Category: South East England

South East Eng­land

GM Round-Up: Ready? Global sabotage the answer

Despite the Euro­pean Food Safe­ty Author­i­ty and of course Mon­san­to declar­ing MON 810 maize to be safe, Ger­many and France in Spring of this year banned the cul­ti­va­tion of this genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crop. It was the only GM crop per­mit­ted in Ger­many. There are very active oppo­si­tion move­ments in both coun­tries — rip­ping up GM crops both at night and by day, occu­py­ing fields were it was due to be plant­ed and oth­er wide-scale protests.

GM apple trees snappedDespite the Euro­pean Food Safe­ty Author­i­ty and of course Mon­san­to declar­ing MON 810 maize to be safe, Ger­many and France in Spring of this year banned the cul­ti­va­tion of this genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crop. It was the only GM crop per­mit­ted in Ger­many. There are very active oppo­si­tion move­ments in both coun­tries — rip­ping up GM crops both at night and by day, occu­py­ing fields were it was due to be plant­ed and oth­er wide-scale protests.

In June in Ger­many, two hun­dred and sev­en­ty apple trees on a tri­al site owned by the Insti­tute for Breed­ing Research on Hor­ti­cul­tur­al and Fruit Crops of the Julius Kühn Insti­tute (JKI) in Dres­den-Pill­nitz were destroyed by unknown intrud­ers. Most of the trees were genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied plants being grown in tubs in a spe­cial safe­ty tent under field-like con­di­tions. It is the first time that pro­test­ers have destroyed plants that were not being grown in the field.

Accord­ing to a press release by the JKI, the tent fab­ric was cut open and all of the trees, which were about sev­en years old, were either snapped by hand or cut with prun­ing shears above the graft. The insti­tute esti­mates the cost of the dam­age to be around EUR 700 000. Around ten years of research work has been destroyed.

Mean­while, in Spain 80,000 hectares of GM maize are grown, most­ly in Zaragoza and Cat­alo­nia. Thou­sands of peo­ple took to the streets this Spring to protest against Spain being the GM dust­bin of Europe.

The UK gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to spout recy­cled (from 10 years ago) indus­try non­sense claims about feed­ing the world, solv­ing cli­mate change and gen­er­al­ly sav­ing human­i­ty. Scot­tish and Welsh politi­cians remain opposed to GM how­ev­er.

In the UK BASF — who have been try­ing to grow GM pota­toes over the last cou­ple of years — did­n’t both­er this year. There have been crit­i­cal reports over their antibi­ot­ic-mark­er GM pota­toes, and the com­pa­ny is prepar­ing itself for a hos­tile takeover bid. More info: deci­sion not to plant this year | takeover threat

How­ev­er, there are claims that a tri­al was grown in secret, and a Welsh GM indus­try-fund­ed farmer con­tin­ues to try to pro­voke through claim­ing to grow GM.

In April in Poland, anti-GM cam­paign­ers from GMO-Free Poland went on hunger strike for 3 weeks, wring­ing a minor con­ces­sion out of the gov­ern­ment.

Protest in India against GM corn led to a large num­ber of arrests, with 35 arrest­ed in oth­er protests there against GM rice.

And on 19th August 2009 in Ice­land, genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied bar­ley, which was being grown for exper­i­men­tal pur­pos­es in Gun­narsholt, south Ice­land, by start-up com­pa­ny ORF Lif­taekni, was dam­aged by a group of activists in the ear­ly hours of Wednes­day. There will be no har­vest this fall. The CEO said: “For a small com­pa­ny like ours, which is strug­gling in the dif­fi­cult inno­va­tion envi­ron­ment, this is a seri­ous mat­ter.” The group of activists, which calls itself Ill­gre­si (Weed), sent an anony­mous email to the media, claim­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for the sab­o­tage.

Trouble at Vestas picket — HELP NEEDED!

9.9.2009 6pm
Police and secu­ri­ty guards have descend­ed in large num­bers on the Ves­tas protest camp and appear to be attempt­ing to break up the work­ers’ and sup­port­ers’ block­ade. There has so far been one arrest ‑help is urgent­ly need­ed!

