Gas Pipeline Treesitter Arrested in PA, Resistance Continues

6 March 2013

6 March 2013

Tree sit against Ten­nessee pipeline in PA Mil­ford, PA – Yes­ter­day, local hero and tree-sit­ter Gif­ford Pin­chot was arrest­ed on the ninth day of hold­ing fast in a for­est tree-sit meant to stop tree clear­ing for the Ten­nessee Gas Pipeline. This morn­ing Pin­chot was released from police cus­tody, while work­ers were again turned away from the work site by local pro­test­ers. Last evening at approx­i­mate­ly 6:00 p.m., Gif­ford Pin­chot was appre­hend­ed in the forests of Pike Coun­ty, PA on the ninth day of the tree-sit. He was charged with aggra­vat­ed tres­pass, resist­ing arrest and dis­or­der­ly con­duct, but was released on his own recog­ni­zance this morn­ing. Mean­while, work crews returned to Cum­mins Hill Road to con­tin­ue clear­ing trees along the Ten­nessee Gas Pipeline right of way and were turned away by emo­tion­al pleas and tes­ti­mo­ny from local res­i­dents. Local activists were able to appeal to their com­mon inter­est in a safe, clean envi­ron­ment, and the work­ers walked away from the job of clear­ing one of the final stands of trees for this right of way. The arrest was part of a nine-day tree-sit block­ade and two-week road block­ade. Both actions sup­port­ed a cam­paign oppos­ing the Ten­nessee Gas Pipeline in the Delaware Riv­er Basin. The direct action cam­paign is tak­ing place after near­ly two years of local oppo­si­tion from grass­roots groups and polit­i­cal lead­ers in the courts, in pub­lic hear­ings, and through protest. When asked for a per­son­al state­ment on his expe­ri­ence in the tree stand, his arrest, and future plans, Gif­ford Pin­chot said, “Let this be a les­son to all those resist­ing eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. The state and their cor­po­rate cohorts will lie, coerce and intim­i­date us. But we must trust in our friends and the for­est. Those are our only true allies in this fight. As these strug­gles con­tin­ue and inten­si­fy, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that we are not alone. We are just one link in a chain of resis­tance to those oppress­ing the earth, and this chain will not be bro­ken until the earth and all her inhab­i­tants are free at last.” For updates: http://www.notennesseepipeline.blogspot.com

Tar Sands Protestor Disrupts Transcanada Presentation

Feb­ru­ary 28th, 2013, 1:45pm — a pro­tes­tor with Tar Sands Block­ade this after­noon locked his neck to a pro­jec­tor screen in the mid­dle of a Tran­sCana­da pre­sen­ta­tion at the North Amer­i­can Crude Mar­ket­ing Con­fer­ence in Hous­ton.

Feb­ru­ary 28th, 2013, 1:45pm — a pro­tes­tor with Tar Sands Block­ade this after­noon locked his neck to a pro­jec­tor screen in the mid­dle of a Tran­sCana­da pre­sen­ta­tion at the North Amer­i­can Crude Mar­ket­ing Con­fer­ence in Hous­ton. In tak­ing direct action, Ethan Nuss con­front­ed in-per­son Paul Miller, TransCanada’s Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of Oil Pipelines, and a ball­room of tar sands indus­try investors, demand­ing a halt to the tox­ic Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

Nuss suc­cess­ful­ly dis­rupt­ed the sec­ond annu­al con­fer­ence host­ed by Platts. Among oth­er things, the gath­er­ing is intend­ed for fos­sil fuel indus­try exec­u­tives and their finan­cial back­ers to col­lab­o­rate on schemes to trans­port dirty and dan­ger­ous tar sands from Cana­da to the Gulf Coast so it can be refined and sold on the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket, there­by expand­ing the indus­try.

“TransCanada’s ‘busi­ness as usu­al’ spells death and destruc­tion for our com­mu­ni­ties,” said Ethan Nuss. “My con­science won’t allow me to watch this multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion and their prof­i­teers poi­son impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties from here in Houston’s pol­lut­ed East End to indige­nous peo­ple at the point of tar sands extrac­tion in Alber­ta, Cana­da. This must stop.” Ethan fur­ther shares his rea­sons for tak­ing direct action below:

At last year’s mar­ket­ing con­fer­ence, Paul Miller explained the neces­si­ty of the south­ern leg of Key­stone XL through Okla­homa and Texas to the expan­sion of the exploita­tive tar sands indus­try. TransCanada’s own fourth quar­ter report, released last week, revealed that the con­tro­ver­sial pipeline is less than half com­plet­ed, despite the Cana­di­an pipeline corporation’s pre­vi­ous pro­jec­tions for com­ple­tion of the south­ern seg­ment this April.

This rev­e­la­tion high­lights that Tar Sands Blockade’s sus­tained civ­il dis­obe­di­ence cam­paign since last August has been suc­cess­ful in delay­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion. Today’s action is part of grow­ing momen­tum for an upcom­ing nation­al week of action called for by Tar Sands Block­ade and allies from March 16–23, with over 60 actions cur­rent­ly report­ed nation­wide.

“This is just a morsel of what Tran­sCana­da and oth­er tar sands prof­i­teers can expect in the com­ing weeks and months,” said Kim Huynh, a spokesper­son with Tar Sands Block­ade. “All over the coun­try, com­mu­ni­ties are gear­ing up to take to the streets, offices, extrac­tion sites and pub­lic events to show that our move­ment won’t relent until we’ve made this invest­ment as tox­ic for Tran­sCana­da and its finan­cial back­ers as the very tar sands being piped through Key­stone XL. Our tar sands-free future begins now.”

Ear­li­er this week, 20,000 gal­lons of crude oil leaked into Otter Creek in Tyler Coun­ty, TX from a pipeline owned by Suno­co Logis­tics. Otter Creek flows into Rus­sell Creek, which feeds the Nech­es Riv­er. The leak did not trig­ger Sunoco’s detec­tion sys­tems but was dis­cov­ered by local res­i­dents report­ing oil in their water.

Update 1:53pm — All press have been kicked out of the con­fer­ence.

Update 2:05pm — More pro­tes­tors are out­side the con­fer­ence lob­by chant­i­ng “All night, all day, Tar Sands Block­ade!”

Update — In sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ethan and oth­er oil con­fer­ence dis­rup­tors, Tar Sands Block­aders dropped ban­ners in sight of two major Hous­ton high­ways.

