Category: Wales

Wales

Friends Of The Earth Cymru information stall against the Monster Incinerator at Ffos-y-fran

Friends Of The Earth CYMRU are hav­ing an infor­ma­tion stall in Merthyr precinct this Fri­day.
Join the Face­book page “No Mon­ster Incin­er­a­tor in Merthyr Tyd­fil” for a pow­er­point pre­sen­ta­tion on the Health Impact of incin­er­a­tors by world renown expert Prof Paul Con­nett!

Friends Of The Earth CYMRU are hav­ing an infor­ma­tion stall in Merthyr precinct this Fri­day.
Join the Face­book page “No Mon­ster Incin­er­a­tor in Merthyr Tyd­fil” for a pow­er­point pre­sen­ta­tion on the Health Impact of incin­er­a­tors by world renown expert Prof Paul Con­nett!
It looks as if Cov­an­ta are going for­ward with sub­mit­ting plan­ning appli­ca­tion on Novem­ber 1st — Direct Action and Aware­ness needs to be ramped up as much of the com­mu­ni­ty of Merthyr Tyd­fil are bliss­ful­ly igno­rant of the sci­en­tif­ic facts on the impact of diox­ins, nano-par­tic­u­lates and oth­er very nasty shit such as “Fly Ash”!

Crude Awakening info update

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Have you been think­ing it’s about time a whole load of peo­ple got togeth­er to take mass action against oil in cen­tral Lon­don? We thought so. And so it fol­lowed that the Crude Awak­en­ing was launched. The mobi­liza­tion is now in full swing and every­one is invit­ed to help pub­li­cize and pre­pare. There is loads to do….please have a read through this email and get involved!

The email is in three parts:

Upcom­ing events and how to get involved
Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions
The call out — please copy and paste and help this get all over the Inter­net!

1. How to get involved and build up events you are all invit­ed to.

Events already planned are list­ed bel­low:

In Lon­don……

17th Sep­tem­ber, net­work­ing meet­ing at 6pm just inside the entrance to the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, a meet­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in help­ing to do out­reach in the Lon­don area the Cli­mate Camp out­reach group are meet­ing.

There is going to be a Lon­don coor­di­nat­ing and plan­ning meet­ing for the Crude Awak­en­ing very soon, and the details will be announced short­ly.

Thurs­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber at 7.30pm, Cli­mate Action Film Night, Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre, Whitechapel (for address see www.londonarc.org)

An evening of films and dis­cus­sion about cli­mate activism and the oil indus­try, host­ed by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide.

A screen­ing of two short films of recent actions against BP and Shell by Ris­ing Tide and friends, plus Petrop­o­lis, a visu­al­ly stun­ning and dis­turb­ing doc­u­men­tary about the Cana­di­an Tar Sands. Fol­lowed by a brain­storm­ing ses­sion on tak­ing direct action against the oil indus­try in Lon­don — includ­ing all the lat­est info on the Crude Awak­en­ing, an oily mass action hap­pen­ing on Sat­ur­day 16th Octo­ber. For any­one who believes in cli­mate jus­tice and wants to help make it hap­pen; any­one hacked off with the greed and irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of oil giants like BP; any­one back from the Cli­mate Camp and look­ing to get involved local­ly… every­one welcome.…and there’ll be cake!

The Crude Awak­en­ing Lon­don Rab­ble Rouser – a mass out­door team game, warm­ing us up for the big day– date, place and time to be announced.

Sat­ur­day 2nd Octo­ber. MOLASAPULTPARTY FUNDRAISER .… Venue TBC, more details to fol­low short­ly

Sat­ur­day the 2nd and Sun­day the 3rd Octo­ber Stilt mak­ing work­shop for the stilt block on the mass action!.…
This time we’re think­ing big, we’re think­ing high, we’re think­ing tall.… and we’re going as a Stilt Bloc.

Yep, thats right! On stilts!

So in order for this to hap­pen we’re hav­ing a skill share week­end in Lon­don to build stilts and learn how to walk on them. The week­end is Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd Octo­ber, 10am to 6pm.

