Camo on AugustusThe short version is that Solid Energy basically don’t care about us anymore, and they are blasting again.

It seems that in the week after we started putting ourselves within Solid Energy’s blasting zone on Mt. Augustus that the mining company freaked and halted blasting. In the week after that they got the Department of Conservation to ban us from their adjacent land. And when that didn’t work, it seems that Solid Energy has done some sort of risk assessment and this week decided that we’re probably far enough away to not be in danger, or else they’re using smaller and more carefully placed shots.

In any case, they’re blasting again and the ball’s back in our court. Despite our presence up there the last week, they have happily blasted while security guards watched on and warned us with megaphones from afar.

I still think the action is a good combination of being direct action (well, at least initially) and being relatively participatory. But contrary to what I said in my last post on this topic, it’s certainly not open to mass participation: for the simple reason that the 1,000m climb is a mission and there’s virtually nowhere to camp in the dense rainforest scrub.

The choice for us now is either to disband with the action, or step it up and make it effective once again.

(…and to get camo gear that isn’t novelty-clown-sized.)

In Related News:

This afternoon, both Chris Carter and DoC were targeted in a Wellington protest, and Solid Energy CEO Don Elder had his talk disrupted in Auckland by people running around the building in which he was talking by yelling and letting off sirens… looked like a lot of fun.