After three days of obstruct­ing the whale hunt by plac­ing inflat­able zodi­acs between whales and the har­poon, the Nis­shin Maru rammed the Green­peace ship, Arc­tic Sun­rise. The whalers are counter claim­ing their ship was rammed by Green­peace. The col­li­sion ocurred in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary. The Nis­shin Maru has con­tin­ued north at full speed, with the three con­ser­va­tion­ists ships in pur­suit.

Both sides have said that no one was hurt in the col­li­sion, although some dam­age was sus­tained above deck and to a mast on the Arc­tic Sun­rise.

Accord­ing to an ABC report, Shane Rat­ten­bury from Green­peace said that the Arc­tic Sun­rise had been observ­ing their activists onboard inflat­able zodi­acs as they paint­ed the words “whale meat from sanc­tu­ary” on the side of the Japan­ese sup­ply ves­sel, Ori­en­tal Blue­bird, short­ly before the col­lis­sion occurred. Accord­ing to Mr Rat­ten­bury, it appeared to be a delib­er­ate move by the Japan­ese Fac­to­ry ship.

“At the time we were over a kilo­me­tre from the Nis­shin Maru — it had been tied up with anoth­er ves­sel mak­ing trans­fers, it then pulled away, it had to come around the ves­sel that it had been trans­fer­ring from and had to head direct­ly toward the Arc­tic Sun­rise,” he said. “There were no oth­er ves­sels in the area and there was no rea­son to head towards us, the Arc­tic Sun­rise was vir­tu­al­ly stopped at the time.”

“There is no way to describe this as any­thing but a delib­er­ate ram­ming which placed the safe­ty of our ship and the lives of our crew in severe dan­ger.” said Rat­ten­bury. He said that the Nis­shin Maru is more than twice as long and six times heav­ier than the Arc­tic Sun­rise. The impact has left the Sun­rise “bat­tered and bruised” but with no crew mem­bers were injured.

A state­ment on the Insti­tute of Cetacean Research web­site by Direc­tor-Gen­er­al Hiroshi Hatana­ka said the Arc­tic Sun­rise’s bow hit the side of the Nis­shin-Maru twice. “The cap­tain of the Nis­shin-Maru con­firmed to ICR today that Green­peace had rammed our ves­sel, which has sus­tained some dam­age. Luck­i­ly, no crewmem­bers were injured.”

Dr Hatana­ka said the col­li­sion hap­pened when the Nis­shin-Maru was approach­ing the refu­el­ing ship, the Ori­en­tal Blue­bird. He called for “Green­peace and Sea Shep­herd should stop at once their dan­ger­ous and crim­i­nal actions.”

State­ments by both par­ties con­flict as to when the col­li­sion occurred and who caused the col­li­sion, but the video of the inci­dent on the Green­peace site clear­ly shows the Nis­shin Maru cut­ing across the path of the Arc­tic Sun­rise in breach of the col­li­sion avoid­ance rules at sea.

On the Green­peace Ocean Defend­ers Blog, Shane said:

“One minute the Nis­shin Maru was tied up with the re-sup­ply ves­sel, offload­ing whale meat, the next it was head­ing straight for us. I was on the phone at the time, when sud­den­ly Arne (the cap­tain) said, “they are com­ing straight at us”. I looked around and saw the Nis­shin Maru bear­ing down. It was very sur­re­al, their ship is so large com­pared to ours. Then it looked like we were going to miss. I went back to the phone inter­view I was doing, only to be dis­tract­ed again by Arne sound­ing the ships horn. The next part was like it was in slow motion, the Nis­shin Maru com­ing towards us, their crew hang­ing over the rails watch­ing, until sud­den­ly there was a loud bang, and our lit­tle ship shook. Then a sec­ond bang, as their stern swung around and caught us again. And then the strangest part — as their stern slid past, I looked up and saw that a man was stand­ing at one of their water can­nons, and as he passed by, he turned the water can­non straight at us, pour­ing water at the bridge of our ship.”

“So was it delib­er­ate? I have no doubt. The Nis­shin Maru turned a big cir­cle to come around to where we were. When they start­ed, the re-sup­ply ves­sel was between us and them — they had to come around it to get to us. Why else would you make such a manoeu­vre? And the guy with the water can­non — sure­ly that was pre­med­i­tat­ed, and it was cer­tain­ly an act of aggres­sion.”

