‘Mother Earth in climate crisis’ say indigenous people

12 May 2009
A state­ment by indige­nous rep­re­sen­ta­tives from around the world describes ‘Moth­er Earth (as) no longer in a peri­od of cli­mate change, but cli­mate cri­sis.’

12 May 2009
A state­ment by indige­nous rep­re­sen­ta­tives from around the world describes ‘Moth­er Earth (as) no longer in a peri­od of cli­mate change, but cli­mate cri­sis.’

The state­ment, known as the Anchor­age Dec­la­ra­tion, was released after indige­nous peo­ple from the Arc­tic, North Amer­i­ca, Asia, the Pacif­ic, Latin Amer­i­ca, Africa, the Caribbean and Rus­sia met in Anchor­age, Alas­ka for the ‘Indige­nous Peo­ples’ Glob­al Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change’.

‘We are deeply alarmed by the accel­er­at­ing cli­mate dev­as­ta­tion brought about by unsus­tain­able devel­op­ment,’ the Dec­la­ra­tion says. ‘We are expe­ri­enc­ing pro­found and dis­pro­por­tion­ate adverse impacts on our cul­tures, human and envi­ron­men­tal health, human rights, well-being, tra­di­tion­al liveli­hoods, food sys­tems and food sov­er­eign­ty, local infra­struc­ture, eco­nom­ic via­bil­i­ty, and our very sur­vival as Indige­nous Peo­ples.

‘Moth­er Earth is no longer in a peri­od of cli­mate change, but in cli­mate cri­sis. We there­fore insist on an imme­di­ate end to the destruc­tion and des­e­cra­tion of the ele­ments of life.’

The Dec­la­ra­tion lists four­teen spe­cif­ic calls for action. These include reduc­ing lev­els of glob­al car­bon emis­sions; indige­nous par­tic­i­pa­tion in cli­mate change debate; the recog­ni­tion of indige­nous peo­ples’ rights in schemes to ‘Reduce Emis­sions from Defor­esta­tion and Degra­da­tion’ (REDD); the aban­don­ment of ‘false solu­tions’ to cli­mate change such as nuclear ener­gy, ‘clean coal’ and agro­fu­els; the recog­ni­tion by gov­ern­ments of indige­nous peo­ples’ rights; and the return and restora­tion of ‘lands, ter­ri­to­ries, waters, forests, sea ice and sacred sites’ tak­en from indige­nous peo­ples by gov­ern­ments in the past.

The Dec­la­ra­tion ends with an offer to ‘share with human­i­ty our tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge… rel­e­vant to cli­mate change, pro­vid­ed our fun­da­men­tal rights… are ful­ly rec­og­nized and respect­ed. We reit­er­ate the urgent need for col­lec­tive action.’

Read the Anchor­age Dec­la­ra­tion

Rossport: 150 people attempt to take down Shell’s compound

On Sat­ur­day 9th May approx 150 S2S sup­port­ers both from across the coun­try and with­in the local com­mu­ni­ty have made a sus­tained effort to halt the ongo­ing work at the head of the pro­posed Shell pipeline at its site in Glen­gad. Peo­ple of all ages par­tic­pat­ed in the action, where ropes and chains where used to attempt to pull down the out­er fenc­ing of the site.

On Sat­ur­day 9th May approx 150 S2S sup­port­ers both from across the coun­try and with­in the local com­mu­ni­ty have made a sus­tained effort to halt the ongo­ing work at the head of the pro­posed Shell pipeline at its site in Glen­gad. Peo­ple of all ages par­tic­pat­ed in the action, where ropes and chains where used to attempt to pull down the out­er fenc­ing of the site. These effort have so far been repulsed by a very large secu­ri­ty oper­a­tion from both the state and pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm IRM secu­ri­ty. There is in excess of 150 gar­da, incud­ing the noto­ri­ous pub­lic order units. Most are post­ed and lined out at the out­side rear of the com­pound, com­pli­ment­ed on the inside by a fur­ther 100 hired hands IRM Secu­ri­ty

