Leeds Social Centre in court next week

This arti­cle was writ­ten by vol­un­teers at the Leeds-Brad­ford Inde­pen­dent Media Cen­tre fol­low­ing inter­views with vol­un­teers from The Com­mon Place, Leeds’ rad­i­cal, autonomous social cen­tre.

This arti­cle was writ­ten by vol­un­teers at the Leeds-Brad­ford Inde­pen­dent Media Cen­tre fol­low­ing inter­views with vol­un­teers from The Com­mon Place, Leeds’ rad­i­cal, autonomous social cen­tre.

The Com­mon­Place is a social cen­tre locat­ed in Leeds, accom­mo­dat­ing a broad range of com­mu­ni­ty groups. The Com­mon­Place has been open since 2005 when it received fund­ing to estab­lish a com­mu­ni­ty resource in cen­tral Leeds. Since then, it has been entire­ly vol­un­teer run. Despite hav­ing no wages to pay, The Com­mon­Place pays rent and bills just like any oth­er city cen­tre venue. More recent­ly, The Com­mon­Place has been financed by bar sales at com­mu­ni­ty ori­en­tat­ed club­nights, sup­ple­ment­ed by mem­ber­ship sub­scrip­tions and dona­tions. With­out income from the bar, they would be forced to close per­ma­nent­ly.

As a demo­c­ra­t­ic club, all major deci­sions are made at a gen­er­al meet­ing, open to all mem­bers.

At the end of July 2008, The Com­mon­Place has its Club Premis­es Cer­tifi­cate (license) with­drawn by Leeds City Coun­cil (LCC), under Sec­tion 90 of the Licens­ing Act 2003. The club believe this was unfair and are appeal­ing to have the licence rein­stat­ed. The Com­mon­Place can­not dis­cuss the specifics of the appeal process at this time due to legal rea­sons: They are keen for their sto­ry to be told in due course.

The Com­mon­Place has met with LCC twice in court (30th Sep­tem­ber, 28th Octo­ber), also del­e­gates of The Com­mon­Place met with the Licens­ing depart­ment on 15th Decem­ber 2008 with a view to resolv­ing mat­ters. On each occa­sion The Com­mon­Place has tried to deal with the coun­cil’s con­cerns in order to regain the orig­i­nal license.

A vol­un­teer from The Com­mon­Place said, “We were sor­ry to hear after our last meet­ing with them, that they did­n’t want to talk to us again before the hear­ing.” The appeal is due to be heard on 22nd to 26th Jan­u­ary 2009 at Leeds Mag­is­trates’ Court.

Anoth­er vol­un­teer, from the Bar Com­mit­tee said, “We’re puz­zled by how much inter­est the Police have shown since we’ve nev­er had any trou­ble or arrests when we’ve been putting on a night here … we just want to get things back to nor­mal.”

The Com­mon­Place are adamant that they are a mem­bers club, and that LCC have with­drawn this license wrong­ly; The Com­mon­Place is grate­ful for the con­tin­u­ing sup­port of mem­bers, donors and over 1000 Leeds res­i­dents who have signed a peti­tion in sup­port. To be kept informed, please see www.thecommonplace.org.uk where there are also instruc­tions on join­ing the mail­ing list and get­ting involved as a mem­ber.

Protests against beginning Airport extension in Frankfurt/Germany

13.01.2009
+++The Own­er of the Frank­furt Air­port, Fra­port, start­ed today the exten­sion of the air­port to build a new runway+++woodcamp still exists+++more than a hun­dred peo­ple on a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion in the wood

13.01.2009
+++The Own­er of the Frank­furt Air­port, Fra­port, start­ed today the exten­sion of the air­port to build a new runway+++woodcamp still exists+++more than a hun­dred peo­ple on a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion in the wood

Frank­furt Air­port is the biggest ger­man air­port and one of the biggest in europe. Some may remem­ber the fierce con­tro­ver­sies in the 1980s when a new run­way was built (known as “Start­bahn 18 West”, in those times more than 30.000 peo­ple gath­ered in the wood to fight against the exten­sion an police bru­tal­i­ty). Now the own­er of the air­port, the Fra­port cor­po­ra­tion, wants to build a new run­way because they think they need more capac­i­ties to com­pete against the oth­er euro­pean air­ports. The new run­way will be in the north-side of the Frank­furt Air­port, in the for­est of Kel­ster­bach.

