Community request for help fighting Shell in Mayo, Ireland

Local com­mu­ni­ty requests help from activists to fight a Shell/Statoil/Marathon gas pipeline that will threat­en their lives and be eco­log­i­cal­ly dev­as­tat­ing for an iso­lat­ed, beau­ti­ful area of Ire­land

The local com­mu­ni­ty of Ross­port, Co. Mayo is threat­ened with unprece­dent­ed human and eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion by a col­lu­sion of the Irish State and a hydro­car­bon con­sor­tium, led by Roy­al Dutch Shell. The con­sor­tium plan an unprece­dent­ed raw gas pipeline that will run over bog­gy land, with­in 70m of farmer’s hous­es and through a land­slide prone area to a refin­ery, also built on bog­land. The Irish State grant­ed Shell Com­pul­so­ry Acqui­si­tion Orders, which threat­en the landown­ers with prison if they refuse to sell their land. There was also an injunc­tion placed upon the landown­ers from pre­vent­ing Shell employ­ees access to their land.

Today, in the midst of a week-long block­ade of the roads to the refin­ery build­ing site by locals and activists, the High Court has ruled to imprison all five defen­dants for break­ing the injunc­tion (ie. refus­ing to allow Shell employess access to land). It looks like the Court will attempt to imprison every­one who gets in the way of this pipeline.

The area, Ross­port in north Co. Mayo is one of incred­i­ble nat­ur­al splen­dour. Broad­haven Bay, into which Shell would pump mag­ne­sium oxide, arsenic, lead etc. is a breed­ing ground for whales, bask­ing sharks, dol­phins (includ­ing the very rare Rizo’s dol­phin) and salmon. A camp was first estab­lished at an ear­ly June sol­i­dar­i­ty week­end and there are now calls for its revi­tal­i­sa­tion. For pho­tos of the sol­i­dar­i­ty week­end, go here:http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70173

For pho­tos of the area, see here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayogas/

This cam­paign is winnable, but it needs com­mit­ted activists. I am cur­rent­ly in Lon­don, but will be head­ing to Mayo imme­di­ate­ly after the G8. I hope to spend the time until then inform­ing peo­ple about this sit­u­a­tion and get­ting peo­ple to go to the camp in Mayo. If you’d like to learn more, I’ll be at the gig in Ram­pArts tonight; glass­es, black hair, short and slight­ly sil­ly Irish accent. Oth­er­wise, I’ll be on the train on Fri­day. Please talk to me if you’d like to get involved so we can sort out logis­tics with the peo­ple in Mayo now.

e‑mail: info@shelltosea.com
Home­page: http://www.indymedia.ie/mayo