Tenth Blockade of Logging Equipment in Ancient Białowieża Forest

Harvester Blockaded

Early in the morning of July 18 over 20 activists from Poland and Czech Republic converged on a logging harvester and proceeded to lock-on all around the machine with pipe lockons and banners. The Forestry Department guards removed all support and media from the site attempting to take away their phones to prevent their actions from being filmed and photographed. The operator of the harvester was then instructed to keep the machine running. This continued for several hours exposing the attached activists to the risk of intentional injury, with the operator of the machine warning the activists that the machine might move uncontrolably as it runs out of fuel. Yet while being separated from the media and support group and despite the noise, heat, dripping oil and the danger, the locked-on forest defenders remained there for several hours and continued to call for immediate stopping of all the logging and for biodiversity experts to inspect the logging location. The forest guards made no attempt to remove the blockaders till finally the contractor operating the harvester agreed to seize work for the day and remove the equipment from the forest.

Białowieża Forest is the last remnant of primodial forest that once stretched across the European Plain. With its ancient trees draped in multitude of mosses, lichens and fungi it is a hotspot of biodiversity supporting the largest wild herd of European Bison, populations of Wolves, Lynx and 180 bird species, including three-toed woodpeckers and Eurasian pygmy owls.The survival of this ecosystem is at stake as large portions of BiNational Park on the Bielorussian side have been selectively logged over the years for its oldest and largest trees. Now this is extensively happening on the Polish side of the forest with over 40,000 cubic meters of lumber harvested in 2017. Bark Beetle outbreak is being used as justification for salvage logging during which the bark containing the eggs of the beetle is left on site, unafected species such as oaks are cut as well while the Polish enviromental minister Jan Szyszko, who is behind this wave of clear cutting, has set up a series of lumber shell companies involving some of his closest relatives.

Numerous international calls for immediate stop of logging included the Unesco Congress in Cracow on July 3rd adopting a resolution for immediately halt to all logging and wood extraction. This meeting and decission took place as direct actions and blockades were occuring in the forest. The govermental response was to contine logging and advocate the removal of Białowieża Forest from the International Registry of Unesco World Heritage Sites. As of July 18 the European Comission joined in condeming the logging and taking the Polish Goverment to the European Tribunal to which Minister Szyszko responded by increasing the amount of law enforcement sent to the forest.

Since May on the frontline of resistance to this lumber grab has been the Camp for the Defense of the Białowieża Forest bringing together a coalition of activists, journalist, artists and natural scientists engaging in continous series of blockades and actions. While the state and private media has engaged in a constant campaign attempting to vilify the activists resulting in harassment of forest defenders by more conservative members of the local populace while young people with backpacks are regularly stopped and searched in the area and blockaders experience waves of repression and violence. This dynamic has only underlined the importance of international support and solidarity to the Białowieża Struggle.

“Nie było nas był las, nie będzie nas będzie las.” : “The forest preceeds us and will follow us.” Has been the motto of Polish partizans fighting in the forests during World War II and even though the first part of that slogan still resonates and holds true today the second: whether the forest will remain after us, is in question and depends on the reponse this destruction will evoke in all who embrace the importance of biodiversity, biocentrism and ecojustice.

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BREAD AND ROSES

<img src="http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/images/breadandrosesbarricade.JPG" alt=""

As soon as barricades are destroyed in the Hambacher Forest they have been rebuild often even right behind bulldozers and before cops left the forest. This friday was no exeption but for the fact that this time also bread and roses have been put up in the place of destroyed barricades protecting the forest. This is connected not just with not continuing the resistance on an empty stomach but also with "Stones Are Our Breads and Barricades Our Dinner Tables." action that happened during this cutting season. It was also inspired by 1912 Breads and Roses Textile Strike and Riots in Lawrence Massachusetts which were organized by women and united over 30 different ethnic groups and also used workplace sabotage. The striking mothers with their children were brutally attacked by police at a train station as the kids were being sent to live with supporters when due to the prolonged strike the families could no longer feed them themselves. This resulted in international solidarity and finally with congressional hearings, positive workplace pay increase settlements, changing of work conditions and eventual shortening of the work week itself.

100 years later is it possible for RWE's irreversible destabilization of the Planet's climate and pumping its atmosphere full of toxins responsible for killing over 7 million people a year, as conservative estimates by World Health Organization indicate, result in equally positive response on the part of today's politicians?

The latest police action of clearing the barricades opens up the Millenarian Hambacher Forest to destruction by RWE and its release of megatons of carbon and a long list of toxins that lay below its floor and its roots. To be pumped into the atmosphere in the name of profit and greed regardless of the consequences showing that this time as well there will be no response that has anything to do with social and ecological justice on the part of legistlators, politicians and cops all deeply co-opted by the special interests of the coal industry without more radical actions such as those at the Hambacher Forest.
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Bread and Roses was a title of a poem by James Oppenheim published in 1911 that a year later became a anthem of the strike to be performed through out the decades by numerous artists including a version with historical background by Utah Phillips.

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8 Meter Ocean Rise the New Norm over the next century

Climate Change Capitalism and Corporations
RWE continuing Carbon emissions from their power plants and mines, the largest net CO2 source in Europe, and its out of season destruction of a natural carbon sink that the Hambacher Forest has been for millenia is all taking place despite a continuing temerature records being broken(9 all time temperature record-breaking years happening all in this century), unprecedented low arctic and now also antarctic ice-cover, despite catastrophic effect on the planet as reflected even by both IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) latest revised predictions that double the water-level rise during this century to be as high as 8 meters beyond present level. This will mean the obliteration of habitats world-over and destruction of coastal cities. Still these official studies are flawed in two most important aspects: for their CO2 emissions estimates they use the data which has in US and several other industrialist countries been provided by the industry itself which has been monitoring its own emissions, the actual emissions are in reality much higher. Second the future projections take into an account COP Summit’s non-binding agreements for future projected CO2 output which in most cases are not abided by and exceeded, which especially will be the case with climate deniers such as Trump in power. So the “worst case” scenario is in reality the new normal with the potential worst case scenarios being even more catastrophic as predicted by former Nasa scientist James Hansen, the originator of global warming warnings in the 80’s who has been predicting several meter ocean level rise for the last 10 years. Leading him to lock himself to the White House fence and get arrested even during the previous “Oh-yes-we-do-need-to-do-something” US administration.

https://phys.org/news/2017-01-scientists-bar-sea.html
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/22/sea-level-rise-james-hansen-climate-change-scientist

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Compost Toilet Eviction Trial 14.03.2017 10:30

Toiletteviction

Düren District Court has now set the trial date for the hearing concerning the actions that took place during the Compost Toilet Eviction over 2 years ago. The date of the process will be the 14th of March in Düren.

Background: During the Skill Sharing Camp of 2014 over 50 riot cops and several pieces of equipment from RWE entered the forest to clear barricades and remove the compost toilets. This action was blocked for many hours by activists locking themselves to the bulldozers, frontloaders and by climbing into the trees in front of advancing equipment.

This trial is reflection of the current trend in the Rhineland of pressing charges against activist who lock themselves to, or block the heavy equipment. It is an attempt to prevent them from engaging in future actions. For this reason lets not forget about those who are being prosecuted and express our solidarity in person and remotely.

Personal Controls have been announced for this trial, meaning that all persons and belonging will be searched and personal information taken in order to enter the courtroom. For those not willing to comply with this there will be the usual outside the courthouse support action with banners, food and info.

14.03.2017, 10:30
Amtsgericht Düren
1.Etage, boardroom 1.25
August-Klotz-Straße 14
52349 Düren

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