Wrong Decision — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspector

On Wednes­day (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal’s appli­ca­tion to mine 520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site is cur­rent­ly agri­cul­tur­al land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a high­ly con­test­ed site with real­ly strong and well orches­trat­ed oppo­si­tion from local peo­ple. Why is this a bad deci­sion? … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Wrong Deci­sion — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspec­tor”

On Wednesday (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal's application to mine
520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site
is currently agricultural land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a highly
contested site with really strong and well orchestrated opposition from
local people.


Why is this a bad decision?



* The community were so very clear that there was NO COMMUNITY CONSENT
* One woman (the planning inspector) thinks she can decide whether a mine
would offer 'national, local or community benefits which would clearly
outweigh the remaining adverse impacts.' How can she possibly say yes when
the community SAYS NO.
* We are moving away from a reliance on coal (but not quickly enough) with
two coal fired power stations announcing closures next year
* The company pursuing the application will not directly operate the site
as they have serious financial difficulties and had to be helped by the
government in closing their last remaining deep mines and were order to
sell off their remaining opencast mines



As the following history of the application shows, the coal company
refused to take no for an answer being determined to sell on the mine with
planning permission. This is not the end of the battle. We need you to
think about what you are going to do to ensure that this piece of rural
Britain is never dug up. We need to stand together to protect the
livelihoods, families, local history, quality of life, homes, air quality,
tranquillity, health, wildlife and ecosystems in this area. Even if the
legal battle is over the fight is not. Get in touch with your suggestions
info@coalaction.org.uk



History of the application.



UK Coal’s first application was rejected by planners in 1986. In 2001 a
second application was rejected.



In February 2011 the planning hearing of Durham Council unanimously
rejected the application, councillors called UK Coal "thugs," "vandals"
and said they were trying to bribe them.



In Autumn 2011 there was a three week appeal which UK Coal lost.



The coal company took this to the High Court in London who said that the
decision was perverse and ordered another appeal.



The second appeal happened in Autumn 2014 and lasted three weeks. It was
well attended by local people, tens of whom spoke out against the mine
with incredible passion, dedication and knowledge.
From the team at The Coal Action Network

For more info on sim­i­lar issues check out 

http://www.coalaction.org.uk 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Coal-Action-Network/429163990497895

HAMBACH FOREST: LIVING ON THE BARRICADES

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers are present­ly block­ing RWE’s open cast lig­nite mine

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers are present­ly block­ing RWE’s open cast lig­nite mine from expand­ing with liv­ing bar­ri­cades and tow­ers which in turn are pro­tect­ing access to the three for­est tree sits with plat­forms, tree­hous­es and inter­conect­ing walk­ways.  
The Ham­bach Mine iron­i­cal­ly named after the for­est it is destroy­ing is Europe‘s largest net CO2 pol­luter and it is record break­ing antro­pogenic cli­mate change, one of the largest plan­e­tary extinc­tions and increas­ing waves of cli­mate refugees that are reminders and ulti­mate glob­al shout-outs that eco-jus­tice is social jus­tice.

After the attack, evic­tion and arrest of 3 activists dur­ing the destruc­tion last week of “Pirate Ship” liv­ing plat­form bar­ri­cade not 3 days have elapsed and we have errect­ed a new tow­er bar­ri­cade.  Almost 3 times high­er than the last one we have named it Remi‘s Tow­er to hon­or Remi Frese, a cli­mate activist who was killed by a police con­cu­sion grenade dur­ing the strugle of Zad de la Teste in South­ern France.  That death is reflec­tive of increas­ing­ly high­er stakes of glob­al eco­log­i­cal strug­gle and at least 2 envi­ro­men­tal activist dying each week.  For these that refuse to be silent and pas­sive in the face of this onslought our hearts and minds are with you.

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers.

http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2015/06/02/germany-an-update-from-hambach-forest-defenders/

hambacherforst@riseup.net

Anti-Mining Blockade Evicted in Guatemala

The eviction comes a day before a presidential meeting and a year after a violent eviction against La Puya’s peaceful resistance.

June 3rd, 2015

from Telesur
The com­mu­ni­ty of La Puya in cen­tral Guatemala, resist­ing the U.S.-owned El Tam­bor gold mine project for over three years, faced evic­tion Tues­day after at least 300 secu­ri­ty forces arrived in the ear­ly morn­ing forc­ing ille­gal dis­place­ment of the block­ade, Pren­sa Libre report­ed. Accord­ing to wit­ness­es, in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing secu­ri­ty forces, includ­ing riot police, removed bar­ri­cades block­ing vehi­cle traf­fic to clear the entrance to the mine and also took down the community’s signs accom­pa­ny­ing the block­ade.