Update 2:15pm — Pro­tes­tors con­tin­ue to yell and chant out­side of the hotel where the con­fer­ence is being dis­rupt­ed.

Update 2:30pm — All pro­tes­tors are out­side of the hotel now except for Ethan, who is still locked to the pro­jec­tion screen in the con­fer­ence room.

Update 3pm — Ethan has just been extract­ed, tak­en into police cus­tody, and removed from the build­ing.

Believe it or not, today is actu­al­ly Ethan’s 29th birth­day! Show your

Update 5:15pm — We’ve just heard from Ethan that he’s been charged with crim­i­nal tres­pass.

Update 8pm — Ethan still hasn’t been offi­cial­ly charged yet.

He’s in high spir­its and sends along his deep­est grat­i­tude for all the love and birth­day well-wish­es:

“I turned 29 today, and there is nowhere that I’d rather spend my birth­day than locked to that pro­jec­tor screen, speak­ing truth to pow­er.”

Update Fri­day, March 1st, 1:15am — Ethan is expect­ed to be in jail through the night.

Update 8:30am — Ethan’s just been bailed out!

 

Arson Attack on Seattle “Green” Development

5 March 2013

5 March 2013

The arson of some town­hous­es under con­struc­tion was recent­ly claimed by anony­mous Seat­tle Anar­chists.  This is the com­mu­nique they left, cit­ing their rea­sons and express­ing their joy:

“Just before mid­night, Mon­day Feb 25, we strolled over to the town­hous­es under con­struc­tion on 24th and Nor­man in the Cen­tral Dis­trict. After slip­ping inside, we set one ablaze. Oh what ease! Oh what fun!

Sus­tain­able devel­op­ment is a myth that makes us sick. By fur­ther­ing gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion, these build­ings dress dis­as­ter up as progress, promis­ing a “green” future that will nev­er be.

Our attack was just one more oppor­tu­ni­ty to joy­ous­ly reject the sta­tus quo. It was anoth­er attempt to shed the sub­ju­gat­ed sub­jec­tiv­i­ty forced upon us by Cap­i­tal and the State. We act against civ­il soci­ety and its attempts at domes­ti­ca­tion. Fuck that shit.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mad­dy, Ker­ry, and all the silent ones still fac­ing repres­sion by the Fed­er­al Grand Jury. We will not cow­er in fear. We will not remain docile in the face of State ter­ror.

Now is the time to attack! Ene­mies abound. Weapons are every­where.

Join us?

Some Anar­chists.”

Cor­po­rate news cov­er­age reports:
The fire that caused exten­sive dam­age to an under-con­struc­tion town­house project at 24th and Nor­man last week was inten­tion­al­ly set, fire depart­ment inves­ti­ga­tors say.

Now a post signed only by “Some Anar­chists” on the Puget Sound Anar­chists web­site claims respon­si­bil­i­ty for the arson.

The town­house project devel­op­er Ben­jamin Cus­tom Homes describes the homes as “effi­cient green homes with approx­i­mate­ly 2500sf of mod­ern liv­ing, attached park­ing and pri­vate roof-top deck with views of the Seat­tle sky­line.”

The case is under inves­ti­ga­tion by SPD’s arson team. We have attempt­ed to con­tact SPD to ask them about the PSA post and will update when we hear back. (UPDATE: Seat­tle Police said inves­ti­ga­tors are aware of the post, but have no addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion on the inves­ti­ga­tion at this time.)

Details from SFD:

Seat­tle Fire Inves­ti­ga­tors deter­mined a fire at an under con­struc­tion house in Jud­kins Park was inten­tion­al­ly set.

The ini­tial 911 call came in at 12:28 a.m. report­ing flames com­ing from a sin­gle fam­i­ly home locat­ed at the cor­ner of South Nor­man Street and 24th Avenue South. While respond­ing to the scene, fire offi­cers could see the flames shoot­ing into the night sky from sev­er­al blocks away.

Engine 6 arrived first to find a full involved 3‑story home that was under con­struc­tion. Flames from the home were expos­ing to a sec­ond under con­struc­tion house. Using mul­ti­ple hose lines, fire­fight­ers were able to con­trol the flames in 7 min­utes. Embers from the fire land­ed on a near­by hous­es roof caus­ing a tem­po­rary evac­u­a­tion of the res­i­dents. The res­i­dents were even­tu­al­ly allowed back in.

The fire also dam­aged a piece of con­struc­tion equip­ment, a port-a-pot­ty and burned through a pow­er line to a home. There were no report­ed injuries.

Fire­fight­ers con­duct­ed an overnight fire watch to make sure the embers don’t reignite in the home.
Fire inves­ti­ga­tors esti­mate the dam­age at $30,000 to the struc­ture and con­tents. The case has been turned over to the Seat­tle Police Department’s Arson Bomb Squad who will be inves­ti­gat­ing.

The Bolt Weevils and the Simplicity of Sabotage

Resis­tance against exploita­tion is noth­ing new. His­to­ry is full of exam­ples of people—perfectly ordi­nary people—fighting back against injus­tice, exploita­tion, and the destruc­tion of their lands and com­mu­ni­ties.

Resis­tance against exploita­tion is noth­ing new. His­to­ry is full of exam­ples of people—perfectly ordi­nary people—fighting back against injus­tice, exploita­tion, and the destruc­tion of their lands and com­mu­ni­ties. They move through what­ev­er chan­nels for action are open to them, but often, left with no legal or polit­i­cal pow­er, they turn to mil­i­tant means to defend them­selves.

It is hard­ly a sim­ple deci­sion, and rarely the first or pre­ferred option, but when all oth­er paths have been explored and found to lead nowhere, mil­i­tant action becomes the only real­is­tic route left. Move­ments and com­mu­ni­ties come to that truth in many dif­fer­ent ways, but almost with­out fail, they come to it borne by a col­lec­tive cul­ture of resis­tance. One inspir­ing exam­ple is the Bolt Wee­vils.

The Bolt Wee­vils were a group of farm­ers in Min­neso­ta who spent sev­er­al years in the late 1970s per­fect­ing the fine art of sab­o­tag­ing inter­state elec­tri­cal trans­mis­sion lines. Their efforts have been memo­ri­al­ized in numer­ous books and songs, and their sto­ry is a hope­ful one we would do well to remem­ber and re-tell.

