Subject: report from last month's week of action

Apologies for late release of the report from the action camp

Diggers, Dams & Damage

Following a successful trespass on Hatfield Moor on Sunday 25th August (where around 30 people spent the day filling drainage ditches to conserve the wetness of the remaining peat), the action camp ran from Wednesday 28th
August until Sunday 1st September. Despite last minute problems with finding a suitable site, we pulled it all together to run workshops, site tours, supermarket and garden centre actions, an office occupation and stopped work on Moors in Yorkshire and Cumbria. This is a summary of the actions taken by various groups, as they were reported to us after the camp.

Wednesday 28th August
On Wednesday afternoon, en route to the camp, a group of people stopped off at Hatfield Moor and filled ditches for the afternoon. However the recent rain and a lot of previous ditch filling meant that much of the moor was already really wet and we had problems finding ditches to fill. This is a great success as a flooded moor prevents both peat decomposition and Scotts' ability to get machines on the moor and extract the peat (for more info on how and why to fill ditches at Hatfield Moor or any other peat bog check out www.peatalert.org.uk).

Thursday 29th August
In the morning we visited two supermarkets and a garden centre. Covering all peat products and produce grown using peat with stickers warning customers about peat use, we were quickly spotted by security, and some of us earned ourselves a lifetime ban from Homebase.

In the afternoon we visited Crowle Moors, on the eastern edge of Thorne Moors just north of Hatfield. We met up with a local campaigner who has been trying to protect Crowle Moors from illegal peat extraction and flytipping. Parts of Crowle Moors were bought from Levington's in 1992 by English Nature, to prevent peat extraction, and given to Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust to set up a nature reserve. However, the Trust hasn't stopped illegal peat extraction there, and doesn't seem concerned that a local family, the Crows, have mined rented land without the mineral extraction rights; or that they have mined a kilometre long strip between 10 and 30 metres wide that is Wildlife Trust land; or that they have built their house on squatted English Nature land. However, we did mind, and when we saw them extracting peat, we stopped work and climbed on their machinery. We stayed there until they promised to take their machines off the land if we left, so, as it was gone five, we did. We also visited one of the few remaining examples of untouched raised bog in this country.

Friday 30th August
We travelled up to Cumbria to visit L & P Peat, who mine Solway Moss for Humax compost, used for mushroom growing. Solway Moss is a site the government wants to submit for Special Area of Conservation status to Europe, however L & P Peat have threatened to take the government to judicial review if they do, in turn preventing any of the other peat sites being submitted. So we decided to let them know of our existence and what we thought about it.

A group of five people visited their office in Carlisle, to find info and to demand they stop mining Solway Moss, withdraw their planning application to expand their works at Solway and withdraw their threat of judicial review. The group was met with violence by an office worker when they started looking through the filing cabinets and the police arrived within minutes and arrested the five to prevent a breach of the peace.

A much larger group went to visit Solway Moss, with the intention of stopping work. They were also met with the threat of violence, but managed to lock the gates shut and lose keys before deciding to leave, treating the action as a warning shot and first site recce.

Saturday 31st August Two groups went out for the day, one going to Hatfield Peat Works with the intention of stopping work. However due to the recent rain and bank holiday they weren't processing peat and were just repairing machines. During a quick run round the site there was damage to bags of fertiliser supplies, keys were lost, liquid metal was poured over control panels, paperwork was removed, peat bags were slashed and bits of metal were dropped into piles of peat (which will set off alarms as they go into the process, stopping it until they have found them all). After this the group decided to make a quick getaway.

The other group went back to Crowle Moor. Stopping off at the Crow family peat works, tyres were let down and valves broken before heading off onto the moor, where a digger was damaged. They then played around on the moor stopping work for the rest of the day and ditch filling.

Sunday 1st September

A group visited Tickhill garden centre near Doncaster, which sells shed-loads of peat and where the manager had previously been arsy with peat protestors. Every area of the centre was stickered and flyers were placed on all windscreens in the car park and handed out to customers.

We were later told that on Saturday night Scotts works was visited and thousands of bags of stockpiled peat were slashed. A similar action in March was estimated by Scotts' lawyers to have cost £30,000-£40,000. The damage this time is estimated to have been several times greater.

Overall, the week was a massive success and gave a big boost to the peat campaign. For more info on resistance to peat extraction visit
www.peatalert.org.uk, contact peat alert c/o CRC, 16 Sholebroke Avenue, Leeds LS7 3HB or email:  info@peatalert.org.uk