Saving Iceland

A summer of International dissent and action against Heavy Industry – swarming around Iceland from the 6th of July 2007

The Camp and Conference:

The camp will start 6 July. The conference on the Global Consequences of Heavy Industry takes place at the camp 7-8 July. Academics, activists and other people affected by the aluminium industry, dams and environmental destruction will come together to discuss their experiences and think about how to build up stronger local and global resistance.

Immediately following from this the protest camp will be set up. It will be a space in which creative and direct opposition to heavy industry can be mounted. There will be workshops, discussions and concerts (by emerging Icelandic groups as well as world famous bands) during this period. There will be a strong focus around direct action, as in previous camps. For example, at the past two camps there were a number of actions whereby protestors got into dam and smelter construction sites, sometimes chaining themselves to machinery, sometimes not. People of all experiences of this kind of protest are extreemely welcome. Read More

On New Years Day activists targeted 2 Alcoa front companies, (Kawneer in central London and ASA in North London.) Both companies had their front access doors locked shut with D-locks and chains, and were left grafitti messages that they should leave Iceland straight away. They are destroying the largest pristine wilderness in Europe right now, as well as trashing other communities and ecosystems all over the world.
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Millennium Bridge

 

On New Years Day, campaigners from Saving Iceland climbed St.Pauls Cathedral and the Tate Modern in London as part of our campaign to challenge the destruction of the Icelandic hihghlands, Europe’s last remaining great wildernesses, and the destruction of communities in Trinidad, both at the hands of the aluminium industry and in particular ALCOA, ALCAN and Century Aluminum.
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Over a dozen protesters of the Reydarfjördur aluminum smelter in east Iceland entered the building site this morning, and two of those have climbed 70-meter high building cranes, on which they have attached banners with slogans. The banner reads “ILLEGAL WORKSITE (ÓLÖGLEGT VINNUSVÆÐI) – referring to the judgment of the Icelandic High Court which was still valid at the time of the action. RUV (Icelandic National Broadcast Service) reported that the banner read ‘Illegal Action’. Some would say there was quite a difference there. This was never corrected in spite of promises to do so. How convenient for ALCOA…

 

In Alicante, Spain, where Alcoa owns an aluminium factory, signs denouncing Alcoa’s presence in Iceland have appeared.  Graffiti and banners on the walls of Alcoa’s factory and all over Alicante have been appearing. All over the world people have risen up against the heavy industrial violence against the Icelandic wildernesses.

On the 30th of September there was a public action with people concentrating at the doors of the factory and a hand out of information in the center of Alicante. Read More

The following is a report back from one of the people at the London protest against the heavy industrialisation of Iceland and Trinidad on the 27th of October 2006.

The demo was attended by about 40 people, not too bad for a weekday demo in inner city London (we chose to have the demo then so that we could get into the embassies.) Perhaps next time we will organize something on a weekend. About a quarter of the demo were Trinidadians. We started the event with an emotional funeral ceremony, with talks from an anti-dam activist who’se been involved in the anti-Narmada dam campaign (India) as well as the anti-Karahnjukar dam campaign (Iceland); Sue Doughty, former Liberal MP, talked about her attempts to get the UK parliament to ask the Icelandic state to reconsider its path of heavy industry; two Trinidadian speakers: talked about the neo-colonialist-liberal invasion by western corporations of the third world, and the beauty of the Cedros Peninsula and tragedy of the Aluminium development, respectively; then an Icelandic speaker who talked about the loss of the Icelandic Karahnjukar wilderness, and the future plans of heavy industry in Iceland. Read More

Just a little piece of news from Iceland (October 2006).
A group of activists went and dumped a mountain (well, a hill) of aluminium in front of the parliament and in the parliament square.
Just keeping our objections in the collective mind…

Sheffield activists were amongst the many people who headed out to Iceland this summer to support the protest camp against the Kárahnjúkar Hydroelectric Project, and the Icelandic governments dam building and industrialisation programme more generally. This dam building programme is threatening some of the largest and most incredible pristine areas of wilderness in Europe. The Kárahnjúkar dam is north of the Vatnajökull glacier, Europe’s biggest glacier. The protest camp was set up in the affected area and activists from Iceland, other parts of Europe and North America took part in a series of actions over July and August. Read More

Join us on a theatrical and interactive funeral march to mark the murder of Kárahnjúkar, Iceland, and the impending murder of the Cedros Peninsula, Trinidad, at the bloody hands of Alcoa and heavy industry.

Set in one of the financial capitals of todays Empire, this protest will mark the begining of the joint struggle against ALCOA and the heavy industrial invasion of both Iceland and Trinidad.

The four wildernesses in the Eastern Highlands of Iceland whose cheap death will power one aluminium smelter by the summer of 2007, are now either in the process of being flooded or are soon to be drained. The Cedros Peninsula of Trinidad will have much of its tropical rainforests cleared and hundreds of local residents outed to make way for two gas powered aluminium smelters. Read More