2000 March Against Taitung Miramar Resort 20th April

More than 2,000 peo­ple, includ­ing many dressed in tra­di­tion­al Abo­rig­i­nal garb, marched through the streets of Taipei yes­ter­day after­noon protest­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Mira­mar Resort Vil­lage con­struc­tion project on Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘).

More than 2,000 peo­ple, includ­ing many dressed in tra­di­tion­al Abo­rig­i­nal garb, marched through the streets of Taipei yes­ter­day after­noon protest­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Mira­mar Resort Vil­lage con­struc­tion project on Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘).

The parade, ini­ti­at­ed by an alliance of more than 40 civic groups and Abo­rig­i­nal tribes from across the nation, was held to protest the devel­op­ment project, which has been ruled invalid more than once by the Supreme Admin­is­tra­tive Court, but still gained approval at a local envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment meet­ing last year and is sched­uled to go into oper­a­tion this year.

The march was titled “Don’t say good­bye to the east­ern coast­line,” and the pro­test­ers expressed con­cern that the Mira­mar case would set an exam­ple for oth­er devel­op­ment projects along the east­ern coast­line and cause irre­versible dam­age to the envi­ron­ment.

The crowd in Taipei was joined by a group of peo­ple that had marched for 17 days from Taitung to Taipei.

At the head of the parade was an Amis bam­boo raft with a ban­ner that read “Return our domain to us,” car­ried by 20 men, to express their hope to live in har­mo­ny with nature.

The pro­test­ers said the hand-made raft rep­re­sents the idea of tak­ing “just enough” from nature instead of abus­ing and exhaust­ing nat­ur­al resources.

“Abo­rig­ines do not have a spe­cif­ic life phi­los­o­phy, but they do feel strong­ly con­nect­ed to the land,” Abo­rig­i­nal folk singer Panai said. “Please feel our affec­tion for the land. This is what res­i­dents in Taipei have lost.”

The parade marched through the streets of Taipei, singing an Abo­rig­i­nal verse sig­ni­fy­ing waves and the ocean in response to the chant­i­ng of Abo­rig­i­nal folk singer Nabu.

They shout­ed demands such as “tear down the Mira­mar, pro­tect the east­ern coast­line,” “pro­tect our home­land” and “we don’t want cement dumped on the beach.”

The pro­test­ers arrived at the Mira­mar Gar­den Taipei (美麗信花園酒店), a hotel owned by the same cor­po­ra­tion as the Mira­mar Resort Vil­lage in Taitung, and the crowd waved sil­ver grass, mim­ic­k­ing a rit­u­al aimed at expelling evil spir­its and puri­fy­ing the heart.

Reach­ing Keta­galan Boule­vard in front of the Pres­i­den­tial Office, the pro­test­ers held hands and per­formed an Amis har­vest fes­ti­val dance.

The leader of the walk­ing group, Lai Ching-lung (賴進龍), born in the Malan Tribe of Taitung, walked the whole jour­ney to Taipei bare­foot.

He said the jour­ney had been exhaust­ing, but while walk­ing through the many tribes along the way, he felt the sig­nif­i­cance of bring­ing their mes­sage of pro­tect­ing tra­di­tions and the envi­ron­ment to the Pres­i­den­tial Office.

“I hate that the gov­ern­ment is treat­ing us like this. It is using inap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures to take our land and ocean from us.” Lai said, adding: “The coast is where the Amis used to col­lect food and live. Now we are con­cerned that the ocean will be pol­lut­ed and destroyed by devel­op­ment projects.”

