Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Land and Forest Occpation started in Lapland (Finland)

On the 26th of August an inter­na­tion­al occu­pa­tion­camp has been start­ed in Finnish Lap­land, due to the plan­ning of ura­ni­um min­ing and the plan­ning of a new nuclear plant. Locals and par­tic­i­pants from the cli­mate camp fin­land, decid­ed to com­bine pow­ers and try to pre­serve the lap­pish nature and way of life.

Forest in FinlandOn the 26th of August an inter­na­tion­al occu­pa­tion­camp has been start­ed in Finnish Lap­land, due to the plan­ning of ura­ni­um min­ing and the plan­ning of a new nuclear plant. Locals and par­tic­i­pants from the cli­mate camp fin­land, decid­ed to com­bine pow­ers and try to pre­serve the lap­pish nature and way of life.

lat­est news from the camp, Ran­ua ( FL)

August 31th, 2009
On August 26th a base­camp has been estab­lished for the Ran­ua Res­cue Are­va Min­ing Mon­i­tors. Dur­ing the Lap­land Nuclear Cli­mate Camp in July we learned from locals that Are­va has already began their ura­ni­um prospect­ing in Ran­ua, Lap­land. We have come here to mon­i­tor Are­va’s activ­i­ties and help sup­port the resis­tance to ura­ni­um min­ing here, and every­where.
We have found a beau­ti­ful loca­tion for the camp, near a lake, with­in an old for­est, on the edge of Are­va’s mas­sive prospect­ing claim area. We need thought­ful, respect­ful peo­ple, skills, sup­plies, sup­port, laugh­ter, and ded­i­ca­tion!
You can check the http://www.nuclearfreefinland.org site, and the blog on http://www.ranuarescue.blogspot.com.
Soon we will be send­ing pho­tos and direc­tions to get here, we will also set up a sched­ule for when peo­ple are most need­ed, what is need­ed, and what events will be hap­pen­ing.
When you want to come to the camp, con­tact in advance (camp (at) nuclearfreefinland.org) and tell of your arrival time in Ran­ua. From there you can phone the camp work phone num­ber +358 40 365 2041.[1]

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So every­body who has some spare time on their hands is very wel­come to come.

Anoth­er Web­site: http://www.greenkids.de/europas-atomerbe/index.php/Ranua_Uranium_Exploration_Action

Irish climate camp & actions round-up

Peat pow­er worse than coal for CO2 emis­sions

Cli­mate Camp is up and run­ning at Shan­non­bridge, Co.Offaly — start­ed Sat­ur­day 15th August and goes on till Sun­day 23rd August.

Peat pow­er worse than coal for CO2 emis­sions

Cli­mate Camp is up and run­ning at Shan­non­bridge, Co.Offaly — start­ed Sat­ur­day 15th August and goes on till Sun­day 23rd August.

It’s about what we can do in the face of chang­ing cli­mate that will affect us all. Peat bogs are a liv­ing car­bon sink — greater even than forestry. Burn­ing peat releas­es more CO2 into the atmos­phere than burn­ing coal. The peat-fired pow­er­sta­tion beside the camp should have been shut down long ago — since our gov­ern­ment and Bord na Mona still fail to see the urgency of reduc­ing emis­sions, cli­mate camp will be stag­ing a major protest on Sat­ur­day 22nd August — this will be a day of action and fun, includ­ing street the­atre, art, etc, which will hope­ful­ly bring media atten­tion to this impor­tant issue.

Mean­while, the camp has lots of great work­shops every day this week about sus­tain­able liv­ing, peat bogs, forestry, cycling, renew­able ener­gy, etc, etc. Come along to my Trees and You work­shop on Wednes­day ! I will be talk­ing about trees as car­bon sinks, as vital ele­ments of bio­di­ver­si­ty, as added val­ue to farms and gar­dens, wood­land gar­dens, agro­forestry, CELT native tree nurs­ery, CELT Week­end in the Woods (19 / 20 Sep­tem­ber) (anoth­er event not to be missed !) .….….….….….……

So get your­self along to CLIMATE CAMP and be a part of it !

http://www.climatecamp.ie

Camp trail­er

Newslet­ter, includ­ing next organ­is­ing gath­er­ing
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Cli­mate Campers take Direct Action on Bog Restora­tion
August 23, 2009

Hun­dreds par­tic­i­pat­ed in Cli­mate Camp at Shan­non­bridge, which was held under the shad­ow of the peat burn­ing pow­er­sta­tion.
The Cli­mate Camp organ­ised three events to cre­ate bet­ter aware­ness around the indus­tri­al use of peat in pow­er­sta­tions.

Fian­na Fáil’s Gar­ret Tubridy unknow­ing­ly con­tributed to the eco-con­scious Cli­mate Camp at Shan­non­bridge. Recent local elec­tion posters were reused as part of the men’s toi­let facil­i­ties. Users did not have to look at his face. Gavin Harte gave a talk on com­mu­ni­cat­ing the media mes­sage with plen­ty of work­shops on drum­ming, Ross­port, per­ma­cul­ture, the end­less dream­catch­ers and there were more ban­ners being made than you could shake a stick at. It was great for kids and par­ents alike.

Lentil Dis­or­der pro­vid­ed the veg­gie food for the hun­gry mass­es with an oats cri­sis on the Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Choco­late flap­jacks sat­ed the appetites of ear­ly ris­ers.

