The Utah Wilderness Coalition has this to say about off road vehicles:
“Most public lands are unprotected from ORVs in Utah. Roughly seventy-five percent, or 17 million acres out of 23 million acres, of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in Utah still lack any real protection (including designated routes, maps, trail signs, and other tools to ensure that these natural areas are protected) from ORV damage.
“Utah has over 100,000 miles of dirt roads, jeep trails, and old mining tracks. Driving all of these trails would be the equivalent of driving four times the circumference of the Earth.
“The BLM allows nearly uncontrolled ORV use in areas that have known but unrecorded archeological resources, putting these resources at risk from vandalism and unintentional damage. ORVs can cause damage to fragile desert soils, streams, vegetation, and wildlife. Impacts include churning of soils, distribution of non-native invasive plants, and increased erosion and runoff. Rare plant, wildlife, and fish species are at risk.
“ORV use is growing nationwide. In the past 30 years, the number of off-road vehicles in the United States has grown from 5 million to roughly 36 million ORVs. The BLM has fallen woefully behind in the management of these machines on public lands.
Many of the yellow lines are old roads that have been re-injured by off road vehicles. Graphic courtesy of Canyonlands Watershed Council.
Everywhere where there is affordable gasoline, ORVs are impacting deserts, forests, tundra and grasslands. New technology has made much more terrain easily accessible to people driving quads (4-wheel ORVs), motorcycles, and snowmobiles. This has become the new disease of the frontier, spreading soil erosion, water pollution, and invasive weeds. In the Colorado Plateau’s especially fragile soils, motorized recreation–particularly illegal trails–crush “biological soil crusts,” (previously known as “cryptobiotic soil”) impacts that last for decades. Fine sand that was held in place by a matrix of fungi, algae, mosses, lichen, and cyanobacteria is eroded by wind and water, leaving less purchase for larger plants and carrying dust onto mountain snows that hastens spring melt.
Off road vehicle impacts are widespread but hard to quantify, since they have many primary and secondary impacts both on the land itself and on public lands policy. One activist told us of the map on the left, “Those are the currently existing, poorly built–usually not intentionally built at all–’roads.’ They’re not new. The only reason it was the proposed road system is that before the new RMP [Resource Management Plan], those roads had little or no legal status–they were just scars on the landscape, most of them left over from the uranium days. They were healing pretty well until the ORVers got ahold of them, and made them into a playground. And, just as importantly, lobbied to get those ‘roads’ legally designated as such, so that they couldn’t be closed. And perhaps even more importantly, the legal RMP designation of those ‘roads’ means that the area could not realistically be designated wilderness, roadless, etc. Having those old scars be designated as ORV routes essentially prevents the whole area from being protected.
Illegal trails
“The RMP is final, and is currently in effect. It is also under litigation and could be rescinded, or partially reconsidered, if the Obama Administration wants the plaintiffs to drop the lawsuit and make a deal.”
In the next few posts we’ll be examining the impacts and implications of off road vehicles, studying past efforts to prevent their often-illegal activities, and proposing possible means of resistance. We invite commentary and suggestions.
Deep Green Resistance Four Corners is an affiliated action group of Deep Green Resistance International. Our mission is building a culture of resistance to defend the land base of the Colorado Plateau, a semi-arid high elevation region of sandstone canyons, mesas, buttes, and mountain ranges surrounding the four corners region of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Occupy The Trees (The Mother Earth Tree Convention)
Occupations across the US and around the world are being asked to step up and protest the corporate rape of Mother Earth, and the exploitation of Her limited resources.
“We ask that you take to occupying the trees by placing tree sitters in them for one week, or for as long as your team(s) can do it. Find trees in front of banks who support the corporations, trees in front of the corporations who pollute the earth, air and water. Trees in front of corporations who clear our forests, poison & kill wildlife and people. And rare trees that are at threat of being cut down in the name of corporate greed.”
Due to a current lack of equipment and skill sets, Earth First! Durango is calling for support and training from knowledgeable, experienced tree climbers/sitters. We intend to form a ground encampment, but will not take to the trees under unsafe conditions. We will begin our encampment by assessing our options and resources, and deciding together what we’re capable of. Please contact us if you have skills and/or life-safe equipment to offer.
Please contact occupy-the-trees@riseup.net for more info or to get involved!
~This action has not been consented upon by the Occupy Durango General Assembly.~
An old and somewhat outdated orientation guide about living in the woods and how EF! functions. Needs an update but it is here because it still provides usefull information.
We are inviting folks to propose workshops, discussions, films, etc. for this years event.
This year LED will be held on Sunday April 22 from 1-7pm at Taala Hooghan Infoshop. As always, this event is free to attend.
