Category: Other

Oth­er

Broken Cross Open Cast Site blockaded – police act as Scottish Coal security

This morn­ing Bro­ken Cross open­cast site in the Dou­glas Val­ley was block­ad­ed for an hour and a half before Scot­tish Coal work­ers lift­ed three peo­ple in heavy con­crete lock-ons out of the road, all over­seen by Inspec­tor Whip (pho­tographed) of Strath­clyde Police. This isn’t the first time that Inspec­tor Whip has hurt peo­ple by lift­ing them out of the road. He’s reck­less and delib­er­ate­ly put people’s safe­ty at risk, all to pro­tect the prof­its of Scot­tish Coal.

COAL ACTION SCOTLAND MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE USE 16th July 2012

Activists dis­rupt coal haulage and police take unac­cept­able risks of injury at Lanark­shire mine

At 6:00 this morn­ing a group of 20 envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice activists block­ad­ed the only entrance to Scot­tish Coal’s Bro­ken Cross Open Cast Coal Site [1] in the Dou­glas Val­ley. This pre­vent­ed all access to the site by coal lor­ries for one and a half hours before police ordered work­ers to dan­ger­ous­ly car­ry activists out of the road. Con­crete “lock-on tubes” were used to pre­vent three activists from being removed.

In an act of extreme reck­less­ness, Inspec­tor Whip of Strath­clyde Police ordered Scot­tish Coal employ­ees to drag pro­test­ers out of the access road, while they were still attached to their lock-on tubes, each weigh­ing around 50kg. One of those moved was injured in this inci­dent. The three have been arrest­ed and are cur­rent­ly being held in cus­tody.

Rob Hearne, one of the activists sup­port­ing the protest at the mine said: “This is not the first time that Inspec­tor Whip and Strath­clyde Police have shown such utter dis­re­gard for the safe­ty of anti-coal activists. This kind of behav­iour is total­ly unac­cept­able, where untrained work­ers are allowed to assault peo­ple in such a way, break­ing all health and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions and com­mit­ting crim­i­nal offences. Strath­clyde Police are act­ing as Scot­tish Coal’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty.”

The protest was intend­ed to stop coal from being trans­port­ed from the mine to rail­heads and to oppose Scot­tish Coal’s exten­sion to the mine as part of their “for­ward strat­e­gy” [2]. In par­tic­u­lar, it aimed to stop coal HGVs from being rout­ed through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, an issue of par­tic­u­lar impor­tance for local com­mu­ni­ties.

Gle­spin res­i­dent David Grey said: “A top traf­fic police offi­cer has been quot­ed in the past as say­ing that some­one will have to be killed on Lanarkshire’s roads before some­thing is done about the haulage of coal in this area. HGVs pass right through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, past two pri­ma­ry schools with no lev­el cross­ings, some­thing that Scot­tish Coal, South Lanark­shire Coun­cil and Scot­tish Min­is­ters all said would nev­er hap­pen. And now Inspec­tor Whip endan­gers the lives of peo­ple try­ing to make the roads safer for local res­i­dents! It’s out­ra­geous. Inspec­tor Whip should be ashamed for putting the prof­its of coal above the safe­ty of peo­ple in the val­ley.”

Today´s protest fol­lows Saturday’s inva­sion of Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site [3] where 45 activists stopped work on the site for the day. This is part of a week-long action camp and occu­pa­tion of Scot­tish Coal’s intend­ed new mine in the area, Glen­tag­gart East [4]. The camp called “Take Back the Land!” [5] has attract­ed activists from across Scot­land, the UK and Europe to take direct action against the blight of open­cast coal min­ing.

Coal Action Scot­land are prepar­ing a for­mal com­plaint to Strath­clyde Police about this inci­dent.

For inter­views and com­ment please con­tact:

Roger Wilkins on 07917141720 or email  contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk

Pho­tos can be emailed upon request.

Notes to edi­tors:

[1] Bro­ken Cross is the larg­er of Scot­tish Coal’s two oper­at­ing open cast coal mines in the Dou­glas Val­ley, South Lanark­shire, pro­duc­ing around 15,000 tonnes of coal a week

[2] South Lanark­shire Coun­cil approved Scot­tish Coal’s North (East) Exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross, the third such exten­sion, despite huge com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to it. The exten­sion will see the life of the mine extend­ed until 2024, way beyond what Scot­tish Plan­ning Pol­i­cy con­sid­ers an accept­able cumu­la­tive impact and some­thing that local res­i­dents find total­ly unac­cept­able.