At present there have been some “arrests ” of sup­port­ers at tonight action so far. Fig­ures at present range from 6–8. These peo­ple are being phys­i­cal­ly detained but the cops are refus­ing to offi­cial­ly arrest them, or at least refus­ing to com­ment pub­li­cal­ly that the arrests have been made, and won’t tell observers which Gar­da sta­tion those detained are being tak­en to. Gar­da seem to be delib­er­ate tar­get­ing peo­ple from out­side the local area, and avoid­ing arrest­ing local mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty. It has been sug­gest­ed that this make much bet­ter media cov­er­age, no doubt some of which we will see in tomor­row papers. There is a prison van, the type used to car­ry pris­on­sers to court, inside the com­pound where Shell and secu­ri­ty staff work. Whilst there is move­ment of cops in and out of the van, it is unclear if peo­ple are being detained in it at the moment.

The sit­u­a­tion has been described by one sup­port­er as calm, though there are con­ti­n­ung skir­mish­es as peo­ple attempt to dis­rupt the ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sial and devi­sive work being car­ried out by Shell again­ist the wish­es of the local com­mu­ni­ty.

New protest camp at Rolls Royce Rayensway, Derby

9.05.2009
Pro­test­ers opposed to Tri­dent nuclear sub­marines have set up a camp across the road from Rolls Royce on the Rayensway in Der­by

Anti-nuke gas mask graffiti at Derby protest camp9.05.2009
Pro­test­ers opposed to Tri­dent nuclear sub­marines have set up a camp across the road from Rolls Royce on the Rayensway in Der­by

They have been there for a week and have only just been spot­ted by the police, which shows how poor the secu­ri­ty is tak­en at Rolls Royce Rayensway, a site that has a Nep­tune (nuclear) test reac­tor used to test the fuel reac­tiv­i­ty for the sub­marines engines which pow­ers the hunter fleet, which are equipped with tri­dent mis­siles. Ele­ments are also made at the man­u­fac­tur­ing site with enriched ura­ni­um and zircaloy RR has recent­ly gained con­tracts to build nuclear reac­tors for pow­er sta­tions

Pro­test­ers are want­i­ng Rolls Royce to phase out all nuclear activ­i­ties at the Rayensway plant with­in the next 5 years and move into work which is sus­tain­able and pro­vide and make pub­licly avail­able a com­pre­hen­sive evac­u­a­tion plan for peo­ple liv­ing and work­ing with­in a two mile radius of the fac­to­ry. This plan should be thor­ough­ly test­ed and eval­u­at­ed by the local coun­cil and emer­gency ser­vices.

What you can do

Get down to the camp and show your sup­port tree hous­es are already in place and we are work­ing on a com­mu­ni­ty space, there is plen­ty of room as the site is locat­ed on the old Ram Are­na, the old train­ing ground for Der­by’s foot­ball team so there is an over­grown foot­ball size patch for tents, as well as an old gym which has nice graf­fi­ti all of which are under a sec­tion 6 notice (right to squat) the site backs on to a fork off the riv­er Der­went and is full of wildlife and trees.

Although we have no spe­cif­ic requests for tat at the moment but climb­ing gear and the usu­al stuff is always need­ed

The police are aware of the site and so far have been polite and min­i­mal num­bers (solo cop) and seem to be vis­it­ing once a day

The site is easy to get to by fol­low­ing the riv­er foot­paths for Alvas­ton form the city cen­tre, look out for the peace signs

The loca­tion of the site is between point A and the sign A5111 on the right hand side of the road on the Google map
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Raynesway,+Derby,+Derby,+United+Kingdom&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=9.040008,27.070313&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FSNNJwMd_irq_w&split=0&ll=52.903415,-1.431656&spn=0.018016,0.052872&z=14

Google street view of the entrance http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?utm_campaign=en_GB&utm_medium=ha&utm_source=en_GB-ha-emea-gb-bk-gm&utm_term=road

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it Tri­dent Ploughshares
http://www.tridentploughshares.org/index.php3

More pho­tos

Wonthaggi Protest highlights Desalination Issue for Melbourne, Australia

One per­son was arrest­ed when pro­test­ers car­ry­ing two ban­ners walked onto the Desali­na­tion Plant pro­posed site near Won­thag­gi on May 9. The occa­sion was a ral­ly at the gates of the pro­posed site organ­ised by Water­shed Vic­to­ria and Mel­bourne sup­port­ers.

