Penan step up campaign to defend Heart of Borneo nature reserve

6, April, 2010
Penan natives from Sarawak’s Upper Baram region in the Malaysian part of Bor­neo have erect­ed two log­ging road block­ades to pre­vent their last remain­ing vir­gin jun­gle from being logged by the Sam­ling Group, a Malaysian tim­ber giant.

6, April, 2010
Penan natives from Sarawak’s Upper Baram region in the Malaysian part of Bor­neo have erect­ed two log­ging road block­ades to pre­vent their last remain­ing vir­gin jun­gle from being logged by the Sam­ling Group, a Malaysian tim­ber giant.
The block­ades have been erect­ed at two strate­gi­cal loca­tions on log­ging roads near the Penan vil­lages of Long Sabai and Ba Ker­ameu on the upper reach­es of the Akah riv­er. Accord­ing to com­mu­ni­ty sources, sur­vey­ors of the Sam­ling cor­po­ra­tion had repeat­ed­ly been asked by vil­lagers of Long Sabai to stop work­ing on the Penan’ s native lands but had refused to do so. As a con­se­quence, the vil­lagers erect­ed two block­ades that have been in place since 24 March and 31 March respec­tive­ly.
Aya Lud­ing, a spokesman for the Long Sabai com­mu­ni­ty, said: “We know that we are weak­er than the Sam­ling bull­doz­ers. But we are deter­mined to fight for our next gen­er­a­tion because we can­not sur­vive with­out the for­est. If we let the com­pa­ny in and do some log­ging, they will want to take all of our for­est.”
Last Novem­ber, sev­en­teen Penan com­mu­ni­ties of the Upper Baram region had declared their native lands a self-admin­is­tered nature reserve. The “Penan Peace Park” cov­ers an area of 163,000 hectares of high con­ser­va­tion val­ue rain­for­est and tra­di­tion­al­ly used agri­cul­tur­al land near the inter­na­tion­al bor­der between Malaysia and Indone­sia. ”

Source: http://www.bmf.ch/en/news/?show=200

Glasgow airport protest announced — protesters arrested

6th April 2010

6th April 2010
4 men and 1 woman were arrest­ed and charged on Wednes­day 31st March for speak­ing in pub­lic about the cli­mate effects of avi­a­tion at the reopen­ing of Glas­gow Air­port Ter­mi­nal 2. The group from Stop Expan­sion at Scot­tish Air­ports (SESA), includ­ing a legal observ­er and two pho­tog­ra­phers, were leav­ing the air­port after hold­ing a ban­ner for a pho­to­graph out­side Ter­mi­nal 1 when a police van and police car pulled up and arrest­ed 4 of the group.

Late into the night, riot police lat­er went to the homes of the arrest­ed with­out war­rants. On Thurs­day the 5 were charged with obstruct­ing nor­mal air­port busi­ness. All of the accused deny the charges. The group believes that those arrest­ed were tar­get­ted because SESA is call­ing for a pub­lic non-vio­lent peace­ful protest at the air­port on Octo­ber 10.

Amelia Bir­rell, had riot police at her door after mid­night say­ing that they want­ed to ques­tion her son, Rob­bie. She said: “I think that this jus­tice sys­tem is a joke when it locks up peace­ful indi­vid­u­als until 6pm the next day when they are talk­ing about such seri­ous mea­sures as cli­mate change. We were made to feel like crim­i­nals when riot police searched around the whole of our house in the mid­dle of the night. I know that the air­port is a sen­si­tive place but they are all pas­sion­ate indi­vid­u­als wor­ried about the future of our coun­try and they were doing noth­ing to cause any dis­tur­bance. I am proud of my son, we are sup­posed to have free­dom of speech in this coun­try and such heavy hand­ed polic­ing is dis­pro­por­tion­ate and hyp­o­crit­i­cal.”

This is not the first time that Scot­tish anti-air­port expan­sion cam­paign­ers have been sub­ject to heavy-hand­ed polic­ing tac­tics. In Jan­u­ary 2009 Geoff Lamb, a pen­sion­er from Aberdeen was been held in a cell overnight for inno­cent­ly writ­ing ‘you fly, we die’ in the snow in food dye. Lat­er in 2009, Plane Stu­pid exposed a mas­sive police oper­a­tion to bribe and infil­trate peace­ful protest groups.

The dis­pro­por­tion­ate tac­tics we have seen by Strath­clyde police mir­ror those infa­mous­ly used by the Met­ro­pol­i­tan police. Arrest­ed for voic­ing con­cerns about the avi­a­tion industry’s mas­sive and grow­ing con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change? Who are the real crim­i­nals here?

http://sesacoalition.blogspot.com/

Huntington Lane Fossil Fools Weekend roundup

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

Fossil Fools Weekend

A day before Fos­sil Fools Days saw the camp attacked dur­ing the night by three loud bangs, which it is thought came from some­one either throw­ing fire­works or an air bomb into the camp. The camp which includ­ed young chil­dren were ter­ri­fied after being wok­en up dur­ing the dead of night. One camper said

“It was ter­ri­fy­ing, real­ly ter­ri­fy­ing. It was in the dead of night, death­ly qui­et, and then all of a sud­den we heard these three thun­der­ous bangs quick­ly one after the oth­er.”

As a result of the attack a 24 hour watch has now been estab­lished at the camp

Huntington Lane Camp

The week­end saw a steady stream of peo­ple vis­it the camp which has now grown to include two com­mu­nal tip­is and a third shel­tered com­mu­nal area is under con­struc­tion which when fin­ished will have raised floor­ing.

Fri­day the 2nd April saw two cam­paign­ers hang a ban­ner from the famous Iron Bridge World Her­itage Site land­mark in view of thou­sands of Bank Hol­i­day vis­i­tors.

“We are try­ing to raise aware­ness. We are still find­ing a large amount of peo­ple do not know pro­pos­als for a coal mine are in exis­tence, let alone it being so close to an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.”

