Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Blockade of Monsanto office in The Netherlands (& GM being grown this year in the UK)

Update: no arrests made, Mon­san­to closed for whole day, work­ers sent home, and some of the cor­po­rate sculp­tures got a re-paint!

On Mon­day 17 May a group of 50 peo­ple from the group “Roundup Mon­san­to” block­ad­ed the Mon­san­to office at Bergschen­hoek in the Nether­lands.

Monsanto Netherlands blockade 1Monsanto Netherlands blockade 2Monsanto Netherlands blockade 3Monsanto Netherlands blockade 4Update: no arrests made, Mon­san­to closed for whole day, work­ers sent home, and some of the cor­po­rate sculp­tures got a re-paint!

On Mon­day 17 May a group of 50 peo­ple from the group “Roundup Mon­san­to” block­ad­ed the Mon­san­to office at Bergschen­hoek in the Nether­lands.

Verdelg Mon­san­to

Press Release: Block­ade of Mon­san­to’s Bergschen­hoek Loca­tion in The Nether­lands

Bergschen­hoek, Mon­day, May 17 — Since 6 o’clock this morn­ing, 50 per­sons of the action group ‘Roundup Mon­san­to’ are block­ing both gates of the Mon­san­to seed com­pa­ny near Rot­ter­dam. ‘Roundup Mon­san­to’ wants Mon­san­to to back out of the seed mar­ket, and demands an end to patents on seeds and liv­ing organ­isms. Mon­san­to and oth­er agro-chem­i­cal multi­na­tion­als are lob­by­ing the Dutch gov­ern­ment and the EU for leg­isla­tive changes that would make it eas­i­er for large com­pa­nies to take con­trol of the seed mar­ket and food production.[1]

The block­ade is tak­ing place at the for­mer De Ruiter Seeds, acquired by Mon­san­to in 2008, where research lab­o­ra­to­ries, offices, green­hous­es, and a cen­tral stor­age for seeds and seedlings are to be found.

The chem­i­cal com­pa­ny Mon­san­to has 23% of the world­wide mar­ket of com­mer­cial seeds in its hands. In the last 5 years, the com­pa­ny has bought up three large inter­na­tion­al­ly active seed com­pa­nies in the Nether­lands: De Ruiter Seeds, West­ern Seeds, and Sem­in­is. As a result, Mon­san­to now dom­i­nates the world mar­ket for veg­etable seeds and seedlings. In addi­tion, Mon­san­to is the mar­ket leader in genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered soy, corn, sug­ar beets, and cot­ton, and has a large mar­ket share in pes­ti­cide sales. “Farm­ers and veg­etable grow­ers are becom­ing increas­ing­ly depen­dent on these big seed com­pa­nies and patent­ed seeds will make the sit­u­a­tion even worse,” says Flip Vonk, an organ­ic farm employ­ee present at the action.

Mon­san­to is a chem­i­cal com­pa­ny which has grown large due to the pro­duc­tion of pes­ti­cides, Agent Orange, and PCBs. [2] After count­less scan­dals revolv­ing around these chem­i­cal sub­stances, the com­pa­ny found a new mar­ket strat­e­gy: devel­op­ment and sales of genet­i­cal­ly manip­u­lat­ed crops. These crops are cul­ti­vat­ed in enor­mous mono­cul­tures, with exces­sive use of fer­tilis­er and pes­ti­cides. Mon­san­to rep­re­sents a destruc­tive mod­el of chem­i­cal agri­cul­ture.

The cur­rent sys­tem of agri­cul­ture, based on mass import and export, is com­plete­ly depen­dent on the con­sump­tion of fos­sil fuels. Chem­i­cal agri­cul­ture is respon­si­ble for a quar­ter to a third of the release of all the green­house gas­es. Over 80% of the cul­ti­vat­ed GMOs are pes­ti­cide resistent, the remain­ing 20% pro­duce insec­ti­cide inside the plant. This form of food pro­duc­tion is extreme­ly harm­ful to peo­ple, nature, and the cli­mate. Genet­i­cal engi­neer­ing will not con­tribute any solu­tion to cli­mate change.

Genet­ic engi­neer­ing is often pre­sent­ed as a solu­tion to the glob­al food ques­tion. But in spite of 15 years of cul­ti­va­tion of genet­i­cal­ly manip­u­lat­ed crops, 2009 wit­nessed a record amount of star­va­tion. GM crops have not increased yields. “The food prob­lem requires com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent solu­tions. We need to dras­ti­cal­ly change course, away from large-scale chem­i­cal agri­cul­ture, towards local food pro­duc­tion in har­mo­ny with nature, with­out pes­ti­cides and with­out genet­i­cal­ly manip­u­lat­ed crops. A world with­out Mon­san­to is a good step in that direc­tion,” accord­ing to Miran­da de Boer from ‘Roundup Mon­san­to’.