Vestas Stop the Blades camp9.9.2009 6pm
Police and secu­ri­ty guards have descend­ed in large num­bers on the Ves­tas protest camp and appear to be attempt­ing to break up the work­ers’ and sup­port­ers’ block­ade. There has so far been one arrest ‑help is urgent­ly need­ed!

We have received reports that large num­bers of police have descend­ed on the campsite/blockade which is being main­tained by Ves­tas work­ers and their sup­port­ers out­side the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in New­port. There have been two arrests so far and the sit­u­a­tion is expect­ed to con­tin­ue to esca­late over the com­ing 24 hours or so.

Any sup­port­ers who can make it down to the Island and offer help of any kind are urgent­ly request­ed to do so — check out savevestas.wordpress.com for details of how to get to the fac­to­ry — or call 07950 539 254 for more info.

Vestas blockade — help urgently needed on the Isle of Wight — new camp update

Work­ers and sup­port­ers at the Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry in New­port on the Isle of Wight are attempt­ing to stop the remain­ing blades being shipped out of the fac­to­ry. This is the only lever­age the work­ers, who have been hung out to dry, real­ly have left against the com­pa­ny.

Here’s the lat­est from the Ves­tas cam­paign blog:

Work­ers and sup­port­ers at the Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry in New­port on the Isle of Wight are attempt­ing to stop the remain­ing blades being shipped out of the fac­to­ry. This is the only lever­age the work­ers, who have been hung out to dry, real­ly have left against the com­pa­ny.

Here’s the lat­est from the Ves­tas cam­paign blog:

http://savevestas.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/i‑see-no-ships-no-vestas-blades-will-move-from-newport-isle-of-wight-today/

“No boats today. Day one of the block­ade was a suc­cess. Ves­tas did not try to move any blades. We are call­ing on activists to come and par­tic­i­pate asap. We’re draft­ing a press release tonight.

“I know, a mil­lion ques­tions flow, but we will have to wait a lit­tle longer. I imag­ine they are very busy down there – many of them for months now. Could do with rein­force­ments, so if you can free up a cou­ple of days in the next week to go and help it would be price­less. I know it is a big ask but there are good rea­sons for ask­ing it.”

See the blog for more details, trav­el info, etc:
http://savevestas.wordpress.com/

Site phone:
07935 868 009

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VESTAS WORKERS FIGHT ON FOR 600 JOBS
JOIN US ON THE BLADE BLOCKADE

Ves­tas has start­ed rapid­ly ship­ping their remain­ing blades from stock in Southamp­ton to the USA. At least two ships car­ry­ing 90 blades each have sailed from Southamp­ton recent­ly. Our best infor­ma­tion is that Ves­tas may try to ship out the wind-tur­bine blades left in their New­port fac­to­ry in the Isle of Wight in the com­ing days.

Protest­ing against the move­ment of those blades, and of the moulds which Ves­tas also wants to move, is the chief lever­age that the work­ers have with Ves­tas. The occu­py­ing work­ers who were sacked must be rein­stat­ed with full redun­dan­cy paid. The gov­ern­ment talks about 400,000 green jobs in the next five years — let’s make it start with Ves­tas. Just as impor­tant­ly we believe that these blades should be used here in the U.K..

Around 10 blades, worth three quar­ters of a mil­lion pounds, were unfin­ished on 20 July when work­ers occu­pied the St Cross fac­to­ry, to resist clo­sure, and boss­es sent home work­ers from the Ven­ture Quays for fear that fac­to­ry would be occu­pied too. Now the blades have been fin­ished.

On Fri­day 4th Sep­tem­ber at 7am, work­ers and around 30 sup­port­ers from the main­land set up a camp to block­ade the Marine Gate and pre­vent the blades being removed from the fac­to­ry.
We have two hours notice about barges leav­ing Southamp­ton, giv­ing us this time to mobilise. The barges could come twice a day as it has been nor­mal prac­tice in the past for the barges to come and col­lect blades dur­ing the night also– the only time they don’t move the blades is (iron­i­cal­ly) when it’s windy.