The sto­ry of the Bolt Wee­vils begins in the mid-1970s, when the Coop­er­a­tive Pow­er Asso­ci­a­tion (CPA) and Unit­ed Pow­er Asso­ci­a­tion (UPA) pro­posed con­struc­tion of a new inter­state high-volt­age trans­mis­sion line. Tak­ing its name from the two coop­er­a­tives, the CU Pow­er­line would car­ry cur­rent from a gen­er­at­ing sta­tion in North Dako­ta across west-cen­tral Min­neso­ta to feed the urban cen­ters of the Twin Cities.
In deter­min­ing a route for the pow­er­line, small farm­ers land was rat­ed less impor­tant than large indus­tri­al farms, and as a result, the pro­posed route crossed the prop­er­ty of near­ly 500 landown­ers. Out­raged at being trod­den over to for the ben­e­fit of indus­try and urban­ism, resis­tance against the project began imme­di­ate­ly in earnest.

Once res­i­dents found out about the project, they refused to sign land ease­ments. Local towns passed res­o­lu­tions oppos­ing the project and reject con­struc­tion per­mits. The pow­er­line went to review before the State’s Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­i­ty Coun­cil, which went ahead and grant­ed the nec­es­sary per­mits in the face of over­whelm­ing pub­lic oppo­si­tion.

When sur­vey­ors showed up out of the blue in one farmer’s fields, he smashed their equip­ment with his trac­tor and rammed their vehi­cle. The action of that one farmer helped cat­alyze pop­u­lar sen­ti­ments into action. Farm­ers began using CB radios to noti­fy one anoth­er about sur­vey­ing activ­i­ties, and would turn out in groups to stop the work. As resis­tance began to build, local radio sta­tions would broad­cast times and loca­tions of pro­tes­tor gath­er­ings. Farm­ers and oth­ers who opposed the project began meet­ing every morn­ing in the Lowry town hall, host­ing oth­ers who’d come from neigh­bor­ing coun­ties, to make plans for each day.

As sur­vey­ing and con­struc­tion con­tin­ued, the locals esca­lat­ed their efforts. They would erect signs in their fields to block the sight­lines of the sur­vey­ors, and stand next to sur­vey crews run­ning their chain­saws to dis­rupt their work. Sur­vey stakes dis­ap­peared overnight. Farm­ers used their trucks to make road­blocks and their trac­tors to pile boul­ders in the con­struc­tion sites. One group even gained per­mis­sion from the coun­ty to improve a rur­al road—they dug a ditch across it to stop all traf­fic.

They filed more law­suits, and the issue was even­tu­al­ly tak­en up by the Min­neso­ta Supreme Court, which in the spir­it of every­thing it rep­re­sents, decid­ed against the farm­ers and in favor of the pow­er­line. Many of the cit­i­zens oppos­ing the pipeline had earnest­ly believed in insti­tu­tions like the Supreme Court and the struc­tures of pow­er. After their bat­tles through the courts, many of them were dis­il­lu­sioned and had been rad­i­cal­ized.

Law enforce­ment began escort­ing con­struc­tion and sur­vey work­ers, and the sit­u­a­tion came to a head on Jan­u­ary 4th 1978, when 100 farm­ers chased pow­er­line crews from three dif­fer­ent sites, fought with police, and even tore down part of a tow­er. The next week, the Min­neso­ta Gov­er­nor ordered the largest mobi­liza­tion of the State Troop­ers in Minnesota’s his­to­ry, with 200 Troopers—fully half of the force—descended on the rur­al area to ensure con­struc­tion con­tin­ued.

Protests con­tin­ued and grew, as the issue began to draw nation­al and inter­na­tion­al media atten­tion; hun­dreds turned out for ral­lies at sur­vey sites, and some schools even let out so stu­dents and teach­ers could attend. In St. Paul, thou­sands of farm­ers ral­lied and demon­strat­ed, and in March of 1978 more than 8,000 peo­ple marched almost ten miles through freez­ing tem­per­a­tures from Lowry to Glen­wood to protest the CU pow­er­line.

It was in the heat of August that the ket­tle boiled over. Bolts on one of the trans­mis­sion tow­ers were loos­ened, and soon after­wards, it fell over, as the Bolt Wee­vils entered the scene. Then three more fell over. Guard poles and bolts were cut and loos­ened, insu­la­tors were shot out. Over the next few years, 14 tow­ers were felled and near­ly 10,000 insu­la­tors were shot out. Soon, heli­copters patrolled the pow­er­line, and it was made a fed­er­al offense to take down inter­state trans­mis­sion lines.

There were numer­ous arrests, some 120 in all, but only two indi­vid­u­als were ever con­vict­ed on felony charges, and even then they were only sen­tenced to com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. Oppo­si­tion to the pow­er­line was so com­mon that in some instances, wit­ness­es refused to tes­ti­fy against farm­ers.

In the End, unfor­tu­nate­ly, the pow­er­line was built and went into oper­a­tion, despite the protests and the dis­rup­tions by the Bolt Wee­vils. While they were unsuc­cess­ful in ulti­mate­ly stop­ping the project, there’s much from their efforts that we can learn and apply to our work today against exploita­tion and civ­i­liza­tion.

As in most social strug­gles that turn to prop­er­ty destruc­tion and mil­i­tan­cy, that wasn’t the first choice of tac­tics for those on the ground. They fought for years through accept­ed legal and polit­i­cal avenues, turn­ing to mate­r­i­al attacks after all oth­er cours­es of action had proven inef­fec­tive. But more than that, the pop­u­lar agi­ta­tion and orga­niz­ing in the years lead­ing up to the emer­gence of the Bolt Wee­vils didn’t mere­ly pre­cede mil­i­tant direct action: it laid the ground­work for it.

The work of the local farmers—their protests, demon­stra­tions, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, and com­mu­ni­ty organizing—paved the way (for­give the phrase) and set the con­di­tions for the sab­o­tage that would lat­er occur. By mobi­liz­ing res­i­dents and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers against the project, build­ing social net­works, and agi­tat­ing and rais­ing oppo­si­tion against CU pow­er­line, a col­lec­tive cul­ture of resis­tance was cre­at­ed, plant­i­ng and water­ing the seeds from which the Bolt Wee­vils were born.

With civ­i­liza­tion churn­ing onwards towards biot­ic col­lapse and under­ground resis­tance the only real hope left, car­ing for those seeds is our pri­ma­ry duty today. The sto­ry of the Bolt Weevils—like count­less oth­er sto­ries of resistance—shows that mil­i­tant resis­tance emerges from strong and sup­port­ive cul­tures of resis­tance. The time to start build­ing such a cul­ture was yes­ter­day. For those of us who choose to orga­nize and work in an above­ground and legal way, build­ing such a cul­ture that embraces and cel­e­brates sab­o­tage and the use of any means nec­es­sary to stop the omni­cide of indus­tri­al­ism is our fore­most task.

