access road.

She has been charged with tres­pass­ing, obstruct­ing police, and dis­obey­ing direc­tions, Inspec­tor Mark Mewis of Kingston Police said.

She will be bailed to appear in court at a lat­er date.

Two pro­test­ers remain sit­ting in trees at the Weld Val­ley site, which activists say is under threat from log­ging.

Police con­tin­ue to nego­ti­ate with the pro­test­ers while cables which had con­nect­ed the tree-borne activists to the road below have been removed.

Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre activists say about 1,000 hectares of untouched “wilder­ness” could be logged, with plans by Forestry Tas­ma­nia to build a bridge across the Weld Riv­er to access the area for the first time.

Spokes­woman Jen­ny Weber said Forestry Tas­ma­nia had indi­cat­ed it planned to start build­ing the bridge before Christ­mas, and although work has yet to start, it could begin any day.

About a dozen peo­ple were at the protest when it got under­way on Sat­ur­day.

Six peo­ple left on Mon­day after a Forestry Tas­ma­nia heli­copter hov­ered over the area and anoth­er woman left on Tues­day morn­ing.

The con­ser­va­tion group says the North Weld wilder­ness includes some of the best exam­ples of ancient forests in Tas­ma­nia.

Forestry Tas­ma­nia said vast areas of the Weld were already pro­tect­ed.

It said 88 per cent of the val­ley was pro­tect­ed, with only 12 per cent of the area, in forests out­side these zones, avail­able for log­ging.

It said the des­ig­nat­ed forestry area would be logged for spe­cial tim­bers to be used for crafts and design, an impor­tant indus­try for the state.

Forestry Tas­ma­nia spokesman David Tuck said the pro­test­ers had been told repeat­ed­ly to leave.

“They have been told for four days to clear out,” he told AAP.

Mr Tuck said pro­test­ers wore bal­a­clavas and hurled insults at Forestry Tas­ma­nia work­ers.

The activists were tres­pass­ing and had van­dalised gates, he said.

“The incred­i­ble irony is that they’ve cut down trees in order to con­struct a tree-sit and put the for­est in dan­ger by hav­ing a camp­fire in peak bush­fire sea­son,” he said.

http://news.smh.com.au/woman-arrested-at-tas-forestry-protest/20080108–1ksf.html

=====
JAN 9 2007 — Tas­ma­nia Police have con­firmed that three anti-forestry pro­test­ers were arrest­ed in the Weld Val­ley, south of Hobart, yes­ter­day.

Police and emer­gency work­ers used a crane to forcibly remove a 23 year old woman from a block­ade yes­ter­day after­noon.
She has been charged with tres­pass, caus­ing injury to prop­er­ty, obstruct­ing police and dis­obey­ing police direc­tions.

A 29 year old woman and a 26 year old man were arrest­ed last night and charged with tres­pass.

All three are from Lucas­ton, in Tas­ma­ni­a’s south. They will appear in the Hobart Mag­is­trates Court in Feb­ru­ary.

source abc

Ogoni Day remembered as Shell fail to honour promise to halt gas flaring

Today is Jan­u­ary 4th 2008.

On this day in 1993, 300,000 peo­ple in Nige­ria marked the Unit­ed Nations Year of Indige­nous Peo­ples by protest­ing against Shel­l’s activ­i­ties and the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion of Ogo­ni­land in the Niger Delta.

2008 was sup­posed to be the dead­line for the end­ing of gas flar­ing by Shell in Nige­ria, but the com­pa­ny now says that this dead­line will not be met.

Let­ting the com­pa­ny have a taste of its own med­i­cine

Shell Dublin HQ Ogoni Day flaringToday is Jan­u­ary 4th 2008.

On this day in 1993, 300,000 peo­ple in Nige­ria marked the Unit­ed Nations Year of Indige­nous Peo­ples by protest­ing against Shel­l’s activ­i­ties and the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion of Ogo­ni­land in the Niger Delta.

2008 was sup­posed to be the dead­line for the end­ing of gas flar­ing by Shell in Nige­ria, but the com­pa­ny now says that this dead­line will not be met.

Let­ting the com­pa­ny have a taste of its own med­i­cine

At just before 8.30 this morn­ing, as staff were arriv­ing for work at Roy­al Dutch Shel­l’s Irish head­quar­ters in Dublin, they were treat­ed to a taste of what life is like for those who have to live and work near Shell instal­la­tions in oth­er parts of the world.

