Sav­ing Ice­land Gath­er­ing
Sheffield 21–22nd Jan­u­ary 2006
Matil­da Social Cen­tre, Matil­da Street Sheffield

Week­end gath­er­ing report­ing back from the cam­paign to stop the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment and Alcoa destroy­ing Europe’s largest remain­ing pris­tine wilder­ness for alu­mini­um smelters.

Workshops,films, plot­ting and pre­sen­ta­tions to pre­pare oth­ers inter­est­ed in sup­port­ing the cam­paign in the lead up to the inter­na­tion­al gath­er­ing in Ice­land in sum­mer 2006.

Come along, get involved! It has already start­ed. The Karah­n­jukar dam is under way.…but it can be stopped!

Gath­er­ing pro­gramme to be announced. Fri eve to Sun­day mid­day with cater­ing co-ordi­nat­ed by the love­ly Matil­da Cafe Col­lec­tive.

For more info on the cam­paign see http://www.savingiceland.org

Today, the evic­tion of the mid­dle site at Dalkei­th Park — anti-A68 Bypass protests con­tin­ued. All pro­test­ers in the trees were removed today from this site result­ing in six more arrests. How­ev­er, pro­test­ers still remain in under­ground defences.

Tomor­row, the evic­tion team will most like­ly con­tin­ue on Mid­dle Site. It is also like­ly that the bot­tom site will be fenced in very soon. There is still time to vis­it, but hur­ry!

Each day, there has been a legal obser­va­tion area. If you want to show sup­port for this protest but are unable to be arrest­ed, you can go to the view­ing area where shouts of sup­port, drum­ming and ban­ners will all pro­vide an extra boost for those who are still resist­ing the destruc­tion of these beau­ti­ful wood­lands. Bet­ter still, don’t enter some sanc­tioned legal pen that’s only designed to con­trol you — break free and wan­der. This’ll take some of the ‘forces of doom’ to deal with you, and so slow down the evic­tion — you don’t have to get arrest­ed to do this, but if you don’t mind, try to break through and lift the spir­its of the treesit­ters!

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Sat­ur­day Sol­i­dar­i­ty Pic­nic at Dalkei­th Coun­try Park! Come out, have some fun, and show sol­i­dar­i­ty with those who remain in the trees at Dalkei­th Park resist­ing evic­tion.

The Plan- Sat­ur­day 21 Jan­u­ary, Pic­nic @ Dalkei­th Coun­try Park

Pack a pic­nic bas­ket, role up a blan­ket, and head out to Dalkei­th Coun­try Park for the after­noon. Ask the friend­ly men and women in the bright yel­low jack­ets if they can point the way to the pic­nic (A.K.A. — the legal obser­va­tion area for the evic­tion). [see above com­ments] Get to the pic­nic area, meet your friends, lay down your blan­ket, trade your egg sand­which for your friend’s pick­le sand­which. Have a cup of tea and a scone. Have a laugh!

Also can bring drums, instru­ments, music, ban­ners, bal­loons, kites, fris­bees, beach balls, what­ev­er you fan­cy.

This may lit­er­al­ly be one of the last days you get to enjoy this patch of beau­ti­ful wood­lands, and by this time next year Dalkei­th Coun­try Park will not be the same with a motor­way run­ning through it.

Pro­test­ers still remain in the trees and deter­mined to resist evic­tion as long as pos­si­ble. This is a great way to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the cam­paign, encour­age them, and enjoy a nice day in the coun­try.

Rides will be leav­ing from For­est Cafe in Edin­burgh at noon. If you need a ride come and get one; if you have extra space in your vehi­cle come and give a ride.

Today, the police sur­round­ed Mid­dle site. Mid­dle Site is more heav­i­ly estab­lished than the pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en down top site, hav­ing quite a few peo­ple up in the trees The baliffs arrest­ed two of the pro­test­ers, and have promised to con­tin­ue. Help is need­ed — come on down to Dalkei­th!

