On 11th October, 2020, Indigenous peoples called a Day of Rage Against Colonialism. Main actions organized were against the forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples and for an alternative to Columbus Day. Colonial statues were felled across the United States.
In Arizona, O’odham Anti-Border Collective protested the construction of a border wall. Customs and Border Protection Agencies assaulted the Indigenous protestors with tear gas, rubber bullets, and arrests.
Joyce Echaquan, a 37 year old Indigenous woman, died in a hospital in Quebec. From her deathbed, she had live-streamed the racist and misogynist comments of her nurses. Vigils, rallies, and demonstrations were organized after the video went viral.
Disputes over fishing rights between Indigenous peoples and commercial fishers in Nova Scotia led to mob violence. The commercial fishers have threatened, abused, sabotaged against the Sipekne’katik First Nation group. Indigenous peoples across the nation are organizing solidarity actions.
Secwepemc people in Canada have demanded a halt in the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. The pipeline threatens salmon population, on which both neighboring human and nonhuman communities depend upon. The protestors were assaulted by arrests.
Wet’suwet’en people have been protesting the Coastal Gas Link pipeline for over a decade. On February, the Wet’suwet’en launched a series of rail, port and highway blockades. More recently, calls for solidarity actions have begun to circulate as the Coastal GasLink pipeline is preparing to drill under the Morris river.
Check out the Facebook page of the Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory.
In July, members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy occupied a proposed development site in Ontario. Community mobilization and highway blockades were organized as a response to the militarized raid on August 5th by the Ontario Provincial Police. The Ontario government has tried to isolate the encampment by criminalizing and arresting supporters. Resistance has been going strong since then.
This article describes how the problems the oil industry are facing could be capitalized on by activists, particularly in light of reduced takeaway capacity from DAPL shutting down and the new Washington state law taking effect in 2020.
Acknowledgement and thanks from DGR to strategic thinkers and activists everywhere.
Bakken drillers may struggle to develop growth in oil production if they run into transportation bottlenecks.
Due to the volatility of this substance, especially in transport, there is a new law (in Washington state) taking effect in 2020: oil being transported via rail car must have vapor pressure under a specific threshold. The aim is to reduce the risk of explosion, derailments and harm to human life.
With Bakken shale drillers already struggling with poor profit they could be particularly, negatively impacted by this law. To minimize the harm to profit the oil industry may consider using spare capacity on other pipelines out of the Bakken. They may increase the amount of oil transported by rail and/or halt/pause plans to open production in oil wells currently closed. If the situation becomes more unprofitable there may be consideration of further production cuts.
Anti-fracking activists could focus on disrupting other pipelines and crude-by-rail, to leave the oil industry with a single choice: to halt production.
The key points are that if it is impossible to move oil from well to the market and/or if there is nowhere to store it then there will need (at least) to be a reduction in extraction or (at most) have production fully shut down. We are currently in a unique situation as some oil wells have been closed due to a significant reduction in demand, due to the corona virus. With the court ordering DAPL to shut down, it may now be an nonviable option to reopening the wells in the Bakken.
Parts of the production process and the ‘delivery’ in the oil industry have created dependency and bottlenecks. We believe that sharing knowledge of the infrastructure and increasing understanding of why this information is critical will allow activists to consider how effective their actions are.
The oil industry prefers pipeline exports as this is ‘cost effective’, Rail and road more expensive options. Additional pipelines could close the gap (financially) between extraction and national export. Due to the small profit margins any pipeline activism could have significant impact. Furthermore, disruption to new or existing pipelines may reduce confidence for potential investors, meaning oil in the ground.
Electricity: Oil production depends on electricity for pumps, compressors, transmission lines, substations, and processing plants. Increasing demand on the grid load. Activist opposition to new electric projects might drive up fracking costs. A continued increase in demand or indeed damage to the feed of electricity into oil and/or fracking production may result in a failure to keep up with demand.
Sand supply: Thousands of tons of sand (at significant cost) are needed to initiate flow in new wells. No sand supply would halt drilling, potentially drive up production costs.
Water supply and disposal: Millions of gallons of water is used in the fracking process. It goes in clean and comes out as polluted wastewater. Direct disruptions to the supply or an increase, however small, in the cost of water either in sourcing or disposal could potentially drive up production costs.