It is pos­si­ble to win this cam­paign, if we keep up the momen­tum.
Sup­port the Ves­tas work­ers – email savevestas@gmail.com
Pres­surise Gov­ern­ment: email Man­del­son: www.bis.gov.uk/contact-us/ministers‑l
Com­plain to Ves­tas through vestas-celtic@vestas.com or call 01925 857 100
Pass a res­o­lu­tion of sup­port in your trade union or orga­ni­za­tion.
Encour­age peo­ple to vis­it, or can pay for trans­port and expens­es of those sup­port­ers who main­tain the pick­et.
Send a dona­tion payable to ‘Ryde and East Wight Trades Union Coun­cil’ to 22 Church Lane, Isle of Wight, PO33 2NB
For more infor­ma­tion: www.rmt.org.uk. http://ventnorblog.com/topic/vestas-sit-in/ ‑a local news site with videos.

JOIN US ON THE BLOCKADE
With this block­ade in place we now have the pow­er to pre­vent the blades being moved out onto the barges. The new marine gate camp is an inspir­ing place to be and is a very wel­come addi­tion to the well-estab­lished Mag­ic Round­about Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp at the main gate. There is plen­ty of place to camp with a great view of the riv­er. We are run­ning a vari­ety of work­shops, locals are very sup­port­ive and the fire­side chats each evening are inspir­ing. Come down and see for your­self. Bring friends and fam­i­ly.

Climate Rush On Tour

4th Sep­tem­ber 2009
The Cli­mate Rush start­ed on a one month tour of South West Eng­land at Sip­son, mak­ing a pro­ces­sion to Heathrow Air­port this morn­ing with local res­i­dents to oppose the build­ing of the third run­way.

Climate Rush on Tour at Heathrow airportairplot allotment4th Sep­tem­ber 2009
The Cli­mate Rush start­ed on a one month tour of South West Eng­land at Sip­son, mak­ing a pro­ces­sion to Heathrow Air­port this morn­ing with local res­i­dents to oppose the build­ing of the third run­way.

I was pleased as a fair­ly local res­i­dent opposed to fur­ther devel­op­ment of Heathrow to be able to join the Cli­mate Rush and their two carts and three hors­es at Sip­son this morn­ing. Slight­ly less pleased that my own trusty steed, a 13th birth­day present from my old­est broth­er many years ago, punc­tured a few hun­dred yards short of the Air­plot site where they had been camp­ing over night.

Green­peace bought the Air­plot site in the mid­dle of the site for a third run­way at Heathrow and invit­ed every­one to join the plot as a ben­e­fi­cial own­er, along­side the four legal own­ers, “Oscar win­ning actress Emma Thomp­son, come­di­an Alis­tair McGowan and prospec­tive Tory par­lia­men­tary can­di­date Zac Gold­smith and Green­peace UK.” You can still sign up for your small piece of the site at http://www.airplot.org.uk/ , and I think most if not all of us there today have already done so. The hope is that it will make it hard­er for the devel­op­ment of the site to go ahead.

I first pho­tographed the oppo­si­tion to the fur­ther devel­op­ment of Heathrow in 2003, when local res­i­dents organ­ised a march (pic­tures at http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2003/06/jun.htm) against the pro­pos­al for a third run­way, and have attend­ed and pho­tographed a num­ber of protests since.

I grew up in Houn­slow under the main flight path a cou­ple of miles from touch­down where my par­ents had lived since the 1930s. Although I was a plane spot­ter at an ear­ly age, we all realised the hav­oc air­craft noise was cre­at­ing in our lives, even back in the 1950s. I still some­times have night­mares about planes going over in flames (as they some­times did) and crash­es, although since Ter­mi­nal 4 blocked one of the exist­ing run­ways (Heathrow used to have six run­ways) planes no longer take off or land over my present house to the south west of the air­port. Noise is still how­ev­er a prob­lem — as it is for per­haps a quar­ter of Lon­don­ers. We often — almost con­tin­u­ous­ly on sum­mer days — have planes mak­ing steep turns on full pow­er short­ly after take-off blast­ing the peace (the air­port author­i­ties usu­al­ly deny it ever hap­pens, but they clear­ly talk total non­sense much of the time.)

