Stop Yellowstone’s Plans to Slaughter Wild Buffalo in 2013!

Young buffalo bed down on a frosty winter’s day.

State, federal, and tribal governments — including Yellowstone National Park –are aiming to kill hundreds of wild buffalo this winter through hunting, slaughter, or both. The agencies state that they want to “even the sex ratio” and have placed a heavy target on female buffalo, wanting to kill at least 400 female buffalo.

Yellowstone National Park states that a “skewed sex ratio” has resulted from years of capture and slaughter operations, which have removed more bulls than cows from the population. In other words the government is saying they will slaughter more buffalo to mitigate the impact of slaughtering so many buffalo.

TAKE ACTION to stop Yellowstone’s plans to slaughter before it starts!

Click here to learn more about volunteering with Buffalo Field Campaign – join us on the front lines with the buffalo!

Wild is the Way ~ Roam Free!

December 21, 2012: The Sound of Zapatista Hope

Silent march in Chiapas 12.21.12

The gray, the tempest that awaited them that day do not cease to be symbolic. The world is thus seen, felt these days, particularly the national reality. The return of the PRI to power (which is practically on the three levels in Chiapas), the labor and education reforms, the imminent threat of the dismantling of what remains of the ejido [commons](in the form of reforms to agrarian law presented by Calderón days before finishing his term), repression and criminalization of social protest with the PRI rearmed, and the deepening of the extractive model, read the open plunder of natural resources. So gray and stormy is the panorama. And in the middle of that night there appeared once again the Zapatistas.

In silence, in perfect order, they bore the rain, the cold, and the wind as if their very nature is to resist. They advanced in columns, the rivers of people, of balaclavas, and bandanas. On their passing, came out their sympathizers who have felt themselves called by Zapatism. There were also journalists and tourists as in ‘94. Many businesses closed their doors, such is shameless fear. But there were also those, the lesser in number, that greeted the contingents from the doors of their businesses.

Protests Against Arizona Snowbowl Continues As Ski Season Begins

Anne Minard / Indian Country Today

Belinda Ayze, Navajo, of Flagstaff, Arizona, holds a protest sign during a rally on December 21 to oppose snowmaking with treated wastewater on the San Francisco Peaks.

Hardy activists braved single-digit temperatures in Flagstaff on December 21 to protest Arizona Snowbowl, the resort atop the sacred San Francisco Peaks that will soon blanket its slopes with snow made from reclaimed wastewater.

Tribal and environmental opponents of snowmaking toted signs with the slogans “Protect Sacred Sites, Defend Human Rights,” and “Danger: Shi*tBowl; Health Hazard” in front of Flagstaff City Hall, during an all-day protest meant to coincide with the kickoff of Snowbowl’s 75^th ski season this week. It will be the first season during which the resort will spray the treated effluent on a site held sacred by 13 tribes.

“What needs to happen is the government needs to afford the same rights to Native Americans that everybody else in this country enjoys,” said Klee Benally, a long-time Navajo activist on behalf of the San Francisco Peaks. He believes the failure to protect the mountain is a violation of freedom of religion for people who consider it holy.

Protester Belinda Ayze, Navajo, said this issue is one in a series that activists in her family have been publicizing and protesting for generations.

Something is Brewing in Manchester…

Tar Sands Blockaders have been organizing in Houston’s east end in the neighborhood of Manchester and something is brewing. There have been lockdowns, blockades, youth empowerment programs, free stores, hunger strikes (26 days and counting), and plenty of seeds of resistance sowed.

Follow this link to download a .pdf booklet with high resolution photos and learn all about how Tar Sands Blockaders are working to help amplify the voices of this Latino community which corporations like Valero are desperately trying to silence.  The Valero refinery in this neighborhoods only park is one of the destinations of the toxic tar sands that will be carried through TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline.

NO TAR SANDS IN MANCHESTER!  KEYSTONE SPILLS, VALERO KILLS!

Earth First! Organizers Conference & Winter Rendezous

Calling all Eco-Warriors!

Appalachia Resist! blockades the Ginsburg Injection Well on Ladd Ridge Rd. in Athens, County Ohio. November 19, 2012

Still wondering what to do with that fiery heart of yours in mid-February? Come join us in the hills and hollers of the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau February 14-18, for the 2013 Earth First! Organizers Conference and Winter Rendezvous.  The Organizers Conference, Thursday thru Saturday afternoon will be focused on reports from the Journal; evaluating strategy, tools & tactics; examining our visions & aspirations; where we’ve been, where we’re going; state repression review; anti-oppression check-in; and bioregional round-ups, and the Night to Howl gathering of the Warrior Poets Society.  After three days of meetings, Saturday night the Winter Rondezvous will kick off with a fiesta (we’re working on a square dance, yehaw), followed by two days full of workshops, hiking, and action planning. Don’t forget that no good Rondezvous could end without a kickass action!

