Justice for Appalachia: Ending Mountaintop Removal

Scott Parkin from Rainforest Action Network and Rising Tide North America will be discussing the direct action campaign in southern West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia currently being waged to end mountaintop removal. Mountaintop removal is a form of strip mining that literally explodes the tops off of mountains to get at seams of coal. So far over a million acres of forest have been destroyed, more than 1,000 miles of rivers and streams buried and numerous mountain communities harmed by extraction and waste disposal. Since February, over 120 people working with coalfield residents and direct action groups like Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice have been arrested shutting down mountaintop removal operations in the Coal River Valley of southern West Virginia. Evening will include a short video, talk and discussion.