Arne, the Cap­tain of the Arc­tic Sun­rise, claimed the Nis­shin Maru Cap­tain was sole­ly respon­si­ble for the col­li­sion and is in breach of the col­li­sion avoid­ance rules at sea. “The ship that has the oth­er one on the star­board side has to give way. The Arc­tic Sun­rise was on the star­board side of the Nis­shan Maru. There­fore I main­tained my course and speed.”

The day was also marked by the arrival on the scene of the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel, the Far­ley Mowat.

The pre­vi­ous two days have been marked by Green­peace activists obstruct­ing the whale hunt by plac­ing their zodi­acs between the whales and the har­poon. Green­peace have fit­ted fire hoses to their zodi­acs to spray a shield of sea­wa­ter to obstruct the sights of the har­poon­er.

=== Mer­cy Shot ===

On Fri­day Jan­u­ary 6, Green­peace were put in the posi­tion of assist­ing the mer­cy killing of a whale. The whale had been hit and was mor­tal­ly wound­ed, but the har­poon had not set. Blood was gush­ing out of the whale. The Green­peace activists in their Zodi­acs fell to the back of the Yushin Maru No. 2, well out of its way — hop­ing the whalers would end the ani­mal’s suf­fer­ing.

A sec­ond har­poon shot missed, with the whale some­how escap­ing the pur­suit. A sec­ond whal­ing hunter ship, the Kyo Maru, joined the first in the search as well as the Green­peace ships and heli­copter. Accord­ing to Andrew on board the Esper­an­za “For a brief twist­ed peri­od we found our­selves on the same side, both Green­peace and whalers work­ing togeth­er — maybe for dif­fer­ent rea­sons, but I would like to think that they also regret­ted the ani­mal’s pain.”

The Cap­tain of the Esper­an­za final­ly locat­ed the whale and “called the whalers on the radio to tell them (in no uncer­tain terms) where to find it, and to fin­ish it.” wrote Andrew.

The third har­poon set, and then a crew­man aboard the whaler used a rifle to end the whales mis­ery. The dra­ma took near­ly 30 min­utes to play out.

=== Japan­ese Whalers cry foul over Sea Shep­herd activists ===

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel, the Far­ley Mowat, caught up with the whal­ing fleet and the Japan­ese Fac­to­ry ship, the Nis­shin Maru on the 8 Decem­ber, 36 nau­ti­cal miles inside the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry. The Nis­shin Maru had just detached from the sup­ply ship Ori­en­tal Blue­bird, turned a full 360 degrees and rammed the Green­peace ship Arc­tic Sun­rise. Three inflat­a­bles and a heli­copter had been despatched from the Far­ley Mowat at some dis­tance away. Accord­ing to a news release from the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, when the Far­ley Mowat was less than one mile from the Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship, the whalers began to run at full speed north­ward.

Green­peace Activists had suc­ceed­ed in paint­ing on the side of the Ori­en­tal Blue­bird the words “whale meat from sanc­tu­ary”, and on the stern the words “whale meat”.

As the Nis­shin Maru left the scene of the col­li­sion with the Green­peace ship, Arc­tic Sun­rise, crew mem­bers of the Sea Shep­herd in inflat­a­bles threw a foul­ing line as the Nis­shin Maru whal­ing fac­to­ry ship sped past, in the hope of entan­gling the ships pro­pel­lor.

Accord­ing to the Sea Shep­herd web­site, the Far­ley Mowat is chas­ing the Nis­shin Maru but but can­not match the speed of the fac­to­ry ship. While the Nis­shin Maru is under way at speed no whales can be trans­ferred from the har­poon ves­sels. Dead whales need to be trans­ferred to the fac­to­ry ship with­in 32 hours. The two Green­peace ships are also shad­ow­ing the fac­to­ry ship. Thus the whale hunt con­tin­ues to be dis­rupt­ed.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son report­ed from onboard the Far­ley Mowat, chas­ing the Nis­shin Maru: “They have been run­ning all day and they have not been whal­ing. The whalers are now 17 miles out­side of the Aus­tralia Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry. We ordered them to leave, and they left.”

