Anthill Mob reinforce anti-expansion message during Copenhagen climate talks, London City Airport

8/12/2009

London City Airport sloganned8/12/2009
Activists in east Lon­don have paint­ed two mega-mes­sages against growth in avi­a­tion — and flights at Lon­don City Air­port in par­tic­u­lar — to coin­cide with the Copen­hagen cli­mate sum­mit. One mes­sage say­ing, ‘Still cli­mate crim­i­nals!’ is writ­ten in giant let­ters on the top of a 60ft hill sit­u­at­ed just south of City Air­port, which planes pass direct­ly over.

“It’s a mes­sage to the del­e­gates fly­ing to and back from Copen­hagen,” explains Elsie Wai, spokesper­son for local anti-expan­sion group, the Anthill Mob. “The con­sci­en­tious will be tak­ing the train but the self­ish will be fly­ing. We’re remind­ing the self­ish del­e­gates that they’ll remain cli­mate crim­i­nals until they start think­ing green.”

The group are also angry about Lon­don City Airport’s con­tin­u­ing attempts to increase busi­ness and pri­vate flights. The air­port cur­rent­ly has approx­i­mate­ly 80,000 com­mer­cial flights a year but aims to increase this to 170,000 by 2030. “That means more pol­lu­tion, more glob­al warm­ing and more mis­ery for local peo­ple,” says Elsie.

The Anthill Mob’s sec­ond mes­sage is writ­ten in 10ft high let­ters along the bound­ary fence of Tate & Lyle’s sug­ar refin­ery — sit­u­at­ed beside the Dock­lands Light Rail­way approach to the air­port. The mes­sage reads: ‘Drop the sweet talk: no flight expan­sion at City Air­port.’

“You only have to look around the area next to the air­port to see that it is in ter­mi­nal decline,” says Elsie. “The air­port has made mil­lions in prof­its but all we get in return is more noise and pol­lu­tion. Pret­ty much every­thing at City Air­port is auto­mat­ed. As it stands, a tiny num­ber of peo­ple ben­e­fit from employ­ment at the air­port while the wider com­mu­ni­ty and the cli­mate suf­fers.”

Cas­es of asth­ma and child mor­tal­i­ty are already above the nation­al aver­age in the bor­ough of Newham – where the air­port is based. Expand­ing the air­port means a mas­sive increase in pol­lu­tion which will fur­ther blight one of the poor­est areas in Lon­don.

Autonomous Pixie Action in Solidarity with Mainshill

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day the 7th of Decem­ber a drilling rig and oth­er machin­ery was sab­o­taged at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day the 7th of Decem­ber a drilling rig and oth­er machin­ery was sab­o­taged at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

Actions such as these are not mind­less acts of van­dal­ism, but valid respons­es to cor­po­ra­tions like Scot­tish Coal and their bla­tant dis­re­gard for life and com­mu­ni­ties of peo­ple every­where. Such acts dam­age the rich and wealthy in the only place that mat­ters to them – their wal­lets. As life on earth is threat­ened in every direct by the blind pur­suit of prof­it, we look not to politi­cians in Copen­hagen for inde­ci­sion, but take mat­ters into our own hands.

Burn­ing coal under­mines the very abil­i­ty of human beings to live on a healthy vibrant plan­et, a right our ances­tors enjoyed and our chil­dren should inher­it. Yet the cli­mate is chang­ing, the oceans are acid­i­fy­ing, and hun­dreds of species go extinct every sin­gle day because of the greed of a few. Let’s not stand idly by and watch while so much beau­ty is plun­dered and destroyed!

There is no time to act but now. Come to Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and send your own mes­sage to Copen­hagen!

climate actions — tar sands, Santas at City Airport, Carbon Trading Exchange camped, Santas at BT (updated)

Cli­mate Activists Tell Cana­da: Don’t Cop Out On COP 15!

On Mon­day 14th of Decem­ber, cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work and Camp for Cli­mate Action protest­ed out­side Cana­da House in Lon­don and shut down Pall Mall Street in Trafal­gar Square to protest against Canada’s attempts to derail the cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen.

Tar Sands London bannerCli­mate Activists Tell Cana­da: Don’t Cop Out On COP 15!