Please send workshop proposals by March 31st to infofosho@gmail.com. Space is very limited!
We’ll work to notify folks of participation as soon as we get proposals in.
ABOUT LED:
Earth Day has become an act of ritualized consumption by corporations and state agencies that greenwash their eco-cidal actions. LED is an educational and active anti-capitalist/anti-colonial event that addresses direct and meaningful ways towards healthy and sustainable communities.
In the past we’ve had skill-shares on sacred lands protection, direct action, permaculture, discussions on eco-feminism, green scare and much more.
Join us for this educational and active event for an end to corporate greenwashing & “green” capitalism!
Some workshops and discussion at previous Liberate Earth Day events:
3rd Annual Workshops:
Anarchist Understandings of Nature and Social Change
Moon Time Liberation
An Affordable Way to Catch and Dispense Your Water
Green Consumerism: The Misguided Discourse on Sustainability
The Green Washing of the Prison Industrial Complex
Film Presentation: “Animal Exploitation, Heteropatriarchy and the Three
Pillars of White Supremacy.”
Underlying Contradictions in Liberation Struggles: A Discussion on Strategies Towards Meaningful Support and Solidarity
2nd Annual Workshops:
Abolish Profit Farming & the Importance of Autonomous Agriculture
Green Consumerism: The Misguided Discourse on Sustainability
Eco-Feminism
Derrick Jensen: The Problem of Civilization and Resistance (online video discussion)
Defending Sacred Lands – Intersections of environmental and social struggles for justice
Direct Action: Tactical training and discussion
1st Annual:
Abolishing the Non-profit Industrial Complex
Indigenous Traditionalism, Sustainability, & Civilization
Guerilla Gardening
Green Consumerism
Addressing the “Green Scare”
Community Members & Activists Confront Suncor Energy at Oil Leak Site
Protestors demand an end to pollution in Colorado, Canada
Commerce City, Colo – Members of the Stop Suncor and Tar Sands Coalition, including the American Indian Movement of Colorado (AIM), Deep Green Resistance Colorado (DGR), United Community Action Network (UCAN), Occupy Denver, Front Range Rising Tide, 350.org, Boulder Food Rescue, and concerned citizens rallied and occupied the site of Suncor Energy’s oil leak on the shore of Sand Creek. Acting as Private Attorneys General, under the authority of the Clean Water Act, water samples were taken to be tested for contaminants. The demonstration sought to bring public attention to the fact that Suncor Energy’s continued negligence and environmental degradation is killing Colorado communities, water and wildlife, and to force the industrial polluter to confront the effects of its actions.
“Suncor has so poisoned this land, that oil is not spilling into these waters, it is bubbling up through the toxified soil from numerous burst sub-surface pipelines,” Deanna Meyer of Deep Green Resistance Colorado said. “ Benzene levels in this water—water that fish, ducks, geese, beavers, trees, grasses and many other beings depend on—are 100 times the safety standard, and what’s happening here is nothing compared to the destruction of the tar sands.”
Suncor’s role in the tar sands is contributing to a devastated climate and world, and is harming indigenous communities in Canada as well as people living in local communities in Colorado. The development of the tar sands—a form of oil deposit—in Athabasca has led to the deforestation of tens of thousands of square miles of the Boreal forest and the destruction of First Nations cultures. Suncor Energy declares itself to be the first corporation to begin the extraction of this abnormally dirty form of oil, and continues to do so today. Currently, Suncor produces more than 90,000 barrels of oil a day, much of this from tar sands oil, at its refinery in Commerce City, Colorado.
“All the oil that’s being spilled here came from Athabasca, which is a First Nation community. My people up there are suffering because of the oil we’re refining here,” said Tessa McLean of American Indian Movement of Colorado to the group of more than 150 that occupied the spill site. “We don’t want that oil here!”
While the spill was first reported on November 27th of last year, it is believed to have begun nine months earlier, when an underground pipe failed a pressure test, in February of 2011. However, Suncor’s history of negligence and degradation goes far beyond 2011 (when 3 different leaks were reported). Underground “plumes” of leaked oil dot the refinery grounds, the wounds and scars left by the refinery’s operation. In addition, the refinery has been cited with nearly 100 distinct air-quality violations.
“Suncor’s activities are beyond toxic, they are incompatible with a living world and they must be stopped. A safe a just world has no place for oil leaks, toxic air, poisoned water, or the tar sands,” said the coalition.
On December 31st, the Stop Suncor and Tar Sands Coalition organized a march and rally to protest Suncor Energy on the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver. After having now come to the site of the leak and become more familiar with the severity of the damage being wrought by Suncor, the group reiterated the need to confront and stop ecocide, whether that of Colorado waters and wildlife, or the Boreal forest of Athabasca.