And even if you don’t want to be up high, each stilt walk­er will need a bud­dy stay­ing on the ground so there’s a place for every­one, young and old, big or small, high or low.….. we need you at this week­end too!!!

Its all free and lunch is includ­ed.…

We need RSVPs so we know num­bers. Email: stilt.bloc@gmail.com

Oh and its MEXICAN DAY OF THE DEAD theme.….

In Man­ches­ter….

Sat 9th Oct — Mass Action train­ing

Tue 12th Oct — Pub­licly announced rouser for CJA inter­na­tion­al day of action

Crude Awak­en­ing mobil­i­sa­tion

We hope that there will be loads more to fol­low but this is what is lined up so far. If you are plan­ning a build up event let us know so we can adver­tise it please.

There is a huge amount to do to mobi­lize quick­ly for an event this big. Maybe you could organ­ise a film show­ing or talk (we can prob­a­bly send a speak­er if you email us). You could put on an affin­i­ty group or action train­ing work­shop, or host a fundrais­er. You could book a coach and fill it. You could run a work­shop so peo­ple can build prac­ti­cal stuff , for exam­ple a load of dis­pos­able bikes to bring along (email us to let us know if you do make lots of use­ful stuff). You could have a stall and hand out fly­ers at your fresh­ers fair (again email for mate­ri­als). You could make a sten­cil and graf­fi­ti adver­tise for it all across your city/ region. Unless every­one gets involved there is a real dan­ger we won’t get the num­bers we need.
The Crude Awak­en­ing is now on crab­grass! Join it, join a work­ing group and lets get plan­ning! https://we.riseup.net/thecrudeawakening (crab­grass is a lit­tle bit like face­book for activists and is a way of organ­is­ing on line). And sign up for more infor­ma­tion by email and text alerts on the web­site. www.crudeawakening.org.uk. Our face­book page is a lit­tle slow to get off the ground but it will soon be buzzing.

Please also raise The Crude Awak­en­ing as an agen­da point at the next organ­is­ing meet­ing at your Social Centre/ Friends of the Earth Group/ Union/ Cli­mate Camp neighbourhood/ Hous­ing Coop etc. Get peo­ple talk­ing and excit­ed and com­mit­ted to the idea that they are going! If you are not already in a group or affin­i­ty group you are of course still total­ly wel­come. You will prob­a­bly want to make con­tact with some like mind­ed folk to talk things through and make some plans before the big day. For exam­ple you could go to climatecamp.org.uk or risingtide.org.uk and find your local active group, or email us and we can try to sign­post you on. At the least try to get a cou­ple of mates to come with you, so that you have some sup­port as a group of friends (known by activists as an affin­i­ty group).

2. Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions

Q. Nei­ther the web­site nor the fly­er gives much info. What is going on?

A. As you have prob­a­bly twigged there is also a delib­er­ate sense of mys­tery around the action. So often with recent mass actions we have said exact­ly where we are going to go, and the police have had as much time to pre­pare as us, mak­ing things much more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple who want to be involved in mass and effec­tive direct action . With this project we are exper­i­ment­ing a lit­tle bit. The 10 tar­gets are left unspec­i­fied, giv­ing the action more chance of being suc­cess­ful. But at the same time we can open­ly adver­tise that we all need to be in Cen­tral Lon­don so we can get loads of peo­ple togeth­er at the same place at the same time for the mass action. And those peo­ple need to be ready to take action and to have fun. This is not a march and it’s not a camp. This is an action that needs prepa­ra­tion and we can all be involved in most of that preparation….although the tar­gets will be a sur­prise until much lat­er.