Burma: Police Crack Down On ‘Unlawful’ Gas Pipeline Protestors 19th April

Hun­dreds of locals gath­ered in Arakan state’s Kyaukpyu town­ship to protest against the Chi­nese-backed Shwe Gas Pipeline on 19 April 2013 (Htun Kyi)

Hun­dreds of locals gath­ered in Arakan state’s Kyaukpyu town­ship to protest against the Chi­nese-backed Shwe Gas Pipeline on 19 April 2013 (Htun Kyi)

At least three peo­ple were detained and ques­tioned by local author­i­ties in Arakan state on Fri­day, for their role in stag­ing an unau­tho­rised protest against the Chi­nese-backed Shwe Gas Pipeline in west­ern Bur­ma ear­li­er this week.

On Thurs­day, over 400 locals in Arakan state’s Kyaukpyu town­ship ral­lied against the Chi­na Nation­al Petro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion (CNPC) – a major share­hold­er in the Shwe Gas Pipeline – demand­ing that the com­pa­ny take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the dam­ages caused to their liveli­hoods and local envi­ron­ment.

Accord­ing to one of the organ­is­ers, they had sought per­mis­sion to protest three times before, but after being repeat­ed­ly refused they decid­ed to go ahead with the ral­ly any­way.

“The arrests have begun – the [police] are look­ing for [organ­is­ers] in Kyauk­tan, Ywar­ma and Pan­deinse vil­lages,” said Htun Kyi, adding that three peo­ple had already been inter­ro­gat­ed and asked to seek bail guar­an­tors.

The police report­ed­ly took their per­son­al details and pressed them on who helped them organ­ise the protest and how they got the mon­ey to print out t‑shirts and oth­er cam­paign mate­r­i­al.

“My fam­i­ly just informed me that police offi­cials also showed up at my house and asked them to tell me to go to the police sta­tion when I get back and also to bring guar­an­tors along,” said Htun Kyi, who was in Kyaukpyu as of this morn­ing. “We are pre­pared – we are ready to accept any pun­ish­ment.”

Hun­dreds of locals, wear­ing white t‑shirts with red cross­es over CNPC logos, gath­ered near the Chi­nese company’s office on Madaykyun island on Thurs­day and shout­ed out slo­gans against the con­tro­ver­sial pipeline.

Accord­ing to Htun Kyi, who is also a spokesper­son of the Rakhine Social Net­work, said that local author­i­ties had pre­vi­ous­ly promised to help them nego­ti­ate with the com­pa­ny over their demands, but lat­er done noth­ing.

Pro­tes­tors are call­ing for com­pen­sa­tion for con­fis­cat­ed land, new job oppor­tu­ni­ties, local infra­struc­ture, includ­ing bet­ter roads, as well as a fair share of the elec­tric­i­ty that will be gen­er­at­ed from the project.

The protest was joined by hun­dreds of local res­i­dents, includ­ing fish­er­men who have lost their jobs because of the pipeline, as well as a num­ber of civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions.

The con­tro­ver­sial Shwe Gas Pipeline, which is sched­uled for com­ple­tion in May, is a joint ven­ture between the state-owned Chi­nese com­pa­ny and the mil­i­tary-owned Myan­ma Oil and Gas Enter­prise (MOGE), as well as three oth­er for­eign firms.

The pipeline will con­nect west­ern Burma’s Arakan state and China’s Yun­nan province, slic­ing through many eth­nic minor­i­ty ter­ri­to­ries, includ­ing the con­flict-torn Shan and Kachin states. Human rights groups have com­plained that the project has led to mass con­fis­ca­tions of local farm­lands, forced labour, human rights abus­es and increased mil­i­tari­sa­tion across the coun­try.

Ear­li­er this month, a group of activists warned that the 800-kilo­me­tre pipeline is like­ly to fuel con­flict in north­ern Shan state, where clash­es between eth­nic rebels and the Burmese army are ongo­ing.

“Run­ning an over-ground gas pipeline in a loca­tion where an armed con­flict tak­ing place is absolute­ly unad­vis­able,” said Michael Oxlade, a con­sul­tant with West­min­ster Inter­na­tion­al, a UK based firm that spe­cialis­es in pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty ser­vices for glob­al oil oper­a­tions.

