March of the penguins: Plane Stupid reclaim the ice

12.01.2008
10.30am — Around 30 pen­guins today ‘reclaimed the ice’ at the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um’s ice rink in protest at British Air­ways spon­sor­ship of the muse­um’s annu­al win­ter fes­tiv­i­ties.

BA ice penguins 1BA ice penguins 212.01.2008
10.30am — Around 30 pen­guins today ‘reclaimed the ice’ at the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um’s ice rink in protest at British Air­ways spon­sor­ship of the muse­um’s annu­al win­ter fes­tiv­i­ties.

The pro­tes­tors, from the cli­mate action group Plane Stu­pid, dressed as pen­guins to high­light the irony of an air­line cre­at­ing an ice rink in cen­tral Lon­don, whilst its busi­ness activ­i­ties are a major cause of glob­al warm­ing, which is melt­ing the polar ice caps and caus­ing dan­ger­ous cli­mate change. The loss of the polar ice will imper­il wildlife such as pen­guins and polar bears and is believed to be a major ‘tip­ping point’ which will speed up cli­mate change.

A spoke­spen­guin called Tam­sin said: “We’ve come to remind peo­ple that we love ice too, but the ice in our own home is melt­ing as a result of glob­al warm­ing. BA has shown no con­cern for the issue of cli­mate change. It is a major lob­by­ist for the expan­sion of Britain’s air­ports — par­tic­u­lar­ly the third run­way at Heathrow — which will lead to a huge rise in green­house gas emis­sions at a time when emis­sions from oth­er sec­tors are being cut back. It is shame­ful that an insti­tu­tion like the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um should allow British Air­ways to trade on its eco-friend­ly rep­u­ta­tion by spon­sor­ing this ice rink. BA are push­ing for air­port expan­sion which will guar­an­tee we can­not stop cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.”

She added, “British Air­ways’ mon­ey is dirty, and we hope that next year the muse­um will find a more appro­pri­ate spon­sor for their ice rink.”

The pen­guins, car­ry­ing ban­ners and plac­ards read­ing, ‘BA Fly, Pen­guins Die’, and ‘Freeze Flights’ skat­ed and hand­ed out leaflets for around 20 min­utes before being forcibly removed from the ice by British Air­ways secu­ri­ty staff. There were no arrests.

www.planestupid.com

- ENDS —

Climate Camp– Open invite to a UK wide decision making meeting – Leeds 26–27 Jan

The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.

The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
Please spread this invite far and wide!

The Cam­p’s at Drax and Heathrow had 4 key aims: pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion, direct action, sus­tain­able liv­ing, and build­ing a social move­ment to col­lec­tive­ly tack­le cli­mate change. Region­al meet­ings have been hap­pen­ing up and down the coun­try, and the last nation­al meet­ing was in Oxford .We will meet in Leeds to col­lec­tive­ly share all our ideas for tak­ing our aims into 2008.

The meet­ing will start at 11am on Sat­ur­day morn­ing and end at 4pm on the Sun­day- although if you can’t stay for the whole week­end you are still wel­come!

If you are plan­ning to arrive on the Sat­ur­day morn­ing please head straight down to the venue which is The Com­mon Place, 23–25 Warf Street, LS2 7EQ
www.thecommonplace.org.uk – you can find a map at
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?hloc=GB|LS2%207EQ and you will notice that it is walk­ing dis­tance from the train and bus sta­tions.

If you are plan­ning on arriv­ing the Fri­day night – before the gath­er­ing- please email process@climatecamp.org.uk so we know! There will be accom­mo­da­tion avail­able for the Fri­day night – but at a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre called Oblong ( http://oblongleeds.org.uk) rather than at the Com­mon Place.
Food will be served at the Com­mon Place over the week­end- so please bring about £10 to con­tribute towards the food and accom­mo­da­tion costs if you stay the whole week­end. Of course if you real­ly can not afford it then you are none the less very wel­come!

There will also be a trav­el pool (where­by peo­ple who live near­by and who have min­i­mal trav­el costs will be asked to make dona­tions to off set the expense for those who had to make much longer jour­neys to attend). Accom­mo­da­tion is sim­ply floor space- so please bring a camp­ing mat and sleep­ing bag. If you have par­tic­u­lar access needs, and/or if sleep­ing on the floor is not suit­able for you please email us as soon as pos­si­ble so we can make appro­pri­ate arrange­ments.

If you are plan­ning to bring chil­dren who will need child care facil­i­ties please let us at process@climatecamp.org.uk know as soon as pos­si­ble. The agen­da for this meet­ing has not yet been set — if you have any ideas about top­ics you think it is impor­tant for us to dis­cuss, please email
process@climatecamp.org.uk- by Fri­day the 19th Jan­u­ary
Hope to see you there!

camp for cli­mate action net­work­ing group
networking@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

January York Critical Mass Ride Shock — Rain!

4 Jan 2008

The Jan­u­ary ride saw the first time in four­teen months that’s it’s been rain­ing too heav­i­ly to get a CM off the ground!

Those of us that braved the storms saw the sense of retir­ing to a pub for a warm­ing pint.

York CM4 Jan 2008

The Jan­u­ary ride saw the first time in four­teen months that’s it’s been rain­ing too heav­i­ly to get a CM off the ground!

Those of us that braved the storms saw the sense of retir­ing to a pub for a warm­ing pint.

