Stop Nuclear Power gathering, 23–24 October 2010

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Stop Nuclear Pow­er is a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als tak­ing action against nuclear pow­er. If EdF get their way, Hink­ley C will become the first nuclear pow­er sta­tion built in Britain for 20 years and will sit next to two oth­er radioac­tive and dan­ger­ous sites. Stop Hink­ley is a long run­ning com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign to stop dead­ly nuclear reac­tors oper­at­ing near their homes.
Their strug­gle is our strug­gle. Let’s sit down togeth­er in Bris­tol and make some plans togeth­er.

Hink­ley is the bat­tle­ground, if they get one in there, it opens the door for at least nine oth­er nuclear pow­er sta­tions across the coun­try. This Autumn, the gov­ern­ment is tak­ing its pro-nuclear pro­pa­gan­da on tour around the UK. We’ll be there. Come to the gath­er­ing or send us an email to find out how you can get involved.

www.boycottedf.org.uk

Info for the week­end:

Meet­ing space dur­ing the day on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day tbc but will be in Bris­tol.
Crash space is avail­able on a dry, warm and qui­et floor space.
If you need a bed please get in con­tact with us as soon as pos­si­ble and will try and help you out.
Lunch and din­ner will be done com­mu­nal­ly on Sat­ur­day and lunch on Sun­day.

For a tele­phone num­ber to con­tact dur­ing the week­end send us an email.

Please help by let­ting us know you are com­ing so we can plan for space, food and logis­tics.

Email: nonewnuclear@aktivix.org

Grow Heathrow! Resisting the eviction

27th August 2010

Grow Heathrow! Almost half a year after launch­ing, a suc­cess­ful grass­roots cam­paign resist­ing the expan­sion of Heathrow air­port while demon­strat­ing sus­tain­able liv­ing on derelict land, is fac­ing an evic­tion threat. Read on to hear about the excit­ing cam­paign and how you can help keep the projects going…

27th August 2010

Grow Heathrow! Almost half a year after launch­ing, a suc­cess­ful grass­roots cam­paign resist­ing the expan­sion of Heathrow air­port while demon­strat­ing sus­tain­able liv­ing on derelict land, is fac­ing an evic­tion threat. Read on to hear about the excit­ing cam­paign and how you can help keep the projects going…

On the first day of March this year a group of 30 peo­ple gath­ered out­side a neglect­ed plot of land on the site of the pro­posed 3rd run­way in the Heathrow vil­lage of Sip­son.

For years res­i­dents and activists had cam­paigned togeth­er to stop the expan­sion of Heathrow air­port, and now they had come togeth­er to build grass­roots solu­tions to the threat of cli­mate change and peak oil, led by the peo­ple direct­ly impact­ed on the ground.

A hole in the fence allowed the first of the group onto the land and as they put up a squatter’s rights notice on the gates, the rest fol­lowed into the site of Sipson’s new com­mu­ni­ty gar­den; ‘Grow Heathrow’ was born.

Six months lat­er and the gar­den is unrec­og­niz­able from the site that caused a spec­trum of social prob­lems for the com­mu­ni­ty before it was reclaimed. In the ear­ly days of spring, teams of peo­ple cleared, car­ried and worked togeth­er to remove 30 tonnes of rub­bish, while two six­ty ft green­hous­es were reglazed and per­ma­cul­tur­ists sowed seeds to return the land to a thriv­ing mar­ket gar­den.

A host of events have been held in the gar­den includ­ing a ban­quet attend­ed by 80 peo­ple using fresh veg­eta­bles grown on the land. And in May a fly­ing crit­i­cal mass pick­et was launched from the raised beds, where 20 cyclists stormed ter­mi­nal 5 in sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers on strike from BA. Shared meals with res­i­dents and activists are com­mon-place using cour­gettes, spinach, toma­toes, but­ter­nut squash, herbs, all pulled from Sip­son soil.

Now in August and as dis­cus­sions for win­ter struc­tures begin, a new notice has been hung next to the sec­tion 46 on the front gates; a court sum­mons has been served to the project.

At first rumours flew round the vil­lage and a troop of con­cerned locals fled to gar­den hear­ing that the land­lord and heav­ies had come to claim the land. They found instead Tran­si­tion Heathrow gar­den­ers pour­ing over court papers, plot­ting and plan­ning to pro­tect the space they had put so much love and time into.

Nego­ti­a­tions have start­ed to make the gar­den a long-term com­mu­ni­ty-owned space, as state­ments of sup­port come fly­ing in to the Sip­son green­hous­es.

Res­i­dent Lin­da McCutcheon said: “It’s been bril­liant to see the site on Viner­ies Close come back to life after all the social issues from before. I’ve had a lot of fun with the group at the gar­den- turn­ing it into a safe, pos­i­tive and thriv­ing place for Sip­son- you should see the yel­low cour­gettes! Tran­si­tion Heathrow has a lot of sup­port in this area and I’ll be with them over the next cou­ple of weeks to ensure this excit­ing project has a future”.

Com­mu­ni­ty gar­den­er Joe Rake said; “Grow Heathrow is part of a bud­ding land move­ment in the UK con­nect­ing strug­gles to take back con­trol of our food pro­duc­tion. In build­ing resilient com­mu­ni­ties to envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic crises we want to defend real alter­na­tives to the sys­tems of false democ­ra­cy and cor­po­rate greed.”

‘Grow Heathrow’ is call­ing for sup­port. To help you can; come to Uxbridge Coun­ty court at 10.40am on the 2nd of Sep­tem­ber, keep up to date for the out­come of the court case, sign the peti­tion on the web­site and send state­ments of sup­port to info@transitionheathrow.com.

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it www.transitionheathrow.com

Grow Heathrow- before

Grow Heathrow- after

A week of Hell for Shell

28th August 2010

After Mon­days suc­cess­ful action stop­ping work for 3 hours the camp was inspired and many actions fol­lowed.

Tues­day marked the start of an oral hear­ing into whether Shell can lay the gas pipe line through the estu­ary. This gave locals and campers the chance to ques­tion Shell and Bord Pleanála about the legal­i­ty of gas pipe line and oth­er issues sur­round­ing the pipe.