The Burmese gov­ern­ment is esti­mat­ed to earn USD$29 bil­lion over the next 30 years from the dual pipeline, which will pump gas from the Bay of Ben­gal and oil from the Mid­dle East to main­land Chi­na.

Brazilian Indians Occupy Congress in Land Protest 19th April

As Brazil marks its annu­al ‘Day of the Indi­an’ today, hun­dreds of Brazil­ian Indi­ans of var­i­ous tribes invad­ed and occu­pied part of the country’s Con­gress this week, to

As Brazil marks its annu­al ‘Day of the Indi­an’ today, hun­dreds of Brazil­ian Indi­ans of var­i­ous tribes invad­ed and occu­pied part of the country’s Con­gress this week, to protest at attempts to change the law regard­ing their land rights.

The Indi­ans are out­raged about a pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment that would weak­en their hold on their ter­ri­to­ries. They fear that ‘PEC 215’, by giv­ing Con­gress pow­er in the demar­ca­tion process, will cause fur­ther delays and obsta­cles to the recog­ni­tion and pro­tec­tion of their ances­tral land.

The Indi­ans say they will not stop protest­ing until the planned amend­ment is scrapped.

Along­side Direc­tive 303, amend­ment 215 is a result of pres­sure by Brazil’s pow­er­ful rur­al lob­by group which includes many politi­cians who own ranch­es on indige­nous land.

It could spell dis­as­ter for thou­sands of indige­nous peo­ples who are wait­ing for the gov­ern­ment to ful­fil its legal duty to map out their lands.

Whilst Brazil’s sug­ar-cane indus­try booms, ben­e­fit­ting from plan­ta­tions on indige­nous land, the Guarani Indi­ans of Mato Grosso do Sul suf­fer from mal­nu­tri­tion, vio­lence, mur­der and one of the high­est sui­cide rates in the world. Guarani spokesman Ton­i­co Ben­ites explains, ‘Guarani sui­cide is hap­pen­ing and increas­ing as a result of the delay in iden­ti­fy­ing and demar­cat­ing our ances­tral land’.

Else­where in the coun­try, indige­nous peo­ples are fight­ing for their land to be pro­tect­ed from waves of inva­sions at the hands of log­gers, ranch­ers, min­ers and set­tlers. The Awá Indi­ansin the north-east­ern Ama­zon are now Earth’s most threat­ened tribe. The uncon­tact­ed Awá will not sur­vive unless action is tak­en now to pro­tect their for­est.

Yes­ter­day, the Yanoma­mi asso­ci­a­tion Hutukara orga­nized a demon­stra­tion of about 400Yanoma­mi in Ajarani, in the east­ern part of their ter­ri­to­ry. This area has been occu­pied by cat­tle ranch­ers for decades. Despite a court order to leave, they have refused to do so.

Hutukara’s vice-pres­i­dent Mau­rí­cio Ye’kuana said, ‘The pres­ence of the ranch­ers in the region has caused huge harm to the indige­nous peo­ple and to the envi­ron­ment, such as defor­esta­tion and burn­ing of the for­est. We want an end to this.’

Mean­while Munduruku Indi­ans have been protest­ing for months against the pro­pos­al to build a series of hydro-elec­tric dams along the Tapa­jós, a large trib­u­tary of the Ama­zon.

Last month the mil­i­tary and police launched ‘Oper­a­tion Tapa­jós’ in an attempt to stamp out the Indi­ans’ protests against the arrival of tech­ni­cal teams sur­vey­ing the area for the first dam, São Luis do Tapa­jós.

On 16 April a fed­er­al judge ordered that this oper­a­tion be sus­pend­ed, and that the Indi­ans and oth­er affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties be con­sult­ed before tech­ni­cal stud­ies are car­ried out. The judge also ruled that an envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment should be car­ried out on the cumu­la­tive impact of all the dams planned for the Tapa­jós.