Locals were bemused watch­ing the parade which left the camp short­ly after mid­day. The bar­men from both locals — Killeen’s and Luk­er’s pubs — waved at some of their new cus­tomers. Anoth­er local said noth­ing like this had ever hap­pened in Shan­non­bridge before. Paraders from the camp had dressed up as zom­bies and the dark forces of dan­ger­ous car­bon emis­sions with a sym­bol­ic chim­ney stack. Bif­fo of course led the zom­bies through the vil­lage! Campers had made ban­ners, plac­ards, dream catch­ers and an eclec­tic sound sys­tem boomed, ‘Black Bet­ty, Bam Alam’ and Mar­ley.

Kayak­ers got onto the lit­tle island in the mid­dle of the Shan­non hold­ing aloft a ban­ner ‘Sponge Bog Stops Floods’, as the parade reached the bridge timed nice­ly with cyclists return­ing from anoth­er direct action from the bog.

A few dif­fer­ent direct actions were planned and no one told me nuthin’.

Climate Justice Now banner
There are three peat pow­er­sta­tions in Ire­land, Lanes­boro and Eden­der­ry, where agile activists dropped ban­ners from, and Shan­non­bridge where there was a parade and some scuf­fles broke out when the parade could­n’t go up to the pow­er­sta­tion.
peat protest placardGive Peat a Chance placard
Look at ClimateCamp.ie for more infor­ma­tion about the issues.

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Cli­mate Campers take Direct Action on Bog Restora­tion
Filling in peat trenches
No time to waste — pre­serv­ing Irish peat­lands is essen­tial

Cli­mate campers of all ages at Shan­non­bridge took a direct action this morn­ing August 18th, on a near­by bog by fill­ing in trench­es that are used to drain the bog for cut­ting. The peace­ful demon­stra­tions last­ed 2 hours with police curi­ous­ly onlook­ing at the hard work­ing activists.
Peat train line trespass
This morn­ing at 11.30am six­ty odd Cli­mate Campers of all ages strolled 2km from the camp beside the Shan­non­bridge Peat Burn­ing Pow­er Plant towards one of the Bord na Móna man-made brown deserts out­side of the town. Equipped with some sacks, shov­els, pil­low cas­es, wheel­bar­rows, ban­ners and good cheer, they start­ed fill­ing in the trench­es made to drain the bogs with milled peat which was des­tined for burn­ing at the pow­er plant. The direct action con­tin­ued for about 2 hours fill­ing in a sig­nif­i­cant part of the trench. Local police watched as the cli­mate campers, includ­ing many chil­dren, dili­gent­ly set about their task and some engaged the police in con­ver­sa­tion explain­ing to them the rea­sons for their actions.

This is the first step that’s need­ed to restore our bogs” said Mol­ly Walsh, spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp Ire­land. “Peo­ple don’t realise that when bogs are drained and dried, they release ample amounts of car­bon diox­ide, even before the peat is burnt. Degrad­ed peat­lands release 0.97 mil­lion tonnes of C02 annu­al­ly in Ire­land.” she added.
peat banners
Colour­ful ban­ners and plac­ards were unveiled on the bog say­ing “Cli­mate Change Costs Lives” and “The bog is our rain­for­est”. One ban­ner was mount­ed on a piece of peat-cut­ting machin­ery which said “Don’t Burn our Bogs”. Some of the activists board­ed a bog train, while oth­ers pushed them along, sym­bol­is­ing that human­i­ty is on the wag­on towards cli­mate chaos unless we halt these cli­mate chaos caus­ing activ­i­ties imme­di­ate­ly.

Come join us at the camp for more actions and work­shops! Cli­mate Camp Ire­land con­tin­ues at Shan­non­bridge until August 22nd with the main day of action. We call on every­one to come join us on a day of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop peat burn­ing at the Shan­non­bridge Pow­er Sta­tion.

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Cli­mate Camp shuts down two peat burn­ing pow­er sta­tions
22nd August 2009

The Cli­mate Camp cul­mi­nat­ed in Shan­non­bridge with a day of action. The unsus­tain­abil­i­ty of the peat burn­ing was suc­cess­ful­ly high­light­ed with actions at all three peat burn­ing pow­er plants. Activists suceed­ed in shut­ting down the two plants at Shan­non­bridge and Lanes­bor­ough. The Shan­non­bridge plant has been shut all week since the camp start­ed, and the Lanes­bor­ough plant was shut down by activists today.

This morn­ing a group of Cli­mate Camp activists car­ried out a peace­ful direct action at Lanes­bor­ough peat burn­ing pow­er plant. Some activists locked them­selves to the gates while anoth­er group entered the plant and car­ried out a ban­ner drop on one of the build­ings which read “Give Peat a Chance.” The pow­er plan­t’s chim­ney stack stopped bel­low­ing its car­bon emis­sions for most of the work­ing day. Two activists were arrest­ed.

Ger­ald Glynn, a spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp said, “We took this peace­ful direct action to high­light the urgency of cli­mate jus­tice issues. Our bogs are our rain­forests and we need to pro­tect them. We can’t wait for our gov­ern­ments to act. Let’s give peat a chance now.”

At mid­day anoth­er group of Cli­mate Campers tar­get­ted a third pow­er plant in Eden­der­ry, owned by Bord na Mona. Five women dropped a ban­ner from the pow­er sta­tion’s con­vey­or belt which read “Cli­mate Jus­tice Now”. The work­ers at the plant came out and took an inter­est in the action. “Bord na Mon­a’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty talk is noth­ing but that, talk, they are still extract­ing and burn­ing the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel. We are send­ing out a strong mes­sage of sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in the Glob­al South suf­fer­ing from the impacts of cli­mate change.” said Jer­rieann Sul­li­van, a spokesper­son for the group.

