Victories

US Forest Service scraps plan to log old-growth in the Globe Forest

A few days before our regional rendezvous in the Pisgah National Forest, the Forest Service announced they had reached an agreement with mainstream environmental groups to remove an important section of forest from a timber sale which contained rare old-growth habitat.

What we did:

-Held multiple, rowdy demonstrations outside the Forest Service office in Asheville to protest the cut and spread information to the public about their plans.  They were publicized and discussed in mainstream newspapers such as the Mountain Express and Citizen Times with much public support.

- Held an action camp in September 2009 to teach people how to climb trees and blockade roads.

-Held a regional rendezvous in July 2010 to gather nation-wide support in resisting the cut.

- Held a civil disobedience action following the rondy where an Earth First!er locked his neck to the front door of the office, getting media attention and disrupting business as usual.

Bank of America drops financing of mountaintop removal coal mining.

In November of 2008, Bank of America said that they would drop financing for coal companies that get more than half of their coal using mountaintop removal. While initially we were skeptical of the announcement, BoA has dropped some of the worst coal companies such as Massey Energy.

This was a nationwide campaign against the bank. What we did:

· We joined with Rising Tide and Rainforest Action Network to force the Charlotte-based bank to drop financing of mountaintop removal coal mining.
We regularly shut down BoA ATMs with “out of order” signs and other methods.

· Over a dozen of us marched on the branch office on Oberlin St. in Raleigh on a day of action against BoA in 2007 and wrapped the bank in crime scene tape. One person was arrested and two were trespassed.

· Throughout the year there were multiple protests at branches in Chapel Hill and Apex.

· We held “Billionaires for Coal” protests at Chapel Hill and multiple Raleigh branch offices.

· We went to Charlotte for the 2008 annual shareholders meeting of BoA where we shamed investors, and displayed a coal-filled, condom-headed effigy of Ken Lewis (CEO of BoA at the time). While we were outside members of Rainforest Action Network were inside presenting resolutions for pulling coal funding.

· We participated in a lockdown at the regional office of BoA in Asheville where 5 activists were arrested after the 2007 Southeast Climate Convergence. Police responded with a bus full of riot cops and attack dogs.

· The 2008 Southeast Climate Convergence ended with some arrests following a lockdown at the Richmond, VA regional office of BoA.

The National Bio- and Agro-defense Facility (NBAF) is not built in Butner, NC and eventually not built at all.

The Department of Homeland Security proposed building a giant research lab that would have contained diseases with no known cure. This lab would have regularly infected farm animals just to watch them die. It would have produced large amounts of contaminated animal waste and bodies that would have been burned or buried. Local citizens where concerned about the hazardous waste coming out of this place in the form of air, ground and water pollution. After strong opposition here, DHS decided to build the biolab in Manhattan, KS. The project has had its funding denied several times and will probably never get built.

What we did:

· We shot footage of Granville Non-violent Action Team (GNAT) events.

· We helped get the Raleigh city council to come out against the project. The biolab would have been located in the watershed of Raleigh’s drinking supply.

· We broke out the bucket drums at a Butner town council meeting where GNATs considered getting arrested.

· We helped plan a direct action strategy with GNAT.

· We held a demonstration and spoke out at a Homeland Security public hearing about the lab.

The Meigs County Coal Plant is scrapped.

Meigs County, OH is one of the most polluted counties in the country since it already hosts a number of coal plants. AMP-Ohio proposed building a new 1,000 MW coal-fired plant. Local student groups and activists had been regularly pressuring AMP-Ohio to drop the plant. On the day that construction was supposed to begin, the company announced that it was canceling the project.

What we did:

· After the 2008 Round River Rendezvous in Ohio, we occupied the lobby of AMP-Ohio’s headquarters in Columbus with 8 people locked together in a circle. Police pepper-sprayed people inside, including several Croatan EF!ers.