Category: Scotland (Central & Southern)

Scot­land (cen­tral & south­ern)

Scottish Camp for Climate Action builds support

The Scot­tish Camp for Cli­mate Action has been build­ing defences sup­port­ing the Main­shill open cast protest site this week. The camp is build­ing action affin­i­ty groups and through direct action train­ing enabling activists to take action on high car­bon pro­duc­ing indus­tries around the coun­try.

The Scot­tish Camp for Cli­mate Action has been build­ing defences sup­port­ing the Main­shill open cast protest site this week. The camp is build­ing action affin­i­ty groups and through direct action train­ing enabling activists to take action on high car­bon pro­duc­ing indus­tries around the coun­try. The camp focus­es on alter­na­tive solu­tions to a dam­ag­ing sys­tem where pow­er is in the hands of pow­er­ful but dam­ag­ing indus­tries. Direct action is pro­vid­ing the means for peo­ple and groups to read­dress that pow­er imbal­ance and actions will take place dur­ing and after the camp. High emis­sion indus­tries across the coun­try are to be tar­get­ed in the com­ing weeks; pol­lut­ing ener­gy inten­sive cor­po­ra­tions will be brought into the spot­light and brought to a stand­still.

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.

Climate Camp Scotland Legal Briefing Released

The Legal Guide for Cli­mate Camp Scot­land, tak­ing place next week, is avail­able now from our web­site.

Go to http://climatecampscotland.org.uk/?page_id=291

See you all next week!

The Legal Sup­port Work­ing Group

The Legal Guide for Cli­mate Camp Scot­land, tak­ing place next week, is avail­able now from our web­site.

Go to http://climatecampscotland.org.uk/?page_id=291

See you all next week!

The Legal Sup­port Work­ing Group

Camp for Climate Action Scotland

There is no time to act but now! Come to the Camp for Cli­mate Action in Scot­land 3–10 August

ccs stickerThere is no time to act but now! Come to the Camp for Cli­mate Action in Scot­land 3–10 August

For a week of low-impact liv­ing and high-impact direct action, keep 3–10 August free and join us in Scot­land to take direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change and eco­log­i­cal col­lapse. This sum­mer the strug­gle against a cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem intent on extin­guish­ing life on the plan­et will hit the Firth of Forth!

What’s hap­pen­ing:

We’re going to set up camp some­where around the Firth of Forth, a part of the cen­tral belt of Scot­land lit­tered with pow­er sta­tions, cor­po­rate HQs, gas and oil refiner­ies, open cast coal mines, a nuclear pow­er sta­tion and a cement fac­to­ry. We want you to join us to hold the peo­ple and sys­tems respon­si­ble for cli­mate change to account.

The camp will focus on sup­port­ing groups of peo­ple tak­ing action against a whole range of tar­gets. If you’re com­ing with a group of friends that’s great – we’ll help you choose tar­gets and actions, and if you’re com­ing alone there will be plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet oth­er peo­ple to work and take action with.

The camp will have as low an eco­log­i­cal impact as pos­si­ble so expect com­post toi­lets, grey water sys­tems and micro-renew­able ener­gy. There will be kitchens on site where campers will make three meals a day so there’s no need to bring any food or cook­ing equip­ment. Organ­ised hor­i­zon­tal­ly, the camp will pro­vide lots of oppor­tu­ni­ties to get involved, be cre­ative and prac­ti­cal and learn new skills. There will be work­shops, dis­cus­sions and oppor­tu­ni­ties to link up with oth­er peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns.

We hope to work with and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with local com­mu­ni­ties and ongo­ing cam­paigns around the camp’s local­i­ty to build on what oth­ers are already doing and for the camp to have long-last­ing pos­i­tive impacts.

How to get there:

The loca­tion of the site will be announced just before the start of the camp – check here or phone the info num­ber which will be avail­able short­ly before the 3rd for direc­tions to the camp. If you’re com­ing by pub­lic trans­port get your­self to Edin­burgh Waver­ley or Glas­gow Cen­tral train sta­tions and be pre­pared to trav­el – info-points will tell you the train sta­tion to get to and how to get there. There will be shut­tle bus­es from the near­est train sta­tion to the camp. If you can’t make all of the camp, just come along for a day, a week­end or what­ev­er you can.