The moral: there’s always a rea­son to turn up, first Fri­day of the month by the Min­ster, 5:30 for 6.

NEW BIKE SLIPS LINK!

Oxford Tree Protest Tomorrow (plus more photos & personal account)

11.01.2008

Protest at mid­day tomor­row (Sat­ur­day) in Bonn Square. The pro­posed expan­sion of Oxford’s West­gate Cen­tre does­n’t just threat­en a group of beau­ti­ful trees, it also threat­ens to turn yet more of our city cen­tre into a night­mar­ish con­sumer waste­land. Thanks to the peo­ple who’ve been up the trees, the Coun­cil are now on the back foot and there’s a chance we could force them to scrap the whole stu­pid scheme — but we need peo­ple there!

Oxford tree protest 311.01.2008

Protest at mid­day tomor­row (Sat­ur­day) in Bonn Square. The pro­posed expan­sion of Oxford’s West­gate Cen­tre does­n’t just threat­en a group of beau­ti­ful trees, it also threat­ens to turn yet more of our city cen­tre into a night­mar­ish con­sumer waste­land. Thanks to the peo­ple who’ve been up the trees, the Coun­cil are now on the back foot and there’s a chance we could force them to scrap the whole stu­pid scheme — but we need peo­ple there!

There’s cur­rent­ly a bat­tle going on in town between some peace­ful but deter­mined tree-defend­ers, the Coun­cil, the West­gate Cen­tre and the police (see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389089.html). Essen­tial­ly, the Coun­cil decid­ed to clear away some trees in prepa­ra­tion for the pro­posed West­gate expan­sion with­out telling any­one, but a group of locals found out and rushed to the trees’ defence.

Obvi­ous­ly, just los­ing the trees would be bad in itself, but this is also the tip of a much big­ger ice­berg. The pro­posed West­gate expan­sion has been crit­i­cised and chal­lenged all the way through the plan­ning process (it would require the demo­li­tion of a whole street of shel­tered hous­ing and fails to meet the Council’s own cli­mate change build­ing stan­dards, quite apart from being a hor­ri­ble and unnec­es­sary exten­sion to what is already an ugly tem­ple to ram­pant con­sumerism suck­ing the lifeblood from inde­pen­dent shops and the char­ac­ter out of Oxford city cen­tre). The Coun­cil has seemed deter­mined to push it through at any cost, despite all the protests and com­plaint.

How­ev­er, one of the major retail­ers with a place booked in the pro­posed exten­sion – John Lewis – have report­ed­ly start­ed to get ner­vous about being asso­ci­at­ed with such a con­tro­ver­sial devel­op­ment. Enough bad pub­lic­i­ty from the bat­tle over the trees might just be the last straw that could con­vince them to pull out – and with­out John Lewis, the whole exe­crable expan­sion plan could col­lapse!

This is where your help could make a real dif­fer­ence. Tomor­row is the anti-SOC­PA protest in Lon­don, and peo­ple are feel­ing we should have our own demo (about free­dom to protest as well as stop­ping the West­gate devel­op­ment) in Oxford rather than all our activists going off to Lon­don at what could well be the cru­cial moment. So if you’re up for it please come to Bonn Square at 12 mid­day tomor­row. Bring ban­ners, noise and every­one you know.

In the mean­time, please do go down to show your sup­port (there weren’t many peo­ple around this after­noon) and see what needs doing.

Hope to see you tomor­row!

oarc@riseup.net

—————–

I spent 2 days up a tree out­side the West­gate Cen­tre in Oxford. This is a short an account of the how and why

