We’re back from the Localize This! Action Camp, and already seeing some of the fruits of our labor!

Responding to the call of Backbone Campaign and other local islanders, we brought the Ruckus crew out to Vashon Island in Washington’s Puget Sound July 13-18, for a week of direct action trainings.  In addition to the standard action camp workshops Ruckus has used over the last 13 years, this camp included a track in kayak safety and water blockades, and Backbone held down the creative visuals track.

While folks came from all over the U.S. and Canada – including many from indigenous communities through our IP3 project – there was a strong showing of local Vashon folks, and with good reason:  local islanders are gearing up to fend off a Japanese multinational corporation named Glacier Northwest, who is trying to turn neighboring Maury Island into a gravel mine.  (Check out this great video about the training that aired on Seattle’s King 5 News on July 15!)

Over the course of the week, in between direct action theory and prep workshops, media and messaging, campaign action strategy, and tactical trainings in climbing, blockades on land and water, and visuals, discussions ensued about strategy for both the local Vashon campaign, as well as campaigns from participants’ local campaigns that they’re working on back home.

Local struggles varied across issue-focus, but also intertwined in their overarching theme of environmental justice for the sustainability of land and communities.  And it was clear that we were all there for one reason:  to learn how to take DIRECT ACTION to win our struggles.

Now, just ten days after the camp’s final action role-play day, two indigenous women from Canada who attended Localize This! climbed Royal Bank of Canada’s flagpoles outside their headquarters in Toronto this morning, and hung a banner appealing to the wife of RBC’s CEO to help stop the Tar Sands extraction project in Alberta.  (Click here to read more about the action, which was evidence of local indigenous participation in Rainforest Action Network’s tar sands divestment campaign against RBC).

This is just one example of how Ruckus trainings lead to action, and build the movement’s capacity to WIN.

Keep your eyes open for news about Vashon island’s “Mosquito Fleet” taking to the water to block the gravel mine!  The company could start construction as early as August 15th.