Over­all the mood at the camp is pos­i­tive but we still need as many peo­ple at the camp as pos­si­ble and any­thing you can donate would be appre­ci­at­ed. We still need Food, Water, Tarp, Ropes, Straw/Sawdust/Woodchips to soak up the mud a lit­tle and Walkie Talkies

http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/fossil-fools-weekend-roundup/

Fossil Fools Day round-up

In the UK —

BP ad cam­paign hoax kicks off the Fort­night of Shame

In the UK —

BP ad cam­paign hoax kicks off the Fort­night of Shame
BP Back to Black logo smallBP Hoax 1BP Hoax 2
BP today had to halt the launch of a mul­ti-mil­lion pound ‘Back to Black’ ad cam­paign. That’s right, BP’s award-win­ning ‘beyond petro­le­um’ brand took a hit today when a, pre­vi­ous­ly unknown, PR agency deliv­ered 22,000 revamped BP logos and a new sign to the company’s head­quar­ters in St. James’ Square.The ad agency mis­in­ter­pret­ed the brief to come up with a new logo that took account of BP’s deci­sion to invest in the Cana­di­an tar sands, and launched the mul­ti-mil­lion pound ‘Back to Black’ cam­paign.

… What day is it? April Fools Day, a day for pranks both sil­ly and seri­ous.
So here’s what real­ly hap­pened:

Pos­ing as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a PR com­pa­ny, cli­mate cam­paign­ers played a Fos­sil Fools Day prank on BP today by deliv­er­ing 22,000 new logos – one for every BP logo in the UK – to the company’s HQ.

The cam­paign­ers, from Lon­don Ris­ing Tide and the UK Tar Sands Net­work, piled box­es of ‘Back to Black’ logos on BP’s doorstep and d‑locked a match­ing sign onto the build­ing in protest at the company’s rever­sal of its deci­sion to stay out of Canada’s con­tro­ver­sial tar sands.

BP’s ‘beyond petro­le­um’ brand was nev­er more than a slick cha­rade and BP’s plans to move into the tar sands reveal the company’s true colours. We vis­it­ed BP today to present a logo that’s more fit­ting for a com­pa­ny about to invest in the most destruc­tive project on the plan­et.

Today marks the start of the BP Tar Sans Fort­night of Shame, which will see actions tak­ing place up and down the coun­try, all with a com­mon mes­sage. Extrac­tion in the Cana­di­an tar sands is fuelling cli­mate chaos and tram­pling indige­nous rights, and we won’t let BP go into the tar sands with­out a fight.

If you want to get involved then come along to the BP Tar Sands: Par­ty at the Pumps on Sat­ur­day 10th April, meet 1pm, Oxford Cir­cus – more info at: www.risingtide.org.uk

tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://www.tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com

Video

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Ris­ing Tide dis­rupt Shell in Bris­tol
Bristol Shell petrol station protest
Activists from Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed the Shell garage in Muller Road, East­ville at 8.30am yes­ter­day to high­light the repres­sion expe­ri­enced by com­mu­ni­ties in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land who are try­ing to stop Shell build­ing an onshore high pres­sure pipeline and gas refin­ery.

The com­mu­ni­ty in Erris, Coun­ty Mayo has seen con­tin­ued harass­ment and intim­i­da­tion by Gar­dai and Shell secu­ri­ty, as well as the unlaw­ful arrest and tar­get­ed jail­ing of key cam­paign­ers. In Feb­ru­ary fish­er­man Pat O’Don­nell was sen­tenced to 7 months in jail for con­vic­tions of “breach of the peace” and of “obstruct­ing a Gar­da”. The com­mu­ni­ty has been fight­ing this project for over a decade. Con­struc­tion of the gas refin­ery has result­ed in the pol­lu­tion of the local drink­ing water. Untreat­ed waste chem­i­cals from the refin­ery, includ­ing lead, mer­cury, arsenic and radon would be pumped into Broad­haven Bay despite it being a des­ig­nat­ed Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion. 1

The action was part of Fos­sil Fools Day, a glob­al day of cre­ative action against cor­po­ra­tions who con­tribute to and prof­it from cli­mate change. 2

Rachel Keevil from Ris­ing Tide, chas­ing anoth­er activist with a large sec­tion of pipe, said “Shell are cli­mate crim­i­nals. The gas pipeline in Coun­ty Mayo will dam­age the envi­ron­ment and threat­en the health and liveli­hoods of local peo­ple; all for the prof­it of Shell. It’s a pipeline to dis­as­ter.”

This street the­atre was clear­ly a ridicu­lous rep­re­sen­ta­tion of very seri­ous events but opened up a space for talk­ing with the pub­lic about the issues, many of whom took gen­uine inter­est, some say­ing they were inspired to write to Pat in prison.

Notes
1 http://www.shelltosea.com/node/21
2 http://risingtide.org.uk/node/336

Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide
bristol@risingtide.org.uk
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

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Eon switch on to com­mu­ni­ty renew­ables

PRESS RELEASE 01-04-2010

GREEN ENERGY GIFT FOR MEDWAY
Medway Renewables 2Medway Renewables 1
Ger­man ener­gy giant EON have announced that they are shelv­ing con­tro­ver­sial plans for a mas­sive expan­sion of coal and gas
elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion in the Med­way region. The sur­pris­ing news emerged today as Eon con­trac­tors broke ground at the offices of Med­way Coun­cil on Dock Road, Chatham, and start­ed installing wind tur­bines and solar pan­els.

Eon media rela­tions offi­cer, Joe King announced, “We realise that con­tin­ued invest­ment in fos­sil fuels is a dan­ger­ous dis­trac­tion from the urgent need to devel­op tru­ly sus­tain­able tech­nolo­gies so we’ve aban­doned our dat­ed plans to con­tin­ue burn­ing gas and coal. This wind farm for Med­way coun­cil is just the begin­ning, we’re also offer­ing all our cus­tomers heav­i­ly dis­count­ed shares in future com­mu­ni­ty wind farm schemes, so they’ll actu­al­ly co-own the sys­tems that pro­vide their pow­er”.

In a leaflet passed out to passers by, Eon admit­ted that until now, only a triv­ial amount of their invest­ments had gone into renew­ables but promised that would now change. Acknowl­edg­ing the urgent need to dras­ti­cal­ly cut emis­sions in order to curb glob­al warm­ing and avoid dis­as­trous cli­mat­ic tip­ping points, the com­pa­ny promised they’d aban­don their plans to turn Med­way into a CO2 pump­ing hub, end fur­ther invest­ment into fos­sil fuels, and instead com­mit to tru­ly sus­tain­able ener­gy such as wind and sun.