Wonthaggi protest

One per­son was arrest­ed when pro­test­ers car­ry­ing two ban­ners walked onto the Desali­na­tion Plant pro­posed site near Won­thag­gi on May 9. The occa­sion was a ral­ly at the gates of the pro­posed site organ­ised by Water­shed Vic­to­ria and Mel­bourne sup­port­ers.

Pho­tos on Flickr | Action: Get Real on Cli­mate Change | FoE

“Last chance to have your say – if you build it, we won’t pay”

For over two years, anti-desal cam­paign­ers have organ­ised ral­lies, meet­ings, film show­ings, debates and brief­in­gs, out­lin­ing the real costs of this project and putting for­ward the prac­ti­cal alter­na­tives to an ener­gy guz­zling desali­na­tion plant on the Bass Coast. Despite the spi­ralling costs of the pilot plant itself, the scarci­ty of data, crit­i­cism of the project from experts inside and out­side the gov­ern­ment, as well as doubts about financ­ing the project, the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to push ahead.

The Desali­na­tion Plant is beng designed to sup­ply 150 Gigal­itres per year for the Mel­bourne water sup­ply and will be man­aged and oper­at­ed through a pub­lic ‑pri­vate part­ner­ship (PPP) being extoled by the Brum­by Labor Gov­ern­ment. But many experts say deslaina­tion should be the solu­tion of last resort as it involves huge amount of (CO2 pol­lut­ng) pow­er, and gen­er­ates tonnes of sol­id waste and brine sludge which is pumped back out to sea where it can affect the coastal marine envi­ron­ment.

Alter­na­tive sources for water include recy­cled puri­fied water from treat­ment plants (110 GL/y), stormwa­ter cap­ture (50 GL/y), rain­wa­ter tanks (25 GL/y), Flood Diver­sion (20 GL/y), and instal­la­tion of dual flush cis­terns (15 GL/y) all of which could be done for a frac­tion of the cost of a desali­na­tion plant.

The pro­posed Desal plant at Won­thag­gi will cause 1.18 — 1.57 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon emis­sion equiv­a­lent to 365,000 extra cars on the road, dis­charge 8,800 litres of brine per sec­ond just 500 metres off the beau­ti­ful Bass coast, suck in and kill 380,000 small organ­isms per sec­ond into the plant. Oper­a­tion of the plant will be for prof­it by a multi­na­tion­al infra­struc­ture com­pa­ny, most like­ly Veo­lia who already run the Mel­bourne train sys­tem as Con­nex. The cost (and prof­its) of the plant will be passed on to con­sumers through increas­es in water rates. The peo­ple of Mel­bourne will pay!

In March Fed­er­al Evi­ron­ment min­is­ter Peter Gar­rett gave con­di­tion­al approval of the desali­na­tion plant in Vic­to­ria. Cam Walk­er from Fiends of the Earth crit­i­cised the min­is­te­r­i­al deci­sion say­ing “we believe that his assess­ment is flawed because it is based on infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the pro­jec­t’s pro­po­nent rather than inde­pen­dent stud­ies,” he said. He also raised that the deci­sion does not relate to or con­sid­er the full impacts on species that are not fed­er­al­ly list­ed. “In par­tic­u­lar there are seri­ous con­cerns about the impacts on marine life posed by the plant, includ­ing to whale pop­u­la­tions, which are not addressed in the Minister’s deci­sion. Cam Walk­er said in a news release: Gar­rett fails Vic­to­ria on desali­na­tion plant approval.

The coastal zone and beach­es near­by are a pop­u­lar fish­ing spot that will be effectve­ly ruined. The efflu­ent pipe for the con­cen­trat­ed brine will only take the sludge 500 metres out to sea to destroy the ecol­o­gy of the rocky reef envi­ron­ment, when it should be extend­ed 2 to 3 kilo­me­tres out to sea where the brine can be ade­quate­ly dis­persed by the cur­rents in Bass Strait.