Out of My Tree

I thought it might be inter­est­ing to any read­ers who have been fol­low­ing the Oxford Bonn Square and West­gate Cen­tre tree saga last week to put down what hap­pened from my point of view, see­ing as it was me that spent 24 hours up the tree out­side the West­gate and even good jour­nal­ists, let alone read­ers, are bound to draw con­clu­sions that are wide of the true mark
On Wednes­day 9th Jan, I received invi­ta­tions down to see what was hap­pen­ing around the West­gate Cen­tre, where I was told that a num­ber of trees were about to be chopped down. I was a bit dubi­ous about going, as I was about to head off job hunt­ing, my last job hav­ing fin­ished just before Christ­mas but I went down intend­ing to give my sup­port for a short while. All seemed pret­ty peace­ful down at the West­gate and I felt that there was­n’t much I could do as work appeared to have been stopped on the tree-chop­ping front. I was about to leave when there was a flur­ry of activ­i­ty round the cor­ner from where we were, between the West­gate Cen­tre and the mul­ti-storey car park. They had fenced off the area.
Work­men had begun chop­ping off the branch­es of one of the mag­nif­i­cent Plane trees next to the car park. Deb­o­rah Glass Wood­in was vis­i­bly upset by this and was try­ing to pre­vent the work­men going any fur­ther. As a Coun­ty Coun­cil­lor she felt that she had been insuf­fi­cient­ly informed that this was to hap­pen. It was heart-wrench­ing to see a con­cerned five-foot female coun­cil­lor being dragged off in tears by two carthorse police­men who seemed total­ly uncon­cerned that she was doing her duty. This was prob­a­bly due to ‘Oper­a­tion Rum­ble’ where­by the police are instruct­ed to auto­mat­i­cal­ly arrest any­body inter­fer­ing with coun­cil work­ers going about their job. How­ev­er, as a coun­cil­lor, Mrs Glass Wood­in was going about her job by ques­tion­ing the work that was going on as she had not been prop­er­ly informed about it. Despite this she was dragged, tear­ful and wretched into a police car and pre­vent­ed from doing the job she was demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed to do while the police shoved the rest of us try­ing to help her out of the way.
Once this bit of excite­ment was over, a friend and I watched sad­ly as the first of three trees des­ig­nat­ed for the chop was sawn up nois­i­ly with chain­saws and then fed into a pulp­ing machine. I looked at the next tree in the line. It is a mag­nif­i­cent Lon­don Plane, prob­a­bly around a hun­dred years old. Its branch­es soar up over the top of the four storey car park and brush against the top of the West­gate cen­tre. Each branch forks repeat­ed­ly into less­er branch­es and at their very ends are twin seeds that dan­gle down like spiky chest­nut baubles. There are thou­sands of them dec­o­rat­ing the extrem­i­ties and the tree’s ele­gant, stretch­ing branch­es claw­ing up into the sky are more nat­ur­al and beau­ti­ful than any spire and a wel­come relief to the grey sur­round­ings of the con­crete blocks it sep­a­rates. A num­ber of peo­ple who live and work in the area have told me that they find them very com­fort­ing and I can ful­ly appre­ci­ate why now that I have spent a cou­ple of days in one. For any­one con­tent with replac­ing them with saplings, I would say that they are decades out of date.
The first tree was removed in under half an hour and it was awful to think that this hun­dred-year-old exam­ple was about to fol­low it effi­cient­ly into the pulp­ing machine. There were police­man patrolling around the eight-foot fence in front of it and we watched as a lad­der was rest­ed up next to the tree, ready for the work­men to begin the job of saw­ing off the limbs. A lit­tle sun­shine lit up the soft kha­ki colours of the patch­work bark in fawns, greens and browns. The police­men in front of the fence moved away and with the flash of a grin telling us we were doing the right thing, my friend and I sprint­ed spon­ta­neous­ly at the fence. Sud­den­ly I was over it and run­ning for the lad­der before any­one could stop me. Next thing I was scram­bling onto the low­est branch look­ing down at the work­men who frus­trat­ed­ly removed the lad­der. I looked back in vain at my friend, who had sad­ly been pulled back by police­men. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for me, he still had the back­pack with a ther­mos of hot cof­fee in it on his back. Noth­ing, how­ev­er, could deflate the tri­umphant sense of sat­is­fac­tion I felt that for a while at least this exem­plary Plane tree was free from the vio­lent sev­er­ing that had just been vis­it­ed on its neigh­bour.
Why have these trees been des­ig­nat­ed for hack­ing? The pow­ers that be at Oxford City Coun­cil have seen fit to bless us with a brand new shop­ping cen­tre to mas­sive­ly extend the one we already. The land itself is owned by the Coun­cil and is on a 150 year lease to Coal Pen­sion Prop­er­ties Ltd that start­ed on March 3rd 1986. The orig­i­nal lease says that there should be “no more park­ing spaces” on the land than at present and some­how the plan­ning depart­ment have inter­pret­ed this as to say that “it is incum­bent upon the city coun­cil to pro­vide at least the same num­ber of park­ing spaces” there. Giv­en that it is a res­i­den­tial area con­sid­ered an ‘Air Qual­i­ty Man­age­ment Action’ (AQMA) zone due to the ille­gal­ly high lev­el of pol­lu­tants in the air, then sure­ly less park­ing should be pro­vid­ed there and per­haps more sto­ries added to the Park and Ride car parks that are so often full on the out­skirts of the city. This solu­tion would endan­ger the local res­i­dents’ health a lot less and ben­e­fit us all by let­ting fresh­er air sweep through­out the city.
There is some doubt as to whether the devel­op­ment will hap­pen at all. Cap­i­tal Shop­ping have said that if they are to go ahead than they also require the land at Abbey Place across the road from the car park, which at present is home to 18 vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in 14 hous­es. This more dras­tic part of the plan is still under review and could scup­per the whole project if it is deemed a bad idea. So why are these amaz­ing Plane trees, whose var­ie­gat­ed bark actu­al­ly absorbs air pol­lu­tants, being chopped down before it is sure that the devel­op­ment will go ahead? Accord­ing to shop­keep­ers in the West­gate, some of whom have con­tracts for their busi­ness­es on the site until July 2010, Cap­i­tal Shop­ping have giv­en the Coun­cil half a mil­lion pounds to get on with the job and clear the way for the devel­op­ment. Could they have done this so that if the devel­op­ment comes up against any objec­tions, then the devel­op­ers will be able to say “..well the trees have all gone now so we have to get on with it any­way”? The very rush­ing of the job makes one sus­pi­cious.
Liv­ing in a tree is not a way of life I would rec­om­mend. Wedg­ing one­self between two trunks so that one does­n’t fall out at night is an exceed­ing­ly uncom­fort­able way of try­ing to sleep, par­tic­u­lar­ly in win­ter. Our sys­tem of democ­ra­cy is not per­fect in that we only get to vote once every four years and are then oblig­ed to hand over the deci­sion mak­ing to a hand­ful of peo­ple whose deci­sions we may often dis­agree with. What is known as ‘protest­ing’ is sim­ply exer­cis­ing our endan­gered right to dis­agree with these deci­sions and ask if there may not be a bet­ter answer to the ques­tion in hand. Eng­land has a proud his­to­ry of protest that has brought about a num­ber of great ben­e­fits to our soci­ety, includ­ing the eman­ci­pa­tion of women.
The amount of sup­port I received while up the tree from both friends and passers-by has been absolute­ly extra­or­di­nary. I have had more thumbs-up than Jen­son But­ton in a race and it is heart-warm­ing and mag­i­cal to tap into the invis­i­ble sol­i­dar­i­ty of the usu­al­ly silent pub­lic in this way. The most extra­or­di­nary event was on Wednes­day evening when a group of 9 fairies skipped past in pink dress­es and fairy wings. They looked no more than ten years old. They shout­ed up ask­ing what I was doing and I answered sim­ply that some peo­ple want­ed to chop the tree down and I didn’t want them to. They waved their mag­ic wands and skipped away chant­i­ng “Save the Tree! Save the Tree!” It was the sweet­est moment. I only hope their mag­ic holds and our wish is grant­ed.
If the devel­op­ment is planned on ‘coun­cil land’ means that this is Oxford City land. That means that this is our land as res­i­dents and tax­pay­ers and so deci­sions on cut­ting down trees should be decid­ed by all of us. There are a num­ber of aspects about the future West­gate devel­op­ment that have been unsat­is­fac­to­ri­ly con­clud­ed. To begin with, it does not meet a num­ber of rea­son­able envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards…
Per­son­al­ly I don’t think we need any more shops in Oxford. This is a small city with only 140,000 inhab­i­tants. With all the won­der­ful archi­tec­ture we have here it seems fool­ish to try and turn it into a shop­ping cen­tre when that would risk spoil­ing the beau­ty of the city we already have. If we detract from the city’s attrac­tive aes­thet­ic then less peo­ple will want to vis­it here and less mon­ey will be spent on local busi­ness­es. It seems detri­men­tal, in more ways than one to spend so much mon­ey replac­ing one shop­ping cen­tre with anoth­er one so that we can have more shops that will drain mon­ey out of the local econ­o­my. Sure­ly we have enough shops already and do we real­ly want to cut down 42 dec­o­ra­tive trees in order to make way for more? My fool­hardy ges­ture of spend­ing 24 hours in a tree was a per­son­al chal­lenge made in order to ask a ques­tion that on fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion appears to have an answer in the neg­a­tive: Is it absolute­ly nec­es­sary to chop these 42 mag­nif­i­cent Plane trees down? Well is it?
While I am in awe of Gabs Cham­ber­lain who has spent over a week defend­ing the beau­ti­ful Plane tree in Bonn square by liv­ing up it, I don’t intend to fol­low suit. I feel that I have made my state­ment and asked my ques­tion and if any­one would like to take over the defence of the West­gate Planes then I would enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly encour­age them to do so. While I have great affec­tion for them, they are not mine to defend, they are every­body’s. I hope some­body else will. Mean­while I will take the advice so kind­ly offered to me by one unsym­pa­thet­ic pass­er-by and go and get a job. After all, if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to afford any of the doubt­less fab­u­lous prod­ucts that the West­gate II will have to offer off the stumps of our beloved Lon­don Planes.

