Saving Iceland

“It’s ALCAN the Aluminium Man
The Aluminium Man with the Aluminium Plan
For making lots of aluminium
Out of other peoples land!

Will this Man of Aluminium
Realize what he’s done,
Once he’s done what he is about to start?
He’s got aluminium, but he’s got no heart!”

 

UPDATE 2007: Recently Alcan had to give up its participation in the bauxite mine because of protests against its human rights violations and environmental devastation. Alcan has been accused of cultural genocide in Kashipur because mining and dams have already displaced 150,000 mainly tribal people there.

Canadian mining and aluminium giant Alcan (in Iceland Alcan Iceland Ltd. and ISAL) want to get their hands on one of the world’s richest deposits of bauxite – the raw material for aluminium – in the Kashipur region of India. The $1.4 billion monster strip-mine and refinery promises to displace up to 20,000 people, destroy their livelihoods and culture, contaminate food and water sources and obliterate their spiritual sites.

Villagers have been fighting the mine for the past 12 years but in November 2004 politicians decided that the Alcan mining project was to be launched at any cost – since then repression has been seriously stepped up. People have been murdered by the police and recently it surfaced that the ALCOA sharks have smelt the blood and are now showing interest in joining in… Read More

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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Trinidad Express
29/12/2006

Errol McLeod yesterday bought fresh fish where he usually does-from a vendor at Otaheite Bay. But he feared it may not be long before he would not be able to do so. Read More

In his Christmas year-end review, Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning announced that he is to scrap his plans to build an Alcoa Aluminium smelter by the towns of Chatam and Cap de Ville, where local residents have fiercely campaigned against the government’s smelter plan. Read More

For Better or for Worse??
Poem by Marcel, a Cedros resident

So, Mister Man, you’re giving us a Plant
Against our wishes- not the kind we want
Approaching with incentives and bright smiles
To destroy our plants for three square miles.
The fauna too, are going to be dead
‘Cause money Madness gone to someone’s head. Read More

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…

 

Reykjavik newspaper ‘Bladid’ reports that Norwegian oil and aluminium company Hydro (or Norsk Hydro as they are known in Iceland) and the Icelandic government met yesterday to discuss the possibility of building a 600,000 ton smelter in Iceland within the next eight years. The company’s representatives met with Iceland’s Minister of Industries Jón Sigurdsson yesterday to present their ideas, as Bladid reports.

However, Sigurdsson denied on Icelandic State Radio that the smelter plan was ever mentioned in the talks… How shady everything has become in the little aluminium republic. Read More