[3] Main­shill Wood was occu­pied by the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp on 12th June 2009. It was even­tu­al­ly evict­ed on 25th Jan­u­ary 2010 in an evic­tion that last­ed 5 days. It involved 45 arrests and was the largest protest site evic­tion in the UK since Man­ches­ter Air­port 11 years pre­vi­ous­ly. There was huge com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to the mine local­ly, with 654 objec­tions being lodged against the appli­ca­tion. Despite Lord Home, the land own­er, telling local res­i­dents that he’d safe­guard the area from min­ing, he did the oppo­site and is now being paid by Scot­tish Coal for lease of the land. Since the start of coal­ing oper­a­tions at the site in Feb­ru­ary 2010 local res­i­dents have com­plained of noise and dust impacts and dan­ger on the roads as coal HGVs are rout­ed through Dou­glas and Gle­spin.

Lord Home owns Dou­glas & Angus Estates. He is the son of the for­mer prime min­is­ter Alec Home, a peer in the House of Lords and chair­per­son of Coutts Bank. He lives in Lon­don but has a state­ly home at Castle­mains in the Dou­glas Val­ley.

Scot­tish Coal cur­rent­ly have two oper­a­tional sites in the val­ley, Main­shill and Glen­tag­gart, down from 5 in 2010.

[4] Scot­tish Coal have been giv­en approval by South Lanark­shire Coun­cil despite 232 let­ters of objec­tion to mine 4 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the Glen­tag­gart East site, adja­cent to the exist­ing Glen­tag­gart site which was in oper­a­tion between 2001 and 2011. RSPB object­ed to the appli­ca­tion because of the eco­log­i­cal­ly impor­tant blan­ket bog and pro­tect­ed bird breed­ing habi­tats on the 350 hectare site. The mine will be 1.5km away from two pri­ma­ry schools and con­tin­ue the encir­clement of Dou­glas Val­ley vil­lages with open­cast mines.

Glen­tag­gart East is part of Scot­tish Coal’s “For­ward Strat­e­gy”, unveiled in Sep­tem­ber 2011. It includ­ed 3 new open­cast mine appli­ca­tions. One of these, Auld­ton Heights, was with­drawn fol­low­ing a sub­stan­tial cam­paign against it. A fur­ther exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross, an exist­ing site, was grant­ed per­mis­sion by the coun­cil, despite oppo­si­tion from local res­i­dents.

[5] for more infor­ma­tion about Take Back the Land! please see the fol­low­ing web­site:  http://takebacktheland.org.uk/

Chinese Environmentalists Protest, Riot, Defeat Copper Plant in Sichuan

9/7/12

9/7/12

Fol­low­ing three days of mass protest, over­turned police cars, tear gas and vio­lent clash­es between pro­test­ers and riot police, the city gov­ern­ment of Shi­fang in the province of Sichuan, south­west Chi­na, announced last week that it is scrap­ping plans for a cop­per alloy plant. This is but one of dozens of indus­tri­al projects that have been suc­cess­ful­ly defeat­ed by large scale protests and riots in Chi­na in recent years. As in protests else­where in Chi­na, enraged activists stormed the city’s gov­ern­ment head­quar­ters and staged a suc­cess­ful occu­pa­tion.

“We have so many peo­ple in Shi­fang. We aren’t afraid of them (the author­i­ties),” an 18-year-old activist bold­ly stat­ed to Reuters by tele­phone from Shi­fang just before the gov­ern­ment acqui­es­cence to demands. “The Shi­fang peo­ple will def­i­nite­ly not sur­ren­der.”

But the vic­to­ry comes with seri­ous sac­ri­fice. Dozens of pro­test­ers have been  injured and many more round­ed up and detained. Their legal future is uncertain.If sim­i­lar post-protest crack-downs are of any insight there will be dozens of more orga­niz­ers round­ed up in the months to come as gov­ern­ment attempts to qui­et such protests pub­licly is coun­tered by a pri­vate dra­con­ian witch hunt to silence “ring­lead­ers.”

The gov­ern­ment has accused the banned spir­i­tu­al move­ment Falun Gong and the Dalai Lama for insti­gat­ing the vio­lence. But these are the com­mon scape­goats used by the gov­ern­ment any­time pop­u­lar upris­ings take place in Chi­na.