Addi­tion­al info to that on http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/?q=node/117

Inter­na­tion­al Invite:
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South Flori­da is an acces­si­ble loca­tion for inter­na­tion­al trav­el, and is a social hotspot of cur­rent glob­al com­merce and pol­i­tics. For sev­er­al years, the glob­al­iza­tion move­ment has influ­enced (and been influ­enced by) EF! But rarely has it been pos­si­ble to dia­logue with eco-rad­i­cals in oth­er parts of the world, espe­cial­ly the major­i­ty world move­ments who have been inspir­ing direct action efforts with­in the U.S. empire. For these rea­sons, the invi­ta­tion is being put out to help bring folks from oth­er coun­tries’ rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ments and indige­nous strug­gles here for the OC and Win­ter Ren­dezvous (this means visa assis­tance and some extra fundrais­ing, so if you can be
of any help in those areas, please con­tact us ASAP!)

Organ­is­ers’ con­fer­ence 15–17th Feb­ru­ary:
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— Last year’s OC seems to have been a more reflec­tive, inner-growth and recov­ery focused con­fer­ence. So we are propos­ing this year we reach towards the oth­er end of the spec­trum and be ori­ent­ed towards move­ment strat­e­gy and vision on the broad­er scale; tak­ing a look at glob­al ecol­o­gy and inter­na­tion­al move­ments on the front­lines.

- Reports from the Earth First! Jour­nal- this is a stan­dard sub­ject of EF! gath­er­ings, but there are some recent hap­pen­ings in the eco-rad­i­cal pub­lish­ing world that might make for inter­est­ing discussions/proposal. For exam­ple, two promi­nent move­ment pub­li­ca­tions, Wild Earth and Do or Die have ceased pro­duc­tion, while new­er projects, such as Green Anar­chy, have grown in cir­cu­la­tion and recog­ni­tion. Does this influ­ence where the EF!J should place the focus of its con­tent?

- Eval­u­at­ing strate­gies, tools and tac­tics- in the past year and a half an article/proposal “Down with Empire, Up with Spring” (from the UK-based Do or Die, Issue 10) has been cir­cu­lat­ing the eco-anar­chist net­works. Essen­tial­ly, it is pro­mot­ing the Hotspot The­o­ry as a glob­al eco-defense/indige­nous sol­i­dar­i­ty strat­e­gy and a SHAC style tac­ti­cal approach for its grass­roots appli­ca­tion. Is it the most coher­ent vision of move­ment direc­tion since EF! first pro­mot­ed wilder­ness cor­ri­dors for North Amer­i­can bio­di­ver­si­ty restora­tion over 20 years ago or is it too rigid, lofty and spoiled with corporate/NGO influ­ence?

- Exam­in­ing our visions and aspi­ra­tions- for the dura­tion of EF!, the per­spec­tives of deep ecol­o­gy have been a dri­ving and uni­fy­ing fac­tor of the move­ment. In the past few years, an anar­chis­tic world­view has had a growth spurt with­in EF! Cer­tain ele­ments of anar­chy have, of course, been there all along, but most would agree that there is a shift of some sort that appears to be occur­ring. In cer­tain ways it is as cul­tur­al as it is ide­o­log­i­cal. The ‘green anar­chy’ ten­den­cy seems to still reflect the prin­ci­ples of deep ecol­o­gy but also bring some of its own aspi­ra­tions and visions of a future world and how we might get there. Is the grow­ing ener­gy around the Fer­al Visions/Green Anar­chy gath­er­ings evi­dence of this shift? What, if any­thing, does that mean for EF! as a ‘move­ment’?

- Review of State Repres­sion- how has new anti-ter­ror­ist leg­is­la­tion of the past sev­er­al years impact­ed EF! and relat­ed groups? How have folks been effec­tive in fight­ing back?

- Anti-oppres­sion check-in- How have racism, sex­ism, xeno­pho­bia, homo­pho­bia, and oth­er oppres­sive ten­den­cies been man­i­fest­ing them­selves in our orga­niz­ing & direct action efforts? How are peo­ple chal­leng­ing them suc­cess­ful­ly? Are there still anti-immi­grant sen­ti­ments in our midst? How can we expose them and send ’em on their way for good?