Short ver­sion of video (45 sec­onds) here: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=u4uZDvA5WY4

Long ver­sion (2 minute) here: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=597hkm9MuTo

More infor­ma­tion on Shell in Nige­ria here: http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2007/May3_DU_Flaring.htm

Gas Flar­ing is sim­ply the releas­ing of excess gas and liq­uids asso­ci­at­ed with oil and gas pro­duc­tion pipelines and refiner­ies into the atmos­phere. The main pur­pose of gas flar­ing is to pro­tect pipelines and infra­struc­ture from over-pres­sur­ing

The released gas­es are burned off, releas­ing any by-prod­ucts into the air. These include nitro­gen diox­ide, sul­phur diox­ide, and volatile organ­ic com­pounds like xylene and hydro­gen sul­fide. Car­cino­gens such as ben­za­pyrene are also released. Peo­ple exposed to these sub­stances can suf­fer from a vari­ety of res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems, which have been report­ed amongst many chil­dren in the Niger Delta but have but have nev­er been sys­tem­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gat­ed. These chem­i­cals can also aggra­vate asth­ma, cause breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties and pain, as well as chron­ic bron­chi­tis.

Ben­zene, which is known to be emit­ted from gas flares in undoc­u­ment­ed quan­ti­ties, is acknowl­edged as being a causative agent for leukemia.

Gas flar­ing of course, also con­tributes to glob­al warm­ing and cli­mate change.

Togeth­er with oil spills, gas flar­ing is seen as a major cause of envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. In Nige­ria, the prac­tice is sup­posed to be ille­gal, but there is no sign of the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment being able to enforce this law. Here in Ire­land we know all about how Shell can manip­u­late the world of pol­i­tics and the legal process to suit the needs of the com­pa­ny’s share­hold­ers.

In Nige­ria in 1995 how­ev­er, it appears that Shel­l’s PR peo­ple slow­ly realised that their part in the hang­ing of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight oth­er activists was a pub­lic rela­tions dis­as­ter, and in the after­math the com­pa­ny made var­i­ous con­ces­sions to its crit­ics, in a vain attempt to undue some of the dam­age it felt had been done to its brand. One of the promis­es made was the announce­ment of an end to gas flar­ing.

Shell of course, is not well known for liv­ing up to its promis­es, and so flar­ing is still going on today. In the year 2000, Shell for­mal­ly announced that it would stop gas flar­ing by 2008. Inter­est­ing­ly, since 2000, gas flar­ing in the Niger Delta has actu­al­ly increased (accord­ing to the 2005 Shell Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Report).

In Novem­ber 2005, the Fed­er­al High Court of Nige­ria stat­ed that Shell and oth­er oil com­pa­nies
should end gas flar­ing in the Niger Delta. In a case brought against Shell, the court ruled that the dam­ag­ing and waste­ful prac­tice of flar­ing could not law­ful­ly con­tin­ue and must stop. Shell appealed against the deci­sion.

At the demon­stra­tion on Jan­u­ary 4th 1993, an Ogo­ni elder said:
“We have wok­en up to find our lands dev­as­tat­ed by agents of death called oil com­pa­nies. Our atmos­phere has been total­ly pol­lut­ed, our lands degrad­ed, our waters con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, our trees poi­soned, so much so that our flo­ra and fau­na have vir­tu­al­ly dis­ap­peared”.

Jan­u­ary 4th became known as Ogo­ni Day.

For more infor­ma­tion see:

www.remembersarowiwa.com

Rainforest chief killed in Borneo for his opposition to logging

Jan­u­ary 3, 2008
Kelea­su Naan, a Penan chief­tain and long­time activist against log­ging, dis­ap­peared in Octo­ber while check­ing ani­mal traps. His
tribes’ worst fears were con­firmed when they found what they believed to be Naan’s remains last month. Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, the chieftain’s nephew, Michael Ipa, has stat­ed that the body had sev­er­al bro­ken bones, lead­ing Ipa to believe that “he has been killed by peo­ple involved in log­ging”.

Jan­u­ary 3, 2008
Kelea­su Naan, a Penan chief­tain and long­time activist against log­ging, dis­ap­peared in Octo­ber while check­ing ani­mal traps. His
tribes’ worst fears were con­firmed when they found what they believed to be Naan’s remains last month. Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, the chieftain’s nephew, Michael Ipa, has stat­ed that the body had sev­er­al bro­ken bones, lead­ing Ipa to believe that “he has been killed by peo­ple involved in log­ging”.