My sis­ter lives at least twice as far from the air­port as me, but the noise there is often unbear­able. Even very much fur­ther away, at Vaux­hall, noise is still a prob­lem, as you can see from a recent film by Jason N Parkin­son — http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2009/08/film-under-flight-path-crossroad.html

Back in the 1950s we knew Heathrow was in the wrong place, only gain­ing per­mis­sion for devel­op­ment by pre­tend­ing it was need­ed for mil­i­tary use (always a delib­er­ate lie.) Every fur­ther devel­op­ment there has always been obtained by under­hand means. When T4 was built, they gained per­mis­sion by promis­ing they would nev­er ask for a fur­ther ter­mi­nal. At the enquiry for T5, they said they would nev­er ask for a third run­way. Were they to get away with this run­way (and hope­ful­ly they won’t) it would not be long before they tried for anoth­er.

Heath Row was some of the best agri­cul­tur­al land in Britain. It and the sur­round­ing area was the site of some of the old­est set­tle­ments in the coun­try — long before the Romans came — for that very rea­son. Many of its pre­his­toric sites have been lost, some under the air­port, oth­ers under oth­er devel­op­ments. My grand­fa­ther had a mar­ket gar­den and an orchard not far away, and Cox’s Orange Pip­pin, the finest of all dessert apples, was first recog­nised as a chance seedling and cul­ti­vat­ed by Richard Cox a mile or so down the Bath Road around 1825. Around the Air­plot site are apple trees of var­i­ous vari­eties, both eat­ing and cook­ing apples, and we also ate damsons from a near­by tree.

Sip­son to the north of the air­port was one of sev­er­al Mid­dle­sex vil­lages I used to cycle through as a kid, although devel­op­ment since then has been a lit­tle hard­er to it than some. Neigh­bour­ing Har­mondsworth, also to be destroyed if the third run­way goes ahead, has rather more of its orig­i­nal charm, with a vil­lage green with a pub and church and, a few yards away, one of the finest medieval tithe barns.

The pro­ces­sion left from the Air­plot site, led by local res­i­dents from NoTRAG, ( http://www.notrag.org/) though most were at work today — more were expect­ed lat­er in the day and at the ‘Cel­e­bra­tion of Com­mu­ni­ty Resis­tance’ in Sip­son tomor­row. Suf­fragettes (includ­ing a ‘token’ male) wear­ing ‘Deeds Not Words ’ and ‘Cli­mate Rush’ red sash­es car­ried three ban­ners, Jus­tice, Equi­ty and Truth; Equi­ty trav­elled on a horse-drawn cart along with a vio­lin­ist.

The ban­ners read:
JUSTICE: Rich Coun­tries Must recog­nise his­toric respon­si­bil­i­ty for cli­mate change.
EQUITY: Emis­sion quo­tas must be per cap­i­tal; the rich have no more right to pol­lute than the poor.
TRUTH: Emis­sion caps must be set in line with the lat­est cli­mate sci­ence.

We went south down Sip­son Road to the Bath Road, and across it onto the Heathrow site, turn­ing to walk along the North­ern Perime­ter Road out­side the perime­ter fence. There we were joined by a police car, which help­ful­ly stopped traf­fic for us. A few hun­dred yards along we were unsure of our route, and Tam­sin Omond who was close to the front of the pro­ces­sion, rushed across to ask the police how we could return to the Bath Road.

Once we were off the air­port site the police left us and we made our way back up Sip­son Way and Sip­son Rd to the Air­plot site. Alto­geth­er we had walked around two and a quar­ter miles, and the horse pulling the cart had­n’t even raised a sweat. It was time for us — and the hors­es — to eat some of the apples. A cou­ple of the suf­fragettes climbed a tree to pick some more, but they turned out to be cook­ers. The ket­tle had been hang­ing over the embers of a wood fire and a few more sticks soon brought it to the boil for tea.