We can’t be sure that this mix of secret and pub­lic plan­ning will work, but we can give it a go, have some fun and maybe make some progress…..but maybe, just maybe we have got it total­ly nailed and this will be the best mass action in Lon­don ever! If you don’t show up there it will be dif­fi­cult for you to know. Our advice is don’t miss it 😉

Q. So what do I need to do to pre­pare?

A. Peo­ple need to be ready to move, and to stand their ground. Don’t bring with you any­thing that you can’t eas­i­ly walk with or get on a tube with. But do bring with you stuff that will help you and your affin­i­ty group hold a space in what ever way you feel you want to. Whether you want to bring arm­tubes, dis­pos­able bikes or a huge slow mov­ing met­al and wood­en tow­er with a papi­er-mâché rhi­no head (that can fit on and off a tube!?); diver­si­ty of tac­tics and affin­i­ty group plan­ning are key to this work­ing. Peo­ple can also pre­pare stuff to make this action look beau­ti­ful; pup­pets, masks, ban­ners, a portable molasses fondue……you get the idea.

Q. Why Oil?

A. For a whole host of rea­sons. Here are just a few…..
Because oil com­pa­nies search for new oil reserves to make them­selves rich­er while our cli­mate spins into cri­sis.
Because the UK gov­ern­ment starts wars for oil.
Because of human rights abus­es and mur­der in West Africa.
Because of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon spill.
Because of the destruc­tion of wilder­ness in the Arc­tic and the coast of Rosport in Ire­land.
Because of UK pub­lic mon­ey being used by bailed out banks to fund new oil projects.
Because Lon­don is brim­ming with oil mon­ey, oil spon­sor­ship and oil com­pa­nies.
Because glob­al ener­gy resources are the peo­ples com­mons.
Because oil com­pa­nies and the filthy rich peo­ple who prof­it from them have no place in a sus­tain­able future.
Because Copen­hagen failed and now it’s down to us.
Because oil has had it’s day and it’s time we pulled the plug.

Hope that that made things a lit­tle clear­er. And more spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion will be sent out soon. If you are still strug­gling with the idea, it is a bit like the Great Cli­mate Swoop of 2009, except where we are going is kept secret. Remem­ber, you are being asked to come and move around Lon­don, so stay mobile, be cre­ative, be prepat­ed and be ready to stand your ground. So talk in your affin­i­ty group about the ways in which you are going to be able to hold a space and equip­ment and mate­ri­als that you might want to bring along to help you. The action is open, and will be shaped by the peo­ple who are there. Only the tar­gets and how we are get­ting to them are secret.

3. The call out – please copy and paste and help get this all over the Inter­net!

THE CRUDE AWAKENING

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Floods in Pak­istan, drought in Rus­sia, huge glac­i­ers break­ing up in Green­land…

Our cli­mate sys­tem is rapid­ly slid­ing into cri­sis, as oil com­pa­nies destroy peo­ple’s lives and the envi­ron­ment to keep suck­ing up their prof­its.

Oil sat­u­rates every aspect of our lives. Oil prof­its lubri­cate the finan­cial mar­kets and its spon­sor­ship clings like a bad smell to our cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions. It flows through pipelines to the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries of our cities.

The fail­ure of the UN COP15 process showed us – if there was ever any doubt – that gov­ern­ment and indus­try can’t tack­le cli­mate change. It’s up to us and it’s time to up the ante.

As a move­ment, our actions against coal and avi­a­tion have made a real dif­fer­ence. Now oil’s time is up.

Togeth­er, on Octo­ber 16, let’s give the oil indus­try a Crude Awak­en­ing.

Meet in cen­tral Lon­don. Be ready to move. Be ready to stay and stand your ground.

Be cre­ative. Be pre­pared. Be there.

Find out more, get involved and sign up for text alerts at www.crudeawakening.org.uk
Face­book: http://bit.ly/c6S0kg
Twit­ter: @crudeawake

Part of the CJA glob­al week of action for cli­mate jus­tice
Sup­port­ed by: Space Hijack­ers, Cli­mate Camp, Plane Stu­pid, Ris­ing Tide, Lib­er­ate Tate, Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Insur­rec­tionary Imag­i­na­tion, UK Tar Sands Net­work

Hope to see you on the streets,
Crude Awak­en­ing
crudeawakening.org.uk

Stop Nuclear Power gathering, 23–24 October 2010

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Stop Nuclear Pow­er is a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als tak­ing action against nuclear pow­er. If EdF get their way, Hink­ley C will become the first nuclear pow­er sta­tion built in Britain for 20 years and will sit next to two oth­er radioac­tive and dan­ger­ous sites. Stop Hink­ley is a long run­ning com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign to stop dead­ly nuclear reac­tors oper­at­ing near their homes.
Their strug­gle is our strug­gle. Let’s sit down togeth­er in Bris­tol and make some plans togeth­er.

