Coal Action protest finishes

Image: Screen grab from video footage.

Coal Action Network Aotearoa has ended its protest at the Fonterra Clandeboye dairy plant this morning, vowing to step up protests against the company until it quits coal.

Five people chained themselves to the main coal delivery gate at the factory this morning. Three grandmothers (two of whom are farmers), a farmer and a student remained locked to the gate for more than four hours, as well as blocking a second gate, disrupting traffic flow around the plant.

A big pile of woodchips was dumped at the gate, adorned with a sign saying "use this instead" and people dressed in cow suits held a banner saying "Coal? Udderly ridiculous"

In all 24 people took part in the protest, and they left peacefully around midday.

One of the grandmothers, Coal Action Network's Jeanette Fitzsimons said:

"We made our point to Fonterra, and they got the message. We have talked endlessly with this company about its use of coal, and we keep hearing promising words, but still we see absolutely no action. Today's protest was the first of many to come - we will continue to keep up the pressure until Fonterra quits coal."

Fonterra has tweeted a response to the protest saying that it wants to quit coal.

"We'll believe them when their total coal use begins to drop rather than rising as it is at present. Measuring coal use per litre of milk, as they do is simply greenwash - all that matters to the atmosphere is total coal burned" said Fitzsimons.

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