28th August 2010

After Mon­days suc­cess­ful action stop­ping work for 3 hours the camp was inspired and many actions fol­lowed.

Tues­day marked the start of an oral hear­ing into whether Shell can lay the gas pipe line through the estu­ary. This gave locals and campers the chance to ques­tion Shell and Bord Pleanála about the legal­i­ty of gas pipe line and oth­er issues sur­round­ing the pipe.
The bore holes that Shell are drilling are to extract infor­ma­tion that will deter­mine whether a tun­nel can be made for the gas pipe line to run through, how­ev­er the fact that this infor­ma­tion hasn’t been col­lect­ed yet did not affect Shells appli­ca­tion or claim that the pipe line will be com­plete­ly safe.
This oral hear­ing com­bined with an action packed week put pres­sure on Shell from all direc­tions.

Wednes­day saw a group occu­py the Shell’s secu­ri­ty com­pound that turned into a pic­nic and rev­e­la­tions of IRMS read­ing mate­r­i­al (mer­ce­nary uk) and eat­ing habits (loads of bis­cuits).

As Thurs­day morn­ing broke a group set off towards the sun­rise (and the drilling rigs) occu­py­ing secu­ri­ty and stop­ping work­ers from get­ting onto the plat­form for over an hour. After the suc­cess of this action a com­mu­ni­ty walk out hap­pened lat­er in the day when low tide allowed peo­ple to walk out under the plat­form. Despite peo­ple gath­er­ing under the plat­form drilling con­tin­ued, which is a breach of health and safe­ty rules.

Attempts to stop the plat­forms being moved on Fri­day were foiled by over zeal­ous secu­ri­ty. Despite many coura­geous endeav­ours to climb the legs of the plat­form secu­ri­ty turned vio­lent and many were thrown to the ground.

Beat the Bore­holes Cam­paign con­tin­ues and we wel­come any­one want­i­ng to get involved.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0825/1.…html

The Sun rises over the 'kayak warriors'

Stopping workers getting on

Tens of thousands of mink released in Greece

“26.08.2010 — Helio­den­dro, Kas­to­ria (Greece)
One of the biggest greek mink farms has been hit in our first night of action. All the cages impris­on­ing ani­mals in 37 sheds of the farm were opened and machin­ery sab­o­taged.

“26.08.2010 — Helio­den­dro, Kas­to­ria (Greece)
One of the biggest greek mink farms has been hit in our first night of action. All the cages impris­on­ing ani­mals in 37 sheds of the farm were opened and machin­ery sab­o­taged.

To let the ani­mals out part of the fence was cut and both gates opened smash­ing the locks (using the farmer’s tools). Two hours and half of work and we could run away along with thou­sands of minks (accord­ing to media 50.000 were released).

27.08.2010 — Kaloneri, Siatista (Greece)
Anoth­er mink farm was our tar­get for a sec­ond night of action, this time near the town of Kaloneri, on a road where 10 farms can be eas­i­ly seen. 8 sheds full of ani­mals had their cages opened in just ten min­utes. Before leav­ing we opened a gate to let the ani­mals run towards free­dom (accord­ing to media 2.000 were released).

In both cas­es we had checked care­ful­ly the farms to know how to orga­nize a faster and more secure action.
With these actions we decid­ed to hit the fur indus­try and espe­cial­ly the dis­gust­ing ‘fur towns’ of Siatista and Kas­to­ria, plagued with hun­dreds of fur stores. Lib­er­at­ing ani­mals from cages is a way to put our ideas into prac­tice. We oppose the oppres­sion, exploita­tion and impris­on­ment that this civ­i­liza­tion has cre­at­ed for any liv­ing being, regard­less of species, race, gen­der or sex­u­al pref­er­ences.

In these des­per­ate days we still strive for free­dom. Eat veg­an on the bar­ri­cades!

A.L.F.”

Greek media has report­ed that as many as 50,000 mink were released from cages. In an arti­cle in the Make­do­nia news­pa­per, the pres­i­dent of a Greek fur breed­ers asso­ci­a­tion said that it was a “black day” for the indus­try. The own­er of one of the tar­get­ed farms esti­mat­ed his loss­es at 1 mil­lion Euros and said that his farm had been ruined.

40 years since Laxá Dam was sabotaged, Iceland

Yes­ter­day, August 25th, 300 peo­ple cel­e­brat­ed that 40 years ago, peo­ple opposed to the build­ing of dams in Laxá in Mývatnssveit, sab­o­taged a
small­er dam that had already been built.

Yes­ter­day, August 25th, 300 peo­ple cel­e­brat­ed that 40 years ago, peo­ple opposed to the build­ing of dams in Laxá in Mývatnssveit, sab­o­taged a
small­er dam that had already been built.

The local peo­ple had opposed this project through legal means but it did not seem to be work­ing. August 25th 1970, most of them were in a funer­al, where the rumour was spread amongst peo­ple – the dam was going to be sab­o­taged. The orig­i­nal plan was to destroy it with tools but short­ly after the work start­ed, peo­ple real­ized they would need some­thing stronger. They knew of dyna­mite, owned by the ener­gy com­pa­ny
Laxávirkjun… so, what a bet­ter way to use that dyna­mite!? “We bor­rowed it” was the answer of one of the bombers, in the evening news yes­ter­day.

More then 120 peo­ple claimed their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the sab­o­tage – 65 of them were lat­er sen­tenced to prison on pro­ba­tion.

Yes­ter­day, a memo­r­i­al stat­ue was put up by the riv­er, where the dam used to stand. The local church choir sang some songs and speech­es were held. The sab­o­tage is remem­bered as a very impor­tant event in Ice­land’s his­to­ry
of nature con­ser­va­tion.

Not every­body agrees with this; Jakob Björns­son, ex-ener­gy direc­tor of Ice­land, said that the cel­e­bra­tion is shame­ful. Well, fuck him!

Here is a video from the evening news, show­ing pho­tos from the day of the sab­o­tage: http://dagskra.ruv.is/sjonvarpid/4498095/2010/08/25/14

Shell’s Drilling Work Stopped by Shell to Sea Campaigners in Ireland

Shel­l’s Sur­vey work was stopped for about three hours on Mon­day after­noon when peo­ple walked out at low tide and got under Shel­l’s drilling plat­form. This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the ‘Beat the Bore­holes’ effort by Shell to Sea and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp to get in the way of Shell drilling bore­holes in the Sruwad­da­con estu­ary which is a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion.

