Category: South East England

26th Octo­ber A small band of anti-frack­ing cam­paign­ers who wished to be known as ‘pro­tec­tors’ have set up camp on land adja­cent to Cel­tique Energie’s pro­posed drill site.

Many of them have spent time in Bal­combe, protest­ing against Cuadrilla’s drilling activ­i­ties.

Talk­ing from their camp, where they have per­mis­sion from the land own­er to tem­porar­i­ly reside, one of the group said: “I’m here because the coun­try is on the brink of what could pos­si­bly be the most intense envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe that we have ever known, and that its sneaked in under the radar of good sense, under the radar of democ­ra­cy, and peo­ple aren’t aware just how dan­ger­ous frack­ing can be, par­tic­u­lar­ly in this coun­try where we are rid­dled with fault lines.”

Tim, who pre­ferred not to give his sur­name and age, added: “It is a mat­ter of great urgency that every body stands up and gets active now.

“We’re all activists now and that is how it is – one way or anoth­er the coun­try is being indus­tri­alised, and it is time for every­body to stand up.”

Fel­low ‘pro­tec­tor’ Pra­j­na spoke of one of our ‘exis­ten­tial rights’ – water, say­ing it is under threat by the process of hydraulic frac­tur­ing which uses high pres­sure water laced with chem­i­cals to stim­u­late oil and gas reserves trapped in rock beneath the ground.

The 53 year old, who trav­els with his 46 year part­ner Kali, spent two months at Bal­combe before arriv­ing in Kird­ford about two weeks ago.

“If frack­ing were to take place in Wis­bor­ough Green and Kird­ford it would be dis­as­trous for this local envi­ron­ment,” said Kali. “But equal­ly it is going to be dis­as­trous for the whole island – poi­soned water sup­plies.

“It is going to affect absolute­ly every indi­vid­ual and if the water is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed than we shall be depen­dent on cor­po­ra­tions who bring it in from else­where.”

A 27 year old called Dominic added: “I’ve come here to raise aware­ness among local peo­ple about frack­ing – it is an attack on the nat­ur­al ecosys­tems of the area.”

Kris, sport­ing an impres­sive gin­ger mous­tache, said he had been brought up in the oil indus­try and had lived all around the world, but was now total­ly dis­il­lu­sioned with the sec­tor for many rea­sons.

But chief amongst these, he said: “There is a very sub­stan­tial risk of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the water table.”

Asked why those we spoke to were ret­i­cent to give their full names, they said it could give the author­i­ties and cor­po­ra­tions a hold over them, and raised con­cerns about the might of the organ­i­sa­tions against which they are cam­paign­ing.

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One of the most colour­ful char­ac­ters we spoke to at the Kird­ford camp called him­self Bro Rain­bow. What fol­lows is a direct tran­script of the inter­view with Bro.

How old are you Bro?

Eter­nal

Where’s home?

Where the heart is.

Is that right here now?

Always, hope so, oth­er­wise get an ambu­lance.

Why here right now?

Why right here and now, it’s the only place you can be – here and now – they call it the present – it’s a gift, make the most of it.

Why have you come here?

Because it real­ly actu­al­ly mat­ters. We are one nation, one tribe, liv­ing on a very beau­ti­ful space-ship – they call it Earth, but I call it Plan­et Heart which is just a respelling of Earth.

But actu­al­ly it is not earth, it is two thirds water and so it is plan­et Heart, and she is spin­ning 1,800 mph – can you feel it?

The most amaz­ing life sup­port sys­tem that I am aware of in the moment, and what’s going on? Just delu­sion, tru­ly, and mad­ness. And the future gen­er­a­tions are going to look back and they will just be incred­u­lous at what has been hap­pen­ing up until this point.

Basi­cal­ly, do we tru­ly need it? This gas, this frack­ing, this des­e­cra­tion of the Moth­er, this ruina­tion of our water, our air, our soil – is it need­ed?

Yes, because we need to change our con­scious­ness and we need to rise above, that’s from my heart to yours, that we all might live true.

And here’s a poem:

“Listen’t to the mustn’ts child

Lis­ten to the don’ts

Lis­ten to the wouldn’ts, couldn’ts, shouldn’ts and the won’ts,

Lis­ten very close­ly,

Then lis­ten close to me,

Any­thing can hap­pen,

And any­thing can be,

And in the poten­tial real­i­ty that I want to exist in, this is not hap­pen­ing – ok.

They say that an Eng­lish woman’s home is her cas­tle, I say women because we’re women and man, we’re two sided,

We’re not all right, we’re half right, half left.”

That’s the truth of it, oth­er­wise we’d fall over, and hope­ful­ly, straight up the mid­dle,

Straight up, frack­ing is wrong and that is why I am here because I feel it intense­ly with­in me, and I am vot­ing with my feet and my whole being, to be here to say please, let’s go in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion.

Bless