videos from Mainshill and German treesit against a proposed pipeline

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp presents:

*Off With Their Heads!*

Hold­ing the politi­cians behind Main­shill Open Cast Coal Mine to account

Fea­tur­ing: Jim Hood MP, Karen Gillon MSP, Coun­cil­lor Dan­ny Meik­le and Lord Home

Snow and Anarchy at MainshillThe Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp presents:

*Off With Their Heads!*

Hold­ing the politi­cians behind Main­shill Open Cast Coal Mine to account

Fea­tur­ing: Jim Hood MP, Karen Gillon MSP, Coun­cil­lor Dan­ny Meik­le and Lord Home

This short film doc­u­ments the cor­rup­tion, con­flict of inter­est and hypocrisy dom­i­nat­ing the pol­i­tics of South Lanark­shire, that result in Scot­tish Coal receiv­ing approval for coal mine after coal mine in the Dou­glas Val­ley. With no regard for com­mu­ni­ty health, local democ­ra­cy, the envi­ron­ment or cli­mate change, Scot­tish Coal are allowed to run roughshod over the peo­ple of the Dou­glas Val­ley. The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp occu­pied the site of Main­shill Wood over six months ago to help local com­mu­ni­ties fight off Scot­tish Coal and the landown­er Lord Home.

The strug­gle con­tin­ues!

Watch it here: http://www.politube.org/show/23788

—

Since the 18.12.09 ROBIN WOOD-Activists squat sev­er­al trees in the Gäh­ler­park in Ham­burg Altona to impende the con­truc­tion of a heat­ing pipeline for the planned coal pow­er plant Ham­burg Moor­burg, which would mean the loss of the trees in the park. The com­pa­ny propos­ing the pipeline is Vat­ten­fall, a Swedish cor­po­ra­tion. With their protest they sup­port two res­i­dents who have squat­tet two trees already at 3rd of decem­ber.

(Ger­man with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJeo631Pyv4

Letter from Climate Prisoners

This is a let­ter writ­ten by friends who are still impris­oned in Den­mark. Also check out the pris­on­er sup­port web­site – Cop-enhagen.net

This is a let­ter writ­ten by friends who are still impris­oned in Den­mark. Also check out the pris­on­er sup­port web­site – Cop-enhagen.net

Some­thing is rot­ten (but not just) in Den­mark. As a mat­ter of fact, thou­sands of peo­ple have been con­sid­ered, with­out any evi­dence, a threath to the soci­ety. Hun­dreds have been arrest­ed and some are still under deten­tion, wait­ing for judge­ment or under inves­ti­ga­tion. Among them, us, the under­signed. We want to tell the sto­ry from the pecu­liar view­point of those that still see the sky from behind the bars.

A UN meet­ing of cru­cial impor­tance has failed because of sev­er­al con­tra­dic­tions and ten­sions that have shown up dur­ing the COP15. The pri­ma­ry con­cern of the pow­er­fuls was the gov­er­nance of the ener­gy sup­ply for nev­erend­ing growth. This was the case whether they were from the overde­vel­oped world, like the EU coun­tries or the US, or from the so-called devel­op­ing coun­tries, like Chi­na or Brazil.

At odds, hun­dreds of del­e­gates and thou­sands of peo­ple in the streets have raised the issue that the ratio­nale of life must be (and actu­al­ly is) opposed to that of prof­it. we have strong­ly affirmed our will to stop anthrop­ic pres­sure on the bios­phere.

A cri­sis of the ener­gy par­a­digm is com­ing soon. The mech­a­nism of the glob­al gov­er­nance have proven to be over­whelm­ing­ly pre­car­i­ous. The pow­er­fuls failed not only in reach­ing an agree­ment on their inter­nal equi­li­br­ruim but also in keep­ing the for­mal con­trol of the dis­cus­sion.

Cli­mate change is an extreme and ulti­mate expres­sion of the vio­lence of the cap­i­tal­is­tic growth par­a­digm. Peo­ple glob­al­ly are increas­ing­ly show­ing the will­ing­ness of tak­ing the pow­er to rebel against that vio­lence. we have seen that in Copen­hagen, as well as we have seen that same vio­lence. Hun­dreds of peo­ple have been arrest­ed with­out any rea­son or clear evi­dence, or for par­tic­i­pat­ing in peace­ful and legit­i­mate demon­stra­tions. Even mild exam­ples of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence have been con­sid­ered as a seri­ous threath to the social order.

