Willits Action Update

 

 

July 30th

In yet anoth­er stealthy pre-dawn action, pro­test­ers against the Cal­trans bypass around Willits again snuck onto the con­struc­tion site, this time on the south end of the route, lock­ing them­selves to a giant bull­doz­er called a rip­per. The machine is tear­ing apart a hill­side and using the soil to fill in wet­lands and streams to build a free­way. For the first time, press has access to the protest site, after Willits News pho­tog­ra­ph­er Steve Eber­hard was arrest­ed when he tried to cov­er a protest last week.

Two women, Kim Ban­croft and Mau­reen Kane, have locked their hands around the equip­ment in weld­ed steel tubes, which are dif­fi­cult to remove and must be sawn through. A third pro­test­er, Steve Keyes, was arrest­ed when he would not leave their side, where he was sta­tioned with water. Tem­per­a­tures have been in the nineties all week. A crowd of local cit­i­zens has gath­ered in sup­port, and CHP is on scene. Ban­croft explained: “Cal­trans put out false infor­ma­tion to jus­ti­fy a four-lane bypass. The peo­ple of Willits designed an alter­na­tive route that would not be so expen­sive or destruc­tive, and it was ignored.”  The project’s cost at this point is $210 mil­lion.

“Cal­trans is attempt­ing to mit­i­gate for the loss of wet­lands on an unprece­dent­ed scale, using an untried method with no long term man­ag­er and with­out long term fund­ing to sus­tain it”, said Ellen Drell, found­ing board mem­ber of the Willits Envi­ron­men­tal Cen­ter. “They’re replac­ing an already func­tion­ing wet­land with a spec­u­la­tive plan.”

Cal­trans pur­chased one third of the entire Lit­tle Lake Val­ley in an effort to mit­i­gate for this project, which will cause the largest loss of wet­lands in 50 years. In a scheme that they them­selves acknowl­edge to be exper­i­men­tal, Cal­trans will exca­vate 266,000 cubic yards of wet­land soils, goug­ing out unnat­ur­al depres­sions. In oth­er areas the plan calls for strip­ping off exist­ing veg­e­ta­tion and replac­ing it nurs­ery grown plants.

“The total price tag of this mit­i­ga­tion trav­es­ty to the tax­pay­ers is $54 mil­lion dol­lars,” said Drell.

 The Men­do­ci­no Con­ser­va­tion Resource Dis­trict (RDC), which Cal­trans assumed would take over man­age­ment of the mit­i­ga­tion plan, has declined to accept own­er­ship of the mit­i­ga­tion lands or respon­si­bil­i­ty for its man­age­ment, after review­ing the mit­i­ga­tion plan.  Thus the plan is mov­ing for­ward with no man­ag­er, leav­ing one-third of val­ley lands with Cal­trans as the sole own­er, and no plan for the future. While there is fund­ing for earth mov­ing, plant­i­ng and 40 miles of fenc­ing, there is zero fund­ing for land man­age­ment, includ­ing rota­tion­al graz­ing for cat­tle, over­sight, main­te­nance, and flood con­trol.

Protests over the Willits Bypass free­way have been ongo­ing since Jan­u­ary when a young woman call­ing her­self “War­bler” took up res­i­dence high in a pine tree on the route. Her tree-sit, and 5 oth­ers were end­ed after 2 months in a huge mil­i­tary-style oper­a­tion by CHP swat teams. “War­bler” returned to the trees this week, this time in a rare wet­land ash for­est at the north end of the route. Over 30 peo­ple have been arrest­ed, and ral­lies, peti­tions, protests and a law­suit con­tin­ue.

http://youtu.be/0y1vwWVTGv4

Communiqué After 50 days of Occupation in Zurawlow, Poland

polandoccupychevron

polandoccupychevron

29th July 2013: It has been 50 days since the start of the protest against Chevron’s activ­i­ties by res­i­dents in Zurawlow, Rogow and Szczelatyn, Poland. Since then, they have suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the access to the land leased by Chevron where the shale gas extrac­tion was planned to be car­ried out.