ALF Destroys 200 Fur Traps in Ontario 19th April

“As of March 2013 we have removed and destroyed approx­i­mate­ly 200 fur traps in Ontario. The traps were snares and Conibears intend­ed to mur­der beaver, rab­bits and oth­er inno­cents. Trag­i­cal­ly we were too late for two rab­bits and one rac­coon, whose bod­ies and inter­nal organs had already been eat­en into by snares. We will be for­ev­er haunt­ed by our mem­o­ries of their bod­ies, we will for­ev­er con­tin­ue remov­ing traps and we encour­age oth­ers to get in the bush and help smash the fur indus­try. Look for tell tale signs of traps and trap lines; flag­ging tape tied to branch­es, repeat­ed tracks enter­ing the bush, and poles or sticks pro­trud­ing from bod­ies of water espe­cial­ly near beaver lodges, where trap­ping is fre­quent. Join the bur­geon­ing ranks of trap sabo­teurs!

ALF”

 

For whom the bell tolls: Scottish Coal go into Liquidation

“In light of Scot­tish Coal’s poor trad­ing and finan­cial posi­tion, we have had to cease trad­ing with imme­di­ate effect,”
-Blair Nim­mo, joint pro­vi­sion­al liq­uida­tor and head of restruc­tur­ing at KPMG in Scot­land.

“In light of Scot­tish Coal’s poor trad­ing and finan­cial posi­tion, we have had to cease trad­ing with imme­di­ate effect,”
-Blair Nim­mo, joint pro­vi­sion­al liq­uida­tor and head of restruc­tur­ing at KPMG in Scot­land.

Scot­tish Coal, the UK’s biggest coal pro­duc­er, has announced today that they are enter­ing admin­is­tra­tion. Due to recent “sig­nif­i­cant cash flow pres­sures” they have laid-off 600 work­ers and stopped all pro­duc­tion at their six open cast sites.

New open cast sites are unlike­ly to hap­pen, and this is some­thing to be hap­py about. How­ev­er, 600 peo­ple have lost their jobs, and they won’t be the mon­ey­men at the top, but the work­ers with lit­tle safe­ty net. They have also had their last week of wages stolen, as this won’t be paid. For those liv­ing next to exist­ing or unre­stored sites this means scars on the land­scape that are unlike­ly to be fixed any time soon. It’s time to get angry, and take back the land and wages that Scot­tish Coal boss­es have stolen.

The Amazon is not for sale — crashing an oil sale, Canada

18.4.13

18.4.13

Indige­nous allies crashed a pri­vate meet­ing in Cal­gary that was orga­nized by the gov­ern­ment of Ecuador to pro­mote its upcom­ing 11th Round of oil con­ces­sions. The oil auc­tion, announced last Novem­ber, includes vast swathes of ter­ri­to­ry tra­di­tion­al­ly used by 5 Indige­nous nation­al­i­ties in the Ama­zon region. At the meet­ing, the allies deliv­ered a dec­la­ra­tion on behalf of the affect­ed Indige­nous Peo­ples that they do not con­sent to oil drilling on their lands. The meet­ing was attend­ed by Ecuadore­an gov­ern­ment offi­cials, Cana­di­an investors and oil-com­pa­ny exec­u­tives.

Riot Police Attack Villagers During Mining Conflict 17th April

In the small vil­lage of Buzhe, in Guizhou Province, around 600 vil­lagers were beat­en and dis­persed with tear­gas by about 300 riot police on April 11. The vil­lagers had come to assist a young cou­ple being abused by police dur­ing a min­ing-relat­ed dis­pute.

In the small vil­lage of Buzhe, in Guizhou Province, around 600 vil­lagers were beat­en and dis­persed with tear­gas by about 300 riot police on April 11. The vil­lagers had come to assist a young cou­ple being abused by police dur­ing a min­ing-relat­ed dis­pute.

