Category: Wales

Wales

International bike ride links communities in resistance: Merthyr to Mayo cyclist

22.5.2010
Today, a 50-strong inter­na­tion­al bike ride begins the 400 mile jour­ney from a com­mu­ni­ty resist­ing Britain’s largest open cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil, Wales to Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, where local peo­ple have spent the last ten years fight­ing a Shell-led gas devel­op­ment. We aim to offer direct sup­port to these two local cam­paigns resist­ing the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

22.5.2010
Today, a 50-strong inter­na­tion­al bike ride begins the 400 mile jour­ney from a com­mu­ni­ty resist­ing Britain’s largest open cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil, Wales to Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, where local peo­ple have spent the last ten years fight­ing a Shell-led gas devel­op­ment. We aim to offer direct sup­port to these two local cam­paigns resist­ing the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

30 cyclists from the UK will join the “Madrid to Mayo” cycle ride in Cork, and many oth­ers from Ire­land are expect­ed to join on route. We will spend ten days trav­el­ing up the west coast of Ire­land, dis­trib­ut­ing a spe­cial­ly pro­duced news­pa­per, “Chang­ing Times”. Events are being held along the way, each night we’re being host­ed by dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions, and we’ll arrive in Mayo for the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp June Bank Hol­i­day Week­end Gath­er­ing at Glen­gad.

It’s gonna be a good laugh, but hope­ful­ly more than that — the line we are draw­ing from Merthyr to Mayo is a reminder that none of us can afford to see these places in iso­la­tion.

The ride begins today with an event in Merthyr Tyd­fil where local res­i­dents and the sol­i­dar­i­ty cyclists are shar­ing sto­ries, ideas, music and food.

“Our com­mu­ni­ties’ sto­ries are repeat­ed across the globe in the places where fos­sil fuels are sourced. Large cor­po­ra­tions move into areas regard­less of the wish­es of the affect­ed pop­u­la­tion; resources are extract­ed and, whilst the cor­po­ra­tions reap vast prof­its, the local peo­ple have to suf­fer the health and envi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences. And, as the fos­sil fuels are burnt they con­tribute to cli­mate change, affect­ing every­one.” — Merthyr res­i­dent, Alyson Austin.

Both com­mu­ni­ties have a long his­to­ry of resis­tance, and their efforts have result­ed in amaz­ing suc­cess­es. In Erris, Mayo, the cam­paign won a size­able vic­to­ry in Novem­ber last year, when Shell’s appli­ca­tion for their onshore gas pipeline was effec­tive­ly refused by the plan­ning author­i­ties; it is unclear when (or if) per­mis­sion will be grant­ed in the future. In Merthyr Tyd­fil, cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly tak­ing out a Group Pri­vate Nui­sance case against the min­ing com­pa­ny, Miller Argent. Sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of local peo­ple are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the legal action which aims to lim­it the mine’s impact on res­i­dents. Cli­mate activists recent­ly did a sol­i­dar­i­ty action by blockad­ing coal trains head­ed from the mine to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion. In recent months, Mayo has seen string of actions local­ly, nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers Pat O’Don­nell and Niall Har­nett (more infor­ma­tion on the pris­on­ers and how to write to them, and the cam­paign in gen­er­al, on the shell to sea web­site.)

Please join us on the ride, for the gath­er­ing, and in con­tin­ued resis­tance against patri­ar­chal white-suprema­cist cap­i­tal­ist impe­ri­al­ism, and the fight for social and eco­log­i­cal jus­tice!

http://www.merthyrtomayo.org.uk

The new Action Update — full of of action news and analysis

In the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Newcastle flotilla blockadeIn the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Be inspired by our protest camp fea­ture and the recent Tit­nore vic­to­ry. And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against whal­ing ship sab­o­tage, coal port pirates, riots in Zagreb, min­ing firm occu­pa­tions in Bolivia, dam resis­tance in Brazil and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10.pdf

Coal Action Network website relaunched!

Check out http://coalaction.org.uk/ for the updat­ed and re-vamped Coal Action Net­work web­site and detailed coal maps of the UK. It is hoped that this web­site will be a use­ful resource to any­one tak­ing action – or think­ing of tak­ing action – to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties, envi­ron­ments and the cli­mate sys­tem from coal projects.