The two most impor­tant access doors to the Mon­san­to ter­rain have been closed off. The action group put up ban­ners with the mes­sage “Imag­ine, monop­oly of food, poi­so­nous agri­cul­ture, The World accord­ing to … Mon­san­to”, adbust­ing the com­pa­ny’s logo. It has also adjust­ed the giant cucum­ber and toma­to on the lawn to Mon­san­to’s manip­u­lat­ed real­i­ty. Employ­ees and cus­tomers are greet­ed with cof­fee, tea, and back­ground infor­ma­tion on arrival.

**********
to the edi­tors:
action loca­tion: Leeuwen­hoek­weg 52, Bergschen­hoek (North of Rot­ter­dam)
con­tact: verdelg-monsanto@riseup.net

[1] For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the devel­op­ment of patent law and breed­ers’ rights, con­sult a press release from A SEED Europe about the sub­ject: http://www.aseed.net/kwekersrecht-vs-patentrecht

[2] See the film ‘The World Accord­ing to Mon­san­to’

More back­ground infor­ma­tion can be found at:
— http://www.gentech.nl
— http://www.gmwatch.org
— http://www.no-patents-on-seeds.org
— http://www.aseed.net/monsanto
— http://www.combat-monsanto.co.uk
— http://www.toxicsoy.org

Action video — http://www.vimeo.com/12529960

——
Two GM pota­to tri­als this year

The UK gov­ern­ment in their GM mad­ness have just (7.4.10) approved a new GM pota­to tri­al to go ahead at the Leeds Uni­ver­si­ty farm near Tad­cast­er. It is also like­ly that they will approve a sec­ond, dif­fer­ent tri­al by the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry at the John Innes Cen­tre, Nor­wich.

These tri­als are exper­i­men­tal tri­als, and not part of an appli­ca­tion to grow the pota­toes on a com­mer­cial scale. The GM pota­toes are still in the devel­op­ment stage and these tri­als are designed to find out whether the genet­ic manip­u­la­tion works in field con­di­tion. If this is con­firmed then they might go on to be devel­oped for com­mer­cial grow­ing.

Despite mas­sive pub­lic resis­tance and grow­ing evi­dence that GM does not increase yields, is extreme­ly dam­ag­ing to the envi­ron­ment and impov­er­ish­es farm­ers around the world, our gov­ern­ment is push­ing GM onto our plates. GM con­tin­ues to be very lucra­tive for multi­na­tion­al bio­chem­i­cal cor­po­ra­tions… while farm­ers around the world are ris­ing up in protest against this tech­nol­o­gy of con­trol.

The lat­est con pro­mot­ed by the GM spin­ners is that GM will pro­vide the answer to cli­mate change. Rather than cut­ting car­bon emis­sions, stu­pid…

Leeds tri­al:
The Cen­tre for Plant Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds has been giv­en con­sent by Defra to con­duct field tri­als of GM pota­toes engi­neered to resist pota­to cyst eel­worm or pota­to cyst nema­tode (PCN).

This is a dif­fer­ent GM pota­to to the one pre­vi­ous­ly tri­alled in 2008 and dif­fer­ent to the pota­toes pro­posed to be tri­alled in Nor­folk, but many of the prob­lems are the same.

The tri­als com­mence from 1 May to 3 Novem­ber 2010 and con­tin­ue for 3 years until 2012. They take place at the Leeds Uni­ver­si­ty Farm at Tad­cast­er, North York­shire cov­er­ing not more than 1,000 square metres with up to 4,000 GM plants per year.

They are engi­neered to be resis­tant to nema­todes, a pest affect­ing pota­toes that can effec­tive­ly dealt with through good farm­ing prac­tis­es

There is no need for GM to address this pest, nor is there any mar­ket for GM pota­toes, so the tri­al should not go ahead.