Accord­ing to Sea Shep­herd the fac­to­ry ship appeared to be off-load­ing whale meat to the Pana­man­ian reg­is­tered sup­ply ship, Ori­en­tal Blue­bird. Paul Wat­son said : “There are sushi bars in Tokyo in des­per­ate need of these ‘research mate­ri­als’. It appears they can’t wait for the whal­ing fleet to return in March.”

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety says the Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tion is in vio­la­tion of many inter­na­tion­al laws and reg­u­la­tions, includ­ing:

* Vio­lat­ing the South­ern Ocean Sanc­tu­ary.
* They are vio­lat­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion (IWC) mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing.
* They are tar­get­ing endan­gered fin and hump­back whales that are pro­tect­ed under the Con­ven­tion on Inter­na­tion­al Trade in Endan­gered Species of Wild Fau­na and Flo­ra. (CITES).
* The Japan­ese are also in vio­la­tion of the Aus­tralian laws pro­tect­ing the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.
* They are vio­lat­ing the IWC mora­to­ri­um on the use of fac­to­ry ships to process any pro­tect­ed stock which includes the whales they are hunt­ing – minke and fin whales.

See Also:

* Green­peace Ocean Defend­ers Blog
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/
* Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety
http://www.seashepherd.org/index.html
* Insti­tute of Cetacean Research web­site
http://www.icrwhale.org/eng-index.htm

Sources:

1. Japan­ese whal­ing ship col­lides with Green­peace boat — ABC, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006. 5:19pm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1543643.htm

2. Whalers ram Green­peace ship (Video) State­ment from Green­peace, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/whalers-ram-ship-111

3. Their des­per­ate Mea­sures by Shane aboard the Arc­tic Sun­rise, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/01/their_desper…

4. Arc­tic Sun­rise rammed by whaler’s fac­to­ry ship by Andrew, onboard the Esper­an­za, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/01/arctic_sunri…

5. Mer­cy Shot — by Andrew, onboard the Esper­an­za, Jan­u­ary 6, 2006
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/01/mercy_shot.html

6. Insti­tute of Cetacean Research state­ment (PDF), Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://www.icrwhale.org/eng/060108Release.pdf

7. Sea Shep­herd scares off Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet — News release Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://www.world-wire.com/news/0107060001.html

8. No Whales Will Be Killed While the Chase is On — News Release from Sea Shep­herd, Jan­u­ary 8, 2006
http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_060107_2.html

Please take time to write to these recent­ly arrest­ed pris­on­ers earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers. To receive more fre­quent updates on these and oth­er pris­on­ers email ELP4321@hotmail.com ask­ing to sub­scribe.

Check out the web­site www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk for address­es and info on oth­er pris­on­ers tak­ing action in defense of the earth and it’s inhab­i­tants. Writ­ing to pris­on­ers costs you no more than a few min­utes and a stamp, and it’s impor­tance can not be empha­sised enough. If you don’t know what to say vis­it the above web­site OR Brighton’s Anar­chist Black Cross web­site:www.brightonabc.org.uk

SIX ARRESTS IN AMERICA

On the 7th Decem­ber 05 police car­ried out a series of raids in four States across Amer­i­ca arrest­ing six envi­ron­men­tal­ists. The six were Chelsea Ger­lach, Kevin Tubbs, Stanis­las Mey­er­hoff, [name removed by request], Daniel McGowan and William Rodgers. Sad­ly, with­in a fort­night of his arrest, William “Bill” Rodgers end­ed his own life whilst in cus­tody. At the time of their arrests all six were accused of involve­ment in a series of ELF & ALF direct actions which all occurred in Ore­gon between 1998 and 2001. William “Bill” Rodgers was per­son­al­ly accused of involve­ment in a joint ALF/ELF arson on the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture research facil­i­ties in Olympia in 1998. He was also named as a sus­pect for the 1998 ELF arson against the ski-resort in Vail, Col­orado. In addi­tion Bill had been named as a sus­pect in the destruc­tion of wild horse corals in Burns, OR and Rock Springs, Wyo.