The sto­ry of the Bolt Wee­vils isn’t empow­er­ing and inspir­ing because they “fought off the bad guys and won.” They didn’t win. The pow­er lines were built, forced down their throats in the face of their resis­tance. No, their sto­ry is inspir­ing because it so clear­ly and unde­ni­ably demon­strates how sim­ply fea­si­ble sab­o­tage and mate­r­i­al attacks tru­ly are. Often, we talk about mil­i­tant resis­tance and direct action as mys­te­ri­ous and abstract things, things that wouldn’t ever hap­pen in our lives or com­mu­ni­ties, things that no one as ordi­nary as any of us would ever do.

Whether we roman­ti­cize under­ground action or are intim­i­dat­ed by it, we gen­er­al­ly talk about it as though it is some­thing out of a movie or a nov­el. The truth is that such actions are sim­ply tactics—just like peti­tion-dri­ves or street marches—that can be used to dis­man­tle sys­tems of pow­er. The Bolt Weevils—a group of farm­ers with hunt­ing rifles and hacksaws*—serve as a stark reminder that one doesn’t require mil­i­tary train­ing and high-tech gad­gets to act in direct and mate­r­i­al ways against the infra­struc­ture of destruc­tion. We’re all capa­ble of fight­ing back, and while sab­o­tage against indus­tri­al infra­struc­ture can be daunt­ing for many valid rea­sons, tech­ni­cal­i­ty isn’t one of them.

We may have to fail work­ing through oth­er chan­nels (as if we haven’t already) before col­lec­tive­ly turn­ing to sab­o­tage and attacks on indus­tri­al infra­struc­ture as a strat­e­gy, and we will cer­tain­ly need to build a sup­port­ive and strong cul­ture of resis­tance. But if we’re seri­ous about stop­ping the destruc­tion and exploita­tion of civ­i­liza­tion, we will be left with no oth­er choice.

*This is spec­u­la­tive. I don’t actu­al­ly know how they shot out insu­la­tors or cut through guard poles, although there are plen­ty of accounts of hunt­ing rifles and hack­saws being used in this fash­ion, and it’s from those sto­ries that I haz­ard this guess.

Reclaim the Fields:Spring into Action Gathering!FoD

:Reclaim the Fields : Spring into Action Gath­er­ing! 16th-25th March:

:Reclaim the Fields : Spring into Action Gath­er­ing! 16th-25th March:
Yorkley Court is host­ing the Reclaim the Fields ‘Spring into Action’ gath­er­ing, on Sat­ur­day the 16th of March- 25th! The Gath­er­ing aims to be a plat­form for shar­ing prac­ti­cal land-based skills, crafts and relat­ed knowl­edge. We intend to ‘get on with it’ whilst con­tin­u­al­ly seek­ing to cre­ate a pop­u­lar discourse/ debate on the issues of land access, the right to food autonomy/ sov­er­eign­ty and the right to build and dwell with­in a low-impact home on the land.

Yorkley Court Com­mu­ni­ty Farm is a grow­ing grass-roots farm in the For­est of Dean, inter­est­ed in devel­op­ing resilient agro-eco­log­i­cal sys­tems, that are both pro­duc­tive and eco­log­i­cal­ly regen­er­a­tive.

The Seed Camp will start on the 8th of March, with a two day Per­ma­cul­ture course by Tomas Remi­arz. The rest of the week will focus on set­ting up infra­struc­ture and open­ly, inclu­sive­ly organ­is­ing the Gath­er­ing. Any­one inter­est­ed and able to help get the Gath­er­ing off to a great start, should come along for this week, pri­or to the main Gath­er­ing! Lots of skill-shar­ing and fun will be had!

We are cur­rent­ly look­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in doing talks, run­ning work­shops and skill-shar­ing dur­ing the main Gath­er­ing… every­one will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share their skills and knowl­edge at the gath­er­ing, but we can pub­li­cise the workshops/talks offered before the gath­er­ing! So let us know what you’d like to offer or to see, in the way of workshops/skillshares asap!

The week­ends of the Gath­er­ing will be focused on talks, pre­sen­ta­tions, work­shops and dis­cus­sions. The week days between will be more focused on prac­ti­cal activ­i­ties.

Please get hold of us, if you’re plan­ning to come to the Seed Camp, or are want­i­ng to do talk, run a work­shop, etc…

:Con­tact Details:

yorkleycourt@gmail.com

yorkleycourt.wordpress.com < our main, local com­mu­ni­ty fac­ing web­site!

rtfspring2013.wordpress.com  < the gath­er­ings own web­site! pro­gramme still under-con­struc­tion!

reclaimthefields.org.uk < our con­stel­la­tions web­site

:A bit about the For­est:

The For­est of Dean is a land betwix two rivers, a secret Wilder­ness in West Glouces­ter­shire, right on the Welsh board­er.

The For­est of Dean has his­tor­i­cal­ly been the home of many rad­i­cal land-rights strug­gles and was set­tled by ‘the cab­in­ers’, peo­ple who built their homes “by right” instead of through state depen­dence. They were treat­ed by the state with the same dis­tain as ‘squat­ters’ are today, albeit with more direct vio­lence and less PR spin.

As one Oxford prof. put it, after mov­ing here recent­ly, because…
“The For­est and it’s peo­ple have a healthy dis­re­gard for the rule of law!”

Resis­tance is Fer­tile!

Reclaim the Fields!

“Reclaim the Fields is a con­stel­la­tion of peo­ple and col­lec­tive projects will­ing to go back to the land and reas­sume the con­trol over food pro­duc­tion. ”

 

Petition to Welsh Government asking them to make their MTAN2 recommendations mandatory in Welsh planning law.

 

 

Hi All.
I’m look­ing for sup­port for a peti­tion a small anti open­cast group from Varteg, Pon­ty­pool has start­ed to Welsh Gov ask­ing them to make their MTAN2 rec­om­men­da­tion for a 500m buffer zone around open­cast mines manda­to­ry in Welsh plan­ning law. This action would ster­ilise 66% of the Welsh coal­field accord­ing to the Coal Author­i­ties fig­ures and would be a prece­dent to oth­er gov­ern­ments to val­ue the local pop­u­la­tions who live around min­er­al extrac­tion. 
Could I  ask you to help spread the peti­tion through you net­works?

