Perhaps because he is arabic, he has also been accused at various times of making “terrorist” threats, although obviously the veracity of those accusations is suspect.

New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country, and the slow return of black bear populations has hit it particularly hard. There have been numerous strained human-bear interactions recently, including when a black bear stole a minivan and drove it. There have also been a few bear attacks.

For an interesting discussion of the issue from a gay-bating, homophobic perspective, see the forums on the new jersey hunter webpage.

Unfortunately, someone was later arrested for possible involvement in the incident.

In their press release, the greenwash guerrillas have challenged Thomas Friedman to a debate. The guerrillas have staged such theatre performances in the past, taking a stance against “Carbon Trading” as an effective or just solution to the issues of global warming.

“04-21-08

We, the masked avengers of the Animal Liberation Front released around 40 Blue Iris mink from the breeding stock at Jefferson Fur Farm, 1477 SE Talbot Road, Jefferson, OR. Breeding records containing genetic history were also permanently destroyed. It will be a hard road ahead for these mink and their offspring, but with our help they now have a chance at survival. These animals are not capitalist commodities to be bought and sold for fashion or vanity, but unique individuals deserving of liberation from human exploitation. Even if some of the mink do not make it we feel it is better to die free, then at the hands of their speciesist captors.

To the Posches, owners of Jefferson Fur Farm: Consider this your first warning. Tear down this death camp and let the mink live free. If you don’t we will be back to finish the job.

To others concerned with the well-being of fellow living beings. First and foremost, go vegan. If you’ve been vegan for a while, it’s time to start looking up animal abusers in your area and doing the research for how to effectively cripple them. Work in small affinity groups, be cautious always– macho never, and never give information if captured. It’s time for animal rights to move beyond consumer sub-culture, towards an active liberation movement, which threatens the capitalist commoditization of life and the speciesist ideology itself.

We want to make it very clear that we will not be intimidated by the states continued witch hunt against the earth and animal liberation movements. Draconian prison sentences and repressive legislation will not deter us from our goal of total earth, animal, and human liberation. For every liberator you throw in prison, there will two more to take her place. For every activist’s house you raid, there will ten times that many cages emptied. You can take our freedom, but you will never extinguish the flame that burns in our heart. Let your passion mirror the animals oppression and our persecution.

ALF-Cascadia”

The burned machinery was owned by Blackley Construction and was the only one of its kind in the country. Blackley Construction operations manager Kevin Bush said the drill was an integral piece of equipment and the incident would probably trigger a change in the company’s protocols. Additional expenses would likely include increased security transporting valuable heavy equipment back and forth from job sites twice a day. “We get hit about once a month I’d say. Not this big, but generally something will be targeted,” Mr Bush said.

Similar acts of vandalism and sabotage in the U.S. are seen as deadly, serious acts of terrorism. Federal law enforcement has made the disruption and apprehension of underground eco-groups like the Earth Liberation Front a greater priority than right-wing groups with a history of indiscriminate bombings, lynchings and assassinations. Environmentally motivated vandalism, while it has yet to have even injured a single person, was ranked by the FBI as “the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat” in 2005. The Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and anti-abortion fanatics were bafflingly not ranked as serious threats. Eco-saboteurs have as of yet not injured a single person, while Christian anti-abortion terrorists have murdered nearly a dozen people and maimed more than 100 in the U.S. alone. Environmentalists who are apprehended routinely face lifelong prison sentences for their actions.

These lessened numbers are the direct result of the actions of direct action protestors The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who boarded vehicles, threw foul-smelling liquid, and generally harassed the Japanese whalers for months. Self-touting Greenpeace, on the other hand, were on hand to document the hunt and claim dissapointment that whales were caught at all; yet the liberal group refused to share information on whaler’s locations with the direct-action oriented Sea Shepherd.

Japan is, of course, calling the protestors terrorists.

Japan has signed onto the 1986 moratorium on whaling for food, but continues to kill [and eat] large numbers of whales for “scientific research” purposes.
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On the southern tip of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada, lies both the small town of Langford and a hotbed of eco-rebellion against mindless development.

The issue is Bear Mountain, a diverse and wild eco-system that holds particular spiritual importance for the First Nations peoples who still live in the area. The forces of development would like to see it cut, stripped and paved for the sake of condos and golf-courses.

On one side are the town’s mayor, Stew Young, the RCMP [the Mounties] and LGB9 Development Corp. Stew Young, famous for bending over backwards to pave the way for big-box stores and condos to invade his town, has resorted to such tactics as threatening to sue protestors for the cost of their own violent eviction. He has also coordinated the direct suspension of free speech, by fining a local resident for posting protest signs on their own property.

On the other side are a diverse collection of Earth First!ers, First Nations peoples, hippies and concerned regular folk. They’ve operated a protest camp, erected a treesit in the path of the highway development and held numerous rallies. One protester even purchased the sub-surface mining rights to the development area—the legal ramifications of that are still in debate.

On April 10th, protestors occupied the area where blasting was to happen, costing the development project thousands of dollars despite only delaying the blasting for an hour and a half. One protestor was arrested and was released immediately without charges.

Full information (including addresses and phone numbers) of some of the offending companies and individuals can be found at the boycott site.

In other news, there is a remarkably unbalanced bit in the Langford, British Columbia wikipedia entry: “Stuart Young, very friendly, accountable mayor who transformed the dog-patch into the shining example of pro-development big-box paradise unparalleled on Vancouver Island. The man who really pushed for the great Bear Mountain development to be allowed all permits possible.”