Bil­l’s death is a tragedy and ELP’s thoughts and sym­pa­thies are with his fam­i­ly and friends. But we must remind every­one that despite Bil­l’s death the court cas­es against the oth­er defen­dants are con­tin­u­ing and it is to them we must now offer our sup­port. The charges against the oth­ers are as fol­lows:

Chelsea Ger­lach is accused of act­ing as a look­out dur­ing an ALF arson on Childers Meat Co, Eugene, in 1999. She is also accused of involve­ment in the top­pling of the Bon­neville Pow­er Admin­is­tra­tion tow­er, OR, in 1999. Plus she is accused of involve­ment in an arson against Jef­fer­son Poplar Farm, Clatskaine, OR, in 2001. In addi­tion to these charges, at a bail hear­ing, Chelsea was named as a sus­pect for the 1998 ELF arson against the ski-resort in Vail, Col­orado.

Kevin Tubbs is accused of involve­ment in an ALF/ELF arson on the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture research facil­i­ties in Olympia in 1998. He has also been charged with an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship, Roma­nia Truck Chevro­let in Eugene, OR in 2001.

Daniel McGowan is accused of involve­ment in an ELF arson on Supe­ri­or Lum­ber Co in Glen­dale in 2001. He is also accused of involve­ment in one of the two simul­ta­ne­ous arsons that also occurred in 2001 against Jef­fer­son Poplar Farm, Clatskaine, OR, and Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Cen­tre for Hor­ti­cul­ture in Seat­tle.

Stanis­las Mey­er­hoff, who has been named by Chelsea Ger­lach’s lawyer as a police infor­mant, is accused of involve­ment in the top­pling of the Bon­neville Pow­er Admin­is­tra­tion tow­er, OR, in 1999. He is also accused of involve­ment in an ELF arson on Supe­ri­or Lum­ber Co in Glen­dale in 2001. Plus he is accused of involve­ment in one of two simul­ta­ne­ous arsons that occurred in 2001 against Jef­fer­son Poplar Farm, Clatskaine, OR and Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Cen­tre for Hor­ti­cul­ture in Seat­tle. In addi­tion to these charges, Chelsea Ger­lach’s lawyer has stat­ed that Mey­er­hoff has admit­ted involve­ment in the ALF arson on Childers Meat Co, Eugene, in 1999, although he has not yet been charged with this offence. Because of the alle­ga­tions that Mey­er­hoff is a police infor­mant ELP has removed his details from our pris­on­er list pend­ing fur­ther enquiries.

Besides those actu­al­ly arrest­ed on the 7th of Decem­ber, accord­ing to media, the police sus­pect that at least two oth­ers were involved with one or more of the above list­ed actions. Josephine Sun­shine Over­ak­er has been indict­ed on charges of con­spir­ing to destroy the Bon­neville Pow­er Admin­is­tra­tion tow­er. How­ev­er it would appear from the media reports that the police failed to locate Josephine dur­ing their Decem­ber 7th raids. An eighth per­son, who has not been named by the author­i­ties, but who has been named by one of the Defence Lawyers as Jacob Fer­gu­son, has been declared to be a police infor­mant who has made state­ments against the oth­ers. The media have sug­gest­ed that Jacob Fer­gu­son has admit­ted involve­ment in the ALF/ELF arson on the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture research facil­i­ties in Olympia in 1998. He has also admit­ted involve­ment in the ELF arson on Supe­ri­or Lum­ber Co in Glen­dale in 2001 and the 2001 arson against Jef­fer­son Poplar Farm, Clatskaine, OR. In addi­tion to this he has admit­ted involve­ment in the Childers Meat Fire in 1999. Fol­low­ing the arrests on the 7th of Decem­ber a num­ber of sup­port cam­paigns have been set up for the indi­vid­u­als involved.

Chelsea’s sup­port cam­paign can be con­tact­ed viafreechelseagerlach@hotmail.com
Daniel’s sup­port cam­paign can be con­tact­ed viaFriendsofDanielMcG@yahoo.com
Kev­in’s sup­port cam­paign can be con­tact­ed viasupportkevintubbs@gmail.com

Chelsea Ger­lach #1308678, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401, USA. On remand accused of involve­ment in a series of direct actions that occurred in Ore­gon between 1998 and 2001.

Daniel McGowan # 1407167, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 West 5th Street, Eugene, OR 97401, USA. On remand accused of involve­ment in a series of direct actions that occurred in Ore­gon between 1998 and 2001.

Kevin Tubbs #1213751, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401, USA. On remand accused of involve­ment in a series of direct actions that occurred in Ore­gon between 1998 and 2001.