Full details of the tri­al can be found here (includ­ing grid ref­er­ences)
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/gm/regulation/registers/consents/index.htm

Nor­wich tri­al
The Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry at the John Innes Cen­tre, Nor­wich has applied to Defra to con­duct field tri­als of GM pota­toes engi­neered to resist late pota­to blight. These pota­toes con­tain genes from a pota­to rel­a­tive from South Amer­i­ca and have been engi­neered to be resis­tant to blight, a pota­to dis­ease. They are dif­fer­ent from the genes in BAS­F’s GM blight resist pota­toes field test­ed near Cam­bridge in 2007 and 2008. The BASF tri­al was aban­doned last year, for unknown rea­sons.

The release of GM pota­toes would com­mence from 1 May 2010 and run to 30 Novem­ber 2010 and con­tin­ue for a fur­ther 2 years until 2012. The release would take place at the John Innes Cen­tre, Nor­folk, in an area of 1,000 square metres with 200 square metres used each year for GM pota­toes with not more than 200 GM plants per year.

The deci­sion is expect­ed in the next cou­ple of weeks.

A detailed brief­ing on the GM spuds can be down­loaded from

http://www.gmfreeze.org/page.asp?ID=417&iType=1083

The full appli­ca­tion to Defra can be found here (includ­ing grid ref­er­ences)

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/gm/regulation/registers/applications/index.htm

Lib­er­ate the fields!

European Squatting Meeting

Next 17, 18, 19, and 20 of June, a Euro­pean Squat­ting Meet­ing will be held in the “CSO La For­sa” (Aveni­da de la Fama, 41, Cor­nel­la de Llo­bre­gat — Barcelona), so we are con­tact­ing groups across Europe who are inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pate.

To join the meet­ing and / or sub­mit­ting infor­ma­tion, you can get in con­tact with us at: jornadaskny010@riseup.net

Pro­gram

Wednes­day 16 June

Next 17, 18, 19, and 20 of June, a Euro­pean Squat­ting Meet­ing will be held in the “CSO La For­sa” (Aveni­da de la Fama, 41, Cor­nel­la de Llo­bre­gat — Barcelona), so we are con­tact­ing groups across Europe who are inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pate.

To join the meet­ing and / or sub­mit­ting infor­ma­tion, you can get in con­tact with us at: jornadaskny010@riseup.net

Pro­gram

Wednes­day 16 June

Arrival & Wel­come: Food, Drinks & Live Music (Txaranga)

Thurs­day 17 June

Morn­ing Pro­gram

Open­ing: Pre­sen­ta­tion of the dif­fer­ent squats presents
• His­tor­i­cal Con­text: Begin­ning of the squat move­ment in Europe
• Polit­i­cal Con­text: Legal frame­work, repres­sion and response strate­gies (Con­tacts and agree­ments with the state, response on the street, assim­i­la­tion of evic­tions … )
• Present and Future
• Con­nex­ions with oth­er strug­gles

We´d like that every col­lec­tive could make a lit­tle scheme of this to tack­le it bet­ter.

Evening Pro­gram

Dis­cus­sion:
We would like to expose dif­fer­ent strate­gies against repres­sion fol­lowed in dif­fer­ent spaces and places and their long-term effects: legal­iza­tions, agree­ments, dif­fer­ent kinds of direct response against evic­tions and its effects of the activ­i­ties of the spaces (such as the recep­tion of chil­dren, sup­port groups out­lawed …)

Fri­day 18 June

Morn­ing Pro­gram

Speak­ings:
Exhi­bi­tion of dif­fer­ent par­tic­u­lar cas­es of ways of act­ing against evic­tions try­ing to accom­mo­date the exist­ing diver­si­ty.
(To Be spec­i­fied but we want cas­es suf­fi­cient­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive into the direct action)

Evening Pro­gram

Dis­cus­sion:
Con­se­quences of dif­fer­ent types of reac­tion to evic­tions: Legal, per­son­al and move­ments long-term effects?…

Sat­ur­day 19 June

Morn­ing Pro­gram

Open Air: Food & The­ater

Demon­stra­tion

Evening Pro­gram

Speak­ings:
Exhi­bi­tion of dif­fer­ent strug­gles with the squat move­ment as a cat­a­lyst or as a sup­port for their devel­op­ment.