Check out http://coalaction.org.uk/ for the updat­ed and re-vamped Coal Action Net­work web­site and detailed coal maps of the UK. It is hoped that this web­site will be a use­ful resource to any­one tak­ing action – or think­ing of tak­ing action – to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties, envi­ron­ments and the cli­mate sys­tem from coal projects.

The CAN web­site will be kept up-to-date with recent news from cam­paigns and the indus­try. Have a look at The Coal Maps – map­ping coal across the UK, con­tacts page for cam­paigns and groups active on coal, use­ful resources for cam­paign groups, argu­ments against new coal, upcom­ing events and links to infor­ma­tion and oth­er issues. You can get in touch to con­tribute updates and infor­ma­tion and sign up to the CAN email list.

Through this web­site we aim to help link com­mu­ni­ty strug­gles and arm our­selves with the infor­ma­tion we need to resist new open cast coal mines and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions.

Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade — Action Report (and ‘Pictures’)

An action report as promised.
All cam­eras were seized by police — instead sketch­es have been drawn to doc­u­ment the action.

An action report as promised.
All cam­eras were seized by police — instead sketch­es have been drawn to doc­u­ment the action.

A group of indi­vid­u­als who met through the Ris­ing Tide net­work and were inspired to take direct action against the route caus­es of cli­mate change. They main­tain an 8‑hour block­ade of coal trains car­ry­ing fuel from Ffos-y-Fran open-cast coal mine to Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion.
Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade 1
An aer­i­al view of the mine, the protest groups and the police response

ACTION

On 26th April 2010 in the ear­ly after­noon a group of indi­vid­u­als made their pres­ence known to staff and secu­ri­ty at Ffos-y-Fran open-cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil. Hav­ing ensured their pres­ence around the tracks was known and no trains would be leav­ing until they were removed, they pro­ceed­ed to lock them­selves to the train track using chains and super glue. This sin­gle track is used to trans­port train-loads of mined coal to Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion, and the first and only train for the day was due to leave soon after. Legal observers and sup­port were present.

It took a long time for police to make the lengthy jour­ney from the near­est police sta­tion, how­ev­er they sent their friend­ly neigh­bour­hood heli­copter on plen­ty of point­less gas-guz­zling jaunts around the area. Once the police prop­er­ly arrived they imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed the four sup­port peo­ple, placed them in hand­cuffs and made them wait beside the track while a cut­ting team arrived to remove the group who had locked on to the rails. Despite the hand­cuffs, the sup­port team con­tin­ued to pro­vide food and water to the lock-on team. Lat­er the police also arrest­ed the legal observ­er who was clear­ly on the oth­er side of the fence and not on the track. After approx­i­mate­ly 4 and a half hours of lengthy response times and a paper-chain of police bureau­cra­cy that group was removed and arrest­ed.

Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade 2The first group locked on com­plete with wash­ing-line ban­ner

As this group of peo­ple were being led off the train tracks they informed the police of some incred­i­bly irri­tat­ing news. A sec­ond group had been hid­ing just round the cor­ner and were as they spoke emerg­ing and lock­ing onto the tracks with heavy duty lock-on tubes. Clear­ly too exhaust­ed from their hard work oper­at­ing bolt crop­pers to take a quick stroll down the line to check this out, the heli­copter took to the skies once more. One quick swoop con­firmed what it had failed to notice on its many swoops ear­li­er — four pro­test­ers with a legal observ­er and sup­port, cheer­ful­ly wav­ing from the train track before, now final­ly sure their pres­ence had been not­ed, calm­ly tak­ing their places on roll mats and rugs and lock­ing on inside two lock-on tubes placed in con­ve­nient gaps under the rail­way line. By this point it was 5.00pm.

A net­work rail engi­neer ran a cou­ple of hun­dred metres down the tracks to check upon the new group. The police drove. Again on arrival they imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed the legal observ­er and sup­port, who were cheer­ful­ly read­ing a nov­el to those locked. Despite fail­ing to pro­duce on demand a Risk Assess­ment of the cut­ting oper­a­tion (but plen­ty of whing­ing about how dan­ger­ous it is) it took the cops until 8pm to cut open the tubes — one of which was mul­ti-lay­ered, and the oth­er of which had a very thick met­al lay­er. A spe­cial groan was reserved for when they realised the pro­test­ers had not just chained but also super­glued their hands togeth­er inside the tubes and had to send for some indus­tri­al glue remover.

Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade 3The sec­ond group flag­ging down the chop­per before lock­ing on

All arrest­ed were tak­en to Ystrad Mynach Police Sta­tion. This includ­ed four peo­ple who were enjoy­ing a nice day out in the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ing coun­try­side, who the police arrest­ed out of some kind of belief that they were in some way involved. In total 18 were arrest­ed and spent 24 hours in the cells. It is believed that no coal left Ffos-y-Fran that day.

Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade 4The sec­ond group in posi­tion

CONSEQUENCES

All arrest­ed were tak­en to Ystrad Mynach Police Sta­tion. This includ­ed four peo­ple who were enjoy­ing a nice day out in the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ing coun­try­side, who the police arrest­ed out of some kind of belief that they were in some way involved. In total 18 were arrest­ed and spent 24 hours in the cells.

It appears that legal observers and sup­port roles were orig­i­nal­ly arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of con­spir­a­cy, how­ev­er they were sub­se­quent­ly charged with the same charge as those who had locked on. All 18 were even­tu­al­ly charged with “Unlaw­ful Act With Intent To Obstruct The Rail­ways” con­trary to sec­tion 35 of the Mali­cious Dam­age Act 1861. This rather quaint law designed to pro­tect the inter­ests of pri­vate landown­ers over 150 years ago car­ries a rather less quaint max­i­mum sen­tence of life in prison. How­ev­er the pro­test­ers have stat­ed that they are not antic­i­pat­ing any­thing approach­ing that kind of sen­tence as the law is obvi­ous­ly out of date and ample safe­ty mea­sures were tak­en to ensure there would be no dan­ger to the train, the train dri­ver, the police or the pro­test­ers.

All were bailed to return to Merthyr Tyd­fil Mag­is­trates Court at 10am on 10th May 2010. All were bailed “not to be upon or allow your­self to be upon any prop­er­ty owned, leased or rent­ed by British rail net­work”. They were allowed to trav­el home by train that day how­ev­er any future train trips had to be cleared by arrest­ing offi­cers. Those who gave fixed address­es were bailed to reside at those address­es. Those who did not give fixed address­es were bailed to reside at con­tact address­es, despite mak­ing it clear they did not have any per­mis­sion to live there and had no con­nec­tion with those address­es oth­er than being able to receive post from those address­es. Some were also bailed to sign in reg­u­lar­ly at local police sta­tions. One of those arrest­ed was bailed to reside in Corn­wall but sign in dai­ly at Bath Police Sta­tion with­out the use of trains!

CLIMATE PROTESTERS FACE LIFE SENTENCES AFTER COAL TRAIN BLOCKADE

On Mon­day 26th April, peo­ple involved in the Ris­ing Tide Net­work
lit­er­al­ly put their necks on the line by blockad­ing the rail­track which
car­ries coal from the con­tro­ver­sial open-cast mine at Ffos-y-Fran in
Merthyr Tyd­fil to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion.

On Mon­day 26th April, peo­ple involved in the Ris­ing Tide Net­work
lit­er­al­ly put their necks on the line by blockad­ing the rail­track which
car­ries coal from the con­tro­ver­sial open-cast mine at Ffos-y-Fran in
Merthyr Tyd­fil to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion. It took the com­bined efforts
of British Rail Police and South Wales Police over 8 hours to remove the
last of the pro­test­ers at 8.10pm on Mon­day evening.

18 Peo­ple from Bris­tol and Bath are due in court on 10th May, charged
under the Mali­cious Dam­ages Act of 1861, a law to pro­tect the inter­ests
of 19th Cen­tu­ry rail own­ers. If con­vict­ed they face any­thing up to a
life sen­tence in prison. The 18 Peo­ple, who are part of the Ris­ing Tide
(UK) Net­work were held for over 24 hours, and were only allowed to phone
out after 11.00 am yes­ter­day (Tues­day). The house of one of those
involved was raid­ed by 8 police offi­cers who spent 3 hours search­ing
their home.