After Fra­port began on Tues­day to fence the for­est of Kel­ster­bach in, the day X chain alarm was trig­gered. The fence is the first build­ing in the for­est and serves to lim­it and even­tu­al­ly clo­sure of the for­est area, which the Fra­port wants to be cleared until the end of Feb­ru­ary. The for­est area is only trans­ferred in the pos­ses­sion of Fra­port since yes­ter­day. Before the fence was set­up, one hun­dred cops searched the area for pro­tes­tors. The Hüt­ten­dorf (pro­tes­tors camp) itself has not yet been affect­ed by the fenc­ing.

Already in the morn­ing police showed up in the Hüt­ten­dorf and the camp was searched. The search­es can be under­stood as part of a prepa­ra­tion for the evic­tion to be, because the police sur­veyed some areas and made the pho­tographs. After the search offi­cers in vehi­cles and on foot patroled through the adja­cent for­est.

At the same time dif­fer­ent engi­neer­ing firms began under the sur­veil­lance of hun­dred vops with mea­sure­ments and the fenc­ing in of the wood-area, which will be cleared first. The com­pa­ny signs of the vehi­cles were cov­ered. The con­struc­tion work­ers etah­b­lished a 200-meter fence.

By 18 o’ clock more than a hun­dred peo­ple came toge­hter to a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion in the wood. The demon­stra­tion went with flares to the point, whre the fence was built, there are rumours, which say the fence was part­ly dis­man­tled. Con­stant sur­veil­lance of the fence was not evi­dent and the police had dis­ap­peared from the for­rest.

Accord­ing to media reports, Fra­port will wait with the clear­ing of the 300-hectare piece of wood long enough to wait until the Hes­s­ian admin­is­tra­tion court has decid­ed an urgent appeal of the vil­lage of Kel­ster­bach the air­port expan­sion. But Fra­port will start to fell the trees soon, because due to ger­man “ecol­o­gy” law they are only allowed to fell trees until the begin­ning of march.

For an accu­rate assess­ment of events please vis­it in the com­ing days the Inter­net sites of www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de or www.flughafen-bi.de

It the com­ing days there will be fur­ther actions. Tomor­row at 18 clock some ini­tia­tives (envi­ron­men­tal­ist, social groups, antifas­cists) will demon­strate togeth­er against the pol­i­tics in Hesse (thats the fed­er­al state Frank­furt is in and which politi­cians did decide to allow the air­port exten­sion) in Frank­furt.

Next Sat­ur­day there will be a demon­stra­tion at the air­port.

The resis­tance against the air­port expan­sion will not be finnished with the build­ing of the fence, not with the grub­bing-up, not with the evac­u­a­tion of the “Hüt­ten­dorf” — We will con­tin­ue to resist the air­port as a cli­mate killer, as a source of noise and envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion as well as an impor­tant ele­ment of Euro­pean racist fore­clo­sure sys­tem.

The fence will fall — Smash Fra­port!

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with and greet­ings to Cli­mate rush — Stop air­port exten­sions world­wide!

http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de/english-information/

More arrests in Tasmanian forest destruction

JAN 14, 2008: A camp set up by con­ser­va­tion­ists almost three years ago was bro­ken up by police on Mon­day morn­ing at the request of Forestry Tas­ma­nia which wants to start log­ging.

JAN 14, 2008: A camp set up by con­ser­va­tion­ists almost three years ago was bro­ken up by police on Mon­day morn­ing at the request of Forestry Tas­ma­nia which wants to start log­ging.

A pro­test­er who locked him­self in a spi­der­hole tun­nel for over 30 hours has been charged with tres­pass in Hobart. The activist was one of a group attempt­ing to stop Forestry Tas­ma­nia build­ing a road into a log­ging coupe in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley.

Two oth­er men have also been charged after try­ing to enter the same tun­nel. A Queens­land woman was also arrest­ed after evad­ing police ear­li­er by climb­ing high­er up a tree as they used a cher­ry-pick­er to bring her down.

Four pro­test­ers remain in tree-sits as more peo­ple arrived to sup­port activists who have been liv­ing in the area. Still Wild Still Threat­ened say 150 peo­ple have gath­ered for a com­mu­ni­ty walk through the area in sup­port of pro­test­ers who are try­ing to stop a log­ging road.