Refinery or export terminal disruption or closures: There is potential for activists to drive down the value of fracked oil by shutting down refineries or vehicles transporting or loading sites.
Uncertain times lead to uncertain measures:
Small actions, that would usually have very little lasting impact could, in these uncertain times, landslide into victory, especially when taken with other factors. In other words, an accumulation of factors could trigger cascading failure. Direct actions are likely to be most effective when targeting operational infrastructure (little and often), using the element of surprise
Considering strategic, effective, persistent, targeted interventions such as protests alongside direct action could enable activists to stop fossil fuel production.
There is work to be done.
With thanks and credit acknowledgement to the following two pieces of writing. You can read more about this here:
The Valve Turners is a label given to, and claimed by, environmental activists who take direct action against the fossil fuel industry by illegally turning emergency shut-off valves to close oil pipelines. Valve Turners have sought to use the necessity defense in court, arguing that they were obligated to act in the face of the imminent threat of climate change to which oil pipelines contribute. In some cases, they have invoked Indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights.
Incidents
Different groups of activists have acted as Valve Turners. In most events, participants have contacted the pipelines’ owners to notify them that the valves are being closed, so that the companies can take appropriate safety measures. They have then waited to be arrested and used their trials to draw attention to climate change.
December 2015: Enbridge Line 9
Enbridge reversed its Line 9 pipeline on December 3, 2020, to transport western crude oil to eastern refineries. In response, Canadian activists turned the emergency shut-off valve at a site near the Quebec-Ontario border on December 7. After closing the valve and stopping the flow of oil, they locked themselves to the valve with U-locks around their necks. Two weeks later, another set of activists turned an emergency shut-off valve on Line 9 in Sarnia, Ontario.
October 2016: Climate Direct Action
On October 11, five members of Climate Direct Action simultaneously turned emergency shut-off valves in four American states. This was the largest valve-turning action to date, temporarily disabling pipelines providing about 15% of America’s daily oil consumption.
Michael Foster turned a valve in North Dakota near the Canadian border. He was convicted of several felonies and was sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were suspended. Foster was the only valve turner to be imprisoned.
Leonard Higgins turned a valve on the Enbridge Express Pipeline near Coal Banks Landing, Montana. Higgins was convicted of felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor trespassing but had his three-year prison sentence deferred.
Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein turned the valves on two Enbridge pipelines near Leonard, Minnesota. Their court case was dismissed.
Ken Ward turned a valve near Mount Vernon, Washington, to shut down Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline. After a mistrial, Ward was convicted of burglary, acquitted of sabotage, and served two days in prison.
All five participants planned to use the necessity defense to draw attention to their cause and justify their actions, though three were not permitted to do so. The judge presiding over the Johnston & Klapstein trial, Robert Tiffany, initially ruled that they could mount the necessity defense. However, he then reversed his decision, prohibiting expert testimony that would establish the argument for necessity, before dismissing the case before the defendants could present its necessity defense. Klapstein said she was happy the charges were dismissed, but “at the same time, we were indeed disappointed not to be able to present this to the jury. We were hoping to educate the jury and the classroom of greater public opinion on the dire issues of climate change”. Foster, Higgins, and Ward were prohibited by the judges overseeing their cases from mounting the necessity defense.
This group calls itself Climate Direct Action but became known as the Valve Turners and released a film under that name composed of footage they recorded before and during the process of turning the shut-off valves.
February 2019: Enbridge Line 4
Four members of the Catholic Worker Movement were arrested on February 4, 2019, for attempting to shut down the Enbridge Line 4 pipeline near Grand Rapids, MN. This group called itself “The Four Necessity Valve Turners,” a nod to the necessity defense for their actions. The activists informed Enbridge of their planned action, at which point the company shut down the pipeline remotely.
Response
Several US states, including Louisiana and Oklahoma, have increased the legal penalties for interfering with fossil fuel infrastructure, using a model bill from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that enacts stiff consequences for protesters who target “critical infrastructure”.
A 2020 intelligence bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security described the 2016 Valve Turners as “suspected environmental rights extremists”.
Text via Wikipedia. Image via Audriusa. Both shared via Creative Commons license.