What to bring:

Camp­ing gear — a tent, sleep­ing bag and mat, prac­ti­cal cloth­ing and footwear. Be pre­pared for rain and sun. Ban­ners and dec­o­ra­tions to make our site beau­ti­ful and any­thing else that you would like to see. But most impor­tant­ly, bring all of your friends!

We will also be ask­ing for dona­tions to cov­er costs of food and expens­es for the camp. Sug­gest­ed amounts will be made avail­able clos­er to the time.

What not to bring:

It is pos­si­ble that you will be searched by police on enter­ing the site – penknives and any­thing that may be con­strued as a weapon is best left behind. You may also want to pro­tect your per­son­al details but remem­ber, if you don’t bring a cash card, bring enough cash to cov­er your trans­port, food dona­tions etc.

Know your rights!

Check­out the web­sites below for some advice on deal­ing with the police.
http://www.faslane365.org/en/legal
http://www.g8legalsupport.info/guide/

Up to date legal infor­ma­tion and advice will be avail­able at the camp.

Chil­dren:

Are most wel­come and there will be a kids space that peo­ple will be able to vol­un­teer for.

Dogs:

If you bring dog(s) please take respon­si­bil­i­ty for them. We ask that you keep them on a lead as there have been inci­dents at past camps that we’d pre­fer to avoid.

If you want more infor­ma­tion or to get in touch email us on climatecampscotland@riseup.net

See you there!

Come to our next meet­ing!

Edin­burgh, Wednes­day 29th July, 12:00–16:00, For­est Cafe Action Room, 3 Bris­to Place

in the mean­time, get your­self down to Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp!
See: http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/

Mainshill Solidarity Camp

Get down to Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp as soon as you can, evic­tion is expect­ed soon.
In the mean­time watch the film and get inspired.

Film
Youtube “Main­shill sol­i­dar­i­ty camp”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG43wAy2RTY

Web­site
www.coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk

Map
Search for “Dou­glas, Lanark­shire” on Google maps
http://maps.google.co.uk/

x

Get down to Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp as soon as you can, evic­tion is expect­ed soon.
In the mean­time watch the film and get inspired.

Film
Youtube “Main­shill sol­i­dar­i­ty camp”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG43wAy2RTY

Web­site
www.coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk

Map
Search for “Dou­glas, Lanark­shire” on Google maps
http://maps.google.co.uk/

x

Come visit Faslane Peace Camp this summer (stay forever…)

it’s sum­mer, come help stop the war machine!!

it’s sum­mer, come help stop the war machine!!

Has been a qui­et sum­mer so far up ere at peace camp. And we won­der­ing where you all are? Got a few res­i­dents off doing oth­er projects for a while, so some sol­i­dar­i­ty would be much appre­ci­at­ed. Even if you can only vis­it for a day or so. If you’ve not been before please vis­it. We can accom­mo­date you, help with actions, protests or even just come to chill.

Week­ly vig­il every wed at 4pm out­side north gate.

Work week­end com­ing soon.

01436820901

======

Faslane Peace Camp is in dire need of peo­ple,

At the moment all res­i­dents except one are defend­ing land else­where in the coun­try the camp is being manned with only one res­i­dent who is quick­ly los­ing it!!

This is a call out for peo­ple to move here or vis­it as often as they can, we are afraid to say that if the camp stays prac­ti­cal­ly emp­ty for much longer we will have to close.

The main pur­pose as i can see it of the camp is to be a base for direct action against nuclear weapons and relat­ed issues, if the camp is not being used by peace activist for its intend­ed pur­pose i see lit­tle point in lots of time and ener­gy being spent.

The cur­rent peace campers are tired and unable to con­tin­ue with the upkeep of the entire site with­out new ener­gy. Please make your con­tri­bu­tion to the 27 year old site, none of us want to see the end of such a his­toric place.

