When both you and the journalists who are accompanying you start getting arrested and deported it’s usually a sign that you’re doing something right. At least that’s the case if you work for an organisation that takes direct action against injustice.
The 11 foreign activists who have been deported over the last few days.
Indonesian authorities have ramped up Intimidation tactics against Greenpeace activists, independent media and local community members supporting our Climate Defenders Camp on the Kampar Peninsula on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
From Sarah Burton, now in Jakarta:
I have learned that in campaigning things can change overnight, of course, and in this campaign, I have learned that things can change two or three times overnight. Here’s what happened overnight.
Kumi Naidoo, the new Executive Director of Greenpeace International
From Making Waves
In several African languages we have the proverb “I am, because you are”. This means that your sense of being a human being is determined by the relationships you have with other people. This proverb has informed not only my thinking about human relationships, but also about nature and the environment. Unless we recognise that we must come together in communities, in rich and poor countries and cut across the range of divides that keep us apart, unless we recognise that we are all in this together, we will not be able to address the environmental challenges that we face and we certainly will not be able to address the problem of climate change.
Today we are at the cross roads. The future of our planet is at stake. The effects of climate change are being felt by millions of people across the world. We are at a time when civil society needs to be courageous and bold, peaceful and principled in coming together to ensure that we stop catastrophic climate change – the biggest challenge our planet has ever faced.
Sarah applauds the local communities for their efforts to protect their forests and thanks them for their support of Greenpeace. ©Ardiles Rante/Grenpeace
Well, when I finished writing yesterday, I really thought that I would be going to the Climate defenders camp to bear witness to a peaceful demonstration of activism being disrupted and our team and local community representatives being evicted.
What an amazing day we have had here in Indonesia today…
Community supporters arrived by the hundreds. ©Will Rose/Greenpeace
In a surprising move, the chief of police of Pelalawan district has revoked yesterdays eviction order after 300 locals from nearby Teluk Meranti village turned up at the camp this morning to show their support.
The eviction notice was delivered in response to pressure from climate criminals after pulp and paper giant APRIL’s operations were stopped by Greenpeace activists for over 10 hours on Thursday. An action which was strongly supported by local communities.
Here is an update from the Climate Defenders Camp in Indonesia, which is now being shutdown by the police.
Great footage from the ground in Indonesia – where our activists have been taking direct action at the frontline of forest destruction.
As darkness fell last night, our activists from the Climate Defenders Camp in Indonesia, ended yesterdays action against pulp and paper giant APRIL who continue to be involved in mass forest clearance, despite repeatedly stating that they have ceased such activities in the Kampar Peninsula.
The action, undertaken in the heart of the Sumatran rainforest, successfully prevented APRIL staff from using excavators and heavy machinery, stopping the clearing of carbon-rich peatland and intact forest for 10 hours.
From Making Waves
Claudia Misch writes:
I have the privilege to be the assistant to Gerd Leipold, who this week steps down as Executive Director and Chief Troublemaker at Greenpeace International.
While nobody is surprised that Greenpeace’s leader is an activist –Gerd has been arrested in Germany and the Pacific and a few places in between — not many people realise he is also a scientist. He studied physics, meteorology and oceanography in Munich and Hamburg, then worked at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and modeled ocean currents as part of the Institute’s climate research.