As Tessa McLean said, “only when the last tree has been cut, only when the last fish has been caught, only when the last river has dried up, will we realize we cannot eat money.”
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — Taking to the streets to protest the clean-up of Sand Creek, some 200 people made themselves heard in Commerce City Saturday.“So I want everybody to be aware of what’s happening in our backyard,” said Scott Denver Jacket, one of the protest organizers. Roughly 200 people lined I-270 around 4:00 p.m. Saturday, slowing traffic, drawing two Commerce City police cars. They carried signs reading “Lies”, “Got Benzene” and “Suncor Killed This River”.
Occupy The Trees (The Mother Earth Tree Convention)
Occupations across the US and around the world are being asked to step up and protest the corporate rape of Mother Earth, and the exploitation of Her limited resources.
“We ask that you take to occupying the trees by placing tree sitters in them for one week, or for as long as your team(s) can do it. Find trees in front of banks who support the corporations, trees in front of the corporations who pollute the earth, air and water. Trees in front of corporations who clear our forests, poison & kill wildlife and people. And rare trees that are at threat of being cut down in the name of corporate greed.” —Occupy The Trees (The Mother Earth Tree Convention)
Earth First! Durango and Occupy Durango will be occupying an encampment on National Forest land somewhere in the Log Chutes “thinning” project & trail area, near Junction Creek just outside Durango, CO. Come prepared for winter weather conditions!
Due to a current lack of equipment and skill sets, Earth First! Durango is calling for support and training from knowledgeable, experienced tree climbers/sitters. We intend to form a ground encampment, but will not take to the trees under unsafe conditions. We will begin our encampment by assessing our options and resources, and deciding together what we’re capable of. Please contact us if you have skills and/or life-safe equipment to offer.
Please contact occupy-the-trees@riseup.net for more info or to get involved!
~This action has not been consented upon by the Occupy Durango General Assembly.~
An old and somewhat outdated orientation guide about living in the woods and how EF! functions. Needs an update but it is here because it still provides usefull information.
This short video above was created following an Earth First! protest in Salt Lake City, February 20, 2012, at SITLA offices. Check out this post from earlier in the week for more background on the tar sands plans and the growing resistance in Utah.
Below is another film, from last summer when Earth First! raised some hell in Helena, Montana, opposing new tar sands infrastructure in the US.
Yesterday, February 20, the Earth First! 2012 Organizers Conference & Winter Rendezvous culminated in a rowdy demonstration outside the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) offices in downtown Salt Lake City. Earth First! activists staged their protest with local organizers from Utah Tar Sands Resistance and Canyon Country Rising Tide. The offices were closed for Presidents’ Day, but a clear (and messy) message was left at the doorstep—a mock oil spill accompanied by a mural reading “Hey SITLA: Tar Sands Outta Utah!”
The project would lease school trust lands for tar sands extraction in the Book Cliffs area, directly impacting PR Springs, a site which is also utilized for camping and recreation.
“Destruction of education trust lands through tar sands mining is contrary to the mandate of this agency, which requires them to maintain the land for the long term,” said Mark Purdy of Utah Tar Sands Resistance.
An article in the Desert News stated: “The proposed mining operation would occupy a 213-acre site in the East Tavaputts Plateau straddling the borders of Uintah and Grand counties. An ore processing facility would accommodate up to 3,500 tons of ore per day in the production of bitumen. The extraction process would require 1.5 barrels to 2 barrels of water per barrel of bitumen produced… The company will have to post a reclamation bond of nearly $1.7 million before any work is allowed to begin at the site.
Another company, MCW Energy, is proposing a pilot project to test its proprietary solvent in the extraction of bitumen on 1,000 stockpiled tons of tar sands 3 miles west of Vernal in Uintah County.
Opponents have appealed permits issued related to the PR Springs project, with hearings set for next month.”
"oil spill" at SITLA's doorstep (non-toxic, maybe even edibe...)
Utah was chosen specifically as the site of the annual Earth First! winter gathering to highlight resistance to these tar sands proposal, as well as lend support to the courageous actions of people like Tim DeChristopher who was sentenced to a two-years in prison for his effective sabotage of an oil and gas auction on Utah’s public lands.
Along with DeChristopher, two other ecological and animal liberation activists from Utah, Jordan Halliday and Walter Bond, are also currently facing time behind bars for their involvement with direct action efforts. Contacts for these and other eco-prisoners can be found at the Earth First! Journal’s prisoner support page.