Com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives lat­er spoke with with the offi­cers, say­ing the evic­tion was ille­gal and that they await­ed a legal order for the community’s removal. The threat of evic­tion comes days after La Puya reac­ti­vat­ed its peace­ful block­ade and also coin­cides with the one year anniver­sary of vio­lent evic­tion against the com­mu­ni­ty last May.

Com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives have a meet­ing sched­uled Wednes­day with Pres­i­dent Perez Moli­na, whose res­ig­na­tion has been wide­ly called for in recent weeks by social move­ments, to reini­ti­ate a dia­logue on the community’s demands, Pren­sa Libre report­ed. Mem­bers of Guatemala’s Coun­cil for Human Rights also arrived on the scene to observe the increased police pres­ence as a pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sure for the com­mu­ni­ty as they faced the threat of a repres­sive crack­down.
Mem­bers of the resis­tance and orga­ni­za­tions in sol­i­dar­i­ty with La Puya held a demon­stra­tion in the cap­i­tal city Tues­day after­noon to denounce the repres­sion against the peace­ful resis­tance and demand “respect for live and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.”
La Puya launched its resis­tance against the con­struc­tion of El Tam­bor gold mine in 2012. Women and indige­nous peo­ple are at the fore­front of the community’s non-vio­lent move­ment that has effec­tive­ly put a stop to the work of at least three transna­tion­al min­ing com­pa­nies.
Dur­ing the first of three years of resis­tance against the mine, La Puya caused $US3 mil­lion in loss­es for the com­pa­ny Exmin­gua, the Guatemalan sub­sidiary of Neva­da-based U.S. transna­tion­al extrac­tive cor­po­ra­tion Kappes Cas­si­day & Asso­ciates.

Germany: An Update from Hambach Forest Defenders

June 2nd, 2015

The defence of the the Mil­lenar­i­an Ham­bach­er For­est against the encroching RWE open cast lig­nite mine con­tin­ues with activist-build tow­ers and live-in bar­ri­cades.  The Ham­bach­er For­est is not only one of the last Mil­lenar­i­an Forests in Europe but also the largest on the edge of most­ly defor­est­ed area of Ruhr Val­ley and the Bel­gium, Nether­lands, Lux­em­burg region hence its impor­tance to bio­di­ver­si­ty and ani­mal migra­tion cor­ri­dors.

The lig­nite mine fought through direct action meth­ods by the activist liv­ing in the for­est for the last 3 years has been devour­ing towns, vil­lages, whole forests and drain­ing the watertable for up to 70 kilo­me­ters  and is also the largest in west­ern europe and Europe’s biggest net CO2 emmiter.

The scale of the mine itself being 12km across and near­ly half a kil­lome­ter deep con­jures analo­gies of Mor­dor or Sci­Fi Prison plan­et with the dig­gers  being the world’s largest machines feed­ing the con­vey­or belts deliv­er­ing the coal to rail links sup­ply­ing the pow­er plants on the edge of the mine itself and through­out this region .  This in turn pales in com­par­i­son to the glob­al and exter­nal­ized costs of lig­nite as a cli­mate chaos agent and a num­ber one source of mer­cury con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in worlds oceans.

The Ham­bach For­est Strug­gle con­tin­ues to expe­ri­ence peri­od­ic police intru­sions, arrests and desc­truc­tion of bar­ri­cades which are pro­tect­ing three for­est tree-sits: Oak­town, Beech­town, and Crusty­Town  which are spread through­out the for­est.  The arrest result in sol­i­dar­i­ty actions and demon­stra­tions and rel­a­tive­ly short releas­es.

This is not some­thing that can be said about the irre­versible habi­tat destruc­tion that con­tin­ues day and night and sad­ly after par­tial vic­to­ry of hav­ing the costs of evic­tions and police actions being deferred to the RWE con­cern  the Ger­man Forestry depart­ment start­ed fil­ing com­plains about the for­est being block­ad­ed against the machin­ery send to destroy it and the tax­pay­er and the Ger­man State resumed again pick­ing up the bill for the repres­sion of eco-activists and eco­log­i­cal destru­c­ion.

