Building a “wall” in the woods against Keystone XL construction in Texas
[The following is an excerpt from a letter to friends, family and allies written by an activist working with a group of Earth First! folks in the woods of east Texas. They are calling on you to join them ASAP in a full time direct action camp that is growing as you read this.]
Greetings. I’m writing to you from the Tar Sands blockade (TSB) in rural east Texas. It’s shaping up to be quite possibly the epic eco-defense battle of our generation. The action is due to start tomorrow, Monday, and so I’ll likely be away from computers for awhile and mobbin’ around the woods for at least a few days. There’s a chance I may be arrested, but it’s unlikely. More likely scenario is that many of us will simply be maintaining phone and online silence during the upcoming showdown.
BACKGROUND: TransCanada (TC) is a multi-billion dollar corporation engaged in exploiting the Alberta Tar Sands, the most ecologically destructive project on planet Earth. They are trying to move large amounts of bitumen south through Canada and eight US states using a series of massive pipelines, one of which is called “Keystone”. TC has a history of oil spills across the continent and these pipelines are so massive that there will most certainly be oil spills poisoning watersheds if the pipelines are completed.
Last Summer hundreds of people led by liberal activist Bill McKibben held a sit-in comprised of intentional arrests in front of the White House pleading with the president to deny approval of the pipeline. He delayed the decision for the Montana to Nebraska portion of the pipeline until 2013 (after the election) and the liberals claimed victory. Meanwhile, in March 2012 he approved the Oklahoma to Texas portion which is now under construction. TC has seized many acres of land belonging to thousands of people using eminent domain. The nature of eminent domain is such that it’s almost impossible for private citizens to sure corporations and win. Many people in Texas are outraged about this but have been prevented from taking action due to fear of losing their land or because they’ve been paid off. We are friends with several who are resisting, and they’re among our most effective allies, but they can’t win this fight alone…
Not the “No trespassing” sign that Woody Guthrie was talking about.. This one is directed at protecting land in Texas from the Keystone pipeline.
SITE: We are currently helping a local landowner defend his land against the swath of destruction promised by TC. He is suing TC in court, but they are also suing him and have filed a restraining order not allowing him on part of his own land. So they built an epic tree village with rope traverses as well as cable ziplines, and a variety of different living situations including a “tree condo” that I hope to post pictures of at some point. There is also an intricate “Wall” on which people will position themselves to place their bodies directly in the path of devastation. TSB has been camped here for several months now constructing the village and allies from Cascadia and other places have come down to help at various points in time.
Taking to the Texas Treetops against TransCanada’s Tar Sands pipeline
SITUATION: Driving around East Texas looking at the scarred landscape, it’s easy to feel a deep despair about the enormity of our fight. TC is building the pipeline in so many different places at once, trashing so many people’s homes and farms, and it’s impossible to fight them everywhere. There have been isolated lockdown actions over the past few weeks, but the bulk of a lot of people’s energy has been put into fortifying this place for the coming battle. Today the machines began tearing through the woods along the pipeline “easement” on their way here. A friend and I went to scout it out and ended up twenty feet away from a feller buncher. This thing was taking down trees at least one every ten seconds. We could have stopped it right there simply by jumping out in front of it, and our strong instinct was to do so. We restrained ourselves in order to have more time for the camp to prepare. The feller buncher cleared a path most of the way to here, then stopped work for the day. Since it’s a union crew, they probably won’t work tomorrow (Sunday). That leaves us with one more day to prepare.
We anticipate more activity on Monday, and when the feller buncher is almost to here we’ll have no choice but stop it in a peaceful, mobile way (“cat and mouse” or “digger diving” as they say in the UK). This will bring the heat from law enforcement, and thus our camp becomes hot. The tree sitters and wall sitters are preparing for a long siege and to resist extraction, and the ground scouts are preparing for an intense campaign of peaceful guerrilla harassment and disruption. Meanwhile our media team will be working around the clock informing the world about the stand we’re making here. Legal support, food team etc, are also mobilized. This battle will happen in the coming week.
All out to the barricades! The Energy Empire is coming!!
WHAT YOU CAN DO: If you can, get down here and help us. All skill sets are needed, from tree sitters and riggers to bloggers and camera people, chefs and logistical types, lawyers, forest scouts, medics, chaplains, organizers, trainers, techies, etc. Tell all your friends who might be available to also come down and help. We need all the help we can get. We are just a few dozen down here, and thousands are needed to make this into a mass movement capable of actually resisting TC. Share this on facebook, twitter, tumblr, your blog(s), and whatever else. Tell all your networks to pay attention to this upcoming confrontation, and I can only hope that our team is capable of getting the word out in a way that the world can appreciate and understand.
Thanks for reading, thanks for caring, thanks for participating in the ongoing struggle for social and ecological justice, and I hope to see you in the woods...
To read the original call to action from this group, and find out how to contact them, click here