129 rabbits liberated from lab breeder

It has been report­ed that on the 6th Jan­u­ary 2008, 129 rab­bits were lib­er­at­ed from a lab breed­er in Lin­colnshire. This breed­er sup­ply HLS, as well as sev­er­al UK uni­ver­si­ties. The pho­to’s show the cramped, unclean con­di­tions of this hell hole — would we expect any­thing else?

Lincolnshire rabbits liberated 1Lincolnshire rabbits liberated 2It has been report­ed that on the 6th Jan­u­ary 2008, 129 rab­bits were lib­er­at­ed from a lab breed­er in Lin­colnshire. This breed­er sup­ply HLS, as well as sev­er­al UK uni­ver­si­ties. The pho­to’s show the cramped, unclean con­di­tions of this hell hole — would we expect any­thing else?

Click here to watch the video (.wmv for­mat):
http://www.shac.net/images/generic/2008_images/january/rabbitlib/rabbits.wmv

Click here to down­load hi-res images of the res­cue:
http://www.shac.net/images/generic/2008_images/january/rabbitlib/rabbitlib.zip

SMASH HLS

French Farmer Calls Off Hunger Strike

PARIS (AP) — Mil­i­tant French farmer Jose Bove and about 15 sup­port­ers called off their hunger strike in its eighth day after the gov­ern­ment ordered the sus­pen­sion of the use of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied corn Fri­day.

PARIS (AP) — Mil­i­tant French farmer Jose Bove and about 15 sup­port­ers called off their hunger strike in its eighth day after the gov­ern­ment ordered the sus­pen­sion of the use of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied corn Fri­day.

France will sus­pend cul­ti­va­tion of MON810, the seed for the only type of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied corn now allowed in the coun­try, until a Euro­pean Union review is con­duct­ed, Prime Min­is­ter Fran­cois Fil­lon’s office said.

The move was based on a rec­om­men­da­tion this week by a gov­ern­ment-appoint­ed pan­el call­ing for ‘the need for addi­tion­al analy­ses on the health and envi­ron­men­tal effects of the genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied prod­uct MON810 in the long term,’ Fil­lon’s office said in a state­ment.