For that rea­son we urge all who choose to pur­sue the avenues of civic action to put grass­roots pres­sure on the appro­pri­ate­ly named Fed­er­al Min­istry of Food and Agri­cul­ture in Bonn (www.verbraucherlotse.de) Mon­day to Thurs­day from 9:00 bis 17:00 Tele­fon­num­mer 02 28 – 24 25 26 27, per E‑Mail  info@verbraucherlotse.de, 53168 Bonn und unter der Fax-Num­mer 02 28 – 68 45 72 20.

 

 

For those in the strug­gle to pro­tect the Earth through direct action we urge you to vis­it us and fol­low the strug­gle and become a part of glob­al com­mu­ni­ty of resis­tance.

Our present demand and wish list includes as always plan­e­tary eco-jus­tice fol­lowed by walkie talkies, 12v bat­ter­ies and solar pan­els.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty,

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers!

Didcot Camp Action Round Up: 18 actions against the fossil fuel industry

Block­ades, shut­downs, lock-ons, love-ins, tripods and nanas…..Reclaim the Power’s day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try today (1 June 2015) saw 18 dif­fer­ent actions draw­ing the dots between big ener­gy firms, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, pub­lic rela­tions com­pa­nies, oil arts spon­sor­ship and the frack­ing indus­try.

Let’s take a run-down of the day’s events…(more text and pics com­ing soon!)

Action 1: 9.04am – Npower’s debt collection and pre-payment meter office in Leeds blockaded

We’ve all had the threat­en­ing let­ters from ener­gy com­pa­nies demand­ing pay­ment for bills we can’t afford – and today we hit back. Reclaim the Pow­er groups vis­it­ed RWE Npower’s offices in Leeds and block­ad­ed the front doors. Many house­holds are forced onto pre-pay­ment meters which are more expen­sive than direct deb­it accounts.

Action 2: 9.08am – Delegates at World Coal Association conference locked out of Institute of Directors

The coal indus­try are try­ing to con­tin­ue burn­ing fos­sil fuels by dan­gling the promise of Car­bon-Cap­ture-and-Stor­age tech­nol­o­gy. Con­fer­ence del­e­gates at a World Coal Asso­ca­tion event found all five entrances to the exclu­sive Insti­tute of Direc­tors blocked this morn­ing. There no arrests but lots of marigolds.

Action 3: 9.09am “Wind not gas” protest at DECC

Cheeky pro­test­ers high­light­ed the con­tin­ued fos­sil fuel bias with­in the Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change by blockad­ing its steps. Rowan Tilly explained, “Against the advice of their own Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, the gov­ern­ment has approved the con­struc­tion of up to 30 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions, and intends to go ‘all out’ for shale gas – with up to two thirds of the UK licensed for frack­ing. This new dash for gas is reck­less­ly at odds with our nation­al and inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions on cli­mate change and must be resist­ed, for both the sake of our­selves and future gen­er­a­tions.

“We are now find­ing our­selves at a stage where we don’t know where gov­ern­ment ends and cor­po­ra­tions begin and unless we act now we will soon find our­selves be locked into infra­struc­ture which will burn car­bon for years to come whilst killing off renew­able ener­gy, with polit­i­cal deci­sions ruled by prof­it and act­ing in igno­rance of the bla­tant dan­gers of cli­mate change. We sim­ply can’t afford to let this hap­pen.”

Action 4: 9.10am – Invesco’s Revolving Door between government and Drax

Con­tin­u­ing this theme, Reclaim the Pow­er activists vis­it­ed the offices of Invesco – the invest­ment man­age­ment com­pa­ny which owns 26% of Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire. New DECC junior min­is­ter Andrea Lead­man worked at Invesco for 10 years before tak­ing up her post in gov­ern­ment. The revolv­ing doors were lit­er­al­ly blocked and ban­ner dropped above the Lon­don Wall road.

Action 5: 9.30am – Polishing a turd: office occupation of Media Zoo

Pub­lic rela­tions firm ‘Media Zoo’ rep­re­sent chem­i­cals giant Ineos – who have recent­ly pledged £640 mil­lion invest­ment in frack­ing. Eight activists occu­pied their offices in Impe­r­i­al Wharf, Lon­don car­ry­ing a ban­ner ban­ner read­ing, ‘Frack­ing is Shit. You can’t pol­ish a turd.’ They used arm tubes lock ons to stay put. Sev­en peo­ple were arrest­ed around lunch time.