More broken promises and lies as the fight to save Mainshill Wood continues.

The threat from Scot­tish Coal is grow­ing, just as the front line against new coal looks for­ward to its one month birth­day (com­plete with pic­nic). So get down here! Its now or nev­er!

The threat from Scot­tish Coal is grow­ing, just as the front line against new coal looks for­ward to its one month birth­day (com­plete with pic­nic). So get down here! Its now or nev­er! The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is extreme­ly grate­ful for the con­tin­u­ing sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty and will be cel­e­brat­ing its one month birth­day on Sun­day 19th July with a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic at 3pm to which every­one is wel­come.

Local res­i­dents awoke on Mon­day morn­ing to the news of yet anoth­er appli­ca­tion for an exten­sion at Poniel [1], a Scot­tish Coal mine in the Dou­glas Val­ley, some­thing that com­mu­ni­ties had been assured would not hap­pen, and which new plan­ning pol­i­cy guards against…Mainshill defences

Poniel Open Cast Coal site, a few hun­dred metres away from Main­shill, will be extend­ed by 100,000 tonnes over a six month peri­od. This bro­ken promise is yet anoth­er exam­ple of the dis­re­gard shown to com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment in the pur­suit of prof­it.

Across the val­ley at Main­shill, envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion and dis­as­trous health impacts will result from the open cast­ing of the 350ha site to extract 1.7million tonnes of coal which will cause 4.98million tonnes [2] of car­bon emis­sions when burnt, exclud­ing the huge emis­sions released through the extrac­tion process [3].

Rather than respond­ing to the objec­tions made against these plans, Dou­glas and Angus Estates and its own­er Lord Home (cur­rent­ly being inves­ti­gat­ed for alleged fraud [4]) pre­fer instead to make unfound­ed alle­ga­tions in a recent media state­ment against the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp [5] and con­tin­ue to deny com­mu­ni­ties, through sham con­sul­ta­tion, of their health, self deter­mi­na­tion and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice.

At the pub­lic hear­ing attend­ed by sev­er­al mem­bers of the camp who also live in the local com­mu­ni­ty, only two of the 700 peo­ple who object­ed were allowed to speak against the pro­pos­al. To pre­vent the cast­ing aside of these objec­tions and to obstruct the work already begun on site, the occu­pa­tion of Main­shill Woods through direct action has been under­tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Prepara­to­ry work for the mine such as the tree felling and bore sam­ple drilling work under­tak­en by Apex already has been glossed over by the Estate and con­tra­venes 7 con­di­tions of the plan­ning approval regard­ing stud­ies to ascer­tain the pres­ence of cer­tain endan­gered species such as bad­gers and bats, which the occu­piers know to be present on site.

The Estate has mis­re­port­ed the unearthing of an 11KVA under­ground pow­er cable accus­ing the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp of almost caus­ing a “major dis­as­ter”. It was in fact Apex and Scot­tish Coal who endan­gered the lives of those on site and the local com­mu­ni­ty by dri­ving heavy machin­ery over the shal­low­ly buried and unmarked cable. Any heavy machin­ery could cause death to the occu­piers since the site is now com­pre­hen­sive­ly defend­ed with tree­hous­es and tun­nels.

The Estate and Scot­tish Coal’s per­sis­tent prof­i­teer­ing from coal has been defend­ed with ref­er­ence to car­bon cap­ture and stor­age tech­nol­o­gy, how­ev­er even the indus­try says that CCS is 20 years away. Only a small per­cent­age of emis­sions can be cap­tured using CCS tech­nol­o­gy at present [6]. CCS is a smoke­screen for min­ing new coal, and evades the dra­mat­ic reduc­tion in con­sump­tion inte­grat­ed with localised renew­able solu­tions and col­lec­tive com­mu­ni­ty action which is required giv­en cur­rent sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus regard­ing cli­mate change.

The com­mu­nites which would suf­fer the envi­ron­men­tal injus­tice and neg­a­tive health impacts result­ing from coal extrac­tion should have con­trol over their local envi­ron­ment. If the plan­ning sys­tem con­tin­ues to side with the coal indus­try, futher direct action will be the only rea­son­able response.

