Shell to Sea: Notice served on Solitaire

20.08.2008
As part of the ongo­ing week of action in Ross­port, a let­ter was today deliv­ered to the Soli­taire demand­ing its with­draw­al from the project.

Yes­ter­day after­noon a team of kayak­ers braved the waters of Done­gal Bay to pad­dle over a kilo­me­tre out to sea to deliv­er a let­ter of protest to Cap­tain Simon Van Der Plicht of the Soli­taire.

20.08.2008
As part of the ongo­ing week of action in Ross­port, a let­ter was today deliv­ered to the Soli­taire demand­ing its with­draw­al from the project.

Yes­ter­day after­noon a team of kayak­ers braved the waters of Done­gal Bay to pad­dle over a kilo­me­tre out to sea to deliv­er a let­ter of protest to Cap­tain Simon Van Der Plicht of the Soli­taire.

A crane low­ered a buck­et from the ship to receive the let­ter after the kayak­ers spoke to the Cap­tain on the radio.

Rep­re­sent­ing the views of many from the com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the Cor­rib gas project, the let­ter asks the Cap­tain to recon­sid­er his, and the ship’s, par­tic­i­pa­tion in the devel­op­ment.

The let­ter clear­ly states that if the Cap­tain choos­es to con­tin­ue the ship’s involve­ment he will meet strong resis­tance. Many peo­ple have pledged to take to the water to stop this pipeline con­struc­tion work.

Today’s action is part of a Shell to Sea Week of Action tar­get­ing the Soli­taire.

Actions will take place all this week until the ship is forced to aban­don work.

Rossport Solidarity Camp reborn…

18.08.2008
Today local res­i­dents and peo­ple from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp erect­ed a mar­quee in Glen­gad over­look­ing Shel­l’s new com­pound.

Glengad camp, Mayo18.08.2008
Today local res­i­dents and peo­ple from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp erect­ed a mar­quee in Glen­gad over­look­ing Shel­l’s new com­pound.

Just a short dis­tance away from the camps for­mer loca­tion the new mar­quee will pro­vide a base for action against ear­ly pipeline work on land and against the pipe lay­ing ship,the Soli­taire, when she arrives.

Today after the mar­quee had been put up peo­ple invad­ed the com­pound. Activ­i­ty like this and water based actions will be ongo­ing over the next few weeks.

New peo­ple and a wide array of boats and oth­er water equip­ment are appear­ing all the time. The fol­low­ing weeks should be inter­est­ing…

Come to Mayo and join in the fun.…

Sail and Rail from any­where in UK to Bal­li­na (near­est town to Ross­port) only £35 (aprox)

Earth First! gathering — programme and travel directions

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk
Join us for 5 days of work­shops and plan­ning actions

Trav­el direc­tions:

Earth First! Gathering 2008 - print sizeEarth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk
Join us for 5 days of work­shops and plan­ning actions

Trav­el direc­tions:
The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop. The Grid Ref­er­ence of the site is TM130819. The post code is IP22 5SY.

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich or vice ver­sa — this route goes right past the site and we’ll be ask­ing the local bus com­pa­ny if they will stop right out­side the site on request. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .
We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). Ring the Gath­er­ing mobile on 07789 331857

For a map and fur­ther details on trav­el includ­ing bus times and direc­tions for dri­vers check out http://earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html

Pro­gramme
This year’s pro­gramme focuss­es on info and plan­ning for actions, direct action skills as well as spaces to dis­cuss how we can respond to and deal with the widen­ing eco­log­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and soci­etal crises. We hope there’s some­thing for every­one.
We rec­om­mend that you arrive Tue evening, as work­shops will start on Wednes­day morn­ing and run until Sun­day evening

For more info about the gath­er­ing check out our web­site or email us (though we won’t be able to answer email after 21 Aug, as we’ll be on site set­ting up)

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

The work­shops

Wednes­day

12:00
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the gath­er­ing
Deal­ing with the main­stream media — how to get your mes­sage across
Basic electrics — for squats and homes.
Cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change — how to make the links vis­i­ble in actions
Queer net­work­ing ses­sion

2:30
Self-defence — mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting FAQ — shar­ing tips and tricks
Action Recon­nais­sance for begin­ners
Intro­duc­tion to the root caus­es of eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and an explo­ration of alter­na­tives
Advanced Nav­i­ga­tion

4:30
Sav­ing Ice­land — Intro­duc­tion to the cam­paign
Nuclear waste and nuclear weapons
Con­sen­sus Deci­sion-mak­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy
Con­fronting Abu­sive Behav­iours with­in our Com­mu­ni­ties — with­out the police/prison.

6:00
Library Space: Nego­ti­at­ing Safer Sex: tips on putting the the­o­ry into prac­tice, and mak­ing your sex life more fun as well as safer!

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Talk with video on resist­ing rain­for­est destruc­tion in Tas­ma­nia

Thurs­day

10:30
Deal­ing with Pub­lic Order sit­u­a­tions — under­stand­ing police tac­tics and how we can deal with to them/turn them to our advan­tage (runs until lunch)
State and cor­po­rate oppres­sion of the Aus­tralian Abo­rig­ines
Action recon­nais­sance — advanced skill­share, share your most clever tips and tricks for get­ting info for actions
Prac­ti­cal plant iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (begin­ners)
Activist trau­ma and recov­ery

12:00
Sav­ing Ice­land — an eval­u­a­tion of the camp this sum­mer
Secu­ri­ty for Activists Part I: Do’s and don’ts of organ­is­ing action, from arrang­ing to meet, plan­ning and what hap­pens after
Arrest sup­port for actions — how to pro­vide sup­port for your affin­i­ty group, medi­um sized actions or mega camps and gath­er­ings.
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing

2:30
Wom­en’s self-defence — intro­duc­to­ry ses­sion
Food and Cli­mate Action: info for action
How to plan an action
Police liai­son for actions — what it is, its uses and lim­i­ta­tions and how to make it work.
Chang­ing light bulbs or smash­ing the sys­tem. Shar­ing +/- expe­ri­ences of work­ing within/outside the sys­tem

4:30
Oppos­ing nuclear expan­sion: plan­ning for action
How to plan and run a suc­cess­ful medi­um to long-term cam­paign
Night time skills Part I: intro­duc­tion (fol­lowed by prac­tise ses­sion at 8.30pm)
Legal and arrest work­shop
Intro­duc­tion to anar­chist history/potted anar­chist his­to­ries

6:00
Library space: open dis­cus­sion ?Direct action or pub­lic­i­ty stunt??
8:00

Cin­e­ma: Seashep­herd film and talk
8:30

Night time skills Part II — prac­tice your skills in the field.

Fri­day

10:30
Blockad­ing tac­tics
Cli­mate Camp debrief: a crit­i­cal look at the cli­mate camp, its achieve­ments and pol­i­tics
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Com­put­er Secu­ri­ty for the non-tech­ni­cal
Prison Abo­li­tion: what’s wrong with prison? what do we mean by abo­li­tion and how can we make it hap­pen?

12:00
Food and cli­mate change: action and cam­paign plan­ning
Self-defence mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting to resist — occu­pa­tions to resist the pow­ers of dark­ness
His­to­ry of Earth First!

