Guest post by Silvia Purdie

On Monday 2 May a group of 30 protestors occupied the Takitimu Coal Mine, forcing the mine to stop operations for the day. This was a collaborative action by Extinction Rebellion groups around Te Waipounamu and supported by Greenpeace and the Coal Action Network. One of the activists is a psychotherapist in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Michael Apathy (pronounced Apayti).

Michael describes some memorable experiences from the action:

“It was a great moment at 5.00am on Monday morning. We had succeeding in getting in and we were all in place within the coal mine; the towers were set up at the entrance, the climbers were in place, we had a boat on the lake. “We made it! We have taken possession of this space.” Suddenly I felt a huge buzz and delight, that lasted through the whole day. Even though I’d had no sleep I had this peaceful, energetic, joyful feeling. It became a meditation on being in the heart of the beast.

As the sun rose, the first thing for me was how great it was to actually be there and to see it. There I was, inside the mine, surrounded by all the giant piles of coal, literally inside the machinery that extracts it. Coal is such an abstract thing to so many of us. I talk to people and they are surprised: “We still mine coal in New Zealand?!” It is out of sight, out of mind. Being there made the climate crisis very real, rather than just numbers on a spreadsheet.

It was so stark: here I am on this big piece of machinery among the coal next to a poisoned lake, and on the silhouette of the hill there are cows grazing. Industrial dairying is killing off our waterways and contributing significantly to global warming. This is a key reason why New Zealand is actually really terrible in terms of climate change. This coal goes to Fonterra to be burned to dry milk powder to be shipped overseas. The whole system was so vivid to me in that moment: “It’s all here, the cows and the coal together.”

For most of the day I locked myself onto the conveyor, and I had several police negotiating with me. Late in the afternoon our group made the collective decision to leave. So I said, “So if I unlock, you will not arrest me?” – “Yep” – so I said, “Alright”, and we walked out. It ended with no one being arrested which was nice.

As we walked to the gate we were greeted by a big crescendo of drumming and singing, a celebration of what we had done. It was so beautiful. It made you feel you are part of this thing which is a work of art as well as a political action.

We are taking very serious action about the existential threat of climate change. Direct action like this is intense and serious. But admidst that there was music and dancing. We hung beautiful colourful flags. People wore silly cow onesies. It is important to us that direct action becomes light and playful and a celebration all at the same time.”

There’s more information, photos and video of the action here.

To download  Silvia Purdie’s full interview with Michael Apathi, click here.

The post Takitumu Mine Occupation, May 2022 appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

WELLINGTON PROTEST: Midland Park, outside Fonterra’s office at 157 Lambton Quay, at 1 pm on Friday 28 May.

New Zealand’s largest company, Fonterra, is the major culprit in New Zealand’s most critical environmental and climate problems.

Fonterra, and its farmers, profit from dumping their pollution and waste, for free, into our atmosphere, water and soil.

This is the cause of worsening climate change, unswimmable rivers and undrinkable waters, along with poor animal welfare, tropical deforestation, loss of amenity and biodiversity, and health risks to Kiwis, from premature and breastfeeding infants, to adults risking gastrointestinal illness, including colorectal cancer.

Put simply, Fonterra is at the centre of a web of destruction caused by too many cows, in the wrong places.

Between 1990 and 2019, dairy cattle numbers increased by 82% nationally, from 3.4 million to 6.3 million. Dairy cattle increased almost tenfold in Canterbury (from 113,000 to 1.2 million).

The thin, dry and stony soils of Canterbury, the Mackenzie Basin and Otago are totally unsuitable for intensive dairying, which exists  only through unsustainable inputs of irrigation water, synthetic nitrogen fertilisers and imported feed such as palm kernel.

Photo: Duncan Brown

Intensive dairying also produces copious quantities of two dangerous climate-changing gases, methane and nitrous oxide, in addition to the carbon dioxide produced by Fonterra’s powdered milk factories, which burn about 500,000 tonnes of coal every year.

The waste water from those factories is dumped onto neighbouring, cow-free, “ghost farms”, and is so polluting that farmers and their neighbours dare not drink from their wells, nor eat from their veggie gardens.

