La ZAD- Largest Protest Zone in Europe Being Evicted

Europes largest protest zone is going through mul­ti­ple evic­tions — all through much media silence! Over the past four days La ZAD, an anti-air­port protest zone, com­pos­ing of over 20 occu­pied sites has been putting up the bar­ri­cades, oppos­ing and protest­ing against the harass­ment and the evic­tions by a troop of police over a 1000 strong.

Largest Protest Zone in Europe Being Evict­ed

La ZAD (La Zone A Défendre)

Europes largest protest zone is going through mul­ti­ple evic­tions (because there are numer­ous sites) — all through much media silence! Over the past four days La ZAD, an anti-air­port protest zone, com­pos­ing of over 20 occu­pied sites has been putting up the bar­ri­cades, oppos­ing and protest­ing against the harass­ment and the evic­tions by a troop of police over a 1000 strong. La ZAD is in the area of Notre Dame de Lande, just north of the city of Nantes, in the north-west of France.

Video of one of the ear­li­er Police mobil­i­sa­tions:

Resis­tance aux expul­sions from Résis­tances nddl on Vimeo.

 

Sit down protest in Bel Air:  http://zebuzzeo.blogspot.fr/2012/10/a‑notre-dames-des-landes-l-etat-ps.html

Good series of pic­tures of bar­ri­cades and resis­tance:  https://picasaweb.google.com/113382718807039752437/Expulsions#slideshow/5799932948346626882

Good info in Eng­lish: http://en.squat.net/tag/zad/

Tear gas has been used against the bar­ri­cades and the mil­i­tary have been mobilised to sup­port the evic­tions.

Below are sum­maries and trans­la­tions of their FLASH INFO / UPDATES (please excuse the bad eng­lish).

 

THEIR MESSAGE: And most impor­tant­ly: there is plen­ty of places occu­pied (land and three hous­es with evic­tion dead­line until Octo­ber 27), and the the occu­pant-es are always on site, with lots of oth­er peo­ple com­ing to defend the area, and full of mes­sages and actions of sol­i­dar­i­ty every­where! It is not their police pres­sure which make our protests impo­tent acts of resis­tance will con­tin­ue until the project will not be removed.

Octo­ber 16th

[Places evict­ed : la Bel­lich’, Bel Air, la Gaité, les Planchettes, le Tertre, le Pré Fail­li, la Pré Fail­lite et St Jean du Tertre.]

11h18 : // in his speech, the pre­fect declared that the oper­a­tion is fin­ished for today, that all went fine, with­out arresta­tions and that the mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion will con­tin­ue for sev­er­al days to secure the destruc­tion of the hous­es

13h15 : charge et tirs de lacry­mo vers le Sabot ; arrivée de nom­breux four­gons de CRS // Tear gas bee­ing shot around the Sabot, arrival of numer­ous riot cop cars

15:10 : les gens dans le Sabot se font gaz­er, dépan­neuse et trac­topelle en vue, 3 camions de CRS et 10 de gen­darmes se diri­gent vers le Sabot // peo­ple at the Sabot get­ting tear­gased, break­down lor­ry and dig­gers been seen, 3 cop vans of riot cops and 10 mil­i­tary vans head­ing towards Sabot

15h20 : // bar­ri­cade burn­ing at the Sabot. It’s seems to get­ting hot for them

15h40 : // fol­low­ing a exterieur infor­ma­tion, the Mil­i­tary are being mobi­lized for more 48h to pre­vent new occu­pa­tions

 18h15 : // a dig­ger is arriv­ing at the way to the Sabot to enter in the gar­den by the side, 40 peo­ple are still at the Sabot

Octo­ber 17th

[Places evict­ed: les Planchettes, le Tertre.]

8h20 : // a con­voy with a rub­bish truck, dig­ger and a road semi-trail­er are arriv­ing at the Planchettes, under a big escort, big spots light­ing on the Planchettes

10:05 : // there is the propo­si­tion to meet up in the Sabot to dis­cuss, bring water and food, 10 cop vans seen dri­ving to the north direc­tion Fos­se noires/ Planchettes, medias say­ing that the destruc­tion of the hous­es start­ed 🙁 , there is demo in Paris in front of the min­is­tery of envi­ron­ment

11h12 : // there are 30 cop vans in the region around the Tertre where they actu­al­ly destroy the house :(, there are posi­tioned at the end of the Chemin de sueze and at Chênes de Per­rières, the destruc­tion of the Planchettes got con­firmed by the medias :(, at the Sabot it seems qui­et but the heli­copter is turn­ing over the Phare Ouest