Kelea­su Naan had been one of the key fig­ures in the Penan community’s fight against log­ging. He was also a plain­tiff and wit­ness in a land rights claim that has been await­ing tri­al since 1998.

One-hun­dred Penan vil­lagers walked six­ty miles this week to lodge a report at the clos­est police sta­tion and demand an inves­ti­ga­tion into Naan’s death. This is not the first time that Penans involved in anti-log­ging activ­i­ty have dis­ap­peared under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances. Two activist Penans dis­ap­peared in the 1990s. In 2000, Bruno Manser, a Swiss envi­ron­men­tal­ist and cham­pi­on of Penan rights, also dis­ap­peared in the jun­gle. No sign of him has been found, and some believe he was assas­si­nat­ed.

Log­ging in Bor­neo has been ram­pant since the 1980’s. In 2005 just over 50% of Borneo’s for­est remained. More recent­ly palm oil
plan­ta­tions have increased pres­sure on the forests. Naan’s Penan com­mu­ni­ty had man­aged to keep log­ging out of what the vil­lagers claim is their ances­tral land, but they now believe that sev­er­al tim­ber com­pa­nies plan to resume log­ging. Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples of the Malaysia’s Sarawak region, the Penans num­ber around 10,000. They cur­rent­ly live in set­tle­ments, but have not com­plete­ly aban­doned their tra­di­tion­al nomadic ways. They sub­sist off small gar­dens, hunt­ing, and gath­er­ing. Since so much of the Penan’s resources come from the for­est, its dis­ap­pear­ance may mark their own.

http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0103-borneo_hance.html

ELP Information Bulletin (29th of December 2007)

Dear friends

ELP has just received two bits of Amer­i­can news. First off ALF/ELF pris­on­er, Jonathan Paul, has released his first prison dis­patch. Sec­ond­ly, we have been infored that ALF/ELF pris­on­er. Chris McIn­tosh has been moved to a new address:

Dear friends

ELP has just received two bits of Amer­i­can news. First off ALF/ELF pris­on­er, Jonathan Paul, has released his first prison dis­patch. Sec­ond­ly, we have been infored that ALF/ELF pris­on­er. Chris McIn­tosh has been moved to a new address:

First­ly here is the dis­patch from Jonathan Paul.…

*********************************************

11.14.07

Friends, sup­port­ers and fam­i­ly,

This is the first of 51 month­ly dis­patch­es I will be writ­ing until I am released in 2011. Although I will be writ­ing to let every­one know how I am doing while incar­cer­at­ed at FCI Phoenix, the pur­pose of these dis­patch­es are not going to be about me, but about the real issues that threat­en life as we know it on this plan­et.

First, I would like to thank every­one who has writ­ten me in the last few weeks. Your let­ters of sup­port have over­whelmed me with emo­tion and have giv­en me strength and hope. I thank all of you from the bot­tom of my heart. From the Anar­chist writ­ing group in NY, to my tribe of friends and to those I have nev­er met, the time you took to write to me has giv­en me much strength. I would like to put out spe­cial thanks to my sis­ters, Car­o­line and Alexan­dra, my won­der­ful Mom (Mum­sie) and my dear sweet wife, Tami. I under­stand your love is uncon­di­tion­al and with that I am blessed to have you as my fam­i­ly. To my wife Tami — who has been by my side since 1999, your devo­tion and com­mit­ment to me is unmatched by any­one, ever. Thank you for help­ing me pick up the mess left in the wake of this very dif­fi­cult time in our life. To those who are sup­port­ing Tami on a dai­ly basis — I thank you also. All I can to all of you is I would do the same for you and I am in your debt.

As for life here in prison, I want you all to know I am okay. Every day that pass­es is a day clos­er to my free­dom. I look for­ward to that day and that day will come.

