by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 4, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Agence France-Presse
Chile’s Supreme Court Wednesday removed the last legal obstacle to building a giant $2.9 billion hydroelectric complex in the Patagonian wilderness, rejecting a bid by environmentalists to block it.
The highly controversial project, which environmentalists say will wreck a unique and pristine habitat in the southern tip of South America, sparked violent protests last year.
The high court “confirmed it was rejecting” an appeal by green campaigners to halt the $2.9 billion HidroAysen project of Spanish-Chilean consortium Endesa-Colburn, a court spokesman said.
The decision upheld an October 2011 finding by a lower court that gave the green light for the project to generate 2,750 megawatts of power from five dams in two river valleys in Patagonia.
The plans involve flooding 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres) of largely uninhabited land in a quest to generate more electric power for Chile’s booming economy.
“The project is at a stage at which work is going on constantly,” said HidroAysen attorney Mario Galindo. “There are studies, environmental impact studies… and it is all moving ahead normally.”
But the project still needs approval from the government, after which construction would not begin until 2014, lasting about 10 years.
And environmentalists opposed to the plans said they would take their quest to derail the project to international bodies if needed.
Matias Asun of Greenpeace-Chile said “the project makes no sense environmentally. And it should not go ahead. So we will keep mobilizing alongside thousands of Chileans opposed” to it.
“Well, we are not happy with a negative ruling. But this is just a partial defeat,” Patricio Rodrigo with No Dams in Patagonia told CNN Chile.
Attorney Marcelo Castillo said the ruling was already being reviewed with an eye toward seeking international court involvement in the case.
From Agence France-Presse:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 1, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Fiona Harvey / The Guardian
The habitat of the endangered Sumatran tiger is being rapidly destroyed in order to make tissues and paper packaging for consumer products in the west, new research from Greenpeace shows.
A year-long investigation by the campaigning group has uncovered clear evidence, independently verified, that appears to show that ramin trees from the Indonesian rainforest have been chopped down and sent to factories to be pulped and turned into paper. The name ramin refers to a collection of endangered trees growing in peat swamps in Indonesia where the small number of remaining Sumatran tigers hunt.
Chopping down these trees is illegal under Indonesian law dating back to 2001, because of their status as an endangered plant species. But Greenpeace alleges that its researchers found ramin logs being prepared to be transported for pulping. The company tested logs in lumber yards belonging to the paper giant Asian Pulp and Paper, on nine separate occasions over the course of a year, and sent them to an independent lab to be tested. Out of 59 samples, 46 tested positive as ramin logs.
Asian Pulp and Paper denied wrongdoing. The company said in a statement: “Asia Pulp & Paper group (APP) maintains a strict zero-tolerance policy for illegal wood entering the supply chain and has comprehensive chain of custody systems to ensure that only legal wood enters its pulp mill operations. APP’s chain of custody systems are independently audited on a periodic basis. This ensures that we only receive legal pulpwood from areas under legal license that have passed all necessary ecological and social assessments.
“APP’s chain of custody system traces the origin of raw material, evaluates its legal and environmental status, to minimise the risk of contamination and to ensure that endangered species are protected – in accordance with the laws of Indonesia.”
The same hardwoods that grow in the Sumatran peat swamps where the tiger lives have also been independently verified to exist in paper products found on supermarket shelves, including photocopying paper, packaging for consumer products such as tissue paper.
Because the amounts of this pulp found in the paper samples are so small, it is impossible to say that they also contain ramin. However, independent lab tests confirmed the presence of “mixed tropical hardwoods” in paper samples from a wide variety of consumer outlets in the west. This shows that valuable rainforest trees are being turned into everyday items bought by unsuspecting consumers.
These fibres are highly likely to come from the same log yards examined by Greenpeace, because once pulped these rainforest trees are widely disseminated to packaging suppliers.
Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/01/indonesia-tiger-habitat-pulp-paper-greenpeace
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 15, 2012 | Obstruction & Occupation
By Huffington Post
Protesters from Greenpeace demonstrated against “the destruction and pollution caused by coal” at a North Carolina power plant on Monday, according to a press release.
Activists entered the grounds of the Progress Asheville Power Station in the morning and secured themselves to a coal conveyor belt, according to Greenpeace. They also scaled a 400 foot smoke stack and draped a large protest banner.
WSPA reports that the protesters’ banner, which is visible for several miles, reads “Duke Energy: The Climate Needs Real Progress.”
According to The Charlotte Observer, 16 protestors were arrested at the Asheville plant.
The plant’s owner, Progress Energy, said its goal was to protect the safety of “the trespassers to first responders, as this is large and dangerous equipment,” reported Fox Carolina. Interactions between protesters and local police were reportedly “very cordial.”
Greenpeace activist Robert Gardner said in a press release, “This plant runs on destroyed mountains, it spews out air pollution, it causes climate change and it poisons the water and the earth. If Duke merges with Progress, the new owners have a responsibility to the people of North Carolina to move to clean energy.”
Progress is currently in the process of merging with Duke Energy, although the consolidation has been delayed by federal regulators, according to to The Charlotte Observer.
Reuters reported Monday that the Obama administration is expected to unveil new rules limiting carbon emissions from new coal-fired power plants. An energy policy analyst told Reuters, “The proposed rule is certainly expected to send the message that coal is dead.”
From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/greenpeace-progress-asheville-power_n_1274532.html