A Letter of Resistance in Shifang

The fol­low­ing is a trans­la­tion of a hand­out post­ed around the city of Shi­fang in the lead up and dur­ing the protests.

Save Shi­fang! All City Res­i­dents Unite!

Peo­ple of Shi­fang, let’s save our city!! It already a “can­cer town,” and they still want to build that molyb­de­num cop­per plant. We res­olute­ly oppose this! This is our shared home, and it is our respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect it. Every­one is respon­si­ble for pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment!!

Per­haps many peo­ple still do not know Shi­fang plans to build a molyb­de­num cop­per plant, and still more peo­ple do not know the dam­age this will cause. Once con­struc­tion of the fac­to­ry begins, it will already be too late. We do not want to leave Shi­fang! Shi­fang is the “Bright Pearl of West­ern Sichuan.” We can­not leave! Heavy met­al pol­lu­tion will cause us ter­ri­ble harm.

Are there real­ly that many Shi­fang res­i­dents who have the mon­ey to move to anoth­er province? We must come togeth­er and work to keep the molyb­de­num cop­per plant far from Shi­fang!

Peo­ple of Shi­fang, rise up!!

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update — programme, directions, website and more

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

The Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place each year to pro­vide a space in which the rad­i­cal ecol­o­gy move­ment can share skills and plan for future cam­paigns and actions.

Dis­cus­sions around the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty build­ing in inner cities, the state of the anar­chist move­ment and patri­archy in activism.

Skill shares includ­ing wom­en’s self-defence, research­ing cor­po­ra­tions and nav­i­ga­tion.

Cam­paign round ups from Frack Off! Smash Edo and Lud­dites 2000 amongst oth­ers.

If you have work­shops you like to run or dis­cus­sions you’d like to facil­i­tate then email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

Full pro­gramme.

Camp­ing is on a slid­ing scale of £30 to £15, pay what is gen­uine­ly appro­pri­ate.

Food will be from Anar­chist Teapot and meal tick­ets will be £5 a day.

Kids can have sep­a­rate meals if they want for £3 a day.

There will be a cou­ple of kids spaces, and spe­cial work­shops being ran for kids. If you’d like to run any kids work­shops get in touch at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net.

If you want you dog to come along then you’re going to have to email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

And of course there will be enter­tain­ment and a bar open in the evenings.

The camp is ½ mile from the Berring­ton vil­lage, and 1 mile from the larg­er vil­lage of Cross Hous­es.

We encour­age non-cycling campers to use pub­lic trans­port if pos­si­ble as Cross Hous­es is on a bus route.

BY TRAIN
The near­est train sta­tion is Shrews­bury. You can then get the bus to Cross Hous­es (see below). If com­ing from a long dis­tance it can some­times be cheap­er to get a tick­et to a large sta­tion such as Birm­ing­ham, Wolver­hamp­ton, Man­ches­ter or Crewe and then a sep­a­rate tick­et on to Shrews­bury. Check nation­al rail for train times and prices. If com­ing from the Lon­don direc­tion, it’s gen­er­al­ly cheap­er to buy a Super Off­peak Return, spec­i­fy­ing “Lon­don Mid­land & Arri­va only”.

BY BIKE
See here for direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.

BY BUS
When you arrive at Shrews­bury train sta­tion, ask some­one to point you to the bus sta­tion. It’s only a few min­utes walk from the train sta­tion. The bus ser­vice that runs from town to with­in a mile of Crabap­ple is the 436 towards Bridg­north. It runs every hour from 7.40am to 5.40pm with a “late” one at 7.40pm. The jour­ney to Cross Hous­es is approx 15 mins. You will need to press the stop but­ton when you see the sign for Cross Hous­es. Some of the ser­vices on this route are low-floor acces­si­ble bus­es. Please note that the last bus leaves Shrews­bury at 7.40pm, Mon­day to Sat­ur­day and there are no Sun­day bus ser­vices. For the bus timetable see here http://shropshire.gov.uk/bustimes/timetable.jsc?timetable=436mfi0412.
The camp itself is about 1 mile from the bus stop. From the bus stop at Cross Hous­es, walk back towards Shrews­bury past the petrol sta­tion (on your right) and take the first left turn signed “Berring­ton”. After about ½ mile, the road forks at the edge of the vil­lage. Take the right turn sign­post­ed “Bet­ton Abbots” and we’re about ¼ mile up the road on the right.
If you intend to come by bus but need help get­ting to and from the bus stop, you can arrange a pick up with us: details will be avail­able near­er the time.

