Category: Yorkshire & The Humber

York­shire & the Hum­ber

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

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

UK arrests & raids, possibly climate action related

At lunchtime on Wednes­day 26th May two address­es in Belper, Der­byshire, were raid­ed by the North York­shire Counter Ter­ror­ist Unit.

At lunchtime on Wednes­day 26th May two address­es in Belper, Der­byshire, were raid­ed by the North York­shire Counter Ter­ror­ist Unit.

One woman from The Sail­boat Project was arrest­ed on charges of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit crim­i­nal dam­age. She has since been released with­out charge, but bailed to return to the police sta­tion in two months (no bail con­di­tions). Large quan­ti­ties of prop­er­ty was con­fis­cat­ed, includ­ing IT equip­ment and mobile phones belong­ing to the arrestee and to oth­er res­i­dents & vis­i­tors in the house at the time. Anoth­er woman who was away, today hand­ed her­self in to North York­shire police in Sus­sex and has been ques­tioned and released.

One address in Shole­broke Avenue, Leeds was vis­it­ed by police look­ing for spe­cif­ic peo­ple iden­ti­fied as hav­ing tak­en part in kayak train­ing run by the Sail­boat Project in North York­shire in April. The train­ing was pub­licly adver­tised and well attend­ed. The police ques­tioned one indi­vid­ual. Ques­tions includ­ed:
— what oth­er groups are they part of
— why were they on the train­ing
— who else was on the train­ing
— were they plan­ning to take action against pow­er sta­tions

The pre­vi­ous day (Tues­day 25th), police searched the premis­es of a dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tion not involved in boats, but with links to var­i­ous gath­er­ings. Noth­ing was tak­en. The war­rant was under the Ter­ror­ism Act and is pos­si­bly relat­ed.

We are not aware of any oth­er con­tact by the police, but plen­ty of oth­er peo­ple were on the train­ing…

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.

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!

Nottingham, Sheffield & Leeds Sabs January – March

Anoth­er busy few months of sab­bing

Fox­es, hares, and our group alike had a few days off from the sick­en­ing dis­play of vio­lence and stu­pid­i­ty that is hunt­ing this Decem­ber and Jan­u­ary. Divine inter­ven­tion, in the form of snow, ice and frost meant that many hunts can­celled sev­er­al meets.

Fox in snowAnoth­er busy few months of sab­bing

Fox­es, hares, and our group alike had a few days off from the sick­en­ing dis­play of vio­lence and stu­pid­i­ty that is hunt­ing this Decem­ber and Jan­u­ary. Divine inter­ven­tion, in the form of snow, ice and frost meant that many hunts can­celled sev­er­al meets.

We were out again on Jan­u­ary 16th and had a go at find­ing some much over­looked bea­gles, with­out suc­cess. So we decid­ed to call in late on the Badsworth & Bramham Moor hunt. The hunt, who on this occa­sion totaled only 10 or so rid­ers and about 10 sup­port­ers, took one look at us, changed course and head­ed straight back to their meet!

We helped Cum­bria Sabs with a Mon­day vis­it to the Ull­swa­ter hunt on Jan 25th. This hunt had not been sabbed for 20 years due to their vio­lent rep­u­ta­tion, but on sight of around 15 sabs, they decid­ed to run, and hide in the car park of an agri­cul­tur­al col­lege — all day. Result!

We vis­it­ed the Quorn hunt for the first time in 5 or more years, with Mersey­side Sabs at the end of Jan. They too took one look at us and packed up imme­di­ate­ly, claim­ing the weath­er was­n’t suit­able for hunt­ing! With some sabs escort­ing the Quorn back to their ken­nels, oth­ers went on to the near­by Meynell & South Staffs hunt. At the Meynell a fox was seen by sabs and hunt staff in the same field as the hounds, but due to our pres­ence, the hunts­man hunt­ed the hounds along the fox­es’ scent, in the oppo­site direc­tion, leav­ing the fox to run free. Lat­er in the day we saw hunt staff again tak­ing action to ensure the hounds did­n’t hunt in front of our cam­eras. We know that this hunt (like all the oth­ers), kills fox­es when left to their own devices.

On Feb 6th we paid a vis­it to the South Wold hunt, who had not been sabbed for a long time. The hunt spent a good while lin­ger­ing round the back of a farm pon­der­ing what to do about us. Although they even­tu­al­ly shot off, los­ing us for a while, we caught up with them, took con­trol of their hounds, and packed them up ear­ly — a time­ly reminder to all hunts that though per­haps rarely vis­it­ed, none are for­got­ten. On the way home, keen-eyed sabs spot­ted a lurcher rac­ing through a near­by field. Jump­ing out of the van again, we found a guy out hare cours­ing, and swift­ly saw him off.

The next day we sabbed a group of about 8 fer­reters near Leeds. They had sad­ly killed at least 3 rab­bits before we arrived — a strong reminder of why sab­bing is need­ed. The group were clear­ly intim­i­dat­ed by our pres­ence and packed up as soon as they could retrieve their fer­ret from below ground. Fer­ret­ing is ful­ly legal.

In 2009, our vis­its to the South Notts hunt caused them to give up on attempts to begin hunt­ing Sat­ur­days. So when we turned up on a Mon­day this Feb, they weren’t best pleased! Unfor­tu­nate­ly though, they won this round by turn­ing vio­lent and forc­ing us to leave — more on that next sea­son (and below).

