Building resistance to open-cast mining in South Wales

July 20, 2010

Last weekend at a brightly coloured community centre in Cardiff, plans were being formed. Tasty food and excitement over ideas for the summer. Tense atmosphere – can we pull this off?

A string of good luck. We need legal observers – somebody walks in and offers to train people up. But we’re still short of medics. Somebody speaks up –  ‘I’m a medic.’

One thing’s for sure – it’s gonna be great. This year Climate Camp Cymru is going back to basics with a light action-based camp targeting coal in south Wales.

A momentum has been building. Last August we camped in Merthyr Tydfil where local residents have been opposing Miller Argent’s ‘Land Reclamation Scheme’, otherwise known as Ffos y Fran: the largest opencast mine in the UK.

Just one month after the camp, activists stopped work at the mine by suspending themselves from a net above the site’s access road.

Two months later a biomass plant was shut down with d-locks, chimney scaling and banner drops.

Next, as Merthyr residents took Miller Argent to court over noise and health complaints, activists and local folk alike biked from Ffos y Fran to Rossport making links between communities resisting fossil fuel extraction.

And in April, Rising Tide literally put their necks on the line blockading a railway used to transport coal from the mine to Aberthaw power station.

The first thing that strikes you about Ffos y Fran is how massive it is – a huge chunk of the Glamorgan countryside has literally been ripped out to feed our economic system’s addiction to fossil fuels. Burning coal is destroying our climate, while opencast mining damages the earth and the health of local people.

An increasing number of communities in south Wales are set to suffer at the hands of the coal industry, with Celtic Energy, Draeth Developments and others applying for new mines and extensions across south Wales.

Fossil fuel corporations cannot be allowed to progress unchecked. Join a growing number of ordinary people taking direct action, and exploring alternatives, to stop the madness that is destroying the earth.

This August 13th -17th, come to Climate Camp Cymru.

The Weekly Round-Up: Monday 19th July

July 19, 2010

First up this week is the utterly awesome track, Ballad of the Black Gold, by Reflection Eternal aka Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek.

It’s been on repeat on my laptop since I heard it and the video is great too. Share it with as many of your friends, family and work/collective colleagues as possible:

Reflection Eternal “Ballad of the Black Gold” from Sam Ellison on Vimeo.

Music’s a powerful way of telling stories as is drama. So it was nice to see the Culture Not Oil action against BP happen last week that we blogged about here.

Also taking place last week was another action, this time against RBS at the British Banking Association’s Annual International Banking Conference.

Activists from Climate Camp and Tar Sands Network welcomed key players in the Tar Sands destruction, RBS’ CEO Stephen Hester and President and CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, Gordon Nixon with a piggy pinata.

Amelia has more photos and a write-up over at her site but here are two reasons why this year’s Camp will be targeting RBS:

• RBS is now 83% owned by UK tax-payers – yet it continues to invest in the Alberta tar sands, the most destructive fossil fuel process ever
• RBS also funds UK-based fossil fuel extraction projects such as open cast coal mines which are destroying the landscape and contributing the continued destruction of the environment

More info about to get involved with this year’s Camp can be found here.

Finally, Schnews reports that GM crops are “back in the spotlight” this week after the EU side-stepped applying regulations governing GM use by putting the decision on whether or not to grow GM back into the hands of national governments.

This could be bad news, as although individual EU states now have increased power to ban GM crops within their own territories, authorisation will be easier to achieve at EU level – effectively opening up European agriculture to more GM crops.

As a consequence Schnews predicts these developments will lead to “a resurgence in public opposition to – and direct action movement against – GM crops.”

Well they didn’t have to wait long, as the same day as the EU made its announcement activists in Spain sabotaged two experimental GM Maize trials belonging to Syngenta in the municipality of Torroella de Montgrí (Baix Empordà, Girona, Catalunya).

According to the commique issued by the activists:

“GM agriculture makes it impossible to develop and consolidate social models and models of production, distribution and consumption that differ from the dominant model, based on agro-ecology and the struggle for peoples’ food sovereignty. Because of this, we fundamentally reject both GM crops and the techno-industrial capitalist society that makes them possible and necessary (… necessary to ensure that the powerful few consolidate their domination of the global population, and perfect the business strategies).

We therefore call for people to take the step to action to destroy their genetically modified crops and the social order perpetuated by those that promote them.”

You can read the full statement and get some more images over at Indymedia Barcelona.

Culture Not Oil targets the British Museum

July 14, 2010

In addition to the action against RBS this morning five activists from Culture Beyond Oil targeted the British Museum to protest against the fact its complicity with oil giant, BP.

The activists beautifully and delicately poured oil around the museum’s iconic Easter Island sculptures (carefully avoiding spilling any *on* the sculptures) in a symbolic gesture that highlights just how quickly seemingly advanced cultures can rapidly collapse through exploitation of the natural environment.

Emily James, the Director of the crowd-funded film about the environmental direct action movement, Just Do It, was there to capture the action.