Bove and his sup­port­ers began the hunger strike Jan. 3, say­ing they hoped to pres­sure the gov­ern­ment to make good on a promise in Novem­ber to sus­pend cul­ti­va­tion of MON810. He said they only drank water or unsweet­ened tea dur­ing the protest.

The seed, which resists some types of insects, was autho­rized before a gov­ern­ment-ordered mora­to­ri­um on genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied prod­ucts took effect in 1999. Last year, it was plant­ed in about 54,000 acres in France — main­ly in south­ern farm­land.

Bove rose to fame in August 1999 when he and sup­port­ers used farm equip­ment to dis­man­tle a McDon­ald’s branch under con­struc­tion in Mil­lau, in the foothills of France’s Mas­sif Cen­tral moun­tains.

He has faced repeat­ed tri­als and served jail time for destroy­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops.

The Asso­ci­at­ed Press, 11 Jan­u­ary 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hq-PHd96BpmEGZYsFUZ4_KEto5zAD8U3VO802

Prosecution collapses in Superglue Penny trial

Dur­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action at Heathrow last year, large num­bers of police invad­ed the site, only to be peace­ful­ly resist­ed by the Campers, and eject­ed from the site with impres­sive restraint. The pre­text for this attack by the police was so that the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team could “do a head­count” (in spite of the face that local police offi­cers were already patrolling the site, and were pre­sum­ably per­fect­ly capa­ble of ful­fill­ing this task). It is far more like­ly that the real rea­son behind the police action was their desire to pro­voke a riot, and thus have an excuse to destroy the camp and bang heads. After the incur­sion the Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Sup­port Group (riot police) were ordered to kit them­selves out in full gear, to pre­pare for a sec­ond assault on the camp.

Dur­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action at Heathrow last year, large num­bers of police invad­ed the site, only to be peace­ful­ly resist­ed by the Campers, and eject­ed from the site with impres­sive restraint. The pre­text for this attack by the police was so that the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team could “do a head­count” (in spite of the face that local police offi­cers were already patrolling the site, and were pre­sum­ably per­fect­ly capa­ble of ful­fill­ing this task). It is far more like­ly that the real rea­son behind the police action was their desire to pro­voke a riot, and thus have an excuse to destroy the camp and bang heads. After the incur­sion the Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Sup­port Group (riot police) were ordered to kit them­selves out in full gear, to pre­pare for a sec­ond assault on the camp.

This would have come to pass if it had not been for the swift response of an activist who super­glued her hands to the gates in order to deny them access.
As a result of this action Pen­ny East­wood was charged with obstruct­ing the police in the course of their duty, and she entered a plea of inno­cent on the grounds that the police were not act­ing in accor­dance with their duty.

After months of delay, the tri­al took place at Uxbridge on 8th and 9th Jan­u­ary, at which the pros­e­cu­tion case col­lapsed. The dis­trict judge pre­sid­ing right­ly spot­ted that the police’s case was a load of rub­bish, because they pro­duced no evi­dence that they were pre­vent­ed from car­ry­ing out a law­ful duty.

This case proves (if any proof were need­ed), that the police are ever hap­py to employ vio­lence in pur­suit of their polit­i­cal aims. It also shows that the Met are spec­tac­u­lar­ly stu­pid. I sup­pose we should take some com­fort that there are still judges in Britain who think that the pro­vok­ing of riots is out­side a police officer’s nor­mal course of duty.

Pen­ny said “I was try­ing to de-esca­late the sit­u­a­tion after aggres­sive­ly over the top polic­ing had cre­at­ed ten­sion. There were riot police crouch­ing behind the hedgerow. It was very scary, par­tic­u­lar­ly as there were chil­dren on site”.

“I am a cli­mate activist because I am a moth­er and I want to ensure that my chil­dren have a half-way decent future — that’s why I see it as my duty to oppose acts of envi­ron­men­tal luna­cy, like air­port expan­sion. I thought that the riot police were try­ing to shut down the cli­mate camp, and I did­n’t think that that was right or fair. The tri­al has been hang­ing over me for sev­er­al months, and it is a huge relief that my action has been vin­di­cat­ed by the judge.”

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 75, JANUARY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH & LONDON, 15.12.07
3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA — DECEMBER 2007
25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Just three months to go — are you out prac­tis­ing your rou­tines? rehears­ing your songs? build­ing your props yet? I should get out more over Christ­mas…
How­ev­er, it will soon be time to hatch your mis­chie­vous scheme, so get your friends round and start plot­ting!
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/

2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
In sup­port of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, AMP is organ­is­ing a night of live music at The Oth­ers, Manor Road, Stoke New­ing­ton. Entrance £5.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=38074566

3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
Organ­ised by Ris­ing Tide with speak­ers from Groundswell and Plane Stu­pid.
7pm St. Maw­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Hall, Nr. Newquay, Corn­wall. For more info. email; kernow@risingtide.org.uk

4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
11am — 6pm at The Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham.
This meet­ing came out of the last Cli­mate Camp gath­er­ing in Novem­ber. It is focussed on grow­ing our move­ment — how can we encour­age more groups to form and more actions/campaigns to hap­pen? What things do we want to do to help build a vibrant net­work of region­al action groups doing actions local­ly and nation­al­ly?
For instruc­tion on how to get there: http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html
Also, 11 peo­ple are going to tri­al in Not­ting­ham on Mon­day 14th for ‘shut­ting down’ the local coal pow­er sta­tion, If any­one wants to stay to sup­port them that would be great!

