Schinveld Forest (Netherlands) to be Evicted this Monday

Groen­Front! (Dutch Earth­First!) occu­pied the Schin­veld for­est in the SE of the Nether­lands to protest agains the intend­ed destruc­tion of 6 hectares of woods.

NATO and the Min. of Defense want AWACS radar planes on the near­by Geilenkirchen NATO base, just across the bor­der in Ger­many, to off with more kerosene in their fuel tanks. The AWACS are being used in the mid­dle east. We have built tree­hous­es and tun­nels and expect them to be evict­ed this Mon­day Jan. 9th by 700‑1000 mil­i­tary and reg­u­lar police. Groen­Front! is call­ing upon cops and sol­diers to refuse work on eth­i­cal grounds. Author­i­ties are immense­ly ner­vous about the immense sup­port of locals, and have now called a local state of emer­gency to quell any more protests. As this had led to even more out­rage, many peo­ple from the town of Schin­veld are pledg­ing to come and sup­port or par­tic­i­pate in the evic­tion.

For 25 years the inhab­i­tants of Schin­veld and Brun­ssum in Dutch Lim­burg are organ­is­ing actions against the prensence of the AWACS, these tremen­dous­ly noisy planes cause noise nui­sance, pol­lu­tion and health prob­lems for the locals. The same engines have even been been banned from fly­ing from US and Dutch com­mer­i­cal air­ports for those rea­sons.

NATO wants to destroy a total of 20 hectares of for­est. Because the town coun­cil refused to deliv­er the nec­es­sary per­mit, a so-called ‘NIM­BY-pro­ce­dure’ was start­ed. August 3rd the min­is­ter of plan­ning over­ruled the non-com­ply­ing local gov­ern­ment so the min­istry of defense can start cut­ting the trees. Recent­ly by a so called ‘roy­al decree’ the region­al gov­ern­ment has also been put aside.. This ‘NIMBY’ leg­is­la­tion was cre­at­ed due to ear­li­er protests against large infra­struc­ture projects. The coun­cil appealed to the supreme court but lost the appeal on decem­ber 2nd, at least for the first 6 hectares of woods. Short­ly after Groen­Front! activists occu­pied the for­est to phys­i­cal­ly defend it. A court deci­sion on the remain­ing 20 will fol­low lat­er.

The woods that will be destroyed are part of a larg­er nat­ur­al reserve with mixed habi­tat wood­lands, fields and moors with a high bio­di­ver­si­ty and sev­er­al rare and endan­gered species. Ear­li­er threats by road­build­ing in the sev­en­ties were stopped by local pro­test­ers.

It is now clear the com­pa­ny that will do the clear­ing is Hei­j­mans BV, part of the huge, cor­rupt and influ­en­tial Dutch con­struc­tion­maf­fia, who have been tar­get­ed by Groen­Front! and oth­ers before for their involve­ment in eco­cide. They have offices and con­struc­tion yards around the world — please tar­get them.

Groen­Front! is a ban­ner that any­one can use for eco­log­i­cal direct action, sim­i­lar to Earth­First! in oth­er parts of the world. Using the name means apply­ing these prin­ci­ples: always putting the earth first; non­vi­o­lence against peo­ple (or oth­er ani­mals); no com­pro­mise; organ­is­ing hor­i­zon­tal­ly (no lead­ers); ant­i­cap­i­tal­ism. Groen­Front! has tak­en up direct action against roads, rail­ways (Betuweli­jn), ports (Afrika­port at Rui­go­ord), bridges (Panam­abridge, Lek­bridge), air­ports (Schiphol), genet­ics and many oth­er haz­ardous devol­op­ments. The most recent for­est occu­pa­tion in the Ent­woods, against chop­ping down trees for hotels near a fan­ta­sy theme park, was end­ed because the devel­op­ments were final­ly called off.

Please come to the camp this week­end. Bring warm clothes (it is cold and mud­dy and might rain), blan­kets, food and water for your­self to last for a few days through the evic­tion, some tarp to sleep on plus a sleep­ing mat (not every­one will be able to sleep up but there will be very basic places to sleep down) and a warm sleep­ing bag. Bring 12mm polypropy­lene rope and climb­ing gear if you have it, or bring chain and lock, or a mon­key­wrench. Please do not bring a dog.

No compromise in defense of mother earth!

— http://www.groenfront.nl —

How to get there:
If you’re from out­side Hol­land or Bel­gium, the near­est places that might give you an idea of where we are are Maas­tricht (NL) and Aachen (Ger­many). The near­est large towns are Sit­tard and Heerlen.

Go to Sit­tard train­sta­tion and take bus nr. 69 (direct) or 37 (trans­fer in Brun­ssum to bus 8, ask the bus­driv­er). Alter­na­tive­ly take bus 8 to Schin­veld from Heerlen. The near­est stop is called ‘Bouw­bergseweg’. Theres a good chance pas­sen­gers will want to help you get to the camp. As roads might be closed from tomor­row onward, and there might be police patrols due to the state of emer­gency, best is to ask a local to help you get to the camp or find the camp through the woods your­self.

The num­ber of the site mobile is +31 (0)6 25411119