News from climate action camps in Scotland, Belgium/Netherlands and France

Scot­tish camp starts — Scot­tish coal con­vey­or sup­ply­ing Drax sab­o­taged — tar­gets list -
Belgian/Dutch camp starts — Bel­gian coal ter­mi­nal occu­pied — French camp & Nantes air­port action

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Local sup­port for Cli­mate Camp Scot­land is made quite clear on the (longer than we expect­ed) bus ride from Lanark through the wind­ing coun­try lanes to Main­shill sol­i­dar­i­ty camp that is also now Scot­lands’ Cli­mate Camp.

Spot­ting us with our tent and gear an old­er woman says she would’ve joined the camp if it was­n’t for her bad health and oth­er women on the bus jeer and promise food dona­tions. A bloke imme­di­ate­ly struck up a con­ver­sa­tion telling us he used to work on the open­cast mine and that his broth­er still does. He said he could­n’t under­stand why they were so keen to reopen and restart work on the site. He’ll more than like­ly be vis­it­ing the camp this week too.

We arrived at the 6ft wood­en fence fit­ted with a door that is the main gate of the camp about 2pm — the dri­ver mak­ing an unsched­uled stop to drop us off at the camp entrance so we did­n’t have to walk back from the near­est stop — just as 2 local plod had man­aged to walk in wan­der­ing half way up the lane to the camp find­ing them­selves quick­ly sur­round­ed by cli­mate campers con­vinc­ing them to leave. Oth­er than that, the lone cop with video cam at Lanark sta­tion and the chop­per which hov­ered around for a few min­utes a while ago, the author­i­ties seem to be keep­ing a low pro­file. No FIT at the camp, in fact no police hang­ing around at all.

Although not very busy yet, the camp is look­ing sol­id: nev­er mind the com­post toi­lets, there’s a bike-pow­ered cin­e­ma, big kitchen tent, and solar-pow­ered (indy)media tent. And plen­ty of camp­ing space, of course. From the oth­er end of the field we can see the wind farms on hills to either side of the camp.

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Glen­tag­gart Coalmine Sab­o­taged; Police leave can­celled across the region

The Camp for Cli­mate Action Scot­land has been informed that anony­mous activists have suc­cess­ful­ly sab­o­taged the Glen­tag­gart open­cast coal mine in South Lanark­shire. The unknown indi­vid­u­als have dis­abled the con­vey­or belt that moves coal from the mine to Raven­struther rail ter­mi­nal where the coal is then sent to Drax pow­er sta­tion in York­shire.

The sab­o­tage has the poten­tial to great­ly dis­rupt the removal of coal. Insid­ers say that once it has been stopped it is dif­fi­cult to restart the heav­i­ly laden con­vey­ors which is sev­er­al kilo­me­ters long and comes in quar­ter kilo­me­ter sec­tions. Drax pow­er sta­tion was the site of the first Camp for Cli­mate Action 2006.

The Camp for Cli­mate Action Scot­land is tak­ing place cross the val­ley from Glen­tag­gart at the site of anoth­er pro­posed open cast mine at Main­shill woods near Dou­glas. A protest camp has already been in place for six weeks cam­paign­ing against the plans which have gone through despite strong local oppo­si­tion. The area is already one of the most heav­i­ly mined areas in Europe with a num­ber of oth­er open­cast mines already being worked.

Diar­maid Lynch, a spokesper­son from the Camp said on hear­ing the news, “Fan­tas­tic. Con­grat­u­la­tions to those who did this. Open­cast min­ing is respon­si­ble for a spike in the num­ber of lung relat­ed deaths in this small area. It is time that the likes of Scot­tish Coal and the plan­ning author­i­ties are held direct­ly respon­si­ble for their role in these deaths. Cli­mate change is a killer, both at home and in the Glob­al South where those who have ben­e­fit­ed the least from indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion are the first to pay the price.”

The World Health Organ­i­sa­tion esti­mates that cli­mate change kills 150,000 peo­ple a year and that fig­ure is expect­ed to grow as coun­tries fail to take action. Can­cer in the Dou­glas post­code area is 23% above the nation­al aver­age, and 28% above the region­al aver­age. In the four years that the exist­ing three open­cast mines have been oper­at­ing in the area pul­monary issues have increased 60%.

