Indian tribe blocks Pan-American Highway to protest land invasion

23 July 2013 Cross post­ed from Sur­vival

 

23 July 2013 Cross post­ed from Sur­vival

 

A key South Amer­i­can high­way con­nect­ing Paraguay and Bolivia is being blocked by an Indi­an tribe angry at the destruc­tion of their rapid­ly-shrink­ing island of for­est.

Ayoreo Indi­ans today blocked the Trans-Cha­co High­way, which forms part of the Pan-Amer­i­can High­way, and have vowed to main­tain their protest until out­siders who have occu­pied their land are removed.

The Indi­ans are angry about the ille­gal inva­sion of their land by two Paraguayan farm­ers, in an area to which the Ayoreo secured offi­cial land title 16 years ago.

The farm­ers and their work­ers have erect­ed cat­tle fences and bull­dozed wide tracks, and claim that the land belongs to them. They were guard­ed by police, to pre­vent any attempt on the Ayore­os’ part to stop the work.

The land is titled to the Ayoreo, but the farmers have erected cattle fences and bulldozed wide tracks.
The land is titled to the Ayoreo, but the farm­ers have erect­ed cat­tle fences and bull­dozed wide tracks.
© Sur­vival

Although most mem­bers of the Ayoreo tribe are con­tact­ed, some groups are known to remain uncon­tact­ed in the for­est in the area now under threat.

The Ayoreo have said to Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al, ‘We don’t want any out­siders in our ter­ri­to­ry – it’s dan­ger­ous for us, and dan­ger­ous for our rel­a­tives in the for­est. We’ll stay here [on the road] until all the out­siders leave our land.’

Uncon­tact­ed Cha­coA spe­cial report from the Paraguayan Cha­co. Recent­ly con­tact­ed Ayoreo Indi­ans are wor­ried for the future of their uncon­tact­ed rel­a­tives.

Survival’s Direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘The Ayoreo are extreme­ly angry that one of the few parts of their ter­ri­to­ry that they had man­aged to secure is now being invad­ed by out­siders, with the con­nivance of the local police. It seems like the author­i­ties in Paraguay favor the rich and pow­er­ful over peo­ple like the Ayoreo, who sim­ply try to live in peace on their own land.’

ALF Liberates Dolphins

23 July 2013 2 dol­phins were set free from Yev­pa­to­ria dol­phi­nar­i­um as a result of spe­cial oper­a­tion with div­ing equip­ment. 

Dur­ing the night of the full moon on 20/07/2013 we cov­ered 2 km under water and breached secu­ri­ty perime­ter: we cut the nets and entered dol­phin con­tain­ment pools.

23 July 2013 2 dol­phins were set free from Yev­pa­to­ria dol­phi­nar­i­um as a result of spe­cial oper­a­tion with div­ing equip­ment. 

Dur­ing the night of the full moon on 20/07/2013 we cov­ered 2 km under water and breached secu­ri­ty perime­ter: we cut the nets and entered dol­phin con­tain­ment pools.

In the next hour we cut large part of perime­ter bar­ri­er. Dol­phins encour­aged our efforts with clicks and whistling. Their sup­port filled us with joy and excite­ment.

This has been an unfor­get­table meet­ing and encour­ag­ing expe­ri­ence for us. Our job done, we left the area of oper­a­tion.

By the way, the prison was equipped with night-vision cam­eras, but their red eyes were turned on the cat­walks and audi­ence seats. 

Nobody expect­ed our approach from below. As soon as dol­phins got wind of free­dom and open water, they escaped into the night sea.

- ALF/FAI SEALS on tour

New Wick Drain Protest Delays CalTrans Again, USA

Picture from the May wick drain lock down.

23.7.13

Picture from the May wick drain lock down.

23.7.13

Cal­trans’ attempt to drain and fill wet­lands was shut down today when two activists locked them­selves to both of the giant “stitch­er” tow­ers that are punch­ing thou­sands of wick drains into the water table near this small rur­al town. The wick drains are being used to com­pact the soil so that it can no longer hold water, in prepa­ra­tion for build­ing a free­way. The Willits Bypass free­way project entails the biggest loss of wet­lands in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia in 50 years. Oppo­nents of the project say it is a giant loss for tax­pay­ers as well.

