Earth First! Newswire

from EF! Newswire

Come one come all to the 2024 Earth First! Summer Gathering!  Earth First! has been a proving ground for environmental resistance and direct action for almost half a century. As we enter new epochs of ecological breakdown, social upheaval and increasing state repression, we invite all those who would see the wild flourish to gather, connect, learn and explore what’s to be done during an escalating crisis of capital and what worlds we can build together amidst the ruins of empire. Dates: July 2-9.  This summer the gathering will take place on occupied Mohican, Haudenosaunee, Lenape and Schaghticoke lands, colloquially known as the Hudson Valley.  The nearest travel hubs will be Albany & New York City  We are currently seeking workshop, panel and other presentation proposals.  We are also looking for possible sites.  Write us at hotEFsummer@proton.me with suggestions for either!

from Abolition Media

Two Teslas were set on fire in Rummelsburg on February 7 and two Tesla charging stations on Vulkanstraße on February 8.

We think that Tesla is an ideal target for our attacks.

Because:

> Several armies use Tesla’s Starlink satellite system in their wars. Including Israel in Gaza. Also Ukraine. Tesla’s Starlink infrastructure is an important military player and attacks on Tesla can be a sign everywhere: against every war!

> Tesla is a symbol of “green capitalism”. But it is anything but green: the lithium batteries come from toxic mines in Chile and devour other rare metals, which means misery and destruction for the mining areas. “Green capitalism” stands for colonialism and land theft!

> Tesla wants to further expand its Gigafactory in Grünheide near Berlin. We want to defend ourselves against this! We don’t want any more Teslas on the roads! The Gigafactory became known for its extreme exploitation conditions. In addition, the factory contaminates the groundwater and consumes huge amounts of this already scarce resource for its products.

> Tesla is militarizing our roads. Their cars are equipped with high-resolution cameras. In “guard mode”, they film everything and everyone. Make sure to make yourself unrecognizable during actions.

> Elon Musk is an arsehole!

Therefore:

Let the air out of the tyres of expensive cars? great.

Even better: let Teslas burst into flames everywhere!

A few barbecue lighters and spring can begin!

original source: https://de.indymedia.org/node/339237

by Aja Arnold / Mainline Zine

ATLANTA—On February 8, between 6 and 7 a.m., the Atlanta Police Department, FBI, and ATF conducted a joint multi-agency raid, with Georgia State Patrol also present, at three homes in southeast Atlanta. Two residences are in the Lakewood area, and the other in Starlight Heights. Police have arrested at least one person, and have charged them with first-degree arson, which police say is related to Stop Cop City protests.

At least one other individual was held in police custody until around 5 p.m., when they were released. the person arrested is currently being held in Fulton County Jail.

Their bond hearing took place on Feb., Fri. 9, and was initially closed to media and the public due to a cyberattack, which has closed courts in Atlanta down for nearly two weeks. Media were eventually permitted to attend the trial.

A judge denied them bond the next day, on the grounds that they perceived them to be a threat to the community and a flight risk. They will remain in Fulton County Jail until their trial.

According to one search warrant from the raids obtained by Mainline, police seized a number of items, including laptops, iPhones, “Defend the Atlanta Forest” stickers, posters, and flyers, video cameras and tapes, among other things.

Search warrant documents obtained by Mainline from the Atlanta police raids on Feb. 8, 2024. Personal information has been redacted.

A resident at one of the homes who was raided this morning and was present for the arrest, told Mainline that when they asked police to see arrest warrants, police refused. Our source says they asked three times and were told that the police would leave the arrest warrant behind them after the search was completed. Our source confirmed that an arrest warrant was not left behind.

The same resident also said that that police dug up a nude photograph of them that was hidden privately under their bed, and then propped it up on display for others to see during the raid. Residents also said that police left a trail of destruction in their homes behind them, and the person arrested was removed from their home in full-body chains. Witnesses also told Mainline police pointed assault rifles in residents’ faces during the raid.