I want to say a few words about some­one who has inspired and amazed me over the years, a com­mit­ted
activist who has been “down” for a very long time. Moved to activism after expe­ri­enc­ing the bru­tal
pover­ty and racism expe­ri­enced as a part of every­day life, Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment war­rior, Leonard
Pelti­er, has been in prison for over 30 years and is serv­ing two life sen­tences for crimes he did not
com­mit. Leonard worked to pro­tect his peo­ple and the earth from the pow­er­ful ener­gy cor­po­ra­tions and the
gov­ern­ment they rule. On the Pine Ridge reser­va­tion in the 1970’s the tra­di­tion­al Native Amer­i­cans fought for their way of life while under attack from the gov­ern­ment spon­sored goons, the FBI and the coal and ura­ni­um ener­gy cor­po­ra­tions that want­ed the Black Hills for resources. The Native Amer­i­cans of this land have been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly destroyed and oppressed in a geno­ci­dal cam­paign since the white man first stepped his ugly foot on North Amer­i­ca.

Leonard was accused and con­vict­ed of killing two FBI agents dur­ing a shootout on the Pine Ridge reser­va­tion in 1975. Leonard was wrong­ly con­vict­ed in 1977 based on coerced tes­ti­mo­ny and sup­pressed evi­dence. Leonard’s case is one of the most egre­gious exam­ples of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al and inves­tiga­tive mis­con­duct in the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can jurispru­dence. I first became aware of the strug­gles of the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment when I was in jail for resist­ing a polit­i­cal grand jury in 1992–1993. I read In the Spir­it of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen while incar­cer­at­ed and could­n’t put it down. Leonard’s sto­ry gave me strength dur­ing my 6 months resist­ing the grand jury. When I was released from jail I was com­pli­ment­ed on my strength and all I could think of was Leonard’s strength.

When I turned myself into prison last month, one of the first books my wife sent me was In the Spir­it of
Crazy Horse. I read this book, for the sec­ond time, behind bars and fin­ished it in the first two days. I
con­sid­er the strug­gles of AIM and think about their fight not only against geno­cide, but also eco­cide.
Our strug­gles are one strug­gle.

To my sup­port­ers and friends — when you sit down to write me a let­ter, please put the paper aside and
write to Leonard Pelti­er. He has been in prison for more than 30 years — he has remained strong with
unprece­dent­ed integri­ty. If you sup­port me, please sup­port him. He has sac­ri­ficed his free­dom for his
peo­ple and for moth­er earth. Leonard needs to hear from our “tribe”…the envi­ron­men­tal and ani­mal rights move­ments for his strug­gle is our strug­gle. Show him and his peo­ple that we are all part of one move­ment — a move­ment to stop the geno­cide, eco­cide, and oppres­sion of all beings. We are one and when we join into one we may actu­al­ly move for­ward and be able to effect change. By sup­port­ing Leonard, you are sup­port­ing me. If Leonard hears from you and it makes him smile, gives him some hope and strength, and lets him know that he is not and nev­er will be for­got­ten, then you are giv­ing me the strength and strength to our move­ments.

Please write to Leonard at the fol­low­ing address:

Leonard Pelti­er

# 89637–132

USP LEWISBURG

U.S. PENITENTIARY

P.O. BOX 1000

LEWISBURG, PA 17837

In sol­i­dar­i­ty for the earth and ani­mals,

Jonathan Paul

#07167–085

FCI Phoenix

Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion

37910 N. 45th Ave.

Phoenix, AZ 85086

Jonathan’s co-defen­dants:

Daniel McGowan
#63794–053
FCI Sand­stone
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
PO Box 1000
Sand­stone, MN 55072

Nathan Block #36359–086
FCI Lom­poc
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
3600 Guard Road
Lom­poc, CA 93436

Joy­an­na Zach­er #36360–086
FCI Dublin
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
5701 8th St — Camp Parks- Unit E
Dublin, CA 94568

Friends and Fam­i­ly of Jonathan Paul
PMB# 267
2305 Ash­land St., Ste. C
Ash­land, OR 97520

Sec­ond­ly, an ELP sup­port­er has informed us that Chris ‘Dirt’ McIn­tosh has moved. Chris’ new address is:

Chris McIn­tosh
#30512–013
FCI Fair­ton
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
PO Box 420
Fair­ton, nj 08320
USA

Accord­ing to www.BOP.gov Chris is expect­ed to be at this address until 2012.

Please send let­ters of sup­port to Chris, Jonathan Paul, and all the oth­er pris­on­ers. Remind them they are not for­got­ten.