Shel­l’s Sur­vey work was stopped for about three hours on Mon­day after­noon when peo­ple walked out at low tide and got under Shel­l’s drilling plat­form. This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the ‘Beat the Bore­holes’ effort by Shell to Sea and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp to get in the way of Shell drilling bore­holes in the Sruwad­da­con estu­ary which is a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion.

At 12:30pm a group of about 15 peo­ple man­aged to get past the 20 or so IRMS Secu­ri­ty guard­ing the plat­form. The group formed a cir­cle around the drill and stayed until the gar­dai arrived on scene and used Sec­tion 8 and a lit­tle bit of force to get peo­ple out from under the drill. One per­son had locked them­self onto the drill with a chain, but even­tu­al­ly they were removed by the gar­dai as well. How­ev­er work still did not resume because peo­ple con­tin­ued to dash back under the plat­form for the next cou­ple of hours, often with­out much resis­tance from IRMS or the gar­dai. The gar­dai did use pres­sure points and some arm twist­ing to get two cam­paign­ers off of one of the drills at one stage, but no one had any last­ing pain or injury.

Over­all spir­its were high, and about forty cam­paign­ers remained either under or around the out­side of the plat­form for the dura­tion of the action. Once the tide came in peo­ple were sat­is­fied at hav­ing stopped work for three hours, and the cam­paign­ers left Shell to con­tin­ue their dirty work in the beau­ti­ful Sruwad­da­con estu­ary.

Monday’s actions from the Camp for Climate Action

Mon­day Morn­ing Cli­mate Camp Action Roundup

For the lat­est, see the Camp for Cli­mate Action twit­ter and the North­ern IMC time­line.

Mon­day Morn­ing Cli­mate Camp Action Roundup
Camp cop RBS stand-off
For the lat­est, see the Camp for Cli­mate Action twit­ter and the North­ern IMC time­line.

Sum­maris­ing some of the mate­r­i­al from twit­ter and IMC time­line.

Today Mon­day 23rd actions against cli­mate change and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land are tak­ing place across Edin­burgh, as well as at their Gog­a­r­burn HQ.

Oil explo­ration com­pa­ny Cairn Ener­gy, off Loth­i­an Road, have tak­en deliv­ery of an oil-like sub­stance from a giant pig, unfor­tu­nate­ly cre­at­ing a 60 litre oil spill. (Obvi­ous­ly Cairn would­n’t be respon­si­ble for such a thing).

Down in Lei­th, the Forth Ener­gy place is the tar­get of agro­fu­els-relat­ed action, with 7 peo­ple atop the build­ing.

The Nichol­son Street branch of RBS is block­ad­ed by folk with signs read­ing “ask me why I won’t bank with RBS”. As at mid­day the two hour long block­ade had result­ed in the bank shut­ting its doors.

And at RBS in South Gyle the exec­u­tive car park is blocked by 7 peo­ple with super­glued hands.

A report has just come in that demon­stra­tors have pitched a tent out­side RBS on North Bridge.

Mean­while the main RBS bank in St Andrews Square is being guard­ed by police, includ­ing a CCTV van, and pri­vate secu­ri­ty. In a neo-lib­er­al ver­sion of 1984 the pub­lic are only being allowed in if they show secu­ri­ty the cor­rect bank card!:

UPDATES 3pm Five arrests at Forth Ener­gy. Action con­tin­ues at RBS Nichol­son Street, with lock-ons and demo out­side. Pro­tes­tors on Roy­al Mile high­light destruc­tive RBS-backed Tar Sands project in Cana­da. Del­e­gates from the indige­nous peo­ple direct­ly affect­ed denounce that “RBS are killing our peo­ple.” More info on Tar Sands project and actions today against it

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Press release of the day’s actions so far: RBS Oper­a­tions Closed for the Day as Activists Tar­get Sites around Edin­burgh — August 23, 2010

Action Round-up for the Cli­mate Camp day of mass action tar­get­ing RBS
and the fos­sil fuel indus­try: Mon­day 23 August

Activists at the Camp for Cli­mate Action are cel­e­brat­ing a suc­cess­ful day tar­get­ing var­i­ous cli­mate crim­i­nals- hold­ing direct actions, demon­stra­tions and street the­atre con­fronting the role of finan­cial insti­tu­tions like RBS in bankrolling cli­mate change.

A group of pro­tes­tors occu­pied the head offices of Forth Ener­gy, a com­pa­ny plan­ning to build four new bio­mass pow­er sta­tions in Scot­land. Three pro­tes­tors chained them­selves to the front of the build­ing, two occu­pied the inside of the office, and two more dropped a ban­ner from the roof of the office. Five arrests were made.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, sev­en pro­tes­tors block­ad­ed the RBS exec­u­tive carpark at the Gyle Indus­tri­al Estate by super-glu­ing them­selves togeth­er.

A group of demon­stra­tors dropped a two metre long pig­gy bank brand­ed with the RBS logo filled with 60 litres of oil-like sub­stance (molasses) out­side the head­quar­ters of Cairn Ener­gy, a com­pa­ny which is com­ing under fire for its Arc­tic oil drilling oper­a­tions. The Green­peace ship Esper­an­za is cur­rent­ly engaged in a sit­u­a­tion with the Dan­ish Navy off the coast of Green­land with regards to Cairn Energy’s drilling oper­a­tions.

A group of pro­tes­tors, includ­ing Fringe per­form­ers, shut down the Nicol­son Street RBS branch. Three indi­vid­u­als super-glued them­selves across the front door­way, while anoth­er group played music and danced while hand­ing out leaflets. There were three arrests.

After the pre­vi­ous group of pro­tes­tors was removed by police, a group of “tar-cov­ered” pro­tes­tors shut down the Nicol­son St RBS branch a sec­ond time, as sev­er­al activists locked them­selves onto the build­ing.

Activists lay siege to RBS HQ with a six metre tall mock siege tow­er on wheels with a life-size papi­er mache rhi­noc­er­os head mount­ed on the front.

A ban­ner was dropped from a build­ing read­ing “oil tar sands = envi­ron­men­tal chaos”, there were two arrests.