Dur­ing that time, farm­ers had arranged meet­ings with var­i­ous offi­cials, rang­ing from local munic­i­pal­i­ty admin­is­tra­tors down to Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all of the meet­ings and dis­cus­sions failed to meet demands of the pro­test­ers.

Pro­test­ers are being sup­port­ed by activists from all over the world. We are deeply appre­cia­tive of your sup­port. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, we would like to ask you for direct sup­port. At this time of the year the most impor­tant peri­od (field har­vest­ing) for farm­ers begins, thus it is cru­cial for us your pres­ence at the site of the protest. Only your sup­port, joint actions and sol­i­dar­i­ty gives us a chance to reach vic­to­ry.

http://occupychevron.tumblr.com

Climate Justice Activists Occupy Two Tar Sands Mining Sites in Utah

521886_597282230294554_359607144_n29 July 2013 In a direct action fol­low­ing the Canyon Coun­try Action Camp, hun­dreds of activists have swarmed two min­ing sites in Utah tar sands.

521886_597282230294554_359607144_n29 July 2013 In a direct action fol­low­ing the Canyon Coun­try Action Camp, hun­dreds of activists have swarmed two min­ing sites in Utah tar sands. Activists are cur­rent­ly locked down to machines, stop­ping work.

Canyon Coun­try Ris­ing Tide have joined with the Lako­ta, Dine, and Idle No More in con­demn­ing the tar sands in Utah as a defil­ing of the pre­cious Green Riv­er ecosys­tem, and an assault on fresh air and clean water in the US. The tar sands and oil shale min­ing pro­posed in Utah and neigh­bor­ing states would tra­verse more than one thou­sand square miles.

The first block­ade went up two hours ago, and is still hold­ing. Con­tract­ed Card­well, Inc. con­trac­tors attempt­ed to hit peace­ful pro­tes­tors with their trucks, but the activists were able to lock down, and unfurl a ban­ner that reads, “If you build it they will come.”

Pri­vate secu­ri­ty per­son­nel and three police cars have shown up on the scene, but no arrests have been made yet.

The sec­ond block­ade went up approx­i­mate­ly one hour lat­er, and is still hold­ing.

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TWAC Blockade Portland Transcanada Office with Tripod

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553993_672459889449077_590622421_n29July 2013 Update: The action has been declared a suc­cess as busi­ness­es were forced to lock their doors and close their blinds – appar­ent­ly the dance par­ty was just too much of them to even look at! In addi­tion, all TWAC activists have avoid­ed arrest and gear was not con­fis­cat­ed

A tri­pod has been erect­ed at the entrance of a build­ing that hous­es a Tran­sCana­da office, block­ing the entrance and caus­ing busi­ness­es inside to lock the doors. Pro­test­ers out­side have respond­ed with a very glit­tery and col­or­ful dance par­ty in front of the build­ing and a ban­ner that reads “No Tar Sands On Native Lands. Stop Geno­cide.”

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This action was orga­nized by the Trans and Wom­yns Action Camp (TWAC), a direct action group for women and trans* and gen­der-vari­ant folks. A cor­re­spon­dent from TWAC said that they took action today “to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties that are affect­ed dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly by tar sands, includ­ing every­one in Alber­ta who is forced to live in areas of tar sands oil extrac­tion, folks near the Gulf Coast affect­ed by tar sand refine­ment plants, and com­mu­ni­ties who are liv­ing on the pipeline route.” With con­di­tions on the Gulf Coast already tox­ic, high rates of asth­ma and can­cer are becom­ing the norm, and the arrival of tar sands will only wors­en these con­di­tions. In the Athabas­ka water­shed in Alber­ta, com­mu­ni­ties have seen the rise of a large num­ber of rare can­cers, and First Nations com­mu­ni­ties have been affect­ed most heav­i­ly.

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Steph Cas­ca­dia, who is sit­ting at the top of the tri­pod, said, “Extrac­tion of the tar sands is the most destruc­tive project on the con­ti­nent. It threat­ens the integri­ty of the entire bios­phere, not to men­tion the First Nations peo­ples depen­dent upon access to clean water, land, and air for the health of their com­mu­ni­ties.”’