ELP Sup­port Net­work

+++++++++++++++++

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
BM Box 2407
Lon­don
WC1N 3XX
Eng­land
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Shoshone Defenders of Mount Tenabo Constructing Encampment (occupied North America)

Decem­ber 1, 2008
At some point today, sev­er­al men will begin con­struct­ing a per­ma­nent arbor on the South­ern flank of Mt. Ten­abo, where they will camp and mon­i­tor the Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny Bar­rick Gold.

Shoshone protest placardShoshone mountain destructionDecem­ber 1, 2008
At some point today, sev­er­al men will begin con­struct­ing a per­ma­nent arbor on the South­ern flank of Mt. Ten­abo, where they will camp and mon­i­tor the Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny Bar­rick Gold.

The encamp­ment was called on dur­ing last week’s protest, where Shoshone Grand­moth­ers and their sup­port­ers attempt­ed to con­front Bar­rick Gold and bring an end to the destruc­tion of the pin­ion for­est — which began almost imme­di­ate­ly after the com­pa­ny got approval to go ahead with its ‘Cortez Hills Expan­sion Project.’

A mas­sive cyanide heap leach gold mine, the project will ulti­mate­ly destroy approx­i­mate­ly 6,800 acres of land — frac­tur­ing along with it, the spir­i­tu­al life and cul­tur­al prac­tices of the Shoshone Peo­ple.

“This is our treaty land. It was a treaty made with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. It was not made with a for­eign nation. And it is a for­eign min­ing com­pa­ny that has come into our coun­try and is destroy­ing our moun­tain, our land, our food, our med­i­cine and they have no respect,” stat­ed one Grand­moth­er at the protest.

“…It can’t go on. It’s per­pe­trat­ing geno­cide against the Native Amer­i­can peo­ple. And we are not the only Native peo­ple suf­fer­ing this dis­tress,” said anoth­er. “It is hap­pen­ing world over; but we hap­pen to be West­ern Shoshon­es and this is our land and we’re protest­ing the poi­soned water, the destruc­tion of the land, the road we’re stand­ing on here, the big machines: every­thing that the min­ing indus­try stands for. They say they’re doing it respon­si­bly, but they’re not because when they leave the West­ern Shoshone peo­ple will still be here and the land will be bar­ren.”

To help make sure this doesn’t hap­pen, the West­ern Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) asks that you help by mak­ing any of the fol­low­ing the dona­tions:

  1. 24 Nuts and Bolts (bolts need to be 1 foot in length with match­ing nuts)
  2. Gaso­line for saws and haul­ing costs.
  3. Food items such as eggs, bacon, meat, pota­toes, beans, etc. (includ­ing some sweets!)
  4. Helpers — to assist with con­struc­tion of arbor and for sup­port in the encamp­ment
  5. Mon­e­tary dona­tions for all of the above
  6. Moral sup­port and prayers

You can con­tact Joyce McDade for addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion, e‑mail: EJMcDade20@wmconnect.com

Happy Valley Occupation Celebration — Two Years! (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

SAVE HAPPY VALLEY!
OCCUPATION CELEBRATION — TWO YEARS!
THE WEEKEND OF FEBRUARY 2nd-3rd, 2008

SAVE HAPPY VALLEY!
OCCUPATION CELEBRATION — TWO YEARS!
THE WEEKEND OF FEBRUARY 2nd-3rd, 2008

You are invit­ed to the Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion’s cel­e­bra­tion of our SECOND suc­cess­ful year of occu­py­ing Hap­py Val­ley. We have been con­tin­u­ous­ly occu­py­ing Hap­py Val­ley since Jan­u­ary 28th 2006 in order to pre­vent Sol­id Ener­gy from turn­ing it into an envi­ron­men­tal­ly dev­as­tat­ing open­cast coal-mine. Despite spies, 6000 snails from Augus­tus trans­ferred in ice­cream con­tain­ers, the destruc­tion of a near­by moun­tain, Sol­id Ener­gy’s plans for mas­sive expan­sion, and the Octo­ber 15th raids on activists, peo­ple have man­aged to keep Hap­py Val­ley safe so far! Yay for train track block­ades, film nights, alter­na­tives to min­er­als forums, demos, radio inter­views, every­one’s actions, and the OCCUPATION!

The Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion, and any­one who wish­es to join us for the week­end cel­e­bra­tion, will be meet­ing at Les War­ren Park, in West­port, at 8am on Sat­ur­day 2nd Febu­rary 2008. (The major­i­ty of us will trav­el to West­port from Christchurch on the Fri­day night, car pool­ing can be arranged thru the coor­di­na­tor).