Lat­er events in the day includ­ed a chil­drens’ activ­i­ty ses­sion, a tea-par­ty with local res­i­dents and an evening of music. Activ­i­ties con­tin­ue on Sat­ur­day before the Cli­mate Rush moves on — at walk­ing pace — to Ayles­bury for events there from 8–11 Sept and con­tin­u­ing at oth­er places on their route to Totnes by the end of the month. Details are at http://www.climaterush.co.uk

Come to a Picnic

A Fam­i­ly Pic­nic Day to Stop Tesco Build­ing at Tit­nore Woods, in West Sus­sex.

A Fam­i­ly Pic­nic Day to Stop Tesco Build­ing at Tit­nore Woods, in West Sus­sex.

On Tues­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber, we will meet at 12 noon at the round­about in front of the exist­ing West Dur­ring­ton Tesco Extra. It’s the where Romany Road joins New Road. At about 1230 we’ll move to a bet­ter pic­nic site in the fields behind the Tesco car park, where build­ing work for the new Tesco has begun. Bring food to share and any­thing else that you think will help make the point that we don’t want Tesco destroy­ing our land­scape and our com­mu­ni­ties! Please tell your friends and bring them along.
The protest camp is near­by and they wel­come vis­i­tors and dona­tions.

http://www.titnore.wordpress.com

Police raid eco-protest camp

16.08.2009
POLICE bul­lies have invad­ed Camp Tit­nore near Wor­thing and intim­i­dat­ed the pro­test­ers, who have been peace­ful­ly occu­py­ing the threat­ened Dur­ring­ton wood­land since 2006.

16.08.2009
POLICE bul­lies have invad­ed Camp Tit­nore near Wor­thing and intim­i­dat­ed the pro­test­ers, who have been peace­ful­ly occu­py­ing the threat­ened Dur­ring­ton wood­land since 2006.

Com­ing just a few weeks after Tesco got per­mis­sion for its dis­gust­ing new abom­i­na­tion on neigh­bour­ing fields, it is feared this her­alds an all-out attack on the camp by the usu­al unholy alliance of prof­i­teer­ing cap­i­tal­ist scum, cor­rupt local author­i­ties and the tax­pay­er-fund­ed thugs-in-blue.

Strong rumours are cir­cu­lat­ing that Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil plan­ners are to meet very soon to give the final go-ahead for the 875-home hous­ing devel­op­ment at Tit­nore Woods and that the camp will be cleared by force before work starts, pos­si­bly as soon as Octo­ber.

The campers are appeal­ing for all those who have sup­port­ed them dur­ing their three-year marathon protest to make the effort to come and vis­it them now — before it is too late — and show the author­i­ties that they can­not mis­treat them with impuni­ty as they enjoy pub­lic back­ing.

If peo­ple can go and stay at the camp for any amount of time, no mat­ter how small, that would obvi­ous­ly be even bet­ter.

The lat­est police raid on the camp came under the the pre­tence of a “health and safe­ty check”. Up to 18 tooled-up ‘offi­cers’ intim­i­dat­ed the envi­ron­men­tal­ists with video cam­eras, as they were in-ter­ror-gat­ed. This includ­ed a young woman with a 4‑year-old child who was vis­it­ing friends at the camp. The police then search and video’d all areas of the camp despite being told to leave the campers’ home.

Clear­ly even after all the crit­i­cism of the police by gov­ern­ment min­is­ters fol­low­ing their behav­iour in Lon­don in April they are still out of con­trol.

The campers now expect more harass­ment in order to get them to give up and leave.

Warn­ing of a pos­si­ble move to give the hous­ing devel­op­ment the OK immi­nent­ly, cam­paign group Pro­tect Our Wood­land! says: “A lot has to be done in a very short time. First please could you sign the peti­tion at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/TitnoreWoods/ and ask all in your address book to do the same. Next it is still very impor­tant to send an e‑mail of objec­tion to the coun­cil, please find all the details at www.protectourwoodland.co.uk then if you’ve still got the ener­gy write to the papers.

“Yes we know there’s been very lit­tle report­ing in the local papers — except for the Tesco part of the devel­op­ment — that’s because edi­tors get fed up with the same old sus­pects writ­ing in end­less­ly. So let’s see if a new hand will get results. All the details are on the web­site.”