Along­side agri­cul­ture, coal min­ing is the main source of income in this moun­tain­ous vil­lage, but it is caus­ing seri­ous dam­age to the envi­ron­ment. 

A res­i­dent called Mr. Han said that six or sev­en peo­ple were quite seri­ous­ly injured dur­ing the clash, includ­ing an 80-year-old woman, and four peo­ple were sent to hos­pi­tal to receive treat­ment for dam­age to their eyes from the gas.

Local author­i­ties and the min­ing com­pa­ny made a reset­tle­ment agree­ment with the vil­lagers nine years ago, but have not pro­vid­ed ade­quate com­pen­sa­tion for the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age to the area, accord­ing to Mr. Han.

“Land­slides, ground sub­si­dence, a large sec­tion of the mine is crack­ing and sink­ing, this can be seen every­where,” he said. “Some of the sink­holes are almost 10 meters deep, and span more than 10 square meters.”

“No water can be stored in the ground, and over 300 Chi­nese acres of farm­land can’t be cul­ti­vat­ed any­more,” Mr. Han added.

“There are more than 200 house­holds in the vil­lage, but only 26 were relo­cat­ed last year.”

As a last resort, the vil­lagers built shacks in front of the mine to block the entrance in protest, and pre­vent min­ing activ­i­ties.

On April 11, police came to the shacks and took away an old man liv­ing in one of them. They then bashed up the fur­ni­ture inside, and set fire to his place. A cou­ple in their thir­ties rushed over to try and put out the fire, but were hand­cuffed and tak­en into a work shed, where they were appar­ent­ly beat­en by nine police offi­cers.

As soon as locals heard about this inci­dent, around 600 vil­lagers quick­ly sur­round­ed the work shed. 

“Vil­lagers had pieces of wood and fought with the police. They man­aged to free the cou­ple in the end,” Mr. Han said, although they were still wear­ing hand­cuffs.

Soon after, about 300 riot police arrived at the scene, and began attack­ing the vil­lagers, using tear­gas to dis­perse the crowd.

The next day, a large crowd came to protest out­side the town hall, which was heav­i­ly guard­ed by riot police. Mr. Han said they would con­tin­ue to protest as the lives of around 1,000 vil­lagers are at stake.

Two Lifelong Oklahomans Halt Construction of Keystone XL Work Site 16th April

BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

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BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

Eric Whe­lan, 26, who grew up in McLoud, Okla., has ascend­ed 40 feet into the air in an aer­i­al block­ade that began at dawn this morn­ing.

Gwen Ingram of Luther, Okla., 56, has locked her­self to heavy machin­ery and shut down the con­struc­tion site.

Today’s event marks the fourth act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence by Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance and comes in the wake of the dis­as­trous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas.  For the last three weeks, over 300,000 gal­lons of tar sands dilut­ed bitu­men have spil –>led into a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood and local water­ways.

“Key­stone XL sound­ed like a bad idea from the begin­ning,” explained Whe­lan. “The Mayflower spill proves that we shouldn’t be trust­ing these mul­ti-nation­al cor­po­ra­tions, like Exxon or Tran­sCana­da, because every spill fur­ther expos­es their crim­i­nal incom­pe­tence. Now, Tran­sCana­da wants to build a tox­ic pipeline through the cen­ter of the coun­try.

“I’m tak­ing action to pre­vent a tragedy like that from hap­pen­ing in Okla­homa.”

The tar sands’ cor­ro­sive nature makes pipelines more prone to leaks than trans­port­ing crude oil, as evi­denced by the Exxon’s Pega­sus pipeline burst in Mayflower, Ark.

When spills inevitably do occur, the heav­ier dilut­ed bitu­men sinks in water and into the water table. Key­stone XL’s pro­posed route cuts through the heart­land of North Amer­i­ca, cross­ing the Arbuck­le Simp­son and Edwards Trin­i­ty Aquifer in Okla­homa.