In response we ask – What order do we threat­en and who ordered it? Is it that order in which we do not any­more own our bod­ies? The order well beyond the terms of any rea­son­able “social con­tract” that we would ever sign, where our bod­ies can be tak­en, man­aged, con­strained and impris­oned with­out any seri­ous evi­dence of crime. Is it that order in which the deci­sion are more and more shield­ed from any social con­flicts? Where the gov­er­nance less and less belongs to peo­ple, not even through the par­lia­ment? As a mat­ter of fact, non-demo­c­ra­t­ic organ­isms like the WTO, the NB, the G‑whatever rule beyond any con­trol.

We are forced to notice that the the­ater of democ­ra­cy is a bro­ken one as soon as, one approach­es the core of the pow­er. That is why we reclaim the pow­er to the peo­ple. We reclaim the pow­er over our own lives. Above all, we reclaim the pow­er to coun­ter­pose the ratio­nale of life and of the com­mons to the ratio­nale of prof­it. It may have been declared ille­gal, but still we con­sid­er it ful­ly legit­i­mate.

Since no real space is left in the bro­ken the­ater, we reclaimed our col­lec­tive pow­er – Actu­al­ly we expect­ed it – to speak about the cli­mate and ener­gy issues. Issues that, for us, involve crit­i­cal nodes of glob­al jus­tice, sur­vival of man and ener­gy inde­pen­dence. We did march­ing with our bod­ies.

We pre­fer to enter the space where the pow­er is locked danc­ing and singing. We would have liked to do this at the Bel­la cen­ter, to dis­rupt the ses­sion in accord with hun­dreds of del­e­gates. But we were, as always, vio­lent­ly ham­pered by the police. They arrest­ed our bod­ies in an attempt to arrest our ideas. we risked our bod­ies, try­ing to pro­tect them just by stay­ing close to each oth­er. We val­ue our bod­ies: We need them to make love, to stay togeth­er and to enjoy life. They hold our brains, with beau­ti­ful bright ideas and views. They hold our hearts filled with pas­sion and joy. Nev­er­the­less, we risked them. we risked our bod­ies get­ting locked in pris­ons. In fact, what would be the worth of think­ing and feel­ing if the bod­ies did not move? Doing noth­ing, let­ting-it-hap­pen, would be the worst form of com­plic­i­ty with the busi­ness that want­ed to hack the UN meet­ing. At the COP15 we moved, and we will keep mov­ing.

Exact­ly like love, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence can not just be told. We must make it, with our bod­ies. Oth­er­wise, we would not real­ly think about what we love, and we would not real­ly love what we think about. It’s as sim­ple as that. It’s a mat­ter of love, jus­tice and dig­ni­ty.

How the COP15 has end­ed proves that we were right. Many of us are pay­ing what is manda­to­ry for an obses­sive, per­va­sive and total repres­sion: To find a guilty at the cost of invent­ing it (along with the crime per­haps).

We are detained with evi­dent­ly absurd accu­sa­tions about either vio­lences that actu­al­ly did not take place or con­spir­a­cies and orga­niz­ing of law-break­ing actions.

We do not feel guilty for hav­ing shown, togeth­er with thou­sands, the recla­ma­tion of the inde­pen­dence of our lives from profit’s rule. If the laws oppose this, it was legit­i­mate to peace­ful­ly – but still con­flict­ual­ly – break them.

We are just tem­porar­i­ly docked, ready to sail again with a wind stronger than ever. It’s a mat­ter of love, jus­tice and dig­ni­ty.

Luca Tor­na­tore – from the Ital­ian social cen­tres net­work “see you in Copen­hagen”.
Natasha Ver­co – Cli­mate Jus­tice Action
Stine Gry Jonassen – Cli­mate Jus­tice Action
Tan­nie Nyboe – Cli­mate Jus­tice Action
Johannes Paul Schul Mey­er
Arvip Peschel
Chris­t­ian Beck­er
Khar­lanchuck Dzmit­ry
Cristoph Lang
Antho­ny Arra­bal

Lappersfort Eviction Notice Confirmed By Judge

On Decem­ber 31st 09, the Brugge court gave a ver­dict con­cern­ing the 3 pre­vi­ous occu­piers who signed a con­tract with the own­er, GDF Suez, and also con­cern­ing the evic­tion notice for the present occu­piers of the Lap­pers­fort.

Accord­ing to the judge, Suez can not hold the 3 pre­vi­ous occu­piers respon­si­ble for the new occu­pa­tion, and there­fore their claim against them has been dis­missed.

On Decem­ber 31st 09, the Brugge court gave a ver­dict con­cern­ing the 3 pre­vi­ous occu­piers who signed a con­tract with the own­er, GDF Suez, and also con­cern­ing the evic­tion notice for the present occu­piers of the Lap­pers­fort.