A live­ly colour­ful parade began at 12pm in Shan­non­bridge and made its way through the town, across the riv­er and back towards the pow­er plant. Many cre­ative ban­ners were car­ried by Cli­mate Campers of all ages with slo­gans such as “Cli­mate Change Costs Lives” and “Bogs are our rain­forests”. Peo­ple were dressed up as zom­bies and bog mon­sters as they parad­ed, chant­ed, danced and sang through the town while locals looked on with amused inter­est. Anoth­er group merged with the parade after tak­ing more direct action fill­ing in trench­es which drain the bogs to start restor­ing our peat­lands. A Cli­mate Camp riv­er crew also unveiled a ban­ner say­ing “Sponge bog stops floods” to many cheers from the main parade.

“300,000 peo­ple are dying annu­al­ly world­wide as a result of cli­mate change, not to men­tion loss­es in wildlife and bio­di­ver­si­ty.” said Nan­cy Ser­ra­no, spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp. “Peo­ple in the mid­lands deserve bet­ter com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed sus­tain­able jobs. We need to think long-term and we need to start now.” she added.

ENDS

www.climatecamp.ieFor inter­view or fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­tact the cli­mate camp media phone 085 7851241
or for spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion on the action in Lanes­bor­ough — 085 1386675

http://www.flickr.com/photos/climatecampireland

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Daily Shannonbridge blockade
Dai­ly peace­ful block­ade of Shan­non­bridge pow­er sta­tion

Whats going on in Mayo? Rossport Update

Overview of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paign in the last few months: the Soli­taire, actions, on-land sec­tion, arrests, assaults, strat­e­gy, plan­ning appeal, mobil­is­ing and more!

What’s going on in mayo?!

Overview of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paign in the last few months: the Soli­taire, actions, on-land sec­tion, arrests, assaults, strat­e­gy, plan­ning appeal, mobil­is­ing and more!

What’s going on in mayo?!

The last few months have been dif­fi­cult times for the Ross­port cam­paign but have also seen some great col­lab­o­ra­tions with activists from across Ire­land, inter­na­tion­als and the local com­mu­ni­ty.

This sum­mer the Soli­taire laid the first sec­tion of pipe in Broad­haven Bay. Dredgers are in the process of back fill­ing the first sec­tion of the pipeline, com­ing and going from the bay depend­ing on weath­er con­di­tions.… IRMS, the pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm employed by Shell, con­tin­ue to tar­get and assault pro­tes­tors. Ear­li­er this year they sunk the boat of local fish­er­man Pat O’Don­nell, one of the ‘Ross­port 5’ and attacked Willie Cor­duff, anoth­er cam­paign­er, dur­ing a non-vio­lent protest. Both were hos­pi­talised.

Sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al anti-Shell cam­paign­ers were recent­ly remand­ed for a block­ade and bailed away from Mayo. This is a wor­ry­ing devel­op­ment enforced by cor­rupt judges col­lud­ing with Shell. Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, and Niall Har­nett, both well known Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers were both giv­en 4 and 8 months respec­tive­ly, after refus­ing to com­ply with a good behav­iour bond which stat­ed that they would keep the peace, and stay away from any Shell relat­ed infra­struc­ture.

Mau­ra appealed her con­vic­tion, and was released from prison on bail pend­ing appeal. Niall served 15 days in Castlerea prison for refus­ing his extreme­ly restric­tive bail con­di­tions, which effec­tive­ly stopped him from being in his home. He is now out on bail.

In the last two weeks alone there have been 2 acci­dents involv­ing Shells boats, one caus­ing an oil spill, anoth­er dam­ag­ing a sup­ply ship to the pipeline. Accord­ing to Shell nei­ther had any envi­ron­men­tal impact, despite sub­stances leak­ing into the sea. This fur­ther proves the mock­ery that is the risk assess­ments on the envi­ron­men­tal impacts that they are con­duct­ing.

Despite the suc­cess of the Soli­taire and pres­sure from the gar­dai and IRMS the fight is by no means over!! In August the oral hear­ing was held where Shell sought to obtain a com­pul­so­ry pur­chase order for land need­ed across the bay to lay the on-shore pipe section…and the deci­sion has been put back till the end of Octo­ber.

Resis­tance in Glen­gad is still strong, with plans for the next phase in the bat­tle against Shell.…with the on-shore sec­tion comes a new wave of chal­lenges (and oppor­tu­ni­ties) for cam­paign­ers fight­ing to stop the pipeline… We will be con­tin­u­ing to chal­lenge Shel­l’s intim­i­da­tion tac­tics in order to stop this ille­gal, unsafe, and envi­ron­men­tal­ly cat­a­stroph­ic project. The sit­u­a­tion in Ross­port is a line in the sand for new meth­ods of intim­i­da­tion, human rights abus­es, and envi­ron­men­tal­ly dis­as­trous gas extrac­tion and must be stopped. Inter­na­tion­al links in the cam­paign have been devel­op­ing over years, espe­cial­ly with the Ogo­ni tribe in Nige­ria where Shel­l’s tac­tics have caused many human­i­tar­i­an crises, and famous­ly led to a tri­al against Shell for the mur­der of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Most recent­ly the Shell guilty cam­paign will see a col­lab­o­ra­tion between activists from across the globe fight­ing to stop Shell.