2:30
The Earth First! Action Update and web­site: feed­back and get­ting involved
Resist­ing agro­fu­els — update on the sit­u­a­tion and action plan­ning
Sea Shep­herd — an intro to its cam­paigns and how to support/get involved.
Grow your own food — share you skills and expe­ri­ence
Queer Activist Forum: Rad­i­cal queers organ­ise for the future!

4:30
Queer Self-Defence: an intro to basic self-defence skills (ver­bal and phys­i­cal)
Set­ting up new direct action groups
Sav­ing Ice­land ? plan­ning actions for the com­ing year
Tech­no-fix­es and cli­mate change ? report by Cor­po­rate Watch
Urban self-reliance and self-suf­fi­cien­cy

7:30
Library: Pris­on­er Sup­port — An infor­mal get togeth­er to dis­cuss the state of pris­on­er sup­port in our move­ments, find out news and get advice on writ­ing to pris­on­ers, as well as mak­ing and writ­ing cards to send to pris­on­ers.

8:00
Cin­e­ma: A talk and film by a trib­al activist from Oris­sa oppos­ing min­ing

Sat­ur­day

10:30
Cam­paigns and Actions Round-up: UK and inter­na­tion­al news (no oth­er work­shops)

12:00
Wom­en’s self-defence prac­tise ses­sion plus run­ning along­side — intro­duc­tion to wom­en’s self-defence
Stop­ping GM test fields — dis­cus­sion on future campaign/actions
Research and destroy — how to research cor­po­ra­tions
Future mod­els of soci­ety — find­ing a path to sus­tain­able liv­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Using tripods for blockad­ing

2:30
Leave it in the ground — build­ing resis­tance to new coal min­ing and pow­er sta­tions
Facil­i­ta­tion of meet­ings
Activist Secu­ri­ty Part III: doing actions with­out leav­ing traces
Restora­tion Ecol­o­gy
Cre­at­ing safer spaces
Vis­it to Burston Strike School

4:30
Region­al meet­ings and action plan­ning (no oth­er work­shops)

6:00
Library Space: Work­ing with­out lead­ers — dis­cus­sion about core val­ues of anar­chism

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Smash Edo film and talk

Sun­day
11:00
Self defence mixed prac­tice ses­sion
Sort­ing out ways of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in EF!
Using radios on actions
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Fences: get­ting over them/taking them down

12:15
The sum­mer gath­er­ing: feed­back on this year’s and get­ting involved in organ­is­ing the next one

2:30
Con­doms, cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change
Smash Edo
Intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion
What’s new in the world of law?
Fem­i­nist Health
Climb­ing trees, lamp posts and any­thing else

4:30
Rad­i­cal pol­i­tics in the age of col­lapse
The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land and Fos­sil Fuel Financ­ing
Get­ting your elec­tric­i­ty from solar pow­er and wind
Rad­i­cal Par­ent­ing
Look­ing after our men­tal health — shar­ing ideas and expe­ri­ences

8:00
Cin­e­ma: films — cli­mate camp footage, ready steady skip etc

Mon­day
Take-down: please stay for a day or two to help take down the site. If you’ve got access to a vehicle/van, it’d be great if you could help trans­port­ing mar­quees, recy­cling etc to the places they need to go. Cheers!

More info about the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
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.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

Shell to Sea Pirates begin Week of Action against Shell’s Solitaire

August 17 2008
Today at noon a flotil­la of sea kayaks reclaimed Glen­gad beach, Pol­lath­omas, Co Mayo; the land­fall site for Shell’s off­shore pipeline.

Shell flotilla, MayoAugust 17 2008
Today at noon a flotil­la of sea kayaks reclaimed Glen­gad beach, Pol­lath­omas, Co Mayo; the land­fall site for Shell’s off­shore pipeline.

Mem­bers of the ‘Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta’ recent­ly deployed at the E.ON coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in Kent, Eng­land, have made their way from Cli­mate Camp UK to Erris, in order to assist Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers in their oppo­si­tion to this pipeline con­struc­tion at Glen­gad.

The first wave of the Rebel Regat­ta arrived today fol­low­ing Marine & Pub­lic Infor­ma­tion Notices which announced the arrival of the world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, the Soli­taire, in Broad­haven Bay, any time from today onwards.

Cap­tain Ahab of the Rebel Crew states, “It’s unac­cept­able what Shell are being allowed to get away with here in Mayo. We intend to plun­der Shell’s com­pound at Glen­gad and board the Soli­taire when she arrives in the bay. We take no pris­on­ers. It’s the gang-plank for these boys. This envi­ron­ment needs pro­tec­tion from these maraud­ers of Shell’s.”

Today’s action marks the start of a Shell to Sea Week of Action tar­get­ing the Soli­taire. Actions will take place all this week until the ship is forced, like in 2005, to ‘go out the same way she came in’.

Shell moved quick­ly onto the pub­lic beach, a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, just a few short weeks ago with dig­gers, fences, secu­ri­ty per­son­nel and Gar­daí. Local res­i­dents were forcibly removed from the area and arrest­ed for their oppo­si­tion to this work. Giv­en that no approval or per­mis­sion exists for Shell’s new­ly pro­posed onshore pipeline route, which is cur­rent­ly under con­sid­er­a­tion by An Bord Pleanala, it beg­gars belief that the ‘author­i­ties’ allow this pre­ma­ture pipeline con­struc­tion work to go ahead at Glen­gad at this time. A per­fect exam­ple of ‘project split­ting’, sanc­tioned and encour­aged by gov­ern­ment and State author­i­ties.

Shell to Sea intends to ensure that no pipeline con­struc­tion takes place on or off­shore at Glen­gad. Had the Soli­taire arrived today as planned, we were ready for her. And we are ready for her when­ev­er she decides to come, tomor­row, the next day or any day. We under­stand that weath­er has delayed the Soli­taire but Shell are con­fi­dent that she will arrive by mid­week at the lat­est.

In the mean­time there are some unre­solved issues at the Shell Com­pound and ‘Secu­ri­ty Zone’ on the beach which we intend to resolve in the mean­time. In oth­er words, there is plen­ty for peo­ple to be doing here when they come.

Peo­ple are already trav­el­ling to Erris to sup­port this Week of Action against Shell. All are wel­come at the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty House, to vis­it and to stay, and to join us in our plans ensure that no raw gas ever flows to Bel­lan­aboy. Today was just the start. Let’s con­tin­ue to organ­ise togeth­er through­out the week and always.

Get your ass­es to Erris … and remem­ber … we are nev­er as strong as when we come togeth­er in the fight, on the streets, in the fields, on the beach or on the high seas!

http://www.shelltosea.com

Direct actions by people from the Camp for Climate Action

Cli­mate activists at Lon­gan­net call for clo­sure date
6.08.2008
One-night mini Scot­tish camp out­side UK’s dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion. SNP Gov­ern­ment urged to set ear­ly clo­sure date for plant and guar­an­tee green jobs for coal work­ers in the grow­ing renew­ables rev­o­lu­tion.