The Bunurong Land Coun­cil is con­cerned over the destrac­tion of abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al sites. Steve Comp­ton, Cul­tur­al Offi­cer with the Bunurong Land Coun­cil told the ral­ly “Some of those sites on the prop­er­ty are the largest sites in the Bass Coast region … So basi­cal­ly the Bunurong com­mu­ni­ty have asked me to say to you guys that they’re dead against the Desal. There is bet­ter options for get­ting water like putting rain­wa­ter tanks in Mel­bourne. Basi­cal­ly bug­ger off and leave the coast alone and stop try­ing to dish out big loads of mon­ey to for­eign multi­na­tion­als.” (Youtube Video Report: Bunurong peo­ple Oppose Desali­na­tion Plant)

Gareth Bar­low, a coun­cil­lor from Bass Coast Shire Coun­cil spoke about the coun­cil’s long stand­ing oppo­si­tion to the devel­op­ment. Bass Coast State MP for the Lib­er­al Par­ty spoke of his oppo­si­tion to the plant, while acknowl­edg­ing that the Lib­er­als had pro­posed a small­er State owned Desali­na­tion plant at the last elec­tion which he had sup­port­ed.

Anton from the Clean Ocean Foun­da­tion high­light­ed the amount of water wast­ed in Mel­bourne from the East­ern Treat­ment Plant and Gun­na­mat­ta out­fall and from stormwa­ter runoff. (Youtube Video Report: Desal plant for Mel­bourne what a Waste)

Cam Walk­er from Friends of the Earth came down from Mel­bourne and spoke about the grow­ing dis­qui­et in the Mel­bourne sub­urbs on the Desali­na­tion Plant being pushed by the Brum­by Labor Gov­ern­ment, and the need for more grass­roots activism on water issues in Mel­bourne.

There were also speak­ers who out­lined the rea­sons for oppo­si­tion to the Desali­na­tion Plant for Mel­bourne and its sit­ng near Won­thag­gi. (Youtube Video Report: Why you should oppose a Desali­na­tion plant for Mel­bourne)

A speak­er also cov­ered the prospects and back­ground of Infra­struc­ture com­pa­ny Veo­lia who looks like­ly to be the only pri­vate con­tender for man­ag­ing the plant under a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship. Veo­li­a’s record in water man­age­ment (they are also known as Viven­di) leaves much to be desired with com­mu­ni­ty protests and out­rage for their water man­age­ment and pric­ing prac­tices. (Youtube Video Report: Veo­lia set to run the Won­thag­gi Desali­na­tion Plant sup­ply­ing water to Mel­bourne)

Just as the speak­ers were fin­ish­ing two groups of peo­ple entered the exclu­sion zone of the pilot plant near the dunes to dis­play ban­ners. (Youtube Video report — Pro­tes­tors enter Desal plant exclu­sion zone) One per­son was arrest­ed in the walkon, and was escort­ed back to the ral­ly where he was released after show­ing the police iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. The ban­ners said “Fuck off Brum­by” and “Desal Costs the Earth”.

Songs were sun to pop­u­lar tunes at the ral­ly Oppos­ing the Desali­na­tion plant near Won­thag­gi. (Youtube Video Report: Desal Song: We don’t want to swim in your chem­i­cals)

Lots of police were brought from around the region to “pro­tect” the pilot plant, as well as the pres­ence of pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny employ­ees, but in con­trast to Mel­bourne protests the police were pret­ty friend­ly. I guess they are part of the local com­mu­ni­ty and prob­a­bly know many of the peo­ple opposed to the plant. Indeed, some of the police prob­a­bly also dis­agree with the plant being built.

Panama: Campesinos arrested over gold mine

June 5, 2009

Late last month, a group of demon­stra­tors were vio­lent­ly arrest­ed by police at a road­block in the north­ern Pana­man­ian province of Cocle.

June 5, 2009

Late last month, a group of demon­stra­tors were vio­lent­ly arrest­ed by police at a road­block in the north­ern Pana­man­ian province of Cocle.