- Bioregional/international roundup- what are peo­ple up to with­in the EF! net­work, the envi­ron­men­tal direct action move­ment and it’s extend­ed webs of affin­i­ty with­in the full ‘activist’ spec­trum from local grass­roots com­mu­ni­ty groups to glob­al autonomous social move­ments? How do we fit into the big­ger pic­ture? Whose cam­paigns could use some extra hands, who has hands to spare? We can also expect a direct update from the Alter­na­tive Social Forum in Venezuela.

Win­ter Ren­dezvous! feb 17–19
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This is a time to kick back, enjoy each oth­ers com­pa­ny, inform & inspire each oth­er with our skillshares/workshops, eat damn good food and rev­el in the good times so that we can more clear­ly know what kind of rela­tion­ships with peo­ple and with the land that we are fight­ing for in our day-to-day lives.

At recent EF! gath­er­ings there has been a lull in musi­cian par­tic­i­pa­tion, so tell your friends to bring their songs and instru­ments. This year we will be hon­ored with a per­for­mance by Sobre­vivien­cia, a Guatemalan indige­nous Mayan rock band. We are also hop­ing that some of the new­er gen­er­a­tion of rad­i­cal folkies that have been rous­ing the rab­ble in the streets will come ser­e­nade us in the swamps too.

Fri­day night will be the annu­al ‘Night To Howl!’ gath­er­ing of the War­rior Poets Soci­ety, so bring poems, songs and sto­ries to share.

You can expect to see some of the fol­low­ing top­ics pop up over the week­end:

• Fight­ing Gen­tri­fi­ca­tion
• Prob­ing the Tech-Night­mare: bio, nano, robo, cel­lu­lar, etc.
• Prim­i­tive Skill­shares
• Plant Walks
• Indige­nous Sol­i­dar­i­ty in North Amer­i­ca
• Coastal Ecol­o­gy Issues
• Cli­mate, Ener­gy and the Eco-Intifa­da
• Defend­ing Pacif­ic North­West Forests
• Moun­tain Top Removal
• Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­dens
• Earth & Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­er Sup­port
• Deep­er Effects of Civ­i­liza­tion on our Bod­ies & Com­mu­ni­ties;
• Mak­ing Your Own Home­brew

Spe­cial Work­shop on Sun­day Feb­ru­ary 19:
From Defen­sive to Offen­sive: Strate­gic Latin Amer­i­ca Sol­i­dar­i­ty

Details of this and more onhttp://www.earthfirst2006oc.info/

Pro­tes­tors are still in the trees and in the protest sites at Dalkei­th Coun­try Park. The evic­tion attempt start­ed Mon­day 16th ear­ly morn­ing, but as of 3pm Mon­day after­noon three of the four protest sites remain intact. “We urge sup­port­ers to come and join us,” one of the pro­tes­tors said. “It’s not too late to take a stand against this road mad­ness.”

Pro­tes­tors are oppos­ing the build­ing of the A68 bypass through the Park, just south of Edin­burgh. The author­i­ties said today they expect the evic­tion to take two weeks.
Ear­ly this morn­ing Police bailiffs raid­ed one of the sites, top site, and have estab­lished a secu­ri­ty cor­don around it. As of 3pm at least one pro­tes­tor remained in the trees at Top Site deter­mined to resist evic­tion and the cut­ting of the trees in this part of the Riv­er Esk wildlife cor­ri­dor in Mid­loth­i­an.

Police mobilised climbers and machin­ery to remove those in the trees. Two arrests were report­ed. Pro­tes­tors moved high into the trees to com­pli­cate the evic­tion process. They are filled with a pas­sion­ate desire to pro­tect these wood­lands against what is viewed as sense­less and inap­pro­pri­ate destruc­tion of a sig­nif­i­cant eco­log­i­cal habi­tat.

As of late Mon­day after­noon mid­dle site and bot­tom site of the protest were still intact, with demon­stra­tors still in all the occup­pied trees. More pro­tes­tors were walk­ing into the main bot­tom site where pro­tes­tors were still in con­trol of the camp. There was a police pres­ence but they were only mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion. Indy­media has no con­firmed news from the fourth site but it is believed to be intact.