Accord­ing to the judge, Suez can not hold the 3 pre­vi­ous occu­piers respon­si­ble for the new occu­pa­tion, and there­fore their claim against them has been dis­missed.
How­ev­er, the judge has declared that the evic­tion notice issued in 2002, dur­ing the first occu­pa­tion of the Lap­pers­fort, is still valid and may be used to evict the cur­rent occu­piers. This, despite the fact that the first evic­tion notice was issued to 13 peo­ple iden­ti­fied by the court, and who were threat­ened after the first evic­tion with a €50,000 fine if they re-entered the for­est or were involved in any oth­er actions against Fab­ri­com / Suez. None of these 13 peo­ple have any­thing to do with the cur­rent occu­pa­tion and there­fore an evic­tion notice based on a ver­dict passed against them should not be able to be used against us, the present occu­piers. Suez had, before this tri­al, appar­ent­ly already approached a bailiff with the evic­tion notice from 2002, but the bailiff refused to enforce it, as it was doubt­ful whether they could still legal­ly use it. The judge’s ver­dict on the 31st has giv­en them bla­tant right to enforce this notice, claim­ing that the right to pri­vate prop­er­ty is one of the pil­lars of our soci­ety and there­fore must be upheld by the law enforcers blablabla.
As it stands, Suez now have a notice allow­ing them to evict the Lap­pers­fort, which they will have to present to a bailiff who will then have to acti­vate the remote-con­trol pig cir­cus. We are on evic­tion alert every day, and are well pre­pared, after 16 months of occu­pa­tion. We’re not sure how long the process will take from here, and we now need more humans inside the for­est, aswell as oth­ers sup­port­ing from the out­side. If Suez wants to destroy the Lap­pers­fort, now is the time to come togeth­er to make their job as dif­fi­cult as pos­si­ble.

Love respect and sol­i­dar­i­ty to our friends in Tit­nore Woods (eng­land), Des­dels­boscs (spain), Main­shill (scot­land), Tas­ma­nia (aus­tralia), also under evic­tion threat; to the peo­ple of the Brazil­ian Ama­zon fight­ing against the GDF Suez Jirau dam project, and to all oth­er humans defend­ing wilder­ness and nature across the plan­et.…

lap­pers­fort
— e‑mail: lappersfort@riseup.net

Climate Protestors in Court Following Defacing of Canadian Flag

Three cli­mate activists are this morn­ing due in West­min­ster Magistrate’s Court charged with crim­i­nal dam­age against the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don fol­low­ing an action to stop the Tar Sands..

Tar Sands
Three cli­mate activists are this morn­ing due in West­min­ster Magistrate’s Court charged with crim­i­nal dam­age against the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don fol­low­ing an action to stop the Tar Sands..

On Decem­ber 15th, while the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Sum­mit was tak­ing place in Copen­hagen, the pro­test­ers scaled the entrance to the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Grosvenor Square. They cut loose the Cana­di­an flag, before defac­ing it with crude oil while unfurl­ing a ban­ner read­ing “Shut Down the Tar Sands”.

The action was a response to Cana­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harper’s obstruc­tion of the sum­mit in Copen­hagen in order to pro­tect Canada’s Tar Sands Indus­try [1]. Tar Sands are the dirt­i­est fuel known to man, both in terms of its impact on the cli­mate and the dev­as­ta­tion inflict­ed on the
local com­mu­ni­ties [2].

There is an enor­mous open cast mine in the Alber­ta Tar Sands region of Cana­da, where an area the total size of Eng­land will be exploit­ed. This is the largest indus­tri­al devel­op­ment in the world and is dev­as­tat­ing for the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties that live there, not only destroy­ing the land
itself but increas­ing lev­els of can­cer, poi­son­ing much of their tra­di­tion­al food sources and leav­ing the water unsafe to drink [3]. This vio­lates the indige­nous treaty rights legal­ly bound to this region.

Jake Col­man, 20, Bradley Day, 22, and Daniel White­ly, 19, are all par­tic­i­pants in the Camp for Cli­mate Action [4], an action group that occu­pied Trafal­gar Square for the two-week dura­tion of the Cli­mate Sum­mit.

Bradley Day, a wait­er from Oxford, speak­ing after the action:

“This is just the begin­ning of a UK-based direct action cam­paign to stop Cana­di­an Tar Sands. These mur­der­ous ven­tures are being fund­ed from with­in the UK, with the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, now 84%-owned by the pub­lic invest­ing bil­lions, and British Petro­le­um cur­rent­ly prepar­ing to move in
to Tar Sands. [5] We won’t stand by and let these greed dri­ven cor­po­ra­tions cause cat­a­stroph­ic envi­ron­men­tal and human destruc­tion.”