There will be a reunion this week­end to com­mem­o­rate ten years since the start of con­struc­tion work on the New­bury bypass.

Although work start­ed on the 9th, we are meet­ing on Sat­ur­day 7th as it is the near­est week­end (and some of us are involved in com­mem­o­ra­tion protests on the 9th!). There are no actions planned for the 7th, just a demo and meet­ing up.

Where — Mid­dle Oak (A4/A34 junc­tion)

When — Sat. 7th Jan 2006, from 2pm. Fol­lowed by get togeth­er and can­dlelit vig­il at Don­ning­ton Cas­tle.

What to bring — every­thing you need; there is no camp­site or camp or acco­mo­da­tion sort­ed out, but we expect to find a place to camp, but please bring what you need as we are not pro­vid­ing any­thing. Bring can­dles and food to share too please!

It will be ten years from the first evic­tion of the No M66 Cam­paign in Feb­ru­ary 2006. There will be an exhi­bi­tion about the No M66 Cam­paign, From wednes­day 22nd feb­ru­ary to sun 20th march at the base­ment social cen­ter, lever street, Man­ches­ter.

The M66 was a motor­way which was built around the north east of man­ches­ter it is now called the M60. The cam­paign last­ed for over a year. There were three camps on the route and the first was evict­ed in feb­ru­ary 1996.

To mark the tenth anniver­sary there will be an exhi­bi­tion about the cam­paign.

If you were involved with the cam­paign and can help out in any­way or if you have any pho­tos, leaflets etc we could use drop me a line. Also we will be hav­ing a reunion get togeth­er details to be worked out yet.

Email address is pook­i­eter­ri­er (at) yahoo.com

Groen­Front! (Dutch Earth­First!) occu­pied the Schin­veld for­est in the SE of the Nether­lands to protest agains the intend­ed destruc­tion of 6 hectares of woods.

NATO and the Min. of Defense want AWACS radar planes on the near­by Geilenkirchen NATO base, just across the bor­der in Ger­many, to off with more kerosene in their fuel tanks. The AWACS are being used in the mid­dle east. We have built tree­hous­es and tun­nels and expect them to be evict­ed this Mon­day Jan. 9th by 700‑1000 mil­i­tary and reg­u­lar police. Groen­Front! is call­ing upon cops and sol­diers to refuse work on eth­i­cal grounds. Author­i­ties are immense­ly ner­vous about the immense sup­port of locals, and have now called a local state of emer­gency to quell any more protests. As this had led to even more out­rage, many peo­ple from the town of Schin­veld are pledg­ing to come and sup­port or par­tic­i­pate in the evic­tion.

For 25 years the inhab­i­tants of Schin­veld and Brun­ssum in Dutch Lim­burg are organ­is­ing actions against the prensence of the AWACS, these tremen­dous­ly noisy planes cause noise nui­sance, pol­lu­tion and health prob­lems for the locals. The same engines have even been been banned from fly­ing from US and Dutch com­mer­i­cal air­ports for those rea­sons.

NATO wants to destroy a total of 20 hectares of for­est. Because the town coun­cil refused to deliv­er the nec­es­sary per­mit, a so-called ‘NIM­BY-pro­ce­dure’ was start­ed. August 3rd the min­is­ter of plan­ning over­ruled the non-com­ply­ing local gov­ern­ment so the min­istry of defense can start cut­ting the trees. Recent­ly by a so called ‘roy­al decree’ the region­al gov­ern­ment has also been put aside.. This ‘NIMBY’ leg­is­la­tion was cre­at­ed due to ear­li­er protests against large infra­struc­ture projects. The coun­cil appealed to the supreme court but lost the appeal on decem­ber 2nd, at least for the first 6 hectares of woods. Short­ly after Groen­Front! activists occu­pied the for­est to phys­i­cal­ly defend it. A court deci­sion on the remain­ing 20 will fol­low lat­er.

The woods that will be destroyed are part of a larg­er nat­ur­al reserve with mixed habi­tat wood­lands, fields and moors with a high bio­di­ver­si­ty and sev­er­al rare and endan­gered species. Ear­li­er threats by road­build­ing in the sev­en­ties were stopped by local pro­test­ers.