“These raids are an escalation at the federal level and an attack on the movement to disappear dissenters against Cop City,” said Stop Cop City activists in a joint statement released to the media. “We demand the immediate release of all detained and arrested activists. We will not be intimidated and the community will continue to apply a variety of strategies to oppose the construction of this dangerous facility.”

Today’s raid is the latest development in a widespread crackdown from the State of Georgia in response to the movement to Stop Cop City. On Jan. 18, 2023, Georgia state police violently shot and killed 26-year-old queer climate activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán. In August, the Georgia Attorney General announced a sweeping RICO indictment against 61 activists. On Mon., Feb. 5, Atlanta City Council passed what critics call voter suppression legislation to make Cop City referendum requirements more restrictive.

On the heels of these past city and state escalations against the movement, more potential state repression appears on the horizon. The Georgia state legislature recently passed widely criticized Senate Bill 63, which requires cash bail for more than 30 new offenses and makes it illegal for nonprofits and charitable groups to bail out more than three people per year. Critics say that the bill targets activist bail funds and social justice movements, and will also exasperate Georgia’s already detrimental prison and jail crisis, in which facilities are already extremely overcrowded. (Georgia prisons are currently under a Department of Justice probes that are investigating multiple human rights violations.) The bill has been condemned by the Southern Center for Human Rights and will face a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia if signed by Gov. Brian Kemp into law.

“The resistance to Atlanta’s militarized police state is strong and continues to grow,” says Kamau Franklin, director of Black liberation group Community Movement Builders, in an official press statement. “The police and jails must be stopped. They continue to murder people like Johnny Hollman and Lashawn Thompson without any accountability. The community stands in solidarity with all affected by the police repression against the movement to Stop Cop City.” Organizers have announced a 5 p.m. press conference and rally today at the headquarters of the Atlanta Police Foundation at 191 Peachtree St. to provide further details on the raids.

from Unoffensive Animal

Jessica Reznicek is a land and water defender who, among other things, fought against the Dakota Access Pipeline, in Iowa.

In 2021, Jessica was designated a domestic terrorist and sentenced to 8 years in prison (for one count of conspiracy to damage an energy facility).

Jessica is currently being held in disciplinary segregation (for a total of 60 days). Therefore, her communication is limited and she will not be able to respond to letters as quickly as before.

You can still write to Jessica at the following address,

Jessica Reznicek # 19293-030

FCI Waseca

PO Box 1731

Waseca, MN 56093

For instructions on how to write letters to Jessica, check out, http://supportjessicareznicek.com/contact

For information about Jessica and her case, check out, http://supportjessicareznicek.com

from Scenes from the Atlanta Forest

Early on January 27th, comrades gathered to honor Tortugita by wheat-pasting posters on the building and gluing the card reader outside the bank shut (although the tap function remained available, for anyone who was wondering). A belated day of the Forest Defender, may the pigs never expect us when we are always late. Viva Tortugita, may Bank of America stop funding ATL or crumble, and long live the struggle. Submitted Anonymously Over Email

by Brent Patterson / PBI

On January 31, Guapinol Exige Justicia (Guapinol Demands Justice) posted a photo of a backhoe loader with the text: “Highway connection on CA 13 between Tocoa and Cayo Campo in the department of Colón.”

The yellow banner on the backhoe says: “Alert. This January 28th the ASP mining concession of Pinares-Ecotek expires. We demand the government not to renew the mining contract.”

The ASP mining concession is a 100 hectare area – inside a national park – where the mining company Inversiones Los Pinares would mine for iron oxide.

The licence for this open pit mine was granted to Emco Mining (now Inversiones Los Pinares) on January 28, 2014.

The community learned in October 2023 that Inversiones Los Pinares intended to renew the concession contract for up to 30 more years.

The Municipal Committee in Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT) says: “We strongly call on the Government of Xiomara Castro to respond to our demands [that include an “Immediate response from INHGEOMIN [Honduran Institute of Geology and Mines] on the NON-renewal of the mining contract ‘ASP’ signed between Lenir Pérez de Inversiones Los Pinares and INHGEOMIN, in 2014 and which ended on Sunday, January 28, 2024.”