Clay­ton Thomas-Muller, an Indige­nous activist with the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work (IEN), spoke dur­ing the Copen­hagen sum­mit:
“The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to ignore its own laws, which state they must con­sult with Indige­nous Peo­ples who have been try­ing to con­vey con­cerns about Tar Sands devel­op­ment. Tar Sands are killing our com­mu­ni­ties and tram­pling over our rights. Fur­ther­more, the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion wreaked by the Tar Sands is direct­ly threat­en­ing thou­sands of lives now and is dri­ving our cli­mate into chaos. The world has wok­en up to the fact that Cana­da is now Pub­lic Cli­mate Ene­my Num­ber One. It’s time Cana­da did its glob­al duty and shut down the Tar Sands,”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] At the failed Copen­hagen Cli­mate Sum­mit, Cana­da pro­posed an inad­e­quate tar­get for reduc­ing green­house emis­sions by only 3% by 2020 ignor­ing world sci­en­tists’ rec­om­men­da­tions to com­mit to over 40% reduc­tions below 1990 lev­els in order to avoid dan­ger­ous run­away cli­mate change. Cana­da already failed to meet its com­mit­ments to the Kyoto Treaty and refus­es to sign the UN’s Dec­la­ra­tion of Rights for Indige­nous Peo­ples whilst con­tin­u­ing devel­op­ment of Tar Sands oil extrac­tion.

[2] Tar Sands fuel is a way of extract­ing oil who’s ener­gy inten­sive process has not only com­plete­ly destroyed areas of the Bore­al forests the size of Eng­land, burns enough nat­ur­al gas to pow­er 6 hun­dred thou­sand homes a year, pro­duces lakes of tox­ic waste 66km wide ‑which fil­ters into
all local life and drink­ing water- but would itself be enough to push our cli­mate into chaos.

http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/

[3] http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/

[4] http://climatecamp.org.uk

[5] This is the start of a fast grow­ing UK cam­paign against Tar Sands. Although we do not receive oil direct­ly from Cana­di­an Tar Sands, Cor­po­ra­tions such as RBS which is now 84% owned by the British Tax Pay­er invests bil­lions and British Petro­le­um have plans to move in to the ‘Sun Rise’ site in the com­ing months. Action on these issues and these cor­po­ra­tions are soon to become a focus of UK activism as we begin to stand up to Inter­na­tion­al injus­tices such as Tar Sands in Cana­da.

Stop the Tar Sands

Environmental Activists killed by Mining Companies in Latin America

On 26th Decem­ber, Dora Ali­cia Reci­nos Sor­to became the third vic­tim of a wave of vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers in the Cabañas Region of El Sal­vador, where com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are protest­ing against the re-open­ing of a Gold Mine by Cana­di­an Com­pa­ny Pacif­ic Rim.

On 26th Decem­ber, Dora Ali­cia Reci­nos Sor­to became the third vic­tim of a wave of vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers in the Cabañas Region of El Sal­vador, where com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are protest­ing against the re-open­ing of a Gold Mine by Cana­di­an Com­pa­ny Pacif­ic Rim.

Dora Ali­cia was a mem­ber of the Cabañas Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mit­tee, and had been active in oppos­ing the mine. She was eight months preg­nant when she was shot dead, and her two year old son was also wound­ed in the attack.

Her mur­der comes six days after the fatal shoot­ing of Ramiro Rivera Gomez, Vice Pres­i­dent of the Cabañas Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mit­tee, who had sur­vived being shot eight times in August this year. In June, anoth­er envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­er, Gus­ta­vo Marce­lo Rivera Moreno, had been tor­tured and killed. Many oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty have received death threats, includ­ing youth work­ers and jour­nal­ists for the local com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion Radio Vic­to­ria, and the local priest Father Luis Quin­tanil­la nar­row­ly escaped an attempt­ed kid­nap­ping.

In Mex­i­co, Mar­i­ano Abar­ca Rob­lero cam­paigned against the envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive open-pit Bar­i­um mine Black­fire, a World Bank project. He was shot to death on the evening of Novem­ber 27, 2009, in front of his house in Chico­muse­lo, Chi­a­pas. More details.

Whalers and Whale Defenders Clash for the First Time This Season

The first clash between whalers and whale defend­ers took place on Decem­ber 14th when the Steve Irwin and the Shonan Maru #2 exchanged shots with their water can­nons.

Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin & Nisshin Maru playThe first clash between whalers and whale defend­ers took place on Decem­ber 14th when the Steve Irwin and the Shonan Maru #2 exchanged shots with their water can­nons.

The Shonan Maru #2 has been fol­low­ing the Steve Irwin from Fre­man­tle since Decem­ber 9th. At 1400 Hours (Mel­bourne time) the Steve Irwin went around an ice­berg, did a fig­ure eight out of view of the Shonan Maru #2 and re-emerged with­in a quar­ter of a mile of the Japan­ese whaler’s port­side quar­ter catch­ing the whalers com­plete­ly by sur­prise.