Hink­ley is the bat­tle­ground, if they get one in there, it opens the door for at least nine oth­er nuclear pow­er sta­tions across the coun­try. This Autumn, the gov­ern­ment is tak­ing its pro-nuclear pro­pa­gan­da on tour around the UK. We’ll be there. Come to the gath­er­ing or send us an email to find out how you can get involved.

www.boycottedf.org.uk

Info for the week­end:

Meet­ing space dur­ing the day on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day tbc but will be in Bris­tol.
Crash space is avail­able on a dry, warm and qui­et floor space.
If you need a bed please get in con­tact with us as soon as pos­si­ble and will try and help you out.
Lunch and din­ner will be done com­mu­nal­ly on Sat­ur­day and lunch on Sun­day.

For a tele­phone num­ber to con­tact dur­ing the week­end send us an email.

Please help by let­ting us know you are com­ing so we can plan for space, food and logis­tics.

Email: nonewnuclear@aktivix.org

Climate Camp Cymru invades Nant Helen opencast site

17th August 2010
Activists from Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru invad­ed Nant Helen open cast coal mine in south Wales ear­li­er today.

Despite dis­pro­por­tion­ate polic­ing at the 2010 camp, groups of activists per­sist­ed in their objec­tives to wit­ness the destruc­tive oper­a­tions at Nant Helen open cast mine, owned by Celtic Ener­gy.

17th August 2010
Activists from Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru invad­ed Nant Helen open cast coal mine in south Wales ear­li­er today.

Despite dis­pro­por­tion­ate polic­ing at the 2010 camp, groups of activists per­sist­ed in their objec­tives to wit­ness the destruc­tive oper­a­tions at Nant Helen open cast mine, owned by Celtic Ener­gy.

The activists entered the coal hole at Nant Helen, where 450,000 tonnes of coal per year are dug out of aClimate Camp Cymru invades Nant Helen open cast coal mine hole approx­i­mate­ly 150m deep and 1.5 x 1 km wide. Celtic Ener­gy have applied for plan­ning per­mis­sion for the mine to expand.

This coal is most­ly des­tined for Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion, to be burnt for elec­tric­i­ty, which is one of the dirt­i­est and most car­bon
inten­sive indus­tri­al process­es.

Activist Ffion Dafys said “rip­ping up moun­tains to dig holes hun­dreds of meters deep destroys the land­scape and the local
envi­ron­ment. The coal removed and burnt will gen­er­ate mil­lions of
tonnes of CO2 over the next four years.”

“Coal seams in Glynn Neath will con­tin­ue to be exploit­ed and extend­ed by open cast min­ing cor­po­ra­tions like Celtic Ener­gy, caus­ing envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion until these oper­a­tions cease. Observ­ing from the bot­tom of the coal hole real­ly brought home the enor­mi­ty of the destruc­tion.”

Climate Camp Cymru is evicted long live Climate Camp Cymru

* * * IMPORTANT UPDATE * * *

15-08-2010 20:55 CLIMATE CAMP CYMRU UP AND RUNNING AGAIN. Hav­ing been evict­ed by South Wales police from a site near Glyn-Neath (see below), Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is now estab­lished on a new site on the Gow­er Penin­su­la near Swansea.
If you fan­cy join­ing the camp, give site a call on 07040909147 and they’ll give you direc­tions and a warm wel­come.

* * * IMPORTANT UPDATE * * *

15-08-2010 20:55 CLIMATE CAMP CYMRU UP AND RUNNING AGAIN. Hav­ing been evict­ed by South Wales police from a site near Glyn-Neath (see below), Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is now estab­lished on a new site on the Gow­er Penin­su­la near Swansea.
If you fan­cy join­ing the camp, give site a call on 07040909147 and they’ll give you direc­tions and a warm wel­come.
http://climatecampcymru.org/

CLIMATE CAMP CYMRU EVICTED

Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru, which was due to con­tin­ue until Tues­day 17th August at Glyn-Neath in South Wales, was evict­ed by the police on its sec­ond day (Sat­ur­day 14th) over alleged com­plaints about pos­si­ble dam­age to the site cho­sen by the campers, a Roman Hill Fort.