In a sep­a­rate devel­op­ment the Camp for Cli­mate Action has also learned that police leave across the cen­tral belt of Scot­land has been can­celled as the var­i­ous forces move to a state of high alert. To date the polic­ing at the Camp has been very low key, but campers remain alert.

Scotland’s Cli­mate Crim­i­nals

The fol­low­ing is a list of the oper­a­tions in Scot­land which prof­it from the exploita­tion of fos­sil fuels. None of these oper­a­tions are com­pat­i­ble with the vision for a zero-car­bon Scot­land as such they will be tar­get­ted with direct action in order to ensure we can make a just tran­si­tion towards a sus­tain­able future.

Lon­gan­net and Cocken­zie Coal Pow­er sta­tions

Glas­gow, Edin­burgh, Preswick and Aberdeen Air­ports

Oil & Gas oper­a­tions in Aberdeen-shire

Grange­mouth Oil & Gas Refin­ery

Hunter­ston coal ter­mi­nal

All open-cast coal mines

Coal dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work includ­ing;
Raven­struther coal ter­mi­nal
Crow­bands­gate Rail Facil­i­ty
Glen­tag­gart Con­vey­er belt

RBS HQ

Scot­tish Pow­er HQ

Scot­tish and South­ern Ener­gy HQ

Motor­way con­struc­tions such as M74

http://climatecampscotland.org.uk/

Video — http://www.envirospeak.tv/video/375

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Guide to dis­man­tling the coal indus­try in Scot­land, a 16-page infor­ma­tion sheet released by Cli­mate Camp Scot­land and Coal Action Scot­land [pdf 5.3M]

includes infor­ma­tion on open cast coal mines and mine oper­a­tors, coal-fired pow­er sta­tions, coal rail and port infra­struc­ture, indus­try lob­by­ists, and a map of Scot­tish tar­gets.

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Netherlands/Belgium camp — We’ve start­ed – come join us!

More than 100 peo­ple entered and secured a field between Zand­vli­et and Beren­drecht, in the heart of Antwer­p’s indus­tri­al har­bour, at 1am this morn­ing. They have erect­ed tripods, hung ban­ners and are well under­way in set­ting up camp.

Although the Cli­mate Action Camp has been open about most aspects of the plan, the loca­tion of the camp had not been revealed until Sat­ur­day morn­ing in order to pre­vent police from attempt­ing to stop it from hap­pen­ing.

The offi­cial start date is Mon­day August 3rd! Take a look at the map below or google ‘Derdeweg Zand­vli­et Antwerp’ to see the exact loca­tion. You can also email info[at]klimaatactiekamp.org or con­tact the info line at+32 (0)485916863 (please text if pos­si­ble).*

How to reach the camp site by bus from Antwerp:
From the Roo­sevelt­plaats, close to Antwerp Cen­tral sta­tion, you can take buslines 770 or 771 direc­tion ‘Zand­vli­et’. After appr. 40 min., you’ll get to the stop ‘Zoutes­traat’ where you have to get off the bus. Fol­low the street in trav­el direc­tion, after about 200 meter you will see a cou­ple of tents on the left side. The street next to it is called ‘Derde Weg’, fol­low it and you’ll quick­ly reach the wel­come tent!

http://www.climateactioncamp.org/

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Cli­mate Action Camp occu­pies Bel­gian coal ter­mi­nal

8.8.2009
The Cli­mate Action Camp on the Belgian/Dutch bor­der yes­ter­day occu­pied the Antwerp Bulk Ter­mi­nal (ABT) coal ter­mi­nal in Antwerp Har­bour, Bel­gium. This ter­mi­nal; respon­si­ble where coal is import­ed to Europe from Africa and South Amer­i­ca before dis­tri­b­u­tion by train and boat to pow­er sta­tions around Europe was shut down for the day as activists blocked train lines and con­vey­or belts at the site.

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French camp

Camp Action Cli­mat 2009 — Le teas­er

cli­mate action alert at Nantes air­port, Sat­ur­day 8th August 2009 — peo­ple invade the ter­mi­nal of the air­port.