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion please see: http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk or phone
the site for inter­views on 07806926040

Notes to Edi­tors
[1]
http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info/news.asp?intent=viewstory&newsid=18504
[2] Car­bon com­bines with oxy­gen in the atmos­phere dur­ing com­bus­tion,
pro­duc­ing car­bon diox­ide, with an atom­ic weight of (12 + 16 x 2 = 44
kg/kmol). The CO2 released to air for each kilo­gram of incin­er­at­ed coal is
there­fore 2.93kg.
[3] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826520.100-capturing-carbon.html
[4]
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/coutts-bank-chairman-lord-home-named-carroll-trust-case‑0
[5] The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has been occu­py­ing Main­shill Woods since
18/6/09 in order to resist Scot­tish Coal’s plans to devel­op a new open
cast coal mine.
[6] Cor­po­rate­Watch Tech­nofix­es Report down­load­able at
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3126

Mainshill Solidarity Camp latest

11th July 2009
We’ve made it to the week­end with­out being evict­ed and we’ve been rebuild­ing the defences which were dis­man­tled by Scot­tish Coal and the police. We’ve been invent­ing new cre­ative for­ti­fi­ca­tions to dupe the cops and stop the destruc­tion of Main­shill. The sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty has con­tin­ued to be fan­tas­tic — we’d like to say a big thank you.

Mainshill defencesMainshill info board11th July 2009
We’ve made it to the week­end with­out being evict­ed and we’ve been rebuild­ing the defences which were dis­man­tled by Scot­tish Coal and the police. We’ve been invent­ing new cre­ative for­ti­fi­ca­tions to dupe the cops and stop the destruc­tion of Main­shill. The sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty has con­tin­ued to be fan­tas­tic — we’d like to say a big thank you.

Now is the time to come to Main­shill — we need to be pre­pared for evic­tion and need more peo­ple to come and stay in our tree­hous­es. Here are some pics from the last cou­ple of days — there’s some­thing for every­one!

Also, we’re cel­e­brat­ing our one month birth­day on Sun­day 19th July with anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic — all are wel­come.

Scottish Coal break through barricades at Mainshill Solidarity Camp with support

8th July 2009
Scot­tish Coal break through bar­ri­cades at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp with sup­port from Police

8th July 2009
Scot­tish Coal break through bar­ri­cades at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp with sup­port from Police

The res­i­dents of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp (1) were rude­ly awok­en this morn­ing at around 06.30am by mem­bers of Strath­clyde police who forced their way on to the site. Local police, accom­pa­nied by the V divi­sion from Glas­gow, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Scot­tish Coal and Apex work­ers (2) entered the site using a JCB to demol­ish bar­ri­cades that had been built by the occu­piers. Flat-bed lor­ries were then brought on site in order to remove all machin­ery and prop­er­ty of Apex and Scot­tish Coal includ­ing two drilling rigs, a dump truck and two por­ta­cab­ins. More than 5 vans of police offi­cers wait­ed down the A70 to offer rein­force­ment.

The site near Dou­glas in South Lanark­shire is one of 20 new open cast coal mines to have been grant­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion in Scot­land, and the devel­op­ment of the Main­shill site will make South Lanark­shire one of the most heav­i­ly mined areas of Europe. Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 1.7 mil­lion tons of coal from Main­shill makes a mock­ery of the local com­mu­ni­ty’s objec­tions to the mine and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­men­t’s efforts to tack­le cli­mate change (3). Lord Home, the landown­er who is set to make a tidy prof­it from the lease of is land to Scot­tish Coal, is cur­rent­ly being inves­ti­gat­ed by the FBI and UK author­i­ties for fraud (4).

Anna Key of the camp said “Apex and Scot­tish Coal have tak­en this action because they realise that we’re here to stay. We have pre­vent­ed Apex from under­tak­ing bore sam­ple drilling work for 3 weeks because this work is essen­tial to the devel­op­ment of the mine which the local com­mu­ni­ty does not want and which will have a dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal impact. Com­ing onto site with such force demon­strates their des­per­a­tion and the fact that we have been effec­tive in pre­vent­ing work from hap­pen­ing. They may have their machines but we’re stay­ing here until we win.”