The Capitol State Forest, Washington — Early Wednesday afternoon just as the fog melted off, a convoy of trucks from at least four different law enforcement agencies parked on a logging road for an unannounced raid on a camp of forest protection activists, sweeping the camp away and leaving one man in the forest canopy tied to a unique contraption that continues to impede work on the controversial “Chameleon” timber sale. The officers came from the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office, the Washington State Patrol, the state Fish and Game Department, and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) which planned and sold the timber sale and oversees all of the Capitol State Forest. They temporarily closed the roads to through traffic while they cleared the activists from the camp.
Ian Frederick, 29, a teacher from Olympia, was on the ground making coffee when the cops arrived. “There were just so many of them,” he said. “It seems like a lot of force to bring to deal with two unarmed civilians eating lunch.”
The two activists were briefly detained before being allowed to walk away while the officers attempted to negotiate with the remaining “tree-sitter” who continued to block the logging road. The DNR law enforcement eventually brought in spotlights and a generator and began to prepare for a siege of the tree-sit.
The man in the treesit was John “Tree’Angelo” Barksdale. Mr. Barksdale, 34, an outdoor educator from Tumwater, has watched with dismay over the past several years as the DNR has systematically clear-cut most of its remaining old-growth stands. An avid hiker, he’s seen many of his favorite local trails turned to moonscapes.
“Unit 1 of Chameleon is some of the most intact forest, the best habitat left across one hundred thousand acres,” Mr. Barksdale said. “If we want all this to actually be a forest and not just an oversized tree plantation, we need to save at least something. We can’t clear-cut all of it.”
Mr. Barksdale has used years of climbing experience to erect a unique “dunk-tank” platform atop an old-growth douglas-fir tree, tied to an abandoned Ford Explorer parked across the proposed logging road. If the car moves, his platform drops. It’s about one hundred feet down to the steep slopes of the forest below. Mr. Barksdale claims to have plenty of food and water and says he is prepared to wait out the DNR indefinitely.
“I’ve always wanted to tree-sit,” he says. “I love trees. I love camping. I can work remotely out here and attend Zoom meetings from right here on the platform. It’s super dreamy up here, and I’m trying to save these trees. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing.”
The protest camp, which was started ten days ago by a few friends of Mr. Barksdale, quickly picked up support from local hunters, fishermen and ATV users concerned about the health of the forest. Protectors of the Salish Sea, an indigenous water advocacy group, held space with songs and prayers at the blockade on Saturday. Multiple community groups across Thurston County have come out in support of the blockade and are calling for the cancellation of the timber sale.
The tree sit came to an end several days later when storms forced Mr. Barksdale to descend.
A blockade has been launched at the Capitol State Forest, Washington to stop clearcut logging. Learn more about the blockade.
Forest Defenders today have launched a blockade to prevent the clear-cut logging of a 100-year-old forest west of Olympia on the traditional territory of the Chehalis people. The forest, part of the critically endangered Puget Lowland Eco-Region, was auctioned off by the Department of Natural Resources as the “Chameleon Timber Sale” to the Elma based Murphy’s Logging Company. Protesters have set up a blockade preventing road building and logging in one of the largest and most biodiverse units of the timber sale. The site is home to a late-successional Douglas Fir forest (over 100 years since it was last logged), which is gaining old growth characteristics that support endangered wildlife.
“It’s absurd,” one protester said, “That the state of Washington under the leadership of the ‘climate change candidate’ Jay Inslee is still sanctioning clearcut logging on public lands.” Recent fires have been testament to the northwest’s vulnerability to the climate crisis, yet our elected officials are carrying on a business-as-usual approach as the world burns. Older forests such as those targeted by the timber industry not only store massive amounts of carbon and support tremendous biodiversity, but are less prone to wildfire and are more resilient to climate change.
“Not only are we in a climate crisis but we are in an ecological crisis, with more species going extinct today than at any point in millions of years. Every wild place that we can save today, every species we save from extinction will quite literally shape the future of life on earth for millions of years.”
In light of the ongoing climate emergency and ecological apocalypse, protesters are demanding:
An end to industrial logging on public lands in the State of Washington.
A complete ban on clear-cut logging in the State of Washington.
The return of “Capitol Forest” to the Chehalis, Nisqually, and Quinault peoples, for DNR to completely fund the restoration of that area, and for DNR to return all stolen lands.
Until these demands are met and the Chameleon timber sale is canceled, protesters will maintain and expand the blockade to prevent industrial clear cutting on public lands.