A pur­suit began and the Shonan Maru #2 turned on two water can­nons. The crew of the Steve Irwin imme­di­ate­ly respond­ed by plac­ing their water can­non in readi­ness. The Shonan Maru #2 and the Steve Irwin were engaged in a high speed pur­suit for two hours before Cap­tain Wat­son decid­ed to break off the pur­suit to resume course to the coast of Antarc­ti­ca.

The Japan­ese whalers are spend­ing a great deal of mon­ey, first locat­ing the Steve Irwin by air and then direct­ing the Shonan Maru #2 to the coor­di­nates of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel. By stay­ing on the tail of the Steve Irwin, the har­poon ves­sel is able to keep the rest of the fleet aware of the Sea Shep­herd posi­tion. Cap­tain Paul Wat­son needs to lose the tail of the Shonan Maru #2 in order to locate the whal­ing fleet. He is count­ing on heav­ier ice con­di­tions to assist in this effort.

“We will use the ice­bergs and the ice floes to our advan­tage.” Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I’ve observed today that I am a more expe­ri­enced ice nav­i­ga­tor than the Japan­ese cap­tain chas­ing us. We need to get him to fol­low us into the ice fields and let the ice work for us.”

The Steve Irwin crew were left wet, but in good spir­its after the con­fronta­tion.

—-

Sea Shep­herd Evades Pur­suit by Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet Secu­ri­ty Ves­sel

The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin has suc­cess­ful­ly left the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Zone (EEZ) with­out any sign of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet secu­ri­ty ship Shonan Maru No. 2.

The Steve Irwin depart­ed from Hobart at 1800 Hours on Decem­ber 31st and took advan­tage of gale force winds and heavy swells to slip past the wait­ing Japan­ese ves­sel.

“It’s a big ocean down here they have no idea where we are,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I’m now con­fi­dent that we can pro­ceed with our search for the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet with­out fur­ther inter­fer­ence from the Shonan Maru No. 2.”

The Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Ady Gil is patrolling the South­ern Ocean in advance of the Steve Irwin in search of the fleet.

The Shonan Maru No. 2 was wait­ing for the Steve Irwin when it left Fre­man­tle on Decem­ber 7th. The Japan­ese had char­tered an air­craft out of Albany to locate the con­ser­va­tion ves­sel. They then relayed the Steve Irwin’s posi­tion to the Shonan Maru No. 2 to enable the Japan­ese secu­ri­ty ves­sel to inter­cept the Steve Irwin.

The Steve Irwin was unable to lose the pur­suit of the Shonan Maru No. 2 for more than two weeks. Only by return­ing to Tas­ma­nia was the tail lost because Japan­ese whal­ing ships are pro­hib­it­ed from enter­ing Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.

“Thanks to the stormy weath­er, there was no pos­si­bil­i­ty of a char­tered flight locat­ing the Steve Irwin and we were able to pass back into inter­na­tion­al waters with­out any sign of the Shonan Maru No. 2,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “They will be hard pressed to locate us now and with­out them on our tail, I am con­fi­dent that we will be able to track down the whale poach­ers in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.”
“It was awe­some see­ing them run like cow­ards when we turned on them,” said Third Mate Vin­cent Hayes from Williamstown in Vic­to­ria.

Sabotage at Broken Cross Open Cast Coal Mine (Mainshill Solidarity Action)

In the ear­ly hours of the 25th Decem­ber, a group of autonomous activists deliv­ered their Christ­mas present to Scot­tish Coal. Four machines were sab­o­taged at the Bro­ken Cross open cast site, the largest of its type in Europe, just 5 miles from Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

In the ear­ly hours of the 25th Decem­ber, a group of autonomous activists deliv­ered their Christ­mas present to Scot­tish Coal. Four machines were sab­o­taged at the Bro­ken Cross open cast site, the largest of its type in Europe, just 5 miles from Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.
This is a mes­sage to Scot­tish Coal that regard­less of the time of year, we will resist. Not just at Main­shill, but at all of their sites across South Lanark­shire, which is one of the most heav­i­ly mined areas in Europe.
As the “fes­tive” sea­son comes to an end, the destruc­tive work will com­mence again at Main­shill. Evic­tion is loom­ing as their work pro­gress­es. Num­bers are need­ed as ever on site to help out and fill defences.

UK Coal ’ greenwash’ Durham planner’s! OPENCAST looks likely (near where Winter Moot will be in February)

Mon­ey grab­bing UK coal have over­come one of the largest bar­ri­ers in their plans to open­cast the PONT VALLEY,

OPPONENTS of a large open­cast mine in a pic­turesque val­ley fear the worst now that plan­ning per­mis­sion has been grant­ed to move a colony of Great Crest­ed Newts – a pro­tect­ed species.