5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/nextmeeting.php

6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
Bio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 1st Feb­ru­ary 2008. We will short­ly update our web­site to pro­vide more back­ground infor­ma­tion about the UK agro­fu­el indus­try and poli­cies, as well as a draft leaflet and oth­er resources. If you would like to get involved or find out more, please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk.
http://biofuelwatch.org.uk/

7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Forum “Cli­mate Change: it’s time to pre­pare”
9.15am at the Methodist Hall, Old­ham St, Cen­tral Man­ches­ter
http://www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk/index.html

8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
On Jan­u­ary 26 self-orga­nized groups from all around the world will take cre­ative action in their com­mu­ni­ty. This will man­i­fest in many ways, from non­vi­o­lent direct action, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, street the­atre, con­ver­gences, teach-ins and oth­er activ­i­ties and events. Grass­roots move­ments around the world are mak­ing their voic­es heard and say­ing “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”. In coor­di­na­tion with the World Social Forum.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
Next course by the Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courseoutlinelowimpactsmallholding.htm

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
For the recent­ly formed Ker­now and Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide groups, this action marked an esca­la­tion in their fight against cli­mate change and for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. How­ev­er the planned rooftop protest at Newquay air­port was giv­en an unlike­ly boost when builders at the air­port left a lad­der propped up!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/248
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7146159.stm

2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH AND LONDON, 15.12.07
Sub­ver­sive Singing San­tas Spread Sea­son­al San­i­ty in Lon­don and Nor­wich On one of the busiest shop­ping days of the year. Ris­ing Tide activists in both Lon­don and Nor­wich dressed up as San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion and hit the high streets to sing a dif­fer­ent tune to the usu­al buy, buy,
buy mad­ness of the hol­i­day sea­son.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/247

3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
A series of actions is being tak­en against the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and Bris­tol Muse­um, in protest at the spon­sor­ship of the event by Shell. A grumpy polar bear vis­it­ed the offices of BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine, then activists dis­rupt­ed Bris­tol Muse­um’s posh recep­tion to kick off the exhi­bi­tion with a Yes Men-style inter­ven­tion. And on the open­ing morn­ing, dozens of humans, polar bears, a snow leop­ard and a tiger gath­ered (com­plete with the Shell’s Wild Lie counter-exhi­bi­tion) in front of the muse­um. They hand­ed out leaflets and cre­at­ed quite a spec­ta­cle. Protests are expect­ed to con­tin­ue through Jan. 13th.
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held on 16th Decem­ber at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.
On the 19th, a small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17942
http://www.corribsos.com/

5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
Over 10,000 cli­mate cam­paign­ers took to the streets to take part in march­es in Lon­don and Glas­gow over the week­end, despite pour­ing rain. Pro­test­ers braved the weath­er in one the biggest demon­stra­tions call­ing for cli­mate jus­tice the UK has ever seen.
http://www.campaigncc.org/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387497.html
Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of the Cli­mate March in Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/
Mean­while, in Man­ches­ter air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to Euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed.

6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
A col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17893

7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
All Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre were super-glued shut in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et” The UK’s only Hum­mer deal­er­ship, Bauer Mil­lett, was also D‑locked shut.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17887

8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
Activists from Chea­dle-High-Street Against Cli­mate Change held a “A plan­et is not just for Xmas” cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17917

9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
Two adverts pro­mot­ing DVD’s by Top Gear’s Jere­my Clark­son now have large stick­ers stuck on declar­ing “This caus­es cli­mate change”. Also, Fly­Be appears to have spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17937

10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
Women cli­mate activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and coin­cides with the open­ing of their first “con­sul­ta­tion”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17883

11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
A ban­ner with this warning/statement was dropped to wel­come all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17886

12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
More than thir­ty cli­mate activists, includ­ing mem­bers of the Ris­ing Tide net­work, joined with local res­i­dents from Merthyr Tyd­fil in stop­ping exca­va­tion work for a full day on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. Activists evad­ed police and secu­ri­ty before tak­ing over the 1,000 acre site on a hill­top near Cardiff. Dressed as clowns and polar bears, they chained them­selves to bull­doz­ers and oth­er heavy machin­ery to pre­vent work on the mine.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/242

13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90
per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/240
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/03/oil.bp

14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
Four home­less polar bears appeared before Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court on 14th Novem­ber. They were arrest­ed after blockad­ing the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cor­po­rate offices on Avon St. dur­ing the Ris­ing Tide nation­al day of action. After plead­ing guilty to charges of “wil­ful­ly obstruct­ing the pub­lic high­way with a non motor vehi­cle” (i.e. a suit case) they were giv­en a con­di­tion­al dis­charge and went on to pick­et the RBS branch on Bald­win Street!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/243

15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
The only way to fight cli­mate change. A new report by Oil­Watch.
http://www.oilwatch.org/doc/documentos/Keep_oil_underground.pdf
http://www.oilwatch.org/

16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing “nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos” and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17868

17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
Unbur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of her car and pulled a cyclist off his bike.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17889

18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
“Livestock’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.” Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006
find out more at
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/hot/index.php

19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
A free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work.
http://whatbettertime.livejournal.com/

20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­bler­ousi­ness.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17905

