More than sixty protesters entered the site on Sunday, with six activists scaling buildings and occupying the mine until the following morning.
Six arrests were made by South Wales Police in the early hours of Monday morning, among them a 94-year-old man. Two roof protestors spoke to voice.wales after they were taken down by police.
Extinction Rebellion are opposed to the new mine, which is set to emit 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Activists have accused the Welsh Government of hypocrisy for failing to stop the mine whilst pledging to fight climate change.
By Mark S Redfern. Image copyright voice.wales
Activists from across Britain took part in Extinction Rebellion’s biggest ever action in Wales last weekend, scaling and occupying mining infrastructure overnight at the Aberpergwm mine.
The mine, near Glynneath in Neath Port Talbot, has been the site of major controversy over the reopening of coal production in Wales whilst the Welsh Government promises to make efforts to stop climate change.
Cat, 53, is a youth worker from Port Talbot. She climbed the roof with her fellow XR activists at 4.30pm on Sunday and spent 18 hours occupying the Aberpergwm mine offices.
She was driven to take radical action out of the fear for the planet that her 19-year-old daughter would inherit if climate catastrophe isn’t halted: “It was uncomfortable and cold, believe it or not. But we don’t do it for the comfort, it’s not supposed to be easy.”
Extinction Rebellion (XR) Cymru helped force the Welsh Government to declare a climate emergency in 2019, but since then, the group says that the Welsh Labour administration have been slow to act and say the licence extension would blow apart their aim of achieving net zero before 2050
In May, it was revealed that Welsh Government ministers declined on several occasions to object to a new coal mine extension that would authorise the extraction of up to 40 million tonnes of coal by 2039. If combusted, the coal from the new Aberpergwm mine would be expected to release around 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (5.5 million tonnes per annum), wrecking Welsh Government’s net zero target.
Cat continued: “The reason we did this action was to draw attention [to the climate emergency].”
“It’s the only way we can get attention. I spent thirty years with Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF, I’ve written emails, I’ve gone on marches, collected raffle tickets to support the causes. I was 51-years-old when I was first arrested. I spent fifty years as a law-abiding citizen, a single working-class mother from Wales.”
XR Cymru has said that more than sixty protesters entered the site on Sunday afternoon, many of whom left of their own accord later that evening. The protest group had previously targeted the mine in March with a similar action.
Six activists were arrested in the early hours of Monday morning and among those cuffed was a 94-year-old man, released later that morning. When XR Cymru spoke to voice.wales they underlined that criminal damage was not a part of their direct action strategy and that activists had no intention of smashing mining infrastructure during their occupation.
Two people in white hazmat jumpsuits were seen being escorted from mining conveyor belts and into the back of police vans at 10 o’clock Monday morning. Four activists were taken down from the roof of an office building via cherry-picker soon afterwards but were not arrested, Cat and her fellow activist Lucy among them.
Lucy, 47, is a teacher from Yorkshire. “There’s birds falling from the sky in Spain. It was 42°c in Portugal at 9pm [on Saturday 9 July], and this is not normal heat for the UK is it? It’s going to be 36°c next week.”
“It was a bit uncomfortable… but it was good,” she said of the occupation. “We were in good company. It’s not something we wanted to do, I’d much rather be on the beach over there than in a dusty coal mine with a lot of angry miners. I just feel really sad that the miners thought it was some kind of personal attack on them and their work. It’s in no way that.”
“It’s the government that’s not providing the money and the resources to transition to bring new [green] jobs that can secure a safe future for us. It’s fucked up.”
Lucy added: “It’s just really shit. I used to enjoy camping and walking and climbing, and now when I’m camping it’s on the bloody roof of a coal mine.”
XR said in a press release about Sunday’s action: “To date, Welsh and UK Governments have pointed the finger of blame at each other, with neither taking responsibility nor trying to resolve the issue between them about which has the power to intervene.”
Cat is the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner and said that action packs a personal punch: “I saw the effect it had on our family. He knew the mine was going to take him one way or another but he sacrificed his life to feed his wife and his ten surviving children. He did that for the love of his children but if he knew what we knew today there’s no way he’d go down the mine.”
“Mining is the most dangerous occupation, even more dangerous than police and firefighters for on the job deaths, but it’s the secondary deaths from skin cancers and the asbestos and the chemicals… more generations of Welsh people having to sacrifice their health for somebody else’s wealth.”
“I think especially in this area where industrialisation has robbed so many families of their health and their fathers we deserve a green transition for the workers.”