Sun­day 20 June

Morn­ing Pro­gram

Dis­cus­sion:
Police repres­sion and dif­fer­ent meth­ods of repres­sion, see if there is an under­ly­ing polit­i­cal pur­pose at the Euro­pean lev­el and seek to form a gen­er­al pic­ture of it for a Euro­pean legal per­spec­tive of the map and the nation­al and local nuances (Com­mon­al­i­ties and dif­fer­ences between coun­tries and areas …) Any trends in com­mon? Are they using the same meth­ods of repres­sion? (Increased penal­ties, penal­ties of areas not pre­vi­ous­ly leg­is­lat­ed sen­tences, fines penal­ties, tight­en­ing of the evic­tions, more or less aggres­sive or spec­tac­u­lar of these, pro­pos­als for legal­iza­tion and recov­ery of the spaces …)

Evening Pro­gram

Speak­ing-Dis­cus­sion:
Police and Euro­pean police net­works, how they affect us, devel­op­ment and effec­tive action (DNA, data­bas­es, files police activists, agreed the clo­sure of bor­ders …)

Con­clu­sions and future pro­pos­als

Clos­ing Event: Drinks and Live Music

Both ses­sions in the morn­ing as the after­noon will be divid­ed into two blocks with a break in the mid­dle. We pro­vide simul­ta­ne­ous inter­pre­ta­tion.

http://www.faunanocturna.net/press/jornadeseuropeesdokupacio

News from EF! Italy

News from Earth First! Italy:

News from Earth First! Italy:

After the nation­al gath­er­ing of April 1 to 4 in Umbria are form­ing new groups in cen­tral and north­ern Italy. Now very active 4 groups: Rome, Pra­to, Pad­ua, Turin. The site con­tin­ues to be fol­lowed by more than 500 vis­its a month and many activ­i­ties are car­ried out. On 5 June in Rome there will there will be an EF! night with dis­cus­sions, din­ner, film screen­ing and music in sup­port of ongo­ing cam­paigns. In Turin active “guer­ril­la gar­den­ing”. Pad­ua oper­ates main­ly on the face of ani­mal lib­er­a­tion. In Pra­to they are orga­niz­ing cam­paigns against incin­er­a­tors and cement.

More infor­ma­tion: http://earthfirstitalia.blogspot.com

Eyjafjallajoekull — climate activist extraordinaire

Here’s to an incred­i­ble first action ..

EyjafjallajökullVolcano vs planesHere’s to an incred­i­ble first action ..

In 24 hours the Eyjaf­jal­la­joekull Vol­cano made a small esti­mat­ed release of 7,412 tons of CO2, in doing so ground­ing 60% of Euro­pean flights for the day and pre­vent­ing the release of 206,465 tons of CO2. I make that the most suc­cess­ful direct action of all time — hats off to the world’s lat­est domes­tic extrem­ist.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/planes-or-volcano

Upcoming action dates & activist gatherings, 2010 — updated

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010
Glob­al Min­ga for Moth­er Earth

12–16 Octo­ber 2010
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice, CJA call-out

13 Octo­ber 2010
It’s Ham­mer­time! — Smash EDO

16 Octo­ber 2010
Crude Awak­en­ing — big oil day of action in Lon­don City

23–24 Octo­ber 2010
Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK Gath­er­ing, Bris­tol

10–12 Decem­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

=========

Old dates from this cal­en­dar:

2010

15–17 Jan­u­ary 2010
Peace News Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

23–26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Main­shill Pre-Evic­tion Gath­er­ing

5–7 Feb­ru­ary 2010
EF! Win­ter Moot, North East Eng­land

12–14 Feb­ru­ary 2010
UK Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

19–21 Feb­ru­ary 2010
Camp for Cli­mate Action nation­al ‘where next?’ gath­er­ing, Bris­tol — region­al ones hap­pen­ing over Jan­u­ary & Feb­ru­ary (details here)

26–28 Feb­ru­ary 2010
No Bor­ders Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

14 March 2010
UK Tar Sands Cam­paign Gath­er­ing, York

11am till 6pm (Veg­an lunch by dona­tion)
With BP’s AGM just 1 month away, and 2 weeks of actions planned for 1st to 15th April, come and con­nect with oth­er UK-based Tar Sands cam­paign­ers, share ideas and cre­ate actions. We’ll be look­ing at strate­gies and actions for tar­get­ing Shell, BP and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land — Britain’s Dirty Three­some on Tar Sands invest­ment.

We’re meet­ing in Der­went Col­lege, York Uni­ver­si­ty, room D/056 — from the sta­tion or city cen­tre, take bus num­ber 4 to the very last stop, walk back about 50 meters, and the road entrance to the col­lege is signed on the left. D/056 is accessed from the out­side, beyond the din­ing hall and ponds.