12h20 : la destruc­tion de Planchettes dans les medias 🙁 sad­ness and rage…

14h48 : // there are cops arriv­ing in front of the Phare Ouest vers the Chêvrerie
14h58 : // the cops stopped to go for­ward, peo­ple are behind the bar­ri­cades
15h17 : // peo­ple juste got charged by cops vers the Planchettes

15h45 : // some 20 cop vans are in front of the Sabot, the cops came out run­ning

15h50 : // call­out for sup­port at Phare Ouest, the cops tak­ing off the tree block­ing the road

16h15 : // the con­voy which cut the tree is leav­ing, anoth­er one seems to arriv­ing quick­ly from direc­tion Ardil­lières

18h55 : // the cops broke down the bar­ri­cade of the Sabot, they entered but they don’t charge yet

19h11 : pigs got charged by the peo­ple south of Sabot, defend­ing their home, brave friends of us, keep on rock­ing against this ter­ror­istes…

20h04 : // the mil­i­tarys start back shoot­ing tear­gas

20h22 : // It seems the fuck­ers are win­ning some ter­rain on the field on the south, there are also hid­ing behind the chick­ens, fuck­ing lame

MESSAGE TO THE PORCS : if you hurt the chick­ens, we’ll call the ani­mal pro­tec­tion !!!

21h35 : // the Man­i­tou ’ some destruc­tion machine ) is head­ing in the direc­tion of Phare Ouest, the Sabot still keeps resisit­ing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we love you.……

22h07 : // 10 riot cop vans part vers les Ardil­lières, around the Sabot, they gas a lot, lot, lot..BUT THE SABOT IS STILL RESISTING !!! fuck you cops, fuck you ayrault, you dont get your air­port !!

22h06 : // the work­ing machine left with the con­voi. We got con­firmed that the cries we heard are not at all cries of fear but of rage and deter­mi­na­tion!

23h00 : // cops came back to the entry of the Sabot, they get stoned and leave…

Octo­ber 18th

[Places evict­ed: la Pointe, la cabane col­lec­tive de la forêt de Rohanne.]

9:05 : // the cops go into the Saulce, riot cops come clos­er to the bar­ri­cade of the Sabot

9h12 : // cops con­tin­ue to det­stroy the bar­ri­cade of the Saulce. 3 cop vans going towards the chemin de suez from the Saulce bar­ri­cade

[The rest done with inter­net trans­late]

9h37 : it is report­ed to the police that there are peo­ple in the tree-tops of la Saulce. Cloud of tear gas.

10h25 : begin­ning of the expul­sion of the great for­est (Foret Rohanne) they are destroy­ing the house col­lec­tive. peo­ple in the trees/ cab­ins.

10h32 : they emp­ty the house of the col­lec­tive for­est. They have a team of climb­ing.

11h22 : WE CALL ON ALL AND ALL TO MANIFEST THEIR SOLIDARITY WITH WHAT HAPPENS HERE AND SPREAD THE NEWS MOST WIDELY AVAILABLE Local­ly: 19h call to ral­ly out­side the pre­fec­ture of Nantes tonight / at 18.30 in front of the town hall of Rennes Fri­day evening.

12h00 : Rohanne in the for­est: the exca­va­tor work­ing and almost fin­ished destroy­ing the com­mu­nal house, the per­son in the tree where the climbers are mount­ed refus­es to go down, it is cov­ered by a rub­ber bul­lets.

12h14 : From the online press, the pre­fec­ture announced the evac­u­a­tion of the place called Point and Heath Rohanne, and men­tions three arrests. To be con­firmed.

13h10 : there are still many peo­ple in the trees in the for­est. The cops are not climb­ing. There would be three arrest­ed alleged­ly released. We hear again the heli­copter.

16h01 : the GIGN has left the for­est, they could not evict peo­ple still in the trees.

17h 34 : Lande de Rohanne: since this morn­ing, destroy­ing the col­lec­tive hut sur­round­ed by a hand­ful of Gen­darmes Mobiles. Some peo­ple in trees, oth­ers ground sup­port. 4 peo­ple were descend­ed from the trees GIPN. The remains of the hut were tak­en by a marabout. 17h cops to head fur­ther north to a sec­ond cab­in floor, releas­ing those who were on their way, but regard­less of at least 3 com­rades still in the trees.

20h08 : We have infor­ma­tion that a per­son is detained in police cus­tody in La Chapelle sur Erdre from 4:20 p.m. for refus­ing to give his name. She was arrest­ed on the road near Ardil­lères.