Mon­ey grab­bing UK coal have over­come one of the largest bar­ri­ers in their plans to open­cast the PONT VALLEY,

OPPONENTS of a large open­cast mine in a pic­turesque val­ley fear the worst now that plan­ning per­mis­sion has been grant­ed to move a colony of Great Crest­ed Newts – a pro­tect­ed species.

Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil plan­ners agreed to an appli­ca­tion by UK Coal to cre­ate four habi­tat ponds for wildlife near Leadgate, Con­sett, Coun­ty Durham.

The com­pa­ny, which plans to extract 556,000 tonnes from the Bradley site, an area of 73,000 square meters in the Der­went Val­ley between the vil­lages of Leadgate and Dip­ton, was hin­dered by the pres­ence of the tiny ani­mals on a pond in the mid­dle of the area where it wants to mine. Now that coun­cil­lors have approved the plans to cre­ate new ponds UK Coal will pro­ceed with its appli­ca­tion to mine.

A spokesman for the com­pa­ny said: “The pro­pos­als are to cre­ate a site of nature con­ser­va­tion involv­ing addi­tion­al plant­i­ng and land­scap­ing and new ponds on part of the site to form an extend­ed wildlife habi­tat from the adja­cent Billing­side Wood Site of Nature Con­ser­va­tion Impor­tance.

“The appli­ca­tion for habi­tat ponds in con­struc­tion terms is rel­a­tive­ly minor in nature and has the poten­tial for sig­nif­i­cant con­ser­va­tion and habi­tat enhance­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for the local area.”

Eight let­ters of objec­tion includ­ing respons­es from the Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship and the Pont Val­ley Net­work were received.

Objec­tors argued that the appli­ca­tion is part of the inten­tion to open­cast the site, known as the Bradley site and should not be treat­ed sep­a­rate­ly.

But senior plan­ning offi­cer Mike Hemp­sall said the two appli­ca­tions had to be treat­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly.

He said: “The pro­pos­al pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for addi­tion­al habi­tats that would be of eco­log­i­cal and land­scape ben­e­fit to the area and can be car­ried out in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly accept­able man­ner.

“The stat­ed grounds of objec­tion con­cern­ing deter­mi­na­tion of the appli­ca­tion sep­a­rate to the sur­face coal mine appli­ca­tion, archae­o­log­i­cal, land­scape char­ac­ter, effects on pub­lic rights of way and wildlife impact are not con­sid­ered suf­fi­cient to lead to rea­sons to refuse the appli­ca­tion.”

UK Coal says the open­cast pro­pos­al would cre­ate 38 jobs, pro­duce 556,000 tonnes of coal need­ed for the British steel or elec­tric­i­ty indus­try, and pro­vide a new con­ser­va­tion area after min­ing is com­plet­ed with­in three years. It intends to for­mal­ly sub­mit a plan­ning appli­ca­tion in the new year.

But Durham Coun­ty coun­cil­lor Watts Stelling said: “This area has been rav­aged by indus­try in the past and should now be allowed to recov­er.

“Every­body knows the two appli­ca­tions are linked. UK Coal is not build­ing new ponds due to any fond­ness for Great Crest­ed Newts. It wants to dig a great big hole in attrac­tive coun­try­side.”

It should be not­ed that Durham wildlife trust did­n’t even respond when asked for an opin­ion by Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil maybe this is because lots of fund­ing for wildlife trusts comes from the aggre­gate indus­try or maybe their just lazy!

GOOD NEWS!!!
FAMILIES in a rur­al ham­let are call­ing on a devel­op­ment com­pa­ny to aban­don its bid for an open­cast mine in the Northum­ber­land coun­try­side after plan­ners firm­ly reject­ed the con­tro­ver­sial scheme.

Cam­paign­ers in tiny Hal­ton Lea Gate near Halt­whis­tle say they are “over­joyed” after coun­ty coun­cil­lors vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to refuse per­mis­sion to dig 140,000 tonnes of coal from a 75-acre site, with­in the North Pen­nines Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.

They urged appli­cant HM Project Devel­op­ments to “get the mes­sage”, admit defeat and not launch an appeal against the deci­sion.

HM Project Devel­op­ments’ agent, New­cas­tle-based firm Black­ett, Hart and Pratt, did not com­ment.

Cowley Club Bookshop Talks 2010

The Cow­ley Book­shop Col­lec­tive are proud to present a series of author talks for 2010:

_______________________________________
All events run from 16.00 to 18.30 and are FREE
***************************************

_____________
Fri­day 8 Jan­u­ary
*************

Clive Bloom (Vio­lent Lon­don) talks about his research into Edwar­dian anar­chism.

