Protesters Storm Open-Pit Coal Mine in Western Germany

Pro­tes­tors look at a huge buck­et-wheel exca­va­tor as they arrive for a demon­stra­tion at the open-pit coal mine near Garzweil­er

Pro­tes­tors look at a huge buck­et-wheel exca­va­tor as they arrive for a demon­stra­tion at the open-pit coal mine near Garzweil­er, west­ern Ger­many Sat­ur­day Aug. 15, 2015. Sev­er­al hun­dred envi­ron­men­tal activists have stormed a lig­nite mine in west­ern Ger­many to protest against the use of coal for elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion. dpa via AP Mar­ius Beck­er

August 15th, 2015

Envi­ron­men­tal activists have stormed a lig­nite mine in west­ern Ger­many to protest the use of coal, a major source of green­house gas­es.

The Ger­man news agency dpa reports that sev­er­al hun­dred peo­ple from a group call­ing itself Ende Gelande — which loose­ly trans­lates as “it’s fin­ished now” — broke through a police line in Garzweil­er, west of Cologne.

Police spokesman Anton Hamach­er says offi­cers used pep­per spray to stop the crowd and are remov­ing pro­test­ers from the site.

A spokesman for Ger­man ener­gy com­pa­ny RWE says sev­er­al huge buck­et-wheel exca­va­tors used at the open-pit mine had to be shut down for safe­ty rea­sons. Spokesman Lothar Lam­bertz says RWE has can­celed plans to bring employ­ees onto the site to ral­ly in favor of coal min­ing.

from Asso­ci­at­ed Press

Tarnac 9 Cleared of Terrorism Charges Over Rail Sabotage

An alleged “anar­chist cell” at the cen­tre of one of France’s most polit­i­cal­ly-charged legal sagas is final­ly to be tried for sab­o­tag­ing high-speed train lines.

August 9th, 2015


An alleged “anar­chist cell” at the cen­tre of one of France’s most polit­i­cal­ly-charged legal sagas is final­ly to be tried for sab­o­tag­ing high-speed train lines.

But in a major blow to police, who con­duct­ed a sev­en-year inves­ti­ga­tion into the group, the four will not face ter­ror charges, judi­cial sources told AFP on Sat­ur­day.

The so-called Tarnac group was round­ed up in high-pub­li­cised raids in Novem­ber 2008 accused of sab­o­tag­ing the TGV net­work around Paris, a pow­er­ful sym­bol of French nation­al pride and tech­ni­cal know-how.

Thou­sands of pas­sen­gers and more than 160 train ser­vices were delayed after steel rods were put across over­head pow­er cables on three high-speed lines between Paris and Lon­don, Brus­sels and the French regions.

Then inte­ri­or min­is­ter Michele Alliot-Marie brand­ed the group a dan­ger­ous “ultra-left anar­chist move­ment”, but the group — who lived in a rur­al com­mune in cen­tral France — and many on the French left, accused Pres­i­dent Nico­las Sarkozy’s right-wing gov­ern­ment of try­ing to frame them.

But in a major blow to the author­i­ties, anti-ter­ror­ist judge Jeanne Duye came down against their demands in her long-await­ed judge­ment Fri­day to try them for ter­ror offences.

Yil­dune Levy, sus­pect­ed of belong­ing to a ‘ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion’ with her then-boyfriend

– ‘The Com­ing Insur­rec­tion’ –

She did, how­ev­er, send the group’s reclu­sive leader Julien Coupat, his wife Yil­dune Levy and two oth­ers for tri­al on con­spir­a­cy charges, sources said.

The group’s lawyers called the deci­sion a “total repu­di­a­tion” of the alle­ga­tions against the four.

“After near­ly sev­en years of try­ing to pin the blame on them, we final­ly have a coura­geous judi­cial deci­sion. It is a total repu­di­a­tion of the pros­e­cu­tion case,” Marie Dose and William Bour­don said.

“From the begin­ning, our clients were con­sid­ered and treat­ed like ter­ror­ists. Final­ly they have realised that it doesn’t stick,” they added.

“Our arrest was pure­ly polit­i­cal and was based on false tes­ti­mo­ny from the police,” said anoth­er of the accused, Math­ieu Bur­nel. “All this will fall apart at our tri­al.”