The road­block was first set up on May 9, 2009 to resist the Petaquil­la Gold mine project, which is owned by the Pana­ma com­pa­ny Min­era Petaquil­la, and devel­oped by two oth­ers: the Van­cou­ver-based junior com­pa­ny, Petaquil­la Min­er­als and the Toron­to-based com­pa­ny, Inmet Min­ing.

As a many as 24 local com­mu­ni­ties are opposed to the project because of the “aber­rant pre­da­tion and destruc­tion of the Mesoamer­i­can Bio­log­i­cal Cor­ri­dor, where hun­dreds of hectares of vir­gin jun­gle and for­est have been cut down, and where the moun­tain pass­es and rivers that made the area one of the most impor­tant in the world due to its rich bio­di­ver­si­ty have been destroyed and pol­lut­ed,” notes a May 14 report by La Estrel­la.

The com­mu­ni­ties also say “they have nev­er been con­sult­ed, but rather deceived, and their lands have been tak­en from them unfair­ly in many ways, includ­ing the destruc­tion and burn­ing of ranch­es of indige­nous peo­ples, with­out even indem­ni­fy­ing the local res­i­dents and with­out any author­i­ty of the PRD gov­ern­ment ful­fill­ing its con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion to defend the com­mu­ni­ties.”

Also report­ing on the arrests, La Estrel­la says 12 demon­stra­tors were arrest­ed in total (oth­er reports say it was 30 demon­stra­tors), “among them the Chiriqui envi­ron­men­tal­ist Car­menci­ta Ted­man. A peas­ant who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said that he was real­ly afraid, because police­men were hit­ting the pro­tes­tors mer­ci­less­ly, even women and chil­dren. He added that when all this was hap­pen­ing Petaquil­la Gold heli­copters were sur­vey­ing the scene.”

The police used rods, and shot pel­lets and tear gas to sub­due the demon­stra­tors.

For back­ground on the Petaquil­la Gold mine and local efforts to stop it, vis­it miningwatch.ca

EUROFLASHMOB: EUROPE UNITED AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION

Sat­ur­day 16 May 2009. The day of the Euro­vi­sion Song Con­test.
12 noon on the dot at Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 1 Depar­tures.
www.euroflashmob.com.

Join Heathrow Flash­mob­bers in a Europe-wide Flash Mob – tak­ing place on the same day at 6 air­ports across Europe.

Euroflashmob logoSat­ur­day 16 May 2009. The day of the Euro­vi­sion Song Con­test.
12 noon on the dot at Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 1 Depar­tures.
www.euroflashmob.com.

Join Heathrow Flash­mob­bers in a Europe-wide Flash Mob – tak­ing place on the same day at 6 air­ports across Europe.

Flash Heathrow! Flash Paris! Flash Frank­furt! Flash Schipol! Flash Brus­sels! Flash Dublin!

Each flash­mob will be singing Euro­vi­sion clas­sics (song-sheets pro­vid­ed), so down­load your favourite euro­vi­sion song onto your ipod or phone and bring your friends, instru­ments, hats, wigs, and your danc­ing shoes and let’s par­ty.

Now for the seri­ous bit: air­port expan­sion is seri­ous­ly bad for local peo­ple, increased noise, air pol­lu­tion, and espe­cial­ly the cli­mate. The avi­a­tion indus­try want to expand air­ports across the UK and Europe, but oppo­si­tion is huge, and the sci­en­tists are telling us we have to dras­ti­cal­ly cut emis­sions if we are to beat cli­mate change. Flash­mobs are a fun way to high­light the real oppo­si­tion there is to expan­sion at air­ports across Europe. Here’s anoth­er big chance to show our oppo­si­tion to a 3rd run­way at Heathrow.

See you in Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 1 Depar­tures at 12 noon on the dot!

Tell BAA to get in tune: No Third Run­way.

www.euroflashmob.com

Perenco and armed forces break indigenous blockade (Peru)

6 May 2009
A gun­boat belong­ing to Peru’s armed forces has bro­ken through an Indi­an riv­er block­ade in the north­ern Peru­vian Ama­zon.

anti-Perenco crossed spears6 May 2009
A gun­boat belong­ing to Peru’s armed forces has bro­ken through an Indi­an riv­er block­ade in the north­ern Peru­vian Ama­zon.