It is now clear the com­pa­ny that will do the clear­ing is Hei­j­mans BV, part of the huge, cor­rupt and influ­en­tial Dutch con­struc­tion­maf­fia, who have been tar­get­ed by Groen­Front! and oth­ers before for their involve­ment in eco­cide. They have offices and con­struc­tion yards around the world — please tar­get them.

Groen­Front! is a ban­ner that any­one can use for eco­log­i­cal direct action, sim­i­lar to Earth­First! in oth­er parts of the world. Using the name means apply­ing these prin­ci­ples: always putting the earth first; non­vi­o­lence against peo­ple (or oth­er ani­mals); no com­pro­mise; organ­is­ing hor­i­zon­tal­ly (no lead­ers); ant­i­cap­i­tal­ism. Groen­Front! has tak­en up direct action against roads, rail­ways (Betuweli­jn), ports (Afrika­port at Rui­go­ord), bridges (Panam­abridge, Lek­bridge), air­ports (Schiphol), genet­ics and many oth­er haz­ardous devol­op­ments. The most recent for­est occu­pa­tion in the Ent­woods, against chop­ping down trees for hotels near a fan­ta­sy theme park, was end­ed because the devel­op­ments were final­ly called off.

Please come to the camp this week­end. Bring warm clothes (it is cold and mud­dy and might rain), blan­kets, food and water for your­self to last for a few days through the evic­tion, some tarp to sleep on plus a sleep­ing mat (not every­one will be able to sleep up but there will be very basic places to sleep down) and a warm sleep­ing bag. Bring 12mm polypropy­lene rope and climb­ing gear if you have it, or bring chain and lock, or a mon­key­wrench. Please do not bring a dog.

No compromise in defense of mother earth!

— http://www.groenfront.nl —

How to get there:
If you’re from out­side Hol­land or Bel­gium, the near­est places that might give you an idea of where we are are Maas­tricht (NL) and Aachen (Ger­many). The near­est large towns are Sit­tard and Heerlen.

Go to Sit­tard train­sta­tion and take bus nr. 69 (direct) or 37 (trans­fer in Brun­ssum to bus 8, ask the bus­driv­er). Alter­na­tive­ly take bus 8 to Schin­veld from Heerlen. The near­est stop is called ‘Bouw­bergseweg’. Theres a good chance pas­sen­gers will want to help you get to the camp. As roads might be closed from tomor­row onward, and there might be police patrols due to the state of emer­gency, best is to ask a local to help you get to the camp or find the camp through the woods your­self.

The num­ber of the site mobile is +31 (0)6 25411119

From Sat­ur­day 28th of Jan­u­ary 2006 the Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion will be indef­i­nite­ly occu­py­ing the site of Sol­id Ener­gy’s planned open cast coal mine in Hap­py Val­ley on the West Coast and we are invit­ing as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to join us.

Why? Because the mine will:

• Destroy the habi­tat of a num­ber of endem­ic native species that are already threat­ened with extinc­tion includ­ing great spot­ted kiwi (roa) and the snail Pow­elliphan­ta “patrick­en­sis”.
• Pol­lute local water­ways by acid mine drainage
• Con­tribute up to 12 mil­lion tonnes of cli­mate chang­ing car­bon diox­ide to the atmos­phere when the coal is burnt for steel man­u­fac­ture
• Dev­as­tate a beau­ti­ful pris­tine ecosys­tem that is too valu­able to lose.

Sol­id Ener­gy have recent­ly cleared the last remain­ing legal hur­dle and plan to start devel­op­ing the mine site in 2006. (The High Court ruled against For­est and Bird’s Hap­py Val­ley appeal on Wednes­day 21st Decem­ber). The only thing that will stop them is a con­tin­u­a­tion of our grass­roots cam­paign­ing, so we need as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to join us in Hap­py Val­ley, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the first week­end of the occu­pa­tion. Peo­ple com­ing lat­er in the weeks after the ini­tial week­end will also be much appre­ci­at­ed. You can stay for as short or as long an amount of time as you like! This is your chance to see why Hap­py Val­ley should be saved and con­tribute to a cre­ative envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign.

The route is marked, though there is no prop­er track. The walk takes less than half a day and you will be walk­ing with oth­ers who have a good knowl­edge of the area. You need to come as a self con­tained tramper/camper and be pre­pared for unpre­dictable weath­er.