A cor­re­spon­dent from TWAC also said that TWAC was there “to remind the employ­ees of Tran­sCana­da that the death and destruc­tion does not end when they go home to their fam­i­lies, or when they leave to take their lunch break. Lots of oth­er peo­ple have jobs and are often not able to work and pro­vide for their fam­i­lies because of the actions that this cor­po­ra­tion has tak­en, which sole­ly ben­e­fit TransCananda–nobody else wins.”

Security guard in the foreground, dance party in the back

Secu­ri­ty guard in the fore­ground, dance par­ty in the back

Yudith Nieto, a TWAC par­tic­i­pant who trav­eled from a com­mu­ni­ty in Hous­ton affect­ed by tar sands refiner­ies, said, “I am com­mit­ted to ampli­fy­ing the voic­es of com­mu­ni­ties of col­or that are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly silenced, like mine, that are being dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed by envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive indus­tries, and expe­ri­enc­ing racism and clas­sism.”

This action fol­lows a long string of actions tak­en by groups and com­mu­ni­ties all across the coun­try to stop tar sands extrac­tion, trans­porta­tion, and refine­ment – all of which put com­mu­ni­ties at risk and exac­er­bate glob­al cli­mate change. These actions can be tak­en vir­tu­al­ly any­where in the Unit­ed States or Cana­da where there are cor­po­ra­tions who invest in, con­struct, or oth­er­wise do busi­ness with tar sands infra­struc­ture. Lit­tle by lit­tle, we will stop these cor­po­rate maraud­ers.

 

100 Anti-Fracking Activists Overwhelm Injection Well Site in Ohio

BQXb9Q-CQAAoaKQ.jpg-large29 July 2013 Over 100 anti-frack­ing activists have tak­en over the entrance to an injec­tion well site in Ohio.

BQXb9Q-CQAAoaKQ.jpg-large29 July 2013 Over 100 anti-frack­ing activists have tak­en over the entrance to an injec­tion well site in Ohio. The action comes at the end of the week­end-long Don’t Frack Ohio event, which was full of train­ings and activ­i­ties.

The ral­ly is spear­head­ed by “con­cerned cit­i­zen” groups and 350.org as part of the nation­al Sum­mer Heat cam­paign. It is being labeled “Don’t Frack Ohio 2.0,” in ref­er­ence to last year’s action involv­ing more than a thou­sand par­tic­i­pants.

Don’t Frack Ohio states on their web­page: “Remem­ber Don’t Frack Ohio from last sum­mer when over a thou­sand of us marched in Colum­bus, took over the state­house rotun­da and held a People’s Assem­bly? We are doing it again this year, with a bold­er action and with more grass­roots Ohio lead­er­ship. We are focus­ing on Class 2 injec­tion wells and the infu­sion of tox­ic radioac­tive frack­ing waste brought in from oth­er states and also being gen­er­at­ed in Ohio. Last year the Oil & Gas indus­try inject­ed almost 600 mil­lion gal­lons of tox­ic waste in our state, with lit­tle regard for our com­mu­ni­ties health and wel­fare.”

The goal of this and oth­er actions are to get the gov­er­nor to ban injec­tion wells, in par­tic­u­lar, which would effec­tive­ly end frack­ing in the state.

100 Anti-Fracking Activists Overwhelm Injection Well Site in Ohio

 

 

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29th July 2013

Over 100 anti-frack­ing activists have tak­en over the entrance to an injec­tion well site in Ohio. The action comes at the end of the week­end-long Don’t Frack Ohio event, which was full of train­ings and activ­i­ties.

The ral­ly is spear­head­ed by “con­cerned cit­i­zen” groups and 350.org as part of the nation­al Sum­mer Heat cam­paign. It is being labeled “Don’t Frack Ohio 2.0,” in ref­er­ence to last year’s action involv­ing more than a thou­sand par­tic­i­pants.