23h23 : The per­son arrest­ed was released this morn­ing, she has a meet­ing for Jan­u­ary 22 at St Nazaire 14h (It is not the per­son arrest­ed at 16.20, who is still in GAV.)

We learn that 500 peo­ple gath­ered at Nantes tonight in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Zad. Peo­ple’s will!

19th Octo­ber

8h53 : Noth­ing to report except a few patrols run­ning on the Zad, Fil­ter and road­blocks at cer­tain points, this morn­ing. The cops have mas­sive­ly left the area last night. We remain vig­i­lant but it could be that it is the end of the first “wave” of oper­a­tion here. It may resume in the com­ing days, and last …

10h30 : the oper­a­tion is per­haps not fin­ished for this phase … they expelled L’Iso­lette, and cur­rent­ly runs around the Fos­s­es Noires.

10h35 : evac­u­a­tion of the pile of rub­ble that became Le Tertre.

10h40 : Evic­tion of Coin en Cours under­way, thir­ty peo­ple are around.

14h12 : We hope that our friends in the for­est are doing well. The area is expelled and destroyed. Thank you Le Coin, we will miss you!

Received by mail: For tonight ral­ly out­side the pre­fec­ture of Nantes in 19h! It is pro­posed that we find in red and black! It brings songs, then bring your vocal cords! Song for all print here:  http://www.deljehier.levillage.org/ … Oth­er­wise, it also offers a meet­ing point for you to car­pool mor­bi­han­nais … Vis­it the Rond-Point du Petit Molac Questem­bert at 17:30. Will print some of the world! El pueblo unido, Lalalalalala .……

15h43 : dif­fi­cult time to live with­out news of our friends in places man­age­ment, we are still try­ing to get out, but our com­mu­ni­ca­tion is dif­fi­cult KLAXON!

 

 

 

(France) Communique from the ZAD

We live here, we’ll stay here!

We live here, we’ll stay here!

After two days of resis­tance and sol­i­dar­i­ty, only sev­en hous­es and one plot were evict­ed at the ZAD, a threat­ened area meant to make place to an air­port in Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des. Every­where police forces met deter­mi­nat­ed oppo­nents, inhab­i­tants refus­ing to leave their hous­es, their roofs. Demon­stra­tions. direct actions took place around sev­er­al loca­tions, roads we bar­ri­cad­ed, activists keep­ing join­ing the ZAD area, etc…

Since hours, oppo­nents are defend­ing sev­er­al plots, the Far West, the Sabot, a cul­tivable land back in use since May 2011. Right now, the Sabot in drowned under a cloud of tear gas, with a drum­ming sam­ba band. Out­side the ZAD, many sol­i­dar­i­ty actions took place, such a demon­stra­tion in front of the main state build­ing in Nantes tonight.

Con­trary to what was announced by the high­est state rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the region tues­day morn­ing, the area is far from being emp­ty. Around 20 hous­es remain occu­pied, this is even not includ­ing house own­ers, renters and farm­ers still liv­ing in the area. The pres­sure and acts from the police, such as the destruc­tion by fire from one wood hut, with­out check­ing if it was still occu­pied, won’t silent dis­sent.

With­out try­ing to com­pete with the mil­i­tary arse­nal deployed by a state to pro­tect its projects of “pub­lic util­i­ty”, acts of resis­tance will go on as long as the project isn’t aban­doned.

Not only here, but from Aten­co to Val de Susa, to Chéfresne, every­where peo­ple are strug­gling. We’ll refuse to con­form to what is forced on us!

Com­ing on the agen­da :

- Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 20th, mid­day, meet­ing point at la Pointe (le Tem­ple de Bre­tagne): gath­er­ing with oppo­nents to the air­port project.

- in the com­ing months, demon­stra­tion to re-occu­py the ZAD, date to be announced on the ZAD web­site.

More Infor­ma­tion: http://zad.nadir.org

Video: Canadian Minister and Shell embarrassed over tar sands at climate conference

Watch the Cana­di­an Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter and Shel­l’s UK Chair­man hav­ing their Lon­don con­fer­ence speech­es hijacked by our anti-tar sands stage invaders.

Watch the Cana­di­an Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter and Shel­l’s UK Chair­man hav­ing their Lon­don con­fer­ence speech­es hijacked by our anti-tar sands stage invaders. See con­fer­ence del­e­gates laugh­ing as the min­is­ter is called “an agent from a rogue petro-state”, and Shel­l’s speech referred to as “world-class green­wash”.