Anoth­er ban­ner was dropped over the A8 which read “RBS: using our mon­ey to fuck the plan­et”

Above a tent protest by North Bridge, demon­stra­tors scaled two storeys of scaf­fold­ing to drop a ban­ner which read “RBS funds and prof­its from cli­mate chaos”

Actions in pre­vi­ous days have includ­ed:

* Hun­dreds of activists in boil­ers suits stormed the RBS head­quar­ters, cat­a­pult­ing oil-like sub­stance (molasses) onto the build­ing and attempt­ing to get inside the build­ing. There were two arrests.
* A group of activists caused the clo­sure of RBS bank branch­es in town by per­form­ing a spoof song-and-dance ver­sion of Lady Gaga’s num­ber one hit “Pok­er­face”, rewrit­ing the lyrics to talk about RBS’ fund­ing of fos­sil fuels. They invad­ed an RBS-spon­sored stage on the Roy­al Mile and per­formed the rout­ing for passers by.
* A group of 40–50 street the­atre activists exposed how RBS’ PR masks the real­i­ty of its invest­ments by per­form­ing “Green­wash Guer­ril­la” street the­atre at Gog­a­r­burn and the Roy­al Mile.
* On Sat­ur­day, sev­er­al hun­dred activists launched an incur­sion into the RBS HQ com­plex and held a dance par­ty in the foy­er as one activist gained access to the recep­tion area and super­glued her­self to the front desk.

So far, there have been 14 arrests through­out the dura­tion of the camp (from Wednes­day evening through Mon­day after­noon).

The Cli­mate Camp have expressed bewil­der­ment as to police claims of oil being spilled on a main road, and have no knowl­edge who was respon­si­ble for it if the inci­dent did take place.

Har­ry Reynolds who took part in the actions said:

“No one came to work today at the RBS Gog­a­r­burn head­quar­ters. Since we had already effec­tive­ly shut that down, we decid­ed to con­cen­trate our ener­gies tar­get­ing RBS and its fos­sil fuel affil­i­ates in the Edin­burgh city cen­tre. We’ve done a lot to dis­rupt RBS dirty ener­gy oper­a­tions today, but we are com­mit­ted to keep­ing up the pres­sure until we man­age to cut off the flow of cap­i­tal from the banks to the fos­sil fuel indus­try.”

Natal­ie Swift, a spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp, com­ment­ed on the day of action:

“Today we have seen peo­ple tack­ling RBS’ respon­si­bil­i­ty for the bil­lions of pounds it pro­vides to envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive and dan­ger­ous fos­sil fuel projects. We are being failed by the gov­ern­ment and finan­cial insti­tu­tions, and we are cre­at­ing a vibrant social move­ment that takes direct action against the caus­es of cli­mate change when politi­cians and bankers fail to do so.”

Pho­tos:
Pho­tos of the camp and actions are avail­able at:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010/photography
They will be updat­ed through­out the day with fur­ther pho­tos from actions.

Videos:
The mak­ing of the Tro­jan Pig used at Cairn Ener­gy action
http://www.youandifilms.com/2010/08/ribs-the-trojan-pig-makes-a-mess-at-cairn-energy/
Rais­ing a Ruckus- a short film cov­er­ing the site take and the first
incur­sion into RBS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATJwdb4b2Tc&feature=player_embedded

Twit­ter:
Updates from actions through­out the day of action, includ­ing pho­tos
and videos, are avail­able on the Cli­mate Camp Twit­ter stream:
twitter.com/climate camp

Press releas­es from through­out the day can be found at:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/press

Main­stream TV footage
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Tar Cov­ered Cli­mate Activists Shut Down Bank

A group of ‘tar’ cov­ered activists from the Camp for Cli­mate Action have locked them­selves to the RBS branch on Nichol­son Street, shut­ting the bank down. This is the sec­ond time that the Nichol­son Street bank branch has been shut down by protests today, as sev­er­al activists who had block­ad­ed the bank entrance by super­glu­ing them­selves togeth­er in front of it had just been removed by the police, result­ing in three arrests.

Anoth­er group of activists is demon­strat­ing with ban­ners and leaflets out­side the bank branch and on the streets of Edin­burgh today tar­get­ing RBS branch­es and spon­sored events to expose the extent of Fes­ti­val spon­sor RBS’s involve­ment in cli­mate crimes.

The activists are call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on all new invest­ment and loan financ­ing in Tar Sands and oth­er fos­sil fuels projects. Roy­al Bank of Scot­land is the UK’s largest investor in com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the Tar Sands and financed 7.5 bil­lion US dol­lars worth of loans between 2007 and 2009. One of these com­pa­nies is Enbrgide, whose con­tro­ver­sial pro­posed North­ern Gate­way Pas­sage would be laid through British Colum­bia, across more than fifty First Nation ter­ri­to­ries and pris­tine eco-sys­tems.

The Gate­way project will cross over 1000 rivers and streams. No oil extrac­tion is safe and secure but giv­en Enbridge has a his­to­ry of spills from its pipelines this project pos­es a seri­ous risk to endan­gered salmon pop­u­la­tions which use these rivers to spawn. Any spill will also con­t­a­m­i­nate the plants and ani­mals that local First Nations depend upon for food and med­i­cine.

The action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with First Nation peo­ples who expe­ri­ence the harsh­est and most imme­di­ate effects of RBS’s invest­ments. The activists are con­cerned that any con­t­a­m­i­na­tion could mir­ror the hor­rif­ic health impacts, includ­ing rare can­cers, seen in First Nation com­mu­ni­ties who live near Tar Sands extrac­tion zones. Two mem­bers of the First Nation com­mu­ni­ties have been at Cli­mate Camp this week, speak­ing of the destruc­tion of their ter­ri­to­ry and the trag­ic human cost of the Tar Sands mega project.

Jas­mine Thomas, a mem­ber of the frog clan from Saik’uz, which is part of the Car­ri­er Nation, said “Tar Sands is a glob­al phe­nom­e­non. It is the largest indus­tri­al project in the world. It is also the dirt­i­est. Tar Sands pro­duces three times as much CO2 per bar­rel as con­ven­tion­al oil. There’s enough under­ground to push us over the edge into run­away cli­mate change. It should be every­one’s con­cern”.

