Media release by Heather Stroud before her trial at York Magistrates Court on 16th July for chaining herself to the gate at Third Energy Fracking Site at Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire, UK (30th January 2018)
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It’s not pleasant to stand in front of a court and defend myself; however, the overwhelming evidence of harms that fracking would bring to our community, and, in fact, globally through depleted clean water resources and rising temperatures, is so great that I felt I had no choice but to take action.
Fracking is just a symptom of a bigger, far more insidious problem where our government, in servitude to corporate lobbyists, has placed the rights of corporations above that of humans and of the natural world. Without social licence to frack, this abandonment of their mandate to serve the people, raises issues of the states’ disregard for democracy and human rights. As a further step in this decline of democracy Westminster have proposed to fast track fracking licensing decisions, taking them out of the hands of local people and local councils.
By chaining myself to the gate at KM8 I was symbolically claiming back democracy, democracy that rightfully belongs in the hands of the people.
Just to borrow some words from Benedict Cohen, international human rights lawyer:
Rights are not conferred on us by the state. Rights are conferred on us by virtue of our being human. The rights of nature are there because it is nature herself, who is the universal law giver.
200 years ago people from the African continent were kidnapped and enslaved with their humanity and rights denied. 100 years ago women’s rights to vote or participate in decision-making were denied. Today we look back and think how appalling these ideas of denial were. What wasn’t obvious then is obvious today. These changes, however, didn’t come about without struggle and, all too often, the criminalisation of those seeking justice.
It is the failure of the state that opens the door to protest. My defence was premeditated – premeditated, thought through, because I was not willing to sit by and see irretrievable harms damage done to our environment- irretrievable damage that could have devastating consequences to all life forms.
I prepared my statement of defence before I had decided what action I would take. As a signatory of the Earth Protectors Trust, I shall be using article 9, of the European Convention on Human Rights, and defending myself based on being a person of conscience, who felt obliged to take action to prevent further harms.
Just to read a joint statement by The World Bank, an organisation I wouldn’t normally be in alignment with; “The ‘status quo’ is driving a transition of the Earth’s eco-system into a state unknown in human experience.”
To further quote from 475 scientists in 48 countries: “Without concrete immediate actions, by 2050 it is extremely likely that Earth’s life support system…. will be irretrievably damage.”
What will our children and their children think if they are facing a world that can no longer sustain life? It is this reckless industrial scale plunder of the earth’s natural resources that is hurtling us all toward extinction.
I send out a plea to all of us, to stop and pause, to seriously think about what we are doing.
Governments, corporations, military and banking – the big power decision makers could be part of the solution. It’s about waking up to what is, rather than this narrow quest for endless industrial growth and profit.