Ongoing Protests Over Brazil’s Anti-Indigenous Decree

On July 17, Brazil’s Office of the Solic­i­tor-Gen­er­al (AGU) issued Decree 303/2012, which dra­mat­i­cal­ly scales back indige­nous rights that are guar­an­teed by the country’s con­sti­tu­tion.  The law con­tains a pro­vi­sion that would per­mit the con­struc­tion of “strate­gic” infra­struc­ture projects such as roads, hydro­elec­tric dams and mines in indige­nous ter­ri­to­ry with­out con­sult­ing the affect­ed peo­ples and com­mu­ni­ties.

In addi­tion, the law allows mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion of indige­nous land at any time, pro­hibits any future des­ig­na­tion of indige­nous lands EVER, and oth­er­wise infringes on indige­nous people’s con­trol of their own ter­ri­to­ry.

The law has sparked large protests across Brazil. Accord­ing to Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Cry:

“On August 10, more than 50 indige­nous lead­ers occu­pied the head­quar­ters of the AGU to demand the revo­ca­tion of Decree 303; On August 20, six­teen dif­fer­ent Indige­nous Nations in the State Mato Grosso came togeth­er to show their out­rage against the Decree and the recent gut­ting of the FUNAI, Brazil’s Buer­au of Indi­an Affairs; and on Sep­tem­ber 4, the Gua­ja­jara shut down BR-316, a fed­er­al high­way that con­nects the cities of Belém in the state of Pará, and Maceió in Alagoas. …

“Most recent­ly, on Sep­tem­ber 24, about 500 Pankararu marched against the “anti-indi­an” decree; and on Sep­tem­ber 28, the Tem­bé set fire to ille­gal log­ging machin­ery and trucks with­in their ter­ri­to­ry in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Nova Esper­ança do Pir­iá, Pará, Maran­hão bor­der. As well, on Octo­ber 2, the Gua­ja­jara head­ed out again–this time with the Awa–to occu­py the Cara­jás Rail­way[pt] which links the munic­i­pal­i­ties of Mineir­in­ho and Auzilân­dia in the north­ern state of Maran­hão. The rail­way is owned by min­ing giant Vale.

“The APIB says that many more mobi­liza­tions are on the way in the south, north­east and north of the coun­try.”

(USA) Tar Sands day of action — Over 50 Enter Tree Blockade in Defiance of Police Repression to Defend Tree-Sitters

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2012 – Fol­low­ing a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing in North Texas by Tar Sands Block­ade, many dozens of pro­test­ers and sup­port­ers are ral­ly­ing today at the site of the largest and longest tree sit in Texas his­to­ry to stage the largest walk-on site protest and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence in the his­to­ry of Key­stone XL pipeline con­struc­tion. Sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als are defend­ing the tree sit­ters and the trees by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion equip­ment being used in prox­im­i­ty to the for­est block­ade. Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are also tak­ing place in Wash­ing­ton DC, Boston, Austin and New York City.

Alto­geth­er more than 50 block­aders are risk­ing arrest to stop Key­stone XL con­struc­tion and bring atten­tion to TransCanada’s repres­sion of jour­nal­ists attempt­ing to cov­er the block­aders’ side of the sto­ry. They are joined by dozens of sup­port­ers who are ral­ly­ing on pub­lic prop­er­ty with col­or­ful ban­ners and signs along­side the easement’s clos­est high­way cross­ing. A mas­sive media team is in tow to doc­u­ment the day of action and any pos­si­ble police repres­sion.

As the Winns­boro tree block­ade enters its fourth week, the block­aders are resup­ply­ing their friends in the trees with fresh food, water, and cam­eras to fur­ther doc­u­ment their protest despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment. Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree sit­ters have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. That the defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest yet attempt­ed in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that the block­aders will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it their civ­il lib­er­ties.

“Three weeks is a long time to be sit­ting in a tree. The train­ing I got this week­end has me ready to rise up and join the sit­ters in defend­ing Texas homes from the tox­ic tar sands,” shared Glenn Hob­bit, 28. “They’re say­ing we might get sued or worse, but stop­ping this pipeline is too impor­tant.”

Last week, the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion opened a civ­il suit in which it named 19 indi­vid­ual defen­dants, 3 orga­ni­za­tions, and 6 anony­mous tree sit­ters for a total of 28 defen­dants seek­ing an injunc­tion, declara­to­ry relief, and dam­ages. All the named defen­dants are for­mer arrestees of Tar Sands Block­ade actions with the excep­tion of media spokesper­son Ron Seifert, who has yet been arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with a protest, and area landown­er Eleanor Fairchild, who act­ed inde­pen­dent­ly with activist and actor Daryl Han­nah. Han­nah was not named in the suit.

