Forest Occupation in Catalunya

Since October 17^th we’re occupying a piece of forest that was meant to host one of the hundreds of electrical towers that conform the new Very High Voltage (MAT) power line, and that will eventually interconnect France, Spain and, time will tell, Africa. The place we now call our home is in an area called Guilleries (Girona), near Sant Hilari Sacalm village, at about 1000 meters high and surrounded by mountains in a pretty isolated environment.

The reasons for this occupation are many: we won’t accept without fighting yet another gigantic infrastructure that will solve absolutely nothing and in fact, will worsen things up. We have to choose which side we’re in: either we stand for western civilization or we fight against it. It’s time for action. This is an attempt to show that some people still have what it takes, that challenging the establishment is a condition for us to be able to live in this world.

Some of the “problems” this MAT line hopes to solve are: to be able to secure electrical power for the tourist villages (especially in summer) of Girona (Costa Brava, for example); electrical supply for the TAV/AVE (which would happen to be the first one to need it!); avoid electrical blackouts like the one of 2007? in Barcelona... We’re not going to enter the debate arena in which one side shows an “independent study” that states how much this power line is needed and the other side comes yet with another study that shows the opposite. It’s obvious which side we’re with, but we state that it is imperative to actually fight this power line and not just keep debating and making press conferences.

In the meantime, we’re trying to build the foundations of a new world starting right here and now, reconnecting with the Earth. Living what our instincts tell us, hurting the empire and making pressure on its fissures. From here, from the forests that have always hid the rebels, maquis, conspirators and plotters. We can still be kinda invisible and feel protected by these forests.

The’ve sold us the idea of progress and science as a nostrum/panacea that will free humanity of its fears and that will give us commodities never dreamed before. A commodity that, on the other hand, we never get to catch because progress has to create new gadgets every single minute. What we’re able to see is that progress reduces us to total useless persons, full of insecurities and passivity. Every moment we spend in this world we lose knowledge about how a life would be without all these commodities they sell to us.

So long the occupation is very successful. In this (almost) two months, a lot of structures have been built: many beds on the trees, a communal “chill” house in between three trees to read and plot, a communal kitchen, a info point, a “warehouse” to store materials and keep things dry...and many resistance structures that will keep police busy for (we hope) some days when they try to evict us. Also very important has been the help and involvement of many people we didn’t know until some weeks ago: local people from the nearby villages, people from Barcelona and other cities that show up and help, people that decide to stay for some days (or even that came to live with us) and bypassers that are curious of what we’re doing.

Our communication strategy has been to try to communicate directly with people instead of letting mass-media protray us and manipulate us as they want. No work has been done with them. We have used our own means: texts, fliers, posters, face-to-face talking with people of the villages, social movements and our own blog (desdelsboscos.blogspot.com). Mass-media are never impartial, less when they’re means to enrich themselves and to keep this capitalist machine running full-speed. That’s why we invite everyone to show up with no cameras or microphones.

From the forest, a big hug to all people trying to get rid of this capitalist-industrialist system and that struggle to create a world without any kind of domination!