Daniel Bal­la, one of the activists involved, com­ment­ed “We feel com­pelled to take action against RBS as it is now 84% owned by the UK tax­pay­er. Peo­ple may be unaware that the insti­tu­tion using vast amounts of pub­lic mon­ey is invest­ing in the most destruc­tive car­bon-emit­ting indus­tries in the world. Since the bank was bailed out by the British Gov­ern­ment, 99% of RBS’s financ­ing of the ener­gy sec­tor has been pumped into fos­sil fuels. The future RBS is cur­rent­ly fund­ing will be fur­ther pol­lut­ed,
oil-addict­ed and incur a trag­ic loss of Indige­nous Peo­ples and degra­da­tion of the envi­ron­ment”.

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RBS branch shut down with super­glue and music

Peo­ple opposed to Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s invest­ments in oil tar sands have super-glued them­selves to its Edin­burgh Nichol­son Street branch, sit­u­at­ed at the cen­tre of the City. They were joined by per­form­ers angry at RBS’ spon­sor­ship of the Edin­burgh Fringe.

One par­tic­i­pant, Jen­ny South, said “Cli­mate change kills 400,000 peo­ple every year. RBS invests in oil from Cana­di­an tar sands – the most cli­mate-bust­ing fuel on the plan­et, and one which is dev­as­tat­ing local indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties. We are stand­ing togeth­er with those com­mu­ni­ties to resist this 21st cen­tu­ry atroc­i­ty, to make a pas­sion­ate call for cli­mate jus­tice, and to has­ten a much-need­ed fos­sil fuel-free future.”

The action is one part of a mass day of direct action called by The Camp for Cli­mate Action, which has been camped oppo­site RBS’ glob­al head­quar­ters in Gog­a­r­burn for the last week.

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion about Cli­mate Camp and RBS’ invest­ment in tar sands vis­it www.climatecamp.org.uk

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Cairn trojan pigCairn trojan pig 2Cairn trojan pig 3
Cli­mate Camp art activists cause ‘oil’ spill out­side Cairn Ener­gy

An ‘oil’ spill was caused out­side the offices of Cairn Ener­gy in cen­tral Edin­burgh this morn­ing. Activists tar­get­ed the Scot­tish ener­gy com­pa­ny because it used pub­lic mon­ey from RBS to help it start drilling for oil off the coast of Green­land last month.

The art activists who met at the Cli­mate Camp car­ried a two metre long pig­gy bank brand­ed with the RBS logo filled with 60 litres of an oil like sub­stance towards Cairn Ener­gy’s offices. Trig­gered by a gold­en coin rep­re­sent­ing the pub­lic mon­ey used to bail out the bank, the RBS ‘pig­gy bank’ unleashed its con­tents, believed to be molasses, cov­er­ing the entrances and the street. Activists also sprayed ‘oil’ on the out­side of the build­ing with fire extin­guish­ers.

It was revealed yes­ter­day that Cairn Ener­gy received £117 mil­lion of loans and equi­ty last year from RBS, almost half of which direct­ly enabled the drilling off the Green­land coast to start. This drilling is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­tro­ver­sial because the area has­n’t been exploit­ed for oil before and has only been made pos­si­ble as cli­mate change has caused ice­bergs in this region to melt. The BP Deep­wa­ter oil spill has clear­ly shown the dan­gers of off­shore drilling and it’s argued that Cairn don’t have the expe­ri­ence to deal with acci­dents in the pre­vi­ous­ly pris­tine and extreme­ly envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive Arc­tic. (A spill in the area would be almost impos­si­ble to clean up due to the thick ice.)

Alex Wil­son, one of the activists who under­took the action said:

“RBS does­n’t just spon­sor the Edin­burgh Fringe, it spon­sors the oil com­pa­nies who destroy the lives of hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple around the world through oil spills, war, drought and floods.

“Risky drilling in the Arc­tic by Cairn Ener­gy has only been made pos­si­ble by finan­cial involve­ment by RBS. This is an out­ra­geous use of over a hun­dred mil­lion pounds of pub­lic mon­ey giv­en the eco­nom­ic and cli­mate crises that we are fac­ing.”

The activists say that this is the start of a new focus on tak­ing direct action against the oil indus­try. A mass day of action dubbed ‘The Crude Awak­en­ing’ is already being planned and is set to take place in Octo­ber in Lon­don.

Rachel Stone said:

“We have got the oil indus­try in our sights. We will be tar­get­ing the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries that oil flows through. We will be tak­ing direct action to switch off oil because it is at the heart of the cli­mate cri­sis that we are all fac­ing.”

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion, inter­views or print qual­i­ty pho­tos please call 07040 900 905

Pho­tos: http://tweetphoto.com/40862372

Notes to edi­tors

* Accord­ing to Bloomberg fig­ures released yes­ter­day Cairn Ener­gy received £117 mil­lion in equi­ty and loans.
* For more infor­ma­tion on the Camp for Cli­mate Action see www.climatecamp.org.uk.
* For more infor­ma­tion about the Crude Awak­en­ing – day of action in Octo­ber go to www.crudeawakening.org.uk

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DAY OF MASS ACTION BEGINS WITH CAR PARK BLOCKADE AND OFFICE OCCUPATION

The day of mass action tar­get­ing RBS and the fos­sil fuel indus­try is kick­ing into full swing as two groups of pro­tes­tors stage direct actions at the site of two cli­mate crim­i­nals. Sev­en pro­tes­tors have super­glued them­selves to the exec­u­tive car park of the RBS indus­tri­al estate, while anoth­er group of sev­en have tak­en over the offices of Forth ener­gy in Lei­th.

PROTESTORS RISK ARREST TO DROP BANNERS AND OCCUPY FORTH ENERGY HEAD OFFICE UNTIL DEMANDS ARE MET

Video live stream of the action is avail­able at qik.com/sinbad68

Leith—A group of 7 activists have just tar­get­ed the office of the head­quar­ters of Forth Ener­gy. Two have scaled the roof of the build­ing and have hung ban­ners read­ing ‘BIO MASS HEALTH HAZARD’ and ‘BIO MASS = CLIMATE CHANGE’. Three are inside, and two have chained them­selves to the front of the build­ing. The activists, part of the Cli­mate Camp out­side of RBS head­quar­ters in Edin­burgh, are tar­get­ing Forth Ener­gy because of their plans to build four envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive bio­mass (wood-burn­ing) ener­gy pow­er sta­tions in Scot­land. The office takeover began at 8 am this morn­ing.