Mean­while the cam­paign­ing Dur­ring­ton and North­brook Times reports that work on the mas­sive new Tesco Extra will start tomor­row, Mon­day August 17, with res­i­dents’ con­cerns bull­dozed out of the path of the mon­ster that they like to call progress.

It report­ed in a spe­cial email bul­letin:

“At a pub­lic meet­ing in the Dur­ring­ton Com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, Robert Cur­tis Project Man­ag­er for builders Kier revealed that although dis­tur­bance to local res­i­dents would be kept to a min­i­mum there would be some incon­ve­nience.

“He admit­ted to a stunned audi­ence, that one max­i­mum weight mul­ti-wheeled truck would have to come through the exist­ing Tesco car park every 7 min­utes as nego­ti­a­tions had bro­ken down with the own­er of land north of Ful­beck Ave, pre­vi­ous­ly ear­marked. The route to the car park indi­cat­ed on the hand­out was through res­i­den­tial roads such as New Road (From the Lamb) and Romany Road.

“It was fur­ther revealed that apart from rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing NO oth­er sus­tain­able fea­tures are to be incor­po­rat­ed. Not even one solar pan­el.

“So there we are then, our coun­cil has allowed this mega rich con­glom­er­ate to build a shed that will be a blot on the land­scape, cre­ate a traf­fic night­mare, destroy local res­i­dents right to breathe clean air and enjoy peace and qui­et. Thank you coun­cil­lors you will be remem­bered at elec­tion time.

“What a shame not one reporter from either the Wor­thing Her­ald or Argus felt it nec­es­sary to be present to report on this. How­ev­er you can rely on The Dur­ring­ton and North­brook Times to report what’s going on to res­i­dents.”

http://www.protectourwoodland.co.uk/tea.htm

Vestas Rooftop protesters to head down to NIMBY MP’s office

Ves­tas Rooftop protest to move to local MP con­stituen­cy offices on Fri­day morn­ing

Press state­ment- Thurs­day 13th August 4.30pm

After being on the roof for eleven nights, rooftop pro­test­ers will descend from the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in East Cowes tomor­row morn­ing (Fri­day) at 11am. They will then take the protest to the local MP Andrew Turn­er’s con­stituen­cy office in New­port.

Ves­tas Rooftop protest to move to local MP con­stituen­cy offices on Fri­day morn­ing

Press state­ment- Thurs­day 13th August 4.30pm

After being on the roof for eleven nights, rooftop pro­test­ers will descend from the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in East Cowes tomor­row morn­ing (Fri­day) at 11am. They will then take the protest to the local MP Andrew Turn­er’s con­stituen­cy office in New­port.

They say: ‘Despite the green rhetoric from the main polit­i­cal par­ties, the truth of their atti­tude is appar­ent where green jobs are allowed to be lost and local MP Andrew Turn­er active­ly oppos­es a wind farm on the Isle of Wight. This typ­i­fies the NIMBY atti­tude which is block­ing the pro­gres­sion of on-shore wind in the UK.’

‘Andrew Turn­er’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the oppo­si­tion to Wind pow­er on the Island includes a state­ment that hav­ing a wind­farm on the Isle of Wight would have no effect on the Ves­tas work force,(1) when in fact it is the cumu­la­tive effect of deci­sions like these which effects demand for wind pow­er in the UK and has direct­ly let to the clo­sure of Ves­tas with the loss of over 600 jobs.’

Tim­ings for pho­to and inter­view oppor­tu­ni­ties;

7.30 am We will be avail­able for inter­views over the phone from this time Tele­phone 07944 744922.

11am Pro­test­ers will abseil down from the side of the Ves­tas build­ing, Columbine Road, Ven­ture Quays, East Cowes, Isle of Wight and, along­side ves­tas work­ers, will be avail­able for media inter­views.