BY TAXI
There is also a taxi rank just out­side Shrews­bury train sta­tion. Acces­si­ble taxis can be got from here.- but it is MUCH cheap­er to book a cab from a local com­pa­ny – Comet Cabs 01743 344444, or Vin­cent Cabs 01743 367777. Vin­cents also have a book­ing office just across the road from the sta­tion, which is handy if you don’t have a phone to book a cab in advance.

USEFUL LINKS
See here direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.
See a map of where the site is here
See the bus timetable
Direc­tions from places oth­er than Shrews­bury

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Col­lec­tive
earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

http://earthfirstgathering.weebly.com

Agriculture Action Camp 5–10 July Den Bosch NL

From the 5th till 10th of July in Den Bosch in the Nether­lands, ASEED will orga­nize a 6 days long camp. The camp will involve work­shops, train­ings, dis­cus­sions, and action, for good eco­log­i­cal ini­tia­tives, an alter­na­tive food chain, alter­na­tives to indus­tri­al farm­ing, and against gen­tech and meat indus­try, and more.. 

From the 5th till 10th of July in Den Bosch in the Nether­lands, ASEED will orga­nize a 6 days long camp. The camp will involve work­shops, train­ings, dis­cus­sions, and action, for good eco­log­i­cal ini­tia­tives, an alter­na­tive food chain, alter­na­tives to indus­tri­al farm­ing, and against gen­tech and meat indus­try, and more.. 

Do you know where your food comes from? Do you want to take food in your own hands and make the food chain short­er between the farm­ers and con­sumers? Do you also want to know more about the strug­gle against GMOs and indus­tri­al farm­ing that is dom­i­nat­ed by big com­pa­nies? Do you want to orga­nize actions against the meat indus­try and the imports of ani­mal feed? But you are also inter­est­ed in pro­duc­ing your own food on a sus­tain­able, cli­mate neu­tral, autonomous and social way? Are you not afraid of get­ting your hands dirty in a work­shop? All of these and more will be cov­ered dur­ing the camp. We invite activists, slow-food­ies, farm­ers, gar­den­ers, stu­dents, ani­mal friends and peo­ple who want to learn and share skills on sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture to come to the camp. Mark your agen­das and join in! 

Landbouwactiekamp-9-ah-spandoek-450-medium

Landbouwactiekamp-medium

Last year the first Agri­cul­ture Action Camp in The Nether­lands took place in the Flevopold­er with 70 par­tic­i­pants camp­ing on an organ­ic farm for three days. We had a pro­gram full of work­shops and dis­cus­sions, and two actions close to the camp against GM crops and soy green­wash­ing. The par­tic­i­pants opt­ed for a replay, so here comes the sec­ond camp once again with an inter­est­ing pro­gramme of work­shops, train­ings, action and nice atmos­phere.

Hel­lo every­body, 
We are get­ting clos­er to the date it is all going to start, the loca­tion will be in the city of Den Bosch (or ‘s Her­to­gen­bosch) in and around a squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty gar­den project Graafse Hof in a res­i­den­tial area in the East of the city. The work­shop pro­gram is get­ting more and more con­crete. Con­firmed are amongst oth­er things: GMO update by Green­peace, GMO field lib­er­a­tion move­ments by FLM Bel­gium (more contributions/examples 
from sim­i­lar move­ments in oth­er coun­tries wel­come!!), intro­duc­tion into dif­fer­ent forms of sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture sys­tems (bio­dy­nam­ic, agroe­col­o­gy, per­ma­cul­ture), seed sav­ing, worm com­post­ing, get­ting to know your gar­den­ing tools, action train­ings by Vre­desac­tie, trac­tor dri­ving, talks with and work­ing with farm­ers, food sov­er­eign­ty: what does it mean, Euro­pean move­ment, con­crete exam­ples, and more to come. The pro­gram starts on Thurs­day 5th in the evening and goes on till Mon­day 9th July. 