The Cow­ley Book­shop Col­lec­tive are proud to present a series of author talks for 2010:

_______________________________________
All events run from 16.00 to 18.30 and are FREE
***************************************

_____________
Fri­day 8 Jan­u­ary
*************

Clive Bloom (Vio­lent Lon­don) talks about his research into Edwar­dian anar­chism.

Clive Bloom is Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Eng­lish and Amer­i­can Stud­ies at Mid­dle­sex Uni­ver­si­ty. He has writ­ten many books on pop­u­lar cul­ture, cul­tur­al his­to­ry and lit­er­ary crit­i­cism, reg­u­lar­ly appears on radio and tele­vi­sion and con­tributes to a num­ber of nation­al news­pa­pers. His next book, enti­tled Goth­ic His­to­ries will be pub­lished in April 2010.
http://www.clivebloom.com/

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Wednes­day 13 Jan­u­ary
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Stevphen Shukaitis (Con­stituent Imag­i­na­tion) and Jack Z. Bratich (Con­spir­a­cy Pan­ics) have a dis­cus­sion enti­tled An Affec­tive Weath­er Report

Event fly­er (3.4 MB pdf) — http://mujinga.net/AffectiveWeatherReport.pdf

Stevphen Shukaitis is an edi­tor at Autono­me­dia and lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Essex. He is the author of Imag­i­nal Machines: Auton­o­my & Self-Orga­ni­za­tion in the Rev­o­lu­tions of Every­day Life (Autono­me­dia, 2009) and edi­tor with Eri­ka Bid­dle and David Grae­ber of Con­stituent Imag­i­na­tion: Mil­i­tant Inves­ti­ga­tions, Col­lec­tive The­o­riza­tion (AK Press, 2007). His research focus­es on the emer­gence of col­lec­tive imag­i­na­tion in social move­ments and the chang­ing com­po­si­tions of cul­tur­al and artis­tic labor.
http://stevphen.mahost.org/

Jack Z. Bratich is Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Jour­nal­ism and Media Stud­ies at Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty. He is also a zine librar­i­an at ABC No Rio in New York City. Jack uses crit­i­cal cul­tur­al stud­ies to ana­lyze the pol­i­tics of pop­u­lar cul­ture. He stud­ies media cul­ture as an inter­sec­tion of pow­er, knowl­edge, and sub­jec­tiv­i­ty. He is co-edi­tor, along with Jere­my Pack­er and Cameron McCarthy, of Fou­cault, Cul­tur­al Stud­ies and Gov­ern­men­tal­i­ty (SUNY 2003).
http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/directory/jbratich/index.html

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Sun­day 17 Jan­u­ary — SUBJECT TO CONFIRMATION (Check Cow­ley club web­site)
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John Zerzan (Ele­ments of Refusal) talks on The roots of the cri­sis and the need for a new par­a­digm.

Amer­i­can philoso­pher John Zerzan’s the­sis is sim­ple: civ­i­liza­tion is patho­log­i­cal, and needs to be dis­man­tled. Zerzan’s rad­i­cal cri­tique of civ­i­liza­tion, laid out in books such as Ele­ments Of Refusal (1988), Future Prim­i­tive (1994), and Run­ning On Empti­ness (2002) draws on anthro­po­log­i­cal research to argue that domes­ti­ca­tion of nature and domes­ti­ca­tion of humans go hand in hand. And this is accom­plished pri­mar­i­ly through tech­nol­o­gy.
This is the first appear­ance by John Z in the UK since 2003. A one-off event.
http://www.johnzerzan.net/

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Thurs­day 4 Feb­ru­ary
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John Bark­er (Bend­ing the Bars) talks about his expe­ri­ences of the Angry Brigade.

Between 1970 and 1972 the Angry Brigade, strong­ly influ­enced by anar­chism and the Sit­u­a­tion­ists, launched a bomb­ing cam­paign which tar­get­ed banks, embassies and the homes of Tory MPs. In total, 25 bomb­ings were attrib­uted to them by the police. The dam­age done by the bomb­ings was most­ly lim­it­ed to prop­er­ty dam­age although one per­son was slight­ly injured. A group of anar­chists from North East Lon­don, the ‘Stoke New­ing­ton Eight’, were pros­e­cut­ed for car­ry­ing out bomb­ings as the Angry Brigade in one of the longest crim­i­nal tri­als of Eng­lish his­to­ry (it last­ed from 30 May to 6 Decem­ber 1972).
John Bark­er was one of those impris­oned. John went to prison in 1971, and stayed there for sev­en long years. Bend­ing The Bars is a col­lec­tion of sto­ries writ­ten then, and pub­lished togeth­er for the first time in 2007. This evening John will be dis­cussing his expe­ri­ence of impris­on­ment, and answer­ing ques­tions on the Brigade’s out­look and actions.