On camp and up at the house we are doing main­te­nance work on the boats, gar­den and equip­ment, and peo­ple are always very wel­come! The Irish Shell to Sea net­work is mobil­is­ing peo­ple ahead of the next sec­tion of the cam­paign, organ­is­ing actions and demos, and devel­op­ing strate­gies for action… in the UK there’s loads that can be done: organ­is­ing film nights, ben­e­fit gigs, tak­ing action in your local area against Shell and the oth­er com­pa­nies prof­it­ing from the pipeline, and mobil­is­ing ahead of the next phase. With peo­ple being bailed away from Mayo, it’s more impor­tant than ever to have peo­ple com­ing to take action against Shell!

To find out more keep an eye out for work­shops at the EF gath­er­ing, Cli­mate Cam­p’s and fes­ti­vals across the UK..

The strug­gle con­tin­ues!

For more infor­ma­tion see
www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com

www.corribsos.com

www.shellguilty.com

or email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com

3 tonne boulders to sabotage fishing trawlers

Green­peace are sink­ing 150 boul­ders, weigh­ing up to three tonnes off the Danish/Swedish coasts to stop fish­ing trawlers oper­at­ing in the area by ensnaring/damaging nets.

“Green­peace has begun sink­ing boul­ders in EU-pro­tect­ed cod fish­ing grounds to pre­vent what it says are destruc­tive forms of fish­ing in the area.

Green­peace are sink­ing 150 boul­ders, weigh­ing up to three tonnes off the Danish/Swedish coasts to stop fish­ing trawlers oper­at­ing in the area by ensnaring/damaging nets.

“Green­peace has begun sink­ing boul­ders in EU-pro­tect­ed cod fish­ing grounds to pre­vent what it says are destruc­tive forms of fish­ing in the area.

The envi­ron­men­tal group says it will drop 180 boul­ders off the Swedish and Dan­ish coasts to pre­vent fish­ing boats from drag­ging nets along the sea bed.

Green­peace says the bot­tom-trawl­ing fish­ing method destroys both the sea bed and the marine envi­ron­ment.

Green­peace spokesman Staffan Daniels­son told AFP news agency that the gran­ite boul­ders, weigh­ing as much as three tonnes, would be sunk over the next week.

They would have “no neg­a­tive impact on the envi­ron­ment”, he said.”

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8194105.stm

EF! summer gathering — exact location, travel info & updated workshop programme announced; coal-blighted communities visit

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, 18th-24th August 2009, Cum­bria

Nev­er has halt­ing the destruc­tion of our plan­et been so impor­tant… Learn how to make them stop!

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Seath­waite in the beau­ti­ful Bor­row­dale. The site is right in the heart of the Lake Dis­trict and sur­round­ed by moun­tains, streams and tarns. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith. More detailed direc­tions, pub­lic trans­port, walks & cycle rides to the site

Work­shop pro­gramme in a vari­ety of for­mats

EF!-rabbit-in-canoeEarth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, 18th-24th August 2009, Cum­bria

Nev­er has halt­ing the destruc­tion of our plan­et been so impor­tant… Learn how to make them stop!

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Seath­waite in the beau­ti­ful Bor­row­dale. The site is right in the heart of the Lake Dis­trict and sur­round­ed by moun­tains, streams and tarns. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith. More detailed direc­tions, pub­lic trans­port, walks & cycle rides to the site

Work­shop pro­gramme in a vari­ety of for­mats

WHO
Earth First! is a net­work of peo­ple and cam­paigns who fight eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and the forces dri­ving it. We believe in doing it our­selves rather than rely­ing on gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of what we do, whether we’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open­cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions at a low impact eco-liv­ing camp organ­ised non-hier­ar­chi­cal­ly

WHAT
Plan­ning actions and cam­paigns, meet­ing and shar­ing skills with oth­ers who care. Over 80 train­ing work­shops plus games and evening fun:
• Learn skills for direct action. Tree Climb­ing, Ori­en­teer­ing, Secu­ri­ty for activists, Legal brief­ing, Escap­ing pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions, street medics – first aid, self defence, Boat blockad­ing using kayaks, radio pro­ce­dures and rock abseil­ing.
• Net­work your cam­paign against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. open­cast min­ing, genet­ic engi­neer­ing, agro­fu­els, dam-build­ing, hunt-sab­bing, cli­mate actions, oil pipeline resis­tance, road stop­ping, anti-whal­ing, squat­ting, rain­for­est pro­tec­tion.
• Learn about ecol­o­gy, eco­cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tives to the cor­po­rate world of exploita­tion.
• Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing, field trips and hands-on work.

YOU
We are all crew! This is your gath­er­ing come pre­pared to help run the camp and con­tribute to the pro­gramme. Con­tact us in advance with ideas for work­shops, help with organ­is­ing the gath­er­ing, come ear­ly to help set­up the site or stay on for a cou­ple of days for take­down.
If you can help get in touch!

BRING
Bring tent and sleep­ing bag. You can either cook food for your­self or for £4 per day chip in with col­lec­tive cook­ing of deli­cious veg­an organ­ic food. There’ll be qui­et sleep­ing areas, toi­lets and run­ning water, a children’s space and spaces for work­shops and info stalls.
Veg­gies will pro­vide veg­an cake and snacks. Chil­dren and young adults wel­come with sub­si­dized meals.