Loca­tion: 1 Prince of Wales, Dock, Lei­th, EH6 7DX

Why are envi­ron­men­tal activists risk­ing arrest by tak­ing such dras­tic action? Forth Ener­gy, which labels itself a ‘green’ ener­gy com­pa­ny, is mis­lead­ing­ly push­ing bio­mass as a solu­tion to cli­mate change. In real­i­ty these pow­er sta­tions will increase car­bon emis­sions, pol­lute local air, increase defor­esta­tion and lead to the dis­place­ment of native peo­ples in the glob­al south. Wood burned in the pro­posed Lieth, Grange­mouth, Rosyth Port and Dundee Port sites will be fed pri­mar­i­ly from wood chip freight­ed in from abroad.

Bio­mass pow­er sta­tions are more cli­mate dam­ag­ing than tra­di­tion­al fos­sil fuel pow­er sta­tions because of the destruc­tion of vir­gin wood­lands that they inevitably require. If built these pow­er sta­tions will mean even more wood imports from abroad and even more destruc­tion of rain­forests and old growth forests to be replaced with plan­ta­tions of euca­lyp­tus in places like South Amer­i­ca. For exam­ple, the smoke­stack CO2 emis­sions from a bio­mass pow­er sta­tion are com­mon­ly around 1.5 times greater than those from a coal pow­er sta­tion with the same ener­gy out­put.

In addi­tion to harm­ing the glob­al cli­mate, these pow­er sta­tions will severe­ly impact the health of the com­mu­ni­ties where they are built. All bio­mass burn­ing releas­es sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ties of nitro­gen oxides, sul­phur diox­ide, car­bon monox­ide, volatile organ­ic com­pounds and haz­ardous air pol­lu­tants (HAPs). Such pol­lu­tion increas­es the risks of res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, heart dis­ease, can­cer and pre­ma­ture mor­tal­i­ty includ­ing infant mor­tal­i­ty and mis­car­riage. Lei­th pow­er sta­tion alone would gen­er­ate nitro­gen oxide and par­tic­u­lates equiv­a­lent to 100,000 more cars while Edin­burgh and Grange­mouth pow­er sta­tions are 200m to the near­est home and Dundee pow­er sta­tion just 100m.

Demand for import­ed wood will also mean native peo­ples and peas­ant farm­ers could be dis­placed from their land and intim­i­dat­ed, killed, injured or enslaved to make room for new mono cul­ture wood plan­ta­tions as rou­tine­ly hap­pens in many devel­op­ing coun­tries.

Despite all the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence to the con­trary, the UK and EU gov­ern­ments class bio­mass pow­er sta­tions as renew­able, green ener­gy. Forth ener­gy will receive £300 mil­lion in sub­si­dies annu­al­ly for their four bio­mass pow­er sta­tions and this is to be fund­ed through an increase on util­i­ty bills.
Mary­la Hart, spokesper­son for the group of Cli­mate Camp activists “Bio­mass is exac­er­bat­ing cli­mate change, destroy­ing pre­cious forests and pulling mon­ey away from real, sus­tain­able solu­tions like ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures, wind, solar and tidal pow­er. Forth Ener­gy can expect grow­ing oppo­si­tion until they scrap the idea of bio­mass alto­geth­er’.

For more infor­ma­tion about bio­mass and the cam­paign against it, please vis­it www.biofuelwatch.org.uk, http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/Biomess.

Notes to edi­tor:
— The four pow­er sta­tions which will pro­duce a total 560MW will burn a total of 5.6 mil­lion tones of wood a year.
— The four pow­er sta­tions would burn approx­i­mate­ly the equiv­a­lent of 2/3 of all the wood the UK cur­rent­ly pro­duces every year.
— The UK’s total demand for wood for pulp, paper and bio­mass is already alto­geth­er unsus­tain­able as the UK relies on net imports for over 80% for its wood and wood prod­ucts.

Sunday stroll through RBS’ HQ and other climate camp actions so far — updated

For the lat­est action & oth­er news from the Camp for Cli­mate Action, read their twit­ter.

Mid Sun­day after­noon (22.8.10), 100s of peo­ple attempt­ed to stroll over the bridge from the Cli­mate Camp to the HQ of RBS. Police tried to stop them.

For the lat­est action & oth­er news from the Camp for Cli­mate Action, read their twit­ter.

RBS Sunday strollRBS HQ windows smashedMid Sun­day after­noon (22.8.10), 100s of peo­ple attempt­ed to stroll over the bridge from the Cli­mate Camp to the HQ of RBS. Police tried to stop them.

From the North­ern Indy­media time­line:

August 22, 2010 17:29 — Cli­mate Camp pro­tes­tors have now crossed the bridge and marched on to RBS build­ings.

August 22, 2010 17:17 — Green­wash gueril­la activists are going across the main bridge.

August 22, 2010 17:11 — two hun­dred activists in green­wash gueril­la out­fits are march­ing onto the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land Head Quar­ters site.

August 22, 2010 13:50 — “Bring­ing three vans down Gog­ar Sta­tion Road”

August 22, 2010 13:39 — Most of the Cli­mate Campers have moved away, but 4 or 5 are being searched on Sta­tion Road while head­ing back to the main Camp area. Legal Observers are with those Campers who have been stopped.

August 22, 2010 13:36 — Forty Police are now present in the same area as the Cli­mate Campers who are try­ing to enter RBS grounds. Police are now threat­en­ing to invoke Sec­tion 60 on any­one wear­ing a face mask.

August 22, 2010 13:32 — Cli­mate Campers are mov­ing back through the hedge.

August 22, 2010 13:30 — Twelve Police are stood behind the crowd.

August 22, 2010 13:27 — Push­ing match has end­ed. Police are watch­ing Cli­mate Campers dance!

August 22, 2010 13:26 — Police do not have a rea­son for why they are not let­ting Cli­mate Campers cross the bridge. No com­mand­ing offi­cer present to give a rea­son. Push­ing match between Campers and police has begun.