Two pro­test­ers were able to slip past CHP guards in the predawn dark­ness to get to the steel tow­ers, which had been low­ered to the ground for the night. The tow­ers are now low­ered each evening ever since activist Will Par­rish climbed 60 feet into an upright tow­er, occu­py­ing it and shut­ting down work for eleven days from June 20 to July 1.

Travis Jochim­sen and a woman call­ing her­self Blue Heron used weld­ed steel lock box­es to attach them­selves to the equip­ment, plac­ing their arms deep into the met­al tubes they had insert­ed between the tower’s open grid work. “We can’t afford to lose pre­cious water for the sake of an unnec­es­sary free­way, said Jochim­sen. “Every day the wick drains aren’t being installed is a vic­to­ry for farm­ers, tax­pay­ers and the plan­et”.
Bypass oppo­nents con­tin­ue to say the project is unjus­ti­fied by Cal­trans’ own traf­fic data, point­ing to a vir­tu­al­ly emp­ty two-lane high­way north of town. The emp­ty high­way can be seen on  Cal­trans’ web­cam that records traf­fic every hour. http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist1/d1tmc/1_cam.php?cam=27 
Over 70% of traf­fic is local and would not be served by the bypass.  “This project is a bonan­za for the con­trac­tors and a mas­sive loss for every­one else—especially the tax­pay­ers,” said Willits city coun­cil­woman Madge Strong. The con­tro­ver­sial project has a “stick­er price” of $210 mil­lion, but with inter­est on the prop 1B bonds and the usu­al cost over­runs, the final cost could be as high as $500 mil­lion dol­lars.

A del­e­ga­tion from Willits, includ­ing Strong, met with Cal­trans Chief Offi­cer Mal­colm Dougher­ty in Sacra­men­to on July 9 to show how Cal­trans employ­ees inflat­ed the traf­fic fig­ures and oth­er data in order to jus­ti­fy a four lane free­way, ignor­ing less cost­ly and destruc­tive alter­na­tives. Dougher­ty dis­missed the traf­fic data as irrel­e­vant, although he could not explain why the tax­pay­ers should finance an I‑5 style free­way for a rur­al area that has been los­ing pop­u­la­tion for a decade. Cal­trans only has suf­fi­cient fund­ing for a two-lane bypass at present, yet it is build­ing a mas­sive four lane foot­print. Dougher­ty expressed con­fi­dence that plen­ty of fund­ing will be avail­able in the future.

Break­ing news: Reporter/photographer Steve Eber­hart of The Willits News was arrest­ed at 7:35 a.m. this morn­ing on the con­struc­tion site while wait­ing for his Cal­trans escort to arrive

Michigan Activists Locking Down to Halt Tar Sands Pipeline Construction

Brooklyn & Barb locked down

From MI-CATS Press Release:

Mon­day, July 22nd, 2013

Brooklyn & Barb locked down

From MI-CATS Press Release:

Mon­day, July 22nd, 2013

This morn­ing Michi­gan Coali­tion Against Tar Sands (MI-CATS) is tak­ing direct action near Stock­bridge ‘to halt con­struc­tion of the Tar Sands pipeline 6B expan­sion project of Cana­di­an cor­po­ra­tion Enbridge. Over 40 Michi­gan­ders have come to oppose the infa­mous corporation’s fla­grant expan­sion of the very same pipeline that spilled out into the Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er only three years ago. Enbridge claims they have restored the riv­er after a spill is no excuse to expand the pipeline, expand­ing the pipeline increas­es the risk for every­one.

Res­i­dents are cur­rent­ly halt­ing Enbridge’s con­struc­tion plans by putting their bod­ies on the line in an act of non vio­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence against Enbridge’s plans. At least 6 peo­ple have been arrest­ed so far as police attempt to shut down the protest. 4 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly locked down to con­struc­tion equip­ment and refus­ing to move. Police have arrest­ed their med­ical sup­port team and threat­en to arrest any­one who tries to approach them.

 

These mea­sures come after the exhaus­tion of every method with­in the law, as it has has become appar­ent from our expe­ri­ences all through­out the state. Our state gov­ern­ment is ready to set aside its own laws and legal process­es to accom­mo­date this for­eign cor­po­ra­tion.

