As the eviction of the Mainshill Solidarity Camp enters its fifth day, the number of arrests has now reached 43, with more expected over the weekend. This eviction is the largest of its kind in the last eleven years, since protestors were removed from the site of Manchester Airport’s second runway in 1999. Supporters of the camp have maintained a 24-hour vigil outside the camp since Monday, and continue to do so now.

The eviction is the climax of a seven-month occupation of the proposed new open-cast coal site at Mainshill Wood, near Douglas, South Lanarkshire. During this time, occupants constructed defenses such as tunnels, treehouses, and bunkers, in preparation for the onslaught of bailiffs, police, and machinery. Over 28 acts of direct action in opposition to coal mining in the area have taken place at Mainshill and in neighbouring open-cast mines and other coal infrastructure.

The actual cost of the eviction has not been disclosed, but will be revealed in subsequent court cases. Based on previous site evictions, costs are estimated to be in the millions of pounds (1). Scottish Coal, incidentally, is footing the bill.

The Mainshill Solidarity Camp has vowed that the fight to stop the fifth open-cast coal mine in the Douglas Valley is not yet over. Fiona, an occupier of the camp, said: “We may have been arrested and bailed away from the site of Mainshill Wood, but our solidarity with the local communities in the Douglas Valley is enduring. The campaign will be taken to new levels as the struggle against Scottish Coal and corrupt politicians intensifies.”

While the eviction ended the seven-month occupation of Mainshill Wood, many are seeing this as the beginning of a concerted community-based direct action campaign against the expansion of the coal industry in the central belt of Scotland and beyond.

As part of this expansion, some 18 new open-cast sites have either been proposed or approved in Scotland (2), raising massive concerns over impacts on communities (3) and the climate. A protestor from Mainshill calling himself Magpie said: “As Climate Chaos grows exponentially worse, it is becoming more and more important to resist and obstruct the ever enlarging fossil fuel industry. We will do everything in our power to make the extraction, transport, and burning of coal as financially unviable as possible by continuing to fight against it at every step of the way, from the mines to the power stations.”

Support from locals has been invaluable to the occupiers of Mainshill during the last seven months, and many community members came to join the 24-hour vigil as the occupiers were taken from the camp. Lindsay Addison, chairperson of Douglas and Glespin Community Council (4) said, “We are sad to see this part of our community so forcefully taken from us by the same people destroying our health and our countryside. Why is it not a crime to dig up and burn coal when we know that the planet and people are suffering because of it? Why would you arrest and criminalise the people trying to protect the planet? The real criminals are those making this mine happen against the wishes of the community.”

Photos of the eviction

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Notes:

(1) A protest camp at Dalkeith in 2006 cost £1.9 million and took 11 days to evict.
(2) Coal Action Scotland Targets Brochure http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?page_id=10
(3) Information on the health impacts of open cast mines can be found in the Douglasdale Edition of the Coal Health Study online: http://coalhealthstudy.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/douglasdale_v42.pdf
(4) The Douglas Community Council has been staunchly against the open cast and has supported the Mainshill Solidarity Camp since the start, http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info.