The gun­boat, togeth­er with at least one boat belong­ing to Anglo-French oil com­pa­ny Peren­co, broke the block­ade at 5:15 am on 4 May. The block­ade, organ­ised by local indige­nous peo­ple, is on the Napo riv­er, one of the main trib­u­taries of the Ama­zon.

Peru’s indige­nous organ­i­sa­tion, AIDESEP, con­demned the use of a boat belong­ing to the armed forces, describ­ing it as a ‘use and abuse of their pow­er’. The block­ade forms part of Ama­zon-wide protests by Peru’s indige­nous peo­ple against gov­ern­ment poli­cies and the inva­sion of their ter­ri­to­ries by multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies. The protests have been going on for almost a month.

Peren­co holds the licence to work in a remote part of Peru known as Lot 67, acces­si­ble via the Napo Riv­er. It is an area inhab­it­ed by at least two of the world’s last uncon­tact­ed tribes – the com­pa­ny is under increas­ing pres­sure to with­draw from the project.

Less than a fort­night ago Perenco’s chair­man, Fran­cois Per­ro­do, met Peru’s pres­i­dent, Alan Gar­cia, in the pres­i­den­tial palace in Lima, pledg­ing to invest US$2 bil­lion in Lot 67. Just days lat­er the gov­ern­ment passed a law declar­ing Perenco’s work a ‘nation­al neces­si­ty’.

SmashEDO protest in Brighton — links to timelines

May Day, 4th May 2009: Hun­dreds of peo­ple from all over the coun­try met in Brighton today to protest against the war, cap­i­tal­ism, and the arms trade.

Smash EDO Mayday 1Smash EDO Mayday 2Smash EDO Mayday 3May Day, 4th May 2009: Hun­dreds of peo­ple from all over the coun­try met in Brighton today to protest against the war, cap­i­tal­ism, and the arms trade. Organ­ised by the Smash EDO move­ment, which for years has been cam­paign­ing against the EDO/ITT weapons fac­to­ry based in Brighton, the protest start­ed off very peace­ful­ly and remained gen­er­al­ly pos­i­tive through­out the day.

After meet­ing by the Palace Pier, the protest moved through the cen­tre of Brighton cheer­ing and chant­i­ng. Four young anar­chists climbed to the top of the Bar­clays build­ing, where they hung a ban­ner read­ing “Arms Deal­ers Out Of Brighton’. Bar­clays is noto­ri­ous for being one of the banks most com­plic­it in the inter­na­tion­al arms trade. The peo­ple respon­si­ble for the ban­ner were wel­comed into the crowd as heroes, and avoid­ed arrest.

After pass­ing peace­ful­ly past the Clock tow­er, down Queens Road and through North Laine, the protest clashed with police on Lon­don Road. A heavy police pres­ence blocked part of the road out­side McDon­alds, and minor scuf­fles quick­ly esca­lat­ed as mount­ed and riot police forced through crowds to pro­tect the build­ing. A smoke-bomb lit by pro­test­ers, com­bined with a push for­ward from mount­ed police, fright­ened shop­pers and near­ly split the protest in two.

From then on, the protest became a game of cat-and-mouse — although it was some­times hard to tell who was the cat and who the mouse. Pro­test­ers man­aged to force back mount­ed police sev­er­al times, while police hasti­ly re-grouped around the protest as it moved into res­i­den­tial dis­tricts and through Pre­ston Park. How­ev­er, nei­ther pro­test­ers nor police seemed to have a plan as such, and after much walk­ing and a few minor scuf­fles — includ­ing the arrest of one man by riot police — the protest moved back into the town cen­tre.