Tar Sands Block­ade is a coali­tion of Texas and Okla­homa landown­ers and cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­ers using peace­ful and sus­tained civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop the con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

“In real­i­ty, Tar Sands Block­ade is not tres­pass­ing on TransCanada’s prop­er­ty. Many of TransCanada’s ease­ment con­tracts were bro­kered through fraud and intim­i­da­tion, and their entire legal foun­da­tion is being chal­lenged in the courts for those rea­sons,” explained Ron Seifert, Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son. “If any­thing Tran­sCana­da is tres­pass­ing on the prop­er­ty of landown­ers who nev­er want­ed any­thing to do with their dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline.”

UPDATE 8:15AM - Sup­port­ers ral­ly near­by to stop the pipeline.

UPDATE 8:20PM- A beau­ti­ful morn­ing in what remains of our East Texas for­est. Tran­sCana­da has clear-cut out­side of their des­ig­nat­ed path­way and around the west side of the tree block­ade leav­ing a mud­dy path of destruc­tion in their wake.

UPDATE 8:35PM-  Over 50 block­aders march through the woods toward the tree block­ade

UPDATE 9:00AM - One block­ad­er arrest­ed after sit­ting down in the path of Key­stone XL and refus­ing to leave.

UPDATE 9:06AM- Three block­aders have been arrest­ed. We out­num­ber TransCanada’s police 3 to 1. Two block­aders have locked down to exca­va­tor equip­ment pro­tect­ing the tree block­ade.

UPDATE 9:20AM- Livestream­er @uneditedcamera (Loren­zo) has been detained and hand­cuffed, but they’re STILL STREAMING! Police are try­ing to flank groups of pro­tes­tors. Watch the stream live NOW!

UPDATE 9:45AM– Small group of ground block­aders break through police line and enter tree block­ade!

UPDATE 10:00AM- 4 arrests so far. Free­lance journalist/livestreamer Loren­zo Ser­na has been released. The ral­ly at the ease­ment near the high­way is going strong with chant­i­ng, singing and lots of col­or­ful ban­ners. Tran­sCana­da is bark­ing orders at the police. We should have video and pic­tures soon.

UPDATE 11:00AM- Today’s first sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Wash­ing­ton DC is begin­ning now out­side the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute!

UPDATE 11:10AM- 6 block­aders have been arrest­ed at the Tree Block­ade.

UPDATE 11:35AM- Pic­ture from the DC sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly. Over six­ty peo­ple turned out over their lunch hour to stand with the Texas block­ade and stop Key­stone XL.

 

UPDATE 12:50PM-We have now con­firmed that a 70-year-old woman par­tic­i­pat­ing in the block­ade was thrown to the ground and tack­led by TransCanada’s hired thugs. Video will be com­ing soon.

UPDATE 1:55PM – At least eight peo­ple have been arrest­ed after walk­ing onto the Key­stone XL clear cut in defi­ance of recent repres­sion. Two block­aders are still locked to huge exca­va­tor in the path of tox­ic pipeline.

UPDATE 3:20PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Den­ton, TX has begun!

UPDATE 3:45PM- In case you missed it, Tar Sands Block­ade was on Democ­ra­cy Now! this morn­ing. Our spokesper­son Ron Seifert was joined by landown­er Susan Scott and actress Daryl Han­nah to dis­cuss the block­ade, TransCanada’s bul­ly­ing and the SLAPP law­suit against 21 peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with stop­ping tar sands.

UPDATE 3:50 PM — Two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery have been arrest­ed. A crowd of sup­port­ers stood by and cheered for as they were tak­en into police cus­tody to the cheers. These two most recent arrests make eight total for the day.

UPDATE 4:00PM – Our first arrestee has been released with­out charges. He was arrest­ed ear­ly this morn­ing when he sat down in the Key­stone XL’s path­way and refused to move. His defi­ant action helped delay police offi­cers and allowed oth­er block­aders to breach the police line and enter the tree block­ade. After he was arrest­ed he was made to lie face-down in the mud for sev­er­al hours. He con­tin­ued to refuse com­pli­ance with the police and sit­ing health con­cerns had to even­tu­al­ly be removed on a stretch­er. He was lat­er released from the hos­pi­tal with­out charges.

UPDATE 4:15PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty pho­to in front of the Tran­sCana­da offices in West­bor­ough, Mass­a­chu­settes.

UPDATE 4:30PM ‑We’re get­ting sued!