SPURIOUS GROUNDS FOR EVICTION

Hav­ing stood by use­less­ly for years while the beau­ti­ful land­scape of the Welsh Val­leys has been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly trashed by open­cast min­ing com­pa­nies, South Wales Police seem to have sud­den­ly devel­oped a touch­ing con­cern for the envi­ron­ment, mov­ing in en masse with riot vans and on horse­back to evict the campers on these spu­ri­ous grounds. While Cli­mate Campers have a deserved rep­u­ta­tion for clear­ing up after them­selves and are unlike­ly to have done more dam­age than stick a few tent pegs in the sacred soil, open­cast min­ing com­pa­nies destroy whole moun­tains | 1 | 2 | and impor­tant wildlife habi­tats with­out the cops appear­ing to notice or care.

We are still await­ing first-hand reports from campers, but Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru has issued a press release which states that Cadw, the gov­ern­ment body respon­si­ble for the site and whose aims, inci­den­tal­ly, are ‘to pro­tect and sus­tain, encour­age com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment in and improve access to the his­toric envi­ron­ment of Wales’, had ‘vis­it­ed the site and accept­ed that the camp could go ahead with police mon­i­tor­ing.’ It seems like­ly that the cops inter­pret­ed this to mean they could stop the camp when­ev­er they want­ed. A spokesper­son for the camp said: ‘This just goes to show the pri­or­i­ties of the cur­rent gov­ern­ment, who are more inter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing cli­mate crim­i­nals like Celtic Ener­gy and in repress­ing those tak­ing action on cli­mate change, than on actu­al­ly tack­ling the cli­mate cri­sis them­selves.’

Ffos y fran coal train verdict + action snaps

13 of us were in court today (13.8.10) to be sen­tenced for blockad­ing the rail­way at Ffos y fran mine back in April, when sev­er­al peo­ple locked on to the tracks in order to stop a train car­ry­ing coal to Aberthaw, the dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion in Wales.

13 of us were in court today (13.8.10) to be sen­tenced for blockad­ing the rail­way at Ffos y fran mine back in April, when sev­er­al peo­ple locked on to the tracks in order to stop a train car­ry­ing coal to Aberthaw, the dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion in Wales.

Ffos y fran train 3

We received con­di­tion­al dis­charges and restrain­ing orders away from the mine and the pow­er sta­tion. Four peo­ple were ordered to pay com­pen­sa­tion costs to Miller Argent, the com­pa­ny who owns the mine, The judge acknowl­edged that the action had been car­ried out care­ful­ly to ensure there would be no dan­ger to any­one.

With their hands in the pock­ets of cor­po­ra­tions, it’s not sur­pris­ing that gov­ern­ments failed us at the Copen­hagen cli­mate sum­mit. We can’t rely on their false solu­tions any­more. It’s up to ordi­nary peo­ple tak­ing direct action to stop cli­mate chaos. Fos­sil fuel extrac­tion dev­as­tates com­mu­ni­ties and is being resist­ed around the world, from open­cast min­ing in Merthyr to tar sands oil in Alber­ta, Cana­da.

Mean­while, Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru set up camp today near Nant Helen and Sel­er open­cast mines, else­where in south Wales.

http://www.risingtide.org.uk

Ffos y fran train 2

Ffos y fran train 1

More cool pho­tos

Climate Camp Cymru meetup point announced

*Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru*
*13 — 17 August*

Open­cast is trash­ing the south Wales land­scape — it’s time to take action…

From mid­day on Fri­day 13th August you are invit­ed to a con­ver­gence space in cen­tral Cardiff. The loca­tion of this space is Cardiff Quak­er Meet­ing House, 43 Charles Street, Cardiff.

*Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru*
*13 — 17 August*

Open­cast is trash­ing the south Wales land­scape — it’s time to take action…

From mid­day on Fri­day 13th August you are invit­ed to a con­ver­gence space in cen­tral Cardiff. The loca­tion of this space is Cardiff Quak­er Meet­ing House, 43 Charles Street, Cardiff.

From here peo­ple will be direct­ed to a train sta­tion, where minibus­es will be avail­able to trans­port peo­ple to the the site. Expe­ri­enced cyclists may wish to bring bikes and cycle to the site.
NB: you will need £4.50 each way for the train fare.

The loca­tion of the site will be announced at approx­i­mate­ly 2pm on Fri­day 13th August.

At 2pm on 13th August peo­ple will be sen­tenced at Merthyr Crown Court for the lock-on to the rail­way line between Ffos-y-Fran and Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion. It would be great if peo­ple could go to the court to sup­port them. Trans­port will be arranged to the site after.

The con­ver­gence space in Cardiff will be open until 5pm. We encour­age every­one who can to reach the site on Fri­day night, although the minibus­es will be avail­able through­out Sat­ur­day from the train sta­tion.

Please watch this space for more detail.

Things to bring:
Tent
Sleep­ing bag
Warm clothes and water­proofs
Plate, bowl, mug and cut­lery
Loo roll

and a bike could be use­ful too

www.climatecampcymru.org
info@climatecampcymru.org
07040 909 147

Legal sup­port phone con­tact dur­ing the camp will be 07587 220197

Trashing, dashing, bashing, mashing: the new EF! Action Update

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

Maybe you’re in need of a break. But if you’re not, and are just champ­ing at the bit, the return of AUn­tie MIffy’s prob­lem page might help, address­ing what to do if there’s no local group near you. There’s an arti­cle about the begin­nings of EF! in this coun­try, look­ing for­wards to the next 20 years, to help inspire. If you need sup­port to get things going where you live, do get in touch. And if all that’s not enough, here’s a quo­ta­tion, from Paul Wat­son, the Sea Shep­herd cap­tain:

“Future gen­er­a­tions will not have the chance and those that came before us did not have the vision nor the knowl­edge. It is up to us — you and I.”

Print ver­sion
Oth­er issues and extra info

Earth First! Summer Gathering set-up plans announced

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We also have a mobile num­ber for set­up which is 07766 947852. This will be on-site from Sat­ur­day lunchtime, and may well get answered in the few days before­hand but please don’t try ring­ing until then — e‑mail will remain the main con­tact point until near­er the time — sum­mer­gath­er­ing -{at}- earthfirst.org.uk

What we need to know:

*Please can you let us know when you are com­ing? — this helps us plan foods, facil­i­ties and what jobs to do when.

*It is also help­ful if you can let us know if you have any par­tic­u­lar skills or inter­ests with respect to set-up — we might need dri­vers, so if you are over 25, hold a clean licence, are con­fi­dent dri­ving a 3.5 tonne Luton AND can bring along both parts of your dri­ving licence please let us know.

*Sim­i­lar­ly if you are arriv­ing in a vehi­cle and could poten­tial­ly pro­vide lifts, trans­port equip­ment en route or run errands from site once you arrive please let us know. In this case it is very help­ful if you are able/willing to sup­ply us with a con­tact phone num­ber.

How to get there

As you maybe aware that we do not announce the exact site of the gath­er­ing until one week before the main event, this means direc­tions will be avail­able on the web­site http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/ from Wednes­day, 27 July. We realise this will be short notice for peo­ple arriv­ing on the Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er to make things eas­i­er we will e‑mail direc­tions to set-up crew on that day (that still 4 days to check a map!).

The near­est train sta­tion is Der­by if you want to pre-book train tick­ets, you will also need to take a local bus ser­vice from Der­by (these are fre­quent). We are aim­ing to have a vehi­cle on site that can assist if peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ties between Der­by and the site, so hope­ful­ly every­one will be able to get there okay.