 

********** URGENT ************
Here’s the peti­tion ask­ing Welsh Gov­ern­ment to make the MTAN2 500m buffer zone around open­cast mines manda­to­ry in plan­ning law in Wales.
Please sign by click­ing link below and share it any­where and every­where 
https://www.assemblywales.org/gethome/e‑petitions/epetition-list-of-signatories.htm?pet_id=864&showfrm=0
Sign Peti­tion | Nation­al Assem­bly for Wales
www.assemblywales.org
We call upon the Nation­al Assem­bly for Wales to urge the Welsh Gov­ern­ment to make the MTAN Guid­ance Notes, notably those relat­ing to a 500 metre buffer zone around open cast work­ings, manda­to­ry in Welsh plan­ning law.

 

Huila Community of Colombia Continues to Defend the Earth from Mega-Development. 28th Feb

The New Year in Huila start­ed as 2012 fin­ished, with the Nation­al Author­i­ty of Envi­ron­men­tal Licens­es’ (ANLA) refusal  to hold the ener­gy com­pa­ny Enel-Ende­sa-Emge­sa account­able for fail­ing to com­ply with the envi­ron­men­tal license for the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project.

The New Year in Huila start­ed as 2012 fin­ished, with the Nation­al Author­i­ty of Envi­ron­men­tal Licens­es’ (ANLA) refusal  to hold the ener­gy com­pa­ny Enel-Ende­sa-Emge­sa account­able for fail­ing to com­ply with the envi­ron­men­tal license for the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project.

The Comptroller’s Office has con­tin­u­al­ly stud­ied the infor­ma­tion put forth by Asso­ci­a­tion of Affect­ed Peo­ples of the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project (Aso­quim­bo), and has backed the local com­mu­ni­ties’ demands that the envi­ron­men­tal license be respect­ed in regards to reset­tle­ment, com­pen­sa­tions and envi­ron­men­tal mit­i­ga­tion.  Mean­while in Huila, local media have false­ly report­ed that noth­ing is wrong in the region and have irre­spon­si­bly reduced their report­ing to noth­ing more than pub­lic rela­tions on behalf of the company’s image.

Nonethe­less, through­out Huila, the resis­tance has not only man­i­fest­ed from the com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the Quim­bo Dam, but also from the com­mu­ni­ties in Gigante and Garzón affect­ed by petro­le­um com­pa­ny Emer­ald Ener­gy, as well as com­mu­ni­ties in south­ern and cen­tral Huila resist­ing the Mas­ter Advan­tage Plan of the Mag­dale­na Riv­er which would hand over the country´s largest and most impor­tant riv­er in con­ces­sion to the state-owned com­pa­ny HydroChi­na. In addi­tion to the inva­sion of extrac­tive indus­tries to Huila, the regions large amount of cof­fee grow­ers have been impact­ed by the falling price in cof­fee which has pro­gres­sive­ly got­ten worse since the sign­ing of the US free trade agree­ment. As a result, Huila and all of Colombia’s cof­fee grow­ers have also start­ed pres­sur­ing the Colom­bian State that has result­ed injuries in recent days as cof­fee grow­ers have had clash­es with the riot police (ESMAD).

In the cof­fee lands, fruit orchards, and veg­etable fields main­tained by the campesinos around the Miraflo­res Peak, mem­bers of the Inter-sec­toral Asso­ci­a­tion Garzón & Gigante (ASIEG), con­tin­ue to fight to have the envi­ron­men­tal license that would per­mit Emer­ald Ener­gy, a sub­sidiary of the Chi­nese chem­i­cal com­pa­ny, Sinochem to drill for oil in the Paramo of Miraflo­res ecosys­tem. Cur­rent­ly AISEG along with the Region­al Autonomous Cor­po­ra­tion of the Upper Mag­dale­na (CAM) along with CORPOAMAZONIA from the Depart­ment of Caque­ta, are push­ing the Office of Nation­al Nat­ur­al Parks to declare the 122,000 HA of the Paramo de Miraflo­res Peak a Nation­al Nat­ur­al park to help cre­ate a stronger legal mech­a­nisms for pro­tect­ing this area and effec­tive­ly exclud­ing it from any form of oil extrac­tion.

The Mag­dale­na Riv­er, born in south Huila, flows north some 1,528 kilo­me­ters to its delta in the Caribbean Sea. Its drainage basin is near­ly a quar­ter of the country´s nation­al ter­ri­to­ry and two-thirds of the near­ly 46 mil­lion Colom­bians live in this region which pro­duces about 86% of the country´s GDP.  This year, the Mag­dale­na Riv­er will be hand­ed over in con­ces­sion to the com­pa­ny HydroChi­na whose plans for the riv­er are to turn a liv­ing ecosys­tem that sup­ports human and non­hu­man com­mu­ni­ties into the country´s most impor­tant trans­porta­tion cor­ri­dor for cheap goods.

The plan will include dredg­ing the riv­er from Hon­da, Toli­ma all the way to its delta to allow large barges to enter that far up-riv­er from the caribbean delta with­in Colom­bia. Hon­da will be con­nect­ed via high-speed rail­ways to the Pacif­ic-coast port city of Bue­naven­tu­ra as a con­nec­tion between east­ern and west­ern mar­kets.  For the upper area of the Mag­dale­na Riv­er Val­ley the con­ces­sion involves a total of 11 medi­um to large hydro­elec­tric dams to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty for use else­where. Com­mu­ni­ties in south­ern Huila such as Opo­ra­pa, San Agustín, and San Jose de Isnos have all become active in the local resis­tance since the plans for the riv­er were announced last year.

The Impacts are being felt

With sad­ness, mem­bers and allies of the Aso­quim­bo paid farewell to Sain Pedra­zo, a farmer and day labor­er from Ver­acruz, Gigante. Don Sain, known by all who knew him as a sweet, lov­ing and noble man, was an elder and stead­fast war­rior of Aso­quim­bo. He joins at least sev­en oth­er old­er adults from the affect­ed pop­u­la­tion that have passed due to the phys­i­o­log­i­cal trau­ma that the place where they were born, grew up, raised their fam­i­lies and have lived in always, might pos­si­bly be erased. In his own words he said that he would pass before the Dam could be com­plet­ed. “If every­one thinks like me, I am leav­ing before it is my time. I´d rather that no one men­tion that Quim­bo to me, because God does not want it. Though based on what I feel, I am leav­ing here ear­ly. I will not wait for this dis­as­ter to hap­pen. Me with my 72 years of birth and life here, I do feel it and it hurts me hard.”  Don Sain is great­ly missed though his lega­cy of his fight and strug­gle for the love of our ter­ri­to­ry till the very end accom­pa­ny those that con­tin­ue to strug­gle for the lib­er­a­tion of Moth­er Earth in Huila.