Investigative reporting conducted by the Honduran digital media platform Contracorriente, the Latin American Center for Journalistic Investigation and Univisión Investiga, found that the US-based steel company Nucor was associated with Inversiones Los Pinares.

Silive.com has reported: “The business relationship between Nucor and Lenir Pérez … began back in [March] 2015. Nucor said it left the project in [October] 2019 because of protests.”

This would suggest that Nucor was involved in the mining concession on October 27, 2018, when more than 1,500 police officers and military personnel begin the forceful expulsion of a protest camp opposed to the Los Pinares mine.

Also within that timeline, Guapinol River defender Jeremías Martínez was arrested in December 2018, thirteen other defenders faced charges in February 2019, and on September 1, 2019, seven defenders were indicted in charges related to their activism.

Recent investors in Nucor include the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec ($73 million), the Royal Bank of Canada ($61 million), the Bank Of Montreal ($40 million), and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board ($36 million).

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied Municipal Committee processes and the criminalized Guapinol River defenders since January 2019.

from MTL Counter-Info

One of Montéregie’s last natural environments is in jeopardy! The planned construction of the Northvolt battery plant in Saint-Basile-le-Grand is an ecocidal disgrace. If this project goes ahead, 1.4 square kilometers of wetlands and woodlands will be razed to the ground, serving the greenwashing strategy of our governments, and doing so with public funds.

The area is home to a diverse fauna (bats, birds, amphibians, turtles, snakes, etc.), including several species classified as “threatened” or “endangered”. There are even 142 species of birds that frequent the site! At the same time as public transport companies are undergoing a wave of budget cuts, the provincial and federal governments prefer to give $7.3 billion to the private sector to perpetuate the “car culture”. Instead of investing in more environmentally-friendly collective solutions (trains, buses, car-sharing) in the city and the regions, the governments are perpetuating our dependence on the car, hand in hand with polluting industries and the wealthy.

The Saint-Basile-le-Grand plant project is an integral part of “Projet Saint-Laurent”, an economic development strategy championed by François Legault that aims to transform the St. Lawrence Lowlands into a kind of Quebec Silicon Valley, focusing on “innovation zones”. Northvolt is therefore part of a capitalist approach to ecological transition, just like other projects such as the Littoral Est project in Quebec City, the REM or the Ray-Mont Logistiques transshipment platform that citizens in Montreal’s east end are fighting against. Under capitalism, the energy transition, i.e. the move away from hydrocarbons, means the multiplication of open-pit mines, particularly in the global South, to extract the metals used to manufacture batteries, the construction of new hydroelectric dams on First Nations lands, the establishment of mega-factories on the banks of our waterways, not to mention the ambition of many countries to increase nuclear power. Against these false solutions that threaten the ecosystems we mobilize, Northvolt is a project of capitalist capitalism.

We have taken the initiative to oppose this deforestation by inserting steel bars and nails into the trunks of trees endangered by the plant. While having minimal impact on the health of the trees, these pose a significant risk to heavy machinery.

The harvesters currently employed in the field will be severely damaged if their heads come into contact with the metal objects when cutting*.To stop Northvolt, we need to multiply our tactics and hit where it hurts: causing economic risk and uncertainty. Contrary to Minister Fitzgibbon’s claims, we didn’t come across any “three-eyed fish”, but rather were accompanied by birdsong and were able to walk the countless paths made by the animals that inhabit the woodland. We gave the forest weapons to defend itself!

Spiking is a proven method of direct action. It was used in the early 1980s by Earth First! to prevent the felling of redwoods in the US Pacific Northwest, and was popularized by the book “Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching” written by Dave Foreman, one of the founders of the environmental group (the book is available online here).The method was also used against the clear-cutting of primary forests in Clayoquot, British Columbia. This mobilization culminated in the summer of 1993 in the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, before the Fairy Creek blockades in 2021, where the method was once again used by activists. In May of this year, activists from Soulèvements de la Terre did the same to protect oak trees in the Bord forest east of Rouen in France.​​​​​​​

Today, we are calling for a broad mobilization against the destructive Northvolt mega-plant project. We must attack this destructive machine for crushing life by targeting its weak points. Let’s sabotage the equipment, block the construction sites and harass the industry’s elected representatives. The environmental movement must redouble its efforts.