No New Coal bannerCli­mate activists at Lon­gan­net call for clo­sure date
6.08.2008
One-night mini Scot­tish camp out­side UK’s dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion. SNP Gov­ern­ment urged to set ear­ly clo­sure date for plant and guar­an­tee green jobs for coal work­ers in the grow­ing renew­ables rev­o­lu­tion.

A group of cli­mate pro­tes­tors were at Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion in Fife this morn­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Camp for Cli­mate Action near to Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion in Eng­land.

Lon­gan­net coal plant, which pro­duces a quar­ter of Scot­land’s elec­tric­i­ty, pro­duces around 10 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide every year — rough­ly equiv­a­lent to the annu­al emis­sions of 2.5 mil­lion cars.

Eight sci­ences stu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh pre­sent­ed Scot­tish Pow­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives with the recent respect­ed ‘Zero Car­bon Britain’ report from CAT.

Daniel Abra­hams, a physics stu­dent, told Scot­tish Pow­er, who run the plant:
‘Any talk of ‘clean coal’ or car­bon cap­ture is a total dis­trac­tion. We need to rad­i­cal­ly reduce emis­sions in less than a decade and we just don’t have the time to wait for unproven tech­nol­o­gy when we already have renew­able solu­tions ready to roll. Lon­gan­net must close by 2015.’

Sarah Hol­l­i­day, a chem­istry stu­dent from the Isle of Tiree said:
‘The SNP must urgent­ly fund a tran­si­tion deal for all those in the coal indus­try. All those employed in the car­bon sec­tor must be guar­an­teed green jobs in the renew­ables rev­o­lu­tion.’

Notes to edi­tors:

1. Lon­gan­net ranked as the UK’s dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion in a 2007 WWF report:
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/european_dirty_thirty_may_2007.pdf

2. The Scot­tish Cli­mate Bill will bind Min­is­ters to a tar­get of an 80% in green­house gas­es by 2050. An 80% cut in car­bon diox­ide would mean total emis­sions for the whole nation of 10–13 mil­lion tonnes a year. Lon­gan­net pro­duces 10 mil­lion tonnes now.

3. Alex Salmond recent­ly described coal as a ‘fuel of the future’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7487184.stm

————

Cli­mate Activists Shut Down South’s Biggest Bio­fu­el Base, Thur­rock
Vopak biofuel action 2Vopak biofuel action 4
Vopak biofuel action 5

7.08.2008
This morn­ing cli­mate activists from around the coun­try have shut down the South’s biggest agro­fu­el depot.

The cam­paign­ers, who say that agro­fu­els will cause run­away cli­mate change if left unchecked, have dropped a 35 foot ban­ner from the top of one of the site’s biggest oil con­tain­ers and are block­ing fuel lor­ries from leav­ing or enter­ing the base.

Dean Rivers, who is cur­rent­ly chained to the roof of the oil depot said: “com­pa­nies like Green­er­gy and Tescos who use Thur­rock are prof­i­teer­ing out of the rush to bio­fu­els caus­ing food price ris­es, hunger for mil­lions, ecosys­tem destruc­tion and accel­er­at­ed Cli­mate Change. These are crimes against human­i­ty and the earth from which we may nev­er recov­er.” The protest is cur­rent­ly stop­ping one truck from leav­ing the Thur­rock site every 90 sec­onds.

George Mon­biot, who is at the Cli­mate Camp said “far from being a solu­tion to Cli­mate Change, agro­fu­els are so dam­ag­ing they make petro­le­um look green. They threat­en both to accel­er­ate Cli­mate Change and to trig­ger a glob­al human­i­tar­i­an dis­as­ter. I’m delight­ed that this depot has been block­ad­ed and I hope it sends a strong sig­nal that agro­fu­els are a part of the prob­lem not of the solu­tion.”

Last month, it was revealed that the US had buried a report from the World Bank which shows that agro­fu­els are respon­si­ble for 75% of recent food price ris­es. Despite this, both Europe and the USA con­tin­ue to invest bil­lions into the fuels, which under UK and EU law con­tin­ue to make up 2.5% of the UK fuel mix at the pump.

Julia Brown­low, who is block­ing lor­ries from enter­ing or leav­ing the site said “Agro­fu­els are destroy­ing the very ecosys­tems which can sta­bilise the cli­mate — with the col­lapse of the Ama­zon pos­si­bly just a few years away I am left with no choice but to take action.”

The protest will con­tin­ue for the rest of the day.

NOTES TO EDITORS

Agro­fu­els are bio­fu­els derived from plant mate­r­i­al grown in exten­sive mono­cul­tures.

what hap­pened & bio­fu­els explained — audio/x‑wav 7.0M
————

Anoth­er cli­mate camp action — Stu­dents Killed at Roy­al Bank of Scot­land’s HQ.
RBS die-in 2RBS die-in 17.08.2008
Fif­teen dead bod­ies are cur­rent­ly lying in a pool of oil block­ing the entrance to RBS Lon­don HQ at Liv­er­pool Street [1]. Stu­dents are stag­ing a ‘die-in’ block­ade to high­light the dev­as­tat­ing effects of cli­mate change. The pro­test­ers are demand­ing RBS stop fund­ing destruc­tive fos­sil fuel projects which will cre­ate cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe. The action is tak­ing place as part of the cli­mate camp and is co-ordi­nat­ed by the stu­dent action net­work PANDA [1].

A report released today by a coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal NGOs [2] reveals that RBS is esti­mat­ed to have been involved in pro­vid­ing loans of over $20 bil­lion to coal-relat­ed com­pa­nies in the last two years – includ­ing the ener­gy com­pa­ny E.ON.

Head of Cli­mate Change Cam­paigns at Peo­ple & Plan­et, Bron­wen Thomas said

“Thou­sands of cli­mate change activists are cur­rent­ly gath­ered at the Cli­mate Camp in Kingsnorth to oppose E.ON’s plans to build the first coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the coun­try for 33 years. Coal is the dirt­i­est fuel there is. Open­ing coal fired pow­er sta­tions is mad­ness — We should be stop­ping cli­mate change not mak­ing it worse”

PANDA stu­dent activist Alex Wood, 22, is cur­rent­ly chained to oth­er activists in front of RBS. He explained his rea­sons: “I’m risk­ing arrest today because RBS must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the emis­sions caused by their invest­ments. Cli­mate change caus­es the death of 150, 000 peo­ple per year – each one of the fif­teen bod­ies lying out­side RBS rep­re­sents 10, 000 deaths. To stop this num­ber increas­ing RBS must act now.”

RBS, who refer to them­selves as ‘the oil and gas bank’ has also loaned mon­ey to com­pa­nies like Arch Coal, who are involved in the con­tro­ver­sial tech­nique of coal min­ing called Moun­tain Top Removal. This destroys the tops of entire moun­tains and pro­duces large quan­ti­ties of tox­ic sludge.

PHOTOS ON REQUEST: pandapress@hushmail.com

NOTES:

[1] RBS Lon­don HQ address is 250 Bish­ops­gate, Lon­don, EC2M 4NR

[2] PANDA is Peo­ple & Plan­et’s Asso­ci­at­ed Net­work for Direct Action. For more details see:
http://peopleandplanet.org/ditchdirtydevelopment

[3] The coali­tion of groups con­sists of Friends of the Earth Scot­land, Peo­ple & Plan­et, Plat­form, Bank­Track, Stop Cli­mate Chaos and Scot­tish Edu­ca­tion and Action for Devel­op­ment.