As the Winns­boro, Texas tree block­ade enters its fourth week, over 50 block­aders pub­licly demon­strat­ed on the Key­stone XL ease­ment despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment.

Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree block­aders have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. Today’s defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that we will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it our civ­il lib­er­ties.

Appar­ent­ly we’ve been caus­ing some seri­ous delays of Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

UPDATE 6:00PM- Six of the eight arrest­ed today have been released from jail on charges of crim­i­nal tres­pass which is a class B mis­de­meanor. The bail was $1,500 each, a total of $9,000. The two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery will see a judge in the morn­ing.

UPDATE 8:00PM- Today was our biggest day of action yet! More video and sto­ries will be trick­ling out over the next cou­ple of days as we try and wrap our heads around every­thing that hap­pened today. In the mean­time we have a ton of bril­liant and beau­ti­ful pho­tos that begin to tell the sto­ry. Check them out.

UPDATE 6:00AM – Read the excel­lent cov­er­age about the block­ade in today’s Wash­ing­ton Post.

On Mon­day, after a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing, sup­port­ers of the Tar Sands Block­ade ral­lied in Winns­boro, Tex., where pro­test­ers were hold­ing a “sit-in” 70 feet off the ground in a swath of trees. The trees stand in the mid­dle of a cor­ri­dor already cleared for the pipeline. The tree-climb­ing pipeline foes unfurled a ban­ner that reads: “Rise Up and Defend Your Homes.”

“The only option afford­ed to pow­er­less indi­vid­u­als who have been abused by the sys­tem is this tac­tic of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence,” said Seifert, the Tar Sands Block­ade spokesman. “Every­thing has been done to peti­tion for jus­tice at every lev­el. And the insti­tu­tions failed. This is a clear case of injus­tice, and it’s up to peo­ple to rise up and defend them­selves.”  Read the full sto­ry here.

UPDATE Oct 16th, 7:00AM - Watch our intense action video!

For fur­ther updates vis­it http://tarsandsblockade.org

logging company targetted, USA

Octo­ber 17, 2012

anony­mous report:

“puyallup wet­lands are under attack by a pri­vate log­ging com­pa­ny that I and oth­ers have yet to iden­ti­fy. this attack was car­ried out on canyon rd. short-term dam­age was done to a hydraulic exca­va­tor, as a warn­ing. if they con­tin­ue — our attacks will increase.”

Octo­ber 17, 2012

anony­mous report:

“puyallup wet­lands are under attack by a pri­vate log­ging com­pa­ny that I and oth­ers have yet to iden­ti­fy. this attack was car­ried out on canyon rd. short-term dam­age was done to a hydraulic exca­va­tor, as a warn­ing. if they con­tin­ue — our attacks will increase.”

(Malaysia) Indigenous blockade expands against massive dam in Sarawak

Indige­nous peo­ple have expand­ed their block­ade against the Murum dam in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, tak­ing over an addi­tion­al road to pre­vent con­struc­tion mate­ri­als from reach­ing the dam site. Begin­ning on Sep­tem­ber 26th with 200 Penan peo­ple, the block­ade has boomed to well over 300. Groups now occu­py not just the main route to the dam site, but an alter­na­tive route that the dam’s con­trac­tor, the Chi­na-locat­ed Three Gorges Project Cor­po­ra­tion, had begun to use.

“The major works on the con­struc­tion of the dam have been par­a­lyzed over the last one week. The dri­vers have left home and let their cement tankers, lor­ry trucks and trail­ers with build­ing mate­ri­als had been hauled over and park at the road side near the block­ade site,” the Sarawak Con­ser­va­tion Alliance for Nat­ur­al Envi­ron­ment (SCANE) said in an update on the block­ade. “The access to the con­struc­tion site of Murum hydro­elec­tric dam project is total­ly blocked on all direc­tions with the set­ting-up of sec­ond road block­ade by the Penans.”

The Penan are protest­ing what they say has been dis­dain­ful treat­ment from the gov­ern­ment-owned cor­po­ra­tion over­see­ing the 900 megawatt dam project, Sarawak Ener­gy Berhad (SEB). The dams con­struc­tion, which will inun­date 24,500 hectares of native land, will lead to the invol­un­tary reset­tle­ment of sev­en indig­neous com­mu­ni­ties, who still remain in the dark about many of the details of the reset­tle­ment plan. In addi­tion, the tribe alleges that SEB has been inten­tion­al­ly destroy­ing impor­tant sacred and his­tor­i­cal sites.