These are the words of the anonymous spokesperson of the Ocean Salvation Corps, a group of seafaring Somalians who refuse the label of pirate.

On Feb. 1st, the Gentlemen hijacked the Svitzer Korsakov, a tugboat on its way to break ice at Sakhalin II, a controversial natural gas project off the coast of Russia that threatens, among a great number of species and habitats, the critically endangered Western Pacific Gray Whale. They held the ship until March 18th, whereupon they released the ship and crew unharmed after receiving $700,000 as ransom.

The international media was quick to label the attack as just another strike by profiteering pirates. Since 1991, when a civil war broke out and deposed the totalitarian military rule of General Siad Barre, the 1,880 miles of Somalia’s coast have been considered a haven for piracy. Often, these pirates will claim to have the authority of one or another warlord and will hold foreign ships hostage until ransom is paid.

These men bloodlessly captured the Svitzer Korsakov in the Gulf of Aden and took the six members of its crew—including four Russian nationals, one Irish national and one British national—hostage, but they initially refused to ask ransom, claiming their intention to bring the seized vessels before justice. They had also taken control of an Omani fishing vessel. They explained themselves in an interview with Radio Garowe:

“I have contacted you after hearing reports through international media that pirates hijacked a ship after it left the port of Bossaso,” the anonymous spokesperson said. “The ships we now control have the equipment which destroyed the Indian Ocean.”

The man said that the Svitzer Korsakov was “part of the environmental destruction” and that the Omani fishing vessel had “more than 70,000 tons of fish species onboard.” He went on to say that they promised to safeguard any journalist who would like to confirm their reports first hand.

No reporter did so, of course.

The spokesperson also told the radio station that although “it has been the tradition to take ransom payment, [...] we will bring these ships in front of the law.”

The hostages where unharmed during their ordeal.

It is interesting to note that since Somalia’s government has collapsed, small “fiefdom” governments have been selling licenses to allow foreign ships to overfish to a remarkable degree, resulting in further poverty for many Somalians and a increasing environmental disaster in the waters. The Svitzer was not innocent either:

The Svitzer Korsakov is a tug vessel owned by Svitzer, a Danish company. Svitzer’s parent company is Moller-Maersk, a massive energy and shipping corporation based out of Copenhagen. The boat was built in St. Petersburg and was on its maiden voyage to Sakhalin when it was captured. The Russian built, Danish owned, internationally staffed vessel was flying the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a flag of convenience that allows Svitzer to avoid taxation, labor laws and safety regulations.

On Feb. 5th, Omar Shafdero was arrested for his alleged connection to the hijackers. Omar, an employee of the Puntland Ministry of Finance—Puntland being a semi-autonomous region of Somalia—escaped jail a short time later under mysterious circumstances.

NATO was contacted and the US Navy responded. They tracked the hijackers to Eyl, a small coastal town in Puntland. On Feb. 11th, they fired upon a number of local boats under the presumption that they might be aiding the Ocean Preservation Corps. The US Navy also fired three missiles into the town, destroying the airstrip, but no casualties were reported.

On Feb. 13th, a Puntland police force raided the town and exchanged fire with gunmen thought to be re-supplying the hijackers. One police officer was injured and one unarmed civilian was killed.

By the next day, many families evacuated the town, unable to fish for fear of the US Navy, unable to stay on the mainland for fear of further violence.

The Navy continued to blockade the hijackers until March 18th, when a ransom of $700,000 was paid for the Svitzer’s release.

Whether through intention or happenstance (and there seems little reason to doubt their intelligence), the Ocean Salvation Corps struck a very controversial target. Sakhalin Island, the Svitzer Korsakov’s destination, is home to an expansive, expensive and destructive gas and oil project: Sakhalin II.

The existing resource extraction infrastructure on Sakhalin—an island off the coast of Siberia and immediately north of Japan—has already been in the habit of dumping millions of tons of waste into the island’s Aniva Bay. But the new project, estimated to provide 8% of the world’s LNG needs, will be significantly more destructive when fully operational. Over 500 miles of LNG pipeline will be run from one end of the island to the other, crossing through dense coniferous forests and over 1000 waterways. Over 100 miles will be run underwater, impeding on the only known feeding ground of the Western Pacific Gray Whale—of which there are estimated to be less than 100 individuals left. It will also impact at least 10 other endangered species, as well as destroying much of the local fishing and reindeer herding economy.

Also of interest is the area’s high level of tectonic activity, with a Richter 6 quake in 2000 and in 1995 a 7.6 Richter quake killed over 2000 on the island.

Sakhalin II is a project run by Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, Ltd., a consortium led by Gazprom, a Russian government owned business. The other leading investors are Shell, Mitsubishi and Mitsui.

Already, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a prospective financer, has withdrawn support after citing the absurd level of ecological devastation that the project will cause. Banks operating under the Equator Principles—a set of guidelines for global development financing—have refused funding as well.

So far, at least three Japanese businesses are set to receive LNG from Sakhalin: Tokyo Gas, Tokyo Electric Power Company and Kyushu Electric Power Company. Korea and the USA are also set to receive LNG from Sakhalin. Russians, however, will be unable to afford the energy, as the prices have been set at the international level, rather than the Russian level.

Fortunately, Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources has put a least a temporary halt on the project, citing incomplete documentation of the environmental impacts.
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