The use of heavy machin­ery by police this morn­ing was high­ly irre­spon­si­ble since tun­nels have been dug which can be occu­pied to defend the site. Luck­i­ly nobody was hurt on this occa­sion but the Chief Inspec­tor has agreed in prin­ci­ple to a safe­ty meet­ing with the occu­piers who have built up mul­ti­ple defences includ­ing tree hous­es, walk­ways and nets in the trees. Nick Fuery one of the occu­piers, said the camp was defi­ant: “We’ll be await­ing the arrival of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team by rebuild­ing bar­ri­cades and dig­ging in. The res­i­dents of Dou­glas deserve bet­ter than Scot­tish Coal’s plans for the area and we will con­tin­ue to resist this envi­ron­men­tal and social injus­tice along­side the com­mu­ni­ty for as long as it takes.”

Update (18:15): Drilling has restart­ed on the site, with secu­ri­ty and fenc­ing around the rig. The Scot­tish coal tech­ni­cal direc­tor is endan­ger­ing the lives of tun­nellers. Peo­ple still need­ed to come and stop the ille­gal work!

For inter­views on site please ring: 07806926040
For more infor­ma­tion please see www.mainshill.noflag.org.uk and http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/

Notes to Edi­tors:

(1) The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has been occu­py­ing Main­shill Woods since 18/6/09 in order to resist Scot­tish Coal’s plans to devel­op a new open cast coal mine.
(2) Apex, a Wales-based com­pa­ny, has been con­tract­ed by Scot­tish Coal to car­ry out bore sam­ple drilling work on the site in order to assess where the coal seams lie.
(3) The plans for Main­shill received over 700 for­mal objec­tions by local res­i­dents from a pop­u­la­tion of 1000. These objec­tions have been far­ci­cal­ly dis­missed and dis­re­gard­ed. Recent research sug­gests that min­ing coal using the open cast method may in fact pro­duce even more car­bon emis­sions than the burn­ing of coal. See http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/?p=386
(4) See http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/?p=542 for more infor­ma­tion about the alle­ga­tions of fraud com­mit­ted by Lord Home.

Mainshill Solidarity Camp Update: Final eviction notice issued, Lord Home investigated for fraud & tell Apex to stop drilling

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Updates:

The Camp was vis­it­ed by a Sher­iff Offi­cer today who issued occu­piers with a notice declar­ing that Scot­tish Coal and Dou­glas & Angus Estates have incurred sub­stan­tial finan­cial loss­es becuase of the occu­pa­tion, and that if occu­piers do not leave by 10:00am tomor­row (Tues­day 7th) morn­ing they will be removed by force.

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Updates:

The Camp was vis­it­ed by a Sher­iff Offi­cer today who issued occu­piers with a notice declar­ing that Scot­tish Coal and Dou­glas & Angus Estates have incurred sub­stan­tial finan­cial loss­es becuase of the occu­pa­tion, and that if occu­piers do not leave by 10:00am tomor­row (Tues­day 7th) morn­ing they will be removed by force.

There is no indi­ca­tion as to when the evic­tion will begin, but the camp is prepar­ing for it to start tomor­row, so we are call­ing for as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to come to the camp to defend it against any attempt by court bailiffs or police to evict the site!

Please join us, see http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/ for direc­tions.

The site is now well defend­ed and the camp and local com­mu­ni­ties are as deter­mined as ever that coal will not be mined here! Join us at the camp to build and dig, and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home. For direc­tions, reg­u­lar updates and more infor­ma­tion go to: mainshill.noflag.org.uk

We want democ­ra­cy, not cor­rupt aris­toc­ra­cy! Lord Home, the land own­er, is being inves­ti­gat­ed by the FBI and Scot­land Yard for fraud (http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/?p=542)

Tell Apex to stop drilling at Main­shill Wood (http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/?p=547)Net