My long time partner K, smitten by the monstrous vandalism scarring the land for a useless project that no-one needs, and from which no-one will benefit - apart from the rip-off money-grubbers currently stealing our environmental protectors, the trees, for their disgusting profit-seeking psychopathy:
PS: help with how to make this image appear properly would be much appreciated. Can anyone help me make it go viral?
Remarkably, after thinking that I had become too anciently infirm still to take part in activism, Iâve been sucked in again: tree-sitting and anti-chainsaw tree-spiking as if I were thirty years younger. Violent arrest soonâŚ? 
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Good luck RG. Or thoughts are with you! Too many trees are murdered needlessly.
Cheers
Thanks Admin! That isnât a staged image, btw. K is in a truly heartbroken state at whatâs being done to our local big old oaks. âEco-despairâ, she calls it. Difficult to comfort. Only the ultra-long, paleontological-time-frame view of all this seems to help: Mam Gaia will heal and re-cover all this, as she always does. And our destroying hoards will be slapped down into our proper place again, by all the Synergising Global Crises that weâre creating gratuitously.
And then, I hope, we will take steps to evolve ourselves into a more matured and harmonious species⌠
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Rhis, I understand this despair. And Iâm sure many who read this also do. Itâs hard to face the criminal destruction of our planet and itâs remaining wild spaces and not feel that despair. I just read a story recently about whales attacking boats in a desperate attempt to keep humans out.
The world has had enough.
Wish I could be there with you tomorrow. Iâll be there in spirit.
Seconded.
And HS2, for what? For a world where people are no longer allowed to move around freely. Never mind the insanity of government policy, does no politician ever think about the contradictions in these sorts of issues? (thatâs a rhetorical question by the way)
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Report of two days of tree-defending in South Warwickshire:
The location is here, just on the edge of Offchurch village, itself on the edge of Leamington Spa:
https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/52.28977,-1.46716,16/pin
Where the Welsh Road crosses the green band of the Greenway. At that dog-leg cross road thereâs a little block of woodland with some majestic oaks in it. Weâre camping here: the âWelsh Road Tree-Defendersâ camp. XR personnel are involved here and at Crackley Wood on the southern edge of Coventry, where a large camp is operating.
Materials, food, tools, and experienced camp organisers are appearing steadily, but we have a constant need for an ever-widening list of names of people willing to contribute various sorts of help, including actually doing stints of time in the camp, to make sure that there are always people, day and night, 24/7/365 present to hamper the chainsaws if they come. We also need a list of people willing to come and crowd the site if destruction is attempted.
There is widespread certainty amongst the activists that a piracy crime is going on, with shysters - presumably in the crony-circle of the Bozo/Cummings gang - who are simply stealing prime timber, particularly ancient oaks, along the line of the HS2 track, even where the trees do not need to be felled to make way for the railway. We are trying to get information right now about where the trucks go which are removing the trees the moment that theyâre felled. Shades of the steel removal rush from the wreckage of the NYC World Trade Centre after 11/9/01! Get rid of the evidence to places where it can never be identified ASAP! Goddamned gangsters!
All support - including distant-healing moral support - is important, and is received gratefully.
A week ago, I would have sworn at my age, and in such a state of bleedinâ decrepitude, my physical activism days were past. But bugger me! Here I am cycling over to the camp each morning and back at night, feeling well up for a bit more green Gaian aggroâŚ
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Letter from K. to the local paper about more of the gangster-grab going on in the local - remnantary - woodlands, as the HS2 criminal pointlessness is perpetrated:
"Hello, as part of my ongoing battle against HS2 I have sent this to the paper as a concerned citizen rather than an HS2 activist as I think they listen less to us when we look like ecowarriors! Please can you read my letter and feel free to copy and paste it to whoever you think may listen
"Thanks a million xxx Kerry OâGrady.
Date: Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 2:29 PM
Subject: HS2 Offchurch Greenway
"Regarding The Offchurch Greenway, Offchurch, Warwickshire, CV33 9AU Part of Sustrans route 41
"I went for a walk today and was horrified to see that it is not only the Hunningham Oak (and many many more oaks and mature trees) that have been felled. Another nature reserve has been marked for destruction.