Mediazoo’s web­site boasts exten­sive expe­ri­ence of deal­ing with “indus­tri­al dis­putes”, “fatal acci­dents” and “child labour”. They are con­sult­ing Ineos on PR and media strat­e­gy. The CEO of Ineos Upstream Gary Hay­wood said, “I want Ineos to be the biggest play­er in the shale gas indus­try.” Medi­a­zoo were respon­si­ble for what UNITE described as Ineos’s “cam­paign of fear” dur­ing the dis­pute at Grange­mouth oil refin­ery in Scot­land when 1400 work­ers fought cuts to pay, jobs and pen­sions.

Action 6: 9.45am – Anti-nukes visit Carmargue PR firm

As well as rep­re­sent­ing RWE Npow­er, pub­lic rela­tions firm Camar­gue also spin the work of Hori­zon Nuclear Ener­gy. 12 pro­test­ers tar­get­ed the firm’s offices in Soho. Clare Jones said, “The pub­lic has a right to be informed about the real dan­gers of nuclear – from can­cer to con­t­a­m­i­na­tion to cli­mate change. For the cost of build­ing one nuclear pow­er sta­tion you could build over 1000 off­shore wind tur­bines.”

Action 7: 10.25am – Energy UK lobby group blockaded

Ener­gy UK is the trade body for the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies. They have lob­bied the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce the ‘Capac­i­ty Mar­ket’ into the recent Ener­gy Act (2014) – which uses pub­lic mon­ey to sub­sidise new gas pow­er sta­tions. Three peo­ple block­ad­ed the entrance, includ­ing two in an arm tube lock on.  There were two arrests.

Action 8: 10.30am – Big Six Love-in at Oxfordshire Conservative Party headquarters

Big 6

Action 9: 10.55am – RWE Npower headquarters in Swindon blockaded

Action 10: All morning – Subvertising in Oxford

Action 11: The Bill of Wrongs at British Gas HQ near Oxford

Action 12: 12.11pm – Lancashire Nanas link fracking and gas-fire power stations at Didcot B

Cuadzilla puppet

Action 13: 1.00pm – Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ rebranded by Shell

Shell rebrand

Action 14: 1.00pm – Avonmouth Biofuel plant invaded

Action 15: 1.30pm – “No stone left unfracked” Tripod fracking rig erected at London City Hall

Boris Saya

Action 16: 1.41pm – Edelman PR firm deliver first fracked baby (trigger warning)

Action 17: 2.00pm – Blockade of Cuadrilla offices in Lichfield (again!)

Cuadrilla HQ

Action 18: 2.30pm – Occupation of Imperial College’s Department of Mining

Reclaim the Power — Didcot and beyond!

 

Five days to go — here we come Didcot!

Programme’s up and packed full of treats.

In less than a week’s time Did­cot Mass Action Camp 2015 will be in full swing and we’re count­ing down the days and rar­ing up for a wicked week­end.

Set-up and start: Fri­day 29th May
Fin­ish: Tues­day 2nd June 2015
Face­book event here

We’ve got a packed sched­ule this year includ­ing the ‘Min­istry of Dis­sent’ — a one-stop shop for skilling up and tak­ing action with train­ers on board all day.  There’ll be the good peo­ple of Bar­ton Moss speak­ing about how to set up an ener­gy co-op and activist friends from Roja­va will be talk­ing about how to set up an entire autonomous region!

A range of train­ings are sched­uled from organ­i­sa­tions work­ing on the front­line of social change in the UK right now, includ­ing Lon­don Black Revs and UK Uncut, with Fuel Pover­ty Action tak­ing on the ‘Big 6’  and com­mu­ni­ty mobil­is­ing with DPAC (Dis­abled Peo­ple Against Cuts), and we’ll hear news about what’s com­ing up with the Paris cli­mate talks in Decem­ber, and from friends in the Rhineland about hold­ing off Big Coal there in August. Clos­er to home, we’ll also be hear­ing from Frack Free Lan­cashire about the immi­nent deci­sion in June, and how we can come togeth­er to say no to frack­ing — not now, not ever.

There’s also a com­e­dy dou­ble bill and music in the evening and time for us to dance and play, and get ener­gised and ready for our big day of action on Mon­day.

Check out the full pro­gramme here.

The site will be announced on Fri­day the 29th — keep your eyes on our web­site , Face­book and Twit­ter

Vol­un­teers want­ed!