Book review by Stew­art Home — http://www.metamute.org/en/node/6241

_______________________________________
All events run from 16.00 to 18.30 and are FREE
***************************************

More to come!

____
INFO
****

Face­book:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=app_2344061033&ref=ts&gid=59207379965

Cow­ley Books
12 Lon­don Road
Brighton
BN1 4JA

cowleybooks@gmail.com
http://www.cowleyclub.org.uk/

Tree felled despite protesters underneath & protection agreement

23 Decem­ber 2009
A MAJESTIC 350-year-old oak tree in Steep was chopped down just hours after a deal was struck to save it.

Shocked vil­lagers looked on in hor­ror as con­trac­tors reneged on an agree­ment to save the land­mark oak, which has stood in Ash­ford Chace since the time of Oliv­er Cromwell, by clam­ber­ing up into the high­est branch­es and hack­ing it down last Tues­day after­noon.

23 Decem­ber 2009
A MAJESTIC 350-year-old oak tree in Steep was chopped down just hours after a deal was struck to save it.

Shocked vil­lagers looked on in hor­ror as con­trac­tors reneged on an agree­ment to save the land­mark oak, which has stood in Ash­ford Chace since the time of Oliv­er Cromwell, by clam­ber­ing up into the high­est branch­es and hack­ing it down last Tues­day after­noon.

Pro­tes­tors stand­ing under­neath the canopy were forced to take cov­er when it became clear tree sur­geons had no regard for their safe­ty, as parts of the tree came crash­ing to the ground.

Police were called amid con­fronta­tion­al scenes between vil­lagers and con­trac­tors, before the res­i­dents were forced to watch help­less­ly as the oak was sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly dis­man­tled.

Ash­ford Hang­ers Preser­va­tion Soci­ety tree war­den Drake Hock­ing said: “They start­ed off care­ful­ly and slow­ly and then some­time in the mid­dle of the day they changed tack and start­ed butcher­ing it.
“They did not stop.
“It was trag­ic and the vil­lage is now in shock.”

The oak tree is sit­u­at­ed on the Hang­ers Way and forms part of the right of way for a new four-bed­room house, built by Rolls Royce’s head of human resources Avery Duff and wife Elfri­da of Emp­shott Green.

They intend to turn the site where the oak tree stood into a straight tar­mac dri­ve for their prop­er­ty.

The tree was con­sid­ered rot­ten by East Hamp­shire Dis­trict Coun­cil’s arbo­cul­tur­al team, so was not pro­tect­ed by a tree preser­va­tion order.

Mr Hock­ing explained an agree­ment had been thrashed out on Mon­day evening with the Duf­f’s con­trac­tors Pega­sus Builders, which stat­ed it would only remove about a third of the tree.

How­ev­er, the promise was bro­ken with­in 24 hours.

“It appears the Duf­f’s archi­tect went over the head of the con­trac­tor and insist­ed the tree should be cut,” he said.

Kate Burke, of Ash­ford Chace, said: “It is shock­ing, absolute­ly shock­ing.
“I am so upset about it and the way the sit­u­a­tion has been han­dled.
“I can­not under­stand how some peo­ple can have such dis­re­gard for the coun­try­side.
“If it had been a dif­fer­ent own­er or a dif­fer­ent arbi­cul­tur­al offi­cer at the coun­cil then I think the out­come would have been very dif­fer­ent.”

She added when she went to inspect the tree after it was felled, the rot inside was only the size of her cupped hands.

“As a pro­por­tion of the whole cir­cum­fer­ence of the tree, it was noth­ing,” Mrs Burke said.
“It is so, so sad.”

Anoth­er angered res­i­dent, Jes­si­ca Pocock, said: “I think I can speak for all those present when I say that we have all been tru­ly shak­en and appalled by the crass and dis­dain­ful atti­tude dis­played to to the peo­ple of Steep, many of whom tried to nego­ti­ate with the Duffs for over two years, and to the mag­nif­i­cent oak tree, which has been felled for no good rea­son.

“We did con­sid­er tak­ing up a stance again to try and pre­vent the work being done, but in truth, we have no chance of stop­ping such ruth­less behav­iour, and the strain of the last few days has been con­sid­er­able.”

On Mon­day a sign was placed beside the tree which quot­ed the famous war poet Edward Thomas, who lived in Steep 100 years ago.

It read: “In the sun and in the snow, there are no more sins to be sinned on the dead oak tree bough.”

Avery Duff was unavail­able for com­ment when The Post went to press.