1pm — We will be at Andrew Turn­er’s con­stituen­cy surgery request­ing to talk to him on cam­era, to dis­cuss his objec­tions to Wind pow­er on the Isle Of Wight, and his stance on NIM­BY­ism

There will be a pho­to and inter­view oppor­tu­ni­ty at this time.
Address: 24 The Mall, Caris­brooke, P030 1BW
tel. 01983 530808

Rooftop­pers Email address: vestasrooftop@googlemail.com
Tele­phone on the roof: Mar­tin: 07944744922

Notes to edi­tors:

1) Based on Andrew Turn­ers response to wind­farm appli­ca­tion: ref. TCP/27774,P/01400/06)
para­graph begin­ing: ‘I do not accept that a con­vinc­ing…’
Copies of which will be avail­able tomorow.

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

Flotilla against new Bradwell nuclear reactor sails on Essex coast

On Sun­day, 9 August, a flotil­la of 20 boats, many with colour­ful ban­ners say­ing ‘Save the Black­wa­ter estu­ary and ‘No to new nuclear’ and fly­ing yel­low and white sheets from their masts, sailed from West Mersea and oth­er loca­tions on the Black­wa­ter to Brad­well.

Bradwell flotilla bannersOn Sun­day, 9 August, a flotil­la of 20 boats, many with colour­ful ban­ners say­ing ‘Save the Black­wa­ter estu­ary and ‘No to new nuclear’ and fly­ing yel­low and white sheets from their masts, sailed from West Mersea and oth­er loca­tions on the Black­wa­ter to Brad­well. The 50 or so sailors on board were protest­ing against the new nuclear pow­er sta­tion and high­ly radioac­tive nuclear waste store pro­posed for the Brad­well site.

Sev­er­al of the boats sailed along the West Mersea shore in front of pro­test­ers and hol­i­day mak­ers before head­ing over to Brad­well and anchor­ing in front of the old sta­tion.

Some of the sailors land­ed on the Brad­well beach and asked those who were there enjoy­ing the beau­ti­ful weath­er to sign the BANNG (Black­wa­ter Against New Nuclear Group) peti­tion. The peti­tion asks the Gov­ern­ment to reject the pro­pos­al to build a new sta­tion and demands that the old sta­tion site be returned to green­field with­in 25 years of clo­sure, as orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed, and not the 100 years it is report­ed it will now take.

Var­rie Blow­ers, the Sec­re­tary of BANNG said: ‘We believe that what is pro­posed would have a detri­men­tal impact on the envi­ron­ment and marine ecol­o­gy of the vul­ner­a­ble Black­wa­ter estu­ary, par­tic­u­lar­ly on its oys­ter, fish and huge over­win­ter­ing bird pop­u­la­tions. The estu­ary is a beau­ti­ful ameni­ty which is enjoyed by sailors and mem­bers of the pub­lic alike. All those who love and fear for the Black­wa­ter need to protest at these pro­pos­als.

BANNG believes that the Brad­well site is par­tic­u­lar­ly unsuit­able for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion and waste store. As well as being on a shal­low estu­ary, it is liable to flood­ing and increased inci­dence of storm surges as a result of cli­mate change. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly opposed to the pro­duc­tion of yet more high­ly radioac­tive spent fuel which would have to be stored on site for more than 100 years, when there is not even a solu­tion in prospect for deal­ing with the wastes that already exist’.

Charles Clark, who organ­ised the vig­il, said: ‘The vig­il is the sec­ond in a series of protests organ­ised by BANNG. The first, before East­er, drew atten­tion to the impos­si­bil­i­ty of evac­u­at­ing Mersea Island in the event of a nuclear inci­dent. The pur­pose of Sunday’s vig­il was to draw atten­tion to the poten­tial impact of the pro­pos­als on the Black­wa­ter estu­ary itself. We were very pleased with the turnout of boats and sailors and the pos­i­tive reac­tion of peo­ple on the Brad­well beach to the peti­tion’.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about BANNG and the peti­tion con­tact Var­rie Blow­ers (Tel.: 07932.644482).

We want to high­light:

* Envi­ron­men­tal dam­age to the Estu­ary fore­shore, wildlife, plea­sure and com­mer­cial fish­ing and local oys­ter indus­tries
* Poten­tial restric­tion on access for recre­ation­al use to the Estu­ary and its fore­shore
* Long term on site stor­age of high­ly radioac­tive waste
* Increased health risks to sur­round­ing pop­u­la­tion result­ing from tox­ic waste and from the lack of long term evac­u­a­tion plans for the sur­round­ing areas
* Neg­a­tive Visu­al impact of the new facil­i­ty and the reten­tion of the for­mer sta­tion

Climate Activists occupy roof of 2nd Vestas factory!