Kim Green from Ris­ing Tide (UK) said:

“We are protest­ing the con­tin­ued extrac­tion and burn­ing of fos­sil fuels
in the face of a glob­al cli­mate emer­gency. The fail­ure of the Copen­hagen
cli­mate talks to deal with this huge prob­lem, and the obvi­ous pol­i­cy
inad­e­qua­cy the three main UK par­ties con­test­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion to
take the nec­es­sary action to tack­le the prob­lem has high­light­ed the need
for the peo­ple to take grass-roots direct action.”

Kim Green con­tin­ues:

“This action is also in sup­port of the local peo­ple of Merthyr Tyd­fil
whose cam­paign ‘Res­i­dents Against Ffos-y-Fran’ has been fight­ing the
mine for over six years. The mine caus­es noise pol­lu­tion for up to 16
hours a day, dust and dirt are car­ried into the town by the wind, and it
turns the rain black.”

The process by which Miller-Argent were able to get the go ahead to
exploit this resource at the social cost of both the local and glob­al
com­mu­ni­ty failed to take into con­sid­er­a­tion the social-envi­ron­men­tal
impact of such projects, high­light­ing the demo­c­ra­t­ic deficit in the
plan­ning process. The new­ly formed quan­go “The Plan­ning Com­mis­sion” will
only make these things worse, being able to ignore any con­sid­er­a­tion in
favour of prof­it.

Miller Argent have been quick to pres­sure their small work­force into
mobil­is­ing against local con­cerns — but their appar­ent con­cern for their
work­ers is betrayed by the fact that they are actu­al­ly look­ing to sell
the mine as there is only half the quan­ti­ty of high qual­i­ty coal as they
ini­tial­ly believed. They are in fact mak­ing a loss on the project.

On the poten­tial life sen­tence, a spokesper­son for the 18 said:

“We would not antic­i­pate fac­ing any such penal­ty as we took great care
to ensure the safe­ty of all tak­ing part and had made cer­tain that the
coal train would not leave the load­ing area before the line was blocked.”

“This was a care­ful­ly planned action: hence it’s suc­cess. How­ev­er, we
admit that it was a dras­tic course of action but even this bare­ly
match­es the cli­mate cri­sis we will face if much more rad­i­cal mea­sures
are not tak­en now.”

All 18 have been bailed to appear at Merthyr Tyd­fill Mag­is­trates Court
on 10th May at 10.00 am.

*** Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion is the biggest pol­luter in Wales. In 2006 it
released 7.4. mil­lion tonnes of Co2. It is Pro­ject­ed to run until 2025
with NO PLANS to fit car­bon cap­ture stor­age (CCS) tech­nol­o­gy. 40% of the
coal for the pow­er sta­tion is sup­plied by Ffos-Y-Fran. It was tar­get­ed
by Bris­tol & Cardiff Ris­ing Tide in 2008.

*** Miller Argent own and run Ffos-Y-Fran. Argent are in turn owned by
the BT Pen­sions Group. Both of these organ­i­sa­tions make much of their
eth­i­cal and sus­tain­able prac­tices. But in this case they seem to be
plac­ing prof­its over and above any ele­ment of social respon­si­bil­i­ty.

People Needed to Stop the Slaughter — Save the Welsh Badgers

The Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to slaugh­ter thou­sands of bad­gers, in South West Wales,over the next five years as part of their “plan” to erad­i­cate bovine TB. This despite all the evi­dence from pre­vi­ous culls that bad­gers do not con­tribute to the spread of the dis­ease.

Get direct­ly involved in stop­ping the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­men­t’s ille­gal and immoral slaugh­ter of Welsh bad­gers.

The Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to slaugh­ter thou­sands of bad­gers, in South West Wales,over the next five years as part of their “plan” to erad­i­cate bovine TB. This despite all the evi­dence from pre­vi­ous culls that bad­gers do not con­tribute to the spread of the dis­ease.

Get direct­ly involved in stop­ping the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­men­t’s ille­gal and immoral slaugh­ter of Welsh bad­gers.

The five year slaugh­ter, cost­ing mil­lions to the tax pay­er, is noth­ing more than a sop to the dairy farm­ing indus­try which refus­es to accept that its own bad prac­tices and poor hus­bandry are caus­ing the spread of the dis­ease and is look­ing for a scape­goat.