[4] For more info on the Cli­mate Camp vis­it www.climatecamp.org.uk

[5] For more info on the Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s financ­ing of fos­sil fuel extrac­tion see: www.peopleandplanet.org/ditchdirtydevelopment

————

Plane Stu­pid leaves Camp for Cli­mate Action for protest at Gatwick
7.08.2008
Nine pro­tes­tors from the anti-avi­a­tion group ‘Plane Stu­pid’ have left the Kingsnorth Cli­mate Camp to mount a protest against short-haul flights from the near­by Gatwick Air­port. The nine cli­mate activists had been plan­ning to protest against the government’s plans to expand Kingsnorth coal fire pow­er sta­tion. How­ev­er con­tin­u­al police intim­i­da­tion and vio­lence forced them to leave the camp, choos­ing instead to protest against the pop­u­lar­i­ty of short-haul flights, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the Edin­burgh Fes­ti­val, from Gatwick air­port.

The nine activists arrived at the air­port at 7.50am. They then split into three groups. The first group scaled the wall next to the esca­la­tor above the train sta­tion, occu­py­ing the roof struc­ture and drop­ping a ban­ner: ‘SHORT-HAUL FLIGHT? LET THE TRAIN TAKE THE STRAIN.’ The sec­ond group mount­ed the mez­za­nine above the arrivals lounge, hand­cuffed them­selves to a rail­ing and dropped a ban­ner: ‘STOP SHORT-HAUL’. The third group, dressed as ‘infor­ma­tion points’, with t‑shirts ask­ing, ‘can I hin­der?, leaflet­ed the sur­prised crowd with infor­ma­tion about the eco­log­i­cal cost of avi­a­tion and the irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of those who fly short-haul.

Lot­ti Rut­ter, one of those hand­cuffed to the rail­ing, said:

‘It’s ter­ri­fy­ing – we’re approach­ing a cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe yet the Depart­ment for Trans­port do absolute­ly noth­ing to pro­vide us with a low car­bon trans­port pol­i­cy – there are a total of 139 flights from Lon­don to Edin­burgh as opposed to just 22 trains. We’re here today to protest against short-haul flights. We’re well aware that a lot of peo­ple will be choos­ing to go to the Edin­burgh Fes­ti­val and we’re here to ask them to make the right deci­sion – to take the train. In a time of cli­mate cri­sis any­thing else is more than irre­spon­si­ble: it’s Plane Stu­pid.’

Gatwick flies 26 times dai­ly to Edin­burgh. The same route is cov­ered by a four hour train ride from Lon­don King’s Cross. How­ev­er there are only 22 trains per day. The route from Lon­don to Edin­burgh (by air) is also cov­ered by Heathrow (66 flights), Stanst­ed (31 flights), Luton (12 flights) and Lon­don City Air­port (4 flights).

The activists are present­ly at Gatwick con­tin­u­ing their protest, after which those not arrest­ed will return to the Cli­mate Camp to con­tin­ue their envi­ron­men­tal action.

http://www.planestupid.com

————

World’s small­est cam­paign­ers scale Kingsnorth smoke­stack
Lego Kingsnorth occupation7.08.2008
E.ON’s repli­ca of the Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion has been occu­pied by one inch tall cli­mate change cam­paign­ers. The dra­ma unfold­ed at the Legoland park in Wind­sor – spon­sored by E.ON – where the Lego Kingsnorth is giv­en pride of place next to Big Ben and Canary Wharf.

The Lego cam­paign­ers struck as hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­er at this year’s Cli­mate Camp to protest the planned new coal plant at Kingsnorth in Kent.

The six cam­paign­ers appeared at the top of the con­struc­tion at around 11am this morn­ing, before unveil­ing a ban­ner say­ing STOP CLIMATE CHANGE down the length of the tow­er. Lego police are in atten­dance at the foot of the tow­er, along with a Lego police heli­copter.

E.ON proud­ly announced the con­struc­tion of Britain’s newest coal-fired sta­tion at Legoland in 2006. The Ger­man util­i­ty giant is Britain’s sin­gle biggest green­house gas pol­luter. The com­pa­ny is aim­ing to have Kingsnorth 2 built by 2012. Despite claims that the new plant will be more effi­cient, it is esti­mat­ed that it will emit 8.4 mil­lion tonnes of cli­mate chang­ing pol­lu­tants every year, com­pared to the 8.7 mil­lion tonnes the exist­ing plant releas­es annu­al­ly, and nowhere near the 80% reduc­tions need­ed to com­bat glob­al warm­ing.

Nei­ther the cam­paign­ers nor the police would com­ment, because they’re made of Lego and there­fore can’t talk.

legoactivist@googlemail.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/legoactivist

————

Cli­mate Camp activists super­glue them­selves to RBS
8.08.2008
This morn­ing at 8.30 AM, activists from the Camp for Cli­mate Action super­glued them­selves to the front doors of the Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s Oil and Gas Divi­sion in Bish­ops­gate, Cen­tral Lon­don wield­ing a ban­ner read­ing “RBS: Cash­ing In On Coal”.

The fol­low­ing is tak­en from the Cam­p’s press release:

“Loca­tion: 199 Broadgate Court, Bish­op’s Gate, near Liv­er­pool Street sta­tion.

Roy­al Bank Of Scot­land Tar­get­ed By Cli­mate Camp Activists For The Sec­ond Day Run­ning

Activists from the Camp for Cli­mate Action have super­glued them­selves to the front doors of the Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s Oil and Gas Divi­sion in Cen­tral Lon­don [1]. Wield­ing a ban­ner read­ing “RBS: Cash­ing In On Coal”, the cam­paign­ers are stag­ing this protest to high­light the links between the finan­cial sec­tor, the fos­sil fuel indus­try, and dis­as­trous cli­mate change.

This action fol­lows the protest at RBS’s head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, when 15 stu­dents staged a “die-in” block­ade [2] to demand that the bank stop fund­ing fos­sil fuel projects includ­ing the pro­posed new coal pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth. Today’s action, which takes place as part of the cli­mate camp and involves mem­bers of the cli­mate action net­work Ris­ing Tide [3], will show the bank that this cam­paign pres­sure is not going to go away.

In 2007, projects financed by RBS were respon­si­ble for more emis­sions that the whole of Scot­land. Along with oth­er banks, RBS par­tic­i­pat­ed in financ­ing E.ON – the own­ers of Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion — $70 bil­lion over the course of 2007 [4]. RBS has financed com­pa­nies like Arch Coal, who are engag­ing in con­tro­ver­sial moun­tain top removal min­ing in the US [5], and are also financ­ing com­pa­nies like Dyn­e­gy [6] who are look­ing to roll out new coal pow­er sta­tions across Amer­i­ca.

