Forest Service Sponsored Public Meeting:
Thursday April 26th 4-7pm (show up at 5:30 if you can)
Riceville Community Center-
2251 Riceville Rd.

Location:

The Proposed Globe Timber Sale Near Boone and Blowing Rock N.C.

Workshops:

Orienteering
Ground Truthing Logging Sales
GPS Mapping
Water Testing
Medicinal Plant Walk
Plus: Lovely Walks in the Old Growth

Friday:
Bring:
Camping Gear
Food To Share
$$ Donations (5-10)
Don’t Bring:
A Bad Attitude

Directions:
Globe Road near Blowing Rock, NC

From Asheville:
1.I-40 E past Black Mountain, then downhill
2.Exit Right on 70E go ~10 miles
3.Take a Left on 221N go ~24 miles to a T in the road.
4.Go Right and continue on 221N ~18.2 miles to Blowing Rock. Go Right on Main Street and continue ~ .5 miles.
5.Take a Right on John’s River Road. (There’s a small sign on the left that says Globe ?; and this turn is just before the Blowing Rock Methodist Church) Go 3.3 miles downhill (go slowly, washboard road)
6.The Forest Service road is on the right. Loof for KEF! Signs. Park (unless you have high clearance and 4WD. Hike in ~ 1 hour (stay on the main road). At ~35 minutes is a creek crossing. Continue 25 minutes to camp spot at the second creek crossing.
From Boone:
1.Take 321 to Blowing Rock
2.Take a Right into downtown/ Main Street.
3.Take a Right on John’s River Road.
4.Follow directions above.

Earth First! and Rising Tide North America took to the high seas today to protest monoculture industrial timber plantations and genetically engineered trees. This action launches a Southern solidarity campaign to end deforestation and expose the social impacts in Chile, Brazil and the US South caused by timber plantations. The campaign demands a global ban on the new threat of genetically engineered trees.

photo: Langelle/Global Justice Ecology Project

During a yacht tour to Fort Sumter, which was the kick-off event for a conference on fast growing timber plantations and forest biotechnology, activists confronted conference participants by unfurling banners after the cruise disembarked. One banner read “ArborGen: No GE Trees or Plantations in US South or Brazil” and a second banner in Portuguese translated into “Eucalyptus Plantations Are Not Forests.” A third Spanish banner read “We demand protection for native forests and respect for the Mapuche people.”

“This is our first shot over the bow of the timber industry and corporate researchers,” stated Johnny Lankenship. “We are uniting with our brothers and sisters in South America to stop the destruction of native forests by tree plantations and genetically engineered trees.”

The industry conference was organized by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations and co-sponsored by Summerville, SC-based ArborGen. ArborGen leads the world in research into genetically engineered trees and the IUFRO will be organizing another similar conference next week in Chile.

ArborGen works in both in the US South and in Brazil. Massive tree plantations in Chile and Brazil have forced indigenous people off of their land, leveled huge areas of forest, caused sickness in nearby villages and increased global warming. Using genetically engineered trees would worsen these impacts.

Tree plantations hold up to 90 percent less species diversity than the native forests they replaced, leading many to label them as “green deserts.” Moreover, a plantation containing genetically engineered trees poses the high risk of genetic contamination of the surrounding natural forest with traits such as weakened structural integrity and cellular pesticide production. In fact, wild poplar trees throughout China have already become polluted by genetically engineered tree plantations.

Popular industry theories claim plantations will help address climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This ignores the fact that tree plantations absorb a quarter of the CO2 as intact natural forest. Furthermore, tree plantations are logged at an early age thereby releasing the stored CO2.

“We are in an ecological crises now! Climate change is here and deforestation is a massive contributor to this rolling catastrophe,” said Jean Wald. “It’s too late to tinker with bogus solutions. Plantation forestry is a serious problem and GE trees will make it that much worse. Add the social consequences of plantations and there is no more justification for them.”

Asheville, NC (Friday August 25th, 2006) – Approximately 100 bicyclists took to the streets this afternoon to demand “climate justice” for communities such as New Orleans who are already suffering from the effects of a warming planet. The ride, organized in 30 different cities by Rising Tide North America (RTNA), was held to draw attention to the links between fossil fuels, climate change, and destructive hurricanes. The Asheville ride was organized by TRNA’s local affiliate, Katuah Earth First!, as well as other organizers.

After biking through downtown West Asheville the cyclists, carrying signs reading “Remember Katrina,” and “Cars Fuel Climate Change,” turned onto Patton Avenue and soon enough brought traffic to a standstill as they merged onto I-240/ I-26. “Some might say what we did today was drastic,” said Joe Rienhardt who was arrested at the end of the ride. “What could be more drastic then the potential deaths of tens of thousands of people, and massive extinction due to fossil fueled climate change. We need to be taking extreme actions every day in order to preserve our planet.”

Sporting “gas-free” bicycles, the riders highlighted the connection between the oil industry and the ongoing hardship in the Gulf Coast. “During Katrina, leaking oil refineries and petrochemical spills flooded residents yards,” said Brian Fleming, a climate change activist with RTNA, a group that helped organize the event. “Some of those same plants have been exposing people to toxic waste for years, leading to the creation of the infamous ‘Cancer Alley’ in southeastern Louisiana. We must recognize the role this industry has played in the Gulf Coast crisis and hold them accountable.”