Enbridge itself has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed that their sole pri­or­i­ty is their own bot­tom line, not the health and safe­ty of the peo­ple of Michi­gan, our ecosys­tem, and even their own work­ers.

Michi­gan Coali­tion Against Tar Sands seeks to unite the peo­ple of Michi­gan toward the com­mon goal of stop­ping all trans­porta­tion of tar sands oil in the state and advo­cat­ing against the pro­duc­tion and trans­porta­tion of tar sands every­where. We work in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the glob­al move­ment against harsh fos­sil fuel extrac­tive prac­tices.

Accord­ing to one per­son who is par­tic­i­pat­ing in this action “This pipeline is a dis­as­ter for Michigan’s water and the glob­al cli­mate. I’m blockad­ing this pipeline to  pre­vent the next spill because I care about Michigan’s air and water. Peo­ple all over the world are tak­ing action in their own com­mu­ni­ty this Fear­less Sum­mer. We need to leave all fos­sil fuels in the ground.” – William Lawrence of East Lans­ing

We will not allow Cana­di­an tar sands to pass through our back­yards. We will no longer allow the same Cana­di­an cor­po­ra­tion respon­si­ble for the tar sands which still lie at the bot­tom of our Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er to place all of us at risk. We are tak­ing this action to pro­tect from anoth­er spill and to ensure a liv­able plan­et for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Loca­tion of the action is the Enbridge 6B ease­ment off of Grimes west of M‑52 near Stock­bridge, MI. Look for the orange con­struc­tion signs and the police pres­ence. ‪#‎micat­s­act‬. Updates on the action will con­tin­ue, as events unfold.

This is MI-CATS’ sec­ond action at the Enbridge 6B pipeline this sum­mer; in the first an activist climbed inside the Enbridge 6B pipe. Fol­low @MichiganCats and @efjournal on twit­ter for updates

Flotilla Protests Development in Manatee County

Res­i­dents opposed to the pro­posed Long Bar Pointe devel­op­ment project gath­ered in boats on Sara­so­ta Bay to protest los­ing the last piece of unde­vel­oped shore­line in Man­a­tee Coun­ty.

Res­i­dents opposed to the pro­posed Long Bar Pointe devel­op­ment project gath­ered in boats on Sara­so­ta Bay to protest los­ing the last piece of unde­vel­oped shore­line in Man­a­tee Coun­ty.

Dozens of pro­tes­tors gath­ered on a flotil­la of boats, kayaks, pad­dle boards and jet skis in Sara­so­ta Bay Sat­ur­day after­noon.

“This is tip­ping point for Man­a­tee Coun­ty, we got to make a deci­sion which way we go,” pro­tes­tor Jaime Can­field said. “Do we want to fol­low the rest of Flori­da and devel­op the coast or do we pre­serve it.”

Can­field is opposed to an ambi­tious project that threat­ens to remove man­groves and sea grass in Sara­so­ta Bay to make way for a mari­na and five-star resort-style devel­op­ment. The project is pro­posed for an area that par­al­lels El Con­quis­ta­dor Park­way where 75th Street West inter­sects with 53rd Avenue West that has long been agri­cul­tur­al.

Cur­rent­ly a project includ­ing con­dos and sin­gle fam­i­ly homes with docks is already approved but devel­op­ers want to expand.

Devel­op­ers behind the project — Car­los Beruff of Medal­lion Home and Lar­ry Lieber­man from the Bar­ring­ton Group — how­ev­er believe the project will be a wel­come and much need­ed addi­tion to Man­a­tee Coun­ty.

The new plans call for a mixed-use devel­op­ment — sin­gle- and mul­ti-fam­i­ly units, hotel, mari­na, office and com­mer­cial space, and a con­fer­ence cen­ter — on the 463.2 acres.

How­ev­er near­ly 295 acres is with­in the Coastal High Haz­ard zone, an area prone to flood­ing dur­ing storms. Because the land is vul­ner­a­ble in a storm, devel­op­ers must get the coun­ty to amend the com­pre­hen­sive plan to allow for the more intense devel­op­ment.

