Land Defense

The Rouyn-Noranda popular self-defense camp is a community initiative born out of refusal of the agreement between Glencore and the government (15 ng over 5 years). The solution of a buffer zone proposed by Glencore and different bodies will not prevent toxic gases from spreading across the entire territory. We are making a call for solidarity and unity to all people and groups from all walks of life which struggle to protect the ecosystem from the capitalist machine. Let’s converge our struggles and our revolt! Join the front lines of the fight, at the foot of the smokestacks of the Glencore Horne foundry, of which five Quebec subsidiaries are among the 100 largest polluters in the province. ...

Enough is enough! The forests, animals and ancestral sovereignty of the Innu people are under attack from the forestry industry, which is abusively operating on Nitassinan (Innu territory) without the consent of the territory’s guardian families. On May 29, the Mashk Assi collective, an independent group of territory guardians, delivered an eviction letter to seven foresters advising them that their logging operations are illegal. No trees may be cut for profit on unceded land without the consent of the landowning families. ...

Creeker Vol 4 has been released! In the summer of 2021 on Vancouver Island, thousands of people moved through a de-facto autonomous zone spanning multiple watersheds. An entire constellation of struggle burned bright, welcoming into its fold a new generation of land defenders. Creeker is a grassroots, anti-authoritarian zine series that aims to bring depth, variety, critique and continuity to the ongoing process of reflecting on the Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek blockades. It’s intended for creekers themselves, land defenders elsewhere, and the land defenders yet to come. ...

For the past two years, peasants living on the banks of the Zapatosa swamp in Colombia have been participating in the recovery of 8,000 hectares of land. Their goal is to protect the wetlands, improve their lives and build food sovereignty. In doing so, the peasants are opposing powerful interests that have seized the land for oil palm agribusiness and cattle and buffalo breeding…

In order to enforce the moratorium on logging on their territory, Nitaskinan, members of the Atikamekw of Manawan are currently setting up a new blockade. It is located at km 16 on the road to Manawan, north of St-Michel-des-Saints. Logging companies have been informed that they will not be able to return with their machinery when the thaw occurs on May 19. We need to be many to ensure that they respect this instruction. ...

Militarization and expansion of police power is a global threat. The fight back against the Cop City development project in Atlanta mirrors other local struggles everywhere. This solid and long standing frontline struggle represents how the destruction of natural habitats is interconnected with state violence and repression. At the edge of Welaunee forest, every cop pushed back with fireworks and every piece of construction equipment set ablaze is welcomed with cheer from companions all over turtle island and beyond. ...

Over the past few months, several sections of the coastal gaslink pipeline have been vandalized. Financially, the consequences of each act were minor: a few holes in the pipeline here, some corroded welding seams there, damaged concrete here. Our goal was to contribute to the small delays in a project that was already well over budget. We drilled holes less than a penny wide in a section of pipe that had not yet been lowered into the trench. We covered the holes with fiberglass film, which temporarily prevents leaks in the pipes, but only lasts a few months. We know that welded sections of coated pipe are assessed before being lowered into the trench. After the trench is backfilled, they are tested under pressure. The holes were sealed in the hope that they would pass the first pressure test, but will have to be excavated and repaired before the pipeline is completed. This occurred during the last week of October on section 8 of the pipeline, between Kilometers 610 and 613. Between 585 and 588 kilometers of the pipeline, we found a section of pipe that had been dug out, so we damaged the coating at the joints by chipping and sanding it off in less visible places. This coating is needed to protect the pipe from corrosion and rust. We did this in early November. We liked this approach because the damage is not visible, but can still have a significant long-term structural impact if corrosion and rust show up, so it will need to be fixed. We drilled very small holes and filled them this time with an epoxy putty, somewhere between Kilometers 605 and 608 of the pipeline route (that’s in section 8.) We did this in the second week of November. We weren’t sure if the sealant would withstand the pressure test, but decided it was worth a try since this sealant is easier to source and use than the fiberglass coating. At the end of November, we drilled and filled holes in the pipe string before it would be lowered into section 6 of the pipeline between Kilometers 486 and 489. In early December, we chipped and busted the welds on a section of pipe that had not yet been lowered into the trench between Kilometers 606 and 609. We damaged the protective coating on a section of pipe by chipping and grinding, and chipped a welded seam on several sections of pipe before they were backfilled between Kilometer 377 and 380 of section 5 of the pipeline. This work was performed in early January. Near Kilometer 27 of North Hirsch forestry road we damaged welds and coating on a pipe section in the middle of January. We poured hydrochloric acid on the concrete pipes we knew were meant for the tunnel under Wedzin Kwa and used a concrete drill inside the pipe to weaken them even further. The concrete pipes are designed to protect the pipe itself from the pressure of the surrounding soil. Given the heightened security and surveillance of concrete pipe storage, we can’t say when this happened. In early December, we grinded and chipped the coating on the welded seams of the pipe sections between Kilometers 598 to 601. In mid February, we scraped and chipped large portions of the pipe coating of the string between Kilometers 626 and 629. Or is that in fact what happened? Only some of these activities have actually taken place. We waited to share this information all at once, complete with some additional false reports, so the only way to know where repairs are really needed is to excavate and re-examine all the above-mentioned pipes. Cracked concrete or rusted and patched pipes can lead to small leaks and large-scale spills, which is why every action, whether genuine or falsified, is being brought to the attention of the public long before the pipeline is operational. ...

With good preparation and trusted comrades, overcoming the fear of repression is much easier than it may first appear… This Friday, December 16th around 7am, a column of black smoke rises in the snowy sky of the winter’s first storm. A pile of tires are on fire on the rails of line 2 of the Exo commuter train network. The fire was lit a hundred meters south of Bois-de-Boulogne station in order to halt rail traffic in the middle of rush hour. By disrupting the start of this new day of commerce, we wanted to target the Canadian economy and contribute to avenging the Wedzin Kwa under which Coastal GasLink has drilled. ...

While COP15 is taking place in the streets of Montreal and the Canadian government is doing its greenwashing dance for the world, construction of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory continues against the will of the nation, whose guardians have opposed oil drilling for years. This ecocidal project threatens the Wedzin Kwa River and the wildlife of the Yintah; while Canada pays lip service to biodiversity at COP15, CGL blasts dynamite and lays pipe through Wet’suwet’en waters* , threatening already endangered salmon, eel, and other non-human life. ...

The excavator that arrived at the boisé steinberg was sabotaged. All possible cables were cut. We will continue to fight the expansion of the port and its infrastructure. The people who plan the roads, the containers, the maritime strategy Advantage Saint Laurent and the innovation zones that are being set up along the river are working for projects that bring death. We are fighting for the living. ...

In the early hours of Oct 26th several RCMP C-IRG vehicles were lit on fire in the Smithers Sunshine Inn parking lot. As you read this, Coastal GasLink drills beneath the sacred headwaters of the Wedzin Kwa. The ground shakes in Wet’suwet’en territories. For every tremor of the earth as they drive their borehead and blast their explosives through riverbed and rock, right beneath schools of spawning salmon, tremors of pain and rage reverberate through the hearts of those who still have space to feel it. ...

In the early hours of Nov 5, groups of anarchists acted in solidarity with Sleydo’s call for action to support the ongoing Wet’suwet’en battle to protect the yintah and kill the drill. Rail lines were sabotaged at several points in a disruption of business-as-usual along main arteries of the freight system. They will continue to be sabotaged at random far into the future, at every corner of rail line across the turtle’s back. ...