Every­one’s invit­ed to get involved in mak­ing this camp awe­some, and there’s a wide range of vol­un­teer roles avail­able that we’re look­ing to fill.  Specif­i­cal­ly this includes:

  • kitchen crew
  • expe­ri­enced child-min­ders
  • qual­i­fied first-aiders
  • expe­ri­enced tran­quil­li­ty/well-being crew
  • media savvy peo­ple to help out in the media tent
  • gate and comms
  • wel­come tent crew
  • water and plumb­ing
  • a ded­i­cat­ed crew of TAT-down on Tues­day (tak­ing down camp)

If you’re up for help­ing with any of these roles then please let us know via our Face­book page or drop us a line at info@nodashforgas.org.uk   — thanks!

 

Canada: Two Arson Attacks on Logging Trucks in the Province of Arauco

Arson attacks

Two arson attacks were car­ried out ear­ly Thurs­day morn­ing at var­i­ous points in the Arau­ca­nia Region.

May 17th, 2015

The first took place in at the Mari­posas Estate, locat­ed on High­way CH181that con­nects the town­ships of Cura­cautín with Vic­to­ria, in the Province of Mal­le­co.

Accord­ing to police reports, the unknown sus­pects entered the area and lit fire to a shed that con­tained log­ging equip­ment.

Guards con­front­ed the sus­pects, which gave way to shots being fired, although police assert there were no injuries report­ed.

Due to the inci­dent a trac­tor, as well as an exca­va­tor, were com­plete­ly destroyed.

Log­ging trucks and Look-Out Posts Dam­aged in Min­in­co

Mean­while, the oth­er inci­dent took place in an area of Min­in­co, on High­way 5 South, at the north­ern exit of the Arau­ca­nia Region.

It was there that three log­ging trucks and a pedes­tri­an look­out post were burnt down, and police are inves­ti­gat­ing on the scene.

Close to 20 armed hood­ed sus­pects forced out the truck dri­vers to com­plete the attack, and the fire reached the near­by look-out post, accord­ing to wit­ness­es.

arson 2

Dur­ing the morn­ing hours, the Provin­cial Pros­e­cu­tor, Luis Espinoza, stat­ed that they would work with inves­ti­ga­tors and local police to search for clues in con­nec­tion to two oth­er sim­i­lar inci­dents in the town­ships of Cara­cautín and Vic­to­ria.

“The attacks were simul­ta­ne­ous, which pro­voked the arson of three trucks and a look-out pedes­tri­an post. It was a coor­di­nat­ed attack, divid­ing them­selves between the trucks, and intim­i­dat­ing the dri­vers with long and short firearms,” alleged the pros­e­cu­tor.

The local Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Arau­ca­nia Region, Mario Gon­za­lez, stat­ed that there would be charges against those respon­si­ble for the inci­dents.

“We are inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dents with the arson of these trucks and the look-out posts to come up with pos­si­ble charges,” stat­ed the rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

“Every­one rejects these actions that do not favour the devel­op­ment of the region,” added Gon­za­lez.

In the area, pam­phlets relat­ed to the Mapuche land con­flict were found, stat­ing the free­dom of [Mapuche Polit­i­cal Pris­on­er] Patri­cio Queip­ul.

from Women’s Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee for a Free Wallma­pu

Source: Radio Coop­er­a­ti­va

Notre-Dame-des-Landes: Three ‘Vinci’ lackeys chased out of the ZAD (and their vehicles sabotaged)

sab­o­taged biologist’s vehi­cle

Wednes­day morn­ing [April 29th 2015], in Vigneux-de-Bre­tagne, three biol­o­gists from Angers who came to study mar­bled newt were chased off by a dozen masked indi­vid­u­als.

In recent days, sci­en­tists from Gec­co (Ecol­o­gy and Con­ser­va­tion of Ver­te­brates Group), a Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ences lab­o­ra­to­ry in Angers, have been tak­ing sam­ples on the ZAD. The con­ces­sion­aire appoint­ed by the state, man­dat­ed by Vin­ci, are study­ing the func­tion­al­i­ty of amphib­ian pop­u­la­tions on the zone affect­ed by the air­port project. In this case the mar­bled newt.

Wednes­day morn­ing, they were act­ing in a place called La Fremière, north of Vigneux-de-Bre­tagne, when they saw a dozen hood­ed peo­ple arrive. They asked them to leave the premis­es after break­ing win­dows and wind­screens and punc­tur­ing their car tires.