A sup­port­er of the protest told Indy­media “We call on peo­ple to come to Dalkei­th Coun­try Park to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. We can­not let this sense­less prof­it-fuelled destruc­tion go ahead.” Pro­tes­tors are arrang­ing trans­port to the site from the For­est Cafe on Bris­to Place in near­by Edin­burgh. Oth­er pro­tes­tors are mak­ing their way from Edin­burgh by pub­lic trans­port, to join locals from Dalkei­th and area (trans­port info at end of arti­cle).

The first of the four protest sites at Dalkei­th Coun­try Park was estab­lished on the 31 Octo­ber 2005 due to infor­ma­tion that tree felling for the A68 bypass (to be con­struct­ed dur­ing the sum­mer of 2006) was to pro­ceed imme­di­ate­ly. Since that time, all areas in around the park where tree felling is nec­es­sary for the pro­posed bypass have seen the estab­lish­ment of protest sites to defend against this large-scale habi­tat destruc­tion.

The num­ber of peo­ple involved in protest­ing the rout­ing of the A68 Bypass through the coun­try park has increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the estab­lish­ment of the first protest site and includes strong sup­port from many peo­ple local to the Dalkei­th area.

Cam­paign­ers are adamant that before con­struc­tion on the A68 bypass con­tin­ues, a new Pub­lic Inquiry needs to occur. Since plan­ning per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the bypass in 1993, all infor­ma­tion regard­ing the need for its con­struc­tion is dat­ed from 1992 or ear­li­er. A prop­er Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment has nev­er been com­plet­ed, the last Pub­lic Inquiry was in 1992, and the need for this bypass has not prop­er­ly been reassessed since major changes to the trans­port infra­struc­ture of the area (the dualling of the A1, the build­ing of the A7 Dalkei­th bypass, and the poten­tial reopen­ing of the Bor­ders Rail Link). In 1999, the Strate­gic Road Review stat­ed that the A68 North­ern bypass should be held in abeyance until the com­ple­tion of the Mul­ti-Modal Trans­port study (to be com­plet­ed in 2006) which would con­sid­er the need for the bypass with regards to these change.

TRANSPORT TO DALKEITH COUNTRY PARK
Trans­port is being arranged from the For­est Cafe, Bris­to Place, near George IV Bridge, Edin­burgh, which is also act­ing as an info point in Edin­burgh. More info 077532 80009

You can also make your way there inde­pen­dent­ly, by Loth­i­an bus 3 and 3a from Edin­burgh, direc­tions below.

Dalkei­th Protest Site Phone: 07783904369

DIRECTIONS to the main Protest Site
(There are four sites in total)
Please bear in mind the police may be obstruct­ing access.

The site is in a stand of pines on the north side of the Riv­er Esk after the two branch­es have joined and near the cut for the over­head elec­tric lines.

Enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park at the north end- entrance off of the A6094 at Smeaton Lodge (between Dalkei­th and White­craig). Go past Home Farm towards the Riv­er Esk, after cross­ing the bridge the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left (note the site is not acces­si­ble for vehi­cles).

Alter­na­tive­ly, enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park from the main entrance off of the High Street in Dalkei­th. Straight ahead after you go through the gates, then stay on the road lead­ing to the right past the adven­ture play­ground, shop and cafe­te­ria; after pass­ing the graz­ing fields and pass­ing under three pow­er lines cut the road will split. There is a promi­nent Scots pine here. Take the left fork towards the Riv­er Esk. After a short dis­tance, again take the left fork when the road splits and go down the hill. After cross­ing the bridge, the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left. This is around 35–40 min­utes walk.

From Edin­burgh, Loth­i­an Bus­es 3 and 3a go to Dalkei­th, you can use a day tick­et for this jour­ney.