21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
For updates on the work of Pacif­ic Envi­ron­ment, a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that pro­tects the Pacif­ic Rim’s wild places and wildlife, see;
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2658

22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
From fan­ta­sy finance to glob­al crash.
Your guide to under­stand­ing the cri­sis that is sweep­ing through the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem and what it means for ordi­nary peo­ple.
Endorsed by Kevin Smith of Car­bon Trade Watch and film­mak­er Ken Loach.
http://www.aworldtowin.net/about/HouseOfCards.html

23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
A new web­site.
http://www.swairaction.org.uk/

24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA is born — DECEMBER 2007
The group had its first meet­ing on 3rd Jan­u­ary and is now swing­ing into action. If you live in the area and want to find out more or get involved con­tact becqke@riseup.net

25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE
Ris­ing Tide action footage has been spring­ing up all over youtube — check out http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RisingTideNetwork for some RT films, some of the lat­est actions and links to oth­er’s videos of RT actions.

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

END

last tree in Bonn square Oxford occupied, eviction expected at dawn, friday — update

4.01.2008

The last tree left in Bonn square is being occu­pied in attempt to save it — please get sup­port down there

4.01.2008

The last tree left in Bonn square is being occu­pied in attempt to save it — please get sup­port down there

appar­ent­ly the tree is over 100 years old, and there is a preser­va­tion order on the memo­r­i­al to the tirah cam­paign in afghanistan, but not on the trees which are old and sig­nif­i­cant also.

If any­one can get media or sup­port down there urgent­ly please

The youtube ver­sion for online view­ing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5kGNDlOyN0

Full rez for screen­ing
http://blip.tv/file/get/Undercurrents-OxfordTree616.mp4

You can get more videos like this from http://visionontv.net
—

evic­tion now expect­ed Mon am

Text mes­sages from the Bonn Square tree protest say that evic­tion is expect­ed tomor­row morn­ing, around 8 or 9am.

If you are free, please go along and sup­port 🙂

—

10.01.2008

Today ten pro­test­ers turned up to resist the removal of beau­ti­ful, mature Lon­don Plains trees behind the West­gate Shop­ping Cen­tre in Oxford city cen­tre.

These trees, along with shel­tered hous­ing, and — I was told by a group of young peo­ple — the Oxford and Cher­well Val­ley Col­lege stu­dents’ pub are being cleared to make way for a gar­gan­tu­an cathe­dral to cap­i­tal­ism plus mul­ti-storey car park. As one stu­dent sar­cas­ti­cal­ly put it, “Yeah, ‘coz what we real­ly need are more shops”.

Most peo­ple spent all day observ­ing the goings-on of coun­cil employ­ees and tree ‘sur­geons’ and man­aged — albeit tem­porar­i­ly — to remove one guy rope from one of the trees along the west side of the West­gate car park.

How­ev­er, this did not deter the Leisure and Parks peo­ple from begin­ning to remove the trees on the north side.

Once they start­ed on the trees, emo­tions — which were already high — reached fever pitch. Coun­cil­lor Deb­o­rah Glass Wood­in was arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass (even though she did­n’t quite man­age to get into the fenced off area) and then held for 5 hours at St Aldates Cop Shop.

One oth­er pro­test­er is spend­ing tonight in the trees, brav­ing the gale force winds; I feel slight­ly guilty for being inside on my lap­top writ­ing this report. If you can get down to the site to join him and oth­ers please do.

Bruce and friends (not the cops, mind) are on the cor­ner of Nor­folk Street, near Cas­tle Street; around the back of the West­gate Cen­tre near the mul­ti-storey carpark. Map here:
http://openstreetmap.com/?mlat=51.75055&mlon=-1.2615&zoom=16

Video on YouTube ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=uXdLcAffXnE).

I count­ed the rings of the one of the first-felled trees, which you can see in the pic­ture. It was near­ly thir­ty years old; as old as I am.

—

10th: just heard that Bruce, who has been up one of the trees behind the West­gate shop­ping cen­tre in Oxford, has final­ly come down. He spent over 24 hours up the tree — brav­ing the freez­ing gales and lash­ing rain from last night and today.

He was joined this morn­ing by a fel­low pro­tes­tor; pics from today’s protest to fol­low soon.

And wor­ry­ing­ly, one of the pho­tog­ra­phers from the BNP protest in Novem­ber was on site too. This time he said he was from ITN rather than local news.

West­gate protest con­tin­ues; court on Mon­day
9.01.2008

Tree-sit­ters in Bonn Square (Oxford) oppos­ing the mas­sive expan­sion of the near­by West­gate shop­ping cen­tre were served with a court sum­mons today for an evic­tion hear­ing on Mon­day. More action is sore­ly need­ed.

Since last Thurs­day one of the large trees in Bonn Square has been occu­pied in an attempt to save it from the chain­saws. It is one of around 40 trees, includ­ing many large mature ones, in the West­gate area marked for destruc­tion as part of the grotesque expan­sion of Oxford’s plas­tic con­sumer­land.

More back­ground on the West­gate scheme is here, amongst oth­er places:
http://matthewsellwood.blogspot.com/2006/10/westgate.html

There have been sev­er­al evic­tion rumours in the mean­time, but the clear­est clue came today when the pro­test­ers were served with court papers. Since the hear­ing is on Mon­day, any evic­tion before then would be ille­gal, and seems unlike­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the coun­cil can eas­i­ly con­tin­ue cut­ting down the oth­er ‑unoc­cu­pied- trees in the mean­time. In fact, work has already start­ed on felling the oth­er trees in the area.