August 22, 2010 13:23 — Police and two vans have met Cli­mate Campers on the bridge and are try­ing to pre­vent them cross­ing the bridge.

August 22, 2010 13:22 — For­ward Intel­li­gence Team (F.I.T.) of the Police have joined the Cli­mate Campers. Police have made attempts to stop the group enter­ing RBS land. We think the police have been unsuc­cess­ful in stop­ping the Cli­mate Campers gain access to the land.

August 22, 2010
There are also a cou­ple of videos avail­able online, one of which appears to show Campers on top of the RBS build­ing (and anoth­er video, slight­ly ear­li­er).

Sunday RBS invasion 1Sunday RBS invasion 2Sunday RBS invasion 3From the Camp twit­ter feed:

* After a pro­longed stand off with the police we are now in a mass ple­nary hear­ing from two Cana­di­an #tarsands activists. #cli­mate­camp 2 min­utes ago via Tweet­Deck
* In an unre­lat­ed inci­dent two activists were also arrest­ed. Molasses rep­re­sent­ing dirty oil was flung at RBS HQ in cater­paults #cli­mate­camp 3 min­utes ago via Tweet­Deck
* dur­ing the ear­li­er site incur­sion two win­dows were smashed by activists angry about RBS fos­sil fuel invest­ments #cli­mate­camp #tarsands
* Overheard_it Over­heard police say­ing an offi­cer had lost their radio in scuf­fles with #Cli­mate­Camp pro­test­ers about 1 hour ago via twit­ter­feed Retweet­ed by cli­mate­camp
* Sophi­aCR Bal­loons full of ‘oil’ just burst on the RBS build­ing. #cli­mate­camp about 3 hours ago via txt Retweet­ed by cli­mate­camp and 4 oth­ers
* Pic­tures from our incur­sion onto RBS HQ. Cur­rent­ly a stand off and bridge and peo­ple up tripods too http://tweetphoto.com/40722969 about 2 hours ago via Tweet­Deck
* Mass incur­sion at RBS HQ. Hun­dreds threat­ened with arrest if they don’t cross back over the bridge #cli­mate­camp

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Lady Oily GagaActivists Force RBS Branch­es to Close Over Week­end
August 22, 2010

* Cli­mate pro­test­ers use super­glue and stink bombs to close branch­es
* Lady Gaga song per­formed on hijacked Fringe stage

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land came under attack from pro­test­ers this week­end, who are demon­strat­ing against its invest­ment in dan­ger­ous fos­sil fuels.

Activists super­glued shut RBS branch doors on Fri­day night, and graf­fi­tied RBS logos around the city. RBS branch­es were forced to close on Sat­ur­day as Cli­mate Camp pro­tes­tors tar­get­ed city cen­tre branch­es.

One set of pro­test­ers per­formed ‘Dirty Oil’, a spoof ver­sion of the Lady Gaga song ‘Pok­er­face’ with the words changed to high­light RBS’ invest­ments in the Tar Sands. The St Andrew’s Square branch was closed to pre­vent activists per­form­ing inside. The group lat­er hijacked an RBS-spon­sored stage at the Edin­burgh Fringe.

The song includ­ed the lyrics:

“It’s get­ting hot, the plan­et’s near­ly shot
We’ll make ’em stop, we’re putting up a block.
Can’t deny, can’t deny that tar sands is dirty oil
Tar Sands is dirty oil.”

A dif­fer­ent group set off stink bombs in RBS branch­es, forc­ing them to close for the day.

Ruth McTer­nan from the Cli­mate Camp said:

“These invest­ments are fill­ing the atmos­phere with the stench of car­bon and has­ten­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, so we gave RBS a sam­ple of their own smelly emis­sions.”

—

Greenwash Guerillas 2Greenwash Guerillas 3Police Search Street The­atre Activists Under New Pow­er
August 21, 2010

A group of street the­atre activists plan­ning on demon­strat­ing against RBS lat­er today have been stopped and searched by Loth­i­an and Bor­ders Police under Sec­tion 60.

A team of 30–40 peo­ple gath­ered at the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land HQ in Gog­a­r­burn, Edin­burgh this morn­ing. Dressed in white foren­sics bio­haz­ard suits and car­ry­ing “green­wash detec­tor” probes they enact­ed street the­atre to poke fun at RBS’ attempts to spin their image away from their sta­tus as the oil and gas bank.

The pro­test­ers were searched under a sec­tion 60 pow­er which has been in place on Edin­burgh and sur­round­ing area since 10.30 am on Sat­ur­day morn­ing and will remain so for 48 hours. The group were stopped and searched for offen­sive weapons just out­side the Cli­mate Camp at Gog­a­r­burn. For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams took pho­tographs of the pro­tes­tors. All refused to give their details and there were no arrests.

This move accom­pa­nies the instal­la­tion of flood­lights on the roof of RBS HQ, and the intro­duc­tion of mount­ed police in the area sur­round­ing the camp.

The pro­tes­tors from Camp for Cli­mate Action plan on head­ing into the Roy­al Mile at 3pm for more green­wash bust­ing.

Char­lotte Wirth, one of the pro­tes­tors who was stopped and searched, said:
“Street the­atre is a great way to high­light how what RBS says about its envi­ron­men­tal record doesn’t match up with the real­i­ty. RBS is financ­ing bil­lions of pounds worth of coal, oil and gas both across the world and here in the UK.

“It’s ridicu­lous that the police are using stop and search pow­ers across Edin­burgh on street per­form­ers just because our mes­sage is polit­i­cal.”

More pho­tos

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Activist super-glued to RBS front desk as 150 Cli­mate Campers mount an incur­sion into RBS
August 20, 2010

At noon today, approx­i­mate­ly 150 activists breached the secu­ri­ty between the Cli­mate Camp (which is on the grounds of Roy­al Bank of Scot­land head­quar­ters) and the build­ings com­plex which hous­es the head­quar­ters.

As the activists com­plet­ed their tour of the grounds, one pro­tes­tor dis­guised as a banker gained entry to build­ing and super-glued her hands to the front desk. She was arrest­ed, and an ambu­lance was called to facil­i­tate removal.

