Update below…
22nd March 2010: last night twen­ty five activists occu­pied the site of the Blair House Open Cast Coal Site in sol­i­dar­i­ty with near-by com­mu­ni­ties and in direct inter­ven­tion of the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion that it will cause. Con­trac­tors have been felling trees on the site over the past week, and activists have moved in to stop this work and put an end to UK Coal’s plans for min­ing the Black Wood Wildlife site.

This occu­pa­tion is the sec­ond occu­pa­tion of a UK Coal site in two weeks. The Defend Hunt­ing­ton Lane camp in Shrop­shire has been stop­ping work and felling for near­ly two weeks now [1]. This occu­pa­tion comes two months after the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in South Lanark­shire, where 45 arrests were made in an evic­tion that last­ed 5 days [2].

UK Coal have been giv­en per­mis­sion by Fife Coun­cil to mine 720,000 tonnes of coal from the site, a deci­sion that dis­re­gard­ed the wish­es of local res­i­dents. Near­ly 150 peo­ple object­ed to the plan­ning appli­ca­tion for this site and there were no let­ters of sup­port. The Coun­cil, in their defence, would­n’t dare refuse anoth­er open cast coal mine appli­ca­tion after their refusal of ATH Resources mine at Muir Dean on the insis­tence of Cross­gates res­i­dents, was over­turned by the gov­ern­ment and cost them finan­cial­ly.

The plan­ning process was designed to slip the mine past the major­i­ty of peo­ple liv­ing near it. As an exam­ple, the neigh­bour noti­fi­ca­tion for the mine only includ­ed res­i­dents liv­ing with­in 90 metres of the site bound­ary, which only real­ly involved noti­fy­ing a few Oak­ley res­i­dents liv­ing oppo­site the site entrance.

Impacts on near­by com­mu­ni­ties will include noise, dust, HGV move­ments, impact on the land­scape, ecol­o­gy, and loss of recre­ation access. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp stands in sup­port of near­by res­i­dents oppos­ing this mine and the inevitable oth­er mines that will be applied for by prof­it-hun­gry UK Coal.

The site is eco­log­i­cal­ly diverse and home to a pop­u­la­tion of Great Crest­ed Newts, a Euro­pean Pro­tect­ed Specie, the Black Wood Wildlife site, des­ig­nat­ed as an area that once had ancient wood­land and is now home to birch forests and oak trees, orchids, breed­ing birds and win­ter­ing birds, bats, red squir­rels and Brown hares, list­ed on the UK Bio­di­ver­si­ty Action Plan. The Cow­strand­burn riv­er will be divert­ed and undoubt­ed­ly pol­lut­ed, along with oth­er water­cours­es in the area.

Some 2.11 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 will be released into the atmos­phere from the com­bus­tion of the coal, with more still being released from the min­ing process. None of this will be cap­tured and stored. New coal mines such as this one under­mine the gov­ern­ments plans to reduce Scot­land’s CO2 emis­sions and high­light the hypocrisy of gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and local coun­cils when it comes to reduc­ing emis­sions.

Fiona Richards, one of the peo­ple cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the site said, “This new coal mine is only one of 20 such oth­ers to have recent­ly been giv­en plan­ning per­mis­sion in Scot­land. If we are to have any chance of lim­it­ing dan­ger­ous cli­mate change and pro­tect­ing com­mu­ni­ties from car­bon-inten­sive indus­tries, direct action must be tak­en as coun­cil­lors, min­ing com­pa­nies and the gov­ern­ment have shown their unwill­ing­ness to solve the prob­lems we face.”

Press Con­tact: 07806926040

Notes to edi­tors:
[1] http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com/
[2] http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/

Direc­tions, wish-list, back­ground info and more at http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?page_id=1316

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Sup­port for Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp need­ed — ancient wood­land being felled
24.3.2010
The wood­land was occu­pied last Sun­day as 25 activists blocked and bar­ri­cad­ed the access road using a scaf­fold­ing tri­pod, and took to the trees putting up nets, plat­forms and tree­hous­es.
Despite the occu­pa­tion, con­trac­tors have con­tin­ued to fell the birch and oak for­est, with occu­piers hav­ing to watch a huge oak being felled metres from the camp. The sound of chain­saws and machin­ery sur­rounds the occu­pied wood­land, with the forest­ed area get­ting small­er and small­er each day, despite the close prox­im­i­ty to dwellings, tents and tree defences. Sup­port and num­bers are need­ed at the camp.

Mean­while, local sup­port for the camp is grow­ing with near-by res­i­dents who opposed plans for the mine vis­it­ing the camp and offer­ing their sup­port. Oth­er vis­i­tors have includ­ed ever-increas­ing ranks of police offi­cers, includ­ing Glasgow’s V‑Division, the tac­ti­cal sup­port unit, who went around with a spot­ter card and video cam­era. There is still a per­ma­nent police “check­point” before the entrance to the camp, but they’re quite friend­ly and might even offer to dri­ve you to the bus stop if you’re lucky.

Look­ing out over the Firth of Forth from the site, over coun­try­side, old coal bings and min­ing com­mu­ni­ties, the Lon­gan­net smoke­stack looms in the dis­tance. ScottishPower’s Lon­gan­net coal-fired pow­er sta­tion is the sec­ond largest in the UK and the des­ti­na­tion for the coal from this site. Due to be “refur­bished”, this is the largest source of CO2 emis­sions in Scot­land and a tes­ta­ment to an archa­ic and dan­ger­ous ener­gy sup­ply.

For as long as places like Lon­gan­net burn coal, whether in Fife, South Lanark­shire or in Colom­bia, com­mu­ni­ties will have their health impact­ed, their land stolen and their envi­ron­ment trashed. The world’s ecosys­tems will con­tin­ue to col­lapse and species extinc­tion will con­tin­ue to spi­ral out of con­trol. Unless, that is, we make a stand. This occu­pa­tion is the sec­ond occu­pa­tion of a UK Coal site in two weeks – and such direct action, root­ed in com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle, offers the only glimpse of hope that we have of stop­ping the whole­sale destruc­tion of the plan­et.

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