New Zealand’s animal overstocking is so bad, that New Zealand risks having trade barriers imposed on us by more environmentally-aware countries, especially since agriculture remains outside the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Fonterra’s toxic rip-off of New Zealand’s environment and people must stop!

We call on Fonterra and its farmer owners to reduce cow numbers by 50% nationwide, and reduce them to 1990 levels in the worst-affected regions of Canterbury, the Mackenzie Basin and Otago.

We also call on Fonterra to stop burning coal by 2027, not a decade later as it currently proposes.

AUCKLAND PROTEST: Victoria Park, cnr Halsey & Fanshawe St, opposite Fonterra HQ at 109 Fanshawe St, at 3 pm on Friday 28 May.

WELLINGTON PROTEST: Midland Park, outside Fonterra’s office at 157 Lambton Quay, at 1 pm on Friday 28 May.

To join the nationwide protest movement, contact your local elected officials, newspapers and trade unions; post on social media and support groups such as:

Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA):  www.coalaction.org.nz

Aotearoa Water Action (AWA): www.aotearoawateraction.org.nz

Extinction Rebellion (XR):  extinctionrebellion.nz/christchurch/water-campaign/

The post Protest Fonterra, New Zealand’s Worst Polluter, this Friday, 28th May 2021 appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Here is a range of views that our organising committee recommend as interesting and informative:

Russel Norman, Greenpeace: “A sellout of monumental proportions… we have to go back to the streets because this government has now failed on climate change… what other choice do people have when the government rolls and adopts the polluter’s plan?”

Simon Wilson: “Not good enough, but still good… Jacinda Ardern is right to hail the new agreement. It’s a world-first and should, could, be the start of something big… right now the targets don’t matter as much as the process. This is an emergency and we’re just at the start of it.”

Rod Oram: “A turning point 20 years in the making, bringing us into line with more than 20 other jurisdictions around the world (that) have set similar long term climate goals, and established independent climate commissions to oversee the carbon budgets and policy … Above all, such systems give business the required long term certainty.”

Extinction Rebellion: “Either we make history, or we are history… we must draw the line on fossil fuels before it’s too late.”

The post The Zero-Carbon Act and the amended Emissions Trading Scheme appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Extinction Rebellion takes a tour of downtown Wellington to point out the coal industry stalwarts and ask why they’re still there in the face of a climate emergency. 

“There are coal companies in Wellington??”

That’s the incredulous response every single time we mention taking the public on a tour of the biggest coal industry companies and supporters in Wellington.

Yes, appallingly, there are. Right here in our beautiful, progressive, kākā-filled coolest little capital. While we enjoy our green belt and harbour views, Wellington-based coal advocates and companies are responsible for expanding coal mining in the Waikato, Canterbury, Southland and on the South Island’s West Coast, devastating the local ecosystems and spewing further CO2 into the atmosphere when we are already in a climate and ecological emergency. So, the local Extinction Rebellion group hosted a tour of four of the biggest baddies, highlighting Welly’s less promotional title of the “coalest little capital”.

First up, right there on Willeston Street, is the head office of the biggest coal company in the country, Bathurst Resources. Bathurst started as a small Australian company before deciding to cross the Tasman in search of easier pickings. They scratched around to little effect before partnering with fishing company Talleys, which presumably concluded that its environmental reputation couldn’t get any worse anyway. They formed BT Mining and bought up the mines of former state-owned coal miner Solid Energy at bargain-basement prices when that company went bust.

Between them, Bathurst and BT Mining mined over two million tonnes of coal from New Zealand soil in 2017, leading to an estimated four million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions that our planet’s overheated atmosphere does not need. Bathurst’s reckless destruction of the beautiful, biodiverse Denniston plateau also shows its contempt for anything other than profit.

Coal consumer Fonterra, New Zealand’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, has its Wellington headquarters on Lambton Quay. Most of Fonterra’s emissions come from its on-farm activities, driven by its relentless, reckless programme of dairy intensification that has left farmers in hock to predatory banks, and rivers, lakes and landscapes ruined throughout the country. In addition, Fonterra uses fossil fuels for most of its milk-drying. In 2017, the dairy co-operative reported that it had burned 500,000 tonnes of coal leading to 837,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Fonterra is moving to replace burning coal for heat, instead using electricity and burning biomass from sustainable sources, such as wood waste – but its progress is nowhere near fast enough relative to the scale of the climate emergency we face.

