Urgent call to support the resistance camp and tree-sit against the destruction of the Paul Mistral Park in Grenoble, France (Grenoble is a city in the east of France, near Lyon, in a river basin at the base of the Alps, which already has a big problem with pollution.)
BACKGROUND OF THE TREE-SIT:
Since November 3 2003, activists have been occupying the trees in Grenoble’s Paul Mistral Park, to prevent the destruction of part of the Park. More than 300 trees of Grenoble\222s “planetary lungs”, including and old, 200-year-old elm tree are slated to disappear, to make room for a giant football stadium. This elitist sports field and walking field represents one public space being privatized…
A protest campaign was launched by the \223SOS Paul Mistral Park\224 association, using lobbying and other traditional political procedures; this campaign was unable to prevent the project. Since it looked like work on the construction project was about to begin, three initial activists were quickly joined by more than twenty others in deciding to turn to direct action and to permanently occupy the terrain to stop the logging machines and bulldozers from coming in. About ten tree-houses, with mattresses and hammocks, living rooms and cooking spaces, linked by hanging bridges to a 20-foot-high platform, now make up a perpetually-evolving village above the ground.
