Category: North West England

North West Eng­land

lock-on-tastic continues/eviction court case news & more at Barton Moss (4–12 March 2014)

11.3.14

 

11.3.14

 

4th March — anoth­er lock-on delayed trucks sig­nif­i­cant­ly — 4 hours! 

The Man­ches­ter Evening News — sen­sa­tion­al­ist par­rot­er of police and frack­ing PR — con­duct­ed a sur­vey that found that 73% of Man­cu­ni­ans opposed frack­ing.

 

6th March — two hour lock-on and book shields deployed to pro­tect against TAU (riot police) aggres­sion. 

9th March — 1,200 march against frack­ing in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre. 

10th March — evic­tion court case brought by Peel Hold­ings: judge con­sid­ered two days of evi­dence over the week­end, and decid­ed against the camp.  He’d pre­vi­ous­ly said Peel could­n’t evict part of the camp from a strip of agri­cul­tur­al land that Peel lease out to a ten­ant farmer.  On Mon­day he decid­ed it was­n’t agri­cul­tur­al enough!  Camp tak­ing appeal to High Court. 

11th March — anoth­er lock-on!

lock-ons at Barton Moss

Lock-ons have been increas­ing — there’s been one today (2 peo­ple, 2 hour delay), Mon­day 3rd March; there was anoth­er last Fri­day (2 peo­ple in tubes, 1.5 hours), and last Tues­day — 2 peo­ple locked-on into a bar­rel full of con­crete, barbed wire and glass, to slow the police removal team down.

Lock-ons have been increas­ing — there’s been one today (2 peo­ple, 2 hour delay), Mon­day 3rd March; there was anoth­er last Fri­day (2 peo­ple in tubes, 1.5 hours), and last Tues­day — 2 peo­ple locked-on into a bar­rel full of con­crete, barbed wire and glass, to slow the police removal team down.

Apart from these days, there’s been con­tin­ued police vio­lence, a reduc­tion in time allowed for the slow lor­ry escorts, and the threat of evic­tion delayed till lat­er this month. 

See http://northerngasgala.org.uk/ or frack-off.org.uk/ for more info

All for one, and one for all

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The state-spon­sored crack­down on ani­mal rights activists con­tin­ues next month, with the open­ing of the third ‘con­spir­a­cy to black­mail’ tri­al relat­ing to vivi­sec­tion giants Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences in Win­ches­ter…

Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al. To sup­port this pub­li­ca­tion, pre­order your copy or donate today.

After sev­er­al years in devel­op­ment, the Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al is ready to go to press. A group of front­line activists has assem­bled over 300 pages of dia­grams, descrip­tions of tech­niques and a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the role direct action plays in our cam­paigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundrais­ing cam­paign to ensure that this crit­i­cal book gets out to peo­ple who can use it. You can pre­order your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your ear­ly endorse­ment by donat­ing today. More impor­tant­ly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowl­edge. Every dona­tion over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the man­u­al to a cam­paign of your choice. The more you give, the more man­u­als we can put in the mail.

The man­u­al will be print­ed in the com­ing month with long­time Earth First! part­ner, The Gloo Fac­to­ry. This com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed, union print shop has sup­plied Earth First! and its affil­i­ates with stick­ers and mer­chan­dise for decades and remains com­mit­ted to using a high stan­dard for recy­cled and reclaimed mate­r­i­al, as well as sup­port­ive work­er con­di­tions.

The man­u­al was first print­ed near­ly two decades ago and has been out of print since its ini­tial dis­sem­i­na­tion. Though many of the con­sid­er­a­tions for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and inter­ven­tion have remained tried and true, new ele­ments have altered the ways we put these tac­tics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al will con­tin­ue the role of safe and effec­tive actions in stop­ping the destruc­tion of the plan­et.

Sup­port this effort today!

Barton Moss anti-fracking update

 

Embedded image permalink

15th Feb 2014

Lor­ries being brought in on a Sat­ur­day, tankers so like­ly full of chem­i­cals, fol­lowed by trucks with pipes. 

 

Embedded image permalink

15th Feb 2014

Lor­ries being brought in on a Sat­ur­day, tankers so like­ly full of chem­i­cals, fol­lowed by trucks with pipes. 

Campers try­ing to stop, one locked on top of a tanker. 

Three days ago a court ruled that the road was not a pub­lic high­way, but a foot­path, open­ing up the threat of being arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass by block­ing the trucks on the foot­path (it is legal­ly pos­si­ble under Sec­tion 68 Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994). 