By the time the gen­darmes had arrived at the scene, the per­sons unknown had fled. There were no arrests. A com­plaint was filed.

BarnCamp in June — subverting tech, computers & media activism


Barn­Camp is a low-cost rur­al DIY skill-shar­ing event open to every­one, includ­ing UK activists, cam­paign­ers, peo­ple involved in social and com­mu­ni­ty groups, and any­body else with an inter­est in tech­nol­o­gy and how to sub­vert it to put it to good use. This year it’s run­ning from 19th to 21st June.

Brought to you by Hack­tion­Lab, Bris­tol Wire­less and FLOSS Man­u­als, Barn­Camp 2015 will be the sixth edi­tion of our sum­mer camp at High­bury Farm in the beau­ti­ful Wye val­ley. Barn­Camp is three days of work­shops, dis­cus­sions, demos and prac­ti­cal how-to ses­sions look­ing at how tech­nol­o­gy can be use­ful (and dan­ger­ous) for cam­paign­ers, com­mu­ni­ty activists and gen­er­al trou­ble mak­ers.

The week­end includes:

* Three days of work­shops and open space ses­sions.
* Four nights camp­ing in the beau­ti­ful Wye Val­ley.
* Food from Fri­day through to Sun­day (9 meals).
* Indoor and camp­fire­side enter­tain­ment.

We have lim­it­ed places so please book your place on-line today at  https://barncamp.org.uk
 barncamp2015@hacktionlab.org

Germany: Police and Security Clear Barricades in Hambach Forest

Police, RWE and secu­ri­ties appeared at the occu­pa­tions in the Ham­bach For­est.

28 April 2015: At around 11 o’clock, police, RWE and secu­ri­ties appeared at the occu­pa­tions in the Ham­bach For­est. They cut sev­er­al climb­ing ropes, imposed dis­missals and sur­round­ed the liv­ing bar­ri­cade.
This is not the first time climb­ing ropes where cut as a sab­o­tage. This is a life threat­en­ing and use­less action on behalf of the police and RWE.
This hap­pens after the ‚dia­log‘ in the state par­lia­ment in Düs­sel­dorf with the police, the min­istry of inter­nal affairs, the par­ties, RWE and the region­al ini­tia­tive on the 20th of April this year. After the annu­al gen­er­al assem­bly of RWE last week and the human chain in Garzweil­er last week­end.
This is sup­posed to be the ener­gy tran­si­tion and the dia­log that is held. The inter­est of econ­o­my and those who are payed by them are in the fore­ground. On the 21th of may, the admin­is­tra­tive court in Aachen will decide if the mead­ow occu­pa­tion could be imme­di­ate­ly evict­ed. This is a call­out to all peo­ple who want to resist against the destruc­tion of land­scape.
Pics of the action [here]

News

06:28 am
Night is pass­ing and a new day is ris­ing… at the moment one per­son is in front of the police sta­tion, with ban­ners and infor­ma­tion. The police told to reg­is­ter a pick­et(?). If not the ban­ners should be removed. the out­come remains open…

05:50 am
Dur­ing the night, the per­sons in front of the police sta­tion was switched. It remains calm with no rain. Come around and bring break­fast. Hof cof­fee and tee are wel­come.

02:37 am
A sign of life from the cel­lars of the courts of this city. The press and a per­son in front of the police sta­tion are deter­mined to stay until our friend is released. In front of the police sta­tion, a gui­tar is play­ing and from the cel­lars one can hear the Anti RWE song from Mona&Hummel. You can lis­ten to it here: http://monaundhummel.noblogs.org/musik/

01:28 am
Blan­kets, Matrass­es and rice to eat have been brought. Here you can find a film doc­u­ment­ing the assaults of the RWE secu­ri­ty against activists. They are appar­ent­ly talk­ing about the sup­posed dig­ger occu­pa­tion of 06.04.2015.

01:20 am
Greet­ings from the police sta­tion in Kalk, we are prepar­ing for a long night.

00:05 am
Sev­er­al peo­ple are at the police sta­tion in Cologne/Kalk, to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with our arrest­ed friend. She is hap­py about sup­port, as well as blan­kets, hot tee and cups. The hot choco­late is almost gone! Come around!