On Mon­day 14th of Decem­ber, cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work and Camp for Cli­mate Action protest­ed out­side Cana­da House in Lon­don and shut down Pall Mall Street in Trafal­gar Square to protest against Canada’s attempts to derail the cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen.

Cana­da is one of the biggest cur­rent stum­bling blocks to an ambi­tious and bind­ing cli­mate deal – because it con­tin­ues extract­ing oil from the most destruc­tive project on earth, the Tar Sands. [1] This protest will take place in sol­i­dar­i­ty with sim­i­lar protests in Copen­hagen itself and sev­er­al Cana­di­an cities.

The Tar Sands in Alber­ta, Cana­da, are one of the world’s most pol­lut­ing projects and are hav­ing a dev­as­tat­ing effect on the lives of Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and fuelling glob­al cli­mate change. Cur­rent­ly in Copen­hagen, Cana­da is propos­ing 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. As a result, inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cism of Cana­da is mount­ing. Last week, a group of 11 Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment called on the lead­ers of BP, Shell, Sta­toil and Total com­pa­nies to halt pro­duc­tion of oil from the tar sands. [2]

“Cana­da has already spec­tac­u­lar­ly failed to meet its Kyoto Pro­to­col tar­gets and has shown no signs of chang­ing its pri­or­i­ties in Copen­hagen. Instead of mak­ing the nec­es­sary shift to a low car­bon econ­o­my, the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to approve new Tar Sands leas­es and is refus­ing to co-oper­ate with inter­na­tion­al efforts to mit­i­gate the impacts of cli­mate change. This affects the whole world,” says Suzanne Dhali­w­al of the UK Tar Sands Net­work, who will be at the Lon­don protest.

“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,” says Clay­ton Thomas-Muller, an Indige­nous activist with the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work (IEN), who is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the par­al­lel Tar Sands protest in Copen­hagen.

UK cam­paign­ing against the Tar Sands, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with IEN, has focused on BP which plans to enter the Tar Sands through the mas­sive ‘Sun­rise Project’ and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, now 84% state-owned, which has invest­ed £8.3 bil­lion in the Tar Sands since 2007 accord­ing to new research by the Rain­for­est Action Net­work.

The “Canada:Don’t Cop out on COP” action will start in Trafal­gar Square, which has been occu­pied by the Camp for Cli­mate Action [3] for the dura­tion of the Copen­hagen nego­ti­a­tions as a base for UK based sol­i­dar­i­ty actions. Cam­paign­ers will then move onto Cana­da House to deliv­er their mes­sage to the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment.

[1] See the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Network’s Cana­di­an Indige­nous Tar Sands Cam­paign, www.ienearth.org/cits

[2] http://www.tarsandswatch.org/members-european-parliament-appeal-companies-stop-tar-sand-business

[3] The Camp for Cli­mate Action is a grow­ing grass-roots move­ment of diverse peo­ple tak­ing action on cli­mate change. http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/about

UK Tar Sands Net­work
tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com

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Cli­mate Refugee San­tas in City Air­port Protest
Get the Train you Wankers placardMade Homeless banner
6 Decem­ber 2009
CLIMATE CAMP PRESS RELEASE:

REFUGEE SANTAS VS POLICE AT LONDON CITY AIRPORT

20 Cli­mate activists dressed as San­ta Claus were pushed out of Lon­don City Air­port depar­tures lounge today by police and secu­ri­ty guards. Presents of car­toon books about the prob­lems with car­bon trad­ing, car­bon ration books, and toy trains were left unde­liv­ered. These were meant for the pas­sen­gers on the final flight to Copen­hagen before the COP15 cli­mate talks begin.

The San­tas’ pho­tog­ra­ph­er was arrest­ed. The activists man­aged to pub­lish a pic­ture of the arrest on Twit­ter (1) along with anoth­er image of the San­tas in action (2)

The activists sang Cli­mate Change-themed Christ­mas car­ols, includ­ing “Silent Plight” and “God Rest We Mer­ry Car­bon Traders”, in the air­port lob­by.

A San­ta Claus said: “The hypocrisy of fly­ing to the Copen­hagen talks is unbe­liev­able. It just goes to show that for the politi­cians and cor­po­rate lob­by­ists in Copen­hagen, these talks are no more than busi­ness as usu­al.