If this cull is deemed a suc­cess it may well be rolled out to the rest of the UK so it is impor­tant we act now to stop the whole­sale slaugh­ter of this harm­less, native ani­mal.

Please con­tact us at: savethewelshbadger@googlemail.com if you wish to get direct­ly involved in stop­ping the cull.

For more infor­ma­tion on the cull please see:
http://www.badger-killers.co.uk/
http://www.pembrokeshireagainstthecull.org.uk/
http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/wildlife//2283/

Upcoming action dates & activist gatherings, 2010 — updated

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010
Glob­al Min­ga for Moth­er Earth

12–16 Octo­ber 2010
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice, CJA call-out

13 Octo­ber 2010
It’s Ham­mer­time! — Smash EDO

16 Octo­ber 2010
Crude Awak­en­ing — big oil day of action in Lon­don City

23–24 Octo­ber 2010
Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK Gath­er­ing, Bris­tol

10–12 Decem­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

=========

Old dates from this cal­en­dar:

2010

15–17 Jan­u­ary 2010
Peace News Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

23–26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Main­shill Pre-Evic­tion Gath­er­ing

5–7 Feb­ru­ary 2010
EF! Win­ter Moot, North East Eng­land

12–14 Feb­ru­ary 2010
UK Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

19–21 Feb­ru­ary 2010
Camp for Cli­mate Action nation­al ‘where next?’ gath­er­ing, Bris­tol — region­al ones hap­pen­ing over Jan­u­ary & Feb­ru­ary (details here)

26–28 Feb­ru­ary 2010
No Bor­ders Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

14 March 2010
UK Tar Sands Cam­paign Gath­er­ing, York

11am till 6pm (Veg­an lunch by dona­tion)
With BP’s AGM just 1 month away, and 2 weeks of actions planned for 1st to 15th April, come and con­nect with oth­er UK-based Tar Sands cam­paign­ers, share ideas and cre­ate actions. We’ll be look­ing at strate­gies and actions for tar­get­ing Shell, BP and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land — Britain’s Dirty Three­some on Tar Sands invest­ment.

We’re meet­ing in Der­went Col­lege, York Uni­ver­si­ty, room D/056 — from the sta­tion or city cen­tre, take bus num­ber 4 to the very last stop, walk back about 50 meters, and the road entrance to the col­lege is signed on the left. D/056 is accessed from the out­side, beyond the din­ing hall and ponds.

1 April 2010
Fos­sil Fools Day

1–4 April 2010
The Hunt­ing­ton Lane Fos­sil Fools week­end con­ver­gence

1–15 April 2010
BP Fort­night of Shame
includ­ing Lon­don Mass Action

17–18 April 2010
Social Cen­tres in a Time of Cri­sis, Leeds
A week­end of work­shops, dis­cus­sions and social­is­ing for every­one with an inter­est in rad­i­cal autonomous social cen­tres

22–23 April 2010
anti-avi­a­tion 48 hours of stick­er-whack­ing, sub­ver­tis­ing, adbust­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um

23–26 April 2010
Anti-nuclear Camp, Suf­folk — see lat­est EF!AU for details

6–10 May 2010
Activist Tat train­ing week: putting up mar­quees, erect­ing and mend­ing flat pack toi­lets, as well as tech­ni­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal (pow­er, plumb­ing etc) skill­shar­ing

15 May 2010
Par­ty at the Pumps 2

21 May‑5 June 2010
Merthyr to Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty bike ride — Cli­mate Chains

5–8 June 2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Gath­er­ing, Ire­land

11–19 June 2010
World Naked Bike Ride — 11 June: Man­ches­ter, Southamp­ton; 12 June, Cardiff, Edin­burgh, Lon­don; 13 June: Brighton, Bris­tol; 19 June, Sheffield, York

18–21 June 2010
Out­door Skill­share, Scot­land

19 June 2010
Nation­al Gath­er­ing of the Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work, Lon­don

25 June-31 August 2010
Eco­topia Bike­tour, from Crit­i­cal Mass, Towards Car Free Cities Con­fer­ence, to the French & Ger­man cli­mate camps and much in between.