1 April 2010
Fos­sil Fools Day

1–4 April 2010
The Hunt­ing­ton Lane Fos­sil Fools week­end con­ver­gence

1–15 April 2010
BP Fort­night of Shame
includ­ing Lon­don Mass Action

17–18 April 2010
Social Cen­tres in a Time of Cri­sis, Leeds
A week­end of work­shops, dis­cus­sions and social­is­ing for every­one with an inter­est in rad­i­cal autonomous social cen­tres

22–23 April 2010
anti-avi­a­tion 48 hours of stick­er-whack­ing, sub­ver­tis­ing, adbust­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um

23–26 April 2010
Anti-nuclear Camp, Suf­folk — see lat­est EF!AU for details

6–10 May 2010
Activist Tat train­ing week: putting up mar­quees, erect­ing and mend­ing flat pack toi­lets, as well as tech­ni­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal (pow­er, plumb­ing etc) skill­shar­ing

15 May 2010
Par­ty at the Pumps 2

21 May‑5 June 2010
Merthyr to Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty bike ride — Cli­mate Chains

5–8 June 2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Gath­er­ing, Ire­land

11–19 June 2010
World Naked Bike Ride — 11 June: Man­ches­ter, Southamp­ton; 12 June, Cardiff, Edin­burgh, Lon­don; 13 June: Brighton, Bris­tol; 19 June, Sheffield, York

18–21 June 2010
Out­door Skill­share, Scot­land

19 June 2010
Nation­al Gath­er­ing of the Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work, Lon­don

25 June-31 August 2010
Eco­topia Bike­tour, from Crit­i­cal Mass, Towards Car Free Cities Con­fer­ence, to the French & Ger­man cli­mate camps and much in between.

6–12 July 2010
Anti-Indus­tri­al Land Defence Action Camp, Cat­alo­nia
Go only if you can speak Cata­lan or Span­ish — http://acampadaderesistencies.blogspot.com

14–22 July 2010
Nordic cli­mate action camp, South­ern Swe­den

22 July‑1 August 2010
French Camp Action Cli­mat, near Le Havre

22 July‑2 August 2010
Swiss cli­mate camp Fr / De

23–27 July 2010
Peace News Sum­mer Camp, Oxford­shire

29 July‑4 August 2010
Bel­gian Cli­mate Camp, near Liege

4–9 August 2010
EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Der­byshire

12–16 August 2010
Irish Cli­mate Camp, Coun­ty Tyrone

13–17 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru

21–24 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp tar­gets RBS in Edin­burgh: Action Days

21–29 August 2010
Ger­man Kli­macamp, near Erke­lenz

27–30 August 2010
Nation­al Ani­mal Rights Gath­er­ing, near Northamp­ton

27–29 August 2010
Dutch Earth First! Gath­er­ing and CJA meet­ing — Groen Front!

Colombia solidarity action closes BP petrol station, Barcelona

13.4.10
A dozen peo­ple closed a BP petrol sta­tion on Avenue Bonano­va de Sar­rià. Dressed in white suits, the Rep­sol­ma­ta col­lec­tive and friends laid out the chal­lenge: The BP dilem­ma: Bye bye Plan­et or Boy­cott Petrol?

http://repsolmata.ourproject.org

Video

Barcelona BP action13.4.10
A dozen peo­ple closed a BP petrol sta­tion on Avenue Bonano­va de Sar­rià. Dressed in white suits, the Rep­sol­ma­ta col­lec­tive and friends laid out the chal­lenge: The BP dilem­ma: Bye bye Plan­et or Boy­cott Petrol?

http://repsolmata.ourproject.org

Video

Struggle stepped up as another whaling ship is sabotaged in Norway

“Nor­way announced an increased quo­ta of minke whales so we decid­ed to increase our quo­ta of sunken whalers” — AGENDA 21

“Nor­way announced an increased quo­ta of minke whales so we decid­ed to increase our quo­ta of sunken whalers” — AGENDA 21

Anoth­er whal­ing ves­sel was sab­o­taged a few days ago, on April 2nd, near­ly a year since the last attempt­ed sink­ing of the Skar­bakk, anoth­er Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel. The attack was claimed by Agen­da 21, a group respon­si­ble for last years sab­o­tage and a string of oth­er actions against Nor­way’s whal­ing indus­try. Using the name of a 1992 Unit­ed Nations Con­fer­ence on the Envi­ron­ment, the group is a spin off from the more known Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and promised Nor­way that if they did not com­ply with inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law, they would sink their whal­ing ships.

