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anarchoteapot, 09.11.2004 11:50
Direct Action Gets The Goods!
For months, perhaps more than a year now, the Lancaster green activist email groups have been discussing and researching the plan to build a road bridge across Morecambe Bay. This Bay is the most protetced wildlife area in the UK, being a habitat for many migratory bird species and being fringed with estuarine ecosystems with Bitterns, deer and the like. It is protected under UK, EU and UN law. The idea to build a bridge was put forward by one David Brockbank, a Cumbrian businessman who has been successfully prosecuted and fined by the Environment Agency for allowing water to be polluted by one of his businesses.
The bridge plan appeared to have gained 'green' credentials with the announcement that the bridge's supports would hold turbines to produce 'green' energy. People quickly twigged that this was greenwash, with the disturbance to the Bay and the increase in traffic far more damaging than the capture of some clean electricity. Directorts of the Bridge Across The Bay Co. included Pro. Bill Davies (head of the Lancaster Environment Centre) and Julian Carter of Renewables NorthWest (a QUANGO formed by the electricity industry and govt.). Prof. Davies produced a report which gave ridiculously inflated figures for the amount of electricity the scheme could produce, apparently using an earlier report by colleagues on the total tidal energy in the Bay.
A Doing It Up North Earth First! action on Nov 4th targetted the offices of both directors, with a rumour having been recieved that Prof. Davies had his hard-drive wiped. Leaflets were handed out to the colleagues of each to inform them of the greenwash and of the Bay's protected status. BOTH DIRECTORS HAVE NOW RESIGNED FROM THE COMPANY, and if the scheme is to go ahead (highly unlikely) it will have to do so without 'green' support.
While the loss of Prof. Davies' work is to be regretted, the action shows that direct action can quickly achieve what paper and taking-shop based campaigns might have failed to achieve over a much longer timescale. Congratulations to all involved!
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