“The com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who are out in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley in defence of our old growth forests will be attempt­ing to get into this exclu­sion zone by any means so they can wit­ness the ongo­ing destruc­tion of our old growth forests…”

READ MORE/Comment…

MORE: Take Action || Police raid Tas­man­ian for­est block­ade || Spi­der-hole for­est pro­test­er arrest­ed || Still Wild Still Threat­ened

Chester (Australia) Forest Rescue Needs You!

14 JAN 08: Chester For­est Res­cue Camp is heat­ing up with the first arrest yes­ter­day (impound­ed sur­vey­ors vehi­cle with lock on) whilst they were try­ing to enter for­est while wet, and pos­si­bly spread dieback.

We also issued them with an infringe­ment with a penal­ty of 40 hours tree plant­i­ng.

Chester camp leaflet14 JAN 08: Chester For­est Res­cue Camp is heat­ing up with the first arrest yes­ter­day (impound­ed sur­vey­ors vehi­cle with lock on) whilst they were try­ing to enter for­est while wet, and pos­si­bly spread dieback.

We also issued them with an infringe­ment with a penal­ty of 40 hours tree plant­i­ng.

The min­is­ter announced that log­ging will start in Feb­ru­ary!

Call out for the cav­al­ry!

Chester For­est Res­cue Poster here — More details asap…

Protesters in Standoff with Power Company Over Swamp Access (Florida, USA)

Jan 6th, 2009

As part of their ongo­ing strug­gle against Flori­da Pow­er and Light (FPL), activists from Ever­glades Earth First! have set up an encamp­ment at the entrance to the Bar­ley Bar­ber Swamp, demand­ing entry to ensure that ancient cypress trees are not being killed by water pump­ing for the adja­cent Mar­tin Coun­ty Pow­er Plant. Fol­low­ing a com­bined protest/picnic, demon­stra­tors attempt­ed to hike in to inspect the swamp, but were pre­vent­ed from enter­ing by police. A stand­off has ensued.

Swamp protestorsJan 6th, 2009

As part of their ongo­ing strug­gle against Flori­da Pow­er and Light (FPL), activists from Ever­glades Earth First! have set up an encamp­ment at the entrance to the Bar­ley Bar­ber Swamp, demand­ing entry to ensure that ancient cypress trees are not being killed by water pump­ing for the adja­cent Mar­tin Coun­ty Pow­er Plant. Fol­low­ing a com­bined protest/picnic, demon­stra­tors attempt­ed to hike in to inspect the swamp, but were pre­vent­ed from enter­ing by police. A stand­off has ensued.


—

Swamp Stand­off Ends With 17 Arrests
Jan 12th, 2009

Sev­en­teen pro­test­ers from Ever­glades Earth First! were arrest­ed on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 10, six of them for cross­ing into the Bar­ley Bar­ber Swamp, which is owned by Flori­da Pow­er and Light. This end­ed a 6‑day stand­off, in which pro­test­ers had camped at the entrance of the swamp demand­ing entry, accus­ing FPL of bar­ring the pub­lic in order to con­ceal the fact that its adja­cent Mar­tin Coun­ty Pow­er Plant was destroy­ing the swamp and its 1,000-year old cypress trees through exces­sive water pump­ing.

Ever­glades Earth First! has put out a call for finan­cial sup­port to help bail out those arrest­ed. “Direct action is a com­mu­ni­ty effort that goes well beyond the risk of arrest,” the group said. “It requires broad sup­port from those who wish to see grass­roots efforts suc­ceed.”

Watch videos of this and oth­er Ever­glades EF! actions at their YouTube page

Ex-oil exec’s luxury home burned down by molotovs

Edmon­ton, Cana­da — The lux­u­ry home of for­mer Syn­crude pres­i­dent and CEO Jim Carter was burned down by an arson­ist Sat­ur­day night. Inves­ti­ga­tors believe that envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns may have been the motive.

Ex-oil exec's luxury home burned down by molotovsEdmon­ton, Cana­da — The lux­u­ry home of for­mer Syn­crude pres­i­dent and CEO Jim Carter was burned down by an arson­ist Sat­ur­day night. Inves­ti­ga­tors believe that envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns may have been the motive. The build­ing was struck by two molo­tov cock­tails and was quick­ly con­sumed by flames, before fire­fight­ers had a chance to con­trol the blaze. Dam­ages were esti­mat­ed at $850,000. Carter who has ties to the oil and gas indus­try was out, as were his fam­i­ly mem­bers, at the time of the inci­dent which took place at approx­i­mate­ly 8:15 PM. No one was injured fight­ing the fire.