Give a Work­shop? 
Want to come and give a work­shop your­self? Great! We are in par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed to hear about reclaim the fields land occu­pa­tion actions, or sim­i­lar campaigns/initiatives going on, as well as the Reclaim the fields move­ment in gen­er­al. Also look­ing for some­one who can tell more about the Euro­pean Cam­paign for Seed Sov­er­eign­ty. But any­thing rel­e­vant, you’re wel­come to pro­pose. 

Info stall @ mini alter­na­tive agro fair on Sat­ur­day 7 July, 13.00? 
Sat­ur­day we want to focus on get­ting more main­stream peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in the camp. The work­shops are more intro­duc­to­ry and their will be a small fair. Want to have stall to spread mate­ri­als from your project or action group? Let us know. 

Net­working @ World­cafe on Sat­ur­day 7 July, 20.00 
Sat­ur­daynight we will turn a tent into a nice cafe, where every­one can come to exchange ideas and exam­ples. Organ­i­sa­tions, Ini­tia­tives and Indi­vid­u­als have the oppor­tu­ni­ty for reser­vat­ing a table, where peo­ple can sit around to have infor­mal con­ver­sa­tions. Want to have a table your project/initiative/campaign? read more here: 
 http://landbouwactiekamp.contrast.org/?page_id=181 

Action 
Mon­day July 9 will have a focus on doing one or more actions. Pos­si­ble targets/topics are men­tioned in the call out from before. The camp will decide col­lec­tive­ly what it will become at the begin­ning of the week­end. 

Finances & trav­el costs reim­burse­ments 
We have some fund­ing for the camp but not enough to cov­er all costs, so we would ask a par­tic­i­pants for a con­tri­bu­tion of 7,50 if you come 1 day, less per day if you stay longer (see the web­site under prac­ti­cal­i­ties). 
We have some lim­it­ed pos­si­bil­i­ties to (par­tial­ly) cov­er trav­el costs from peo­ple com­ing from abroad, AND com­ing on the 4th of July (help build up) and/or stay till 11th (help break down). Let us know if you want to come, and trav­el costs are an issue. If you can trav­el on one of these dates, we can prob­a­bly reim­burse (some) costs. 

Want to reserve a work­shop slot, info stall or world­cafe table, or just know more about  the camp, con­tact us via  landbouwactiekamp@aseed.net. 

We still need peo­ple to; 
-make the kids pro­gram and orga­nize the kids area in the camp 
-help us with the infra­struc­ture prepa­ra­tions of the camp, & be there on the 4th to set up the camp, 
-trans­la­tion and edit­ing texts,(NL, ENG, DE main­ly) 
-help us out with pro­gram con­tent, 
-facil­i­tate work­shops, trans­la­tion dur­ing the work­shops etc.. 

Cheers and hope to see some of you @ Den Bosch. 

ASEED

http://www.landbouwactiekamp.net/

Carnival of Dirt

On Fri­day 15 June, Lon­don will expe­ri­ence its first ever Car­ni­val of Dirt, a car­ni­val like no oth­er. More than 30 activist groups from Lon­don and around the world have come togeth­er to high­light the illic­it deeds of min­ing and extrac­tion com­pa­nies.

On Fri­day 15 June, Lon­don will expe­ri­ence its first ever Car­ni­val of Dirt, a car­ni­val like no oth­er. More than 30 activist groups from Lon­don and around the world have come togeth­er to high­light the illic­it deeds of min­ing and extrac­tion com­pa­nies.

Reports and pho­tos from the day: 1 | 2 | 3

http://www.carnivalofdirt.org

Windsor eco-occupation

10th June 2012

a group call­ing them­selves ‘diggers2012’ and loose­ly affil­i­at­ed with the occu­py move­ment, are on route to a piece of dis­used land on the wind­sor great park estate. yes­ter­day, as they set off from syon lane com­mu­ni­ty allot­ment, police served a pre-emp­tive injunc­tion on them for­bid­ding them from enter­ing or camp­ing on crown estate land.

 

10th June 2012

a group call­ing them­selves ‘diggers2012’ and loose­ly affil­i­at­ed with the occu­py move­ment, are on route to a piece of dis­used land on the wind­sor great park estate. yes­ter­day, as they set off from syon lane com­mu­ni­ty allot­ment, police served a pre-emp­tive injunc­tion on them for­bid­ding them from enter­ing or camp­ing on crown estate land.