Next there is Straterra the mining lobbyist on the Terrace, whose sole purpose is to promote mining. Within Straterra nestles the Coal Association of New Zealand, chaired by the CEO of Bathurst Resources. They have no intention whatsoever to phase out coal. Indeed all their plans rely on the assumption that some magical technology will be discovered that will allow them to keep expanding coal mining forever. Spoiler: it isn’t going to happen.

Even the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has a department called NZ Petroleum and Minerals (NZPAM), whose taxpayer-funded staff spend their days promoting mining – so explicitly that it’s hard to distinguish NZPAM’s work from industry lobbyists Straterra.

NZPAM oversees legislation in the Crown Minerals Act that specifically states its purpose as “to promote prospecting for, exploration for, and mining of Crown-owned minerals” – including coal. Government departments should be managing the end of coal in New Zealand and ensuring a just transition away from fossil fuels. Instead, NZPAM acts as cheerleaders and enablers for this deadly industry.

At this point, the need to phase out coal is obvious. The wreckage of habitats and local air and water pollution from coal mining are reason enough, before even factoring in the climate emergency. And the key point is: we don’t need it. Coal is on the way out – for heat production, for energy generation, and even for steel production. Fossil-free production processes are now being scaled up to commercial levels, and much more could be done with recycling steel and with wood-based construction that has the added benefit of sequestering carbon.

These coal advocates have had a free rein for too long. That era is over.

Melanie Vautier and Tim Jones are climate change activists and members of Coal Action Network Aotearoa and Extinction Rebellion.

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I recently found myself in Dunedin for the first time in a decade. It was wonderful to rediscover the city- not for the usual touristy things, but as an anti-coal advocate; there to support, among other things, the blockade at the Minerals Forum. The Forum was a conference involving promoting the expansion of coal in NZ. A (wonderfully named) COALition of activist groups including Coal Action Network Aotearoa had gotten together to tell the delegates exactly how unwelcome they were in their city.

We headed down in the darkness, where already at 6am delegates were scurrying into the building- three hours early, just to avoid us! Woohoo. Security had been standing there all night- it was about time we broke up the monotony.

Groups of dozens stood arm in arm, blocking a rumoured thirty-something entryways. There was an almost constant flow of support people coming around offering apples, water, snacks; others stopped by with various musical instruments for some entertainment or a singalong, still more raced around with walkie talkies saying where more people were needed. There was a chill tent with beanbags, there was about four thousand signs and banners, there was an appointed chef for a vegan BBQ. Every now and then things got intense as the delegates, generally alongside police but not necessarily, tried to barge their way through. We’d link arms just as staunchly as we possibly could, stand our ground, frenetic chants would well up of “We’re non-violent, how about you?” and we made it really, really difficult for them to get in.

We had everyone from high school students to retirees- none of whom shied away from the frontline. All ages, genders and backgrounds, linking up and singing songs. Our diversity was a stark contrast to the huddle of delegates we blocked- a sea of grey hair. In movie war scenes I always wonder how you can tell amongst the chaos who is a goodie and who is a baddie. In a blockade, it’s easy: baddies wear suits, protesters wear puffer jackets or colourful leggings or penguin onesies. Some protesters did wear suits, but they also all wore beanies; so in any potential times of confusion you can just check heads for beanies and you could be fairly confident who you were dealing with. And if you find yourself not on the side of the colourful leggings and the penguin indiscriminately giving out free hugs, you really have to question some life decisions.

I have to acknowledge the fantastic group of people involved in the blockade. That must be one of the most universally compassionate and sensitive environments I have ever encountered. They manage to successfully have no hierarchy, which baffled some people who wanted to speak to our ‘leader.’ Everyone brought their own vibes and it became an amazing collaborative spectacle. From harmonicas to hula hoopers, from hands glued to doors to those who stood nearby with signs and moral support, from the videographers and live streamers to the mystery people who pulled off a spectacular banner drop; it felt like one big amazing diverse organism, the sum so much more than its parts.