The case cen­tred on the charis­mat­ic fig­ure of Coupat, 40, a far-left intel­lec­tu­al from a wealthy fam­i­ly who had gath­ered a group of 20 fol­low­ers around him in a remote vil­lage in the Cor­reze region of cen­tral France.

Rely­ing heav­i­ly on pas­sages from a 2007 book attrib­uted to Coupat, “The Com­ing Insur­rec­tion”, inves­ti­ga­tors claimed the group — the “invis­i­ble com­mit­tee of the imag­i­nary par­ty” — had tipped over from rad­i­cal anar­chist pol­i­tics into ter­ror­ism.

The book dis­cussed sab­o­tage and oth­er ways to “finalise the fall of the state”, and men­tioned the high-speed TGV net­work as an “easy” tar­get.

But Coupat, who refused to con­firm he was its author, said it was “ris­i­ble that ter­ror­ism charges could be brought on the basis on a book on pub­lic sale.”

Coupat and Levy, 31, admit­ted being close to TGV lines east of Paris when an iron bar was placed on the track on the night of Novem­ber 7, 2008, but denied putting it there.

Coupet spent more than six months in jail as police tried to build a case against him, with Levy also locked up for more than two months.

The pros­e­cu­tion has five days to appeal the judge’s deci­sion.

from AFP

Addi­tion: their arrest was in part down to Mark Kennedy, the British under­cov­er cop embed­ded in Earth First! and the wider eco­log­i­cal direct action move­ment for over 7 years.  More info

Germany: Last Living Barricade in Hambach Forest Evicted; Freedom for Jus!

Ger­many: Last Liv­ing Bar­ri­cade in Ham­bach For­est Evict­ed

July 28th, 2015

On the 22nd of July the tow­er – to this date the only remain­ing liv­ing bar­ri­cade – got evict­ed. The tow­er blocked an impor­tant access way to the Ham­bach For­est [pre­vi­ous­ly on S!N]and its occu­pa­tion.

Dur­ing the 14 hours of the evic­tion, four activists were arrest­ed of who three have been released, while one is in deten­tion await­ing tri­al in the JVA (jail) in Köln-Ossendorf. Jus is accused of resist­ing the evic­tion. The cops are try­ing to jus­ti­fy the deten­tion by claim­ing that Jus doesn‘t have a legal address and alleged­ly “no social oblig­a­tions in Ger­many”. There­fore, they think that it’s like­ly that he will “stay away from tri­al”.

Innu Blockade Hydro-Quebec Construction in Northern Quebec

pho­to thanks to War­rior Pub­li­ca­tions

July 17th, 2015

Quebec’s Min­is­ter of Abo­rig­i­nal Affairs is urg­ing mem­bers of Natashquan’s Innu Com­mu­ni­ty to stop their block­ade near the La Romaine con­struc­tion site.

The group of pro­test­ers set up a bar­ri­cade Thurs­day near Havre-Saint-Pierre in east­ern Que­bec, about 200 kilo­me­tres east of Sept-Îles.

It says Hydro-Québec is not respect­ing an agree­ment it signed with the com­mu­ni­ty before work on the hydro­elec­tric project began.

The pro­test­ers have been let­ting work­ers out of the site, but they say they will not let any­one in until Pre­mier Philippe Couil­lard speaks with them in per­son on the North Shore.

Rodrigue Wapis­tan, the chief of Natashquan’s Innu band coun­cil, said Hydro-Québec has flood­ed basins near the work­site with­out the community’s con­sent.

He said that will drown more than half the trees in the area.

“They have com­plete­ly tram­pled on our rights. It is some­thing that is unac­cept­able in my book — all while cre­at­ing a sit­u­a­tion that is cat­a­stroph­ic for our next gen­er­a­tion,” Wapis­tan said.

Abo­rig­i­nal Affairs Min­is­ter Geoff Kel­ley said he recog­nis­es there are dif­fer­ences between the Innu com­mu­ni­ty and Hydro-Québec, but said pro­test­ers should try to resolve its issues through nego­ti­a­tions.

from CBC News

Panama: Indigenous Activists Block Entry to the Barro Blanco Hydro Dam

Ngäbe activists stand­ing in front of the Bar­ro Blan­co dam site

Ngäbe activists stand­ing in front of the Bar­ro Blan­co dam site (Pho­to Jen­nifer Kennedy)

July 14th, 2015

A 30-strong splin­ter group of Ngäbe from the M10 resis­tance move­ment has blocked the entrance to the Bar­ro Blan­co hydro­elec­tric dam in west­ern Pana­ma, pre­vent­ing work­ers from enter­ing the site. The 15 year strug­gle of the Tabasará riv­er com­mu­ni­ties to pro­tect their liveli­hoods, their cul­ture, and their ances­tral her­itage now appears to be enter­ing a tense new phase. With nego­ti­a­tions exhaust­ed and the dam 95% com­plete, M10 has an issued an ulti­ma­tum for the gov­ern­ment to can­cel the project by Mon­day, June 15, 2015. It is unclear how the gov­ern­ment will respond.