 

More info and videos and here

Eco village occupation in Windsor this June


On Sat­ur­day 09th June, we will be walk­ing from Syon Lane Com­mu­ni­ty Allot­ment in West Lon­don to Wind­sor.  We will be camp­ing for one night on the route. Our aim is to start a com­mu­ni­ty on a piece of dis­used land on the Crown Estate.
We plan to grow our own food, make shel­ters and live sus­tain­ably: to show an alter­na­tive to our sys­tem of cri­sis. We call for the right for every­one to be able to use the dis­used land to live on, free the yoke of debt and rent.
If you share our vision, and you are will­ing to work to achieve it, we wel­come you to join us.
Meet­up Details
Meet at Syon Lane Com­mu­ni­ty Allot­ment on Sat 09th
June from 11 a.m. We will be depart­ing at 1 p.m sharp.
 
Bring camp­ing equip­ment, warm  cloth­ing, mug, bowl, spoon and a torch. Also please bring seeds and any use­ful equip­ment if you can.
Should you wish to meet us in Wind­sor, or at some oth­er point along the jour­ney, please call the num­bers below on the day.
If  you would like to know more about this  project, please vis­it: www.diggers2012.wordpress.com or email  diggers2012@yahoo.co.uk
Alter­na­tive­ly you can call or text the fol­low­ing num­bers: 07963 475 195 / 07905 283 114 to find  out more.
Syon Lane Com­mu­ni­ty Allot­ment Direc­tions and map.
Street Address: The lane adja­cent to Plat­form 1, Syon Lane Sta­tion, Roth­bury Gar­dens, Isle­worth, Mid­dle­sex, TW7 5JG
Get­ting to the site: We are sit­u­at­ed on the long strip of land adja­cent to Plat­form 1 of Syon Lane Sta­tion, which is on the south­ern rail­way line com­ing from Lon­don Water­loo via Kew Bridge and Houn­slow.
Near­est Tube: Oster­ley – Turn left out of the sta­tion, fol­low the Great West Road until you reach Syon Lane, then turn right. Then turn right down a foot­path before you cross the rail­way bridge, it will lead you through to Roth­bury Gar­dens, and you will see our site entrance oppo­site.
Near­est bus stop:Lon­don Road – Busch Cor­ner (237/267/235) – Come up either Spur Road or Syon Lane until you reach the rail­way bridge. Then go onto Plat­form 1 and fol­low the foot­path between two met­al fences, you will see our entrance on your left.
Map link: http://g.co/maps/ga6mn

http://diggers2012.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/events/388997621152693/
http://london.indymedia.org/events/12282
https://twitter.com/#!/freetheland

Farm occupied in USA

29 April 2012

We are reclaim­ing this land to grow healthy food to meet the needs of local com­mu­ni­ties. We envi­sion a future of food sov­er­eign­ty, in which our East Bay com­mu­ni­ties make use of avail­able land — occu­py­ing it where nec­es­sary — for sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture to meet local needs.

http://takebackthetract.com/

29 April 2012

We are reclaim­ing this land to grow healthy food to meet the needs of local com­mu­ni­ties. We envi­sion a future of food sov­er­eign­ty, in which our East Bay com­mu­ni­ties make use of avail­able land — occu­py­ing it where nec­es­sary — for sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture to meet local needs.

http://takebackthetract.com/

Reclaim the Fields Spring Gathering 2012 — details & updates

@ The Wilder­ness Cen­tre, Mitcheldean, For­est of Dean, Glouces­ter­shire, GL17 0HA

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

Pre-Gath­er­ing Help need­ed:

@ The Wilder­ness Cen­tre, Mitcheldean, For­est of Dean, Glouces­ter­shire, GL17 0HA

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

Pre-Gath­er­ing Help need­ed:

Any­one inter­est­ed in help­ing out with the running/ set­ting up of the event, should come to the Wilder­ness asap. If you’re inter­est­ed in giv­ing a talk, or demon­strat­ing a skill — get in con­tact, or just show up and arrange to use one of the “spaces” avail­able with one of the Pro­tect The Wilder­ness Crew.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes:

Thurs­day 8th:

*Intro­duc­tion to Reclaim the Fields — where we’ve come from and recent action, includ­ing feed­back from the Euro­pean Gath­er­ing.
* Wilder­ness Cen­tre intro­duc­tion & house­keep­ing
*Open Intro­duc­tions; intro­duce your self & your projects & con­tin­ue net­work­ing with our notice­board