You will need all of your own tramping/camping gear and food, enough for the dura­tion of your intend­ed stay and you need to be pre­pared for unpre­dictable weath­er; rain; sun; hot and cold. This means that you must have have suit­able footwear, water­proof and warm cloth­ing, a sleep­ing bag and a tent (unless you have arranged to share with some­one else). An extend­ed gear list will be made avail­able to you when you con­firm plans with the occu­pa­tion coor­di­na­tor. If you do not have the required gear we may be able to pro­vide it for you, but please ensure that by the Fri­day you have the cor­rect gear.

We will be leav­ing the val­ley / return­ing to West­port on Sun­day the 3rd but it would be awe­some if you are able to stay longer in the val­ley!! Please let the coor­di­na­tor know.

We hope you can join us. Please RSVP so we can coor­di­nate eas­i­ly 🙂 Please let us know if you have any spe­cial needs that are of con­cern, we will be as accom­mo­dat­ing as pos­si­ble and we can pro­vide you with as much infor­ma­tion as you require.

For more infor­ma­tion please con­tact the occu­pa­tion coor­di­na­tor.

Thanks for your sup­port!

Frances Mar­tin
Occu­pa­tion Cel­e­bra­tion Coor­di­na­tor
frances.crayon@gmail.com
021 2037040

www.savehappyvalley.org.nz/occupation

If you can­not make it for this week­end but are able to vis­it the val­ley at anoth­er time please con­tact us! 🙂

LOGGING LOCK ON in Bridgetown

2007-12-13
Con­cerned south west cit­i­zens hold up Jar­rah log truck in Bridgetown to high­light the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of native forests.

Bridgetown action2007-12-13
Con­cerned south west cit­i­zens hold up Jar­rah log truck in Bridgetown to high­light the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of native forests.

Today 12 con­cerned res­i­dents of the South­west have stopped a log truck on Bridgetown’s main street to high­light the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of Aus­trali­a’s native forests.

Aus­tralia has just been named the biggest car­bon emit­ter in the world on a per-head basis. Indus­tri­al scale log­ging and burn­ing of native forests is a major con­trib­u­tor to car­bon emis­sions in Aus­tralia.

“By keep­ing the car­bon in the for­est and pro­tect­ing native forests is one of the eas­i­est and sim­plest solu­tions to reduce Aus­trali­a’s green­house gas emis­sions,” said Brett Thomp­son. “Native forests are the lungs of the plan­et they store vast quan­ti­ties of car­bon. By pro­tect­ing native forests Aus­tralia can sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce its green­house gas emis­sions and halt the dev­as­tat­ing affects of cli­mate change,” com­ment­ed spokesman Brett Thomp­son.

Bridgetown local res­i­dent Saf­fire Grant quotes” “We need to take action on a local lev­el. Native for­est log­ging in our own back­yard needs to be stopped now if our com­mu­ni­ty is to active­ly help pro­vide solu­tions to cli­mate change.”

“We call on Fed­er­al and State Labor par­ties to pro­tect native forests as an active strat­e­gy to reduce our green­house gas emis­sions and become a world leader in the strug­gle against cli­mate change.”

6 Arrest­ed in Brige­town halt­ing a Jar­rah Log Truck for 6 hours in main street

Con­cerned res­i­dents of the S.W have halt­ed a log truck for six hours on the S.W high­way in Bridgetown. This fol­lows an action at Sim­coa three weeks ago high­light­ing the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of native forests through­out the S.W and Australia.Six protests were arrest­ed for dis­or­der­ly behav­ior with police con­fis­cat­ing mobile phones cam­eras and video equip­ment. Pro­test­ers have vowed to con­tin­ue to high­light the destruc­tion of native forests in W.A through­out the com­ing months with fur­ther actions planned. The six arrest­ed will face court in Bridgetown next Wednes­day the 19th of Decem­ber with a peace­ful gath­er­ing of sup­port out the front of the court planned for 9:30am.

Thurs­day the 13th of Decem­ber 2007, six pro­test­ers were charged with dis­or­der­ly con­duct after hold­ing up a log truck in Bridgetown.

Dur­ing the protest police seized cam­eras, video recorder, mp3 play­er, all record­ing equip­ment and mobile phones.