“Being Ngäbe-Buglé cul­tur­al pat­ri­mo­ny,” said Clementi­na Pérez, part of the group camped at Bar­ro Blanco’s gates. “Our riv­er, our moth­er earth, our ecol­o­gy, our exis­tence, we are here to make known to the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that this pat­ri­mo­ny belongs to us and to the church of Mama Tata. With the con­ser­va­tion of peace, lib­er­ty, jus­tice and uni­ty, lib­er­a­tion and social jus­tice… [we ask] the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic the can­cel­la­tion and removal of the dam from our com­mu­ni­ties, our riv­er and our moth­er earth, which belong to us as orig­i­nal peo­ple of the Americas…”Funded by Euro­pean banks – the Ger­man Invest­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (DEG) and the Dutch Devel­op­ment Bank (FMO) – the dam is set to inun­date a string of Ngäbe and campesino com­mu­ni­ties, all of whom have voiced their objec­tions from the out­set. The flood will destroy ances­tral pet­ro­glyphs, fer­tile agri­cul­tur­al grounds, and Mama Tata cul­tur­al cen­tres, includ­ing a unique school where the emerg­ing writ­ten script of the Ngäbere lan­guage is being devel­oped and dis­sem­i­nat­ed. The dam will sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact the river’s marine life, wip­ing out migra­to­ry fish species which many com­mu­ni­ties – both up and down stream – rely upon for essen­tial pro­tein. None of the Tabasará com­mu­ni­ties have pro­vid­ed their free, informed and pri­or con­sent to the dam, a fact recent­ly con­firmed by the FMO’s own inde­pen­dent com­plaints mech­a­nism (ICM).

“Lenders should have sought greater clar­i­ty on whether there was con­sent to the project from the appro­pri­ate indige­nous author­i­ties pri­or to project approval,” said an ICM report, pub­lished on May 29, 2015. “[The plan] con­tains no pro­vi­sion on land acqui­si­tion and reset­tle­ment and noth­ing on bio­di­ver­si­ty and nat­ur­al resources man­age­ment. Nei­ther does it con­tain any ref­er­ence to issues relat­ed to cul­tur­al her­itage…”

The report is the lat­est in a series of pro­fes­sion­al analy­ses that pour a thick lay­er of scorn over the dam project’s own­er, Gen­er­ado­ra del Ist­mo (GENISA). Demon­stra­bly unlaw­ful, GENISA has been con­demned by numer­ous inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tors, the Unit­ed Nations, sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al NGOs, and Panama’s own envi­ron­men­tal agency, ANAM, who found a raft of flaws and short-com­ings in their envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment.

But despite fail­ing their own due dili­gence, the banks appear to have shrugged off the ICM report with an insipid call for ‘con­struc­tive dia­logue’ and ‘a solu­tion for a way for­ward’. In Feb­ru­ary this year, the FMO chose to threat­en the gov­ern­ment of Pana­ma after build­ing work was tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed on the rec­om­men­da­tion of ANAM. Writ­ing to the Vice Pres­i­dent, the FMO warned that the sus­pen­sion “May weigh upon future invest­ment deci­sions, and harm the flow of long-term invest­ments into Pana­ma.”

The gov­ern­ment seems to have tak­en this threat to heart. Panama’s pres­i­dent, Juan Car­los Varela, who was elect­ed to office in 2014, flip-flopped on Bar­ro Blan­co before final­ly falling in line. Last week, while prof­fer­ing flim­sy reas­sur­ances about hav­ing found a human rights solu­tion, his gov­ern­ment left the nego­ti­at­ing table and sig­naled an end to the sus­pen­sion of works. M10 claims the work nev­er stopped and has been con­tin­u­ing clan­des­tine­ly. They are now mobil­is­ing for action.

