[All] Fw: [AW at L] Hanlon Creek Strategy Session Info

[Kelly G.]

--- On Fri, 12/4/09, Adam F. Lewis <lewis.f.adam at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Adam F. Lewis <lewis.f.adam at gmail.com>
Subject: [AW at L] Hanlon Creek Strategy Session Info
To: active-awal at peaceculture.org, "Peaceculture" <peaceculture at peaceculture.org>, "Laurier Campus Greens" <lauriercampusgreens at gmail.com>, info at lspirg.ca, info at wpirg.org, "Humera Javed" <humera at lspirg.ca>
Received: Friday, December 4, 2009, 11:21 AM



Land Defenders from Guelph’s Hanlon Creek come to Kitchener
What: Strategy and Information Session on the Hanlon Creek Business Park and efforts to halt its ecological destruction, Also a potluck, please bring some vegetarian/vegan treats to share!

When: December 8th 2009, 7pm
Where:  Kitchener Waterloo Community Centre for Social Justice, 63 Courtland Ave, Kitchener
Who's invited: All allies who are interested in this struggle

At dawn one day last summer in Guelph, Ontario, 60 people took over an industrial construction site and set up a temporary home, complete with a composting toilet, strawbale first aid tent, lookout tower, and kitchen, protected by roadblocks and trenches.  Within hours, word had spread far and wide – work on Guelph’s newest and biggest business park was shut down.  A surviving patch of Old Growth forest and a coldwater stream breathed a sigh of relief, and people from all over the region came to support what became a 19-day occupation.  
 
This took place around Guelph’s Hanlon Creek, a headwater tributary of the Grand River.  Part of the largest watershed in southern Ontario, this coldwater creek is threatened by a 675-acre industrial development called the ‘Hanlon Creek Business Park.’ Led by the City of Guelph and other powerful development companies, the HCBP has been subject to years of debate and opposition.  
 
The occupation spoke to many people in ways years of public organizing had not.  Hundreds of people of all ages gave support both on site and at packed court dates, rallies at city hall, and countless other ways.  When the City of Guelph filed an injunction and $5 million lawsuit against 7 individuals, a high-profile environmental lawyer rushed in to engage in a precedent-setting legal battle that continues today.
 
Participants in this important struggle are traveling to Kitchener on December 8th at 7pm at the Kitchener Waterloo Community Centre for Social Justice, 63 Courtland Ave Kitchener .  Besides building support to prevent the HCBP in Guelph, they’re expanding upon a grassroots network of resistance to other developments as well.  Come out for a multimedia presentation and discussion about protecting the land, stepping up our actions, forging alliances between Native and non-Native communities, and resistance to sprawl and industrial growth. 
  
 
For more information see hcbpoccupation.wordpress.com or email hcbpoccupation at gmail.com.
 




 
More Information:
The proposed Hanlon Creek Business Park would cover more than 75% of the 675-acre site, which is presently inhabited by rolling meadows, wetlands, and some of the last old growth forest in the area. The site is home to two amphibians classified as ‘threatened,’ and is also home to many other reptiles and amphibians, as well as deer, coyotes, foxes, rodents, swarms of insects, fish, and more than 110 bird species – including Blue Herons who still feed in the stretch of creek that would be covered by a road if no one had intervened.  Several hundred-year-old Cedar trees have already been cut, and it was around their stumps that the land defence camp was established.
 
Since the summer’s end, our precedent-setting legal struggle ended with us getting sold out by the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the federal government bailing out the city to cover the contract we stopped.  The City announced a $150,000 lawsuit against 5 individuals, they continue to take advantage of loopholes to speed up construction, and their recent attempt at a ‘groundbreaking ceremony’ led to a raucous and theatrical ‘grave-digging ceremony.’  Long story short, the Hanlon Creek is still threatened with destruction, and without significant public pressure, the city of Guelph will continue to destroy this area.
 
The struggle to protect the Hanlon Creek is not an isolated struggle.  Throughout southern Ontario and the rest of Turtle Island, people are struggling against development and destruction of the wild.  Downriver, Indigenous land defenders from Six Nations of the Grand River have shut down hundreds of millions of dollars worth of developments on their territory.  An untold number of gravel pits in south-western Ontario face opposition, and crucial wetlands and moraines are increasingly being defended.    
 
The struggle to protect the Hanlon Creek is one example of many where non-Natives act in solidarity with Indigenous people to protect the land.  In eastern Ontario at Sharbot Lake, Native and non-Native people took part in blockades to stop a uranium mine.  On Six Nations territory at Cayuga, Native and non-Native people have repeatedly stood on the road to stop garbage trucks from entering a contested dump.  The same happened at Site 41 north of Barrie to prevent a new garbage dump.  What makes Guelph’s occupation unique is that non-Native people didn’t wait for Native folks to take the first stand, but rather we took to the land and faced the consequences.  
 
What emerged from the HCBP occupation and related events is a grassroots network that sees the need to take action when the political system fails us.  Years of dedicated activism have tried to protect the Hanlon Creek watershed, and when that system failed to respond adequately, people came together and took to the land.  We want this speaking & networking tour to give new life to the lessons we’ve learned, so that actions like this can become more effective and more frequent.    
 
Contact us at hcbpoccupation at gmail.com.  For more information see hcbpoccupation.wordpress.com.
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----


_______________________________________________
Peaceculture mailing list
Peaceculture at peaceculture.org
http://peaceculture.org/mailman/listinfo/peaceculture_peaceculture.org



      __________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now
http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20091204/c697906e/attachment.html>