4.8.2009

Vestas 2nd factory occupation4.8.2009
Cli­mate activists have occu­pied the roof of the Ves­tas tur­bine fac­to­ry at Ven­ture Quays, East Cowes, Isle Of Wight, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers occu­py­ing a fac­to­ry in New­port. The pro­tes­tors have hung a ban­ner above the Fer­ry Port say­ing: “Ves­tas Work­ers — Sol­i­dar­i­ty in Occu­pa­tion. Save Green Jobs,” and issued the fol­low­ing state­ment:

This Cowes Week, tens of thou­sands of peo­ple have come to the island to use and cel­e­brate the free, abun­dant, and nat­ur­al pow­er of the wind. At the same time, work­ers at Ves­tas are strug­gling to keep Britain’s only wind-tur­bine blade man­u­fac­tur­er open. Fac­to­ries in East Cowes, New­port and Southamp­ton are being closed with the loss of over 600 jobs, and hun­dreds more in sup­port indus­tries like Gurit, dev­as­tat­ing not only green promis­es but the Isle of Wight local com­mu­ni­ties.

Now the peo­ple are say­ing enough is enough. At New­port dozens of work­ers are in the sec­ond week of their fac­to­ry occu­pa­tion with mes­sages of sup­port com­ing in from around the world. These coura­geous peo­ple are show­ing more vision and com­mit­ment to the future of jobs, com­mu­ni­ties and our plan­et than all the do-noth­ing busi­ness and polit­i­cal lead­ers put togeth­er.

In the face of man-made cli­mate-change, keep­ing these work­ers with their unique spe­cial­ist skills is as urgent for pow­er­ing a sus­tain­able future as it is for the for the island com­mu­ni­ties. But the gov­ern­ment which was so quick to nation­alise North­ern Rock and pour bil­lions into the ail­ing banks has so far done NOTHING to pro­tect the future of Britain’s wind-pow­er gen­er­a­tion, despite their recent pledge to invest in “Green Jobs”.

Ves­tas mean­while are leav­ing their work­force high and dry, with peanuts in redun­dan­cy pay and lit­tle hope of work, while they make off with the £76 mil­lion prof­its they made in the first quar­ter of 2009 out of their non-unionised work­force.

The Ven­ture Quays roof occu­pa­tion is in sup­port of Ves­tas work­ers demands. We say,

– Take Ves­tas fac­to­ries into pub­lic own­er­ship, under work­ers man­age­ment
Re-instate all work­ers, includ­ing those sacked while in dis­pute
Invest in devel­op­ing wind-pow­er in Britain
Retool the Ves­tas plant to pro­duce for Off-Shore Wind Gen­er­a­tion

This dis­pute comes in a peri­od of cri­sis, both eco­nom­ic and eco­log­i­cal. The eco­nom­ic cri­sis has already seen a mil­lion peo­ple los­ing their jobs while banks ask for hand-outs, with mas­sive cuts and tax ris­es on the hori­zon. On top of that, unless we act quick­ly, the eco­log­i­cal cri­sis of cli­mate-change will threat­en the very future of human life. Moti­vat­ed by greed and paral­ysed by fear, our rulers seem inca­pable of respond­ing. Instead, the lead is com­ing from below.

Work­ing peo­ple are increas­ing­ly stand­ing up and stay­ing put. Occu­pa­tion by not only work­ers but local res­i­dents is becom­ing a default option. This year we have seen occu­pa­tions at the Vis­teon fac­to­ries in Enfield and Belfast, schools occu­pied against clo­sure in Glas­gow and Lewisham, a Lon­don care-home, Thomas Cook in Dublin and now Ves­tas. Peo­ple have been dis-empow­ered for too long!

Lis­ten to the Ves­ta work­ers song “Boys on the Bal­cony” at http://www.seizetheday.org

http://savevestas.wordpress.com