Manchester & Heathrow Climate Rush picnics

North­ern Cli­mate Rush at Man­ches­ter Air­port

While 500 pro­test­ers occu­pied the domes­tic depar­ture lounge at Heathrow air­port at 7pm on Mon­day 12th Jan, oth­ers tried a simul­ta­ne­ous occu­pa­tion at Man­ches­ter air­port.…

Climate Rush Manchester
North­ern Cli­mate Rush at Man­ches­ter Air­port

While 500 pro­test­ers occu­pied the domes­tic depar­ture lounge at Heathrow air­port at 7pm on Mon­day 12th Jan, oth­ers tried a simul­ta­ne­ous occu­pa­tion at Man­ches­ter air­port.…

At the North­ern Cli­mate Rush at Man­ches­ter air­port between 50 and 100 peo­ple attempt­ed to occu­py the domes­tic depar­tures lounge but found large num­bers of police screen­ing entry at the doors. The police cor­doned off pro­test­ers in an area away from pas­sen­gers.

The group spelled out ‘fly­ing kills’ in coats, scarves and an umbrel­la on the floor. A man with a cel­lo and a woman with a vio­lin played music by the com­pos­er Han­del while oth­ers ate food from a pic­nic ham­per. How­ev­er, frus­trat­ed at being moved out of pas­sen­gers sight one of the pro­test­ers attempt­ed to breech police lines and was arrest­ed.

Supt Dave Hull said: “Despite repeat­ed attempts to con­tact the organ­is­ers, they failed to engage with us. There­fore, offi­cers did not know how many pro­tes­tors would attend so we had to pre­pare for a range of con­tin­gen­cies. One man was arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of a pub­lic order offence.”

For VIDEO footage see
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1586371503/bctid6995110001

Around 50 cli­mate change activists gath­ered in Ter­mi­nal 3 of Man­ches­ter Air­port last night to protest against air­port expan­sion and domes­tic flights. The demo mir­rored the Cli­mate Rush ‘Din­ner at Depar­tures’ protest at Heathrow’s Ter­mi­nal 1 at the same time. ( http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/manchester/2009/01/418105.html)

There are around 32 flights a day between Man­ches­ter and the Lon­don hubs, despite the high speed rail con­nec­tion. ( http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1026945_plea_to_scrap_london_air_link)

The pro­test­ers dressed in Edwar­dian peri­od arrived to find Ter­mi­nal 3 locked down with around 70 police offi­cers, includ­ing For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan police. They were read parts of the Riot Act before enter­ing a ‘des­ig­nat­ed protest area’.

For­mer Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil­lor, Vanes­sa Hall, who attend­ed the North­ern Cli­mate Rush said:

“ With the speed of inter­ci­ty trains there is no longer any just or sen­si­ble rea­son to take domes­tic flights. All expan­sion plans, includ­ing those at Man­ches­ter and Heathrow should be shelved. Pas­sen­ger num­bers at Man­ches­ter Air­port have been falling for at least the last 6 months.”

She added, “In a time of reces­sion and cli­mate cri­sis, gov­ern­ment mon­ey should be spent on improve­ments to rail, trams, and bus­es, not on sub­si­dies and infra­struc­ture for the avi­a­tion indus­try.”

Avi­a­tion accounts for 13% of UK glob­al warm­ing emis­sions and is the fastest-grow­ing source of green­house gas­es. Air­lines pay no tax on avi­a­tion fuel, cost­ing the pub­lic purse an esti­mat­ed £10 bil­lion.

Man­ches­ter Air­port claims it intends to go car­bon neu­tral by 2015 — but this will not include the emis­sions from the aero­planes.

www.stopmanchesterairport.org.uk

————–
Climate Rush HeathrowHeathrow Ter­mi­nal One Cli­mate Rush Pic­nic a suc­cess!

I arrived at Heathrow ter­mi­nal one with alot of trep­i­da­tion and cau­tion. Not know­ing what to expect, I dressed in a suit and tie to avoid attract­ing inter­est. It did not work.