Sarah Horne, who is at the Cli­mate Camp in Kent, said:
“The Cli­mate Camp has always been about far more than just stop­ping a new pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth. The fact that the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land has been tar­get­ed twice in as many days high­lights the inti­mate involve­ment of well-known high street banks in the destruc­tion of our cli­mate, thanks to the bil­lions of pounds they invest in fos­sil fuel projects each year. We need to shift to a dif­fer­ent kind of econ­o­my – one that doesn’t rely on end­less eco­nom­ic growth at all costs, and respects the nat­ur­al lim­its of the plan­et.”

Sam Har­ri­son, who is cur­rent­ly super­glued to the entrance of RBS’s oil and gas divi­sion, said “The fact that RBS have a spe­cial office ded­i­cat­ed entire­ly to fund­ing oil and gas projects shows exact­ly where their pri­or­i­ties lie. We need to rad­i­cal­ly reduce our use of fos­sil fuels to have any chance of avoid­ing dis­as­trous cli­mate change, so it is com­plete­ly per­verse for RBS to keep pour­ing so much mon­ey into oil, gas and coal. We’re here to make them to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their actions.”

PHOTOS ON REQUEST: press@climatecamp.org.uk.

For updates and inter­views about the action con­tact Sam Har­ri­son on 07939 142072. For infor­ma­tion about the Camp for Cli­mate Action, call 07531396232 or see www.climatecamp.org.uk.

NOTES:

[1] RBS London’s Oil and Gas Divi­sion address is at 199 Broadgate Court, Bish­op’s Gate, near Liv­er­pool Street sta­tion.

[2] The stu­dents posed as oil-cov­ered dead bod­ies to block the entrance to RBS’s HQ. For more details on yesterday’s RBS action, con­tact Richard Roaf on 07801140192

[3] For more infor­ma­tion about Ris­ing Tide see www.risingtide.org.uk

[4] Project Finance, Issue No. 287, Feb­ru­ary 2008

[5] Bank Track, Mind The Gap, 2007, pp 124–5

[6] www.banktrack.org”

————

Naked protest at BERR
Naked BERR climate action 1
Naked BERR climate action 2
Pho­tographs of pro­test­ers super­glued to the sign of the Depart­ment for Busi­ness Enter­prise and Reg­u­la­to­ry Reform, 1 Vic­to­ria Street, Lon­don. August 8, 2008.

————

Cli­mate campers tar­get min­ing cor­po­ra­tion
BHP action 1BHP action 211.08.2008
An affin­i­ty group from Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action, inspired by this year’s cli­mate camp, occu­pied the lob­by of BHP Bil­li­ton today, super­glu­ing them­selves to the doors and win­dows and climb­ing onto part of the archi­tec­ture. After sev­er­al hours, they man­aged to nego­ti­ate leav­ing with­out any arrests.

BHP are the world’s biggest min­ing cor­po­ra­tion. Based in Aus­tralia, they are respon­si­ble for min­ing hun­dreds of tonnes of coal, as well as for human rights abus­es world­wide. One exam­ple is their involve­ment in Cer­re­jón, the world’s biggest open­cast mine, in Colom­bia, which has dis­placed 14’000 peo­ple.

With all this in mind we decid­ed to dis­rupt busi­ness as usu­al at BHP’s head offices in Lon­don. We scat­tered coal in the lob­by, glued to the revolv­ing doors and near­by win­dows, while a sec­ond door near­by was D‑locked. Mean­while a team of mis­chie­vous fer­rets slipped upstairs in suits to see what else could be done, while oth­ers held a ban­ner out­side say­ing ‘BHP: Under­min­ing the future’ (a play on their vac­u­ous cor­po­rate slo­gan) and leaflet­ed the intrigued passers-by.

When the ‘fer­rets’ were dragged back down to the lob­by, they joined the rest of us. One of them also glued to the revolv­ing door, while the oth­er held a ‘Coal Heart­ed Killers’ ban­ner and even­tu­al­ly man­aged to scram­ble up onto a bit of the struc­ture.

A cou­ple of cops even­tu­al­ly showed up, but there was a tan­gi­ble reluc­tance on the part of BHP to esca­late the sit­u­a­tion; they seemed to want to do any­thing nec­es­sary to get us to qui­et­ly go away! It was main­ly because of this (and because they did­n’t have any easy way of get­ting the climber down) that we were able to nego­ti­ate get­ting every­one away with­out arrest, after the glued on folk had been unglued by the police using a spe­cial chem­i­cal solu­tion.

We adjourned to a near­by pub where we sat in mild shock at hav­ing done what we planned to do with­out the expect­ed has­sle of arrests..

We can hearti­ly rec­om­mend pay­ing them a vis­it! The mas­sive plate glass win­dows pro­vide a good view for passers-by, media etc.

BHP Bil­li­ton Plc
Neathouse Place
Vic­to­ria
Lon­don SW1V 1BH

There are also plen­ty of oth­er sim­i­lar­ly evil out­fits around cen­tral Lon­don — do your own research!

http://tvca.atspace.com/
http://leaveitintheground.org.uk/
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

————

Cli­mate Cam­paign­ers Tar­get Mil­i­tary Base
Mildenhall climate action 111.08.2008
At USAF Milden­hall today, activists linked to the cli­mate camp made a sur­prise appear­ance. Dressed as mil­i­tary air­craft and traf­fic jam both with CO2 tech­ni­cians. They attempt­ed to enter­tain whilst defi­ant­ly edu­cat­ing the troops and passers by. They said they where there to raise aware­ness of the large CO2 emis­sions cre­at­ed by Mil­i­tary air­craft.

A sin­gle KC135 plane uses 44 gal­lons of fuel per minute, emit­ting approx­i­mate­ly the same amount of CO2 as 2000 cars. The planes are used for air-to-air refu­elling and can car­ry 30,000 gal­lons of fuel – enough to dri­ve a car over 30 times around the earth.

One of the activists, Mell Har­ri­son said ‘We are here to show that mil­i­tary air­craft are not only com­mit­ting war crimes, but cli­mate crimes also. You very rarely hear about the vast amounts of CO2 emit­ted by the mil­i­tary and at a time when all should be account­able for their car­bon foot­print now is the time to put our efforts and resources into tack­ling cli­mate change not fight­ing wars over oil resources. ’

Richard Jack­son dressed as KC-135 58–0036 said, ‘Nweeeeeeeeearhh­h­h­h­hh phut phut phut phut’

Whilst dressed as an ‘allur­ing’ car sales girl, Pete Lux said, “Even if you do not believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are counter pro­duc­tive as we do, there is still the large amount of unnec­es­sary fly­ing. Often the planes will do ‘touch and goes’ where they land and then take off sev­er­al times. This is a need­less emis­sion of car­bon diox­ide, in fact dur­ing the 2 hours of our pres­ence here we have had the same two air­craft tak­ing off and land­ing con­tin­u­al­ly. ”

Milden­hall is one of the major logis­tic bases for US Air Force and plays a major role in sup­port­ing com­bat air­craft in both Afghanistan and Iraq. US planes car­ry out about 40 ‘close air sup­port’ mis­sions every day in Iraq and a sim­i­lar num­ber in Afghanistan. Each KC-135 flies on aver­age, for 435 hours each year. There are 15 KC ‑135s at this US base alone. This results in over 160 mil­lion Kg of CO2 per year.