Don’t Frack Ohio states on their web­page: “Remem­ber Don’t Frack Ohio from last sum­mer when over a thou­sand of us marched in Colum­bus, took over the state­house rotun­da and held a People’s Assem­bly? We are doing it again this year, with a bold­er action and with more grass­roots Ohio lead­er­ship. We are focus­ing on Class 2 injec­tion wells and the infu­sion of tox­ic radioac­tive frack­ing waste brought in from oth­er states and also being gen­er­at­ed in Ohio. Last year the Oil & Gas indus­try inject­ed almost 600 mil­lion gal­lons of tox­ic waste in our state, with lit­tle regard for our com­mu­ni­ties health and wel­fare.”

The goal of this and oth­er actions are to get the gov­er­nor to ban injec­tion wells, in par­tic­u­lar, which would effec­tive­ly end frack­ing in the state.

More updates to fol­low…

 

 

The Great Gas Gala – Day 5 In Pictures

29 July 2013

Update (11:00pm): Day 6! of the block­ade tomor­row. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty tomor­row.

29 July 2013

Update (11:00pm): Day 6! of the block­ade tomor­row. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty tomor­row.

Update (3:30pm): Block­ade grow­ing, as is size of police escorts for frack­ing trucks. Come to Bal­combe and lend your sup­port!

Update (3:30pm): 3 more peo­ple arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing. Come sup­port Bal­combe!

Update (2:30pm): 4 arrests so far at the com­mu­ni­ty block­ade today. Come down and sup­port the fight against frack­ing!

Update (2:05pm): 8 months preg­nant local moth­er shoved out of way by police. Shame!

Update (2:00pm): Large police pres­ence and get­ting more hos­tile. Come sup­port the comm­ni­ty

Update (1:00pm): Police try­ing to push trucks through the block­ade again

Update (1:00pm): Trucks brought to a halt for the moment. Police dis­cussing what to do. Come on down!

Update (10:30am): One per­son arrest­ed at com­mu­ni­ty frack­ing block­ade in Bal­combe. Come and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty in the fight against frack­ing.

Update (10:15am): Trucks back­ing up in vil­lage. Wait­ing to try and break the block­ade. Come down now!

Update (10:00am): Police try­ing to escort truck through com­mu­ni­ty frack­ing block­ade. Come sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty fight­ing frack­ing in Sus­sex!

Update (9:55am): Police mass­ing to try to break through the com­mu­ni­ty block­ade. Come down if you can!

Update (9:40am): Trucks expect­ed to start arriv­ing soon. Come on down!

Update (8:00am): No trucks so far. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty in the fight against frack­ing!

Update (7:00pm): Police begin arriv­ing for day. 30 peo­ple stayed at the camp overnight. Comes down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty.

Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade Hold­ing Back Truck In Bal­combe

Police Escort For Frack­ing Truck At Bal­combe Block­ade

Size Of Police Escort For Frack­ing Trucks Has Been Dou­bled

Peo­ple Sit In Road Block­ing Frack­ing Truck From Enter­ing Cuadrilla’s Site

Peo­ple Link Arms To Defend Bal­combe From Frack­ing

Block­ing Frack­ing Truck Out­side Cuadrilla’s Site In Bal­combe

8 Months Preg­nant Local Moth­er Being Shoved By Police

Preg­nant Local Moth­er Being Com­fort­ed After Police Attack

Peo­ple Rush Out To Defend Bal­combe From Anoth­er Frack­ing Truck

Com­mu­ni­ty Blocks Truck From Enter­ing Frack­ing Site

Police Try­ing To Break The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade In Bal­combe

Police With­draw To Wait For The Next Frack­ing Truck To Arrive

Large Num­bers Of The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade In Bal­combe

Local Moth­er At The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade In Bal­combe

Large Police Pres­ence At Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

A Quick Break For Lunch At The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade In Bal­combe

Anoth­er Local Bal­combe Fam­i­ly Joins The Block­ade

Police Try­ing To Force Anoth­er Truck Through The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Camp At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Camp At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Camp At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Camp Well Sup­plied With Bis­cuits Due To Gen­er­ous Dona­tions

Fam­i­lies At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Com­mu­ni­ty Dis­tressed As Cuadrilla Tries To Force Frack­ing On Bal­combe

Truck Out Of Resident’s Bed­room Win­dow This Morn­ing In Bal­combe

Police Attempt­ing To Break Through Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Police Mass­ing To Attempt To Break Through Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Dam­age To New­ly Resur­faced Road Out Frack­ing Site Due To Trucks

All Qui­et On The West Sus­sex Front

 

No Names, No Frack Drill.