*Similarly, when cutting, if a chainsaw hits a nail, it will damage or break the chain. The chain will have to be resharpened – a waste of time – or even replaced, and the felling operation resumed at a slightly higher level to avoid hitting the nail again, in the hope of not encountering a second one. Deforestation will be all the more painful, costly and potentially dangerous.

P. S. We are in no way hostile to workers: we are against those who profit from the destruction of the living and who put profit above all else. In this sense, the working class is exploited by our economic system in the same way as the earth, animals and plants that make the land thrive. To ensure that the people hired to clear the forest are well aware of the risks involved, we’ve marked the studded trees with an aerosol-painted S sign, and added posters explaining our tactics. We hope the workers will enforce their rights and stay away from the marked trees.

Reining in the anti-environmental far right

Kieran Suckling and Taylor McKinnon counterprotesting the Malheur standoff, Jan 2016. Photo courtesy Center for Biological Diversity

by Panagioti Tsolkas / Earth First! Journal

The Sagebrush Rebellion. That’s what ranchers, industrialists and right-wing libertarians of the U.S. West called their push, starting in the 1970s, to turn more public land over to grazing, logging and mining. Their main tool was a call for more “states’ rights” to control land-use decisions, but the underlying intention was privatization and profiteering. It was so “rebellious” that Ronald Reagan said in a 1980 presidential campaign speech, “I happen to be one who cheers and supports the Sagebrush Rebellion. Count me in as a rebel.”

So, more like the Sagebrush Status Quo.

Ten years ago, it seemed this so-called rebellion was hitting a stride, thanks to an armed standoff by the Bundys — a family of Mormon cattle ranchers and militia members in Nevada.

Eight years ago this month, the same family was in its second standoff, this time at the Malhuer National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.

Today, the movement’s leader, primary spokesperson, and former candidate for Idaho governor, Ammon Bundy, is in hiding from the law, wanted on contempt of court charges stemming from a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against him after he recklessly called for an armed standoff at a hospital where a fellow militia member was beefing with staff.

While the Bundy’s militia movement seems to have crashed and be in the process of burning, what becomes of the sparks from this fire remains to be seen.

Let’s take a closer look at what these so-called Sagebrush rebels have been up to, whose been standing up them, and what it could mean for the future of public land and U.S. politics.

Criminal Cowboys in the Fight Against Public Land 

Staffers from the Center for Biological Diversity — a spinoff of early Earth First!, where I now work — went to Malheur refuge in January 2016 to share a message in the face of the Bundy attack: That the land, protected by the federal government, is cherished by the public as a sanctuary for wildlife.

As architects of the armed standoff at Malheur, the family of criminal cowboys illegally occupied the office at the entrance of the refuge to promote a bizarro and self-serving but incredibly dangerous worldview (more on that later). The presence of counter-protesters drove them into a frenzy. They accused Center staff of being federal agents, pawed at their pistols, and threatened that their snipers had counter-protesters in crosshairs.

In hindsight, that disastrous standoff bore seeds that grew into a much larger, deadlier conflict, one that the whole world watched live: the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge rally. Photo by Taylor McKinnon, Jan. 2016

Origins of the Bundy patriots

At the core of this story is the question of what “public land” means and whose interests it should serve. Movements like Earth First! and organizations like the Center believe it should do the greatest good, as determined by the best science available. At this point in the Anthropocene, the greatest good means urgently addressing the double crises of extinction and climate change that threaten all life on Earth.

But others take a different view on public land, longing for the good ol’ days of treating the Earth like a bottomless gold mine. Or in the Bundys’ case, an endless cattle ranch.