How­ev­er, a local activist Ben­nie Fac­tor, expressed dis­be­lieve, “This is a joke! All this renew­able ener­gy rhetoric rep­re­sent noth­ing more than cycli­cal green­wash from these ener­gy giants. Sad­ly, the real­i­ty is that they are still com­mit­ted to busi­ness as usu­al, damn­ing us all to con­tin­ued green­house gas emis­sions and cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.”

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The FOSSIL FOOLS FARCE … is here!

Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth & Art Not Oil-Ply­mouth took the Ply­mouth city cen­tre streets to bring you the big “Fos­sil Fools Farce”, to remind us there are facts and names behind the Cli­mate dra­ma.

Today, on “Fos­sil Fools Day”, we bring you:

*The BIG OIL evil clown – Oil indus­try is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the ‘tax­pay­er sup­port­ed’ glob­al expan­sion into the far reach­es of the plan­et. Unless fur­ther explo­ration to find and exploit more oil and oth­er fos­sil fuels is stopped, and instead accel­er­ate the trans­fer of invest­ment into renew­able ener­gy, the planet’s cli­mate will not be able to with­stand. Apart of mas­sive CO2 emis­sions, the oil indus­try has been respon­si­ble for mas­sive scale defor­esta­tion, local mor­tal dis­eases in oil field areas, eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ters, over­rid­ing indige­nous rights and more human rights vio­la­tions. All in the name of their prof­it.

Cur­rent­ly BP & Shell are invest­ing in the trag­ic TAR SANDS project in Cana­da, which is the dirt­i­est and most expen­sive oil in terms of extrac­tion and emis­sions that will lead us inevitably to run­away Cli­mate Chaos ‑at a time when glob­al oil resources are run­ning out!

*The Crazy AVIATOR – In terms of dam­age to the cli­mate, fly­ing is ten times worse than tak­ing the train. It’s respon­si­ble for 13% of the UK’s impact on the cli­mate and it’s the fastest grow­ing source of emis­sions in this coun­try; between 1990 and 2050, emis­sions from avi­a­tion are set to quadru­ple, which sci­en­tists say could wipe out all oth­er emis­sions sav­ings we make in every oth­er sec­tor! The main cause of this mas­sive growth in the UK is the pro­lif­er­a­tion of short haul routes — often unnec­es­sary domes­tic ones.

In Ply­mouth we have Air South West ( owned by Sut­ton Har­bour group — who also man­age Ply­mouth air­port!) pub­li­cis­ing aggres­sive­ly domes­tic flights between Ply­mouth-Lon­don and Newquay. Their ‘cheap’ price offers don’t tell you what we’ll all have to pay after­wards — the REAL price behind it: a plan­et that will nev­er stop warm­ing up. Besides, trains to Corn­wall aren’t expen­sive! – and it’s a great land­scape.

Fos­sil fuels are the main source of Green­house Gas emis­sions. How­ev­er last Decem­ber in Copen­hagen the politi­cians sold us out to the fos­sil­fools, cor­po­rate lob­by­ists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green cap­i­tal­ism,” a deeply unjust car­bon mar­ket and con­tin­ued assaults on our com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems.

The stakes couldn’t be high­er: desta­bil­i­sa­tion of the glob­al cli­mate, local com­mu­ni­ties destroyed by dirty ener­gy extrac­tion and com­bus­tion, dev­as­tat­ing freak storms, droughts, floods, the list goes on …

If we’re going to stop cli­mate chaos, the only real solu­tion is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

Join the pos­i­tive char­ac­ters of this dra­ma and change the script of our future!

Join the inspir­ing WIND FAIRY, play­ing and trust­ing clean ener­gy; the com­mit­ted CYCLIST, who claims the future with ped­al pow­er! and
the down to earth PERMACULTURE, who respects the land, grows their own food and sows the seeds into our chance to be healthy and eco­nom­i­cal­ly inde­pen­dent com­mu­ni­ties!

We can be the prob­lem ..or the solu­tion. That is our stance today.

NOTES:

-Join ‘Tran­si­tion-Ply­mouth’ grass­roots local ini­tia­tive for a sus­tain­able Ply­mouth!
Email: plymouthtransition@nature-mail.com or phone: 01752 222152

- Get the facts on Tar Sands: http://www.tarsandswatch.org/

- Stop sup­port­ing uneth­i­cal fos­sil banks like RBS & Bar­clay’s. Switch your­self to an eth­i­cal one: the Co-oper­a­tive or Tri­o­dos, or see:
http://www.vegansociety.com/Lifestyle-And-Nutrition/Finance/Ethical-Banking.aspx

- More alter­na­tives: http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/positivesolutions

Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth takes cre­ative non-vio­lent direct action and pro­vides pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion to con­front the root caus­es of Cli­mate
Change.

www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk

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Brighton — RBS out of order over Tar Sands

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cash­points have fall­en prey to an April fools prank in protest at RBS’s invest­ments in Cana­di­an tar sands. The cash­points were dis­abled by local activist group Brighton Against Tar Sands (BATS) with signs which read ‘Invest­ing in tar sands is OUT OF ORDER’. The signs were fixed to half a dozen cash­points in Brighton and Lewes in the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day (1st April) morn­ing.

The prac­ti­cal joke had a seri­ous mes­sage. Tar sands oil extrac­tion in Alber­ta, Cana­da is the sin­gle largest indus­tri­al CO2 emit­ter on the plan­et and has been respon­si­ble for destroy­ing an area of ancient for­est the size of Eng­land.

It is also home to First Nation tribes who have lived off the land for mil­len­nia. Due to the pol­lu­tion they now have high rates of can­cer and are los­ing their ancient hunt­ing grounds.