Whilst at the US air base some­body with the group was told by a female Suf­folk police offi­cer that if she did not tell them who they were, how long they would be there and num­bers expect­ed, she, as the ‘nice police’ , would have to call in ‘ the ones with shields and dogs’. So looks like the police tac­tics of the last few days con­tin­ue……
We did not see any pup­pies though.

As Cli­mate Camp fin­ish­es, the group say that the cam­paign against cli­mate crim­i­nals will con­tin­ue all year round.

The KC-135 uses 2650 gal­lons per hour = 44.16666667 gal­lons per minute
Car­ries 90700 kg of avi­a­tion fuel = 126000 litres = 27800 gal­lons.
Aver­age new car cre­ates 140g CO2 per km = 12.6 kg CO2 per hour = 0.21 Kg CO2 per minute.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/kc-135e.htm
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=110
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas

————
Cli­mate camp activists tar­get envi­ron­men­tal­ly ‘irre­spon­si­ble’ meat indus­try
Climate camp activists target environmentally ‘irresponsible’ meat industryClimate camp activists target environmentally ‘irresponsible’ meat industryThis morn­ing, 11th August 2008, six Cli­mate Camp activists climbed the roof of Smith­field meat mar­ket to high­light the links between cli­mate change and meat con­sump­tion. The activists dropped a ban­ner bear­ing the mes­sage “Fight cli­mate change — Go Veg­an”.

The activists also quot­ed the 2007 UN Food and Agri­cul­ture report that found that 18% of glob­al green­house emis­sions are caused by ani­mal farm­ing – more than the entire trans­port sec­tor world­wide. The pro­tes­tors argue that all major polit­i­cal par­ties have failed to address this seri­ous prob­lem and as a con­se­quence the pub­lic have not been encour­aged to adopt an envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble diet.

The group is call­ing for more peo­ple to choose a veg­an diet, which excludes all ani­mal prod­ucts includ­ing meat, eggs and dairy, in order to mas­sive­ly reduce cli­mate alter­ing emis­sions. “An ani­mal-based diet is no longer sus­tain­able with cli­mate change threat­en­ing the plan­et, its ecosys­tems, and the peo­ple who depend on them,” said Clare Whit­ney, one of the activists.

The fos­sil fuel input to pro­duce a day’s food for a veg­an is just under 10,000 calo­ries, com­pared to 34,000 calo­ries for a meat eater – the equiv­a­lent of near­ly 1.5 tonnes more car­bon diox­ide per per­son per year. As such, the cli­mate camp pro­tes­tors main­tain, chang­ing the way we eat is one of the most pow­er­ful ways for indi­vid­u­als to reduce their car­bon foot­print.

Smith­field mar­ket is one of the largest whole­sale trad­ing places for meat prod­ucts in the UK. Eighty-five thou­sand tonnes of pro­duce pass through it each year includ­ing meat, poul­try and cheese.

Phil Mur­ray, 22, not­ed: “the meat indus­try is up there with short-haul flights as one of the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly irre­spon­si­ble sec­tors.”

The action took place as part of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, a week-long protest against the build­ing of a new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in Kent, which, if built, will emit between 6 and 8 mil­lion tons of CO2 every year.

(This is actu­al­ly just our press release but since the back light on our lap­top just van­ished we’re going to have to leave it as that…)

Cli­mate Camp Veg­an Action Group
angelo.b@talk21.com

Eviction Of Coal Mine Protest Site Started (Bodge House)

7.08.2008
Around 7.45am about 60 police and 50 bail­liffs arrived at the house. Through­out the day the police have been try­ing to get through the bar­ri­cades and defences. Local peo­ple and media have been at the scene. So far 3 peo­ple have been removed from lock­ons and a car­go net out­side the house and have been arrest­ed. 7 peo­ple are still inside and are heav­i­ly bar­ri­cad­ed in, includ­ed being hid­den in tun­nels under the house. The bailiffs have put up secu­ri­ty fences and although they have man­aged to enter part of the build­ing, the evic­tion attempt has been stopped for today. It is esti­mat­ed the evic­tion will take at least anoth­er cou­ple of days.

Bodge House eviction7.08.2008
Around 7.45am about 60 police and 50 bail­liffs arrived at the house. Through­out the day the police have been try­ing to get through the bar­ri­cades and defences. Local peo­ple and media have been at the scene. So far 3 peo­ple have been removed from lock­ons and a car­go net out­side the house and have been arrest­ed. 7 peo­ple are still inside and are heav­i­ly bar­ri­cad­ed in, includ­ed being hid­den in tun­nels under the house. The bailiffs have put up secu­ri­ty fences and although they have man­aged to enter part of the build­ing, the evic­tion attempt has been stopped for today. It is esti­mat­ed the evic­tion will take at least anoth­er cou­ple of days.

Direc­tion to the site (PDF) — http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20918

Spirit of Freedom (August 2008)

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words
and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words
and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the August 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.
There are also a num­ber of non-list­ed pris­on­ers, who are not list­ed either by their own choice, or because they betrayed their fel­low activists and became infor­mants. And remem­ber these num­bers do not include those peo­ple who are either under House Arrest or on Bail pend­ing Tri­al. Nor do they include the activists whose loca­tions are cur­rent­ly unknown and who are described by the police as “on the run”. See­ing so many good peo­ple removed from their fam­i­lies & loved ones for mere­ly act­ing out of com­pas­sion and a desire to stop envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and ani­mal abuse is heart­break­ing.
Some of the pris­on­ers ELP lists are very well known, oth­ers are less well known. How­ev­er ALL of them deserve our love and sup­port. ALL of the list­ed pris­on­ers wel­come let­ters of sup­port. Even if it’s just a card say­ing “Hi. I’m think­ing of you”. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. And no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, SWIS #640393, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 1120 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Port­land, Ore­gon 97206, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing of six and a half years impris­on­ment hav­ing reached a non-coop­er­a­tion plea-bar­gain with the author­i­ties who accuse him of involve­ment in two arsons. 1) an arson on log­ging trucks 2) an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. (Tre is a raw ener­gy veg­an — He has asked that his let­ters of sup­port are writ­ten on scrap paper or tree-free paper).

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Burla 59, 43100 Par­ma, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Francesco Gioia, C.C. Sol­lic­ciano, Via Giro­lamo Min­ervi­ni 2/R, 50142 Firen­ze Sol­lic­ciano (FI), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Pao­la Gori, Via delle Mac­chie 9, 57124 Livorno, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of allow­ing her house to be used to plan ille­gal activ­i­ty. (Pao­la is a veg­an).

Bryan Lefey #38664–086, FDC SeaT­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. On remand accused of an ELF action that saw the dam­ag­ing of GM trees and the dam­ag­ing of US Forestry Ser­vice vehi­cles. (Diet unknown).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097. FCI Vic­torville Medi­um II, PO BOX 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, FCI Terre Haute, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. At the moment Daniel is in tran­sit as he has been ordered to appear before some Grand Juries. Daniel is refus­ing to answer the Grand Jury ques­tions and is gain­ing addi­tion­al prison time because of this (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters, 36432–086, FDC — Seat­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Jon is a veg­an).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Exeter, 30 New North Road, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4EX, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment.
(Mel is a veg­an).