The Bundys say their family has ancestral and sovereign rights, since they claim to have worked their ranch since 1877. In reality, the land was previously promised to the Moapa band of Paiute Indians by federal treaty, but federal troops forced the tribe out so the Bundys and others like them could settle in.

Back in the 1950s, the Bundy family started grazing cattle on land designated as the Gold Butte National Monument. It’s some of the driest and most fragile desert in North America. It also happens to be habitat for desert tortoises: imperiled reptiles protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1989.

In 1991, the federal government informed the Bundys that their grazing leases were canceled because they harmed protected tortoise habitat. In response, family patriarch Cliven Bundy made it clear that he had no intention of complying with federal laws aimed at protecting imperiled species or in any other way limiting his cattle operation. As a matter of fact, when the Bureau of Land Management staff approached him about canceling his grazing permit and paying for the damage his now-illegal cattle were causing, one of Cliven’s sons reportedly ripped up the documents in their face.

Center staffer Patrick Donnelly takes a photograph of a trespassing cow in Gold Butte National Monument in southern Nevada. Photo by Nate Hegyi/Mountain West News Bureau

Standoffs against the public

In April 2014, the Bundy family invited a group of armed “patriots” — representatives of far-right-wing militias from across the United States — to their Bunkerville home and cattle ranch on adjacent federal public land in Nevada.

By this time, the Bundys were 20 years into ranching their livestock illegally on public land, using the conflict to peddle their anti-public Sagebrush Rebellion. Their core beliefs — that the federal government lacks authority to own public land, and that county sheriffs are the highest form of law enforcement — are rooted in hard-right racist ideologies created to sidestep federal civil rights laws by elevating local authority.

Sure enough, the Bunkerville gathering would turn into a standoff in which militia thugs with assault rifles stood down federal officials attempting to corral illegally grazing cows.

What consequences did the Obama administration bring against the Bundys for this criminal behavior? None.

Why not? It’s complicated. But among other things: White supremacy is a hell of a drug.

And so the standoff became a big win for militants. With no arrests or federal enforcement to deter it, over the next two years their movement grew, spawning more public land standoffs in the West, including one at an out-of-compliance small gold mining operation on BLM land in Josephine County, Oregon. And then in 2016 came the Malheur refuge office seizure.

The Bundys stormed the refuge in response to the arrests of the Hammond family: public land cattle ranchers who repeatedly violated terms of their grazing permit, harmed protected wetlands, set illegal fires, and made death threats against refuge staff. That itself was a disturbing shitshow, but the 40-day Malheur standoff, led by Cliven’s sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, was worse.

Bundy occupation counter-rally in Portland, OR. Photo courtesy Center for Biological Diversity

This refuge is considered a crown jewel of the national wildlife refuge system, protecting more than 187,000 acres of prime habitat in the high desert. It’s an important stop along the Pacific Flyway for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds: avocets, stilts, willets, killdeers, coots, phalaropes, rails, tule wrens, yellow-headed blackbirds, Caspian terns, pintail, mallard, cinnamon teal, canvasback, redhead and ruddy ducks, to name a few.

The seizure of Malheur showed clear signs of an escalating militia movement bent on attacking environmental policies. This time they took over a federal office building at an explicitly protected wildlife refuge, rather than just posting up at a failing land lease project. And, despite a hands-off approach by the feds, the confrontation ended in a death.

Thanks to the Center for Biological Diversity’s precarious presence at Malheur, we got to see the Bundy entourage up close. Their contradictory beliefs — often to the point of being nonsensical — were often animated by racism and a mindset similar to manifest destiny: The worldview that sparked a nationwide genocide of Indigenous peoples across the United States just a few generations ago.

Some of their actions could almost be commended for creativity. For example, they replaced the federal logos on refuge vehicles with the Harney County logo — because in their world, the county sheriff is the highest authority. It was a little reminiscent of the old Earth First!  “No Deal Assholes” stickers on Forest Service trucks in the ’80s and ’90s, until you consider their ambition was to empower some of the most fascist tendencies across the rural U.S.