Day 5 of Bal­combe vil­lage’s strug­gle against Frack Attack (Update)

Update — Day 5 — Mon­day 29th July

Day 5 of Bal­combe vil­lage’s strug­gle against Frack Attack (Update)

Update — Day 5 — Mon­day 29th July

After a rel­a­tive­ly qui­et day on Sun­day, today Mon­day, saw many vehi­cles arriv­ing on site. Each deliv­ery was met with heavy resis­tance. A heav­i­ly preg­nant woman attempt­ed to stop one of the trucks but was forced away as things got dodgy and dan­ger­ous. At the same time a man was arrest­ed and bru­tal­ly wres­tled to the ground with a sus­pect­ed bro­ken arm.

For the rest of the after­noon more deliv­er­ies reg­u­lar­ly turned up but only got through with police march­ing in front of each HGV and clash­ing with pro­test­ers attempt­ing to stop them. A lat­er deliv­ery of office fur­ni­ture saw a sit-down protest that result­ed in a more sig­nif­i­cant delay and yet anoth­er arrest.

Per­haps as a sign of the strug­gle ahead the police have installed a mobile office on site and a casu­al con­ver­sa­tion with one cop made it obvi­ous that the police think they are there for the long haul. Some pro­test­ers thought it might pay to also set up a solic­i­tor’s office and branch of Infin­i­ty Foods along­side.

Last Week

After Thurs­day’s suc­cess­ful stand ‑off, Fri­day saw nine­ty police deployed to force the first of Cuadrilla’s trucks through the human bar­ri­cades in front of the site gates. As pro­tes­tors linked arms the cops began to make the first arrests.

Alto­geth­er six­teen arrests were made – using a sec­tion of the Trade Union and Labour Rela­tions Act 1992 , which was leg­is­la­tion first brought in to tar­get fly­ing pick­ets dur­ing indus­tri­al dis­putes. Two more were arrest­ed on Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Obvi­ous­ly Cuadrilla have now man­aged to start get­ting trucks in – but they’re on a tight sched­ule with their drilling licence over by Octo­ber. Alleged­ly they were sup­posed to get drilling today (Sat­ur­day) but that’s been put back until Mon­day already. Accord­ing to Anna Dark, a com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive “They need to get forty days of drilling done before the end of their licence, they’ve lost a day already – we can stop this!”

Cuadrilla’s plan­ning per­mis­sion only allows for vehi­cle move­ments at cer­tain times – they were sup­posed to stop at 1 pm today. Sus­sex cops start­ed off claim­ing that there was an exten­sion but backed down in the face of irate vil­lagers demands to see the paper­work.

Unde­terred by the show of repres­sion a large protest camp has sprung up along the verge and with 90% of Bal­combe vil­lage res­i­dents say­ing they’re in favour of direct action this one could run and run.

SchNEWS has heard that there will be no truck move­ments tomor­row but there will be trans­port head­ing from Brighton up to the drilling site – leav­ing at 9 a.m from out­side RBS on the Old Steine

For con­tin­u­ous updates and how to get involved http://frack-off.org.uk

or phone 07858 614861/07 944 087 421

http://www.schnews.org.uk/stories/No-Names,-No-Frack-Drill/

Myanmar Activist Jailed 10 years For Anti-Mine Protest

Security forces move in to stop protesters plowing fields near the copper mine at Letpadaung Mountain in northern Burma's Sagaing division on April 25, 2013.28 July 2013 A court in cen­tral Myan­mar has s

Security forces move in to stop protesters plowing fields near the copper mine at Letpadaung Mountain in northern Burma's Sagaing division on April 25, 2013.28 July 2013 A court in cen­tral Myan­mar has sen­tenced an activist to a decade in prison for “threat­en­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty” after he led a protest against a con­tro­ver­sial Chi­na-backed cop­per mine which led to clash­es with author­i­ties, accord­ing to a fel­low cam­paign­er.