Live feed 1 and Live feed 2

Romanian Villagers and Priests Occupy Chevron Fracking Site in Protest

9/2/14

Roman­ian police clashed with vil­lagers on Wednes­day as they tried in vain to force them off a field they have occu­pied for a third day to pre­vent U.S. ener­gy giant Chevron from drilling for shale gas.

9/2/14

Roman­ian police clashed with vil­lagers on Wednes­day as they tried in vain to force them off a field they have occu­pied for a third day to pre­vent U.S. ener­gy giant Chevron from drilling for shale gas.

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers blocked access to the site at Silis­tea in east­ern Roma­nia where Chevron plans to drill an explo­ration well, lying down in the mud and hold­ing hands to form a human chain.

Some 250 anti-riot police engaged in an hours-long stand-off with the pro­test­ers, with skir­mish­es as they phys­i­cal­ly tried to force them off, but the demon­stra­tors pushed their way back onto the field.

The group of pro­test­ers, some of whom have been sleep­ing at the site since Mon­day, had grown to about 500 on Wednes­day, pre­vent­ing Chevron bull­doz­ers and exca­va­tors from access­ing the site.

Ortho­dox priests also joined the protest.

Many of the vil­lagers in the rur­al region arrived on horse carts, some brought their chil­dren who held up signs read­ing: “Stop Chevron!”, while an elder­ly woman leaned on her cane beside them.

They are afraid of the envi­ron­men­tal and health impact of the high­ly con­tro­ver­sial method used for shale gas drilling, called hydraulic frac­tur­ing or ‘frack­ing’.

The tech­nique con­sists of pump­ing water and chem­i­cals at high pres­sure into deep rock for­ma­tions to free oil and gas.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists say frack­ing may con­t­a­m­i­nate ground water and even cause small earth­quakes.

Chevron has per­mits to explore for shale gas in three vil­lages in this part of east­ern Roma­nia as well as on Romania’s Black Sea coast.

“Chevron is com­mit­ted to build­ing con­struc­tive and pos­i­tive rela­tion­ships with the com­mu­ni­ties where we oper­ate and will con­tin­ue our dia­logue with the pub­lic, local com­mu­ni­ties and author­i­ties on its projects,” the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment to AFP.

“Our pri­or­i­ty is to con­duct … activ­i­ties in a safe and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble man­ner con­sis­tent with the per­mits under which we oper­ate,” it added.

Also Wednes­day, more than 2,000 peo­ple staged a protest in the cap­i­tal Bucharest, shout­ing “no to shale gas”.

Romania’s rul­ing cen­tre-left coali­tion has been defend­ing shale gas explo­ration after fight­ing it when it was in the oppo­si­tion.

Day 72 – 6th February — Barton Moss — anti-fracking camp & blockade

day 71 lock on 2

day 71 lock on 2

Today there was a lock-on pre­vent­ing the con­voy leav­ing the iGas site from mov­ing for over 6 hours. The leader of the Green Par­ty, Natal­ie Ben­nett also vis­it­ed the camp with her sup­port­ers and met up with pro­tec­tors on the march.

Live feed from lock-on

Reclaim the Power gathering 8–9 February

After an incred­i­ble day of idea gen­er­a­tion and vision­ing at the last gath­er­ing, it’s time for con­crete pro­pos­als and deci­sions about our next steps.


Loca­tion: Oxford
Time: Sat­ur­day 8th Feb­ru­ary 11am ­­– Sun­day 9th 4pm
Address: TBC
Crash Space/Social: Pro­vid­ed. Fur­ther details TBC.
Meals: Pro­vid­ed, dona­tion cost TBC
Trav­el Pool: Avail­able. Please book trav­el tick­ets in advance so that this can sup­port the most peo­ple.
Notes from Man­ches­ter Vision­ing Day are here: http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3

In ear­ly Decem­ber a large num­ber of peo­ple came togeth­er to dis­cuss the rad­i­cal visions they had for the future – visions that Reclaim the Pow­er, as a net­work, could help bring about.

It was a very open day of dis­cus­sion with a clear struc­ture, but with no pre-planned agen­da. Every­thing we talked about was gen­er­at­ed by par­tic­i­pants, and a huge num­ber of dif­fer­ent ideas were placed on the table.

So what next? Well, the idea is that all of that dis­cus­sion feeds into a month of cre­ative pro­pos­al mak­ing before the next gath­er­ing. This will be a space for short and medi­um-term deci­sion mak­ing where we work out what we’re doing in the next few months – and how this fits in with long term visions.

Rough pro­pos­al area groups formed at the Decem­ber gath­er­ing, includ­ing:

1. How to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er
2. Move­ment and diver­si­ty
3. Ener­gy and fos­sil fuels
4. Pos­i­tive solu­tions

If you would like to link up with these groups and input into pro­pos­als for next steps, just con­tact info@nodashforgas.org.uk and you will be put in touch with a group con­tact.