On the 17th, Not­ting­ham and Birm­ing­ham sabs made a week-day trip to the DNS Bea­gles hunt in Der­byshire. This caused them to can­cel their day of killing with­out even start­ing. All we had to do was wait out­side their ken­nels for a few hours, and endure some stern words from some not-so-brave offi­cers of the law!

We sabbed the Quorn hunt again on the 20th, with Man­ches­ter Sabs. We weren’t close enough to see it, but, after a few failed attempts at find­ing fox­es — to kill them with a “quick nip to the back of the neck” — the hunts­man fell from his horse, injured his neck and had to be air lift­ed to hos­pi­tal! The hunt con­tin­ued any­way, led and fol­lowed by mem­bers of the South Notts hunt, who were out with the Quorn (due to can­celling their own Sat meets). The South Notts hunt mem­bers were the very same peo­ple who had got nasty with us just 5 days pre­vi­ous­ly. So, we gave them what they deserved — a good sab­bing. We put our­selves in the fields to dis­tract the hounds sev­er­al times, and caused them to loose the scent of a fox that they attempt­ed to hunt.

On the 24th we made anoth­er trip to Cum­bria, join­ing the local sabs, with oth­ers from Mersey­side and Birmin­ham. We found the Blencathra hunt after a bit of scout­ing about, even though they had changed their meet in a des­per­ate attempt at avoid­ing sabs. Upon our arrival, the hunts­man walked past all his sup­port­ers and drove off with the hounds, with­out say­ing a word to any­one! But, rather than dri­ving straight to the ken­nels, he drove way out of the way, with us fol­low­ing behind, and led us to the Cum­bria Bea­gles hunt! As soon as we got out of the car, the bea­gles were seen hunt­ing two hares, so we inter­vened and man­aged to call them off using whip cracks and voice calls, they packed up straight away after that! Some of the group had also stuck with the Blencathra, who were fol­lowed back to their ken­nels. This day demon­strat­ed just what an impact Cum­bria Sabs are hav­ing on the Ble­cathra hunt!

At the end of Feb, just a week after our first vis­it, we returned to the DNS Bea­gles, this time on a Sat­ur­day. As before, after a bit of a run around (in vehi­cles), they can­celled their plans alto­geth­er. Anoth­er day of relax­ation for hares in Der­byshire!

We sabbed the Bur­ton at their last meet of the sea­son on March 6th. We had to run/briskly walk all day to keep near the hunt, who were deter­mined to hunt and hide in a mas­sive wood. We took action to dis­rupt them when­ev­er we could, took con­trol of a good per­cent­age of the hounds sev­er­al times dur­ing the day and stuck at it till they fin­ished.

We vis­it­ed the Lunes­dale hunt on the Cumbria/North York­shire bor­der with sabs from sev­er­al oth­er groups on the 11th. This hunt had­n’t seen sabs for 20+ years, so they were prob­a­bly a lit­tle sur­prised to see us pop up in the mid­dle of the fells. We did­n’t waste any time, and upon sight of the hunts­man on a dis­tant fell ahead, took the whole pack of hounds from him just as they start­ed to pick up a fox’s scent. When the hunt man­aged to reclaim the hounds they went back to their meet and packed up! Watch video footage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1HzzUzerwA&feature=channel

We fin­ished off the sea­son with around 30 sabs from our usu­al groups, Mersey­side, and oth­er areas, and sabbed the Grove & Ruf­ford hunt in Not­ting­hamshire, on March 13th. Dozens of police turned up — with motor­bikes, a heli­copter, vans, cars, hors­es, dogs and under­cov­er offi­cers at their dis­pos­al. They had come to pre­vent us from sab­bing the hunt, but inad­ver­tent­ly did it for us, leav­ing us to watch in dis­be­lief — as even the Grove & Ruf­ford hunts­man isn’t stu­pid enough to hunt in front of that many city folk!

So now we have a short break from such activ­i­ties, but, if any­one is up for help­ing out, we will pos­si­bly sab some mink hunters in the sum­mer; we’ll be work­ing to pro­tect bad­gers from bait­ing in South York­shire, and from culling fur­ther afield, from May; and we’ll begin the next sab­bing sea­son in August/September at fox cub hunts. Also if any­one can donate any funds or equip­ment, or help with fundrais­ing then please get in touch!

Sab group con­tacts:
Sheffield: sheffieldsaboteurs@live.co.uk
Not­ting­ham: huntsabs@hotmail.com www.nottinghamhuntsabs.weebly.com
Leeds: westyorkshuntsabs@yahoo.co.uk www.westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com
Mersey­side: (con­tact via) sheffieldsaboteurs@live.co.uk
Cum­bria: vulpuscarlisle@yahoo.co.uk
Birm­ing­ham: birminghamhuntsabs@hotmail.co.uk
Man­ches­ter: mcr-sabs@hotmail.co.uk
For oth­er areas:
Hunt Sabo­teurs Asso­ci­a­tion: info@huntsabs.org.uk www.hsa.enviroweb.org

Bad­ger pro­tec­tion con­tacts:
South York­shire Bad­ger Group: www.sybadgergroup.f9.co.uk
Coali­tion Of Bad­ger Action Groups: get-active@badger-killers.co.uk www.badger-killers.co.uk

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.

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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