"This Offchurch Greenway is one of my favourite spots for a walk and I went out during my lunch break because it was a place I thought was safe from the cares of the world. I already knew that the big oaks and ashes on the corner of the Welsh road and Long Itchington road had been marked for felling and this has added to the awful shock.
"The woodland, which is an old railway line in itself, is a magical place full of birds and insects. On this walk I saw flocks of goldfinches, long tailed tits and lots of other birds flitting in and out of the woods. Bees, moths, late butterflies, wild flowersâŚan active badger sett, I could go on. Every single tree of a certain size has been marked with the orange HS2 mark. I counted 127 mature oaks and 250 meters of woodland understory.
"The Greenway was one of the places I cycled to in lockdown. It was a great solace to local people during a time of national stress. I think that if the people of Leamington knew we were about to lose this they would be horrified. While I was there I met 2 HS2 ecologists who were putting up a bat box in a nearby part of the woodland. even they admitted it was pointless and that the whole thing is heartbreaking. Woodland such as these have taken hundreds of years to grow and mature and become homes for our birds and mammals. A few bat boxes and a manmade badger sett are not going to replace these valuable habitats. Nor are a million saplings, many of which will die because, as in the case of Cubbington Woods, they have died due to lack of care.
"We knew HS2 would be bad but this wanton destruction of our countryside during a time of crisis of climate change, financial hardship and worry about Covid 19 is wrong on every count. Please help by telling people what is going on here. People in the town will not be aware of this until it is too late.
âYours with kind regards, [K OâG]â
Article in Guardian today about the resistance to the mass murder of the trees in Warwick/Leamington Spa district:
QUOTE:
Tears and rage in the HS2 âkilling fieldâ of England - while Boris Johnson promises a greener country
Prime Minister vows to protect nature while woods are bulldozed
By Andrew Penman
09:26, 1 OCT 2020
UPDATED 10:14, 1 OCT 2020
Kerry OâGrady at the Hunningham Oak (Image: Kerry OâGrady)
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Today marks National Tree Killing Day.
Thatâs the grim name given by environmental campaigners against HS2 to mark a renewed blaze of destruction of woodland that lies in the path of the high speed railway.
Not that thereâs ever really been a let-up, as shown last week by the felling of a landmark 300-year-old tree near Leamington Spa called the Hunningham Oak.
The horrible irony is that it was not even in the direct path of what protesters call the worldâs most expensive railway, it was cut down to make way for a service road.
Doomed: the Hunningham Oak (Image: David Hastings/dh Photo)
Kerry OâGrady is an acupuncturist who lives locally. A picture of her sitting on the stump weeping has gone viral, summing up the despair so many feel.
âIâve been walking locally during lockdown and seen the workmen felling the coppices and hedgerows,â she said.
"They cut down one tree with a buzzard nest, the buzzard was hovering overhead helpless, it was awful to watch.
"I went the next morning after I heard the Hunningham Oak had been chopped down just for a service road that could have been moved a few yards to one side and could not believe my eyes.
âI sat down and wept. I handed my camera to another protester, I did not mean to look like that, I just put my head in my hands.â
Workmen remove one green protester (Image: David Hastings/dh Photo)
At a possible cost of ÂŁ106billion, the rail line will shave a few minutes off journey times between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.
HS2 argues that it is planting millions of replacement trees and shrubs and says the line will be a low carbon way to travel â something opponents dispute.
âAs well as being a huge land grab, itâs high-speed and so will use huge amounts of electricity,â said a spokeswoman for the group HS2 Rebellion.
âFrom October 1 theyâll be ramping up the tree felling and clearing of protesters.â
Kerry OâGrady is not impressed with the replanting programme, saying: âMany of the sapling are already dead because they werenât planted property, they werenât watered or mulched.â
caption: HS2
(Image: Getty Images)
HS2 admits that 43 ancient woods between London and Crewe will be âaffectedâ, to use its word.
The Woodland Trust says that 108 will be lost or damaged when you include work north of Birmingham.
In the summer it highlighted the spot near Aylesbury Vale, Bucks, where Roald Dahl was inspired to write Fantastic Mr Fox.