Judge Kaythi Hlaing of the Shwe­bo city court hand­ed Aung Soe, an activist with Myanmar’s People’s Sup­port Net­work, the 10-year sen­tence on Mon­day after con­vict­ing him on eight charges linked to the vio­lence on April 25, Moe Moe, also of the activist’s group, told RFA’s Myan­mar Ser­vice.   

The group had backed hun­dreds of farm­ers protest­ing the alleged seizure of their land by Wan Bao Com­pa­ny, which runs the cop­per mine near Mount Let­padaung in north­ern Burma’s Sagaing divi­sion.

The clash­es broke out after secu­ri­ty forces moved in to stop the farm­ers from plow­ing their fields on the con­test­ed land. At least ten protest­ing farm­ers were injured, some of them report­ed­ly with gun­shot wounds, while 15 police­men were also wound­ed.

Aung Soe “was sen­tenced under eight charges, includ­ing for threat­en­ing reli­gious puri­ty and nation­al secu­ri­ty, and for ille­gal assem­bly,” Moe Moe said Tues­day.

“He was sen­tenced at the Shwe­bo court by the judge, Daw Kaythi Hlaing,” he said, using an hon­orif­ic title.

Two res­i­dents of Setae vil­lage, near the Let­padaung cop­per mine, named Soe Thu and Maung San, were also sen­tenced for “vio­lat­ing orders” and “incit­ing riots,” Moe Moe added.

He did not say how long the two vil­lagers were sen­tenced to prison.

Moe Moe said that Aung Soe’s lawyer will appeal his con­vic­tion.

Sus­pend­ed oper­a­tions

An inquiry com­mis­sion in Myan­mar ruled in March that the cop­per mine should be allowed to con­tin­ue despite wide­spread objec­tions.

But near­ly four months lat­er, oper­a­tions at the facil­i­ty remain sus­pend­ed with protest­ing vil­lagers refus­ing to accept com­pen­sa­tion offers.

Oper­a­tions at the mine have been sus­pend­ed since Novem­ber, when a bru­tal crack­down on protests against the mine prompt­ed the gov­ern­ment to set up the com­mis­sion to look into the project’s via­bil­i­ty.

The com­mis­sion rec­om­mend­ed that the project should be allowed to move ahead despite con­ced­ing that it brought only “slight” ben­e­fits to the nation.

Since then, vil­lagers who are most­ly farm­ers have staged reg­u­lar protest against the mine, com­plain­ing that the com­pen­sa­tion was not enough and call­ing for a com­plete halt to the project.

Some 15 protesters—both local res­i­dents and activists from Yangon—are want­ed by the author­i­ties over demon­stra­tions against the mine in recent months.

Vil­lagers have said that they do not want pol­lu­tion from the mine to destroy the area and that author­i­ties have con­fis­cat­ed some 8,000 acres (3,000 hectares) of farm­land from 26 vil­lages to make way for the mine.

Hundreds Protest Nickel Mine In Russia, Previous Clashes Resulted in Torched Equipment

28 July 2013 VORONEZH — Hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­ered in a small town in Voronezh region on Sun­day for a new protest in their year-lon

28 July 2013 VORONEZH — Hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­ered in a small town in Voronezh region on Sun­day for a new protest in their year-long cam­paign against plans to open a nick­el and cop­per mine in the area, police offi­cials said.

The demon­stra­tion was orga­nized by the local anti-mine move­ment and res­i­dents of Novokhop­er­sk who called for halt­ing the min­ing project. The ral­ly orga­niz­ers said that about 3,000 peo­ple took part in the demon­stra­tion, includ­ing those from neigh­bor­ing provinces, while the police put the num­ber at 900.

It is the first mass gath­er­ing of the cam­paign­ers after the 13-month stand­off explod­ed last month with a crowd of sev­er­al hun­dred storm­ing the premis­es of a geo­log­i­cal explo­ration par­ty and torch­ing cars, con­struc­tion trail­ers and drilling rigs.

The min­er, pri­vate­ly owned Ural Min­ing and Met­al­lur­gi­cal Com­pa­ny (UMMC), has denied that its mine would harm the envi­ron­ment.