On Jan­u­ary 16, Moi­ses Sanchez, a share­crop­per on the Cha­gres Farm in Gigante, along with his fam­i­ly and cat­tle, was forcibly removed from his home by the ESMAD by order of the Gigante’s may­or Ivan Luna.  Bru­tal­ized dur­ing the process, this is anoth­er exam­ple of how laws are applied when they favor Emge­sa-Ende­sa-Enel, though when it comes to the sanc­tions placed against the com­pa­ny and mak­ing sure they are adhered to, the nec­es­sary State insti­tu­tions are nowhere to be found. To date there is still an open inves­ti­ga­tion by the Comptroller´s Office of the ANLA for the vio­la­tions of social and envi­ron­men­tal rights caused by the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project and dam­ages total­ing an amount over $175 bil­lion (USD) that the com­pa­ny has yet to respond to and the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment has also been silent on.

In mid-Feb­ru­ary a mas­sive die-off of Tilapia and Bass occurred in the float­ing aqua­cul­ture cages in the Beta­nia Reser­voir that belong to local elites. Over 300 tons of fish des­tined to export to for­eign coun­tries died due to anaer­o­bic con­di­tions in the reser­voir found down riv­er from the Quim­bo con­struc­tion site. A local aqua­cul­ture busi­ness own­er who asked to remain anony­mous accused the Nation­al Fish­ing and Aqua­cul­ture Author­i­ty (Aunap) of doing noth­ing. “The uncon­trolled growth of aqua­cul­ture in Beta­nia threat­ens the eco­log­i­cal bal­ance as well as indus­tri­al aqua­cul­ture,” said the busi­ness own­er.
In 2005, accord­ing to the Plan of Fish and Aqua­cul­ture Order, there were 1,686 cages, eight years lat­er there are 7,000 cages. This over­pro­duc­tion along with pol­lu­tion and high­er sed­i­ment con­tent in the water low­ered the water qual­i­ty and caused the water to lose Oxy­gen pro­vok­ing the mas­sive die off.

Region­al Polit­i­cal Cor­rup­tion and a Chal­lenge

On Jan­u­ary 9th, 2013 Cielo Gon­za­lez was final­ly removed from her posi­tion as gov­er­nor of Huila and her for­mer Sec­re­tary Julio César Tri­ana, was appoint­ed by Pres­i­dent San­tos as the new inter­im gov­er­nor in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary. Pri­or to Tri­ana, Luis Guiller­mo Vélez Cabr­era was serv­ing as inter­im gov­er­nor when he vis­it­ed the con­struc­tion site of the Quim­bo telling local media the “Quim­bo must hap­pen, but the right way.”  He also not­ed that while there had been progress, the company´s delay in the cre­ation of the irri­ga­tion dis­trict Paicol-Tesalia was espe­cial­ly wor­ry­ing. Since Tri­ana has come into office as inter­im-gov­er­nor, he has only men­tioned that Vélez Cabr­era would be the “point per­son” to con­tin­ue work­ing on the project.

On April 14 there will atyp­i­cal elec­tions held in Huila to pick the new gov­er­nor. Aso­quim­bo is call­ing on the peo­ple of Huila to vote in blank and for the Defense of the Ter­ri­to­ry.  Cur­rent­ly all the can­di­dates from the dif­fer­ent par­ties sup­port and helped cre­ate the Depart­men­tal Plan of Devel­op­ment 2012–2015 “Mak­ing Change,” which seeks to use extrac­tive indus­tries as part of Pres­i­dent San­tos “Min­ing-Ener­gy Loco­mo­tive” as a major force in region­al and nation­al devel­op­ment. On the bal­lot, list­ed as a viable option is the “Pro­gram of Uni­ty for Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Defense” that is reg­is­tered with the Nation­al Civic Reg­istry. The out­lined plat­forms the make up the “Pro­gram of Uni­ty for Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Defense” were cre­at­ed through open assem­blies in the com­mu­ni­ties of Agra­do, Garzón, Gigante, Hobo, La Pla­ta, San josé de Isnos, Tar­qui and San Agustín, Huila from Feb­ru­ary 9–17th that focus on pro­tect­ing the local com­mu­ni­ties, economies and the envi­ron­ment.

The Con­stant Hypocrisy of the Nation­al Author­i­ty of Envi­ron­men­tal Licens­es

The lack of con­sis­ten­cy of the Direc­tor of the ANLA, Luz Hele­na Sarmien­to, has only made evi­dent that her role is that of a pup­pet for transna­tion­al com­pa­nies more than a true author­i­ty who absurd­ly has been del­e­gat­ed the respon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­tect­ing the needs of the human and non­hu­man com­mu­ni­ties in Colom­bia.  In late Decem­ber yet anoth­er res­o­lu­tion was passed mod­i­fy­ing the Quimbo´s Envi­ron­men­tal License through Res­o­lu­tion 1142 attempt­ing to help Enel-Ende­sa-Emge­sa remain unac­count­able to the demands placed on it by the comptroller´s Office. As a result, Comp­trol­ler San­dra Morel­li has declared that the ANLA was deep­en­ing the country’s envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis that it had already brought on by its faulty poli­cies. This cri­tique helped elim­i­nate an eco-tourism hotel known as “Los Ciru­e­los” that was planned for the Tay­rona Nation­al Park on the Caribbean Coast by the ANLA through Res­o­lu­tion 0024.

The cri­tiques of Sarmiento´s hypocrisy is that the envi­ron­men­tal impact of the Quim­bo is much greater than that of Los Ciru­e­los tak­ing into account the over 800 Ha of dry-trop­i­cal for­est will be destroyed (the same ecosys­tem that Los Ciru­e­los would affect) and large por­tions of the Ama­zon­ian Pro­tec­tion For­est Reserve.  Since ear­ly Feb­ru­ary the ANLA has denied licens­es for numer­ous com­pa­nies includ­ing Drum­mond, CCX, Prode­co and Gold­man Sachs, who all had plans for coal min­ing in the Depart­ment of Cesar. ANLA denied these solic­i­ta­tions cit­ing these com­pa­nies did not fol­low reg­u­la­tions. This inco­her­ence that direct­ly impacts com­mu­ni­ties is what is push­ing so many to take more direct actions after more than four years of inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized evi­dence of count­less vio­la­tions of the Quimbo´s envi­ron­men­tal licens­es even after the licens­ing has been changed no less than four times always in ben­e­fit of the com­pa­ny.