I entered the ter­mi­nal and when up to domes­tic depar­tures to see what was hap­pen­ing. I found a place to sit and enjoy a cof­fee whilst wait­ing. Being near the place where alot of BAA secu­ri­ty guards were gath­er­ing, I over­heard them try­ing to guess who was a pro­test­er and who was a passenger…it was very fun­ny know­ing I sat yards away and they had did not realise.…

The air­port was in a state of some con­sid­er­able alert. It seems that Cli­mate Rush and a dev­il­ish­ly crim­i­nal plan to have a mil­i­tant pic­nic (by most­ly women) in depar­tures had BAA on the run.

The cops were anoth­er mat­ter. FIT crews were on the upper gang­ways and over 100 police occu­pied the depar­tures lounge when i arrived about an hour before. Even more arrived as I sipped my cof­fee and read the Guardian.

After twen­ty min­utes, two cops saun­tered over to me and ask whether they could search me. I asked why. they said there is a protest planned and they were look­ing for cli­mate chaos extrem­ists. I said I was wait­ing for a friend. After find­ing noth­ing and believ­ing my sto­ry, they let me go. I decid­ed to move to Cafe Rouge where every­body was gathering…safety in num­bers I thought. soon as I got up there, there was anoth­er 30 cops watch­ing absolute­ly every­one…

As the min­utes count­ed down, I moved with under­cur­rents down into the depar­ture check in area and was joined by about 50 or 60 peo­ple who start­ed to lay out a ban­ner and a well stocked organ­ic and home cooked pic­nic. Ten min­utes lat­er, the bulk of pro­test­ers arrived and the depar­tures check in filled up fast. Real pas­sen­gers moved aside and the police moved in to encir­cle the pic­nic. By this stage close to 500 cli­mate rush pro­test­ers were spread­ing them­selves out in a ever widen­ing cir­cle. The strings Quar­tet began play­ing and a few peo­ple start­ed play­ing with a big ball which looked like the plan­et.

The BAA cor­po­rate media descend­ed and so did lots of TV cam­er­a’s hop­ing for an inter­view. at one such so many inter­views were being giv­en, it became dif­fi­cult to move around. Speak­ing with some of the orga­niz­ers, they claimed an enor­mous suc­cess in sus­pend­ing the oper­a­tion of ter­mi­nal 1. It cer­tain­ly looked like a suc­cess to me.

A while lat­er and after most of the food had been eat­en (flushed down with a lit­tle wine), every­one rose to their feet and start­ed chant­i­ng. After Stanstead, the gov­ern­ment, media and police were say­ing that every­one was an extrem­ist and pos­si­bly eco-ter­ror­ists. So the pro­test­ers, most­ly women (some in the 50 and 60’s) start­ed chant­i­ng ” do we look like ter­ror­ists?” and ‘down with BAA’

After one hour, the cops were clos­ing the cir­cle fear­ing a block­ade or a long-term occu­pa­tion. I feared we were all going to be hemmed in and arrest­ed so I decid­ed to retreat with my video cam­era intact and get back home.

Wor­ried about what I had walked away from, I rang a friend who said that every­thing was alright. the demo had fin­ished 15 min­utes after I left and there had been no arrests. In fact the cops relaxed and got quite bored as cli­mate-rush activists offered them food!

http://www.climaterush.co.uk/

Walk of proposed opencast site, NE, 18th Jan

The good folks from the NO OPENCAST TODAY OR TOMORROW cam­paign have invit­ed us along to walk the site that U:K coal are plan­ning to destroy with a sur­face min­ing ‘devel­op­ment’.

Stobswood opencastRed KiteThe good folks from the NO OPENCAST TODAY OR TOMORROW cam­paign have invit­ed us along to walk the site that U:K coal are plan­ning to destroy with a sur­face min­ing ‘devel­op­ment’. This walk will out­line the site that U:K coal plan to mine and we should hope­ful­ly see some of the wildlife that is under threat. Lunch will be pro­vid­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre after the walk.

When: Sun­day 18th Jan
Where: 9.45am Dip­ton com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
Why: why not?
The n.o.t.t cam­paign has fought a long bat­tle with U:K coal to stop the open cast­ing of the Der­went val­ley. The polit­i­cal cli­mate is cur­rent­ly in favour of coal extrac­tion at any cost com­mu­ni­ty, ecology,climate. The appli­ca­tion is due to be heard around April by Durham/Derwentside coun­ty coun­cil.