Arrive Tues pm. Work­shops from Wed am until Sun pm.

Loads of cam­paigns are tak­ing to the water in defence of the plan­et, like at Ross­port where Shell are try­ing to lay onshore pipelines and the Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta at last sum­mers cli­mate camp. This sum­mer’s EF! gath­er­ing will be build­ing on these tac­tics with train­ing in water based actions.

An excur­sion to vis­it com­mu­ni­ties in the North East threat­ened by an expan­sion of coal min­ing on Mon­day 24th August. Vis­it beau­ti­ful val­leys and strong spir­it­ed com­mu­ni­ties and make links for ongo­ing resis­tance.

We aim to make the site as acces­si­ble as we can please con­tact us in advance if you have spe­cial needs, ques­tions or con­cerns.

WHERE
The site is near in the Lake Dis­trict, Cum­bria. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith and there is a bus ser­vice to the site, there are car and liv­ing vehi­cle spaces out­side the camp.

Dogs: We are for­tu­nate this year to be able to accom­mo­date well behaved own­ers with dogs on leads but think about whether your dog will feel com­fort­able in work­shops. Please call before­hand so we know num­bers.

Cost: £20 — £30 accord­ing to what you can afford. We are not for prof­it all extra cash goes to help fund next year. Under 14’s free.

For more info con­tact us at :
summergathering@earthfirst.org.uk
www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk

News from climate action camps in Scotland, Belgium/Netherlands and France

Scot­tish camp starts — Scot­tish coal con­vey­or sup­ply­ing Drax sab­o­taged — tar­gets list -
Belgian/Dutch camp starts — Bel­gian coal ter­mi­nal occu­pied — French camp & Nantes air­port action

…

Climate bomb alertScot­tish camp starts — Scot­tish coal con­vey­or sup­ply­ing Drax sab­o­taged — tar­gets list -
Belgian/Dutch camp starts — Bel­gian coal ter­mi­nal occu­pied — French camp & Nantes air­port action

…

Local sup­port for Cli­mate Camp Scot­land is made quite clear on the (longer than we expect­ed) bus ride from Lanark through the wind­ing coun­try lanes to Main­shill sol­i­dar­i­ty camp that is also now Scot­lands’ Cli­mate Camp.

Spot­ting us with our tent and gear an old­er woman says she would’ve joined the camp if it was­n’t for her bad health and oth­er women on the bus jeer and promise food dona­tions. A bloke imme­di­ate­ly struck up a con­ver­sa­tion telling us he used to work on the open­cast mine and that his broth­er still does. He said he could­n’t under­stand why they were so keen to reopen and restart work on the site. He’ll more than like­ly be vis­it­ing the camp this week too.

We arrived at the 6ft wood­en fence fit­ted with a door that is the main gate of the camp about 2pm — the dri­ver mak­ing an unsched­uled stop to drop us off at the camp entrance so we did­n’t have to walk back from the near­est stop — just as 2 local plod had man­aged to walk in wan­der­ing half way up the lane to the camp find­ing them­selves quick­ly sur­round­ed by cli­mate campers con­vinc­ing them to leave. Oth­er than that, the lone cop with video cam at Lanark sta­tion and the chop­per which hov­ered around for a few min­utes a while ago, the author­i­ties seem to be keep­ing a low pro­file. No FIT at the camp, in fact no police hang­ing around at all.

Although not very busy yet, the camp is look­ing sol­id: nev­er mind the com­post toi­lets, there’s a bike-pow­ered cin­e­ma, big kitchen tent, and solar-pow­ered (indy)media tent. And plen­ty of camp­ing space, of course. From the oth­er end of the field we can see the wind farms on hills to either side of the camp.

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Glen­tag­gart Coalmine Sab­o­taged; Police leave can­celled across the region

The Camp for Cli­mate Action Scot­land has been informed that anony­mous activists have suc­cess­ful­ly sab­o­taged the Glen­tag­gart open­cast coal mine in South Lanark­shire. The unknown indi­vid­u­als have dis­abled the con­vey­or belt that moves coal from the mine to Raven­struther rail ter­mi­nal where the coal is then sent to Drax pow­er sta­tion in York­shire.

The sab­o­tage has the poten­tial to great­ly dis­rupt the removal of coal. Insid­ers say that once it has been stopped it is dif­fi­cult to restart the heav­i­ly laden con­vey­ors which is sev­er­al kilo­me­ters long and comes in quar­ter kilo­me­ter sec­tions. Drax pow­er sta­tion was the site of the first Camp for Cli­mate Action 2006.

The Camp for Cli­mate Action Scot­land is tak­ing place cross the val­ley from Glen­tag­gart at the site of anoth­er pro­posed open cast mine at Main­shill woods near Dou­glas. A protest camp has already been in place for six weeks cam­paign­ing against the plans which have gone through despite strong local oppo­si­tion. The area is already one of the most heav­i­ly mined areas in Europe with a num­ber of oth­er open­cast mines already being worked.

Diar­maid Lynch, a spokesper­son from the Camp said on hear­ing the news, “Fan­tas­tic. Con­grat­u­la­tions to those who did this. Open­cast min­ing is respon­si­ble for a spike in the num­ber of lung relat­ed deaths in this small area. It is time that the likes of Scot­tish Coal and the plan­ning author­i­ties are held direct­ly respon­si­ble for their role in these deaths. Cli­mate change is a killer, both at home and in the Glob­al South where those who have ben­e­fit­ed the least from indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion are the first to pay the price.”