We kept a lot of them out for most of the morning, and when the last ones got through we dropped our positions, picked up various implements, and had ourselves a little party making as much noise as we could!

Unbeknownst to us, the mayor inside was bravely telling a room full of miners that he was on our side: “the people outside those doors are expressing the overwhelming view of this community and my Council.” I don’t think they’ll be in a hurry to host a mining conference in Dunedin again anytime soon.

So I spent four days in Dunedin, saw very little of the city, but would not have it any other way. Standing there in the early morning darkness, linking arms with strangers, singing Te Aroha – I felt in my bones there was nowhere I’d rather be. *

*Of course, really, I’d rather there wasn’t a climate emergency and I could just go down and see the penguins; but given the state of things- confronting the mining industry was pretty satisfying too…!

**I have also just about recovered from my lingering instinct to block the path of any suited man I see; which has not been ideal in the streets of Wellington.

The post The Minerals Blockade: A View From the Frontline appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Humanity has just 12 years to halve carbon emissions and eliminate their use entirely by 2050, else the planet will heat to over 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, with catastrophic implications.  If the current emissions trajectory continues, we will reach an unlivable 3+ degrees by 2100.  This will happen not to “future generations” but to our children now living, as well as many of us reading this.

Yet, we have the means to prevent this tragedy.  Addressing road-blocking crowds in London, George Monbiot summarised the key changes we need in energy, transport, diet, land-use, forests and economic structure etc.

NO government is making the urgent changes needed to swing this around – emissions and warming keep climbing, habitats & species vanishing, forests, farmland & water dwindling, seas dying and displaced peoples on the move. Nothing that climate activists have done so far has made those in power sit up & take notice to the level needed.

Many people are now committed to non-violent civil disobedience to pressure/mandate their governments to pull finger.  In UK Extinction Rebellion (XR) is staging continued road blockages, in Australia, thousands of school students held strikes in every state, and in New Zealand 11 centres now have an active XR group.

How does this differ from what groups like CANA, Greenpeace, 350 etc are doing? XR brings together the concerns that so many of us have been working on into a few simple, urgent and determined demands – that governments tell the truth about the crisis, that they use their power to put the country on an emergency footing and make the deep changes needed, and that we set up mechanisms to hold those in power accountable.

 XR does not cut across existing campaigns, it brings them together.   It gives them a deep urgency, it calls out courage and commitment from us. XR’s processes and kaupapa feel robust, pragmatic and workable. I‘ve felt profound relief to share with others my grief and rage about what’s happening, to ‘tell it like it is” in my climate conversations with others – and exciting to find how easy these conversations suddenly have become and how receptive so many people are.

XR is aiming for a global day of mass civil disobedience in mid April. Working towards that, XR groups are trying out smaller actions, gathering resources, reaching out to as many people and groups as possible to gain widespread support.

Join us, we need your skill and experience as someone already concerned and committed. This is an unprecedented opportunity to reach many more New Zealanders and to show Government that it has the mandate for the urgent and effective changes we need to swing round our headlong race to extinction.

Find out more

What XR’s about – the long vid (50 mins) and the short vid (George Monbiot’s speech – 5mins).

XRAotearoa/NZ – website & links to local groups

XRANZ Facebook group

Open Letter from 150 NZ academics calling for radical urgent action.

Extinction Rebellion & Rising Up (UK) Website & Facebook  & overview

What you can do

Spread the word and join with others

• This 50min video is factual and moving – watch it with your mates or group.
• Organise an Open Letter to Government – like the open letter above.  Open Letters signed by many members of groups like churches, unions, business, farmers, teachers, health workers, grandparents etc are public and build momentum.
• Join your local group – look for it on Facebook. Direct action, outreach, training, art, feeding the troops, spreading XR stickers, doing presentations, admin etc –  it’s all needed!

XR’s kaupapa is one of non-violence, democratic participation and distributed power. The centre/core offers the resources & tools, logos and mates to work with – it’s up to YOU to explore what works for you and to join in!

Prepared by Torfrida Wainwright, active in CANA,350 Christchurch and Our Climate Declaration

Contact torfrida@snap.net.nz, ph 021 107 3937 or 03 382-0580 ir on facebook.

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