Please help stop the need­less destruc­tion of the Pont val­ley sign the on-line peti­tion at www.pontvalley.net or even bet­ter write to coun­ty hall but best of all get out on the walk this com­ing Sun­day. Please for­ward this mail to pub­li­cise this

Florentine Arrests — Police raid Tasmanian forest blockade

JAN 12, 08 — Nine anti-log­ging pro­test­ers remain locked to a road in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley in south­ern Tas­ma­nia after refus­ing to leave their camp­site.

Styx tripodJAN 12, 08 — Nine anti-log­ging pro­test­ers remain locked to a road in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley in south­ern Tas­ma­nia after refus­ing to leave their camp­site.

Police are try­ing to break up the two-year-old protest camp so that Forestry Tas­ma­nia can begin road­works and log­ging. Forty mem­bers of the group ‘Still Wild Still Threat­ened’ were camped in the area this morn­ing when police arrived just after 8:30pm.

The immi­nent log­ging of the Upper Flo­ren­tine for­est is a nation­al dis­grace, Aus­tralian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
“The Upper Flo­ren­tine For­est has been deemed of World Her­itage val­ue. The immi­nent log­ging oper­a­tion there is a nation­al dis­grace. Claims by Prime Min­is­ter Rudd that native for­est log­ging is sus­tain­able are patent­ly stu­pid,” Sen­a­tor Brown said.

The con­voy report­ed­ly con­tains 12 police cars, includ­ing two small bus­es with an esti­mat­ed 30 police involved in the oper­a­tion.

Sen­a­tor Brown was fly­ing over the site in a heli­copter this morn­ing, which was recalled to base fol­low­ing con­tact from the police. A large ban­ner read­ing ‘Save our Forests’ can be seen from the sky.

Spokesman Chris­to Mills says police asked them to leave but they refused. Mr Mills says after a two hour stand-off 30 activists have now been removed, one has been arrest­ed and nine remain locked to a road, accord­ing to reports on the ABC web­site.

“For­est defend­ers are con­tin­u­ing to hold their posi­tions and will do so for as long as it takes,” he said.

Sen­a­tor Bob Brown says police had bet­ter pre­pare for a long fight. “I think it will take quite a while to remove these folk…”

——–

RED ALERT!!!! CAMP FLORENTINE HAS BEEN BUSTED

RED ALERT!!!! CAMP FLORENTINE HAS BEEN BUSTED AND THE BULLDOZERS AND CHAINSAWS ARE MOVING IN RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ear­ly this morn­ing, police stormed a peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty block­ade in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley. Camp Flo­ren­tine, locat­ed in log­ging coupe FO044A, has been defend­ing the glob­al­ly recog­nised old growth forests of the Upper Flo­ren­tine for over two years.

This move by police is designed to allow Forestry Tas­ma­nia to build 4km of new log­ging roads into the heart of the val­ley. These roads will rip apart an ancient and glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant ecosys­tem, open­ing up the val­ley to indus­tri­al scale dev­as­ta­tion at the hands of wood­chip­ping barons Gunns Lim­it­ed.

THE BULLDOZERS AND CHAINSAWS ARE MOVING INTO THE PRISTINE FORESTS OF THE UPPER FLORENTINE VALLEY RIGHT NOW AND WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PEACEFUL COMMUNITY WALK IN THIS WEDNESDAY AT 10AM.

If you are liv­ing in Tas­ma­nia, please stand up and speak out against the destruc­tion of our pre­cious old growth forests. A com­mu­ni­ty walk in will be held this Wednes­day, 14th Jan­u­ary 2009 at 10am. Meet at Timbs Track carpark, Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley. To get to the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley, take the Brook­er High­way out of Hobart, take the New Nor­folk turnoff and fol­low the signs to Mt Field or Lake Ped­der. Con­tin­ue on through May­de­na. Camp Flo­ren­tine and Timbs Track are 20 min­utes past May­de­na on the side of the Gor­don Riv­er Road.

WRITE TO THE POLLIES AND THE NEWSPAPERS. CALL UP YOUR LOCAL MP AND TALKBACK RADIO STATION.

Politi­cians need to know about your seri­ous con­cerns with the destruc­tion of the glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant forests of the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley. Become an active cit­i­zen and exer­cise your demo­c­ra­t­ic right to let the gov­ern­ment know that old growth log­ging and the destruc­tion of ancient ecosys­tems is unac­cept­able, and that seri­ous changes to leg­is­la­tion and pol­i­cy need to hap­pen now!