BATS spokesper­son Dan Stars said: “RBS is out of order. Tar sands is like­ly to be respon­si­ble for run­away cli­mate change if the exploita­tion con­tin­ues unchecked. It is whol­ly irre­spon­si­ble for the bank to invest in what amounts to tar­maged­don.”
http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/wdm/4327600119

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Back in the USA —

Col­orado activists pulled an elab­o­rate prank on Xcel Ener­gy today, April Fool’s Day, announc­ing that the util­i­ty com­pa­ny pledged to switch to 100 per­cent renew­able elec­tric­i­ty statewide by phas­ing out not just coal plants, but nat­ur­al gas as well. More

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Pro­test­ers boast­ing signs that read “Break America’s Oil Addic­tion” and “Coal is Dirty” crowd around Bank of Amer­i­ca in down­town Asheville shout­ing and chant­i­ng slo­gans like: “What do we want? No Coal! When do we want it? NOW.” More

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An activist was arrest­ed this after­noon at the Water­loo Branch of RBC Bank. Mark Cor­biere was charged with mis­chief for hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing “Boy­cott RBC” and “Stop the Tar Sands” from the roof of the branch, locat­ed in uptown Water­loo. More
–

Pep­co announces plan to shift all pow­er facil­i­ties to wind and solar ener­gy, may can­cel planned rate hikes Pep­co noti­fies its cus­tomers that it wish­es “to serve the ener­gy needs of our cus­tomers for gen­er­a­tions to come — Wash­ing­ton DC. More

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Late last night vol­un­teers with Port­land Ris­ing Tide blast­ed the city with over 3,000 fake news­pa­per cov­ers wrap­ping the Willamette Week. With con­tent includ­ing an inter­view with Big­foot about pipeline plans. More

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Philadel­phia envi­ron­men­tal­ists told morn­ing com­muters not to be “fos­sil fooled” by PNC Bank – a bank that calls itself “A Green Bank with Eco-Friend­ly Ser­vice”. PNC Bank has direct and indi­rect con­nec­tions to moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing. More

==================

Blame Cana­da

In the spir­it of April Fools day, 13 Cities in Cana­da have pulled cre­ative pranks on fos­sil fuel indus­try sup­port­ers, or “Fos­sil Fools,” pleas­ant­ly con­fus­ing secu­ri­ty guards, police, and the gen­er­al pub­lic. More

==================

It’s not Down Under — New Zealand/

Camp for Cli­mate Action Auck­land has vis­it­ed the offices of OMFi­nan­cial to present them with this year’s Fos­sil Fools day award for help­ing New Zealand’s biggest pol­luters cheat their way out of deal­ing with cli­mate change. More

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Beware what hap­pens in The Nether­lands

Shell Apol­o­gis­es for Human Rights Vio­la­tions in Niger Delta, The Hague. More

Fos­sil Fools Day 2010

Black Wood protest camp disappears over night to fight another mine, another day

2.4.2010
The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp packed up the night before last and left the site of UK Coal’s new mine at Blair Farm, in Fife. The camp occu­pied the site for a week and a half to show UK Coal and oth­er mine oper­a­tors that no new mine or coal infra­struc­ture is safe and out of reach of pro­test­ers.

2.4.2010
The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp packed up the night before last and left the site of UK Coal’s new mine at Blair Farm, in Fife. The camp occu­pied the site for a week and a half to show UK Coal and oth­er mine oper­a­tors that no new mine or coal infra­struc­ture is safe and out of reach of pro­test­ers.

The inten­tion of the camp from the begin­ning was to hold a short-term occu­pa­tion to bring atten­tion to the issue, make links with local com­mu­ni­ties and cost UK Coal mon­ey. The occu­pa­tion was a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with local res­i­dents who opposed the mine, and with the cur­rent­ly occu­pied Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast site in Shrop­shire.

One of the pri­ma­ry aims of the camp was to cost UK Coal mon­ey and make it more dif­fi­cult for the com­pa­ny to cause such destruc­tion in oth­er places. Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court would inevitably have grant­ed the sum­ma­ry evic­tion of the occu­piers today and, cou­pled with the fact that bailiffs from the Nation­al Evic­tion Team recent­ly vis­it­ed site, the camp had undoubt­ed­ly already hit UK Coal prof­its.

The camp was set up on Sun­day 21st March in protest against the dev­as­tat­ing effects of open cast coal min­ing. Impacts on near­by com­mu­ni­ties will include noise and dust pol­lu­tion, increased traf­fic on the roads through HGV move­ments, the loss of land­scape, local ecol­o­gy and bio­di­ver­si­ty, and loss of access to recre­ation areas, not to men­tion the increased rates of res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases and can­cer from expo­sure to coal dust. The min­ing of this coal will also release over 2 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 into the atmos­phere from com­bus­tion alone at near-by Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion, direct­ly con­tra­dict­ing the Scot­tish government’s tar­gets to reduce emis­sions.

As envi­ron­men­tal­ists, the camp occu­pants made sure to leave the site as they found it, undam­aged by their activ­i­ties. This was unlike UK Coal – with felling oper­a­tions com­plete, huge areas of birch and oak for­est – des­ig­nat­ed ancient wood­land – have been lost as well as the wildlife with­in it, which includ­ed nest­ing birds, bats and red squir­rels. On top of this, the camp is con­duct­ing an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into alle­ga­tions, sup­port­ed by local wit­ness­es, that fire dam­age to Great Crest­ed Newt areas was car­ried out on behalf of UK Coal to facil­i­tate the newts forced migra­tion as a con­di­tion of plan­ning con­sent.

Fiona Coop­er from the camp said “We will be oppos­ing more open cast coal sites in Scot­land, as well as sup­port­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing the unsus­tain­able and dam­ag­ing growth of the coal indus­try in the UK, such as the Hunt­ing­ton Lane protest site in Shrop­shire.”

The camp would like to thank the peo­ple of Oak­ley and sur­round­ing areas for their sup­port through­out the occu­pa­tion, and remind UK Coal of its oblig­a­tions to restore the site when it is fin­ished with it.

Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
coalactionscotland@riseup.net
http://blackwood.noflag.org.uk/

Outdoor Skillshare//18–21 June, Scotland

**Please for­ward on to your net­works, if you would like some posters/flyers to dis­play, please get in touch**

///Outdoor Skillshare/// 18–21 June

An excit­ing week­end of work­shops and skill­shar­ing in rur­al Scot­land.

Come and learn:
climb­ing and rope access, build­ing tree hous­es, tun­nelling, cook­ing for the mass­es, knot-tying, fire-light­ing, wild foods and more!

**Please for­ward on to your net­works, if you would like some posters/flyers to dis­play, please get in touch**

///Outdoor Skillshare/// 18–21 June

An excit­ing week­end of work­shops and skill­shar­ing in rur­al Scot­land.

Come and learn:
climb­ing and rope access, build­ing tree hous­es, tun­nelling, cook­ing for the mass­es, knot-tying, fire-light­ing, wild foods and more!

At Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp we occu­pied land fac­ing destruc­tion. We lived out­side, grew as a com­mu­ni­ty and took con­tin­u­ous tar­get­ed action.
We want to focus on the skills need­ed to occu­py and defend land with a week­end long event bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to learn and share the skills for liv­ing out­doors as a com­mu­ni­ty, build­ing defences, resist­ing evic­tions and think­ing about strate­gies for action.