Clementi­na Perez (Pho­to: Oscar Sogan­dares)

“If this sit­u­a­tion is not resolved,” said Clementi­na Pérez, “We will go to the Panamer­i­can high­way to ask togeth­er, at a nation­al lev­el, the can­cel­la­tion of Bar­ro Blan­co…”

Ris­ing with stark grey walls above the denud­ed banks of the Tabasará, Bar­ro Blan­co has become a sym­bol of the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion, its fun­da­men­tal vio­lence and con­tempt for the rule of law. The for­mer Pres­i­dent Ricar­do Mar­tinel­li – now on the run in the Unit­ed States and fac­ing a cor­rup­tion probe back home – pro­voked no less than four major upris­ings as he grasped for land and resources in Panama’s indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries. Heavy-hand­ed repres­sion result­ed in the deaths of sev­er­al pro­test­ers and bystanders, includ­ing an unarmed teenage boy who was shot in the face by police. Bar­ro Blan­co is the vis­i­ble lega­cy of a proud­ly thug­gish Pres­i­dent who seri­al­ly abused Panama’s Indige­nous Peo­ples and plun­dered the coun­try at will. Thus far, Varela has been keen to strike a more decent and humane tone. How he now han­dles the cri­sis evolv­ing on the banks of the Tabasará Riv­er will be a demon­stra­tion of his sin­cer­i­ty, or lack of.

by  IC Mag­a­zine

Germany: Hambach Forest Defenders Occupy Four Bucket Wheel Excavators for July 4th Climate Games

July 14th, 2015

At the Cli­mate Games in Ams­ter­dam today count­less play­groups make their moves. Team Blue (the police) and the team of indus­tri­al com­pa­nies play their usu­al strat­e­gy: In Ams­ter­dam they want to expand the West port for coal trans­ship­ment and in the res­i­dent com­pa­nies they strong­ly con­tribute to the fact that the world’s cli­mate pass­es sev­er­al points of no return. There­after, the fur­ther warm­ing would get unpre­dictable and irre­versible. Our teams ham­per them, as far as pos­si­ble with­out being beat­en by Team Blue. Their game objec­tive is to enable a smooth flow of the work of destruc­tion.

This year, a team in the Rhineland has stum­bled over the fact that the play­ing field is not lim­it­ed to the Ams­ter­dam West Port. While it is fold­ed by all sorts of bound­aries togeth­er, but we can unfold and make our move at any time, any­where – after all, the oth­er side also works as good as any­where in the world.

Our “new” expan­sion pack is the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area between Aachen and Cologne. This indus­tri­al-scale clock­work (con­sist­ing of five pow­er sta­tions, three mines, a net­work of coal rail­ways, tens of kilo­me­ters of con­vey­or belts and pipelines for pumped off ground­wa­ter) is the largest sin­gle source of green­house gas emis­sions in Europe – and in many places it is damn easy to attack for sab­o­tage! A good man on this game board is the occu­pa­tion of exca­va­tors: In the largest machines in the world, that [destroy] land­scape around the clock here and pro­duce coal, a lot of cap­i­tal is at work – until we stop them! On the occa­sion of the last occu­pa­tion, a spokesper­son of the group pub­licly con­firmed, that RWE can not stop actions of this kind in the future just because of the huge dimen­sions of the open pits.

The mot­to of this year’s Cli­mate Games is “BIGGER, BOLDER, STRONGER”, and so we want to do things in style. There­fore, this time since 2:55 h we are occu­py­ing four exca­va­tors : The first as usu­al at the rim of the open pit, where now it can not swal­low any more land­scape for a while. The three oth­er occu­pied exca­va­tors are at the bot­tom of the open pit: This means that in the Ham­bach mine, for the first time in the Rhen­ish min­ing area, among oth­er things, the two coal dig­gers them­selves are occu­pied! At least one per­son did not reach her/his des­ti­na­tion and now sup­ports oth­ers by bug­ging her/his warders of Team Blue. He/she will cer­tain­ly not be alone a very long time …

The game goes on – also in the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area. From august 14 to 16, our friends of the Cam­paign “Ende Gelände“ (“end of the area”) mobi­lize to a mass block­ade action in the Rhineland, and we are very keen to see what is about to hap­pen around there. In octo­ber, a Skills Shar­ing Camp will be held again on the occu­pat­ed mead­ow at the rim of the Ham­bach­er Forst, which is acute­ly threat­ened by defor­esta­tion. And in Decem­ber del­e­ga­tions of the Unit­ed Nations gath­er in Paris on the ques­tion of how to talk cli­mate change away, with­out chang­ing any­thing in their exploita­tive eco­nom­ic sys­tems – and, of course, many oth­er teams are also there to play to unmask the lies. Make Your Move!