“We will not remove the block­ade or move out of here until our demands are resolved and ful­filled by the gov­ern­ment,” Labang Paneh, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Long Wat vil­lage, said in a state­ment.

Fam­i­lies, includ­ing elder­ly and chil­dren, have set up makeshift camps near the block­ade and appear to be in it for the long haul.

A gov­ern­ment min­is­ter spent two days with the Penan inves­ti­gat­ing the block­ade and speak­ing with them about their griev­ances.

“I went in and I saw the sit­u­a­tion from the view of these Penans whose lives are being uproot­ed and whose future looks so uncer­tain,” Liwan Lagang, Sarawak Assis­tant Min­is­ter for Cul­ture and Her­itage, told The Star. “I found out that indeed, they had not been prop­er­ly con­sult­ed and their con­cerns not addressed by those han­dling the con­struc­tion of the project.”

For decades the Penan peo­ple have seen their cus­tom­ary forests felled for log­ging, plan­ta­tions, dams, roads, and oth­er big infra­struc­ture projects with the Sarawak gov­ern­ment refus­ing to rec­og­nize their land rights. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the Penan were nomadic hunter-and-gath­er­ers, but today most live in set­tled vil­lages, but still depend on the forests for their liveli­hood.

Assis­tant Min­is­ter Lagang added that “con­trac­tors involved in the dam project are mak­ing mil­lions of ring­git in the project. They must be con­sid­er­ate and exer­cise bet­ter social cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­i­ty and good pub­lic rela­tions with the local affect­ed natives.”

Sarawak already pro­duces far more ener­gy than the state uses lead­ing crit­ics to allege that numer­ous mas­sive dam projects are mere­ly means for cor­rupt offi­cials to siphon off state funds and col­lect bribes. The state recent­ly com­plet­ed the 2,400 megawatt Bakun Dam, which pro­duces dou­ble the ener­gy con­sumed by Sarawak dur­ing peak times. Bakun result­ed in the forced reset­tle­ment of 10,000 peo­ple.

 

 

(USA) Lummi and Allies Unite Against Coal Exports

Lum­mi trib­al lead­ers burned a mock cheque from coal com­pa­nies dur­ing a protest at Cher­ry Point, Wa., Oct 2012 (Pho­to by: Alan Bern­er / The Seat­tle Times)

Lum­mi trib­al lead­ers burned a mock cheque from coal com­pa­nies dur­ing a protest at Cher­ry Point, Wa., Oct 2012 (Pho­to by: Alan Bern­er / The Seat­tle Times)

LUMMI INDIAN RESERVATION, BELLINGHAM, Wash.—A fleet of boats pilot­ed by Native and non-Native fish­ers gath­ered today in the waters off Xwe’chi’eXen (Cher­ry Point, Wash.) to stand with the Lum­mi Nation in oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed Gate­way Pacif­ic coal ter­mi­nal at Xwe’chi’eXen.

“We have to say ‘no’ to the coal ter­mi­nal project,” said Cliff Cul­tee, Chair­man of the Lum­mi Nation. “It is our Xw’ xalh Xech­ng­ing (sacred duty) to pre­serve and pro­tect all of Xwe’chi’eXen.”

A cer­e­mo­ny of thank­ful­ness, remem­brance and uni­ty was held on the beach dur­ing the event. Lum­mi Indi­ans main­tain the largest Native fish­ing fleet in the Unit­ed States, and Lum­mi fish­ers have worked in the Cher­ry Point fish­ery for thou­sands of years.

If con­struct­ed, the ter­mi­nal would be the largest coal ter­mi­nal on the West Coast of North Amer­i­ca. It would sig­nif­i­cant­ly degrade an already frag­ile and vul­ner­a­ble crab, her­ring and salmon fish­ery, deal­ing a dev­as­tat­ing blow to the econ­o­my of the fish­er com­mu­ni­ty.

“This is not about jobs ver­sus the envi­ron­ment,” said Jew­ell James of the Lum­mi Nation’s Sov­er­eign­ty and Treaty Pro­tec­tion Office. “It is about what type of jobs are best for the peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.”

Anoth­er gath­er­ing of Lum­mi Indi­ans and non-Indi­an res­i­dents from the local and region­al com­mu­ni­ty was held at Xwe’chi’eXen on Sept. 21 to call for the pro­tec­tion and preser­va­tion of Xwe’chi’eXen, which is the loca­tion of a 3,500 year old vil­lage site, and a land­scape that is eli­gi­ble for reg­istry on the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places.