These are trans­fer­able skills that can be tak­en away and used in a wide range of cam­paigns and actions.

This skill­share will be a safe, inclu­sive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry envi­ron­ment for learn­ing new prac­ti­cal skills and is open to peo­ple of all abil­i­ties and expe­ri­ences. If you have any queries or spe­cial require­ments, please let us know — we will do our best to accom­mo­date every­one’s needs.

We will be ask­ing for dona­tions toward food and oth­er costs from those that can afford it.

If you want to find out more, or if you have skills you want to share then please con­tact us at: outdoorskillshare@riseup.net

//Workshop Timetable//

Fri­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
11:00 Work­shop Facil­i­ta­tor Drop-in (2 hours, 11–13:00)
12:00 Con­fi­dence Build­ing and Mutu­al Sup­port (1 hour, 12–13:00)
13:00- 14:00 Lunch
14:00 Deal­ing with Prob­lem Behav­iour and Encour­ag­ing Par­tic­i­pa­tion (1
hour, 14–15:00)
16:00–16:30 Tea Break
16:30 Trip to Main­shill (2 hours, 16:30–18:30)
18:30- 19:00 Wel­come Ses­sion
19:00 Din­ner
20:00 Pub Quiz
22:00 Music. Jam. Fire.
00:00 Bed­time

Sat­ur­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
9:30–10:00 Wel­come Ses­sion
10:00 Cook­ing for the Mass­es (3 hours, 10–13:00)
Fire Build­ing and Light­ing (1 hour, 10–11:00)
Tree climb­ing, gen­er­al rope access skills (2 hours, 10–12:00)
Tripods (2 hours, 10- 12:00)
12:00Tool Use and Care (1 hour, 12–13:00)
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00 Facil­i­ta­tion for Con­sen­sus (2 hours,14–16:00)
Over­com­ing Oppres­sion (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Tun­nelling (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Veg­an Bak­ing (2 hours, 14–16:00)
16:00 Tea Break
16:30 Legal Observ­ing (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Self Defence (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Site Electrics (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Tac­tics and Strat­e­gy for Defence (1 hour, 16:30–17:30)
18:00 Knots (1 hour, 18–19:00)
Pro­tect­ing Your Habi­tat inc. toi­lets (1 hour, 18–19:00)
Radios (1 hour, 18–19:00)
19:00–20:00 Din­ner
20:00 Films Talks, Craft Ses­sion
22:00 Open Mic
00:00 Bed­time

Sun­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
9:30–10:00 Site Meet-up
10:00 First Aid (3 hours, 10–13:00)
Herb and Plant Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (1 hour, 10–11:00)
Map read­ing and Nav­i­ga­tion for begin­ners (2 hours, 10–12:00)
Tree­house Build­ing (2 hours, 10–12:00)
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00 Blockad­ing for Begin­ners (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Fences – get­ting through, over etc. (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Tree climb­ing- advanced, Arbour­ing etc. (2 hours, 14–16:00)
15:00 Comms (1 hour, 15–16:00)
16:00 Tea Break
16:30 Drag­on Dynam­ics Empow­er­ment Skill­share (2 hours 16:30–18:30) Field
Plumb­ing (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Rec­ces (2 hours 16:30–18:30)
Tree climbing,general rope access skills (2 hours 16:30–18:30)
19:00–20:00 Din­ner
20:00 Music — Per­for­mances
00:00 DJ
03:00 Bed­time

Kids’ Work­shops

Sat­ur­day
10:00 Tree Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (2 hours, 10–12:00)
14:00 Tree Climb­ing for Kids (aged 10+) (2 hours, 14–16:00)

Sun­day
14:00 Con­sen­sus for Kids (2 hours, 14–16:00)
16:30 Clang, Bang, ShakeyShake, Crash! Mak­ing Instru­ments Out of Trash!
(2 hours, 16:30–18:30)

Lots more info at http://outdoorskillshare.noflag.org.uk

Eviction bosses show up at Black Wood as court hearing delayed

29.3.2010
Hours after the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp suc­cess­ful­ly pushed back its evic­tion hear­ing at Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court this after­noon, mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team includ­ing Mar­tin Leyshon, Head of Resources, vis­it­ed the site to doc­u­ment its defences and pre­sum­ably to begin the process of evict­ing the camp.

29.3.2010
Hours after the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp suc­cess­ful­ly pushed back its evic­tion hear­ing at Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court this after­noon, mem­bers of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team includ­ing Mar­tin Leyshon, Head of Resources, vis­it­ed the site to doc­u­ment its defences and pre­sum­ably to begin the process of evict­ing the camp.

The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is just over a week old so the appear­ance of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team at such short notice and before the evic­tion order for the site has even been grant­ed shows that UK Coal want rid of the camp as soon as pos­si­ble. Fur­ther still, the court papers are full of ref­er­ences to the recent­ly evict­ed Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, with police advis­ing UK Coal that the longer the camp exists, the hard­er and more cost­ly it will be to remove it.

And of course, they’re right, but num­bers mat­ter too. Please come and join the camp for as long as you can – even if just for a day, it will be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed. The vibe on the camp is good, with defence-build­ing and bar­ri­cad­ing hap­pen­ing all over the place with plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to get involved and lend a hand. See here for details of how to get the the camp.

The hear­ing for the evic­tion order of the Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will take place on Thurs­day 1st April at Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court at 14:00. Come down and show your sup­port for the occu­pa­tion if you can.

Final­ly, UK Coal have claimed that the occu­piers of Black Wood have caused fire dam­age to the site, dis­rupt­ed a Great Crest­ed Newt habi­tat and closed access to a foot­path. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp finds it iron­ic that a com­pa­ny about to pro­vide fuel to a coal-fired pow­er sta­tion, fan­ning the flames of cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, caus­ing the forced migra­tion of a pro­tect­ed Newt species and trash­ing their habi­tat on site, and per­ma­nent­ly remov­ing a right of way for the dura­tion of the mine should accuse the camp of these things. The camp sug­gests that hypocrisy and deceit will get UK Coal nowhere.

Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
coalactionscotland@riseup.net
http://blackwood.noflag.org.uk/

All coal ship movements cancelled at Newcastle Harbour (Australia) blockade

28 March 2010
A mass com­mu­ni­ty protest at the biggest coal port in the world has suc­ceed­ed in pre­vent­ing coal ship move­ments all day today. Hun­dreds of peace­ful pro­test­ers have occu­pied the har­bour since 10am this morn­ing. As the block­ade clos­es, organ­is­ers are hail­ing it a suc­cess.

Newcastle flotilla blockade posterNewcastle flotilla blockade28 March 2010
A mass com­mu­ni­ty protest at the biggest coal port in the world has suc­ceed­ed in pre­vent­ing coal ship move­ments all day today. Hun­dreds of peace­ful pro­test­ers have occu­pied the har­bour since 10am this morn­ing. As the block­ade clos­es, organ­is­ers are hail­ing it a suc­cess.

Nao­mi Hodg­son, spokesper­son for organ­is­ers Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle, said: “Today was sched­uled to be a busy day in the world’s busiest coal port. Ordi­nar­i­ly, there would have been at least four or five coal ships move in or out of New­cas­tle Har­bour today, but instead there were none.
Newcastle flotilla blockade placards
“This an amaz­ing demon­stra­tion of the pow­er of peace­ful mass action by the com­mu­ni­ty. Hun­dreds of peo­ple unit­ed to protest the rapid expan­sion of the Aus­tralian export coal indus­try – this coun­try’s num­ber one cause of cli­mate change.”

“We suc­ceed­ed in not only shut­ting down the har­bour, but in show­ing the polit­i­cal lead­ers in this coun­try exact­ly what true lead­er­ship on cli­mate change looks like. If Aus­tralia is seri­ous about cli­mate change, we will put an urgent stop to the expan­sion of coal, and begin replac­ing this dev­as­tat­ing indus­try with safe and renew­able alter­na­tives.”

“Coal exports are the num­ber one cause of cli­mate change in Aus­tralia. The coal we export from NSW and Queens­land already accounts for more green­house pol­lu­tion that all onshore sources com­bined,” con­clud­ed Ms Hodg­son.

Why block­ade the world’s biggest coal port?

Now, more than ever, we need to be turn­ing up the heat on the coal indus­try, and their friends in gov­ern­ment. The export coal indus­try is Aus­trali­a’s sin­gle biggest, and fastest grow­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the glob­al cli­mate cri­sis.

New­cas­tle, already the world’s biggest coal port, is open­ing a major new coal export ter­mi­nal over the course of this year, bring­ing the export capac­i­ty of the Hunter Val­ley coal chain to an incred­i­ble 178 mil­lion tonnes of coal per annum. That’s the cli­mate change equiv­a­lent of 30 Bayswa­ter Pow­er Sta­tions. With­in ten years, the coal cor­po­ra­tions plan on export­ing more than 300 mil­lion tonnes of coal per annum — a tripling of cur­rent export capac­i­ty.

Tripling coal exports means tripling coal min­ing. As New­cas­tle coal exports boom, more pre­cious bush­land will be razed, more water­ways pol­lut­ed, more com­mu­ni­ties ripped apart as the transna­tion­al coal com­pa­nies carve their way west­wards into the Liv­er­pool Plains. The prof­its will be export­ed, but the dev­as­ta­tion will stay here in the Hunter. The cat­a­stroph­ic effects of cli­mate change will hurt all around the world.

This mad­ness has to stop. The cli­mate cri­sis is deep­en­ing, and time is fast run­ning out. Politi­cians are fail­ing to take action against the ram­pant coal com­pa­nies, so we have to do it our­selves.

Hun­dreds of peo­ple will be doing just that in New­cas­tle on 28th March, and we’d love you to join us. We’ll be tak­ing to the har­bour in a big way, occu­py­ing the world’s biggest coal port with a mass of peo­ple, and demand­ing:

* an imme­di­ate ban on the expan­sion of the coal indus­try in Aus­tralia,
* a swift phase out of coal, replac­ing all coal indus­try jobs with jobs in renew­able ener­gy and oth­er sus­tain­able indus­tries.

Cli­mate pro­test­ers delay coal ship dock­ing

Cli­mate activists are attempt­ing to pre­vent the dock­ing of the first coal ship at New­castle’s third coal export ter­mi­nal.

The Pana­ma-reg­is­tered bulk car­ri­er Sun­ny Suc­cess is enter­ing New­cas­tle har­bour to receive the first ship­ment of coal from the ter­mi­nal.

Newcastle flotilla blockade climberNewcastle flotilla blockade climber close-upAn activist from Ris­ing Tide is hang­ing from a rope in front of the berth and is block­ing the ship’s access to it.

“The Aus­tralian coal rush is fuelling glob­al cli­mate change and pre­vent­ing us from tran­si­tion­ing to sus­tain­able indus­tries,” said Steve Phillips, spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle.

“So far, nei­ther the State nor the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments have demon­strat­ed that they are seri­ous about cut­ting our biggest sin­gle con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change. Instead, coal ports in NSW and Queens­land are under­go­ing mas­sive expan­sions, with exten­sive open cut coal min­ing projects in both states.

“This indus­try is destroy­ing land­scapes, destroy­ing com­mu­ni­ties, and is direct­ly threat­en­ing every­one’s future through major impacts on the glob­al cli­mate. Around the world, species are going extinct, peo­ple are being dis­placed, cli­mat­ic dis­as­ters are becom­ing more fero­cious because of the cli­mate change we have already caused. It is time to get to the root of the prob­lem, and start phas­ing out the coal indus­try.”

“The Aus­tralian export coal indus­try is already this coun­try’s num­ber one cause of cli­mate change, and it is also the fastest grow­ing. New­cas­tle cur­rent­ly exports 100 mil­lion tonnes of coal per annum. Already approved expan­sion projects will dou­ble this fig­ure with­in a few years,” said Steve Phillips.

Approved in March 2007 by the NSW Labor gov­ern­ment, New­castle’s third coal ter­mi­nal will increase the port’s capac­i­ty by 66 mil­lion tonnes per annum, or the equiv­a­lent of 160 mil­lion tonnes of green­house pol­lu­tion. That is rough­ly equiv­a­lent to dou­bling NSW domes­tic green­house pol­lu­tion from all sources.