23:30 pm
We are online again and have installed a press loca­tion and an EA in Cologne. If you want to know more about the course of events around our arrest­ed frend. This num­ber is reach­able around the clock: 0049 15753511306

18:oo pm
We just received the sad mes­sage that a friend of ours, who has pre­vi­ous­ly been held cap­tured in Hürth, has now been trans­fered to the prison n Cologne/Kalk. A release is not in sight. As she has been locked on, they charge her pf ‚resis­tance against execu­to­ry officers‘We send you pow­er and strenght… . The police oper­a­tion was com­mis­sioned by the region­al for­est depart­ment Rhein Erft. One of the many insti­tu­tions which are close­ly relat­ed to RWE and who sup­port the deple­tion of the Ham­bach For­est, as has been shown in the last years dur­ing sim­i­lar oper­a­tions.

16:31 pm
The police retreat­ed from the for­est. Appar­ent­ly the oper­a­tion was enforced by the for­est depart­ment of NRW.

15:30 pm
Heavy machin­ery of RWE is still on it’s way through the for­est and on the for­mer high­way A4, clear­ing the bar­ri­cades. The first sup­port­ers are arriv­ing in front of the police sta­tion in Hürth.

14 pm
More police cars/trucks arrive and dri­ve towards the for­est occu­pa­tions.

13:50 pm
RWE evict­ed the Hedge­hog with the help of police, now they cut a swath of destruc­tion through the for­est.

13:30 pm
The police just announced that the per­son locked in the Hedge­hog has been brought tot he police sta­tion in Bergheim, accom­pa­nied by a medic.

12:50 pm
The per­son in the Hedge­hog is evict­ed. They will start with the destruc­tion of the habi­tat.

12:30 pm
The sit­u­a­tion around the Hedge­hog is tense. There, RWE secu­ri­ty and diverse police depart­ments have sur­round­ed the place and plan to destroy the bar­ri­cades in the for­est and evict and destroy the Hedge­hog (a big, liv­ing bar­ri­cade). On per­son locked them­selves in the Hedge­hog to stop fur­ther use­less destruc­tion of nature with their own body.
The Hedge­hog is locat­ed at the for­mer meet­ing point in the for­est, where some RWE secu­ri­ties stole a stat­ue of Christ a few months ago.
Apart from this, the helpers of nature destruc­tion have left the mead­ow, Oak­town and Beech­town for now. Arrest­ed peo­ple are set free, noth­ing else is known so far.

12 pm
Peo­ple are arrest­ed in the Ham­bach For­est

11:40 am
Activists are sur­round­ed and dis­missals are imposed

 

Also, support the Hambach Defenders on 16 May:

from Ham­bach For­est Occu­pa­tion
Sup­port the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. Mead­ow under legal pres­sure

We at the Ham­bach­er For­est have been resist­ing envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion by the largest coal mine in West­ern Europe for the last three years expe­ri­enc­ing 3 major evic­tions and numer­ous police and secu­ri­ty actions. Now we are fac­ing a new per­il. Our sup­port camp with its veg­an kitchen, the­ater, infos­hop and 2 libraries, numer­ous liv­ing and guest spaces is fac­ing legal pro­ceed­ings in Aachen on the 21st of May with a demon­stra­tion of sup­port on May 16th in Cologne.
The Mead­ow Sup­port Camp has become a can­vas for build­ing with straw­bail, green roofs, renew­able ener­gy and bio­dy­nam­ic farm­ing. It is also a home to many activists includ­ing two fam­i­lies with chil­dren. Sup­port­ing at the same time two for­est occu­pa­tions, direct action cam­paigs and pub­lic events.
We would like to call for inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port in the form of legal assis­tance in Ger­many as well as inter­na­tion­al­ly. Please con­tact the court involved:

Demon­stra­tion on the 16th of May
Against coal min­ing in rheine area
Cologne / Ehren­feld 14 o‘clock

Prozess on the 21st of May
Achen Admin­is­tra­tive Court
Adal­bert­stein­weg 92
im Jus­tizzen­trum
52070 Aachen
fax 0241 9425 83204
tel 0241 9425 0

This is the court that will be attempt­ing to use build­ing code reg­u­la­tions to destroy struc­tures in the Mead­ow Sup­port Camp. It is the same reg­u­la­tions that are reg­u­lar­ly used against earth­ship, straw bail and oth­er infor­mal archi­tec­ture and spaces in favor of resource extrac­tion rich(wasteful and destruc­tive) habi­tats and inter­ests.