The ride was organized as a collaborative effort between the national climate change action group RTNA and the “Critical Mass” cyclist group. The demand of the ride is for “climate justice” – that society’s poor and vulnerable should not suffer the consequences of climate change disproportionately.

“Katrina was a stark example of how the impacts of our society’s lifestyle fall hardest upon people of color and the poor,” said Emily Hornback, a Rising Tide member. “Exxon-Mobile topped $10 billion dollars in profit in 2005 while people in New Orleans and in the surrounding areas still struggle to clean out toxic, oily mud from their homes. The oil elite profits from our reliance on fossil fuels while the vulnerable in our society suffer the consequences.”

Activists chose August 25th, the date Katrina reached hurricane strength, to draw attention to recent studies linking global warming to increased hurricane intensity. A recent study by Kevin Trenberth and Dennis Shea of the National Center of Atmospheric Research found that global warming accounted for half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in the waters of the tropical North Atlantic in 2005. Natural cycles were found to be only a minor factor.

According to climate scientists we have only 6 years to dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions before the effects of climate change become irreversible. “We felt like we had to up the ante for this ride,” said Becky Allen. “We are already feeling the effects of climate change. Nearly 30,000 people died in the European heat wave of 2003, which scientists say was exacerbated by climate change. Actions like this one today are a matter of self defense. The politicians aren’t doing anything. The corporations certainly aren’t. It is going to take citizen action to steer our society onto a sustainable path.”

“While you can’t point to any one hurricane and say, ‘climate change caused this’, there is no doubt that global warming is creating more hurricanes that are more severe. Katrina made the effects of climate change real,” said Hornback. “We cannot ignore this problem anymore; we must take action now to address it or Katrina will be only the beginning.”

Rising Tide North America works to support and encourage people and grassroots groups in taking action against the causes of climate change.
www.RisingTideNorthAmerica.org

Critical Mass is a worldwide movement of cyclists riding monthly to promote bicycling as an alternative to cars and to assert cyclists rights.
www.critical-mass.org

More pictures and information at Mountain Justice Media

July 10, 2006, Carbo, Virginia - Early this morning, activists with Earth First! and Rising Tide North America set up a non-violent blockade of American Electric Power’s (AEP) nearly 50 year old Clinch River coal fired electric facility. Emitting millions of pounds of pollutants yearly, the Clinch River coal plant threatens the health and lives of thousands of downwind residents and the surrounding environment. Burning coal is not only a primary factor behind global climate change, but also drives the expansion of large scale strip mining. Large scale surface mining destroys forests, streams and communities as it alters the Appalachian landscape forever.

Over 50 activists arrived at AEP’s Clinch River plant at 9:00 this morning. An Earth First!er attached a rope to the bridge and stretched it across the road while another suspended himself below the bridge over the Clinch River. One activist locked himself to the axle of the coal truck.

Earth First! and Rising Tide demand the following:

1. Shut down the Clinch River facility and all aging, dirty coal burning power plants.
2. An immediate halt to mountaintop removal and other destructive forms of strip mining.
3. A nationwide response to the reality of global climate change marked by a move away from fossil fuels, transition towards cleaner sources of energy and vigorous promotion of electricity conservation.

“The Clinch River facility is a symbol of all that is wrong with King Coal. Dirty air, ravaged landscapes and global climate disruption are the legacies of a corrupt, inefficient and destructive industry that kills with impunity” said Patrick Garnett of Lexington, Kentucky.

“The coal industry and its government puppets are ignoring widespread public concern over large scale strip mining, air pollution and global climate change” said Erin Mckelvy of Blacksburg, Virginia. “Concerned citizens are forced to take direct action to call attention to the devastation caused by the irresponsible mining and burning of coal” she added.

The Clinch River coal burner releases 4.25 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the air annually, contributing to an unpredictable change in the global climate. Particulate pollution from burning coal has been proven to worsen asthma for residents across the nation. Mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia has destroyed over 800 square miles of the most biologically diverse temperate forest in the world. Over 1200 miles of streams have been buried by valley fills and mining waste.

“I was born here in southwestern Virginia. The mountains here are part of my soul. They are sacred to me, and also to God” said Ernest Wayne Cantrell of Clintwood, Virginia. “I fight back because I can’t continue to watch the world’s oldest mountains be leveled forever” he continued.

Earth First! is an international environmental action movement focusing on protecting wild nature. Rising Tide North America is part of an international network focusing on the root causes of global climate change.

More information available at www.mountainjusticemedia.org and www.katuahearthfirst.org

Contact: Mountain Media Center - Claire Jones - 828-277-8729 or E-mail mtrmedia@gmail.com

Earth First! Blockades Chip Mill

In 1999, Earth First! blockaded the Willamette (now Weyerhauser) chip mill down in Rutherford County, just east of Asheville. This action included a banner on a crane and 10 people got arrested, and the blockade lasted for six hours.

Blockade of 1998 Timber Sale in Shinbone

Blockade we did in 1998 at a timber sale on the Cherokee National Forest called Shinbone. The guy in the tripod got arrested.

Brownie Newman

Now Asheville City Councilor Brownie Newman, holding the bullhorn for Earth First! some time in the 90s when he was an Earth First!er.