For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign to Save Dalkei­th Coun­try Park, vis­it www.save-dalkeith-park.org.uk/

DALKEITH COUNTRY PARK- ANTI A68 BYPASS PROTEST CAMPAIGN
PRESS STATEMENT- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 16 JANUARY 2006

Evic­tion of the four protest sites in Dalkei­th Coun­try Park against the con­struc­tion of the A68 Bypass and the destruc­tion of the Riv­er Esk wildlife cor­ri­dor began this morn­ing.

At around 4.30 a.m. this morn­ing evic­tion of the protest sites in Dalkei­th Coun­try Park began. Police bailiffs raid­ed one of the sites and have estab­lished a secu­ri­ty cor­don around it. Pro­tes­tors remain in the trees deter­mined to resist evic­tion and the cut­ting of the trees in this part of the Riv­er Esk wildlife cor­ri­dor.

Police are now mobil­is­ing climbers and machin­ery to remove those in the trees. How­ev­er, pro­tes­tors have moved high into the trees to com­pli­cate the evic­tion process. They are filled with a pas­sion­ate desire to pro­tect these wood­lands against what is viewed as sense­less and inap­pro­pri­ate destruc­tion of a sig­nif­i­cant eco­log­i­cal habi­tat.

The first of the four protest sites at Dalkei­th Coun­try Park was estab­lished on the 31 Octo­ber 2005 in regards to infor­ma­tion that tree felling for the A68 bypass was to pro­ceed imme­di­ate­ly. Since that time, all areas in around the park where tree felling is nec­es­sary for the pro­posed bypass have seen the estab­lish­ment of protest sites to defend against this large-scale habi­tat destruc­tion. The num­ber of peo­ple involved in protest­ing the rout­ing of the A68 Bypass through the coun­try park has increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the estab­lish­ment of the first protest site and includes strong sup­port from many peo­ple local to the Dalkei­th area.

Cam­paign­ers are adamant that before con­struc­tion on the A68 bypass con­tin­ues, a new Pub­lic Inquiry needs to occur. Since plan­ning per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the bypass in 1993, all infor­ma­tion regard­ing the need for its con­struc­tion is dat­ed from 1992 or ear­li­er. A prop­er Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment has nev­er been com­plet­ed, the last Pub­lic Inquiry was in 1992, and the need for this bypass has not prop­er­ly been reassessed since major changes to the trans­port infra­struc­ture of the area (the dualling of the A1, the build­ing of the A7 Dalkei­th bypass, and the poten­tial reopen­ing of the Bor­ders Rail Link). In 1999, the Strate­gic Road Review stat­ed that the A68 North­ern bypass should be held in abeyance until the com­ple­tion of the Mul­ti-Modal Trans­port study (to be com­plet­ed in 2006) which would con­sid­er the need for the bypass with regards to these change.

10:30am
The police and bailiffs are work­ing on the Top Site. The sites at Bot­tom and Mid­dle still have every­one in place and are acces­si­ble. Please get along and sup­port if you can (and while you can).

2pm
The top site has been fenced off, and two peo­ple arrest­ed there so far, the oth­er two are freely access­able for now but it is said may be evict­ed Tues­day and Wednes­day.
At least one per­son is still to be tak­en from trees and at least one from a tun­nel, at top site.
Climbers are remov­ing struc­ture from trees.
There is a Scot­tish Exec­u­tive Press Offi­cer and a Police Press Offi­cer on site.

Update — Mon­day after­noon
Last info I have, they are still work­ing on top site. They have fenced in mid­dle site. Bot­tom site was still open and peo­ple there were call­ing for more sup­port. How­ev­er, they said that baliffs were on the way to bot­tom site to fence it off too.
How­ev­er, those going out have been stopped by police before reach­ing the park and are than escort­ed to the ‘view­ing area’ close to top site. Police have blocked peo­ple from enter­ing the park and from going to either bot­tom or mid­dle site.
Vans have been leav­ing reg­u­lar­ly from the For­est Cafe to take peo­ple to Dalkei­th. The evic­tion is far from over, and sup­port will still be cru­cial over the fol­low­ing days. Even if you can’t get into one of the sites, being there to view the evic­tion process and show sol­i­dar­i­ty is vital!