Hap­py Val­ley is locat­ed in the Upper Waiman­garoa Val­ley, approx­i­mate­ly 25km north-east of West­port. We access it by tramp­ing from Cedar Creek Road, beyond Bur­netts Face (near Waiman­garoa). We will, how­ev­er, all be meet­ing up in or near West­port before­hand.

We will update with more details clos­er to the date, but in the mean­time if you want to know more about the occu­pa­tion, to learn more about the tramp­ing gear required, and to coor­di­nate with oth­ers head­ing over, get in con­tact with the Save Hap­py Val­ley Christchurch group. Their details are:

Save Hap­py Val­ley Christchurch
Phone: (03) 388 0978 (ask for Dan Rae or Fran­cie Moun­tier) or Fran­cie on 021 1757 484
Email: save­hap­py­val­ley (at) yahoo.com

Hope to see you there!
Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion

Update from the Far­ley Mowat —  Some­where Off the Coast of Antarc­ti­ca

Whalers still scat­tered and flee­ing, the Far­ley Mowat still pur­su­ing, a dead whale is found, and the crew take a plunge with the pen­guins. The crew of the Far­ley Mowat wel­comed the New Year in with a tru­ly unique style.

While the Far­ley Mowat’s heli­copter was away on a three-hour recon­nais­sance flight, the ship parked along­side a beau­ti­ful ice­berg. On small floes around the berg were numer­ous Adelie pen­guins. A large sperm whale swam near­by while a moth­er hump­back and her calf cir­cled the ice­berg dur­ing the entire time.

Many of the crew earned their Pen­guin Swim Club sta­tus by div­ing into the zero degree Cel­sius water to swim with the pen­guins.

To qual­i­fy for the cer­tifi­cate, the swim­mers must go in with a bathing suit only or nude, whichev­er they pre­fer. The only two nude swim­mers were Geert Jan Vons from the Nether­lands and Jon Batch­e­lor from the Unit­ed States. The only female crewmem­ber to take the plunge was young Emi­ly Hunter from Cana­da, eh. The oth­er cer­tifi­cates award­ed were to Wes­sel Jacob­sz of South Africa, Peter Heller, Lin­coln Shaw, Cas­son Trenor, Jeff Watkins, Joel Capo­lon­go, Den­nis Marks, Jim Pacheco, Dan Vil­la, and Chris Price of the Unit­ed States, Dar­ren Cullis and Luke West­head of Great Britain and Sime­on Hout­man of New Zealand.

When the heli­copter returned from recon­ning the ice edge west­ward and north­ward, the Far­ley Mowat resumed her course west­ward.

The heli­copter had spot­ted a dead young sperm whale float­ing on the sur­face at a dis­tance of thir­ty-five miles. The Far­ley Mowat inves­ti­gat­ed the sit­u­a­tion and found a sperm whale of approx­i­mate­ly eight meters in length. There were no vis­i­ble wounds and the body was attract­ing dozens of seabirds. Cause of death is unknown.

Dozens of fin whales were also spot­ted from the heli­copter. A search of an area one hun­dred and fifty miles long and six­ty miles wide failed to spot any whal­ing ves­sels. We will send the heli­copter up again tomor­row to con­tin­ue the search.

The Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship and one har­poon ves­sel con­tin­ues to flee west­ward at top speed and Jan­u­ary 1st was anoth­er day that no whales were killed.

The where­abouts of the three har­poon ves­sels and the spot­ting ves­sel remain unknown and as the Esper­an­za keeps dog­ging the Nis­shin Maru, it is our job to search for these four miss­ing ves­sels.

Could the three har­poon­ers be whal­ing? Not like­ly with­out the fac­to­ry ship. The har­poon­ers have no facil­i­ties to process the slain whales. Could the Kyo Maru, the spot­ting ves­sel be act­ing as a pro­cess­ing ship? There is a small pos­si­bil­i­ty, but it is unlike­ly con­sid­er­ing that the ves­sel does not have the deck space for cut­ting up a live whale.

Eight days since Christ­mas with­out a whale being killed, the fleet scat­tered and run­ning aim­less­ly. Are they wait­ing for mil­i­tary assis­tance from Japan? Their objec­tives remain a mys­tery but every­day that whales are not killed costs them mon­ey and spares the lives of whales.

One report we received is that the Japan­ese whalers are afraid of being “attackedâ€? by the Sea Shep­herd crew. We hope they keep think­ing that way.