There may be a very small num­ber of lifts avail­able from the Not­ting­ham area across the week­end of Sat­ur­day 31st July/Sunday first of August. There may also be lifts from the Leeds area first thing on 31 July. Let us know if this may be of inter­est to you.

What to bring

*Every­thing you need to the gath­er­ing, tent sleep­ing bags etc. and espe­cial­ly a torch

*It may be wise to come a bit more self-suf­fi­cient in food and snacks than you would need to for the main gath­er­ing — we will have a basic kitchen but Veg­gies and the tuck shop are not arriv­ing until Wednes­day

*If you are able to bring any tools, espe­cial­ly for basic car­pen­try, these are often use­ful

Big thanks for offer­ing to help out

Do get in touch if you have any ques­tions

Love & rage

The EF! Gath­er­ing crew

summer camps in the UK & Merthyr coal train action sentencing — solidarity demo

The next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

Climate Camp Cymru 2010 logoThe next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

The Peace News Sum­mer Camp is almost upon us in sun­ny Oxford­shire, “an inclu­sive, demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-run five-day expe­ri­ence-in-minia­ture of the kind of world we are try­ing to bring about”. This year, fem­i­nism joins our stand­ing themes of peace and jus­tice.
http://peacenewscamp.info/

The EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is of course in ear­ly August in the beau­ti­ful Peak Dis­trict. “5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low- impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers. Meet and share skills with oth­ers who care. Plan actions and cam­paigns. Have fun. We’ve got over 80 work­shops, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘Where Next’ ses­sions planned, get in touch if you want to offer a work­shop! ”
A tonne of var­ied and amaz­ing work­shops and train­ing ses­sions, full details at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2010/front.html

And the Welsh Cli­mate Camp is in mid-August (see call­out below), “a basic ‘lite’ action-focused camp in South Wales; with its atten­tion fixed firm­ly on coal. This will be linked to a sis­ter-site /in­fo-shop in Cardiff which will act as a point of con­tact before and dur­ing the camp. Work­shops will be most­ly lim­it­ed to action-based train­ing and infor­ma­tion although there will be space to hear from com­mu­ni­ty cam­paigns and open dis­cus­sion forums through­out the camp.”
http://climatecampcymru.org/?page_id=1000

The UK Camp for Cli­mate Action is head­ing north to Edin­burgh at the end of August, “Our sus­tain­able and col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised base­camp will give you the chance to learn, train up, and meet like mind­ed indi­vid­u­als. Excit­ing action plans are cur­rent­ly in the plot­ting stages, so watch this space.”
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010

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Open cast is trash­ing the south Wales land­scape
It’s time to take action
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru
13 – 17 August

A momen­tum is build­ing. Last year we camped next to Ffos y Fran — one of the largest open­cast mines in Europe — for a week of work­shops and sus­tain­able liv­ing. This sum­mer we’re going back to basics with a light action-based camp, tar­get­ing coal some­where in south Wales.

Our cur­rent eco­nom­ic sys­tem is based on an addic­tion to fos­sil fuels and on max­imis­ing prof­it at the expense of peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. Fos­sil fuel cor­po­ra­tions can­not be allowed to progress unchecked. We need green jobs for Wales, not dirty destruc­tion.

On the 13th we’ll meet in Cardiff and make our way from there to the site.
Things to bring:

> Tent
> Sleep­ing bag
> Warm clothes and water­proofs
> Plate, bowl, mug and cut­lery
> and a bike could be use­ful too

Burn­ing coal is destroy­ing our cli­mate, while open­cast min­ing dam­ages the earth and the health of local peo­ple. We must leave it in the ground.

Join a grow­ing num­ber of ordi­nary peo­ple tak­ing direct action, and explor­ing alter­na­tives, to stop the mad­ness that is destroy­ing the earth. This August 13th ‑17th come to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru.

www.climatecampcymru.org
info@climatecampcymru.org
07040 909 147

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Head­ing to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru on August 13th? 13 peo­ple who block­ad­ed the rail­way at Ffos y Fran open­cast mine in April are being sen­tenced at Merthyr Crown Court that day at 2pm. Why not drop by around 1pm for a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo.