From The Newswire: I arrived on Sunday evening to the wonderful aroma of some great cooking from the Bitchen Kitchen crew. And the meeting has gotten even better since then! EYFA organises gatherings, supports groups across Europe and also fundraises for activists. The Wintermeeting is their strategy meeting for the year, while Ecotopia is their summer gathering – this brilliant environmental festival took place in Ireland in 2002. People from all across the continent have been involved, including Carbusters, Social and Art Collectives, Squatting groups from the Netherlands and many more – except 9 Eastern European people who were invited, but were refused entry by the Irish state despite the fact that all requirements were fulfilled.

We have been meeting at the Boghill Centre around the question of ‘What is Eyfa’s role in the European environmental and social movement?’. This has led to discussions on issues as from online tools to burn-out, alternative economic systems to more positive activism, and much more besides. Tomorrow is the action planning, where all the positive energy will be solidified into concrete strategies for the year ahead.

We also had a brilliantly entertaining and informative ‘pub quiz’ from the TRAPESE (Take Radical Action, for Popular Education and Sustainable Everything), which is a member of the Dissent Network which is organising around the upcoming G8 Summit in Scotland – a very cool initiative that’s interesting in terms of changing the focus of campaigning by bringing in new methods like this, and a new ethos of creative, different opposition and alternatives, by going on the road in a really fun manner. And we’re all going to go, including our kitchen!

Another fascinating aspect of the stay here is the fact that we’ve been using the Open Space Method of organising the meeting, and it has contributed no end to the informal atmosphere, but also, crucially, to some of the most productive meetings I’ve been to in a long time. The Method really decentralises the power of agenda-setting and challenges many of the assumptions which make meetings boring and disempowering – and it seems to have enhanced this meeting no end.

Starting on Thursday, the Gluaiseacht Anti-War (see elsewhere in this piece) meeting will function as a continuation of all of this, with the contral areas for discussion being focussed around Ireland’s complicity in the war in Iraq, and what we can do about it. It promises to be a very interesting week to come – more updates to follow soon >>>

Full Timetable Of EYFA/Gluaiseacht Event
Not Just A Hippy Paradise: Ecotopia 2002

FROM: Padhraig Campbell, Campaign for Protection of Resources, Freeport, Barna, Co Galway / Majella McCarron, Ogoni Solidarity Ireland

TO: His Excellency the Norwegian Ambassador, Mr Truls Hanevold, Norwegian Embassy, Dublin 2

Monday, 4th April, 2005

Your Excellency,

We are writing to you in support of the landowners and stake-holders affected by the operational activities of the Corrib North Consortium of Shell, Statoil and Marathon.

As the Norwegian government currently owns 70% of Statoil, we call on your government to instruct the board of Statoil to stop the coercive intrusion on the lands of families who are being hauled before the High Court in Dublin by Shell on behalf of the consortium of which Statoil is a member.

The genuine fears and concerns of the residents are being ridden roughshod over by the might of Shell, the Irish state, local authorities, semi-state bodies and the judicial process. Apart from the unprecedented use of an upstream pipeline so far inshore to a seriously unsafe proposed refinery, untreated raw gas at maximum pressure puts the lives and livelihoods of those families in serious danger.

Allied to this is the fact that this high-pressure line passes under the highly-unstable landslide zone of Dooncarton Mountain, where landslides occured on the night of 19th September, 2003.

This pipeline would not be allowed in Norway. We insist that the same standards that apply in Norway apply in Rossport, Co Mayo and in Ireland generally. Statoil and the Norwegian people will be the beneficiaries of the most generous tax deal in the world. However, serious questions are being asked as to how the oil companies have come to benefit from such an extent and as to the role that Ireland's former Energy Minister, the now disgraced Ray Burke, had in forming the oil tax deal that now pertains.

Respectfully,

Padhraig Campbell
Majella McCarron

BACKGROUND / RELATED LINKS
Shell Granted Restraining Order Against Mayo Residents By High Court
Comprehensive High Court Report
Mid-West Radio Audio Report On Residents Confronting Shell: March 1st 2005
Shell In Mayo: Summary Of Issues
Detailed Indymedia Feature: Shell: The New Aristocracy In Mayo