Finger Lakes EF! and the EF! Climbers Guild are offering a week of trainings for forest defense and urban actions suitable for all skill levels from beginner to advanced.
Trainings will include:
- Basic climbing and Rope Anchoring
- Traverses and Tree to Tree transfers (sky walking)
- Basic Structure rigging and Haul systems
- Tri Bi and Mono Pods
- Advanced Structure rigging
- Large scale, occupied banner deployment
- Basic rescue and training set ups.
To RSVP and get directions, contact: efclimbers [at] gmail.com
For more information: http://efclimbers.net/events/spring-2013-camp/
Action Camp October 13-15
October 3, 2012
You are cordially invited to the first annual Anti-Frack Action Camp.
October 13-15th, 2012
Beginning Saturday October 12th at noon with a picnic lunch, Finger Lakes Earth First! is hosting a weekend camp out against fracking. The purpose is to build regional capacity for Direct Action* while celebrating our connection with this land and the beautiful Fall season. There will be delicious food and fire circles, tree-climbing and workshops, sleeping under stars and in tents, skill shares & trainings (bring a workshop or discussion topic), and swimming for the daring!
Everybody is welcome! RSVP for site directions and schedule: FingerlakesEF@riseup.net
This is a family friendly event – Our camp has nearby parking and a reasonably accessible trail. Please do not hesitate to contact us with questions or requests.
*We believe we have a responsibility and the ability to take Direct Action against fracking without relying exclusively on “representatives” be it politicians, activist leaders, or big time environmentalist organizations. Direct Action is really just that–direct action. Check out the camp to get involved and learn more.
Saturday, Oct 13
12:00 – 1:00pm – Picnic Lunch & Sign-in
1:00-2:00pm – Opening Circle
2:00-4:00pm – Workshop I
4:00-6:00pm – Workshop II (and/or Earth First! arts & crafts time?)
6:00pm – Dinner, followed by nighttime festivities
Sunday, Oct. 14:
9:00am – Breakfast
10:00am – Morning Circle
11:00am-1:00pm – Workshop I
1:00-2:00pm: Lunch
2:00-4:00pm – Workshop II
4:00-6:00pm – Workshop III
6:00pm – Dinner
Monday, Oct. 15:
Rally to be Announced. Stay tuned!
Sunrise Intervention at Gas Industry Convention
September 25, 2012
It was 7:00 am, the last day of the Marcellus Shale Coalition’s annual convention in Philadelphia, when a group of 40 or so people gathered to meet the gas industry face to face. “We just wanted to see what they had to say for themselves” said one of the protesters. It turned out the industry delegates weren’t so shy for talking after-all.
(scroll down for full gallery)
The convention was called “Shale Gas Insight” and took place in the fortified Philadelphia Convention Center in downtown Philly. The convention hosted hundreds of vendors and representatives from just about every company involved in hydraulic fracturing, or “Fracking” as some call it.
You can read about the workshop titles here.
Sunrise Intervention at Gas Industry Convention
September 25, 2012
CALL TO ACTIONS this tuesday 9/4
August 31, 2012
What: Call to Actions
When: Tuesday September 4th 2012
Where: Everywhere, wherever you are
How: Anyway you know/can
Contact: nofrackingactionmedia@gmail.com
WE KNOW THIS IS SHORT NOTICE!
WE ALSO KNOW THAT WE NEED TO BE READY FOR QUICK ACTION TO PROTECT OUR LIVES AND HOMES!
It was recently reported that Governor Cuomo would announce the opening of NY state to active drilling “soon”, despite the insistence of residents that we do not want the gas industry fracturing our communities!
On September 4th, 2012 we challenge you to create the most creative direct action response you can with the people you have and supplies you can rustle up. Tell the gas industry and elected officials like Governor Cuomo, “WE ARE NOT GOING TO LET YOU DO THIS! We will meet you in your office with banners and signs, we will meet you on the streets chanting, we will meet you in front of the companies’ headquarters, we will hang banners from your street poles, we will sit down in the roads and bar industry vehicles from entering their compounds, we will stop the drill rigs from drilling when they come!”
You don’t have to wait to organize a rally or an office demonstration. Successful actions always start with a committed team. Collaborate with your group on a smart strategy, effective tactics, and powerful messaging. No matter how small your action is, it will become one of the many grassroots voices against fracking that make this movement strong. You are powerful and creative; you can do it, whatever that may be!
Lies and money have worked in the past; they don’t anymore. There have been too many broken promises, broken treaties, broken dreams. The fracking industry will not win us over no matter how hard it tries. We will fight like the lives of our children depend on it, because they do.
http://www.dontfrackwithus.org
Rumor is True… 9:30 AM Deploy from Alpine Junction
August 10, 2012
Friends! Community Members! Allies!Join us to defend our communities, land, and water from hydro-fracking!
When: Saturday, August 11th @ 9:30 am
Where: Alpine Junction Park and Ride at the intersection of Route 13 and Route 224, opposite the Harley-Davidson Dealership. The approximate address for GPS: 6023 New York Route 13, Cayuta, NY
Who: You, your family/kids, your neighbors, your co-workers, your friends
What: We will first gather for a pre-action breakfast and orientation. We will then caravan to the site of the action. Once we arrive at the site, a number of prepared, dedicated individuals will risk arrest by using their bodies as a direct resistance to fracking. The rest of us will join together in a large family friendly rally where we will hear speakers (including Sandra Steingraber), chant, sing, and raise our voices in resistance amid puppets, signs, and music-makers.