Huila, won’t take it no more

On Feb­ru­ary 25, a nation­al strike was orga­nized by cof­fee grow­ers in Antio­quia, Huila, Quindío, Ris­ar­al­da and oth­er cof­fee grow­ing regions. Tens of thou­sands of campesinos through­out Huila blocked roads to pres­sure the gov­ern­ment to take action in help­ing cof­fee grow­ers as a result of the falling prices. In Garzón, clash­es led to over 25 peo­ple being injured and cur­fews being called; mean­while in Nei­va and the roads con­nect­ing Huila with Caque­ta and Putu­mayo, all trans­porta­tion is par­a­lyzed in the region as a result of the strikes. Aso­quim­bo and AISEG are in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the cof­fee grow­ers strike and par­tic­i­pate, as well as pre­pare for more upcom­ing mobi­liza­tions. Mer­cedes Nin­co, a res­i­dent of La Jagua, explained “we are sup­port­ing the cof­fee grow­ers and strik­ing as well. The State´s poli­cies that hurt them are also hurt­ing us.”

What con­tin­ues to be appar­ent is that the Quim­bo and oth­er extrac­tion projects in Huila are only the tip of the ice­berg.  Region­al­ly and glob­al­ly, the meth­ods that gov­ern­ments are using to dis­guise cor­po­rate land grabs, resource extrac­tion, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and forced dis­place­ment as a minor part of “progress” and “devel­op­ment” has nev­er been akin to the world­views of most com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by these projects. In fact, the strug­gle of move­ments like Idle No More in Cana­da against the Tar Sands and oth­er extrac­tion projects on indige­nous lands, the efforts in the US against the Key­stone Pipeline, or the incal­cu­la­ble amount of com­mu­ni­ties stand­ing up against mines, dams, pipelines, agro-indus­try through­out the world are the same fight.

Since the upris­ings led by the Gai­tana in the 1530s against Pedro de Añas­co and the invad­ing Span­ish forces, the peo­ple of Huila have nev­er been Idle.  While the Cof­fee Grow­ers Strike is build­ing strength and shows no sign of sub­sid­ing any­time soon, through­out Huila com­mu­ni­ties are gath­er­ing forces and prepar­ing for the region­al strike to be ini­ti­at­ed on March 14, the Inter­na­tion­al Day against Dams and For Rivers, Water and Life. The Com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the Quim­bo Dam and oth­er extrac­tive indus­tries in Huila call for inter­na­tion­al direct actions in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Huila with a sim­ple mes­sage, “extrac­tive indus­tries out of the ter­ri­to­ry, repeal the free trade agree­ments and land reform now”. Just like last year when there were numer­ous inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty actions, the peo­ples of Huila are ask­ing for all oth­ers in strug­gle for the Lib­er­a­tion of Moth­er Earth to “flood” Colom­bian Embassies, Con­sulates and the facil­i­ties of the com­pa­nies Enel, Ende­sa, Emge­sa, Emer­ald Ener­gy and HydroChi­na.

Red Lake Pipeline Blockade. 28th feb

Enbridge Ener­gy LP has been tres­pass­ing on Red Lake Nations Ced­ed lands in Min­neso­ta by oper­at­ing mul­ti­ple pipelines with­out an ease­ment. Nizhawen­daamin Indaakim­i­naan, a group of grass­roots Red Lake trib­al mem­bers and allies, demand that the flow of oil through these pipelines be stopped.

Enbridge Ener­gy LP has been tres­pass­ing on Red Lake Nations Ced­ed lands in Min­neso­ta by oper­at­ing mul­ti­ple pipelines with­out an ease­ment. Nizhawen­daamin Indaakim­i­naan, a group of grass­roots Red Lake trib­al mem­bers and allies, demand that the flow of oil through these pipelines be stopped. Enbridge Ener­gy LP pur­chased these oil pipelines from Lake­head Pipeline, who orig­i­nal­ly built these pipelines in 1949 on Red Lake land with­out obtain­ing the per­mis­sion of the Red Lake sov­er­eign nation. Accord­ing to Mar­ty Cobe­nais, pipeline orga­niz­er for Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work and a trib­al mem­ber of Red Lake, “Enbridge Ener­gy LP still does not have per­mis­sion to have these pipelines” on an eight acre piece of Red Lake land just south­east of Leonard, Min­neso­ta.

Today Nizhawen­daamin Indaakim­i­naan have occu­pied the land direct­ly over these pipelines on Red Lake land. They demand that these pipelines be shut down imme­di­ate­ly. “The goal is to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty not only with our first Nation broth­ers and sis­ters in Cana­da but also to pro­tect our Moth­er Earth and all of our chil­dren and future gen­er­a­tions on this earth,” says Tito Ybar­ra, a mem­ber of Nizhawen­daamin Indaakim­i­naan and an enrolled mem­ber of the Red Lake band of Ojib­we.

It is expect­ed if the occu­pa­tion pro­ceeds for three days, the flow of oil — which may include con­tro­ver­sial tar sands bitu­men extract­ed from Alber­ta, Cana­da — will have to be shut down. The 72-hour count­down has start­ed around rough­ly 3PM Thurs­day.

Sup­port­ers have been invit­ed onto the site by trib­al mem­bers to sup­port the block­ade, and cur­rent­ly vol­un­teer media from the new Unedit­ed­Me­dia col­lec­tive, TC Indy­media & [infor­mal­ly] Occu­pyMN are on site. Inter­net access appears sta­ble enough for @unedit­ed­cam­era to peri­od­i­cal­ly livestream as the camp takes shape for the long haul, also aid­ed by mild weath­er. Also @samRichards10 and Robert Des­Jar­lait (@r_desjarlait) are pro­vid­ing updates. Des­jar­lait tweet­ed “This isn’t a block­ade, as some have report­ed. There is noth­ing to block. It is a non-con­fronta­tion­al protest.” How­ev­er, it does have poten­tial con­se­quences akin to that cre­at­ed by a block­ade.