6–12 July 2010
Anti-Indus­tri­al Land Defence Action Camp, Cat­alo­nia
Go only if you can speak Cata­lan or Span­ish — http://acampadaderesistencies.blogspot.com

14–22 July 2010
Nordic cli­mate action camp, South­ern Swe­den

22 July‑1 August 2010
French Camp Action Cli­mat, near Le Havre

22 July‑2 August 2010
Swiss cli­mate camp Fr / De

23–27 July 2010
Peace News Sum­mer Camp, Oxford­shire

29 July‑4 August 2010
Bel­gian Cli­mate Camp, near Liege

4–9 August 2010
EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Der­byshire

12–16 August 2010
Irish Cli­mate Camp, Coun­ty Tyrone

13–17 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru

21–24 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp tar­gets RBS in Edin­burgh: Action Days

21–29 August 2010
Ger­man Kli­macamp, near Erke­lenz

27–30 August 2010
Nation­al Ani­mal Rights Gath­er­ing, near Northamp­ton

27–29 August 2010
Dutch Earth First! Gath­er­ing and CJA meet­ing — Groen Front!

Activist Tat training week

There will be a free AT Co-op train­ing week in Not­ting­ham, from Thurs­day 6th of May to Mon­day 10th of May 2010.

There will be a free AT Co-op train­ing week in Not­ting­ham, from Thurs­day 6th of May to Mon­day 10th of May 2010.

This will include putting up mar­quees, erect­ing and mend­ing the flat pack toi­lets and paint­ing them for beau­ty and dura­bil­i­ty, as well as all the tech­ni­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal (pow­er, plumb­ing etc) skill­shar­ing that launched the site crews of the No Bor­ders Camp in Calais, and the Camp for Cli­mate Action in Black­heath in 2009.

We would like to see 50 new peo­ple there. We can cope with 70 if they are
con­sid­er­ate and co-oper­a­tive.

You can come for the whole week or just a cou­ple of days. We’ll share the cost of excel­lent veg­an food, and bring sleep­ing bags for the friend­liest floors in For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham. E‑mail jed2f4[at]yahoo.co.uk if you’re com­ing.

======

Do you have equip­ment? Spaces activist groups can use? Skills you would like to share with oth­ers? ATC are cur­rent­ly doing an audit of grass­roots move­ments to see what mate­ri­als we have and what we have to offer each oth­er. Please take part in our ques­tion­naire, and help us cre­ate a strong net­work where we share skills and mate­ri­als.

The AT Coop­er­a­tive (com­mon­ly known as ‘activist tat col­lec­tive’) is a group of peo­ple who have come togeth­er to pro­vide equip­ment, trans­port and train­ing for grass­roots move­ments. The aims of the group are as fol­lows:

1. To source and pro­vide equip­ment for events to grass­roots cam­paigns at below com­mer­cial rates, by using exist­ing resources and pur­chas­ing new mate­ri­als.

2. To train peo­ple up in essen­tial skills for putting on out­door events.

3. To be a point of con­tact for indi­vid­u­als and groups seek­ing who are hap­py for oth­ers to use their equip­ment or who want to pass on their skills.

In all this, ATC aims to be as pro­fes­sion­al as pos­si­ble, main­tain­ing and stor­ing equip­ment respon­si­bly and ensur­ing that it is returned or replaced. This will reduce waste and free up valu­able time for actu­al cam­paign­ing!

There is a lot more infor­ma­tion on our web­site, so please read on.

http://www.atcoop.org.uk

Earth First! Summer Gathering, 4th — 9th Aug 2010, Derbyshire — location & programme announced/set-up plans & call-out

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme
Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

What’s hap­pen­ing?
Over 80 work­shops, dis­cus­sions, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘where next’ ses­sions:

*Share and learn skills for kick-ass actions on land and water.
Small boat han­dling and blockad­ing using kayaks / Blockad­ing — tripods, lock-ons/ Fences / Climb­ing skills / Action recon­nais­sance / Secu­ri­ty for Activists / Strat­e­gy and tac­tics / How to research cor­po­ra­tions /

*Net­work cur­rent cam­paigns against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion
Open-cast min­ing / Genet­ic engi­neer­ing / Agro­fu­els / Sav­ing Ice­land / Cli­mate actions / Pipeline resis­tance in Ross­port / Anti-nuclear / Air­port expansion/ Tar Sands

*Think about eco-cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tive ways of organ­is­ing
Deep green ethics / Anar­chist eco­nom­ics / Anar­chist his­to­ry / Rad­i­cal Pol­i­tics / Work­ing with­out leaders/ Con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing

*Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy / Restora­tion ecol­o­gy / Flo­ra and Fau­na iden­ti­fi­ca­tion / Veg­an Cake mak­ing / Pow­er from solar and wind / wild food / Squat­ting / Bike main­te­nance

As well as inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns round-up, net­work­ing and plan­ning for future actions.