“The Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline would car­ry the dirt­i­est fuel on the plan­et from Cana­da to America’s Gulf Coast’s refiner­ies and ports, and then over­seas for export,” said Gwen Ingram, before lock­ing her­self to TransCanada’s heavy machin­ery.

“I sim­ply won’t allow this pipeline to cross our pre­cious rivers; the North and South Cana­di­an, The Red Riv­er, The Cim­maron and threat­en our drink­ing water.”

UPDATE 9:00 AM — Eric is hold­ing strong on a tow­er 40 feet off the ground in the mid­dle of the Key­stone XL con­struc­tion site

UPDATE 11:15 AM- Fire­fight­ers have extract­ed Gwen Ingram from the con­struc­tion machin­ery.  Gwen held strong in her non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence act for sev­er­al hours.

Fol­low more of our actions live on our Face­book and Twit­ter. Sign up to join the resis­tance.

See more high res pho­tos on our Flickr account.

 

Halkidiki Gold Mine Protesters Lift Roadblocks 16th April

Road trans­port in the broad­er region of Mount Athos, Halkidi­ki, was large­ly restored on Mon­day after res­i­dents of Ieris­sos lift­ed road­blocks they had set up last week to protest the deten­tion of two fel­low vil­lagers in con­nec­tion with an arson attack in Feb­ru­ary on the offices of a gold-min­ing com­pa­ny.

Despite lift­ing the block­ades, the res­i­dents pledged to con­tin­ue their oppo­si­tion to the ven­ture by Hel­las Gold in near­by Skouries which they claim will dam­age the envi­ron­ment and impov­er­ish locals.

Two local men who have denied any part in a bru­tal arson attack on Hel­las Gold’s premis­es in Feb­ru­ary, where assailants tied up secu­ri­ty guards and doused them with petrol, were remand­ed in cus­tody on Mon­day.

The men, aged 33 and 44, sub­mit­ted depo­si­tions on Sun­day in which they denied any part in the raid.

The 33-year-old said that a woolen hat found near the scene with his DNA had been lost on anoth­er day when he was cut­ting wood in the for­est. The 44-year-old was linked to the attack via a shot­gun found in his house. He said he used the gun to hunt in Skouries for­est.

Odd Alliance of Anarchists & Farmers Takes on French Gov’t in Airport Battle 16th April

They hurl sticks, stones and gaso­line bombs. They have spent bru­tal win­ter months for­ti­fy­ing mud­dy encamp­ments. And now they’re ready to ramp up their fight against the prime min­is­ter and his pet project — a mas­sive new air­port in west­ern France.

An unlike­ly alliance of anar­chists and beret-wear­ing farm­ers is cre­at­ing a headache for Pres­i­dent Fran­cois Hollande’s belea­guered gov­ern­ment by mount­ing an esca­lat­ing Occu­py Wall Street-style bat­tle that has delayed con­struc­tion on the ambi­tious air­port near the city of Nantes for months. The con­flict has flared anew at a par­tic­u­lar­ly tricky time for the Social­ist gov­ern­ment, amid a grow­ing scan­dal over tax-dodg­ing rev­e­la­tions that forced the bud­get min­is­ter to resign, and ever-wors­en­ing news about the French econ­o­my.

A protest held over the week­end is like­ly to trig­ger a new round of demon­stra­tions like those that drew thou­sands of pro­test­ers to the remote wood­lands of Brit­tany in the fall. In those ear­li­er protests, heav­i­ly armored riot police bat­tled young anar­chists and farm­ers, caus­ing injuries on both sides. On Mon­day, sim­i­lar clash­es erupt­ed, with three demon­stra­tors injured, accord­ing to the rad­i­cals’ web­site.