Addi­tion­al­ly it appears that Enbridge recent­ly scrubbed some con­tent per­tain­ing to con­tro­ver­sial “Line 67” from their web­site. With the dan­ger­ous Tran­scana­da Key­stone XL pipeline intend for tar sands bitu­men mired in polit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy, the prospects for  extend­ing the capac­i­ty of Line 67, are rel­e­vant to the sit­u­a­tion. (There are sev­er­al pub­lic hear­ings in the region sched­uled on Line 67 in com­ing weeks.)

// UPDATE 3/1/13 11:30AM : Mar­ty Cobe­nais of the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work issues state­ment on behalf of block­ade pro­test­ers http://www.ustream.tv/uneditedcamera

Red Lake Pipeline Blockade Initiated in Northern Minnesota

28 Feb­ru­ary 2013

28 Feb­ru­ary 2013
Post­ed from Twin Cities Indy­media

#RLBlock­ade begins!

On the Red Lake sov­er­eign nation land locat­ed in what is today known as north­ern Min­neso­ta, an occu­pa­tion has start­ed at a loca­tion above the Enbridge-owned pipeline built with­out per­mis­sion of the Red Lake Nation in 1949 (hash­tag #RLblock­ade). Already a heli­copter from Enbridge briefly land­ed next to the site (video), near the town of Leonard.

It is expect­ed if the occu­pa­tion pro­ceeds for three days, the flow of oil – which may include con­tro­ver­sial tar sands bitu­men extract­ed from Alber­ta, Cana­da – will have to be shut down. The 72-hour count­down has start­ed around rough­ly 3PM Thurs­day.

Sup­port­ers have been invit­ed onto the site by trib­al mem­bers to sup­port the block­ade, and cur­rent­ly vol­un­teer media from the new Unedit­ed­Me­dia col­lec­tive, TC Indy­media & [infor­mal­ly] Occu­pyMN are on site. Inter­net access appears sta­ble enough for @unedit­ed­cam­era to peri­od­i­cal­ly livestream as the camp takes shape for the long haul, also aid­ed by mild weath­er. Also @samRichards10 and Robert Des­Jar­lait (@r_desjarlait) are pro­vid­ing updates. Des­jar­lait tweet­ed “This isn’t a block­ade, as some have report­ed. There is noth­ing to block. It is a non-con­fronta­tion­al protest.” How­ev­er, it does have poten­tial con­se­quences akin to that cre­at­ed by a block­ade.

Addi­tion­al­ly it appears that Enbridge recent­ly scrubbed some con­tent per­tain­ing to con­tro­ver­sial “Line 67″ from their web­site. With the dan­ger­ous Tran­scana­da Key­stone XL pipeline intend for tar sands bitu­men mired in polit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy, the prospects for  extend­ing the capac­i­ty of Line 67, are rel­e­vant to the sit­u­a­tion. (There are sev­er­al pub­lic hear­ings in the region sched­uled on Line 67 in com­ing weeks.)

Offi­cial press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Con­tact: Dean­na Lasley (218)-766‑4500

Tito Ybar­ra (218)-209‑6918

Mar­ty Cobe­nais (218)-760‑0284

Date: Feb­ru­ary 28th, 2013

RED LAKE PIPELINE BLOCKADE

Enbridge Ener­gy LP has been tres­pass­ing on Red Lake Nations Ced­ed lands in Min­neso­ta by oper­at­ing mul­ti­ple pipelines with­out an ease­ment. Nizhawen­daamin Indaakim­i­naan, a group of grass­roots Red Lake trib­al mem­bers and allies, demand that the flow of oil through these pipelines be stopped. Enbridge Ener­gy LP pur­chased these oil pipelines from Lake­head Pipeline, who orig­i­nal­ly built these pipelines in 1949 on Red Lake land with­out obtain­ing the per­mis­sion of the Red Lake sov­er­eign nation. Accord­ing to Mar­ty Cobe­nais, pipeline orga­niz­er for Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work and a trib­al mem­ber of Red Lake, “Enbridge Ener­gy LP still does not have per­mis­sion to have these pipelines” on an eight acre piece of Red Lake land just south­east of Leonard, Min­neso­ta.

Today Nizhawen­daamin Indaakim­i­naan have occu­pied the land direct­ly over these pipelines on Red Lake land. They demand that these pipelines be shut down imme­di­ate­ly. “The goal is to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty not only with our first Nation broth­ers and sis­ters in Cana­da but also to pro­tect our Moth­er Earth and all of our chil­dren and future gen­er­a­tions on this earth,” says Tito Ybar­ra, a mem­ber of Nizhawen­daamin Indaakim­i­naan and an enrolled mem­ber of the Red Lake band of Ojib­we.

#RLBlock­ade

TC Indy­media and Unedit­ed Media mem­bers will con­tin­ue to pro­vide updates as they can. This post should also be updat­ed as mat­ters devel­op. Stay tuned!

Stop the Tennessee Pipeline. 26th Feb

Gif­ford Pin­chot, the Penn­syl­va­nia tree-sit­ter that is blockad­ing the route of the Ten­nessee Pipeline from log­ging, stays strong and gives us this update from the trees:

Gif­ford Pin­chot, the Penn­syl­va­nia tree-sit­ter that is blockad­ing the route of the Ten­nessee Pipeline from log­ging, stays strong and gives us this update from the trees:

“Right now there is a march going on across the Delaware Riv­er to stop the pipeline. I wish I could join but I’m afraid that those trees around me wouldn’t still be stand­ing when I returned. It’s wet and rainy and there are no chain saws that I can hear, but I know they are run­ning some­where and so the fight must con­tin­ue. Ten­nessee Gas may not care about these hills and this  com­mu­ni­ty, the state and nation­al gov­ern­ment may not care, but we care and peo­ple who are being poi­soned by the gas indus­try, forced to sell their homes and relo­cate or live next to the destruc­tion wrought in the name of prof­its only the exec­u­tives will see…”

Pin­chot is still in the tree stand as tree crews cut toward him.  No tree crews have showed up on the Pike Coun­ty side of the clear­ing project yet this morn­ing, and activists are pre­pared to call OSHA (Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion) if log­gers attempt to com­plete the steep slope above Cum­mins Hill Road.  …

These actions are part of a cam­paign oppos­ing the Ten­nessee Pipeline in the Delaware Riv­er Basin. The direct action cam­paign is tak­ing place after near­ly two years of local polit­i­cal lead­ers and grass­roots oppo­si­tion in the courts, pub­lic com­ment, and protest. …