Write a let­ter (every hand writ­ten let­ter is viewed as rep­re­sent­ing the opin­ions of 100 vot­ers, so it’s cer­tain­ly worth mak­ing the extra effort) or send an email to your local fed­er­al mem­ber and any (or all!) of the fol­low­ing mem­bers of par­lia­ment. Make an appoint­ment with your local MPs … they are your employ­ees and need to lis­ten to your con­cerns.

Write let­ters to the edi­tor of your local news­pa­per and call up talk back radio. Get the word out in the media!

The Tas­man­ian Gov­ern­ment.

THE PREMIER OF TASMANIA

David Bartlett, MHA

Lev­el 11. 15 Mur­ray St. Hobart, TAS 7000

david.bartlett@education.tas.gov.au

THE LEADER OF THE LIBERAL PARTY, TASMANIAN DIVISION

Will Hodg­man, MHA

Par­lia­ment House, Hobart, TAS 7000

will.hodgman@parliament.tas.gov.au

The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment

THE PRIME MINISTER

The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Email via the PM.s web­site . www.pm.gov.au

THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

The Hon Mal­colm Turn­bull MP

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Malcolm.Turnbull.MP@aph.gov.au

MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, HERITAGE & THE ARTS

The Hon. Peter Gar­rett

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Peter.garrett.MP@aph.gov.au

tellpeter@petergarrett.com.au

MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER

Sen­a­tor The Hon. Pen­ny Wong

PO Box 6237

Hal­i­fax Street, Ade­laide SA 5000

Senator.wong@aph.gov.au

MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY

The Hon Tony Burke MP

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Tony.Burke.MP@aph.gov.au

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT & WATER

Mr Greg Hunt

PO Box 6022, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Par­lia­ment House, Can­ber­ra ACT 2600

Greg.Hunt.MP@aph.gov.au

Please con­tact us at stillwildstillthreatened@gmail.com for more info on what you can do to help us save the out­stand­ing forests of the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley.

Donate online or at any West­pac Bank to the cam­paign to save these pre­cious forests.

Account name: Tas­ma­nias South­ern Forests
BSB #: 737001.
Account #: 704815.

——–

“For the wood­chip­pers. immense pow­er threat­ens not only our for­est, but Tas­ma­ni­a’s future. Not con­tent with our great forests, their greed now destroys not only our nat­ur­al her­itage, but dis­torts our par­lia­ment, deforms our poli­ty, cows our media and stunts our soci­ety . Have courage, speak of love, take action your­self, stand up for what you believe, and our world will sure­ly change.”

Richard Flana­gan

Speech made at a Par­lia­ment Lawns forests ral­ly on 16 March, 2006. Hobart, Tas­ma­nia.

Blockade stops British company’s midnight entry into tribes’ land

7/1/09 — A block­ade mount­ed by more than 50 pro­tes­tors stopped British min­ing com­pa­ny Vedan­ta enter­ing the land of the Don­gria Kondh and oth­er Kondh tribes under cov­er of dark­ness last night.

Dongria Kohnd 1

7/1/09 — A block­ade mount­ed by more than 50 pro­tes­tors stopped British min­ing com­pa­ny Vedan­ta enter­ing the land of the Don­gria Kondh and oth­er Kondh tribes under cov­er of dark­ness last night.

The FTSE 100 com­pa­ny plans to mine baux­ite on the Don­gria Kondh’s sacred moun­tain in the state of Oris­sa, lay­ing waste to the forests they depend on for their sur­vival.

Last night’s action fol­lows high lev­el meet­ings at the week­end between Vedanta’s bil­lion­aire chair­man Anil Agar­w­al and Oris­sa Chief Min­is­ter Naveen Pat­naik, who backs the mine. After the meet­ing, Agar­w­al told jour­nal­ists that min­ing would start ‘with­in a month or two’.

India’s Supreme Court has approved Vedanta’s plans, but the mine is yet to receive the envi­ron­men­tal clear­ance required for it to go ahead.

The stand-off between local vil­lagers and Vedanta’s bull­doz­ers at the block­ade site con­tin­ues. Pro­tes­tor Ajun Chan­di, who has received a series of threat­en­ing phone calls from Vedan­ta, says, ‘You must let the whole world know what Vedan­ta is doing.’

The Don­gria Kondh have said they will mount armed resis­tance if Ven­dan­ta try to evict them and destroy the for­est cov­ered moun­tains they call home.

More info at: www.survival-international.org/tribes/dongria