More news at
http://www.seashepherd.org/news.html

Mas­sive protests have delayed the start of work on a 33-mile tun­nel under the Alps between France and Italy planned as a key link in a trans-Europe rail line.

The demon­stra­tion mixed envi­ron­men­tal activists with res­i­dents of the Val di Susa on the bor­der between the two coun­tries, the Times of Lon­don report­ed. In Venaus, the tun­nel’s Ital­ian end, the news­pa­per said that almost every house sports a “No TAV” sign, using the pro­jec­t’s Ital­ian acronym.

On Wednes­day night the Venaus post was cleared by the police. Between 3 and 4 a.m. the cops vio­lent­ly rushed against the demon­stra­tors who were block­ing the open­ing of the TAV yard. Sev­er­al peo­ple have been injured, some of them have been blood­i­ly hit.

The min­is­ter of the Inte­ri­or, Pisanu, has warned every­body that in the Val­ley of Susa there were ‘sub­ver­sive groups’: prob­a­bly he was refer­ring to the thou­sand cops who attacked and clubbed two-hun­dred sleep­ing peo­ple. Media and pol­i­tics have start­ed at once to blath­er on ‘clash­es and brawls’, but this was a pre­med­i­tat­ed aggres­sion against harm­less peo­ple who could not run away. This provo­ca­tion has had the oppo­site effect, though, and protests are spread­ing all over.

The inhab­i­tants of the val­ley are receiv­ing sup­port from Turin and from every part of Italy, not only through demon­stra­tions in sev­er­al cities, but also with the stream of tens of thou­sands of peo­ple giv­ing rise on Thurs­day morn­ing to a mas­sive, extra­or­di­nary demon­stra­tion in Venaus. The demon­stra­tors, deter­mined to win back the post cleared by the State vio­lence forces, have sur­round­ed the yard, dis­man­tled its struc­tures and erect­ed bar­ri­cades in order to face the police prop­er­ly.

On the 30th Novem­ber, CMC, the for­mer left-wing coop­er­a­tive hav­ing spe­cial­ized in envi­ron­men­tal dis­truc­tion in the Tus­can region of Mugel­lo, start­ed occu­py­ing the fields of Venaus, in the Pied­mon­tese Alps, in order to open the yard for a 10 km tun­nel, the first step in the con­truc­tion of the high-veloc­i­ty rail­way called TAV.

On the 29th June and on the 6th-7th Octo­ber blocks by the peo­ple of the val­ley pre­vent­ed the CMC tech­ni­cians, escort­ed by police forces of alla sorts, from car­ry­ing out the seizure. In the face of the umpteenth chal­lenge by the great infra­struc­ture lob­by (among its mem­bers there is also the Ital­ian min­is­ter for infra­struc­tures, Lunar­di), the Val­susa pop­u­la­tion has got ready to resist.

The peo­ple in the Val di Susa Region fight against the planned 54-km-long TAV-high-speed-train-tun­nel because the work at the tun­nel will set free ura­ni­um and asbest from inside the moun­tain.

The pro­posed rail line would con­nect Lis­bon with Kiev.

Oppo­nents of the tun­nel say 300 high-speed trains a day would destroy a peace­ful moun­tain area and dam­age the envi­ron­ment. They are espe­cial­l­ly opposed to a short­er sec­ondary tun­nel under Mount Musine, a place said to be where the Emper­or Con­stan­tine saw a cross in the sky and also asso­ci­at­ed with Celtic rit­u­als.”

Now all peo­ple who care for envi­ron­ment and for the defense against cap­i­tal­ist greed, all peo­ple deter­mined to win back their lives seized by the EU, and by the Ital­ian state and regions, express sol­i­dar­i­ty and fol­low atten­tive­ly the Val­susa bat­tle.

videos.
http://www.onedrop.it/Cortometraggi/Tav/No_tav_1.mpg
http://www.onedrop.it/Cortometraggi/Tav/No_tav_2.mpg
http://www.onedrop.it/Cortometraggi/Tav/No_tav_3.mpg

more pics:
http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2005/12/940542.php
http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2005/12/940292_comment.php
http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2005/12/32877.shtml
http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2005/12/32891.shtml

http://italy.indymedia.org/archives/display_by_id.php?feature_id=2619
http://www.notav.it