Winding my way from Lake Cowichan to Port Renfrew, the ravages of continuous clearcuts on steeply sloped mountains, magnified the sun’s rays bouncing off rocky mirrors of ravaged lands, like water hitting a hot frying pan. Driving up the mountain to (Renfrew) River Blockade, stopping road-building on the east side of Fairy Creek, the ominous logging roads carved into mountains and the large machinery scattered about, I wondered what planet I was on. Once at the blockade, and walking into a replica of a 200 million year old rainforest ecosystem, I took a deep breath and wept. Did you know that 200 million years ago, coniferous forests almost went extinct as a result of the evolutionary advancement of flowering trees that came to dominate the earth? The conifers retreated to the margins of the planet where a small number of species managed to maintain a foothold by adapting to extremely harsh conditions. Along the northwest coast of “Canada” is the only region where the conifers retain their former glory, revolving in and out of 10 thousand year cycles to create globally rare ecosystems. They are able to grow throughout the long winters and since they use water more efficiently than flowering plants they also thrive during the dry summer months. The result is a living organism so rich and so productive that temperate forest biomass is easily four times as great as that of any area in the tropics. Within the crown of a single conifer, is found as many as 1500 animal and plant species.
The ecological and spiritual value of old growth forests can never be reconciled with the resource extraction world view.
The intrinsic value of ancient forests has no place in the calculus of forest planning, which has, since its’ inception, allowed for the eventual total eradication of ancient forests. Forestry as traditionally practiced in the BC is less a science than an ideology; a set of ideas reflecting the aspirations of a closed group of professionals with a vested interest in validating its very short term, industrial practices. Old growth is “harvested” though it was never planted by humans, ancient forests are deemed “decadent” and “over mature.” In 1998, independent scientists concluded that BC logging of old growth had driven 142 salmon stocks to extinction and left 624 others on the brink of extinction. We live at the end of the clearcut; if we do nothing they will be lost within our lifetime.
Attempting to walk through the forest with my two walking poles, I would continuously fall through nurse logs into spongey damp ferns and moss up to my chest. Standing in the presence of a 3,000 year old cedar tree, knowing that she is taking care of countless younger trees, holding up the banks of the creek, pouring out oxygen in all directions, my mind stood still. These last stands reveal the intelligence of evolution and the source of ancient mythologies.
The highlight of the blockade were the frequent visits from Bill Jones, a Pateechadht elder, whose traditional homelands include the Fairy Creek watershed.
Bill described himself as the only wild Indian left in his village. I heard him saying that he wished that the federal government would cancel all band funding so that people would be forced to return to the land. He figured that most people would die but they are already dying anyway, due to poverty, health problems, drug overdoses, suicide, and domestic violence. Bill was always overflowing with patience, joy, warmth and compassion. His support is allowing us to remain confident in our efforts to save this sacred place.
One of the major issues that has arisen is clarifying how to gain consent from the Patcheedadht First Nation in support of us being on their land. We were not surprised that the Band Council did not reply to the letter sent in early August informing them of the blockade plan. I hear that poverty is widespread and with fish and hunting stocks very low, so jobs running a local mill, outfitted by Teal-Jones especially for old-growth timber, is appealing to many. The village is comprised of maybe 60 people, most youth leaving for the city and no hereditary chieftains have survived. Bill Jones was already known to us from the Walbran/Carmanah campaign and he gave us his blessing the moment he heard about the Fairy Creek blockade.
You can support the blockade by reinforcing our demand for legally binding legislation to permanently end the logging of BC’s last remaining 1% old growth forests.
Last week, the NDP came out saying they will defer logging in a few old-growth forests, for 2 years. Fairy Creek was not included in any of the deferments. This is Vicky Husband’s response, quoted in Focus Victoria; “The government’s response to the Gorley-Merkel (Old-Growth Review Panel) is a shoddy piece of spin-doctoring in advance of an election. It is duplicitous in intent, short on facts and intentionally misleading.”
We are seeking donations of thousands of dollars to hire a forest ecologist, archaeologist and biologists to argue that Fairy Creek must be protected from Teal-Jones’ chopping block.
![[Media Release] Forest Defenders launch blockade to stop logging of the ‘Chameleon’ Timber Sale](https://dgrnewsservice.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2018/07/sabotage-against-logging.jpg)