If you have got time and desire, we would be glad if you look in on the mead­ow to sup­port the occu­pa­tions and retain the tick­er track of when sol­i­dar­i­ty is need­ed out­side the police sta­tion!
Here you will find pic­tures of the most recent sim­i­lar occu­pa­tion of a sin­gle exca­va­tor. (Click in thumb­nails to enlarge.) Pic­tures of the cur­rent action will fol­low here.

Please spread out the Action State­ment (above) and also the press release and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Press Release

Dear Sir or Madam!

We here­by send you a press release enti­tled “Four buck­et wheel exca­va­tors occu­pied in open-cast mine Ham­bach”.
You can reach us at the fol­low­ing phone num­ber:

+49 1573 7181446

You are also invit­ed to vis­it us for more infor­ma­tion or sound bites at the mead­ow occu­pa­tion in Morschenich. On our blog

www.hambacherforst.blogsport.de

incom­ing news are switched in a live tick­er.

Best Regards,

Kathrin Schnei­der
Tino Sturm

Press Release

Four buck­et wheel exca­va­tors occu­pied in open-cast mine Ham­bach

Düren – Last night 2:55h cli­mate activists start­ed again to occu­pie buck­et wheel exca­va­tors of RWE. This time it were four exca­va­tors in the open pit mine near Ham­bach. Two of them are locat­ed on the bot­tom of the mine in depth 450 m, where the coal lay­er is. For the first time, the declared aim is to stop coal pro­duc­tion. With the action they are protest­ing against the min­ing and burn­ing (elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion) of lig­nite and this way they offer direct resis­tance.

As with pre­vi­ous exca­va­tors occu­pa­tions, the activists climbed up the stairs, lad­ders and walk­ways on the machines to the top.
At 70 meters high they installed them­selves, with tar­pau­lins for sun pro­tec­tion, and they rolled out ban­ners on which they demand­ed once more an imme­di­ate with­draw­al from coal min­ing and a clear­ing stop in the Ham­bach for­est. “It has long been known that the hab­it­abil­i­ty of the plan­et is at stake. Is just as clear that there are alter­na­tives to inef­fi­cient elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion out of coal,” said an activist who wants to remain anony­mous, and added: “An eco­nom­ic sys­tem that is depen­dent on con­stant growth, can­not do any­thing else than exploit the envi­ron­ment at the expense of us all.”
The action state­ment puts these occu­pa­tions in the con­text of the “Cli­mate Games” in Ams­ter­dam. There, the West Port will be expand­ed, which is an impor­tant coal trad­ing cen­ter. Via Ams­ter­dam among oth­ers coal from South Amer­i­ca is trans­port­ed to the Rhineland to be incin­er­at­ed togeth­er with lig­nite.

The action end­ed at 9 pm, July 4th, when the last arrest­ed activists left the police sta­tion.

Meuse, France: Nuclear Waste Landfill Project Sabotaged

July 14th, 2015

anony­mous report / Con­tra Info

Not far from Bure, an analy­sis site of ANDRA was attacked by a few deter­mined night owls.

At Bure, in Meuse, pow­er is try­ing by all its means to have accept­ed a nuclear waste land­fill project 500 meters under­ground.

Despite that the project has not yet offi­cial­ly start­ed, that of the nuclear waste not arriv­ing before 2025, the ANDRA instal­la­tions (the Nation­al Agency for Radioac­tive Waste Man­age­ment, in charge of the land­fill project) are already swarm­ing in the area.

One night around the 25th June, a con­struc­tion site con­tain­ing mul­ti­ple elec­tri­cal instal­la­tions and a well, to analyse the con­di­tion of the rock and water table, was dev­as­tat­ed.

The well was then forcibly blocked up with con­crete, and all the cab­i­nets were frac­tured and destroyed by the rage of those who don’t want to wait for the exhaus­tion of legal resorts to attack this project.

Attack the infra­struc­ture of pow­er wher­ev­er they are, in Meuse like else­where.