For more images go to http://drop.io/risingtide
http://www.risingtide.org.au/

Read the report and gawp at the pho­tos of the last impres­sive action at the port, a rail block­ade to inspire us all

Shell apologises

Shell Apol­o­gis­es for Human Rights Vio­la­tions in Niger Delta

The Hague, 27 March 2010

Today, Roy­al Dutch Shell is hold­ing back the tears no more. Shell apol­o­gis­es to all inhab­i­tants of Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the many years of human rights vio­la­tions, for which Shell takes full respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Shell logo burningShell Apol­o­gis­es for Human Rights Vio­la­tions in Niger Delta

The Hague, 27 March 2010

Today, Roy­al Dutch Shell is hold­ing back the tears no more. Shell apol­o­gis­es to all inhab­i­tants of Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the many years of human rights vio­la­tions, for which Shell takes full respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Con­front­ed with mas­sive evi­dence of human rights vio­la­tions that can only be attrib­uted to its oper­a­tions in the Niger Delta, Roy­al Dutch Shell is extreme­ly proud to be the first inter­na­tion­al petro­chem­i­cal com­pa­ny to pub­licly say:

We are sor­ry.

Since Shell first dis­cov­ered oil in the Niger Delta in 1956, the com­pa­ny has rav­ished the land and pol­lut­ed the envi­ron­ment. “We thought these peo­ple didn’t know what was good for them,” explains Brad­ford Houppe, Vice-Pres­i­dent of Shell’s new­ly estab­lished Eth­i­cal Affairs Com­mit­tee. “We nev­er knew that we were bring­ing them impov­er­ish­ment, con­flict, abuse and depri­va­tion. Now we know.” Shell acknowl­edges that it is respon­si­ble for large-scale oil spills, waste dump­ing and gas flar­ing. Each year, hun­dreds of oil spills occur, many of which are caused by cor­ro­sion of oil pipes and poor main­te­nance of infra­struc­ture. “Our fail­ure to deal with these spills swift­ly and the lack of effec­tive clean-up great­ly exac­er­bate their human rights and envi­ron­men­tal impact,” says Houppe. “And that is wrong. It’s just real­ly wrong.”

More than 60 per cent of the peo­ple in the Niger Delta depend on the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment for their liveli­hood. But due to the oil pol­lu­tion, many of them use pol­lut­ed water to drink and to cook and wash with, and eat fish con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with oil and oth­er tox­ins. Oil spills and waste dump­ing have also seri­ous­ly dam­aged agri­cul­tur­al land.

The destruc­tion of liveli­hoods and the lack of redress have led peo­ple to steal oil and van­dalise oil infra­struc­ture in an attempt to gain com­pen­sa­tion or clean-up con­tracts. Armed groups engage in large-scale theft of oil and the ran­som­ing of oil work­ers. Gov­ern­ment reprisals fre­quent­ly involve exces­sive force and the col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment of com­mu­ni­ties, thus deep­en­ing gen­er­al anger and resent­ment.

Between 2005 and 2008, the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment received around $36 bil­lion in tax­es and roy­al­ties from Shell. “They have nev­er, not in the slight­est, held us to account for all the wrong we did,” says Houppe. “So with­out tak­ing back any of our apolo­gies, by all means: blame them too!”

A com­pre­hen­sive Plan of Action, fea­tur­ing gen­er­al apolo­gies, detailed apolo­gies, apolo­gies in Braille and apolo­gies in rhyme that Shell employ­ees will hang on the walls in their offices, will be pre­sent­ed at Shell’s Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing on 18 May 2010 in The Hague.

http://shellapologises.com/

Support Indigenous Resistance On Black Mesa!

At the end of an excep­tion­al­ly hard win­ter of Nation­al Emer­gency sta­tus, and the begin­ning of a mud­dy spring, the Dine’ (Nava­jo) fam­i­lies of Big Moun­tain, and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties on Black Mesa con­tin­ue to stand strong on their ances­tral home­lands!

Black Mesa solidarity logoAt the end of an excep­tion­al­ly hard win­ter of Nation­al Emer­gency sta­tus, and the begin­ning of a mud­dy spring, the Dine’ (Nava­jo) fam­i­lies of Big Moun­tain, and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties on Black Mesa con­tin­ue to stand strong on their ances­tral home­lands! For near­ly four decades the com­mu­ni­ties have faced the dev­as­ta­tion of the U.S gov­ern­ment and multi­na­tion­al coal min­ing cor­po­ra­tions exploit­ing their home­lands and vio­lent­ly frac­tur­ing their com­mu­ni­ties. Although the per­mit for the Black Mesa Mine expan­sion did­n’t pass, and hope­ful­ly nev­er will, fam­i­lies remain–resisting the Kayen­ta Mine and forced relo­ca­tion.

“The Big Moun­tain Dine’ elders have endured so much since the 1970s and at the same time, they have defend­ed and pre­served that human dig­ni­ty of nat­ur­al sur­vival, sub­sis­tence and reli­gious val­ues. They have resist­ed the U.S. gov­ern­men­t’s geno­cide poli­cies to vacate lands that Peabody Coal Com­pa­ny rec­og­nized as the Black Mesa coal fields. The Big Moun­tain matri­ar­chal lead­ers always believed that resist­ing forced relo­ca­tion will even­tu­al­ly ben­e­fit all eco­log­i­cal sys­tems, includ­ing the human race. Con­tin­ued res­i­den­cy by fam­i­lies through­out the Big Moun­tain region has a sig­nif­i­cant role in the inter­ven­tion to Peabody Coal’s future plan for Black Mesa coal to be the major source of elec­tri­cal ener­gy, increas­ing every­one’s depen­den­cy on fos­sil fuel and con­tribut­ing to glob­al warm­ing. We will con­tin­ue to fight to defend our home­lands.” –Bahe Kee­d­ini­ihii, Dine’ orga­niz­er and trans­la­tor.

Sup­port­ing these com­mu­ni­ties, whose very pres­ence stands in the way of large-scale coal min­ing, is one way to work on the front lines for cli­mate jus­tice and against a future of cli­mate chaos. There are also oppor­tu­ni­ties for long-term, com­mit­ted sup­port­ers and orga­niz­ers. Black Mesa Indige­nous Sup­port (BMIS) is look­ing for Region­al Coor­di­na­tors to orga­nize year-round sup­port and work towards move­ment build­ing, which would main­tain and enhance com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels between the Big Moun­tain resis­tance com­mu­ni­ties and net­works that are being estab­lished to sup­port the Big Moun­tain resis­tance as well as oth­er local forms of indige­nous resis­tance, while build­ing shared analy­sis, vision and move­ments for the lib­er­a­tion of all peo­ples and our plan­et. Please con­tact us for more infor­ma­tion if you are inter­est­ed.