“If gov­ern­ments agree a deal based on false solu­tions like car­bon trad­ing, I shall have to take direct action by get­ting stuck in a whole lot more chim­neys”

Video

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Carbon Exchange

7th Decem­ber: 11.30am This morn­ing pro­test­ers from the Cli­mate Camp have block­ad­ed the entrance to the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange in Bish­ops­gate, Lon­don [see video].

The COP Out Camp Out at Trafal­gar Square was set up on Sat­ur­day after the mas­sive Wave cli­mate demon­stra­tion ahead of the Cop15 cli­mate con­fer­ence which starts today in Copen­hagen.

The Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange in Bish­ops­gate was the tar­get and loca­tion of the Cli­mate Camp dur­ing the G20 protests back in April.

For updates see: http://twitter.com/climatecampldn
Video http://www.twitvid.com/19342

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BT Santa die-in
San­ta vis­its BT and expos­es coal invest­ment
Novem­ber 30, 2009

This morn­ing a team of San­ta’s arrived at the BT offices in Bris­tol Tem­ple Quay to expose the truth behind the com­pa­nies pen­sion scheme. BT pen­sions are fund­ing coal min­ing in South Wales, where Merthyr Tyd­fil hosts one of Europe’s largest open­cast coal mines. BT Pen­sion Scheme owns a com­pa­ny called Her­mes who own Argent, of Miller-Argent fame — the com­pa­ny who oper­ate the mine. Staff pen­sion mon­ey is secret­ly being spent on coal min­ing.

No won­der it came as a sur­prise when San­ta came to vis­it…

Arriv­ing at the BT offices at Tem­ple Quay in Bris­tol this morn­ing, San­ta Claus came to say a great big fes­tive NO to coal.

San­ta and his helpers descend­ed upon offices after find­ing out that BT pen­sion schemes are pay­ing for the mas­sive min­ing oper­a­tion at Ffos-y-Fran near Merthyr Tyd­fil in South Wales — one of Europe’s largest open cast coal mines. The mys­tery peo­ple in red say they are rais­ing the issue with BT work­ers, let­ting them know where their pen­sion mon­ey is being invest­ed.

The bemused staff seemed hap­py to be greet­ed by the singing san­tas as they arrived for work, but looked con­cerned with the news of their employ­ers dirty invest­ments.

A jovial woman clutch­ing a hand­ful of Christ­mas cards said “with the cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen com­ing up, the world’s eyes will be on politi­cians strug­gling to come to terms with the threat of cli­mate change.

We want the employ­ees to know that their mon­ey is being invest­ed in coal min­ing in Wales, wors­en­ing the effects of cli­mate change. It is up to them to hold BT account­able for their actions”

The Ffos-y-Fran mine is less than 40 metres from the near­est homes and res­i­dents lives are blight­ed with noise, dust and pol­lu­tion. Merthyr Tyd­fil was the site of the Cli­mate Camp in Wales ear­li­er this year, sup­port­ing local res­i­dents who have been fight­ing against the min­ing oper­a­tions.

San­ta and his helpers hand­ed out Christ­mas cards and sung car­ols to peo­ple as they arrived for work today, explain­ing why they have come to vis­it.

“Coal is the most cli­mate wreck­ing way to pro­duce ener­gy. Real­ly, if we want to stop the worst effects of cli­mate change we need to stop dig­ging it out of the ground and invest in green tech­nolo­gies instead”

“I’m here because I’m seri­ous­ly wor­ried about my home back in the Arc­tic” said Sam, one of the Santa’s. “With pre­dict­ed tem­per­a­ture ris­es, we’ll become refugees and the rein­deer are noto­ri­ous­ly fussy about where they live”.

Email — info@climatecampcymru.org

Notes:

· BT are linked to coal in the fol­low­ing way-BT own BT Pen­sion Scheme (BTPS) who in turn own a com­pa­ny called Her­mes who admin­is­ter the BT pen­sion fund. Her­mes bought the devel­op­ment group Argent (of Miller-Argent) who run the mine at Merthyr Tyd­fil.

· Ffos-y-Fran, locat­ed next to Merthyr Tyd­fil, is one of the biggest coal mines Wales has ever seen. Over the 15 year life­time of this new open­cast mine, more than 10.8 mil­lion tonnes of coal will be extract­ed. Burn­ing this will release 30 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere – at the same rate each year as the entire coun­try of Mozam­bique!