In related news, an anonymous communique was also received the previous night, apparently sent back from the future: “The Book Cliffs, where Spotted Owls screech and Elk reign, were under attack… Eco-Warriors worked under the rising sun. We have Molotoved their mining equipment. We have Monkey-Wrenched their machines. We have sawed their bulldozers to pieces. There are no longer any functional drilling tools in the Book Cliffs.
A major blow has been dealt to the oil extraction infrastructure. The PR Springs Mine Project is at its knees. Take Warning. Oil will never be piped through the West. Utah will never be mined. The mines of Alberta will cease.
Image from the futuristic communique distributed at the protest
No longer will our wild places fuel this militarized culture. Your machines are bound to rust. Tar Sand Extraction Profiteers, SITLA, CEO’s Glen D. Snar, and, Mr. Cuthbert; We are coming for you. This is just the beginning…”
The mining equipment is not actually present on-site yet, just in case that was unclear.
5-9PM, Thursday, November 17th, 2011 Noble Hall Room 130, Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO
$3-$15 sliding scale suggested donation. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds. All donations (and 50% of all patch and poster sales!) will go to benefit the Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) Fall Caravan.
In 2008, the Beehive Design Collective allied with Appalachian grassroots organizers fighting Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining, a highly destructive practice that blasts ancient mountains into toxic moonscapes to fuel the ever-growing global demand for electricity. This graphic reflects the complexity of the struggles for land, livelihood, and self-determination playing out in Appalachia, while honoring the tremdendous history of organized resistance and the courage of communities living in the shadow of Big Coal.
Our team of volunteer illustrators and educators have collaborated with hundreds of grassroots groups and folks from around the world to create this visually stunning graphic multi-tool for activists and ordinary people seeking real solutions to energy extraction and climate change!
The True Cost of Coal is dense with metaphors drawn from the natural world. It is rooted in history, grounded in the grinding urgency of MTR, fueled by the looming threat of climate change, and guided by the robust, grassroots resistance of everyday Appalachians. It is populated by characters from the mountains- plants and critters under siege, and fighting back! It is a love letter to the resilient, sustainable world that has quietly endured in the hills and hollers all the while, despite the horrors of displacement, the abuses of the powerful, and the onslaught of industrial scale extraction. It is about the better world our communities are envisioning, building, and defending every day, in a million ways.
You are a part of this story. So are we. From our dependence on coal-powered electricity to our collective ability to organize for climate justice, we are each implicated in the struggle for the mountains, which is really the struggle for all places. Though we cannot pretend to speak for the daily lived realities of the coalfields of Appalachia, we are listening to the wisdom of those that do, and are striving to create a tool to help us all decipher these overwhelming times we are living through. Each of us has a unique piece of the story, and each of our communities has a different kind of power. As we harness that power- and leave the coal in the ground- we are remaking the world.
Teeming with biodiversity and nourished with abundant fresh water, this world is home to generations of plants and animals who are seen enacting the cycles of birth, life, death, and regeneration. Growing, gathering, and preparing food; sharing stories, songs, and skills; producing, exchanging, and reusing goods and tools; and transmitting historical memory, they are intimate with the land and rooted in economies of place.
Next Sunday, Nov. 6th over 4,000 people are participating in a Tar Sands Action protest encircling the White House and urging President Obama to reject the dirtiest project on earth – the Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline – and live up to his promise to “free us from the tyranny of oil”. In doing so, we want to remind him of the power of the movement that he rode to the White House in 2008.
In Denver, we will march in solidarity from the Occupy Denver event at the Denver Federal Reserve Building at 1020 16th Street (Occupy Denver will move locations for Veterans Parade activities at Civic Center Park) to rally at The World Trade Center (1625 Broadway) – office location of the Canadian Consul, which has been lobbying hard for the pipeline.
Please join us! Event schedule:
• 11am-12noon: Occupy Denver Rally and Tar Sands Action sign making at the Federal Reserve Building (1020 16th St.). Meet at the corner of 16th and Curtis to help make signs.
• 12noon-1pm: March with Occupy Denver by banks and the World Trade Center. Stop to rally in solidarity outside the Canadian Consul office at the World Trade Center (1625 Broadway – on 16th St. Mall).
• Tar Sands Action Teach-in: We’re not sure what time we’ll arrive at the World Trade Center, but we anticipate rallying there for about 10-15 minutes. We’ll have great speakers from the American Indian Movement and Indigenous Resistance to the Tar Sands Denver and more. Then we’ll offer a 20-minute Tar Sands Action Teach-in on site for anyone wanting to learn more and get active.
Please invite your friends! Want to volunteer? Email micah@350.org. To learn more, visit http://tarsandsaction.org/.
By Deep Green Resistance Four Corners (Read Part 1 here)
Southwest Earth First! 