Wild & Weird: Adapt to Air Pollution by… Growing Your Nose Hair Out?

by the Center for Biological Diversity

Worried about all that air pollution in your city? No wonder; worldwide, such pollution prematurely kills about 1.3 million people every year, according to the World Health Organization. But for the nasally hirsute among us, there seems to be an advantage, say new studies: People blessed with fuller, longer manes of nose hair are three times less likely to develop pollution-related asthma.

Clean Air Asia has developed an interactive hairy nose metric map that demonstrates, depending on the air quality of your city (if you live in Asia), the length and style of nose hair you’ll need to survive. Live in Beijing? Well, let’s just say you may want to watch the musical Hair for inspiration: “Give me a [nose] with hair, long, beautiful hair…”

For those of you opposed to Rogaine in the nostrils, we suggest you take steps to help get rid of air pollution instead of adapting to it, er, follicularly.

Check out Clean Air Asia’s interactive pollution map to find out how long you’ll need to grow your nose hair; watch a “documentary” on the life of a nose-hair artist.

Santa To Be Evicted From North Pole

W. Antarctic warming among world’s fastest

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 24 (UPI) — The western portion of Antarctica is warming twice as fast as previously thought and triple the world’s average temperature rise, U.S. scientists say.

The temperature in the center of western Antarctica, about 700 miles from the South Pole, has risen 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1958, making that area one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth, the researchers wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience.

A 2009 measurement considered authoritative had indicated that part of the continent, which resembles a giant peninsula stretching roughly from the South Pole toward the southern tip of South America, had warmed just 2.2 degrees since 1957.

First Nation blockade of Sarnia CN Rail track in 3rd day

Cross Posted from CBC

The mayor of Sarnia, Ont., says city police do not plan to shut down a CN Rail blockade by First Nations activists as long as no one is hurt in the protest.

Mike Bradley says CN obtained a court injunction that leaves it to police in the southwestern Ontario city to decide whether to end the three-day-old blockade.

Blockade spokesman Ron Plain says the protests are being led by young Aamjiwnaang First Nation members, who met Sunday with representatives from CN, as well as Bradley and Sarnia’s police chief.

Human Rights Violations Pave Way for Development in Ethiopia

**Trigger Alert: Anyone who has suffered from sexual abuse or has had a friend go through sexual abuse might feel triggered by this article, because it contains information about sexual violence used as state coercion against small farming communities.

By Sasha, Earth First! Journal — Portland Bureau

A recent article put out by the Guardian criticizes the English Department for International Investment (DfII) for failing to report crimes of rape, assault, and other violence against villagers resisting eviction in Ethiopia. In spite of Prime Minister Cameron’s “golden thread” policy of matching development with sustainability and human rights, the English have slipped back into their old colonial ways.

The damning testimony comes from Ethiopian villagers of the Gomo valley who are being driven from their land to make way foray for the Gibe III dam—soon to be Africa’s largest hydroelectric infrastructure point. The dam will flood the Gomo river valley, which includes one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, and extinguish a thriving and fertile ecosystem.

The transcripts from Mursi and Bodi indigenous peoples indicate that the Department of International Investment has chosen to ignore flagrant human rights violations to facilitate the development of the Gibe III as well as highways and “commercial investment”. According to one Mursi farmer, “They [government soldiers] … took the wives of the Bodi and raped them … then they came and raped our wives here.”

Uncensored Interview with a Tar Sands Blockader

This interview was originally published with heavy edits in a liberal mainstream news outlet.  Tar Sands Blockaders are sick of having their voices diluted.  

1) How did you get involved with Tar Sands Blockade?

After seeing an image of friends on the Wall at the blockade with a big banner reading, “You Shall Not Pass” I decided to drop everything and come to Texas to stand in solidarity with my comrades fighting resource extraction, corporate ecocide and ultimately the cruel, exploitative hand of capitalism which of course allows companies like Trans Canada to thrive.

2) What actions have you been involved in?

I have been involved in multiple actions with the Tar Sands Blockade. Upon first arriving to Texas I worked as part of the ground crew providing direct support for comrades occupying the tree village. This included providing food, water, emotional support and physically protecting the tree sitters. Several times large machinery called feller bunchers (think Fern Gully) came dangerously close to trees our friends were sitting in putting their lives in direct danger, it was up to us in the ground support crew to put our bodies in the line of machinery and turn Trans Canada around. Eventually the ground support crew was forced out of Middle Earth (the given name for the woods where the tree village is located) by increased repression from the state and Trans Canada, who may as well have been synonymous with each other. I worked on a mass action which included over 50 people defying Trans Canada and police and charging the site of the tree village to provide food and water to friends and comrades in the trees who had been under the constant surveillance of both aforementioned parties and essentially held hostage with the threat of arrest and being added to a SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). We know that this is how the state tries to back people in to a corner, to threaten and scare them until they become ineffective so we choose to continue to resist the Keystone XL Pipeline and all those who are accomplices to its construction including the war criminal, Barack Obama.

3) How have the cops treated you?