If you want to help, or find out more, pop down to Bonn Square. They have a peti­tion which they are ask­ing peo­ple to sign and are col­lect­ing dona­tions to cov­er basic costs. If you’re feel­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly inspired, you could even organ­ise a bunch of peo­ple you know to go and dis­rupt the tree cut­ting which is tak­ing place right now. Or tar­get the ster­ile shop­ping cen­tres, cor­po­rate scum­bags and cor­rupt local politi­cians that are push­ing the scheme!

The West­gate Part­ner­ship are cur­rent­ly chain­saw­ing trees to make way for the West­gate expan­sion (this is slight­ly dif­fer­ent from the Bonn Square project, which is linked to the West End ‘regen­er­a­tion’ but not part of the West­gate expan­sion per se). This is despite the fact that a pub­lic enquiry is still going on over the demo­li­tion of Abbey Place hous­ing — a clear indi­ca­tion of what the devel­op­ers think of the legal process.…

—
9.01.2008

10am — trees being cut down in Par­adise Square.

We’ve had a mes­sage that trees are being cut down now to make way for the new bloat­ed West­gate shop­ping centre/temple to Mamon. If you can, get down there as soon as pos­si­ble.

At the moment tree sur­geons are at Par­adise square, but prob­a­bly won’t be for long. Maybe fol­low the sound of the chain­saws if they’re not there any­more.

—

Woman arrested at Tas forestry protest

Jan­u­ary 8, 2008

A 23-year-old woman involved in a forestry protest in Tas­ma­ni­a’s south has been plucked by a crane from her for­est perch, arrest­ed and charged.

A Tas­man­ian police search and res­cue squad arrived at the protest site in a remote for­est in the state’s south about 10am (AEDT) Tues­day to break up a four-day activist vig­il.

Jan­u­ary 8, 2008

A 23-year-old woman involved in a forestry protest in Tas­ma­ni­a’s south has been plucked by a crane from her for­est perch, arrest­ed and charged.

A Tas­man­ian police search and res­cue squad arrived at the protest site in a remote for­est in the state’s south about 10am (AEDT) Tues­day to break up a four-day activist vig­il.

The woman was sit­ting atop a 10-metre tall tree trunk which had been con­cret­ed into the mid­dle of a major access road.

She has been charged with tres­pass­ing, obstruct­ing police, and dis­obey­ing direc­tions, Inspec­tor Mark Mewis of Kingston Police said.

She will be bailed to appear in court at a lat­er date.

Two pro­test­ers remain sit­ting in trees at the Weld Val­ley site, which activists say is under threat from log­ging.

Police con­tin­ue to nego­ti­ate with the pro­test­ers while cables which had con­nect­ed the tree-borne activists to the road below have been removed.

Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre activists say about 1,000 hectares of untouched “wilder­ness” could be logged, with plans by Forestry Tas­ma­nia to build a bridge across the Weld Riv­er to access the area for the first time.

Spokes­woman Jen­ny Weber said Forestry Tas­ma­nia had indi­cat­ed it planned to start build­ing the bridge before Christ­mas, and although work has yet to start, it could begin any day.

About a dozen peo­ple were at the protest when it got under­way on Sat­ur­day.

Six peo­ple left on Mon­day after a Forestry Tas­ma­nia heli­copter hov­ered over the area and anoth­er woman left on Tues­day morn­ing.

The con­ser­va­tion group says the North Weld wilder­ness includes some of the best exam­ples of ancient forests in Tas­ma­nia.

Forestry Tas­ma­nia said vast areas of the Weld were already pro­tect­ed.

It said 88 per cent of the val­ley was pro­tect­ed, with only 12 per cent of the area, in forests out­side these zones, avail­able for log­ging.

It said the des­ig­nat­ed forestry area would be logged for spe­cial tim­bers to be used for crafts and design, an impor­tant indus­try for the state.

Forestry Tas­ma­nia spokesman David Tuck said the pro­test­ers had been told repeat­ed­ly to leave.

“They have been told for four days to clear out,” he told AAP.

Mr Tuck said pro­test­ers wore bal­a­clavas and hurled insults at Forestry Tas­ma­nia work­ers.

The activists were tres­pass­ing and had van­dalised gates, he said.

“The incred­i­ble irony is that they’ve cut down trees in order to con­struct a tree-sit and put the for­est in dan­ger by hav­ing a camp­fire in peak bush­fire sea­son,” he said.

http://news.smh.com.au/woman-arrested-at-tas-forestry-protest/20080108–1ksf.html

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JAN 9 2007 — Tas­ma­nia Police have con­firmed that three anti-forestry pro­test­ers were arrest­ed in the Weld Val­ley, south of Hobart, yes­ter­day.

Police and emer­gency work­ers used a crane to forcibly remove a 23 year old woman from a block­ade yes­ter­day after­noon.
She has been charged with tres­pass, caus­ing injury to prop­er­ty, obstruct­ing police and dis­obey­ing police direc­tions.

A 29 year old woman and a 26 year old man were arrest­ed last night and charged with tres­pass.

All three are from Lucas­ton, in Tas­ma­ni­a’s south. They will appear in the Hobart Mag­is­trates Court in Feb­ru­ary.

source abc