The World Health Organ­i­sa­tion esti­mates that cli­mate change kills 150,000 peo­ple a year and that fig­ure is expect­ed to grow as coun­tries fail to take action. Can­cer in the Dou­glas post­code area is 23% above the nation­al aver­age, and 28% above the region­al aver­age. In the four years that the exist­ing three open­cast mines have been oper­at­ing in the area pul­monary issues have increased 60%.

In a sep­a­rate devel­op­ment the Camp for Cli­mate Action has also learned that police leave across the cen­tral belt of Scot­land has been can­celled as the var­i­ous forces move to a state of high alert. To date the polic­ing at the Camp has been very low key, but campers remain alert.

Scotland’s Cli­mate Crim­i­nals

The fol­low­ing is a list of the oper­a­tions in Scot­land which prof­it from the exploita­tion of fos­sil fuels. None of these oper­a­tions are com­pat­i­ble with the vision for a zero-car­bon Scot­land as such they will be tar­get­ted with direct action in order to ensure we can make a just tran­si­tion towards a sus­tain­able future.

Lon­gan­net and Cocken­zie Coal Pow­er sta­tions

Glas­gow, Edin­burgh, Preswick and Aberdeen Air­ports

Oil & Gas oper­a­tions in Aberdeen-shire

Grange­mouth Oil & Gas Refin­ery

Hunter­ston coal ter­mi­nal

All open-cast coal mines

Coal dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work includ­ing;
Raven­struther coal ter­mi­nal
Crow­bands­gate Rail Facil­i­ty
Glen­tag­gart Con­vey­er belt

RBS HQ

Scot­tish Pow­er HQ

Scot­tish and South­ern Ener­gy HQ

Motor­way con­struc­tions such as M74

http://climatecampscotland.org.uk/

Video — http://www.envirospeak.tv/video/375

——–

Guide to dis­man­tling the coal indus­try in Scot­land, a 16-page infor­ma­tion sheet released by Cli­mate Camp Scot­land and Coal Action Scot­land [pdf 5.3M]

includes infor­ma­tion on open cast coal mines and mine oper­a­tors, coal-fired pow­er sta­tions, coal rail and port infra­struc­ture, indus­try lob­by­ists, and a map of Scot­tish tar­gets.

——–

Netherlands/Belgium camp — We’ve start­ed – come join us!

More than 100 peo­ple entered and secured a field between Zand­vli­et and Beren­drecht, in the heart of Antwer­p’s indus­tri­al har­bour, at 1am this morn­ing. They have erect­ed tripods, hung ban­ners and are well under­way in set­ting up camp.

Although the Cli­mate Action Camp has been open about most aspects of the plan, the loca­tion of the camp had not been revealed until Sat­ur­day morn­ing in order to pre­vent police from attempt­ing to stop it from hap­pen­ing.

The offi­cial start date is Mon­day August 3rd! Take a look at the map below or google ‘Derdeweg Zand­vli­et Antwerp’ to see the exact loca­tion. You can also email info[at]klimaatactiekamp.org or con­tact the info line at+32 (0)485916863 (please text if pos­si­ble).*

How to reach the camp site by bus from Antwerp:
From the Roo­sevelt­plaats, close to Antwerp Cen­tral sta­tion, you can take buslines 770 or 771 direc­tion ‘Zand­vli­et’. After appr. 40 min., you’ll get to the stop ‘Zoutes­traat’ where you have to get off the bus. Fol­low the street in trav­el direc­tion, after about 200 meter you will see a cou­ple of tents on the left side. The street next to it is called ‘Derde Weg’, fol­low it and you’ll quick­ly reach the wel­come tent!

http://www.climateactioncamp.org/

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Belgian coal terminal occupied
Cli­mate Action Camp occu­pies Bel­gian coal ter­mi­nal

8.8.2009
The Cli­mate Action Camp on the Belgian/Dutch bor­der yes­ter­day occu­pied the Antwerp Bulk Ter­mi­nal (ABT) coal ter­mi­nal in Antwerp Har­bour, Bel­gium. This ter­mi­nal; respon­si­ble where coal is import­ed to Europe from Africa and South Amer­i­ca before dis­tri­b­u­tion by train and boat to pow­er sta­tions around Europe was shut down for the day as activists blocked train lines and con­vey­or belts at the site.

——–

French camp

Camp Action Cli­mat 2009 — Le teas­er

Nantes airport occupationcli­mate action alert at Nantes air­port, Sat­ur­day 8th August 2009 — peo­ple invade the ter­mi­nal of the air­port.

One day early: With classical music against nuclear power: “Musical inspection“ on the site of the fine storage site in Gorleben

8th August 09.

Today at 10:30am 60 musi­cians from the action group “Lebenslaute”, packed with instru­ments and music stands, climbed the four meter high wall around the site of the planned final stor­age site in Gor­leben (Ger­many) and began a protest con­cert with main­ly clas­si­cal music.

Lebenslaute on the site of the final storage site in Gorleben8th August 09.

Today at 10:30am 60 musi­cians from the action group “Lebenslaute”, packed with instru­ments and music stands, climbed the four meter high wall around the site of the planned final stor­age site in Gor­leben (Ger­many) and began a protest con­cert with main­ly clas­si­cal music.