Ter­ri Won­der, one of the orga­niz­ers of the protest thinks an amend­ment to the com­pre­hen­sive plan is a ter­ri­ble idea.

“We hope Car­los changes his mind now or before Aug. 6,” Won­der said. “If not, that the Man­a­tee Coun­ty Com­mis­sion will not rat­i­fy his project.”

Won­der, a Bayshore, res­i­dent said she grew up on Sies­ta Key and saw how devel­op­ment changed the island. She moved to Bayshore Gar­dens to get back some of what she had lost and because Sies­ta Key became to pricey.

Many of the pro­tes­tors includ­ing Won­der are con­cerned about the effects the pro­posed devel­op­ment will have on the bay, a breed­ing and feed­ing ground for dol­phins and man­a­tees.

The boaters gath­ered in a flotil­la and shared ban­ners and signs read­ing “Pro­tect the bay” and “Save our Shore.” They even tar­get­ed the project’s financ­ing, which is from Bain Cap­i­tal.

“We want to pre­serve what is pre­cious,” Won­der said. “Home­own­ers want to retire here and their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren want to come here.”

Won­der fears that if the project is approved, devel­op­ment will reach a point of no return and that Man­a­tee Coun­ty will no longer rep­re­sent the best of Flori­da.

“Well it’s inter­est­ing because last night we held a meet­ing at the El Con­quis­ta­dor Coun­try Club and we received a tremen­dous­ly pos­i­tive reac­tion from peo­ple that would be thrilled that there would be some place to go, eat and enjoy the water,” Lieber­man said. “They were thrilled that there would be a revi­tal­iza­tion of Man­a­tee Coun­ty.”

Liber­man says one of the project’s envi­ron­men­tal experts was at meet­ing to explain how the project intends to have zero neg­a­tive impact to the envi­ron­ment.

“I know there are a lot of peo­ple that are protest­ing, but these peo­ple have not seen the plan. They have not talked to the expert envi­ron­men­tal­ist who have guar­an­teed us that this would have a pos­i­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact on the envi­ron­ment and Sara­so­ta Bay,” Lieber­man said. “They are out there protest­ing and they don’t know the facts and that is dan­ger­ous.”

Long­time Bayshore res­i­dent Richard Nel­son looked to the Sara­so­ta side of the bay Sat­ur­day after­noon and then around him, fear­ful of the changes that could come.

“Look at this, they all want it to look like that,” Nel­son said. “That actu­al­ly looks more like the Bronx.”

Nel­son moved to Flori­da from New York City near­ly 23 years ago, and he says he hasn’t regret­ted it for a day.

“We have to try and pre­serve every­thing we got,” Nel­son said. “You have to fight for it or else they are just going to try and do what­ev­er they want.”

UK Coal win the battle but not the war… campaigners fight on

Today (Fri­day 19th July 2013) it has been announced that UK Coal will be allowed to have a re-run of the Inspector’s inquiry into the bit­ter­ly dis­put­ed appli­ca­tion to mine at Bradley, Co. Durham. Last time round the Inspec­tor’s Inquiry took three weeks. Local res­i­dents still don’t know the fate of the val­ley they love. Cam­paign­ers await new inquiry dates.

Today (Fri­day 19th July 2013) it has been announced that UK Coal will be allowed to have a re-run of the Inspector’s inquiry into the bit­ter­ly dis­put­ed appli­ca­tion to mine at Bradley, Co. Durham. Last time round the Inspec­tor’s Inquiry took three weeks. Local res­i­dents still don’t know the fate of the val­ley they love. Cam­paign­ers await new inquiry dates.

Six years ago the local com­mu­ni­ty began to fight the coal com­pa­nies plans to extract 556,000 tonnes of coal. Today the Judge is allow­ing that bat­tle to re-run. For more infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign and the his­to­ry of the appli­ca­tion see here.

Local res­i­dent Car­ol Rocke said “I am dis­mayed and sad­dened by the deci­sion, it’s such a waste of pub­lic mon­ey to re-run the argu­ments. The inter­est­ed and active par­ties in the com­mu­ni­ty are up for the fight, we wont let this val­ley go.” The Pont Val­ley Net­work has gone from strength to strength increas­ing the amount of activ­i­ties in the val­ley, there are now more rea­sons why this appli­ca­tion should­n’t be giv­en the go-ahead.

The Pont Val­ley Net­work have been fight­ing this appli­ca­tion for 6 years. Now the whole appeal to the orig­i­nal plan­ning appli­ca­tion will have to go back to an Inspector’s inquiry, which will cost the coun­cil large amounts in legal bills. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly self­ish of UK Coal at a time of coun­cil cut backs and the argu­ments have already been made.

Eleanor Baylis, from The Coal Action Net­work says, “Today’s deci­sion about the Bradley open­cast appli­ca­tion in Co. Durham is a dis­ap­point­ing one. It means that the com­mu­ni­ty which first won the plan­ning hear­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2011 still has no knowl­edge of whether a place they know and love will be destroyed. Des­per­ate UK Coal clear­ly have no respect for how this affects local peo­ple. How­ev­er, it does not mean that the area will be mined. It means that there will be anoth­er Inspec­tor’s inquiry with a dif­fer­ent Inspec­tor. The new Inspec­tor will decide for them­selves whether the com­mu­ni­ty are cor­rect and that the mine will not over­all ben­e­fit the area.

UK Coal can­not hon­our its oblig­a­tions to it’s min­ers and so the Pen­sion Pro­tec­tion Fund has had to bail it out. Beyond the sit­u­a­tion around Daw Mill Col­liery, where min­ers lost 10% of their pen­sions, noth­ing seems to have changed. UK Coal are clear­ly not a com­pa­ny to be trust­ed to in any­way restore sites, oth­er sites remain bar­ren years after so called restora­tion. Sure­ly no-one wants to be a neigh­bour to a com­pa­ny which fails to pay its work­ers pen­sions and cred­i­tors. Lets hope that the next Inspec­tor agrees with the first, as it is clear to every­one else that UK Coal’s plans are bad for the area.”

Mapuche, Human Rights Activists Slam Argentina’s Chevron Deal

18 July 2013 The Argen­tine government’s long-sought deal with Chevron Corp.

18 July 2013 The Argen­tine government’s long-sought deal with Chevron Corp. to exploit shale oil reserves in Patag­o­nia was strong­ly crit­i­cized Wednes­day by Mapuche Indi­ans, human rights activists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists and left­ists who called it a sell­out to the U.S. that could drain and pol­lute the nation’s resources.

The $1.5 bil­lion joint ven­ture with Chevron was made pub­lic in a brief announce­ment by the state-owned YPF oil com­pa­ny Tues­day night. Pres­i­dent Cristi­na Fer­nan­dez said the deal will pro­mote ener­gy inde­pen­dence for Argenti­na, but many of her one-time allies warned that it would do the oppo­site.

“It’s an irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty and a lack of con­scious­ness that the nation­al gov­ern­ment hands over these resources to Chevron,” said Nilo Cayuqueo, who leads a Mapuche com­mu­ni­ty in Neuquen province, where the Vaca Muer­ta shale oil basin is. “We’re talk­ing about mon­ey here, noth­ing else. They don’t talk about the envi­ron­ment, or of future gen­er­a­tions.”

Mapuch­es say the land belongs to them and con­tend they weren’t con­sult­ed about the deal in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al treaties cov­er­ing indige­nous peo­ples. YPF denied that claim Tues­day.

Adol­fo Perez Esquiv­el, an Argen­tine rights activist award­ed the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, said the deal would hurt the coun­try.

“We Argen­tines,” he said, “are giv­ing our resources to the Unit­ed States and con­vert­ing YPF into a high­ly pol­lut­ing com­pa­ny that will use this method known as frack­ing,” which requires mil­lions of gal­lons of fresh water pumped at high pres­sure to extract oil and nat­ur­al gas from oth­er­wise unpro­duc­tive wells deep under­ground in shale deposits.

Perez Esquiv­el said he would file suit demand­ing to see envi­ron­men­tal impact stud­ies and try to block the oil devel­op­ment. But he said he had lit­tle hope of suc­cess since the court sys­tem recent­ly over­turned an injunc­tion seiz­ing any Chevron prof­its in Argenti­na if the com­pa­ny didn’t pay a $19 bil­lion dam­age judg­ment won by plain­tiffs in Ecuador, where the Tex­a­co oil com­pa­ny since bought by Chevron was judged to have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed parts of the Ama­zon.