· Local peo­ple have been oppos­ing the mine for years. More than 10,000 peo­ple signed a peti­tion oppos­ing the mine. Despite this amaz­ing lev­el of oppo­si­tion, the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment, encour­aged by West­min­ster, gave the go-ahead to the mine.

· Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is Wales’ Camp for Cli­mate Action – inspired by the Cli­mate Camp move­ment tak­ing action on cli­mate change in the UK and world­wide. The Camp is com­mit­ted to edu­ca­tion, sus­tain­able liv­ing and sup­port­ing direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change.

· Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel there is – respon­si­ble for 50% of the CO2 added to the atmos­phere since the begin­ning of the indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion, and 40% of CO2 emis­sions glob­al­ly. Enough of it remains in the ground, if burned, to take us to a sub­stan­tial­ly dif­fer­ent plan­et from the one we know today — and which has exist­ed through­out all of human his­to­ry.

http://www.climatecampcymru.org

Minorca Opencast Protest Group

The Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group has been formed to oppose plans already sub­mit­ted by UK Coal plc for an Open­cast Coal Mine between Measham and Swep­stone in Leices­ter­shire, Eng­land. The appli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted in July 2009, but has yet to be decid­ed on by Leices­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil (as at 7/12/09).

Minorca Opencast Protest Group logoThe Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group has been formed to oppose plans already sub­mit­ted by UK Coal plc for an Open­cast Coal Mine between Measham and Swep­stone in Leices­ter­shire, Eng­land. The appli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted in July 2009, but has yet to be decid­ed on by Leices­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil (as at 7/12/09).

You can find out more about our cam­paign by log­ging on to:

http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/minorca-protest.html or http://mopg.co.uk/

Climate Camp sets up at Trafalgar Square

Update: The Camp will hold the space for the entire con­fer­ence, reclaim­ing one the busiest loca­tions in the world to push for gen­uine solu­tions to cli­mate change. So, if you’re not off to Copen­hagen then this is the place you need to be. Bring your tent, warm clothes, and ideas for action!

Decem­ber 05, 2009

with­in the first hour of occu­pa­tion, around 250 sup­port­ers arrived in the square and 20 tents estab­lished. many more are on their way. there are 2 giant manned tripods with the ‘cap­i­tal­ism is cri­sis’ ban­ner fly­ing between them. a yurt has been erect­ed as well as var­i­ous oth­er shel­ters, a kitchen, and stor­age area. the first wood fires are alight, and the mood is excit­ed and opti­mistic despite the damp con­di­tions. there’s a sound sys­tem for announce­ments and music, and the ‘rinky dinky’ sys­tem is mak­ing it’s way up from par­lia­ment square too.

climate camp in Trafalgar SquareUpdate: The Camp will hold the space for the entire con­fer­ence, reclaim­ing one the busiest loca­tions in the world to push for gen­uine solu­tions to cli­mate change. So, if you’re not off to Copen­hagen then this is the place you need to be. Bring your tent, warm clothes, and ideas for action!

Decem­ber 05, 2009

with­in the first hour of occu­pa­tion, around 250 sup­port­ers arrived in the square and 20 tents estab­lished. many more are on their way. there are 2 giant manned tripods with the ‘cap­i­tal­ism is cri­sis’ ban­ner fly­ing between them. a yurt has been erect­ed as well as var­i­ous oth­er shel­ters, a kitchen, and stor­age area. the first wood fires are alight, and the mood is excit­ed and opti­mistic despite the damp con­di­tions. there’s a sound sys­tem for announce­ments and music, and the ‘rinky dinky’ sys­tem is mak­ing it’s way up from par­lia­ment square too.

there is a full two days of work­shops and oth­er activ­i­ties planned, and vis­i­tors are wel­come to the square to find out what the issues and pos­si­ble solu­tions are.

Time­line

Groups cycled to Lon­don, stop­ping off spread­ing aware­ness about cli­mate change, such as Cli­mate Chains who came down from Leeds & else­where (more info here too)

What to bring
Sim­ple. Just a tent, warm and water­proof clothes. Oh, and all your friends!