The musi­cians sur­prised with their action, orig­i­nal­ly announced for Sun­day. With this “musi­cal inspec­tion” the activists protest against the con­tin­ued oper­a­tion of nuclear pow­er plants and against the con­tin­ued explo­ration of the salt mine in Gor­leben for use as a final nuclear stor­age site.

“The dis­cus­sion about nuclear pow­er is about the live of com­ing gen­er­a­tions, but the pub­lic does not take the dan­ger seri­ous­ly enough”, says Berthold Keu­necke, a protes­tant priest from Her­ford and one of the spokesper­sons of Lebenslaute. Today we over­came the fences and walls of Gor­leben, to effec­tive­ly protest against nuclear tech­nol­o­gy which is threat­en­ing our lives. We want to awak­en, pro­voke, drama­tise — and we all, each one of us indi­vid­u­al­ly, stand up for this provo­ca­tion.”

“The nuclear lob­by wants to con­tin­ue the work to turn salt dome in Gor­leben into a final stor­age site, although the scan­dals around the salt mine Asse final­ly made clear, that Gor­leben too is not save”, declares Kat­ja Tem­pel, mid­wife and Lebenslaute spokesper­son from the Wend­land. “In the light of the unsolved ques­tion of the final stor­age of nuclear waste, we demand an end to the pro­duc­tion of nuclear waste, that is the shut­down of nuclear pow­er sta­tions. The use of renew­able ener­gies has to be pro­mot­ed.”

Under the slo­gan “A‑Moll statt A‑Müll” (A‑minor instead of A(tomic)-waste” a var­ied and ambi­tious pro­gramme for choir and orches­tra is being per­formed: the works of Georg Philipp Tele­mann, Willy Burkhard and Fan­ny Hensel, per­formed by “Lebenslaute” cele­breate the beau­ty of nature, which is to be pre­served. As an accu­sa­tion and call for urgent action against the dead­ly dan­gers of nuclear ener­gy, “Lebenslaute” will per­form Hein­rich Schütz’ Choral „Wie nun ihr Her­ren, seid ihr stumm” (What now, you men, are you silent), as well as parts of sym­pho­ny No 101 “Die Uhr” (The clock) by Joseph Haydn and a choir ver­sion of “It‘s my life” (Bon Jovi). Cham­ber music in dif­fer­ent instru­men­ta­tions con­cludes the con­cert.

“The music is an expres­sion of the ener­gy of dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions. With this, our action fits well into the broad spec­trum of cre­ative resis­tance in the Wend­land”, explains Katha­ri­na Dehlinger, Lebenslaute activist from the coun­ty of Pader­born. “It is bet­ter that live­ly music comes through the walls and fences of the mine in Gor­leben, than dead­ly nuclear radi­a­tion. The salt dome in Gor­leben is not suit­able for a save final stor­age of nuclear waste. The project has to be aban­doned.”

With the com­bi­na­tion of actions of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and main­ly clas­si­cal music the ini­tia­tive “Lebenslaute” has been rais­ing aware­ness for wrongs in soci­ety for more than 20 years. The ini­tia­tive includes polit­i­cal­ly active musi­cians from all over Ger­many.

Up-to-date pho­tos (also in print­ing qual­i­ty) will soon be avail­able at http://www.lebenslaute.net

Anti-nuclear Camp in Lecce — Italy

ENG
Italy – Lec­ce

20 – 23 AUGUST IN SALENTO, NUCLEAR CLIMATE CAMP

In the con­text of the social and envi­ron­men­tal resis­tance, typ­i­cal of the pop­u­lar strug­gles in Italy, a series of expe­ri­ences, sub­jec­tiv­i­ties and col­lec­tiv­i­ties emerged in the Autumn of 2008 in oppo­si­tion to the gov­ern­ment project to restart the Civ­il Nuclear pro­gramme.

ENG
Italy – Lec­ce

20 – 23 AUGUST IN SALENTO, NUCLEAR CLIMATE CAMP

In the con­text of the social and envi­ron­men­tal resis­tance, typ­i­cal of the pop­u­lar strug­gles in Italy, a series of expe­ri­ences, sub­jec­tiv­i­ties and col­lec­tiv­i­ties emerged in the Autumn of 2008 in oppo­si­tion to the gov­ern­ment project to restart the Civ­il Nuclear pro­gramme.

Although a decade of grass­rots strug­gles and the ref­er­en­dum of 1987 led to the clos­ing of pow­er sta­tions and the nuclear pro­gramme, on 2th july 2009 the Cam­era (ital­ian par­lia­ment) approved the “DDL Svilup­po-pac­chet­to anti­crisi” that con­tains the reopen­ing of nuclear pow­er sta­tions. In the next 6 months, the gov­ern­ment will announce the sites, declared of “strate­gic-mil­i­tary inter­est”, in order to avoid clash­es with Local Author­i­ties: a open dec­la­ra­tion of war against the pop­u­la­tion!

After one year of meet­ings and pub­lic ini­tia­tives, that gave birth to the Nation­al Anti-Nuclear Coor­di­na­tion health-envi­ron­ment-ener­gy , the Pugliese Coor­di­na­tion is orga­niz­ing a resis­tance camp, in August in Salen­to, con­vivial days of “pizzi­ca” folk music and ded­i­ca­tion to the cause. The Pugliese Coor­di­na­tion was set up in 1985 to fight nuclear instal­la­tions in Puglia, and oth­er parts of Italy. Already, even before Cer­nobyl, in 1985, the move­ment was reject­ing the nuclear in Puglia.