Against Cigéo and its world, resis­tance and sab­o­tage!

Plane Stupid activists on Heathrow runway in climate protest

13th July 2015

12 cli­mate change activists from anti air­port expan­sion direct action group, Plane Stu­pid, got onto the north run­way at 03:30am this morn­ing at Heathrow Air­port by cut­ting through a fence, in a peace­ful protest against pro­pos­als to build a new run­way.

The pro­test­ers say that going ahead with the recent Air­ports Com­mis­sion rec­om­men­da­tion that a third run­way should be built at Heathrow will make it impos­si­ble for the UK to meet its cli­mate change tar­gets.

The skies above Heathrow are already the busiest in the world, and demand for flights is dri­ven by air fares that are kept arti­fi­cial­ly low by gen­er­ous tax exemp­tions. The activists say that if the avi­a­tion indus­try paid more of its envi­ron­men­tal costs then there would be no press­ing need for a new run­way. Nine of the top ten most pop­u­lar routes out of Heathrow are short haul, includ­ing des­ti­na­tions such as Paris, Man­ches­ter and Edin­burgh which all have exist­ing rail alter­na­tives.

Ella Gilbert, an activist from Plane Stu­pid who is on the run­way, said:

“Build­ing more run­ways goes against every­thing we’re being told by sci­en­tists and experts on cli­mate change. This would mas­sive­ly increase car­bon emis­sions exact­ly when we need to mas­sive­ly reduce them, that’s why we’re here.We want to say sor­ry to any­one whose day we’ve ruined, and we’re not say­ing that every­body who wants to fly is a bad per­son. It’s those who fly fre­quent­ly and unnec­es­sar­i­ly who are dri­ving the need for expan­sion, and we can­not keep ignor­ing the ter­ri­fy­ing con­se­quences of fly­ing like there’s no tomor­row.

No ifs, no buts, no third run­way. And we mean it.”

Updates — https://twitter.com/planestupid

BUILD GARDENS, NOT PRISONS: International Reclaim the Fields Action Camp 2015

Inter­na­tion­al Reclaim the Fields Action Camp 2015

Inter­na­tion­al Reclaim the Fields Action Camp 2015

When: Fri­day 28th August (From 6pm) – Wednes­day 2nd Sep­tem­ber 2015

Where: Dudle­ston Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp, Shrop­shire (near the Wales/England Bor­der).

About:

Reclaim the Fields UK (RTF) was born in 2011, as a star in a wider con­stel­la­tion of food and land strug­gles that reach­es around the globe. Since 2011, camps and oth­er RTF gath­er­ings have helped sup­port local com­mu­ni­ties in strug­gle, share skills, devel­op net­works, and strength­en the resis­tance to exploita­tion, in Bris­tol, west Lon­don, Glouces­ter­shire, Not­ting­ham and Fife, among oth­er loca­tions.

Every two years there is also an inter­na­tion­al camp, where peo­ple from around Europe and beyond meet togeth­er to sup­port a local strug­gle (stand­ing against exploita­tive gold min­ing in Roma­nia, and open cast coal min­ing in Ger­many, are some exam­ples). Peo­ple at these camps have shared their local sto­ries and grown their ideas about resis­tance and reclaim­ing our food sys­tem, beyond nation­al bor­ders. This year, an inter­na­tion­al gath­er­ing will be held in the UK, in Dudle­ston, Shrop­shire, on the Welsh/English bor­der.

The aims of the camp are:
• To sup­port local com­mu­ni­ties in the west and north west of Eng­land, and the north of Wales with their strug­gles against frack­ing
• To increase par­tic­i­pa­tion in Reclaim the Fields
• To demon­strate vis­i­ble, active oppo­si­tion to prison con­struc­tion
• To sup­port Dudle­ston Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp build a gar­den and infra­struc­ture to become more self-reliant
• To demon­strate the inter­con­nec­tion between these strug­gles
• To inspire and rad­i­calise every­one involved

What is hap­pen­ing:

• Two days of Action – Tues­day 1st & Wednes­day 2nd Sep­tem­ber – demon­stra­tions & actions against com­pa­nies involved in the con­struc­tion of the North Wales prison, as well as local frack­ing-relat­ed tar­gets.
• Work­shops & Skill­shares – Over the bank hol­i­day week­end there will be abun­dant oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn, share, dis­cuss and con­nect with oth­er peo­ple.
• Build­ing & Grow­ing on the site – Be part of installing gar­dens & low impact infra­struc­ture at the com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion camp. Learn about per­ma­cul­ture, agroe­col­o­gy, for­est gar­den­ing, mush­room grow­ing, pal­let con­struc­tion, com­post toi­let mak­ing, off-grid electrics and more.