It was­n’t an emp­ty threat, with Cap­tain Paul Wat­son super­vis­ing the sink­ing of two ships; the Nybrae­na in 1992 and the Senet in 1994. The anony­mous and covert goup Agen­da 21 then took over with the scut­tling of the Elin-Toril in 1996. Claimed on the web­site of ani­mal rights mag­a­zine Bite Back, the activists explain: “Entry was made through the wheel­house. The engine room was accessed by remov­ing the locked door from its frame using axe and crow­bar. Two sea valves were opened ful­ly sub­merg­ing the engine and elec­tri­cal sys­tems.”

Relat­ed Fea­tures: Schnews: Ships in the Fight | Nor­we­gian Whal­ing Ship Scut­tled | The Whale Wars — Sea Shep­herd Returns From Antarc­ti­ca | Japan issues arrest war­rant for Not­ting­ham activist | Arrests As Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion Fails To Pro­tect Whales | Not­ting­ham Activist Returns From Whale Sav­ing Mis­sion In Antar­ti­ca | Sea Shep­herd activists injured as Japan­ese mil­i­tary open fire | Activists Held Hostage By Japan­ese Whalers In South­ern Ocean | Whalers use Pub­lic Rela­tions to twist the truth

Links: Unit­ed Nations Agen­da 21 | Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety | Ocean Defence top­ic page

Local news media report­ed that the sab­o­tage was dis­cov­ered before the ship could sink. An alarm alert­ed the ship’s own­er, Leif Einar Karlsen, who lives near­by. He attempt­ed to slow the water that was com­ing in through the open valves, but by the time the fire depart­ment arrived, the engine room was under sev­er­al feet of water. Karlsen has pledged to repair the Sofie and begin killing minke whales in May.

It has been one year since the last attempt­ed sink­ing of a whal­ing ship in Nor­way. In April 2009, an attempt was made to sink the whal­ing ship “Skar­bakk” when it was moored at Hen­ningsvaer, Nor­way. In August 2007, the whal­ing ship “Willassen Senior” was sunk in the har­bor in Svolvaer (the boat was only a stone’s throw away from where the Sofie was docked).

The Sofie is the sev­enth Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel to come under attack for ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties since 1992. After the attack on the Sofie, the head of a Nor­we­gian whal­ing orga­ni­za­tion com­plained to the Nor­we­gian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, “It is out­ra­geous that this can be done year after year with­out any­one being caught.”

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

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

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

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

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

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

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

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Find out more and join in!

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

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

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

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

Fossil Fools Day round-up

In the UK —

BP ad cam­paign hoax kicks off the Fort­night of Shame

In the UK —

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–

Eon switch on to com­mu­ni­ty renew­ables

PRESS RELEASE 01-04-2010

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

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

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

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

–

The FOSSIL FOOLS FARCE … is here!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

–

Brighton — RBS out of order over Tar Sands

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

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

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

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

==================

Back in the USA —

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

–

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

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An activist was arrest­ed this after­noon at the Water­loo Branch of RBC Bank. Mark Cor­biere was charged with mis­chief for hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing “Boy­cott RBC” and “Stop the Tar Sands” from the roof of the branch, locat­ed in uptown Water­loo. More
–

Pep­co announces plan to shift all pow­er facil­i­ties to wind and solar ener­gy, may can­cel planned rate hikes Pep­co noti­fies its cus­tomers that it wish­es “to serve the ener­gy needs of our cus­tomers for gen­er­a­tions to come — Wash­ing­ton DC. More

–

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

–

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

==================

Blame Cana­da

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

==================

It’s not Down Under — New Zealand/

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

==================

Beware what hap­pens in The Nether­lands

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

Fos­sil Fools Day 2010

Earth First! Italia, Gathering 2010 NEWS!!!!

The exact loca­tion where it’ll hold­ed the gath­er is Gual­do (10 km toNarni). In the map you can dis­cov­er how to arrive. Please every­one who is inter­esst­ed to parte­ci­pate to con­firm the pres­ence. The arrival is thurs­day 1 April.

Earth First! Italia, Gathering 2010 mapThe exact loca­tion where it’ll hold­ed the gath­er is Gual­do (10 km toNarni). In the map you can dis­cov­er how to arrive. Please every­one who is inter­esst­ed to parte­ci­pate to con­firm the pres­ence. The arrival is thurs­day 1 April.
Before the end of this week it’ll announced the com­plete pro­gram. More info: http://earthfirstitalia.blogspot.com

Mobile phone acti­vat­ed dur­ing the gath­er­ing:
Loren­zo (0039)333.3000.592
Mas­si­mo (0039)328.7639.516

Hoka Hey!