Mar­tin Bal­luch, (JA Josef­s­tadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Mar­tin is a veg­an)

Christoph, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Christo­pher does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Christoph is a veg­an).

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Jake is a veg­an).

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI El Reno, PO Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036, USA. Serv­ing one-year impris­on­ment after he informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Rod is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS. (Don is a veg­an).

Jür­gen Faul­mann, Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Jur­gen is a veg­an).

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Josh is a veg­an).

Felix Hnat (JA Eisen­stadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Felix is a veg­an).

Jan, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Jan does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Jan is a veg­an).

Kevin Kroem­mer, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Kevin is a veg­an)

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HM Prison Blak­en­hurst, Hewell Lane, Red­ditch, B97 6QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing four and a half years for run­ning an anti-vivi­sec­tion cam­paign web­site. (Sean is a veg­an).

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Leo, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Leo does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Leo is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Chris­t­ian Moser, Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Chris­t­ian is a veg­an).

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (Heather is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

Sabine, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Sabine does not wish to have their full name pub­lished. (Sabine is a veg­an).

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, USP Mar­i­on, P.O. Box 1000 Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Andrew is a veg­an).

Elmar Völkl (JA Eisen­stadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Elmar is a veg­an).

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack. (Diet unknown).

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic.
Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish. (Diet unknown).

Fabio Milan, C.C. via Pianez­za 300, 10151 Tori­no, Italy. On remand accused of fight­ing with the police after an anti-fas­cist protest. (Diet unknown).

Andrea Neff, Bnr: 746/07/2, Jus­tizvol­lzugsanstalt fur Frauen in Berlin, Arkonas­trasse 56, 13189 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 14 months for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ty. (Diet unknown).

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self. (Tomasz is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Yuri Yure­vich Milevskiy, SIZO #7 kam­era 38, g. Brest, ul. Kar­la Mark­sa 86, 224000 Belarus. On remand for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown).

OTHER PRISONERS

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009. (Diet unknown).

Vagge­lis Botzatzis, Komo­ti­ni Juridi­cal Prison (“Dikastikes Fylakes Komo­ti­nis”), T.K. 69100, Greece. On remand accused of set­ting fire to two com­pa­ny cars owned by a energy/power com­pa­ny. It is believed that the per­son or per­sons unknown who car­ried out the arson did so in protest at the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and in sup­port of two work­ers who died at the pow­er plant. Vagge­lis is also accused of set­ting fire to a bank and start­ing a fire inside a car yard. (Meat Eater).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they did­n’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Michael W. Sykes, 100 East 2nd St, Mon­roe, Michi­gan 48161, USA. Youth held on remand accused of anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age, spray-paint­ing an anar­chist sign and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA.
Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp4321@hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

SAVING ICELAND BLOCKADES RIO TINTO-ALCAN’S SMELTER IN ICELAND

Aug 01 2008
“STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF ÞJÓRSÁ FOR ARMS PRODUCTION!”

Rio-Tinto/Alcan blockadeAug 01 2008
“STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF ÞJÓRSÁ FOR ARMS PRODUCTION!”

HAFNARFJORDUR, ICELAND — Activists from Sav­ing Ice­land have today begun stop­ping traf­fic to and from Rio Tinto-Alcan’s alu­mini­um smelter in Straumsvík, Haf­nar­fjor­dur, by chain­ing them­selves to the gates of the plant. Sav­ing Ice­land is protest­ing against Rio Tinto-Alcan’s plans to increase their alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty on the island, the con­se­quences of which would would be that sig­nif­i­cant parts of Iceland’s unique envi­ron­ment would have to be destroyed for ener­gy gen­er­a­tion. The activists are also protest­ing against the worlds largest alu­mini­um producer’s involve­ment with the arms indus­try.

Rio Tin­to-Alcan wants to increase its pro­duc­tion in Straumsvík by 40 thou­sand tons per year with­out enlarg­ing the smelter build­ing itself. At the same time the com­pa­ny is plan­ning to build a sec­ond alu­mini­um smelter in the towns of Keil­isnes or Þor­lák­shöfn (1).

Reyk­javík Ener­gy (Orku­vei­ta Reyk­javíkur) pulled out from an ener­gy deal with Rio Tin­to-Alcan because of strong pub­lic oppo­si­tion to their expan­sion, result­ing in the geot­her­mal­ly active Bitra moun­tain being saved.(2)

At the same time, Landsvirkjun (the nation­al ener­gy com­pa­ny) is plan­ning to go ahead with the con­struc­tion of three dams in the Thjórsá riv­er, south Ice­land, as well as one in the adjoin­ing Tung­naá riv­er. They have already signed an ener­gy expan­sion con­tract with Rio Tin­to-Alcan (4). In Decem­ber 2006, the two com­pa­nies signed a con­tract which stat­ed that Rio Tin­to-Alcan would share the cost of the three dams in Thjórsá (5).

Cor­rup­tion in Haf­nar­fjörður
In the end of March 2007, a pub­lic ref­er­en­dum took place in Haf­nar­fjör­dur, where a major­i­ty in the city vot­ed against the enlarge­ment of their Rio Tinto-Alcan’s smelter. Lúd­vík Geirs­son, may­or of Haf­nar­fjör­dur, said that the ref­er­en­dum was a “vic­to­ry for democ­ra­cy” and added that he would fol­low the con­clu­sion (6). Rio Tin­to-Alcan announced that they were then con­sid­er­ing to move their pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty to to Thor­lák­shöfn.

Only three months lat­er, Lúd­vík sat at a meet­ing with Ran­nveig Rist, direc­tor of Alcan in Ice­land, and Michael Jacques, direc­tor of Alcan Pri­ma­ry Met­al Group, where they dis­cussed the future of Alcan in Ice­land. One idea dis­cussed was to increase the Straumsvik smelter’s capac­i­ty into the sea, on top of a land­fill mound, rather than onto a lava rock area cleared by Alcan in antic­i­pa­tion of a pos­i­tive result from the ref­er­en­dum (7). Many see this as a betray­al of the ref­er­en­dum spir­it, which was not in regards to the speci­fici­ties of Alcan’s expan­sion but their expan­sion alto­geth­er.

“Is this real­ly what Geirs­son calls the ‘vic­to­ry of democ­ra­cy’? Bro­ken promis­es?” says Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son, from Sav­ing Ice­land. “His behav­iour show clear­ly how much pow­er the alu­mini­um cor­po­ra­tions have here in Ice­land. The author­i­ties seem to not dare to speak or act against these cor­po­ra­tions will.”

Alcan’s links with the arms indus­try
August 30th, 2006, Alcan signed a long-term con­tract for their involve­ment with the pro­duc­tion of the F‑35 Join­t­er Strike Fight­er, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the arms pro­duc­ers Lock­heed Mar­tin, Nothrop-Grum­man and BAE Sys­tems (8).

“This is not a respectable com­pa­ny” says Sofie Larsen from Sav­ing Ice­land. “Until now, Alcoa has got the most atten­tion here in Ice­land when it comes to the links between alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion and the arms indus­try. Yet, Alcan is no bet­ter at all, since the com­pa­ny is con­tract­ed to sev­er­al dif­fer­ent weapon pro­duc­ers.”