Why:

• This camp has been organ­ised to sup­port the local com­mu­ni­ty in Dudle­ston to resist frack­ing in their area (as well as work­ing with oth­er local anti-frack­ing groups & pro­tec­tion camps in the North West who have been resist­ing extreme ener­gy devel­op­ments for a num­ber of years). To find out more about their strug­gle vis­it: http://frack-off.org.uk/blockade/dudleston-community-protection-camp/
• It has also been organ­ised to give atten­tion to the North Wales Prison Project that is being con­struct­ed. This will be Europe’s sec­ond largest prison hold­ing 2100 pris­on­ers and the first of a num­ber of ‘mega pris­ons’ that the UK Gov­ern­ment wish to build. Click here for more infor­ma­tion about the prison, why we are against it & links to arti­cles about the prison indus­tri­al com­plex in the UK

How to get involved:

Click on the links below to find more prac­ti­cal infor­ma­tion about the camp and how to get involved:

This is a DIY/DIT(ogether)* camp and every­one is need­ed to get stuck in to make it hap­pen. Peo­ple are need­ed to:
• Sup­port with pub­lic­i­ty before the event – shar­ing the gath­er­ing online, putting posters up, encour­ag­ing your local group to get involved. Peo­ple are also need­ed to help design the pro­gramme, respond to emails & plan facil­i­ta­tion.
• Help­ing with site set up & build­ing infra­struc­ture (plan­ning this in advance & being on site a few days before the gath­er­ing)
• Sign­ing up to a shift over the week­end to help with cook­ing, site set up & safe­ty, being on the wel­come tent & so forth
• Sup­port­ing local groups to organ­ise actions

If you can help with any of these tasks please email info@reclaimthefields.noflag.org.uk

Spread the word:

• Poster design here: reclaimthefields.noflag.org.uk/wp-conte…

• Face­book event: https://www.facebook.com/events/560637597407933/

Reclaim the Fields International Gathering 2015

Reclaim the Fields

About the camp

Reclaim the Fields (or RTF) UK was born in 2011, as a star in a wider con­stel­la­tion of food and land strug­gles that reach­es around the globe. Since 2011, camps and oth­er RTF gath­er­ings have helped sup­port local com­mu­ni­ties in strug­gle, share skills, devel­oped net­works, and strength­ened the resis­tance to exploita­tion, in Bris­tol, west Lon­don, Glouces­ter­shire, Not­ting­ham and Fife among oth­er loca­tions.

Every two years there is also an inter­na­tion­al camp, where peo­ple from around Europe and beyond meet togeth­er to sup­port a local strug­gle (from gold min­ing in Roma­nia to open cast coal min­ing in Ger­many, for exam­ple). Peo­ple share share sto­ries and ideas about resis­tance and reclaim­ing our food sys­tem beyond nation­al bor­ders. This year, an inter­na­tion­al gath­er­ing will be held in the UK, in Dudle­ston, Shrop­shire, on the Welsh/English bor­der.

The aims of the camp are:

  • To sup­port local com­mu­ni­ties in the west and north west of Eng­land, and the north of Wales with their strug­gles against frack­ing
  • To increase par­tic­i­pa­tion in Reclaim the Fields
  • To demon­strate vis­i­ble, active oppo­si­tion to prison con­struc­tion
  • To sup­port Dudle­ston Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp build a gar­den and infra­struc­ture to become more self-reliant
  • To demon­strate the inter­con­nec­tion between these strug­gles
  • To inspire and rad­i­calise every­one involved

What’s taking place?

  • Two days of Action – Tues­day 1st & Wednes­day 2nd Sep­tem­ber – demon­stra­tions & actions against com­pa­nies involved in the con­struc­tion of the North Wales prison, as well as local frack­ing-relat­ed tar­gets.
  • Work­shops & Skill­shares – Over the bank hol­i­day week­end there will be abun­dant oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn, share, dis­cuss and con­nect with oth­er peo­ple.
  • Build­ing & Grow­ing on the site – Be part of installing gar­dens & low impact infra­struc­ture at the com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion camp. Learn about per­ma­cul­ture, agroe­col­o­gy, for­est gar­den­ing, mush­room grow­ing, pal­let con­struc­tion, com­post toi­let mak­ing, off-grid electrics and more.

