NEW URL AND WEBSITE: EARTHFIRSTJOURNAL.NEWS

Unfortunately, we have had serious errors on the earthfirstjournal.org website and lack of access to fix them. Due to this, we have created a new website with a NEW URL: earthfirstjournal.NEWS.

Virgina: MVP Protester Locks To Helicopter

from WSET

MONTGOMERY Co., Va. (WSET) — A pipeline protester locked himself to a helicopter near Ellison Monday morning to protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The group ‘Appalachians Against Pipelines’ said it prevented the helicopter from being used. They also put up a banner that reads “DOOM TO THE PIPELINE”.

The group also said that nearly a dozen people gathered nearby to rally in support of the protest.

They said that MVP uses helicopters for multiple purposes, including surveillance and large scale hydroseeding.

Hydroseeding is a process in which proprietary pellets are dropped on the pipeline easement and surrounding area.

Appalachians Against Pipelines said hydroseeding has been proven worldwide to be incredibly damaging to native plant communities and long term ecosystem stability.

“I took action today in an attempt to slow the construction of this destructive pipeline project. If completed, the MVP will ship billions of cubic feet of natural gas to be burned every single day. This pipeline will inevitably leak, and many natural gas pipelines have exploded, killing people and wildlife. In times such as these, with the catastrophic effects of global warming accelerating at an alarming pace, it is imperative to act now. The planet is in crisis, and the ruling class would rather continue the genocidal and ecologically destructive projects of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism, than address the largest existential threat in human history. It’s up to us to intervene — they won’t stop unless we make them stop. For a world and a future without exploitation, capitalism, and the destruction of the wild! No compromise!” the pipeline protester said.

The helicopter protest is just down the road from dual tree sits.

The tree sits have been preventing construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for 398 days and counting.

We’re Back!

from Earth First! Newswire

The Newswire is back in action! You probably noticed by now that in the past two months, posts have slowed to a halt. This isn’t because there is no news from the Eco-Wars to post (quite the contrary-did you hear about that lockdown to a frickin’ helicopter in Virginia this morning??), but because years of a staff of broke, overworked punks with little to no computer skills has finally caught up with us. The site has been glitchy, and we have been too busy putting out the new issue of the Journal to fix it.

But Fall is the perfect time to settle in and work on projects you maybe should have started earlier, so we are doing just that. Before the end of the year, expect to see the return of newswire posts, a new and improved site, more new merch, and another print magazine. Oh yeah, and we are also going to spend that time starting work on a 40th Anniversary Issue!

Thank you for being patient us while we work out the kinks in this project. It means a lot to all of us to know we are supported as we do some much-needed housekeeping to ensure the sustainability of the Earth First! Journal. And to everyone who called or emailed to ask if we were ok because we weren’t posting to the site, thank you, we are totally ok, just flabbergasted by WordPress.

-Veery

And Now, the Really Big Coal Plants Begin to Close

by Benjamin Storrow / Scientific American

When the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona shuts down later this year, it will be one of the largest carbon emitters to ever close in American history.

The giant coal plant on Arizona’s high desert emitted almost 135 million metric tons of carbon dioxide between 2010 and 2017, according to an E&E News review of federal figures.

Its average annual emissions over that period are roughly equivalent to what 3.3 million passenger cars would pump into the atmosphere in a single year. Of all the coal plants to be retired in the United States in recent years, none has emitted more.

(more…)

Michigan Increases Pressure in Enbridge Line 5 Court Battle

by Megan Devlin / The Globe and Mail

Enbridge Inc.’s Line 5 pipeline tunnel agreement with the previous state government is unconstitutional, Michigan maintained in its latest response in the continuing court battle over the Calgary-based company’s crude oil pipeline through the Straits of Mackinac.

Michigan argued the agreement didn’t have a title that adequately reflected its contents, which isn’t allowed.

“First, the title did not provide fair notice to legislators and the public of substance of the bill. Second, it improperly combined two unrelated purposes: the Mackinac Bridge and a proposed ‘utility tunnel’ meant to house a new Enbridge oil pipeline,” Attorney-General Dana Nessel’s office said in a statement Thursday.

(more…)

Mauna Kea: What it is, Why it’s Happening, and Why We Should All Be Paying Attention

From Intercontinental Cry

Nikki Sanchez, @nikkilaes August 12, 2019

At the base of Mauna Kea, the world’s tallest mountain and the first point on earth where raindrops touch the earth, the largest land defense action in modern Hawaiian history is currently in taking place and the entire movement is being guided by love.

(more…)

Two People Lock To Equipment, Stopping Work At MVP Site In Franklin County, VA

[Franklin County, VA] — At 6 A.M. this morning, two pipeline fighters locked themselves to separate pieces of construction equipment at a Mountain Valley Pipeline site in Franklin County, VA. Banners on site read “EARTH IS ON FIRE, TURN OFF THE GAS” and “¡SOLIDARIDAD CON PUERTO RICO!”. Work at the site was prevented for 6.5 hours before the protesters were extracted from their blockade by law enforcement around 12:30 P.M. As of 5 P.M. the protesters had not been arraigned, no charges had been released, no bail had been set.

(more…)

Forest Management Company Returns 50,000 Acres to Yurok Tribe

by Marissa Papanek / KRCR News

KLAMATH, Calif. — Green Diamond and Western Rivers Conservancy have agreed to return tens of thousands of acres of ancestral lands to the Yurok Tribe. 

On Monday, Aug. 19, the Yurok Tribe, Green Diamond Resource Company and Western Rivers Conservancy will celebrate a decade-long, hard-won effort to preserve and place into tribal ownership approximately 50,000 acres of forest surrounding four salmon sustaining streams, including Blue Creek, according to tribal leaders. 

“It is a good day for the Yurok people,” Joseph L. James, the Chairman of the Yurok Tribe said. “On behalf of the Yurok Tribe, I would like thank Green Diamond and Western Rivers for assisting us in the reacquisition of a significant part of our ancestral territory and putting us in a position to permanently protect the Blue Creek watershed, which is the crown jewel of the Klamath River. These organizations have stood by us every step of the way during this 10-year project.”

Mni Ki Wakan Summit Rallies for U.N. Protection from Pipeline Oil Spills in Lakota Territory

by Talli Nauman / Intercontinental Cry

RAPID CITY – Advocates for the U.N. declaration of a World Indigenous Peoples Decade of Water have partnered with local organizations to drum up grassroots support at the Mni Ki Wakan (Water is Sacred) Summit here Aug. 13-15.

The international public event is taking place on the heels of conveners’ presentation in Geneva to the 12th Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, EMRIP.

(more…)

Wet’suwet’en Territory: Likhts’amisyu Clan Begins Land Reclamation

by Likhts’amisyu Solidarity / It’s Going Down

Many of us in the environmental movement share a dream of a free society, in which people live together, caring for the land they inhabit. We imagine such a community as an autonomous zone, existing independently of the colonial, capitalist system we oppose.

I am pleased to report that I now write these words from exactly such a place. I now find myself by the shore of Parrott Lake, on a territory belonging to the Sun House of the Likhts’amisyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The exact place where we now camp was a Wet’suwet’en village site for many generations. In subsequent waves of colonial violence, the Wet’suwet’en were driven from this ancestral home. Now they have reclaimed it and are building a new village, which is be a place of cultural revitalization, of learning, of healing, and of stewardship of the land.

(more…)