Alcan pro­duces alu­minum for EADS (Euro­pean Aero­space and Defense and Space) (9), whose line of mil­i­tary heli­copters and fight­er jets includes the Eurofight­er Tycoon, Mirage F1 and EF18 Hor­net. EADS is also a lead in the pro­duc­tion of mis­siles (10).

“On it’s web­site, EADS claims that the company’s prod­uct is only sold to coun­tries who ´guar­an­tee a respon­si­ble approach to high-tech mil­i­tary air sys­tems´” says Sofie, ”but on the same site, one can find videos which glo­ri­fy Nazi Germany’s air­force (11). What kind of ethics is that?”

The damming of Thjórsá riv­er
Despite strong local resis­tance from farm­ers unwill­ing to give up their land for Rio Tinto-Alcan’s expan­sion, Landsvirkjun have been work­ing full time to push through the four dam project. Landsvirkjun has again and again gone up to the riv­er, try­ing to get farm­ers to agree with the con­struc­tion. When they received a let­ter signed by nine of the ten farm­ers affect­ed by the Urridafoss water­fall Thjórsá dam, stat­ing that they refused to par­tic­i­pate in any fur­ther dis­cus­sions with the ener­gy agency, Landsvirkjun threat­ened to force­ful­ly expro­pri­ate their land.

Recent­ly the dis­trict coun­cil of Flóahrep­pur made an agree­ment with Landsvirkjun to include the Urridafoss dam into their dis­trict plan. Jón Árni Vig­nis­son, a farmer who lives by Thjórsá, said that they had done so after Landsvirkjun had promised to pump funds into a vari­ety of their minor infra­struc­ture projects: road, water sup­ply and mobile phone recep­tion improve­ments (12). Essen­tial­ly, the local gov­ern­ment had been bribed.

The enlarge­ment of Rio Tinto-Alcan’s capac­i­ties in Ice­land and the damming of the Thjórsá riv­er are high­ly cor­rupt projects which Sav­ing Ice­land demands the imme­di­ate halt­ing of.

Ref­er­ences:

(1) Mbl.is, Álfram­leiðs­la hjá Alcan aukin um 22 prósent, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(2) Mbl.is, Fyrirhugaðar framkvæmdir og orkusala hal­dast í hen­dur, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(3) Mbl.is, 200 mw orkusala úr sögun­ni, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(4) Vísir.is, Alcan kep­pir áfram um orku Þjórsár, http://visir.is/article/20070909/FRETTIR…
(5) Heimasíða Rio Tin­to-Alcan á Íslan­di, http://www.riotintoalcan.is/?PageID=12&a…
(6 )Mbl.is, Sig­ur fyrir lýðræðið, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(7) Mbl.is, Álver á land­fyllingu, http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2007/06…
(8) Vef­síða Alcan, http://www.alcan.com/web/publishing.nsf/…(JSF
(9) Vef­síða ABC Mon­ey, http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/132007869…
(10) Vef­síða EADS, http://www.eads.com/1024/en/businet/defe…
(11) Myn­d­band sem segir sögu EADS, http://www.eads.com/xml/content/OF000000…
(12) Sunnlen­s­ka Frét­tablaðið, 30. tölublað, Eigum mar­ga aðra valkosti, bls. 8–9, 24. Júlí 2008

Cobham, Surrey : Activists Blockade Cargill Europe Head Office

1.08.2008
Since 7.50 am this morn­ing, 20 par­tic­i­pants in this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action and mem­bers of Action Against Agro­fu­els have been blockad­ing the only access gate to Cargill’s Euro­pean region­al head office in Cob­ham, Sur­rey. 8 activists have locked on to the gates clos­ing the site down com­plete­ly. Agrobusi­ness giant Cargill are being tar­get­ed by the pro­test­ers for their role in rain­for­est destruc­tion and land-grab­bing as well as for prof­i­teer­ing from the food cri­sis.

Cargill blockade, Cobham1.08.2008
Since 7.50 am this morn­ing, 20 par­tic­i­pants in this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action and mem­bers of Action Against Agro­fu­els have been blockad­ing the only access gate to Cargill’s Euro­pean region­al head office in Cob­ham, Sur­rey. 8 activists have locked on to the gates clos­ing the site down com­plete­ly. Agrobusi­ness giant Cargill are being tar­get­ed by the pro­test­ers for their role in rain­for­est destruc­tion and land-grab­bing as well as for prof­i­teer­ing from the food cri­sis.

Han­nah Ritchie from the group says: “Cargill is using the boom in agro­fu­els to expand soya, palm oil and sug­ar plan­ta­tions, dis­plac­ing com­mu­ni­ties, food crops and destroy­ing ecosys­tems. Destroy­ing rain­forests and oth­er bio­di­verse ecosys­tems, includ­ing healthy soils, is one of the quick­est ways of heat­ing the plan­et. This is why we are blockad­ing the Cargill office two days before the offi­cial start of the Cli­mate Camp at Kingsnorth.”

Accord­ing to the UN World Food Pro­gramme, 100 mil­lion more peo­ple are going hun­gry as food prices have risen by 83% in three years. At the same time, Cargill’s prof­its have risen to record lev­els, going up by 86% in just nine months, since the com­pa­ny is prof­i­teer­ing from high food prices.

Jor­dan Craig says: “For com­pa­nies like Cargill, agro­fu­els are an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make more prof­its from food, to take over more land from small farm­ers and com­mu­ni­ties and to fur­ther destroy local food pro­duc­tion. This is why we need an imme­di­ate halt to gov­ern­ment poli­cies such as the manda­to­ry blend­ing of petrol and diesel with bio­fu­els in the UK, as well as an end to ‘free trade’ food and agri­cul­tur­al poli­cies which sole­ly boost the pow­er and the prof­its of agribusi­ness­es like Cargill. Instead of agro­fu­els, we need to have poli­cies that sup­port Food Sov­er­eign­ty, i.e. which put peo­ple’s right to food first and sup­port small-scale, bio­di­verse, organ­ic farm­ing, instead of ener­gy-inten­sive agri­cul­ture.”

Con­tacts:

Par­tic­i­pants in the action can be con­tact­ed at the fol­low­ing num­bers 07527–124478 or 07964–068147

Notes:

1. Agro­fu­els are bio­fu­els made from crops and trees grown on mono­cul­tures for that pur­pose.

2. Cargill owns 25% of shares in the UK’s biggest bio­fu­el sup­pli­er, Green­er­gy Inter­na­tion­al. They have major invest­ments in US corn ethanol, Brazil­ian sug­ar cane ethanol, as well as palm oil and soya, and they are involved in joint ven­tures to devel­op GM agro­fu­els. Cargill is the world’s biggest grain trad­er, the biggest exporter of sug­ar cane and soy­bean from Brazil, the biggest soy­bean crush­er in Paraguay and one of the world’s five largest palm oil traders.

3. For more infor­ma­tion about the harm which Cargill is caus­ing to com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems in Brazil, Paraguay and Papua New Guinea, see http://understory.ran.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/cargill_letter1.pdf

www.biofuelwatch.org.uk