The deal reached with Chevron is the biggest for­eign invest­ment that Argenti­na has attract­ed since expro­pri­at­ing YPF from con­trol of the Span­ish com­pa­ny Grupo Rep­sol last year. Rep­sol is demand­ing $10 bil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion and threat­ens to sue any oil com­pa­ny that takes over the wells.

Protest call out! Vedanta AGM, 1st August, London.

1st August, 2pm. The London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, W1K 6JP.

Please spread the word and join us for this year’s Vedan­ta AGM demo (fly­er attached). Affin­i­ty group actions/street theatre/banners etc encour­aged.

1st August, 2pm. The London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, W1K 6JP.

Please spread the word and join us for this year’s Vedan­ta AGM demo (fly­er attached). Affin­i­ty group actions/street theatre/banners etc encour­aged. This will be an inter­na­tion­al day of action and is usu­al­ly well cov­ered in Indi­an and UK news­pa­pers.

We will bring the defiant energy of the Dongria Kond tribe to London, as they fight the final stages of their 10 years battle for survival against Vedanta’s planned mega mine.

Parallel demonstrations are already planned in Odisha and Delhi in India on this international day of action.

Bring drums, placards, banners and lots of energy!

JOIN OUR GRASSROOTS SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT TO STOP THIS KILLER CORPORATE!

Vedan­ta Resources is a FTSE 100 British-Indi­an min­ing com­pa­ny guilty of thou­sands of deaths, envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion, anti union action, cor­rup­tion and dis­dain for life on earth. They have become one of the most hat­ed and con­tentious com­pa­nies in the world.

In Odisha, India they are try­ing to mine a moun­tain inhab­it­ed by an ancient tribe – the Don­gria Kond – who have suc­cess­ful­ly fought them off for more than 10 years. Their fight is in its final stages, and we need to mobilise all our ener­gy to ensure Vedan­ta is kicked out of the Niyam­giri moun­tains for­ev­er.

Vedan­ta is now diver­si­fy­ing into oil and gas, and expand­ing into Africa, Sri Lan­ka and pos­si­bly even the Arc­tic. They cur­rent­ly oper­ate in Zam­bia, South Africa, Liberia, Namib­ia, Aus­tralia, Sri Lan­ka, and across India.

Cov­er­age of last year’s AGM demo in the Guardian news­pa­per

Since last year’s AGM Vedan­ta are guilty of a major tox­ic gas leak affect­ing thou­sands of peo­ple at their Ster­lite sub­sidiary cop­per smelter in Tuti­corin, Tamil Nadu. At their Jhar­sug­u­da Alu­mini­um com­plex they released fly ash over farm­land pol­lut­ing rivers and vil­lages. In Zam­bia they tried to fire 2000 work­ers from their Konko­la Cop­per mines and smelter before being stopped by the Zam­bian Gov­ern­ment. One Zam­bian employ­ee was shot dead at the plant.

At Niyam­giri, Odisha, Vedan­ta with it’s cronies in the Odisha state gov­ern­ment are try­ing to force their mega baux­ite mine through at any cost. They are using police harass­ment, manip­u­la­tion, threats and dis­tor­tion of the legal sys­tem to pre­vent the Don­gria Kond from vot­ing against the project in the com­ing weeks. Forces have even opened fire on women and chil­dren threat­en­ing them not to oppose the mine. But the Don­gria are stronger than ever and pre­pared to fight tooth and nail to save their moun­tain in these final stages.

Vedan­ta are sup­port­ed by the British gov­ern­ment, as well as our banks, pen­sion funds and finan­cial insti­tu­tions. Vedan­ta is 64.9% owned by CEO Anil Agar­w­al and his fam­i­ly via var­i­ous tax havens. Top share­hold­ers include Stan­dard Life, Black­rock inc. and JP Mor­gan – the same financiers of South African min­er Lon­min who shot and killed 34 protest­ing mine work­ers in August 2012.

 

Last year’s AGM demo

Foil Vedan­ta is a sol­i­dar­i­ty move­ment work­ing direct­ly with those affect­ed by Vedan­ta in India and else­where. We are cur­rent­ly try­ing to get Vedan­ta de-list­ed from the Lon­don Stock Exchange.