Wish list
Veg­an food, blan­kets, tarps, pal­lets, party/frame tents, card­board,
ban­ners, big water bot­tles + any­thing else you think may be help­ful…

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Press release:

Hun­dreds of cli­mate activists have set up a Cli­mate Camp at Trafal­gar Square in the run up to the COP15 talks in Copen­hagen next week.(1)

The ‘COP out, Camp out’, organ­ised by a group of peo­ple who met at the Camp for Cli­mate Action in Black­heath this sum­mer (2), is tak­ing place after thou­sands of peo­ple marched through the cap­i­tal as part of ‘The Wave.’(3)

Tra­cy Wor­thy from the Camp for Cli­mate Action said: “We are here with the Par­lia­ment in view to high­light that the elit­ist and unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic talks in Copen­hagen are part of a polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tem that puts cor­po­rate prof­its before the needs of peo­ple. We need sys­tem change, not cli­mate change.”

“The false solu­tions being pushed in Copen­hagen, such as car­bon trad­ing, will not solve the cli­mate cri­sis. For the bankers, cor­po­ra­tions and politi­cians who brought us the finan­cial cri­sis, Copen­hagen is no more than busi­ness as usual.”(4)

The loca­tion of the camp was kept secret until the last minute, when the tar­get was announced through mass text-mes­sag­ing. The activists met up at Jubilee Gar­dens (out­side the Shell Build­ing) and marched on to Trafal­gar Square. Tra­cy Wor­thy com­ment­ed, “The camp will be a space for peo­ple to get inspired and pre­pared for tak­ing action dur­ing the COP15 talks.”

END

Con­tact: 07040 900 905
Pho­tos: 07909 020 847
press[@]climatecamp.org.uk

Glasgow Airport Terminal 2 branded unethical

2/12/2010
On the day the world’s lead­ers were to release their glob­al emis­sions tar­get, Plane Stu­pid Scot­land unveiled a new sign wel­com­ing peo­ple to Glas­gow Air­port. Giant let­ters read “T2 closed” and “Closed for Eth­i­cal Rethink”, point­ing to the increas­ing­ly air­port.

Glasgow Airport rebrand2/12/2010
On the day the world’s lead­ers were to release their glob­al emis­sions tar­get, Plane Stu­pid Scot­land unveiled a new sign wel­com­ing peo­ple to Glas­gow Air­port. Giant let­ters read “T2 closed” and “Closed for Eth­i­cal Rethink”, point­ing to the increas­ing­ly air­port.

The action is the first in a grow­ing cam­paign to keep Ter­mi­nal 2 shut for good. It was closed over the win­ter as a cost sav­ing mea­sure after pas­sen­ger num­bers fell by 11.3% to 7.2 mil­lion. Glas­gow air­port oper­ates a huge num­ber of short haul and domes­tic flights.

Local res­i­dents have had few­er sleep­less nights due to the decreased air traf­fic and the air­port’s emis­sions have also reduced from the 618,539 tonnes of Co2 it emit­ted in 2008 (although unsur­pris­ing­ly BAA won’t tell us by how much). This trend must con­tin­ue if we’re to meet our emis­sions tar­gets, or the “world’s great­est Cli­mate Change Bill” (copy­right Scot­tish Par­lia­ment) will become the world’s biggest embar­rass­ment.

Reg­gie Whit­tak­er, who lives by Glas­gow air­port explained: “T2 real­ly is plane stu­pid. It’s unsus­tain­able and unnec­es­sary.”

Lord Home’s mansion visited in solidarity with Mainshill

In the ear­ly hours of Sun­day 29th Novem­ber a group of autonomous activists caused embar­rass­ment to Lord Home, expos­ing his role in the pro­posed devel­op­ment of Main­shill Woods into and open cast coal mine. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

In the ear­ly hours of Sun­day 29th Novem­ber a group of autonomous activists caused embar­rass­ment to Lord Home, expos­ing his role in the pro­posed devel­op­ment of Main­shill Woods into and open cast coal mine. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

Lord Home was enter­tain­ing friends at his coun­try man­sion, almost cer­tain­ly before a day of grouse shoot­ing. In the dead of night, the activists deflat­ed tyres on all of the posh cars out­side the house, put super­glue on the wind­screens and left a sign on Home­’s lawn say­ing ‘No Open Cast’. The car pre­sumed to belong to Home­’s house­keep­er was left untouched.