See the video footage here:
http://www.globalwarmingfg.com/

Enawene Nawe blockade dam construction site

12th Decem­ber 2007
Con­tin­u­ing their strug­gle against a large hydro­elec­tric dam project in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, the Enawene Nawe set up a block­ade at one of the dam con­struc­tion sites late last week. Accord­ing to Sur­vival, about 100 mem­bers of the 420-strong tribe occu­pied the build­ing site, demand­ing an inde­pen­dent study into the impact they will have.

12th Decem­ber 2007
Con­tin­u­ing their strug­gle against a large hydro­elec­tric dam project in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, the Enawene Nawe set up a block­ade at one of the dam con­struc­tion sites late last week. Accord­ing to Sur­vival, about 100 mem­bers of the 420-strong tribe occu­pied the build­ing site, demand­ing an inde­pen­dent study into the impact they will have.

The Enawene Nawe main­tain the dams will have a dev­as­tat­ing effect on the breed­ing cycle of the fish they depend on to sur­vive. They say the fish might not even be able to make it to their breed­ing grounds. The grounds them­selves are of great cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance to the Enawene Nawe. If the 11 dams go ahead as planned, the area may be destroyed.

The grounds are already heav­i­ly bur­dened by cat­tle ranch­ers, and the Soya Industry–who is behind the dam project.

Of course, this would not be hap­pen­ing if the Brazil­ian Gov­ern­ment demar­cat­ed the area, in fact the entire Rio Pre­to, when they rec­og­nized Enawene Nawe ter­ri­to­ry in 1996. The gov­ern­ment refused to do so.

Since then, the Enawene Nawe have been work­ing to have the Rio Pre­to includ­ed, but so far their voic­es have fall­en on deaf ears.

When the dam project came into focus late 2006/early 2007, they increased their efforts, for one, by orga­niz­ing block­ades. The ongo­ing one is the third this year.

The pre­vi­ous block­ade, set up on May 31, 2007, was met with some suc­cess.

Brazil Ama­zon Indi­ans Take on Soy Barons Block­ing Dam Site
From Brazz­il Mag, 11 Decem­ber 2007

The remote Enawene Nawe Indi­ans have block­ad­ed the con­struc­tion site of a hydro­elec­tric dam in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, which they say will destroy their vital fish­ing grounds. Around 100 mem­bers of the 420-strong tribe occu­pied the build­ing site and a near­by high­way on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 6. They want to stop the con­struc­tion of a vast com­plex of hydro­elec­tric dams being built on the Juru­e­na riv­er, upstream from their land.

Com­pa­nies led by the world’s largest soya pro­duc­ers, the Mag­gi fam­i­ly, are push­ing for the con­struc­tion of the dams. But the Enawene Nawe, who eat no red meat, say that if the dams are built, the fish they rely on will no longer be able to reach their spawn­ing grounds.

The Enawene Nawe say they have not been con­sult­ed about the dams. They are demand­ing and inde­pen­dent study into the impact they will have.

A pre­vi­ous block­ade of a major high­way in June led the gov­ern­ment to nego­ti­ate with the Indi­ans, but plans for con­struc­tion of the dams con­tin­ued.

After the first oppo­si­tion action, the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment agreed to sev­er­al key demands of the Enawene Nawe. The government’s Indi­an agency, FUNAI, promised that it would sur­vey lands claimed by the Enawene Nawe and oth­er tribes, with the aim of offi­cial­ly rec­og­niz­ing the areas as indige­nous.

For three days in May, the Indi­ans erect­ed bar­ri­cades in Mato Grosso state to protest against plans to build a series of hydro­elec­tric dams along the Juru­e­na riv­er. They were also demand­ing the offi­cial recog­ni­tion of their vital fish­ing waters in the Rio Pre­to area, which are being rapid­ly destroyed by cat­tle ranch­ers.

Neigh­bor­ing tribes joined the protest in sup­port of the Enawene Nawe’s demands, swelling the num­ber of pro­tes­tors to 200. The gov­ern­ment respond­ed quick­ly by dis­patch­ing offi­cials to nego­ti­ate with the Indi­ans on the bar­ri­cade. It even agreed to pay for rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous tribes in Mato Grosso to trav­el to Brazil­ian cap­i­tal Brasília to meet with FUNAI’s pres­i­dent.