Why this camp? Why now?

  • This camp has been organ­ised to sup­port the local com­mu­ni­ty in Dudle­ston to resist frack­ing in their area (as well as work­ing with oth­er local anti-frack­ing groups & pro­tec­tion camps in the North West who have been resist­ing extreme ener­gy devel­op­ments for a num­ber of years). To find out more about their strug­gle vis­it: http://frack-off.org.uk/blockade/dudleston-community-protection-camp/

Practical Information about the Camp

Click on the links below to find more prac­ti­cal infor­ma­tion about the camp and how to get involved:

Getting involved

This is a DIY camp and every­one is need­ed to get stuck in to make it hap­pen. Peo­ple are need­ed to:

  • Sup­port with pub­lic­i­ty before the event – shar­ing the gath­er­ing online, putting posters up, encour­ag­ing your local group to get involved. Peo­ple are also need­ed to help design the pro­gramme, respond to emails & plan facil­i­ta­tion.
  • Help­ing with site set up & build­ing infra­struc­ture (plan­ning this in advance & being on site a few days before the gath­er­ing)
  • Sign­ing up to a shift over the week­end to help with cook­ing, site set up & safe­ty, being on the wel­come tent & so forth
  • Sup­port­ing local groups to organ­ise actions

If you can help with any of these tasks please email info@reclaimthefields.noflag.org.uk

Who are Reclaim the Fields?

We are a group of peas­ants, land­less and prospec­tive peas­ants, as well as peo­ple who are tak­ing back con­trol over food pro­duc­tion.

We under­stand “peas­ants” as peo­ple who pro­duce food on a small scale, for them­selves or for the com­mu­ni­ty, pos­si­bly sell­ing a part of it. This also includes agri­cul­tur­al work­ers.

We sup­port and encour­age peo­ple to stay on the land and go back to the coun­try­side. We pro­mote food sov­er­eign­ty (as defined in the Nyéléni dec­la­ra­tion) and peas­ant agri­cul­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly among young peo­ple and urban dwellers, as well as alter­na­tive ways of life. In Europe, the con­cept ‘food sov­er­eign­ty’ is not very com­mon and could be clar­i­fied with ideas such as ‘food auton­o­my’ and con­trol over food sys­tems by inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ties, not only nations or states. We are deter­mined to cre­ate alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal­ism through coop­er­a­tive, col­lec­tive, autonomous, real-needs-ori­ent­ed, small-scale pro­duc­tion and ini­tia­tives. We are putting the­o­ry into prac­tice and link­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles.

In order to achieve this, we par­tic­i­pate in local actions through activist groups and coop­er­ate with exist­ing ini­tia­tives. This is why we choose not to be a homo­ge­neous group, but to open up to the diver­si­ty of actors fight­ing the cap­i­tal­ist food pro­duc­tion mod­el. We address the issues of access to land, col­lec­tive farm­ing, seed rights and seed exchange. We strength­en the impact of our work through coop­er­a­tion with activists who focus on dif­fer­ent tasks but who share the same vision.

Nev­er­the­less, our open­ness has some lim­its. We are deter­mined to take back con­trol over our lives and refuse any form of author­i­tar­i­an­ism and hier­ar­chy. We respect nature and liv­ing beings, but will nei­ther accept nor tol­er­ate any form of dis­crim­i­na­tion, be it based on race, reli­gion, gen­der, nation­al­i­ty, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion or social sta­tus. We refuse and will active­ly oppose every form of exploita­tion of oth­er peo­ple. With the same force and ener­gy, we act with kind­ness and con­vivi­al­i­ty, mak­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty a con­crete prac­tice of our dai­ly life.

We sup­port the strug­gles and visions of la Via Campesina, and work to strength­en them. We wish to share the knowl­edge and the expe­ri­ence from years of strug­gle and peas­ant life and enrich it with the per­spec­tives and strength of those of us who are not peas­ants, or not yet peas­ants. We all suf­fer the con­se­quences of the same poli­cies, and are all part of the same fight.

Read this in: French, Ger­man, Span­ish