Actions such as these are not mind­less acts of van­dal­ism but designed to embarass Lord Home into hav­ing to explain his blind pur­suit of prof­it and neglect of com­mu­ni­ty inter­est to his cronies. As well as draw­ing atten­tion to the fight to stop the open cast­ing of Main­shill, the action may con­ve­nient­ly also have put some of Home­’s mateys off going grouse shoot­ing again.

Another Successful Action-Packed Gathering at Mainshill Solidarity Camp

From Sat­ur­day 28th Nov – Tues 1st Dec there was anoth­er suc­cess­ful action-packed gath­er­ing at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. With activists trav­el­ing from all over the UK, around 55 peo­ple con­verged on the camp and spent the week­end solid­i­fy­ing old defences, work­ing on new ones and stop­ping the log­ging work on site.

From Sat­ur­day 28th Nov – Tues 1st Dec there was anoth­er suc­cess­ful action-packed gath­er­ing at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. With activists trav­el­ing from all over the UK, around 55 peo­ple con­verged on the camp and spent the week­end solid­i­fy­ing old defences, work­ing on new ones and stop­ping the log­ging work on site.

Har­vesters were stopped from chop­ping down trees and prepar­ing the ground for min­ing machin­ery on both Mon­day after­noon and Tues­day morn­ing. The har­vester dri­vers seemed hap­py to get a break and were friend­ly and chat­ty with the pro­tes­tors. There are now 3 har­vester machines work­ing on site rather than just the one which has been work­ing up until now, per­haps indi­cat­ing that the almost dai­ly actions to stop work have seri­ous­ly delayed the work of remov­ing trees at Main­shill in prepa­ra­tion for the mine.

Sat­ur­day night saw anoth­er leg­endary par­ty and gave every­one a chance to cel­e­brate some of the hard work done to solid­i­fy the defences in antic­i­pa­tion of an evic­tion. As well as all the work on defences, the com­mu­nal spaces were also improved with the instal­la­tion of a beau­ti­ful new burn­er in the com­mu­nal made espe­cial­ly for the camp and a lot of progress on the new kitchen exten­sion.

By Sun­day morn­ing there was news that an autonomous group of activists act­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the open cast­ing of Main­shill Wood had paid Lord Home a vis­it. Appar­ent­ly Home was at home down the road from the camp, win­ing and din­ing a group of chums, prob­a­bly in antic­i­pa­tion of a Sun­day of grouse shoot­ing. Reports on Indy­media state that “activists deflat­ed tyres on all of the posh ccars out­side the house, put super­glue on the wind­screens and left a sign on Home’s lawn say­ing ‘No Open Cast’.”

Climb­ing and bunker build­ing work­shops kept every­one busy on Sun­day as well as col­lect­ing wood to keep the camp going dur­ing these cold­er weeks. There was snow on Mon­day but every­one was in high spir­its after a real­ly good week­end of work.

Amazon mega dam delayed following protests

3 Decem­ber 2009

The go-ahead to build the Belo Monte hydro­elec­tric dam, planned for the Xin­gu riv­er in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, has been delayed fol­low­ing protests by Indi­ans and objec­tions by local and inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions.

Kayapo protests against dam3 Decem­ber 2009

The go-ahead to build the Belo Monte hydro­elec­tric dam, planned for the Xin­gu riv­er in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, has been delayed fol­low­ing protests by Indi­ans and objec­tions by local and inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions.

If con­struct­ed, the dam will be the third largest in the world, cost­ing over US$10 bil­lion, bring­ing more than 200,000 work­ers into the area and forc­ing an esti­mat­ed 20,000 peo­ple from their homes.

A large pro­por­tion of those dis­placed will be indige­nous peo­ples who have been liv­ing in the area for cen­turies. Nine mil­lion hectares of rain­for­est will be affect­ed.

The dam was con­demned because it vio­lates human rights and harms the envi­ron­ment, at a hear­ing on dams organ­ised by the Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Human Rights last month.

Kayapó Indi­ans togeth­er with 14 oth­er tribes par­tic­i­pat­ed in a week-long protest in Octo­ber.

After the protest, Indi­an rep­re­sen­ta­tives deliv­ered a let­ter to Pres­i­dent Lula in which they warned, ‘If the Gov­ern­ment decides to go ahead with the con­struc­tion of Belo Monte, we Indi­ans of the Xin­gu will com­mence a war.’