The fight has brought togeth­er odd bed­fel­lows: Local farm­ers who rep­re­sent tra­di­tion­al French con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues are col­lab­o­rat­ing with anar­chists, rad­i­cal eco-fem­i­nists and drifters from around Europe — who see the anti-air­port move­ment as a flash­point against glob­al­iza­tion and cap­i­tal­ism. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists and the far-left Green Par­ty also oppose the air­port, argu­ing that it will bring pol­lu­tion.

The clash has been par­tic­u­lar­ly dam­ag­ing for Prime Min­is­ter Jean-Marc Ayrault, Nantes’ long­time may­or and the airport’s high­est-pro­file cham­pi­on. He and the project’s sup­port­ers say the air­port will attract busi­ness at a time when France sore­ly needs an eco­nom­ic boost and job cre­ation. The Aero­port du Grand Ouest is intend­ed to replace the exist­ing Nantes Atlan­tique air­port, with run­ways able to han­dle larg­er air­craft such as the A380 super­jum­bo and room to expand from 4.5 mil­lion pas­sen­gers a year at the open to 9 mil­lion in the longer term.

With an approval rat­ing at his­toric lows, Ayrault’s lever­age to push through the project is shrink­ing. Mean­while the oppo­nents’ threat to remo­bi­lize is lead­ing to new fears of vio­lent clash­es.

Pro­test­ers have spent months ille­gal­ly occu­py­ing the site of the planned Notre-Dame-Des-Lan­des air­port, which is set to start oper­at­ing in 2017. In Novem­ber, more than 500 riot police tried to remove thou­sands of squat­ters in the wood­ed area near this vil­lage 15 miles (24 kilo­me­ters) north of Nantes. Pro­test­ers respond­ed by hurl­ing rocks and Molo­tov cock­tails. Police fired back with tear gas in clash­es that dom­i­nat­ed the nation­al news.

For the farm­ers, it’s all about pro­tect­ing the land.

“This will be a run­way,” says Syl­vain Fres­neau, ges­tur­ing toward the two-sto­ry house built by his grand­fa­ther and the dairy farm that has been in his fam­i­ly for five gen­er­a­tions.

Fres­neau and his cousin Dominique are among the local farm­ers who are hold­ing out, refus­ing to sell up and clear off the land where they have lived and worked their entire lives. Sylvain’s 88 cows pro­duce 550,000 liters (580,000 quarts) of milk a year. “Since Jan­u­ary,” Fres­neau says, “we are squat­ters and so are the cows.”

While some local farm­ers have accept­ed buy­outs from Vin­ci, the giant con­struc­tion firm that was select­ed to build and run the air­port, the Fres­neaus and many of their neigh­bors have fought the project for years.

“It’s not a ques­tion of mon­ey,” Syl­vain Fres­neau says. “You can’t put a price on five gen­er­a­tions of peas­ants. It’s my duty not to accept that mon­ey from any builder.”

He says his 80-year-old father was one of the first to resist the air­port project when the idea sur­faced 40 years ago. Long-moth­balled, the air­port plan gained fresh impe­tus when Ayrault’s Social­ist Par­ty came to pow­er nation­al­ly in the late 1990s. The plan then wound its way through a slow and tor­tur­ous­ly com­plex process of stud­ies, com­mis­sions and advi­so­ry com­mit­tees.

Although Syl­vain Fres­neau claims the farm­ers “could make one call and block Nantes with our trac­tors in half a day,” the real­i­ty is that the farm­ers alone could not have delayed the project as long as they have with­out help from a sur­pris­ing quar­ter: the main­ly 20-some­thing rad­i­cals who call them­selves “ZADists.”

Their name derives from the French acronym for “devel­op­ment zone,” the gener­ic name giv­en to the area where the air­port is to be built. The ZADists have delight­ed in appro­pri­at­ing the acronym for their own use, but with var­i­ous new takes: Zone To Defend, or Zone of Defin­i­tive Auton­o­my, among oth­ers.