The resis­tance camp will take place from 20th to 23rd of August in the “Masse­ria Fat­tezze”, 2km away from Ionio sea/Cesareo sea­port: this peri­od also sees the “Notte del­la Taran­ta”, that takes place in var­i­ous parts of Salen­to, fin­ish­ing the 22th of August in Melpig­nano.
We have choosen this site, a well know cul­tur­al ref­er­ence in Salen­to, because it wont cost to you to enter, but it will cost 5 euros per day and there’s a kitchen that will cook tipi­cal salen­tine food.

The resis­tance camp will basi­cal­ly focus on nuclear ener­gy and fos­sil-fuels, but will be also dis­cuss oth­er issues on the autum­nal polit­i­cal agen­da: the cri­sis, pre­ca­ri­ety and incomes, racism, “major-works” from the TAV to the Bridge over the Straits, from motor­ways to drilling, from incin­er­a­tors to regas­si­fi­ca­tors, so all that kind of things that are the con­ti­nu­ity of a mod­el that has left only death and destruc­tion over the ter­ri­to­ries.

The camp will also focus on the Inter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the lib­er­a­tion strug­gle in Pales­tine, Kur­dis­tan, Nige­ria.

The gen­er­al pro­gramme is:

Thurs­day 20th August
6:00pm Intro­duc­tion to the camp, and about cur­rent sit­u­a­tions
7:30pm Inter­na­tion­al overview

Fri­day 21th August
6:00pm Cri­sis: Work, pre­ca­ri­ety, income
7:30pm Com­mon goods – region­al ener­gy plan

Sat­ur­day 22nd August
6:00pm Anti-nuclear assem­bly and ener­gy choic­es

Sun­day 23rd August
6:00pm “Field-trip” on the nuclear select­ed site, in Ave­trana
9:00pm Par­ty with Salen­tine music

Pugliese Coor­di­na­tion / Nation­al Anti-Nuclear Coor­di­na­tion health-envi­ron­ment-ener­gy

boboaprile@tiscali.it
tel. 0039368582406

Latest EF! Action Update bursts forth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Irish Anti-Shell Campaigners Jailed for Civil Disobedience

31.7.2009

— Eight and four month sen­tences show dra­mat­ic increase in repres­sion —

31.7.2009

— Eight and four month sen­tences show dra­mat­ic increase in repres­sion —

Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers Mau­ra Har­ring­ton and Niall Har­nett were sen­tenced to four and eight months in jail respec­tive­ly at Bell­mulet dis­trict court today. Both pro­test­ers have been con­vict­ed for tak­ing action as part of a cam­paign of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence against the ill-fat­ed Cor­rib Gas Project. Mau­ra was giv­en her four month sen­tence under Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act; ‘fail­ing to com­ply with the direc­tions of a Gar­da’. The sen­tence was hand­ed down in rela­tion to an inci­dent that occurred duing a protest at Shel­l’s ‘land­fall’ com­pound gate on 30th August 2008. Niall was sen­tenced to eight months in rela­tion to two sep­a­rate inci­dents. He was giv­en a four month sen­tence under Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic order act, and anoth­er four months under Sec­tion 2, for the sup­posed assault of a Gar­da.

Mau­ra had dri­ven her car to the gate of the com­pound which is the site where the high pres­sure gas pipeline is to come ashore. She then refused to move her car in one of sev­er­al acts of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence that Mau­ra has engaged in. This is the third time this year that Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, retired local school prin­ci­pal, has been jailed for peace­ful­ly protest­ing against the Cor­rib Gas project.

The alleged assault for which Niall was con­vict­ed occured at the com­pound fence and eye wit­ness acounts and video footage shows Niall attempt­ing to aid anoth­er pro­test­er gar­da who is being vio­lent­ly assault­ed by a Gar­da. Niall, who is on his way to Castlerea Prison (Co. Roscom­mon.) after sen­tenc­ing this after­noon said:

“I have been jailed for my oppo­si­tion and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to Shell and their facil­i­ta­tors in the Irish State, and for my part in a bril­liant protest which will con­tin­ue and will grow. They will not get away with the destruc­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty, the envi­ron­ment and the give­away of Irish nat­ur­al resources. My motives are pure, and this sen­tence will have served a pur­pose if it expos­es the lengths the State will go in their com­plic­i­ty in the rip-off of Ireland’s nat­ur­al resources”.

Both defend­ents were forced to choose between sign­ing restric­tive bonds to keep the peace or lengthy jail terms. The bonds would have placed lim­its on and pre­vent­ed each of them from exer­cis­ing their demo­c­ra­t­ic rights to free­dom to protest and free­dom of move­ment. Under such bonds they would have been for­bid­den from attend­ing any protest and exclud­ed from the areas around any Shell sites.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way said: “Cer­tain promi­nent pro­test­ers appear to have been tar­get­ed in an attempt to crush resis­tance in the area. These jail sen­tences rep­re­sent the lastest exam­ples of a sus­tained cam­paign by the state, in con­junc­tion with Shell, to crim­i­nalise and intim­i­date the local com­mu­ni­ty and their sup­port­ers in order to imple­ment their project at any cost. Mau­ra and Niall are coura­geous cam­paign­ers against the destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment, the threat to health and safe­ty and the give­away of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. ”

A protest was organ­ised by Dublin Shell to Sea group for Thurs­day 30th July out­side Moun­tjoy prison where Mau­ra was tak­en after sen­tenc­ing on Thurs­day morn­ing.