Although FUNAI, Brazil’s Indi­an Affairs agency, acknowl­edges the dam will have a neg­a­tive impact on indige­nous peo­ples, it has giv­en its go-ahead for the project.

The auc­tion when com­pa­nies will bid for con­tracts to build Belo Monte has been delayed owing to prob­lems in acquir­ing an envi­ron­men­tal licence for the project. If the licence is not grant­ed by Jan­u­ary, the con­struc­tion of the dam will be fur­ther post­poned, pos­si­bly until 2014.

On Tues­day, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and oth­ers affect­ed attend­ed a pub­lic hear­ing where the author­i­ties involved in the con­struc­tion of the dam spoke of its impacts. How­ev­er, no rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the gov­ern­ment bod­ies most close­ly linked to the project attend­ed. Anoth­er hear­ing was held yes­ter­day, fol­lowed by a protest by indige­nous lead­ers.

The Licens­ing Direc­tor and the Infra­struc­ture and Ener­gy Coor­di­na­tor of Brazil’s Envi­ron­ment Min­istry, key fig­ures in the Belo Monte case, announced their res­ig­na­tion on Tues­day.

For more infor­ma­tion about the Belo Monte dam see Inter­na­tion­al Rivers.

Read more about dams affect­ing oth­er indige­nous peo­ples around the world.

Resist Eviction of Kings Crescent Estate 12pm Thursday (London N4)

Resist the evic­tion of a com­mu­ni­ty squat­ting ini­tia­tive 12PM on THURSDAY 3rd of DECEMBER. They are call­ing for as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to assem­ble at our place from Wednes­day night onwards. Num­bers mean vic­to­ry!

Com­mu­ni­ty Squat­ting Project Under Threat

What’s Hap­pen­ing?:

Resist the evic­tion of a com­mu­ni­ty squat­ting ini­tia­tive 12PM on THURSDAY 3rd of DECEMBER. They are call­ing for as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to assem­ble at our place from Wednes­day night onwards. Num­bers mean vic­to­ry!

Com­mu­ni­ty Squat­ting Project Under Threat

What’s Hap­pen­ing?:

The com­mu­ni­ty squat­ting project has come under yet anoth­er attack from
Hack­ney Coun­cil and the Police, this time in the form of an Anti-Social
Behav­iour Clo­sure Order. These orders, usu­al­ly used to evict crack hous­es
from com­mu­ni­ties, give the police pow­ers to evict prop­er­ty by force and to
make it a crim­i­nal offence to return to the build­ing.
As some of you may be aware, squat­ting in this coun­try is not a crim­i­nal
offence. If the own­ers of the prop­er­ty (in this case, Hack­ney Coun­cil)
want to evict squat­ters it is seen as a dis­pute between two pri­vate
par­ties and they must get a court order through the civ­il courts.
The com­mu­ni­ty squat­ting project on green lanes was opened spec­tac­u­lar­ly a
month or so ago, when a large group of peo­ple descend­ed upon a par­tial­ly
emp­ty block of flats and col­lec­tive­ly occu­pied, defend­ed, fixed up and
final­ly allo­cat­ed hous­ing to those in the group who need­ed it. Many of the
peo­ple there were first-time squat­ters, includ­ing a migrant fam­i­ly (with a
new­born baby) who had been denied social hous­ing.
Hack­ney coun­cil are keen to stamp out this kind of organ­ised squat­ting.
The legal route is not open to us here — the courts have said they can­not
hear an appeal against the clo­sure order until after Thurs­day (when the
evic­tion is due to take place). The only way for us to defend this project
and our abil­i­ty to take sim­i­lar action in the future, is through good old
fash­ioned force of num­bers. See you there.

They are to be evict­ed 12PM on THURSDAY 3rd of DECEMBER and are call­ing for
as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to assem­ble at our place from Wednes­day night
onwards.

ADDRESS: Lems­ford Court, Brownswood Road, N4 2XN

MAP

DIRECTIONS
The Com­mu­ni­ty Squat­ting Project is just oppo­site the gates of Clis­sold
Park on Green Lanes (Stoke Newington/Finsbury Park area). It is a large
block of flats with a grey steel door to the left. Enter through this
door.