Please join activists who will be ral­ly­ing in Odisha, Goa and Del­hi on 1st August as part of an inter­na­tion­al day of action to stop this killer cor­po­rate and it’s sup­port­ers.

We will be ral­ly­ing out­side Vedanta’s Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Don­gria Kond tribe of Odisha.

Tanks Move in Around Earth’s Most Threatened Tribe

Brazil’s mil­i­tary has moved in to stop ille­gal log­ging around the land of Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.
© Exérci­to Brasileiro

Cross Post­ed from S

Brazil’s mil­i­tary has moved in to stop ille­gal log­ging around the land of Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.
© Exérci­to Brasileiro

Cross Post­ed from Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al has received reports that Brazil’s mil­i­tary has launched a major ground oper­a­tion against ille­gal log­ging around the land of the Awá, Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.

Hun­dreds of sol­diers, police offi­cers and Envi­ron­ment Min­istry spe­cial agents have flood­ed the area, backed up with tanks, heli­copters and close to a hun­dred oth­er vehi­cles, to halt the ille­gal defor­esta­tion which has already destroyed more than 30% of one of the Awá’s indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries.

Since the oper­a­tion report­ed­ly start­ed at the end of June, 2013, at least eight saw mills have been closed and oth­er machin­ery has been con­fis­cat­ed and destroyed.

Little Butterfly, an Awá girl. The Awá have pleaded for all illegal invaders to be evicted from their forest.
Lit­tle But­ter­fly, an Awá girl. The Awá have plead­ed for all ille­gal invaders to be evict­ed from their for­est.
© Sarah Shenker/Survival

The oper­a­tion comes at a crit­i­cal time for the Awá, one of the last nomadic hunter-gath­er­er tribes in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, who are at risk of extinc­tion if the destruc­tion of their for­est is not stopped as a mat­ter of urgency.

But while the oper­a­tion is mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for log­gers to enter Awá ter­ri­to­ry and remove the valu­able tim­ber, the forces have not moved onto the Awá’s land itself – where ille­gal log­ging is tak­ing place at an alarm­ing rate and where quick action is cru­cial.

Amiri Awá told Sur­vival, ‘The invaders must be made to leave our for­est. We don’t want our for­est to dis­ap­pear. The log­gers have already destroyed many areas.’

Tanks, helicopters and close to a hundred vehicles have been deployed to protect the forest.
Tanks, heli­copters and close to a hun­dred vehi­cles have been deployed to pro­tect the for­est.
© May­con Alves

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple world­wide, includ­ing many celebri­ties, have joined Sur­vival International’s cam­paign urg­ing the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment to send forces into the Awá’s ter­ri­to­ries to evict the ille­gal invaders, stop the destruc­tion of the Awá’s for­est, pros­e­cute the ille­gal log­gers and pre­vent them from re-enter­ing the area.

Survival’s Direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘Brazil has tak­en a promis­ing first step towards sav­ing the world’s most threat­ened tribe, and it’s thanks to the many thou­sands of Awá sup­port­ers world­wide. This is proof that pub­lic opin­ion can effect change. How­ev­er, the bat­tle is not yet won: the author­i­ties must not stop until all ille­gal invaders are gone.’

ELF target car dealer, Germany

July 17, 2013 — Ger­many

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

July 17, 2013 — Ger­many

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“The last night we vis­it­ed a Ford store in Berlin, we left a pack­age with a fake bomb and a mes­sage ‘This sick infat­u­a­tion with life’s destruc­tion, this grotesque embod­i­ment of decay, a new world will rise from this dis­func­tion, when the insti­tu­tions of oppres­sion are laid to waste’ and wrote ELF in one of their vans. This multi­na­tion­al is noth­ing more than anoth­er sym­bol of our dis­gust­ing civ­i­liza­tion, with their oil, wars, destruc­tion of the plan­et and ani­mals habi­tats, enslave­ment of human-ani­mals and pure cap­i­tal­ism. For Wal­ter Bond, Marie Mason and all the vic­tims of The Green Scare

-Ani­mal and Earth Lib­er­a­tion”