Cost and prac­ti­cal things
£20–30 accord­ing to what you can afford.
The gath­er­ing is in Der­byshire, the exact loca­tion will be announced the week before. More info on our web­site.

Find out more and join in!

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

We have now a stack of fresh­ly print­ed posters adver­tis­ing the gath­er­ing. If you’d like to send you some to stick up in your area or to take to events, fes­ti­vals and the like, please email us. Alter­na­tive­ly you can also down­load the files and print your own. They are fair­ly large files! EF! gath­er­ing poster (A4)

We are now look­ing for peo­ple to run work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the gath­er­ing. Please con­tact us if you can offer some­thing. Have a look at our pro­gramme page to see the kind of thing we’re look­ing for.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ NOSPAM _ @ _ NOSPAM earthfirst.org.uk

Plane Stupid issues 48hr subvertising challenge

It’s that time of year when every air­line starts aggres­sive­ly adver­tis­ing for your busi­ness. Well, we’ve had enough. Plane Stu­pid is invit­ing all of you to take part in its very own sub­ver­tis­ing com­pe­ti­tion.

Sticker kidIt’s that time of year when every air­line starts aggres­sive­ly adver­tis­ing for your busi­ness. Well, we’ve had enough. Plane Stu­pid is invit­ing all of you to take part in its very own sub­ver­tis­ing com­pe­ti­tion. From Thurs­day 22nd April — Fri­day 23rd April, we’ll be launch­ing 48 hours of stick­er-whack­ing, sub­ver­tis­ing, adbust­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um.

The avi­a­tion indus­try spends mil­lions every year telling us that we’re no good to any­one unless we keep fly­ing with them. So it’s time to hit back! Like tobac­co adverts, avi­a­tion adver­tis­ing needs to become a thing of the past. But until then, let’s sub­ver­tise. Any poster, advert or bill­board is fair game.

Whether you’re a first time activist look­ing for an easy way-in, or an old timer look­ing for some light relief.….….it’s time to take to the streets and reclaim some pub­lic space. Tak­ing part is easy:

1. You can down­load a choice of designs from our Flickr site, or use your design skills to make your own.
2. Print them out on stan­dard, non divid­ed, A4 stick­er paper (avail­able from most print­ers and sta­tion­ers).
3. Then find your near­est avi­a­tion adver­tise­ment.
4. Stick ’em up punk!
5. Take pho­tographs, set up a new tem­po­rary email address in an inter­net cafe (under a pseu­do­nym) and email your images to info@planestupid.com.

The group who stick­ers the most adverts in the 48 hour peri­od wins. Wins what? Prizes! We got the bumper crop of 5 spray cans, Cul­ture Jam by Kalle Lasn, Do It Your­self, A hand­book for chang­ing our world, by the Trapese Col­lec­tive and Scrib­ble­boy by Philip Rid­ley to give away.

Of course don’t feel lim­it­ed to indi­vid­ual stick­ers, think big! You can write your own mes­sage on large stretch­es of blank wall paper to cov­er whole bill boards. Make up some wall paper paste, get a paint roller, a stick it up. If nec­es­sary — attach the roller to a broom han­dle for those hard to reach places. Help­ful­ly, there’s some great how-to guides on t’in­ter­net.

One last point. Please be respect­ful about where you stick­er. Cor­po­rate nas­ties are fine.….but the local old peo­ple’s homes may not appre­ci­ate your art on their walls!

Use your head, and remem­ber to dress well for the occa­sion — caps and scarves are the in thing this sub­ver­tis­ing sea­son. Some offi­cers of the law may be con­vinced that sub­ver­tis­ing is bor­der­line ille­gal, so take a friend as look­out, keep an eye open for CCTV and don’t get caught.