Rich Felgate’s film FINITE: The Climate of Change, features the Campaign to Protect Pont Valley and the occupation of the Hambacher forest. It shows how, through relentless campaigning, direct action and creative protest, concerned people stopped destruction of the remaining Hambacher forest in the Rhineland, Germany. The forest was being consumed for RWE’s brown opencast coal mine. FINITE also follows opposition to the Banks Group’s opencast coal mine in the Pont Valley, Durham, UK. The Pont Valley Protection Camp started opposing the coal mine plans in early 2018.
FINITE is available to rent or buy online worldwide on Vimeo On Demand!
Numerous applications to extract coal from the Pont Valley via opencast coal methods were rejected for over 30 years by the local council, before UK Coal were given planning permission after a second planning appeal, in June 2015, although the company had gone bankrupt. Banks Group took over the license to extract coal for power stations in early 2018 and rushed to remove the first coal before the planning permission lapsed on the 3rd June 2018.
Local people, some living just 300m from the site’s perimeter, alongside activists from across Europe, set up a protest camp in February 2018 during the ‘Beast from the East’ snow storm. This action was taken just after the coal company felled an ancient hedgerow that ran through the proposed site.
UK Coal’s ecologists had found protected great crested newts on the opencast site and had promised to relocate them, to ponds in the north of the site built for this purpose. Banks Group’s ecologist, in a rush to extract coal before the deadline, conveniently found no newts at all living on the site. The assertion that there were no newts was challenged by everyone who knew the Brooms pond area well. Newts were a central theme in the campaign to stop the mine.
The Campaign to Protect Pont Valley was led by people living in the three villages surrounding the opencast site. The film shows some of the many court hearings, protests, direct action, and a private prosecution for wildlife crimes.
FINITE shows some of the victories from this campaign. The strong resistance to the opencast in the Pont Valley showed that new opencasts are unwanted and irresponsible in the face of the serious impacts from climate change already being felt. This meant that extracting 3 million tonnes of coal from a proposed opencast coal mine near Druridge Bay, in Northumberland, was rejected by central government at the end of 2020. A proposed opencast coal mine at Dewley Hill on the outskirts of Newcastle was also turned down by the planning committee of Newcastle Council in December 2020. Both of these proposals were submitted by Banks Group, who were targetted by campaigners against coal in the Pont Valley.
Although there is very little UK mining happening right now coal mining remains legal. There is currently a proposal for a new underground coal mine at Whitehaven, Cumbria, which was given permission to start in December 2022, but faces legal challenges. There is also an extension proposed to the operating underground coal mine at Aberpergwm, Neath Port Talbot, which is subject to a legal challenge by Coal Action Network.
The tactics used against Banks Group and RWE, shown in FINITE, are applicable against many other extractive industries and unsustainable projects worldwide. Less than 2 miles from where Banks Group opencast mined the Pont Valley now lies Derwentside detention centre. Tactics used in the Pont Valley are now being deployed against this detention centre for asylum seekers, which opened in 2021.
The policing seen in FINITE is familiar to many who fight for social change, and shocking to many who are not yet involved. The interactions between police and protestors in the Pont Valley lead to an academic article, Police and Private Security Responses to the Campaign to Protect Pont Valley Against Opencast Coal Extraction. Even at a low level, the police continue to support the actions of those with money, pursuing projects which are known to cause harm.
FINITE touches on the death of Waka, a much loved part of the Campaign to Protect Pont Valley who was killed fighting for Kurdish freedom by ISIS and Steffan, an embedded journalist documenting the struggle in the Hambacher Forest, killed by the police.
Share the film on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
An underlying message in the film is that the power of coal, as well as the actual resource, is finite—but the energy and passion of the activist movement is relentless. Together we can turn things around and build a system that puts biodiversity and people beyond profit. It’s time to get active.
From Tuesday 16th July to lunchtime 18th July, Lord Holgate heard the case, brought by South Lakes Action on Climate Change and Friends of the Earth, against the Government’s 2022 approval of a new underground coal mine at Whitehaven.
Fantastic news today, 20th June 2024. The UK Supreme Court has set a historical precedent, in overturning a previous ruling, considering the legality of approving a new oil site in Surrey. The ground breaking decision stating that ‘downstream’ emissions (those released when a product is used) must be factored into decisions on…
The UK’s last coal-fired power station closes this year, and last year is confirmed the hottest year on record. We’re pleased that the Labour Party has listened to our arguments, along with the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, and Plaid Cymru which have also ruled out any new coal mining…
Coal Action Network asked Who will stop coal? last weekend in Whitehaven, West Cumbria. At the site of the proposed coal mine, members of the local community and supporters gathered to ensure that the question of the mine is being put to election candidates. Now we need you to crank up the pressure and make sure all election candidates across the UK faces this question as they could decide the fate of the coal mine if elected…
The legal challenges against the government’s approval of a new coal mine off the coast of Cumbria will be heard in London on the 16th to 18th July.
Mining company, ERI Ltd, is applying to mine nearly half a million tonnes of coal from two coal tips dumped in Caerphilly, South Wales by the same mining industry last time it operated in the area.
Mining company, ERI Ltd, is applying to mine nearly half a million tonnes of coal from two coal tips dumped in Caerphilly, South Wales, by the mining industry last time it operated in the area. It’s vital we stop this shameless attempt to exploit the mess left behind by the mining industry to justify yet more mining. If the coal tip mining were to go ahead, it would…
Coal Action Network’s drone footage on Monday 11th March raised the alarm bell about the rising water levels. With this footage, a local resident informed Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council of the rising water levels, only to be told…
The insurance industry found itself in the spotlight last week as a Global Week of Action blossomed across the world. From February 27th to March 3rd 2024, a wave of protests, both online and in the streets, swept through the doors of insurance giants, demanding accountability over their support for polluters and decisive action on climate change.