The fam­i­lies are encour­ag­ing peo­ple to come to Black Mesa now! Sup­port is request­ed all year long!

BMIS is a grass­roots, all-vol­un­teer run col­lec­tive ded­i­cat­ed to work­ing with and sup­port­ing the indige­nous peo­ples of Black Mesa in their Strug­gle for Life and Land who are tar­get­ed by and resist­ing unjust moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing oper­a­tions and forced relo­ca­tion poli­cies of the U.S gov­ern­ment. One of the pri­ma­ry ways that we do this is to hon­or the direct requests of these fam­i­lies to extend their invi­ta­tion to all peo­ple inter­est­ed in sup­port­ing their resis­tance, to come to Black Mesa, to their threat­ened ances­tral home­lands, walk with their sheep, haul water and wood, what­ev­er they ask of us. By com­ing to The Land, we can assist the elders and their fam­i­lies in dai­ly chores, which helps us to engage with the sto­ry that they are telling as well as to claim a more per­son­al stake against envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, cli­mate change, and con­tin­ued lega­cies of colo­nial­ism and geno­cide. We can sup­port by being there so they can go to meet­ings, orga­nize, weave rugs, vis­it fam­i­ly mem­bers who have been hos­pi­tal­ized, rest after a dif­fi­cult win­ter and regain strength for the upcom­ing spring. With spring comes plant­i­ng crops,shearing sheep, and lamb­ing.
COME FOR A MONTH! Or Longer!

The elders on the land are very thank­ful for the sup­port of their resis­tance over the last three decades. We at BMIS are ask­ing those who have come before to con­tin­ue the work you have start­ed by com­ing back.
And for those of you who have nev­er come to the land, we encour­age you to start.
Deep thanks to all who made the Novem­ber Car­a­van hap­pen: let us con­tin­ue the sup­port through the year.

BMIS can assist you in the process of being self-suf­fi­cient on the land, which is vital. We are hap­py to speak with you over the phone or email and we offer impor­tant online resources like the Cul­tur­al Sen­si­tiv­i­ty and Pre­pared­ness Guide­book found on our web­site. Vol­un­teers must read the guide­book and reg­is­ter with BMIS to ensure your safe­ty and be account­able to the fam­i­lies. There are also plen­ty of great doc­u­ments about the cur­rent and back­ground infor­ma­tion found on our website–one of the only on-line resources doc­u­ment­ing this resis­tance.

“This land is being tak­en away because they’ve got pow­er in Wash­ing­ton. We were put here with our Four Sacred Moun­tains ~ and we were cre­at­ed to live here. We know the names of the moun­tains and we know the names of the oth­er sacred places. That is our pow­er. That is how we pray and this prayer has nev­er changed.” ~Kather­ine Smith, Big Moun­tain Elder

www.blackmesais.org
blackmesais@gmail.com — PO Box 23501 Flagstaff, AZ 86002 — 928–773-8086
BMIS can send letters/packages to fam­i­lies, how­ev­er we encour­age you to be in direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the fam­i­lies.

Tes­ti­mo­ny from a Sheep­herder:

I have just left after a four month stay on the Land. This was my 14th win­ter stay­ing with Dine’ fam­i­lies resid­ing on the so-called HPL and resist­ing the relo­ca­tion laws by con­tin­u­ing to live on the land of their grand­par­ents of gen­er­a­tions back. It has been an intense win­ter. The big snow­storm was a sight to see, and remind­ed the elders of storms 40 and 80 years past, when there were many more fam­i­lies out there, and most of the elders did­n’t live alone. And yes, the Nation­al Guard and US Army did come out to the fam­i­lies. I won­dered at the irony of the hay, water, and oth­er sup­plies, think­ing how the fam­i­lies have lived under the threat of the Guard com­ing in to take them from their homes.

The OSM Life of Mine per­mit get­ting denied was a pleas­ant sur­prise. I had been look­ing at the hills, mead­ows and rocks that I have come to know, as becom­ing ‘reclaimed’ land through the mine expan­sion, and think­ing of the long, hard fight to come. A sec­ond gen­er­a­tion Black Mesa min­er, and “HPL” res­i­dent stat­ed that he was glad about the per­mit, and ready to see a change back to the old ways of liv­ing and away from min­ing.

The Sup­port­er car­a­van at thanks­giv­ing was a fast and fes­tive, and abun­dant time. About 120 sup­port­ers for the week, but by the end of Jan­u­ary there were only a few sup­port­ers on the land, and a list of fam­i­lies ask­ing for a sheep­herder. We were des­per­ate­ly call­ing out for peo­ple to come, and a few did, but only a few. And I thought, this is where the real sup­port is need­ed- in the long haul, the deep snow.

Back in 1997, and again in 2000 the fam­i­lies were liv­ing under a threat­en­ing “dead­line”, and there were lit­er­al­ly hun­dreds of sup­port­ers on the land for months. I am grate­ful that there is no dead­line as such now, but I do won­der what keeps us sup­port­ers from com­mit­ting to com­ing out, or com­ing back. I have per­son­al­ly placed sev­er­al hun­dred sup­port­ers in the last 12 years, and I mar­vel at how much we strug­gle to ‘get the word out ’ and ‘get sup­port to the Land’.

I am so hon­ored and hum­bled by the lov­ing hos­pi­tal­i­ty I receive from the fam­i­lies. My sons are treat­ed as fam­i­ly, and are grow­ing up know­ing the elders, kids and sup­port­ers, and about fight­ing for and sup­port­ing what is right. I have been raised out there myself in many ways. The Dineh peo­ple have been my teach­ers and men­tors, my inspi­ra­tion. I believe in doing all that I can to hon­or their request and invi­ta­tion to come into the home, the land and the lives of the peo­ple indige­nous to the land ‑what that means and what they are fight­ing for and against. I believe it is at the heart of the most impor­tant work today.

And I am writ­ing this to remind us, you, that their door is open and there is a job to do- some­thing that we are need­ing to under­stand, a con­nec­tion that needs to be made and hon­ored. It is time to come. It is time to come back. Its time to give back.
Please help us do this.

–Tree, BMIS vol­un­teer and vol­un­teer coor­di­na­tor