âIt is one of 20 ancient woodlands across Buckinghamshire, ÂNorthants, Warwickshire and Staffs, totalling 19.45 hectares that HS2 contractors will attempt to translocate from 1 October,â said the Trust.
âTranslocation is the moving of woodland soils from one place to another in the hope the woodland will regrow, but there is very little evidence of its success.â
Meanwhile Boris Johnson has been busy green-washing, declaring this week that 30% of the land area of the UK will be protected for the benefit of wildlife.
HS2 Rebellion has accused him of hypocrisy, issuing a statement saying: âThis week, Boris Johnson pledged to protect UK biodiversity and wildlife. Yet he continues to back HS2, the biggest deforestation project since the First World War.â
Whereâs the 30% of land that heâs talking about going to come from? Obviously not from the path of HS2, or our ever-expanding towns and cities.
The demand for housing will continue to increase so long as the UK population increases.
It was up 395,000 year on year according to latest available figures, with the Office for National ÂStatistics stating: âMigration to the UK has been the main driver of population growthâ.
Thatâs the equivalent of a city larger than Coventry being added to the country every year.
According to reports this week, the Government has plans for an extra five millions homes, and thanks to what critics are calling a âmutant algorithmâ, a disproportionate amount will be in shire counties, eating up the same wildlife habitats that the Prime Minister promises to protect.
He says âIt takes far too long to build a home in this country,â and the Governmentâs reforms called Planning for the Future aim to speed up the planning system.
The proposals are for faster development on land designated âfor renewalâ, with a âpermission in principleâ approach.
Areas of outstanding natural beauty and the green belt will come under a protection category, however greenfields face threats from other categories which will see land designated for automatic growth for homes, hospitals and schools.
The fear is that this will result in unwanted developments being foisted on communities.
Shadow housing minister Mike ÂAmesbury has called the proposed reforms âAn atrocious new developersâ charter, which will wrench power away from local people and into the hands of the developers that bankroll the Toriesâ.
Heâs warned of slum housing being created in towns and cities, while the same lack of democracy at a local level could see more of the countryside that Boris Johnson says he wants to protect being buried under concrete.
Many Conservatives arenât happy either as their rural constituencies face huge increases on house building over more greenfield sites.
Among them is MP Bob Seely, whose Isle of Wight constituency is seeing its housing target double compared to its local plan.
This week he told the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph: âThe key fact is this: cities across England are being asked to build relatively less compared with the rural and suburban areas around them. Instead of levelling up the North, I fear we are concreting out the Southâ.
One county branch of the countryside charity CPRE has warned that Sussex will âturn greyâ under the proposed scheme, which will inflict building the equivalent of 900 football pitches or another Crawley every four years.
Unless the remorseless rise in the UKâs population is addressed then it sounds like every day might turn into National Tree Killing Day.
UNQUOTE
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Back to the Welsh-Road tree-protectors camp this morning, after three days of total washout, with only one or two stalwart warriors sitting it out under canvas - with a little stove-fire - whilst the rest of us huddled at home against the storm. Me included, I fear. Too bloody fragile now to handle many hours of sitting waiting for the vandals in those chilly Autumnal conditions. Cycling in continuous rain has also become quite an effort for me lately to, much as I still find pedal-biking a great - lifelong, in fact - comfort, as long as I can stay reasonably dry.
Back again tomorrow, if the rain is no more than spotty and light. The vandals continue to attack the camps and evict them, along the line of devastation. For the sake of the beloved great trees, and indeed for all of Gaiaâs kindred of life in the sweet landscapes of our island, we just have to do everything we can to hamper them.
We are plagued by too few numbers, and too sparse practical resources for making and entrenching this resistance really effectively. The hope continues to be that HS2 will be recognised soon as Concorde 2.0: Like the completely unlamented Concorde, a wholly pointless waste of resources, which no-one needs and which will benefit no-one - apart from the Bozo-crony crooks currently making out like the gangsters they are by the actual process of - heavily over-paid - devastation. No-one else will profit. And all the gangsters are getting is increasingly worthless fiat money that is simply not going to do anything genuinely good for them. Waste paper with no better use than to clean their over-flabby bums.
Roll on the economically-compelled cancellation, ASA-effing-P!