Since 2009, the activists have been occu­py­ing the fields where the air­port is to be built. Some squat in aban­doned farm­hous­es or homes opened up to them by locals who refuse to sell. Oth­ers spent the win­ter in inge­nious­ly con­struct­ed cab­ins set up deep in the wood­ed and mud­dy scrub­land out­side the vil­lage.

“With­out the ZADists we wouldn’t have kept the land,” admits Syl­vain Fres­neau.

Up to sev­er­al hun­dred ZADists live on the site at any giv­en time. Police con­trol access to the zone with check­points at road cross­ings, but the ZADists avoid them by sim­ply cut­ting across fields to their camp­sites.

ZADists have also built their own for­ti­fi­ca­tions, ram­shackle assem­blages of wood, wire, mat­tress­es and hay bales. The entrance is con­trolled by ZADists who cov­er their faces with scarves and hoods, not only to ward off the cold but also to hide their iden­ti­ties from the police post­ed at the road cross­ing bare­ly 100 yards (meters) away.

Clash­es between the two sides are com­mon. On a recent vis­it, ZADists who all iden­ti­fied them­selves by the pseu­do­nym “Camille” described an expe­di­tion the night before in which they suc­ceed­ed in splash­ing some police with paint, traces of which were still vis­i­ble on the road.

For the farm­ers, the fight is most­ly a mat­ter of keep­ing their land. The ZADists, on the oth­er hand, say they have wider, lofti­er goals. “Against the Air­port … and its World” is one of the slo­gans spray-paint­ed on signs around the zone.

Some of the ZADists have tak­en part in anti-glob­al­iza­tion and Occu­py move­ments across Europe. They see the move­ment to sup­port the farm­ers of Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des as an exten­sion of their goal of “learn­ing to live togeth­er, cul­ti­vate the land, and increase our auton­o­my from the cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem,” as their web­site explains.

“It’s a bit utopi­an, but some­times you need some utopia,” said Dominique Fres­neau. The farm­ers’ appre­ci­a­tion for the ZADists’ ener­gy and the atten­tion they’ve brought to their fight against the air­port is mixed with bemuse­ment at some of their rad­i­cal posi­tions.

At meet­ings between the two groups of allies, Fres­neau admit­ted that “we clash” some­times. But more often they find ways to work togeth­er. Some farm­ers have used their trac­tors to set up a pro­tec­tive bar­ri­cade around one of the encamp­ments. A ZADist who was also a grad­u­ate stu­dent in agri­cul­tur­al stud­ies helped a farmer com­plete a geo­log­i­cal sur­vey of his land. Farm­ers bring in food and build­ing sup­plies for the ZADists.

In ear­ly April, a com­mis­sion set up by Ayrault to try to calm the debate over the air­port deliv­ered its report. It rec­om­mend­ed fur­ther eval­u­a­tion of the cost of expand­ing the Nantes Atlan­tique air­port instead of build­ing a new one at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, and sug­gest­ed that addi­tion­al noise, traf­fic and envi­ron­men­tal stud­ies be car­ried out.

The gov­ern­ment wel­comed the commission’s report, say­ing it under­scored the need for the new air­port. Oppo­nents, mean­while, said that on the con­trary it bol­stered their case that the new air­port should be scrapped. In any event, the activists said, all the new stud­ies will delay the start of work on the air­port, like­ly push­ing back its open­ing from the orig­i­nal­ly planned 2017 date.

Ecol­o­gists went as far as to cry vic­to­ry.

“As it stands, car­ry­ing out all the rec­om­men­da­tions called for in these reports amounts to a ‘mis­sion impos­si­ble’ and post­pone the project indef­i­nite­ly,” the Green Par­ty said in a state­ment.

Mean­while in the fields around Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, farm­ers and activists are not going away.

Their next action is Sat­ur­day, when they plan a day of plant­i­ng, clear­ing and repair work at their camp across the site of the future air­port.