Environmental Protest Round Up: 15 May 2009
What makes a protest worthwhile? Does it have to change policy, or achieve the reversal of a specific decision? Recent protests in the environmental arena seem to have educative as well as practical purposes.
Balinese protest not being allowed to protest
On Tuesday 12 May, dozens of environmental activists staged a ‘quiet’ rally in front of the Bali Police headquarters. They were protesting the arrest of two members of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment. They marched to the headquarters semi-naked, with green tape covering their mouths to symbolise violation of free speech, then they lay on the ground in front of the police station. Berry N. Forqan and Erwin Usman were arrested on Monday after staging a rally outside the World Ocean Conference. Protestors claimed there had been a repressive police response towards the NGOs who took part in that protest.
Tripping Up Trump gets new Donor
In Scotland, it is claimed that an anonymous millionaire is backing the protest group formed against Donald Trump’s planned Aberdeenshire golf resort. The protest group is called Tripping Up Trump and it staged a public meeting on Monday to discuss ways to prevent the planned building the Site of Special Scientific Interest at Menie’s dunes. A spokesman said the group was ‘… challenging Mr Trump on the economics, environmental issues and the legality of the development …’ The group says ‘ … the only people who are going to make any money from [the development] are the taxi drivers who ferry people from the airport … There are better ways to spend £1billion which will benefit the people of Aberdeenshire.’ A spokesman for Mr Trump said the group was an ‘… act of desperation’ and that the Trump group was (sic) ‘…the true supporters of the environmentalists.’
Mining Montreal’s Landmarks?
And on Tuesday in Montreal, an activist group pantomimed the creation of a pit mine on Mount Royal. Despite the Quebec government’s claims that it has fully protected the famous landmark from mining companies, protestors sealed off a large area with string, stakes and surveying equipment, and told the watching crowd, ‘It’s going to be a beautiful, beautiful open-pit mine. Imagine a big hole right here. Yes, we’ll have evictions. … nobody will suffer. Everyone will be okay with a mine in Montreal.’ People taking part in the show came from Mexico, Honduras, Chile, Papua New Guinea and Argentina: all places where protestors are challenging the rights of Canadian gold mining companies who have created open pit mines in their local communities. One participant from North West Quebec said mine development had required the relocation of 200 families and the destruction of five of her town’s eight public buildings.
View from Mount Royal courtesy of Rene Ehrhardt at Flickr under a creative commons licence