On the seafront, for the first time in the day the police attempt­ed to ‘ket­tle’ pro­test­ers by sur­round­ing them on all sides. How­ev­er, pro­test­ers quick­ly skirt­ed down onto the beach and back onto the road behind police lines. The protest moved on peace­ful­ly and, after more skirt­ing through nar­row lanes and mov­ing around police lines, set­tled on the grass out­side St. Peter’s Church to dance and relax.

http://www.smashedo.org.uk/

Time­lines:

Indy­media
The Brighton & Hove Argus

Last Hours twit­ter

Shell compound in glengad is currently being removed and Remove Shell’s Illegal Fences — National Day of Action 9 May — CALL OUT

May 3, 2009
Direct action against Shell in Mayo

Glengad fence pulling down 2Glengad fence pulling down 1May 3, 2009
Direct action against Shell in Mayo
Around 100 mem­bers of the Erris com­mu­ni­ty are cur­rent­ly remov­ing shel­l’s ille­gal fenc­ing in Glen­gadd. Whilst some peo­ple have locked onto the fence more have thrown ropes over oth­er sec­tions of the fence and are attempt­ing to pull the pal­lisade fenc­ing down. The pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm IRMS (with links to euro­pean fas­cists) have a heavy pres­ence and are attempt­ing to cut the ropes.
A gar­da pres­ence is start­ing to assem­ble. The mood is pos­i­tive.

This is the third time in ten days Shel­l’s com­pound has faced direct action from the com­mu­ni­ty

—-

Sat­ur­day 9th May, 2009 at 6pm — Day of Action — Sup­port Need­ed to Remove Shell Fences from Glen­gad.

Tear­ing Down the Bar­ri­cades
This is a Call Out from the unit­ed com­mu­ni­ty of Erris Co Mayo to all our nation­al and inter­na­tion­al sup­port­ers, ask­ing you to come to Glen­gad this com­ing Sat­ur­day 9th May at 6pm in the evening, on a Day of Action to help us remove Shel­l’s ille­gal fences from the area.

As you know, Shell returned to Glen­gad with fences and machin­ery on Wednes­day 22nd April, with force and vio­lence. Since then there have been a num­ber of attempts at remov­ing the fences and stop­ping the work, with a mix­ture of fail­ure and suc­cess.

As you can see from the pho­tos and footage below, the will is clear­ly there to fight Shell, in spite of the fact that large num­bers of Shell secu­ri­ty and Gar­dai have been draft­ed into the area. But what is also clear is that num­bers are need­ed to achieve suc­cess. Num­bers, Peo­ple, Bod­ies. That means you. Please come.

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Con­tact Details: Phone 085 1141170 or email ross­port­sol­i­dar­i­ty­camp (at) gmail (dot) com
By way of back­ground to the cur­rent mood in Erris, let’s remind our­selves of 2 key recent events.

In the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day 13rd April, Shell mer­ce­nar­ies vicious­ly attacked Willie Cor­duff with­in the con­fines of the Shell com­pound.

On Thurs­day 30th April at a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing with Min­is­ters Eamon Ryan and Eamon O’Cuiv, peo­ple realised that try­ing to ‘talk’ to these guys was a fruit­less exer­cise. There were calls from all cor­ners of the com­mu­ni­ty for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, the phys­i­cal stop­ping of the project and the tak­ing of the ‘law into our own hands’, when the min­is­ters refused to invite Shell to pull back to allow breath­ing space to resolve the con­flict.

This is seri­ous stuff. The mood in Erris now is that peo­ple are will­ing to pay any price to Stop Shell, and to take action accord­ing­ly.

But we need sup­port, in num­bers, to achieve the crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple required to be effec­tive. To be effec­tive in pulling down Shell fences in order to remove them.

This protest is about tak­ing direct action against the Shell machine and remov­ing it from Glen­gad.

The pic­tures and footage includ­ed in this arti­cle, which show local peo­ple attempt­ing to remove fences today, demon­strate that Action has begun in earnest this Spring and will con­tin­ue in the com­ing weeks and months. But it’s going to be a bat­tle, when faced, like today, with strong fences and large num­bers of Shell secu­ri­ty and Gar­dai. A sim­i­lar attempt was made last Fri­day by mem­bers of the local com­mu­ni­ty which includ­ed Pobal Le Cheile, Pobal Cill Chomain, the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and Shell to Sea, but num­bers were lim­it­ed. All groups agreed, at a meet­ing on the ground, that a Nation­al Day of Action next Sat­ur­day 9th May was required to build momen­tum. That is why local peo­ple are call­ing for sup­port, in num­bers, to build strength against the show of force against us.