What to Bring: Water, a small snack (if you want), comfortable, weather-appropriate clothing/shoes, anti-fracking signs, drums and other music-makers, your voice!
Why: The anti-fracking movement needs direct action like never before. This summer, we need to show the public, the industry, the politicians and ourselves that we CAN and WILL take our bodies to the industry’s door. We must band together and resist as a community if we want to survive as a community!
As the gas industry continues to build fracking infrastructure in New York, threatening our state and others in the Marcellus region, we cannot continue to simply cross our fingers that something will prevent fracking from destroying our home. We must be the force that stops fracking.This action is about solidarity throughout the Marcellus region. There will be NO sacrifice zones.
Join our facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event/421126847929005/
or direct email questions to: nofrackingactionmedia@gmail.com
To support those willing to risk arrest: https://www.wepay.com/donate/164304/
EF! blockade shuts down frack site in PA state forest
July 11, 2012
http://www.marcellusearthfirst.org
Nearly 100 Earth First! activists, friends and allies forced a 70-foot-tall EQT hydrofracking drill rig to suspend operations for 12 hours yesterday in Pennsylvania’s Moshannon State Forest. This is the first time that protesters have shut down a hydrofrack drilling operation in the US. A tree sitter hung above the access road, with their anchor ropes blocking it. A second person was also in a tree to support the sitter while dozens of supporters guarded ten large debris piles that were across the road. Another group of 50 activists blockaded the entrance to the access road. The State Police, with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, dispersed the blockade around nine p.m. And removed the tree sitters with a ladder truck. Three arrests were made for disorderly conduct, but protesters were cited and released on-site.
There are a limited number of actual drill rigs in operation in the state which are ferried around from site to site on a tight schedule. By halting operations for a day on this site, the blockade has likely created a costly disruption for a handful of wells in the area which EQT apparently planned to drill in succession.
The activists reported that the police were at times reckless with the sitters’ safety, such as being quick to cut their anchor ropes. The supporting sitter’s safety and descent ropes were cut by the police as he climbed higher in the tree. The police in the ladder truck had no radios and communication to the ground was difficult over the noise of the diesel engine; at one point the ladder hit one of the sitter’s support lines. Police were seen taunting the sitter by waving around one of their anchor lines and making jokes at them while shaking the hammock.
The site is part of a high concentration of wells in Moshannon State Forest, one of the most heavily drilled state forests in Pennsylvania. Over half of the forest’s 190,000 acres have been leased for Marcellus drilling using hydraulic fracturing. Despite widespread public opposition, the former PA secretary of Conservation and Natural Resources predicts 12,000 Marcellus wells will be drilled in state forests in the coming decade. A recent poll showed that the majority of Pennsylvanians are opposed to fracking on public lands.
Local farmer Jenny Lisak, whose own property has been impacted by fracking, describes the devastation she has seen in the Moshannon, “Having grown up enjoying Moshannon State Forest in so many ways, I am absolutely appalled at the ongoing destruction. The once narrow and inviting oak-shaded lanes are now being replaced by dust and traffic choked roads for chemical laden trucks – there are no words to describe the injustice of taking public land, meant to provide a source of beauty and wilderness for all and turning it into an industrial zone.”
Drilling in the area has a troubled history. In June 2010, a major blowout at another well in Clearfield County spewed 35,000 gallons of toxic drilling waste into the Little Laurel Run watershed and caused the evacuation of Moshannon State Forest. Since 2008, only 24 of EQT’s 198 Marcellus wells in the state have been inspected and violations were found at every single inspection. When they have been cited, they’ve refused to change their practices. On May 9, 2012, in Duncan Township, Tioga County, EQT was cited for faulty construction on a flowback water impoundment; three weeks later the pit failed, contaminating a nearby spring.
“This is part of an escalating direct action campaign against fracking in the Marcellus Shale region,” said Danielle Dietterick, an activist affiliated with Marcellus Earth First! from Benton, Pa. “People from all around the country have joined with Pennsylvania residents to put their bodies on the line to stop fracking.”
The action comes on the heels of a 12-day blockade to stop the displacement of the <a href=”http://www.saveriverdale.com/” target=”_blank”>Riverdale Mobile Home Park</a>, in Lycoming County, and the <a href=”http://ecowatch.org/2012/ohio-woman-arrested/” target=”_blank”>shutdown of a fracking wastewater injection well</a> near Athens, Ohio. Groups across the country are planning more anti-extraction interventions like <a href=”http://rampscampaign.org/mountain-mobilization” target=”_blank”>RAMPS in West Virginia</a> and the <a href=”http://www.facebook.com/TarSandsBlockade” target=”_blank”>Tar Sands Blockade in Texas</a>, later this month. All these independent, grassroots-led actions show perhaps a coalescing national uprising against exploitative extraction.
Susan Riley, another supporter, cheered on the bold action, “The state government has sold off our public lands and, with Act 13, stripped us of our rights to local self-governance. The fracking industry has free reign in this state and no one’s gonna stop them unless we do.”
<strong>Read More;</strong>
Another Article: http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/07/fracking-site-bows-to-earth-first-convergence/
Welcome!
May 10, 2010