The remain­der of the day is designed around open spaces, giv­ing peo­ple a chance to work & com­mu­ni­cate around these sug­ges­tions so far:

*WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
*Seed Sov­er­eign­ty & grow­er-to-grow­er seed dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works
*Car­rots ses­sion e.g. RTF inter­nal structure/sharing work­loads
*Using the food sov­er­eign­ty prin­ci­ples as a strate­gic frame­work — (in a UK con­text)
*How to organ­ise & main­tain effec­tive land occu­pa­tions
*Com­post­ing gen­der
*Plan­ning for Inter­na­tion­al Peas­ants Day of Strug­gle on April 17th
*Legal options for access­ing land
*Pro­tect­ing bee pop­u­la­tions

Fri­day 9th:

*Ses­sion on gen­er­al Reclaim the Fields strat­e­gy and focus­es for 2012
Work­shops and talks:
*An intro­duc­tion to land rights
*His­to­ry of Land rights strug­gles in the For­est of Dean

Fol­lowed by a con­sen­sus based gueril­la gar­den­ing action… remains open to sug­ges­tions!
(ideas so far…)
*Food for­est, in an aban­doned quar­ry
*Care home for the elder­ly
* Clear-felled Forestry land
* Vic­to­ri­an walled gar­den

Sat­ur­day 10th:

Pro­tect The Wilder­ness open skill-share day!
Seed swap, Com­mu­ni­ty bring and share.
Gar­den­ing the organ­ic com­mu­ni­ty gar­den, and walled gar­den.
Music and feast­ing!

Not for­get­ting gar­den­ing, char­coal burn­ing, bak­ing in the cob oven, seed­bomb mak­ing, cob­bing the round-house, and chop­ping wood through-out!

£5 sug­gest­ed dona­tion per day, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Items to bring:
Warm clothes, two sets (if you mind being mud­dy)
bed­ding, camp­ing mats
tools for g‑gardening [spades, forks, mat­tocks, bill­hooks]
Instru­ments, danc­ing shoes,
seeds for seed­bombs,
home-grown veg, pick­les, jams, whole foods

More info about the Wilder­ness Cen­tre: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064
Who to con­tact for more infor­ma­tion: use the RTF UK email list or email frankynecklace@yahoo.co.uk

Gourds work be done,

Pro­tect The Wilder­ness,
Reclaim the Fields!

Lebanese Activists Sit-in to Protest Environmental Destruction

19.2.12

Tripoli res­i­dents orga­nized a sit-in Wednes­day to protest against the recent felling of sev­er­al trees in the city and to demand answers on who was ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble for the deci­sion.

19.2.12

Tripoli res­i­dents orga­nized a sit-in Wednes­day to protest against the recent felling of sev­er­al trees in the city and to demand answers on who was ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble for the deci­sion.

Inhab­i­tants of the north­ern city’s Al-Mina sub­urb held Wednesday’s sit-in on the city’s main boule­vard. Pro­test­ers slammed the recent move, and also urged rel­e­vant author­i­ties to under­take the nec­es­sary actions to pre­vent sim­i­lar inci­dents from hap­pen­ing again in the future.

How­ev­er, the may­or of Al-Mina, Moham­mad Issa, said the trees had been felled fol­low­ing a peti­tion from oth­er res­i­dents, who had demand­ed the trees be cut down after an inci­dent two years ago in which a palm tree fell on a car and result­ed in the death of a young woman.

In com­pli­ance with the resident’s peti­tion, Issa said that 14 trees, none of which were old­er than 15 years, were cut down. The may­or also expressed his will­ing­ness to plant new trees to replace those which were cut down.

Res­i­dents described the felling of old trees as an envi­ron­men­tal mas­sacre. “Trees do not harm any­one; we need to pre­serve the green spaces in light of the grow­ing usage of con­crete,” said Zaki al-Zay­laa, an envi­ron­men­tal activist.

Zay­laa added that cut­ting down such trees was irre­spon­si­ble and ques­tioned who had the author­i­ty to decide when trees can be cut down as such. Zay­laa, a mem­ber of an envi­ron­men­tal com­mit­tee affil­i­at­ed to the munic­i­pal coun­cil, denied the com­mit­tee had any role in cut­ting down the trees.