The activists invit­ed the bankers to lunch to find out more about the Cli­mate Camp and the role of RBS in financ­ing cli­mate chaos at the many work­shops and train­ings planned for this week­end, before the day of mass action.

The activists man­aged to enter the revolv­ing doors of the RBS build­ing, where they held a dance par­ty and held a ban­ner declar­ing “we won‘t pay for their cri­sis”. They then moved to the front of the build­ing, where there were speech­es about RBS’ destruc­tive invest­ments into fos­sil fuels.

One of the speak­ers said:
“This is a call to action because RBS is financ­ing fos­sil fuel projects around the world. They are know­ing­ly dis­plac­ing and endan­ger­ing com­mu­ni­ties, destroy­ing ecosys­tems and lead­ing us towards cli­mate chaos. We’re hear to join with those com­mu­ni­ties in oppos­ing a finan­cial sys­tem which pri­ori­tis­es prof­its for the few over all of our futures”

People Unite in Opposition to Scottish Coal’s Open Cast Plans in Midlothian

22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

Growing Resistance22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

The protest start­ed in the Vil­lage Hall, with peo­ple gath­er­ing for a speech and wel­come by CAAOC Chair­per­son Dougie McKen­zie. The group then marched through the vil­lage the short dis­tance to the pro­posed open cast site, set in Mid­loth­i­an’s beau­ti­ful coun­try­side, and through the right of way to the cen­tre of the open cast area. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers explained the extent of the bound­aries of the site and the dev­as­ta­tion that would be caused by it.

Fiona Reed, of Coal Action Scot­land, speak­ing to the con­gre­gat­ed crowd, said: “We’ve come here today to con­tin­ue our long term com­mit­ment to sup­port and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with this com­mu­ni­ty and their strug­gle against open cast coal. Across Scot­land com­mu­ni­ties are blight­ed by com­pa­nies like Scot­tish Coal, whether its the health impacts, eco­nom­ic degra­da­tion or the destruc­tion of their local envi­ron­ment they suf­fer. Togeth­er we are stronger!”

Dougie McKen­zie, chair of the cam­paign­ing group, Com­mu­ni­ties Against Air­field Open Cast (CAAOC), said, “We are delight­ed that Coal Action Scot­land is sup­port­ing our cam­paign. Local peo­ple have real con­cerns not only about the impact this mine will have on local busi­ness­es, but also on our safe­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of our chil­dren — the area sur­round­ing the vil­lage of Cous­land is rid­dled with old lime­stone mine work­ings, and we have seri­ous con­cerns about the impact blast­ing will have on the already unsta­ble ground. Already this year we believe there have been 2 land col­laps­es into old mine work­ings in the fields around Air­field, and a few years pre­vi­ous­ly a 15-year old boy nar­row­ly escaped death when the ground in the local play­ing field col­lapsed beneath him .”

“We hope this rur­al protest march will raise aware­ness of our cam­paign and will encour­age more peo­ple to object to Scot­tish Coal’s appli­ca­tion. We sus­pect that there will be many peo­ple in Edin­burgh unaware of this pro­posed blot on the beau­ti­ful land­scape so close to the city.”

Huntington Lane needs YOU!

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site.

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site. It has also been dis­cov­ered that jobs at the mine site are being advertised/allocated and local firm McPhilips will begin work­ing on the site infra­struc­ture very soon.
Time is fast run­ning out before an evic­tion notice is served and the camp would like to issue a call out for peo­ple, tools, lock on gear of all kinds (padlocks,D‑locks etc), water and food. If you’re unable to offer any of these things but would like to sup­port the camp, words of sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port are also very grate­ful­ly received 🙂
Camp

OPEN CAST COAL IN THE SHADOW OF THE WREKIN
In Octo­ber of 2009 UK Coal were grant­ed per­mis­sion by the then Sec­re­tary of State, John Den­ham to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal from a site called ‘Hunt­ing­ton Lane Sur­face Mine Site’ near Telford, Shrop­shire – this beau­ti­ful 230 acre site near The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills AONB and is home to a sced­uled ancient mon­u­ment. At least one Coun­ty Wildlife Site and the flo­ra and fau­na of the borough’s largest and most valu­able areas of ancient wood­land are threat­ened by the sur­face mine. The devel­op­ment also involves the dis­tur­bance of four bad­ger setts and the for­ag­ing ter­ri­to­ries of a fur­ther two bad­ger clans.

Not only does the pro­posed mine rep­re­sent a major blot on the beau­ti­ful rur­al land­scape, being clear­ly vis­i­ble from the Wrekin and many oth­er local areas, and also cre­ate three years of noise and dust for local res­i­dents – the sub­se­quent burn­ing of the mined coal will release a min­i­mum of 2,430,000 tonnes of cli­mate chang­ing CO2 emis­sions into the atmos­phere.

In March 2010 pro­test­ers moved onto the site in an effort to resist this destruc­tion at the hands of UK Coal.

huntingtolane1

HOW TO GET THERE
The entry point is actu­al­ly on New Works Lane, New Works, Telford, Shrop­shire. The near­est train sta­tion is Welling­ton (Telford West).

For a map view go to:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tf6+5bs&sll=52.675432,-2.498875&sspn=0.005738,0.013797&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Telford+TF6+5BS,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.675174,-2.499985&spn=0.000724,0.001725&t=h&z=19

The mark­er on the map is not quite in the right place but is very close to the entry point for camp – the stile is actu­al­ly on the oth­er side of New Works Lane, just before the hous­es begin, in the bush­es to the right of a shon­ky old gate! (Please don’t block the gate if you’re com­ing by car/van as it’s still in use by the farmer – park at the side of the road if you can. There is more space to park head­ing north up New Works Lane) If you zoom right in on the map you can see the entrance on Streetview, but be warned – the green­ery around the stile has grown sub­stan­cial­ly since this pic­ture was tak­en! Once over the stile just fol­low the path; it breaks off to the left behind the hous­es and also to the right a lit­tle fur­ther along; ignore these turn­ings and fol­low the straight path which bears to the left after them. Con­tin­ue to fol­low the path until you reach the sign direct­ing you to camp.

HOW TO CONTACT THE CAMP
Tel: 07503 583419 or 07727 295232
Email: defendhuntingtonlane@hushmail.com
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