This said, all pro­pos­als are wel­come! If you’re work­ing on your own, out­side these groups, then great. The more ideas the bet­ter.

The pro­pos­al dead­line is the 31st Jan­u­ary 2014. Please try and fol­low this rough four point list when writ­ing them, as it is essen­tial that all the pro­pos­als be con­sid­ered on an equal foot­ing.

1. What is it?
2. How does it link to long-term strate­gic aims?
3. Time­line?
4. Resources need­ed? (inc, peo­ple, costs, skills)

Spe­cif­ic venue and agen­da details to fol­low soon. In the mean­while, please check http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3 to see the dis­cus­sions and out­comes of the last agen­da.

See you soon,

RTP Gath­er­ings Team

info@nodashforgas.org.uk

 

SALFORD COUNCIL CIVIC CENTRE SHUT DOWN BY BARTON MOSS CAMPAIGNERS

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Salford Civic Centre Shut Down By Barton Moss Protectors     31st Jan­u­ary 2014

 

ANTI FRACKING CAMPAIGNERS SHUT SWINTON CIVIC CENTRE

Sal­ford Coun­cil’s Civic Cen­tre in Swin­ton was dra­mat­i­cal­ly shut down this after­noon as five anti-frack­ing cam­paign­ers from the Bar­ton Moss Pro­tec­tion Camp locked on in the recep­tion area.

The cam­paign­ers’ action was against Gov­ern­ment attempts to bribe Sal­ford Coun­cil to allow frack­ing in the city.

The front doors of Sal­ford Civic Cen­tre were closed this after­noon as five cam­paign­ers locked on in its recep­tion area to draw atten­tion to Con­Dem Gov­ern­ment attempts to bribe coun­cils to accept rates and com­mu­ni­ty pay­ments in exchange for allow­ing frack­ing in their cities.

Two anti-frack­ing cam­paign­ers from the Bar­ton Moss Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp – site of explorato­ry drilling by frack­ing com­pa­ny IGas — super­glued them­selves to bars on the recep­tion win­dows, while two more attached them­selves to an arm tube, with anoth­er super­glued to them. It took the Greater Man­ches­ter Police Pro­test­er Removal Team around two hours to free them, while the Cen­tre remained closed to the pub­lic.

“The pro­tec­tors are here protest­ing against Sal­ford Coun­cil’s allowance of IGas to do explorato­ry drilling with a view to frack­ing at Bar­ton Moss” said Dar­ren Nes­bit, an observ­er from the Camp “We’ve had one of the pro­tec­tors, Boris, here on the lawn of the Civic Cen­tre for the last few weeks and we attend­ed the demo at the full Coun­cil meet­ing recent­ly.

“Every­thing we do is to, first­ly, raise aware­ness of frack­ing and the cor­rup­tion of the Gov­ern­ment and Coun­cil, and, sec­ond­ly, to let coun­cils know that this is what will hap­pen to every coun­cil in the coun­try if they allow frack­ing or any oth­er cor­po­rate rape of the earth which will affect their res­i­dents.”

Earth First! Winter Moot 7–9 March 2014: programme up

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

Evening Fri­day 7th — after­noon Sun­day 9th March 2014, Not­ting­ham

Cost scale £20 to £30. This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion.

It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat. Train to Not­ting­ham then tram to Bea­cons­field street– walk to the end turn right on to Glad­stone St — 245 Glad­stone St, Not­ting­ham NG7 6HX — www.earthfirst.org.uk

Full map/travel details

For offers of help or ques­tions email themiddle@earthfirst.org.uk

 

Programme

Friday

16.30–17.30 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop
17.30–18.30 Film

18.30 Din­ner

20.00 Ben­e­fit Gig

Saturday

8.30–9.30 Break­fast
9.30–10.45 Intro go round of cam­paigns

10.45–11.00 Break

11.00–12.00 Future of Earth First Part 1
12.00–13.00 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop

13.00–14.00 Lunch

14.00–14.30 Lush/fundraising work­shop
14.30–18.15 Cam­paign Work­shops (tim­ings to be finalised to include Frack­ing, Nuclear, Roads and Coal)
18.15–18.30 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing han­dover

18.30 Din­ner
20.00 DJ??

Sunday

9.00–10.00 Break­fast fry up
10.00–10.30 Tidy up of venue
10.30–11.30 Feed­back go round
11.30–12.30 Future of Earth First Part 2
12.30–14.00 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Plan­ning (and time of oth­er work­shops to run in par­al­lel)

14.00–15.00 Lunch
15.00 End