The weath­er is improv­ing steadi­ly and The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is being rebuilt near the shore. Peo­ple are wel­come to come and stay at the camp or the camp house. Phone 085 1141170 or email ross­port­sol­i­dar­i­ty­camp (at) gmail (dot) com

Join us in tak­ing action against Shell. Don’t come emp­ty-hand­ed. Please spread the word amongst your friends, groups and net­works.

See you in Glen­gad.

http://www.shelltosea.com

Camp Bling announces ‘the end’ as road scheme stopped.

Press release:

Camp Bling ‘Save Pri­o­ry Park!’ road cam­paign

Thurs­day 30th April 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

—————————————————————————————

Camp Bling announces ‘the end’ as road scheme stopped.

Press release:

Camp Bling ‘Save Pri­o­ry Park!’ road cam­paign

Thurs­day 30th April 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

—————————————————————————————

Camp Bling announces ‘the end’ as road scheme stopped.

Long run­ning road protest and counter-cul­tur­al cam­paign site Camp Bling, based in the mid­dle of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, is set to be decom­mis­sioned by the sum­mer, after the long await­ed announce­ment that the con­tro­ver­sial Pri­o­ry Cres­cent road widen­ing has now offi­cial­ly been can­celled. (1)

Mem­bers of the camp met with Coun­cil lead­ers last night with a view to resolv­ing the sit­u­a­tion, after the pub­li­ca­tion of an open let­ter from Trans­port Coun­cil­lor Anna Waite, stat­ing that £5m in cen­tral gov­ern­ment fund­ing would be spent sole­ly on the Cuck­oo Cor­ner round­about, with pos­si­ble junc­tion improve­ments — but no widen­ing — to fol­low at the Prit­tle Brook indus­tri­al site at a lat­er date. (2)

As a result, cam­paign­ers intend to hon­our their pub­lic pledge to clear and vacate the camp, now that their objec­tive to stop the road has been met com­plete­ly. It is expect­ed that it will take a num­ber of weeks to ful­ly return the East Sax­on king’s bur­ial to its for­mer con­di­tion, with all struc­tures and mate­ri­als on the site to be removed by the group, with the objec­tive of incur­ring no cost to the local tax­pay­er.

Speak­ing from the camp Gin­ger said, ‘We would like to thank each and every one of the peo­ple who have been involved, not just with Camp Bling, but also with the ongo­ing cam­paign which ran from 2001 in oppo­si­tion to the scheme. It’s not every day that you get to be part of an effort to stop a £25m road widen­ing, with the added oppor­tu­ni­ty to warn peo­ple of the cul­mi­na­tion of envi­ron­men­tal and social crises that we now all face.’

‘For many of us this has been our first taste of an alter­na­tive, low­er impact, and more com­pas­sion­ate lifestyle. We have shared our expe­ri­ences — both good and bad — along the way, and often got peo­ple to acknowl­edge the real choic­es that we all have. It is time for every­one to con­front real­i­ty, as west­ern indus­tri­al soci­ety con­tin­ues to over­shoot the eco­log­i­cal lim­its of the Earth.’ (3)

Peo­ple are still wel­come to vis­it the camp whilst decom­mis­sion­ing is under­way, and are also encour­aged to check out some of the alter­na­tives at: www.campbling.org

—————————————————————————————

ENDS.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

(1) Camp Bling was first set up by local activists on 23rd Sep­tem­ber 2005. For more info about both the camp, and the long run­ning cam­paign, go to: www.campbling.org

(2) See full con­tents of let­ter at: http://www.southend.gov.uk/news/default.asp?id=2835

(3) Cli­mate, Peak Oil, Over­pop­u­la­tion, Mass Extinc­tion, Over­con­sump­tion, etc.

Camp Bling ‘Save Pri­o­ry Park!’ road cam­paign
www.campbling.org

Con­tact Camp Bling direct­ly on 07866 967601

Or e‑mail camp.bling@yahoo.co.uk