As the Center’s Kieran Suckling said about Bundy’s patriots, “This is a movement with violent, racist roots that aims to take us back a hundred years. It’s got no business in the 21st century.”

Bundy occupation counter protest, Portland, OR. Photo courtesy Center for Biological Diversity

After Malheur

The encounter at Malheur entwined the Bundys and the Center for Biological Diversity. For starters, they still owe the Center money from losing lawsuits over the Bunkerville grazing violations. The org then got named in a bizarre civil suit by the family of a man who was killed by cops at Malheur, seeking more than $5 million for his wife and 12 children.

The Center continued speaking up, even after the sensational headlines faded and other environmental groups moved on. After tracking and documenting the standoffs, they continued confronting the Bundys in court.

They were on point, recognizing the threat for what it was. As the 2016 presidential election cycle progressed, it become clear that Malheur was bigger than petty vendettas and family feuds. The standoffs were essentially PR moves for what came next: rallying far-right militia support behind a viable presidential candidate.

Through a deeply fractured political realm, Trump emerged. And he came in swinging hard against environmentalists. He hardly sat down before reversing victories over the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. He promptly started plowing border walls through jaguar habitat. And then he pardoned the Hammonds, the father-son grazing team that inspired the Bundys’ actions at Malheur.

From the start of his campaign, Trump set off a steady stream of dog whistles calling to neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, Three-Percenters, Oath Keepers, and Proud Boys: “patriots” one and all, rallying to do the bidding of drilling, mining, and cattle industries across the country.

Bundy occupation counterprotest signs at Malheur, Jan. 2016. Photo courtesy Center for Biological Diversity

Bunkerville goes to Congress

Jan. 6, 2021. We watched as a mob stormed Congress, flying Confederate flags alongside their Trump flags.

Sure enough, the failed coup attempt of Jan. 6 was headed up by some of the same militias who joined the Bundys at the Bunkerville ranch. Cliven didn’t attend, but he weighed in, and so did his son Ryan. They appreciated the spirit of the day but were disappointed by the execution. “It should have been something more,” said Cliven. “They should have held that capitol and corrected the problem.”

None of this is dead history. The impact of the Bundys’ militia rallies in 2014 and 2016 is still rippling through national politics.

In fall 2023, we can pretty much draw a straight line from the Bundys’ ranch to January 6 — and then continue that line to the just-elected House speaker: U.S. Rep Mike Johnson (R-La), a pick from the far right and an election results-denier known as “Maga Mike” of the House Freedom Caucus.

Twitter screenshot of House Freedom Caucus (HFC) in House Speaker vote

While Ammon remains in hiding, Bundy cows are still grazing out at Gold Butte, standing as a testament to the Manifest Destiny of centuries past.

Another bitter taste of what could be in store for public land and endangered species if these mainstream militia supporters keep getting their way: Freedom Caucus representative Andy Ogles — who campaigned on pardoning the Jan. 6 coup participants — recently targeted the Center for Biological Diversity directly in his amendment to an appropriations bill.

Reclaiming righteous anger

Despite losing ground politically to these heirs of the Sagebrush Rebellion, in the past nine years environmentalists have won amazing victories for public lands all over the country.

The truth is, it’s okay to be pissed at the federal government, and a lot of local ones too. The Bundys and the right-wing militia don’t have a monopoly on anger.

Many of us wake up on most days livid at government agencies that aren’t doing enough to stop extinctions and thwart polluting industries. They’re spending way too much to build walls and weapons, with our money.

The most important takeaway from tracking the Bundys and the movement against public land protection is understanding that they’re not actually the rebels. They’re symbols of the status quo from the past 500 on this continent.

But we can choose to view them as the tail end of a dying worldview. Those of us who are fighting for public lands and the imperiled species they protect: We’re the ones fighting to change that established order, to put the Earth first.

Panagioti Tsolkas is a former editor at the Earth First! Journal and Prison Legal News. He currently works as digital communications staff at the Center for Biological Diversity. Cybele Knowles contributed to this story.