Secret Eco Village in Wales Finally Earns Government Approval

A ‘lost, secret’ middle-class eco village had their privacy and dreams for a simple, off-grid life threatened when their community was spotted in an aerial photograph taken in 1998.  In the photo, sunlight was seen glinting off a solar panel on the main building, which was constructed of straw bales, timber and recycled glass.  The community, located in the Preseli mountains of west Wales, was set up in 1993 on a 180-acre farm owned by Julian and Emma Orbach.

The pilot of the survey plane reported his findings and when the government couldn’t find records of the community or planning permission, they insisted that the hobbit-like grass-covered buildings be demolished.

From Mail Online:

The eco-community endured a decade of inquiries, court cases and planning hearings.

The 22 villagers fought planners even when they were within hours of the bulldozers moving in to demolish their eight homes.

Now, however, they can celebrate, thanks to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority’s ’sustainability’ policy.

With green issues now getting a more sympathetic hearing, the commune has been given planning approval for its roundhouses along with lavatories, agricultural buildings and workshops.

Community founder Emma Orbach, a 52-year-old mother of three, said yesterday: ‘We are really excited and happy as it has been a very long battle.

‘Even when planning inquiries and court hearings went against us we were determined to fight on.

‘The villagers are pioneering a new lifestyle and are determined to prove it’s possible for people to live more simply.’

The community had to prove to planners that they were improving the biodiversity of the area and conserving the woodlands.  They’ve claimed a huge green victory here, showing authorities that a community can be built sustainably from local renewable resources and be entirely self-sufficient.  Hopefully authorities in America, where structures like these are rarely granted building permits, will take note – if the world had more homes and communities like this, we’d all be better off.  They use resources in a really smart way, are off-grid and respectful to the ecology of the areas they live in.

Link [Mail Online]

UK Court Decides Threat of Global Warming Justifies Breaking the Law

Talk about a precedent: a UK court ruled last week that the threat of global warming is such a pressing issue, that Greenpeace activists were right to cause more than $62,000 dollars in damage to a coal-fired power station.  Last October, the six protesters had scaled the chimney at the Kingsnorth power plant in Kent and painted Prime Minster Gordon Brown’s name on it.  The activists were upset about a plan to build another coal-fired power plant, which they said would be ‘a disastrous setback in the battle against global warming’.

From The Independent:

Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a “lawful excuse” to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of “lawful excuse” under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

During the eight-day trial, the world’s leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa, who had flown from American to give evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister personally to “take a leadership role” in cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a coal-fired future for Britain. Last December he wrote to Mr Brown with a similar appeal. At the trial, he called for an moratorium on all coal-fired power stations, and his hour-long testimony about the gravity of the climate danger, which painted a bleak picture, was listened to intently by the jury of nine women and three men.

The activists said they acted lawfully, believing that their attempt to stop emissions from Kingsnorth would prevent further damage to properties worldwide caused by global warming.  They said that their actions were designed to cause only the amount of damage necessary to close the plant down.

It’s pretty amazing that Johnny Law came down on the side of the earth – especially given the fact that the jury was made up of ordinary people, not necessarily environmentalists.  It’s a good sign that people are starting to take the threat of global warming seriously, and yet another wake-up call to turn away from coal and start using cleaner technology.

Link [The Independent]
Photo credit: Greenpeace

UK Fishermen Dump Catch Overboard to Make More Money

The European Union put fishing quotas in place for a reason: to prevent the kind of overfishing that experts warn could lead to mass extinction of marine life in the coming decades. But, European fishermen aren’t pleased with the quotas because they limit profit possibilities. So to get around that, they’re doing something pretty horrifying: dumping tons of perfectly good dead fish back into the water. Fish that should never have been caught in the first place.

Recently, the Norwegian Coast Guard shot video of UK fishermen doing just this, and the sight of such wastefulness (a whopping 5 tons of dead fish) has shocked many people who didn’t realize the extent of what was going on. Check it out at The Guardian.

From The Guardian’s Environment blog:

The practice is legal, as the EU only sets quotas for fish landed at ports, not what is actually caught at sea. In this case, it appears the fishermen were discarding low-value small (but legal) fish in order to fill their quota with higher-value big fish.

But the wasteful consequences of Europe’s fisheries policies, though well-known, are rather abstract to most people - it all happens a long way out at sea. And that’s the power of the video. At the start, a stream of dead, silvery fish slip down a chute and into the water. It goes on. And on. Seagulls gather to snap up a free lunch.

But this is apparently not rapid enough. So the men start dumping whole boxfuls of their catch over the side. And then another load comes up from the hold, and so on.

What an incredible waste, and a slap in the face to conservationists who are working so hard to maintain sustainable numbers of fish in our oceans. WTF. This is incredible disrespect and disregard not just for the fish but the future of humanity. What’s going to happen when our oceans are overfished to the point of irreparably damaging the delicately balanced ocean ecosystems?

Learn more about the problem of overfishing by reading the article ‘More Species Considered Overfished’ at the Florida Museum of Natural History website.

Link [The Guardian]

Meet the King of All Squatters: Harry Halowes Turns 21 Years of Squatting into $8,000,000 in Land

This is Harry Halowes:

Harry has been living in a discarded junk tent camp right down the hill from a vacant London estate for the past 21 years. A big fat cat billionaire bought the estate, dumped over a hundred million dollars into fixin’ it up, and was shocked when his attempt to boot Squatter Harry from the land was turned away by the courts whose ruling gave Harry rights to his plot of land.

Harry’s lot is now worth nearly $8,000,000. We hope he sells out and gets himself setup with a nice apartment in some swanky part of town. He should have enough left over for a butler and 20 or 30 years of eeeeasy livin’. Not a bad upgrade from a dingy squat lot. Huzzah for Harry.

Link [Daily Mail]