A Lum­mi Nation Busi­ness Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion declared Lum­mi “will con­tin­ue to safe­guard our ances­tral and his­tor­i­cal areas” and the abil­i­ty of its mem­bers to “exer­cise treaty, inher­ent and inher­it­ed rights.”

The Lum­mi Nation is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a broad inter­trib­al coali­tion to defeat the project and to ensure that the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al lega­cy of Xwe’chi’eXen is pro­tect­ed in per­pe­tu­ity.

This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly appeared on Ter­ri Hansen’s web­site, Moth­er Earth Jour­nal

(Brazil) Indigenous Dam Resisters Launch New Belo Monte Occupation

Con­struc­tion on Brazil’s megadam, Belo Monte, has been halt­ed again as around 150 demon­stra­tors, most of them from near­by indige­nous tribes, have occu­pied the main con­struc­tion site at Pimen­tal. Over a hun­dred indige­nous peo­ple joined local fish­er­men who had been protest­ing the dam for 24 days straight. Indige­nous peo­ple and local fish­er­men say the dam will dev­as­tate the Xin­gu Riv­er, upend­ing their way of life.

“The renewed occu­pa­tion of the project’s earth­en cof­fer­dams par­a­lyzed con­struc­tion works, while indige­nous pro­tes­tors seized the keys of trucks and trac­tors forc­ing work­ers to leave the strate­gic Pimen­tal work camp on foot,” reads a press release from the NGO Ama­zon Watch. Around 900 work­ers were sent home.

This is the sec­ond occu­pa­tion attempt in less than six months. Over the sum­mer some 300 indige­nous peo­ple sus­tained an occu­pa­tion of the dam for 21 days, before break­ing it off though lit­tle head­way was made in talks with con­sor­tium build­ing the dam, Norte Ener­gia.

The Belo Monte dam, which would be the world’s third largest, has been plagued by con­tro­ver­sy from its ori­gin decades ago; the bat­tle for the dam has been fought both in Brazil’s courts and on the inter­na­tion­al stage. If built, the dam will flood an esti­mat­ed 40,000 hectares of present rain­for­est and could push some fish species to extinc­tion. In addi­tion, 16,000 peo­ple will be dis­placed accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, though some NGOs say the num­ber is more like­ly dou­ble that.

Despite the impacts, the dam has been strong­ly sup­port­ed by Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff, and every legal injunc­tion against the dam has been over­turned. Norte Ener­gia has filed with a local court for repos­ses­sion of the con­struc­tion sties.

Indige­nous groups say the con­struc­tion of the dam is already imper­il­ing their way of life, as the Xin­gu riv­er becomes more dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate. They have also said they have no inten­tion of leav­ing until Norte Ener­gia meets their demands.

“We are wit­ness­ing the dev­as­ta­tion of this land. The island of Pimen­tal was com­plete­ly destroyed, with a sole tree left stand­ing, and the water is putrid. It is very shock­ing,” an pro­tes­tor told Ama­zon Watch.

Dams are often described as ‘green’ ener­gy source, how­ev­er in the trop­ics they actu­al­ly release sig­nif­i­cant methane emis­sions due to rot­ting veg­e­ta­tion. Although it has a short­er life than car­bon, methane is a far more potent green­house gas.

(USA) Updates from Ongoing Tar Sands Blockade

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

  • The tar sands block­ade has suc­cess­ful­ly delayed con­struc­tion of the pipeline for two days by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion machin­ery and shut­ting down the con­struc­tion sites. There have been two suc­cess­ful block­ades at con­struc­tion sites in Liv­ingston and Saltil­lo, Texas.
  • Tran­scana­da sur­vey­ors were also pre­vent­ed from prepar­ing for con­struc­tion when landown­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers turned them away north of Winns­boro at an ongo­ing vig­il to pro­tect a local vine­yard which will be destroyed if con­struc­tion begins.
  • Two jour­nal­ists work­ing for the New York Times were hand­cuffed, detained and then turned away from pri­vate prop­er­ty by local law enforce­ment employed as pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards for Tran­sCana­da.
  • Nev­er­the­less, the New York Times still ran a front-page arti­cle about the Tar Sands Block­ade, includ­ing the first tree block­ade in Texas his­to­ry.
  • On August 19th the Tran­scana­da cor­po­ra­tion offi­cial­ly began con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline which will car­ry poi­so­nous tar sands from Alber­ta Cana­da to the Gulf of Mex­i­co despite over­whelm­ing oppo­si­tion from landown­ers and con­cerned res­i­dents, but a broad coali­tion called the Tar Sands Block­ade is orga­niz­ing to stop it.