Gabrielle Jamela Hosein has written a thought provoking article that gathers together a feminist, racial and land based critique of Trinidad's so called Vision 2020 development plan, which focuses on development through aluminium smelting and other heavy industries. Below is an extract, the full article can be found here

Activists Attilah Springer (left) and Lerato Maria
Maregele (center). SI conference July '07.

Mimi Sheller is a visiting associate professor in the sociology and anthropology department at Swarthmore College. She attended the Saving Iceland conference in 2007.

I grew up in an aluminum-sided suburban house. I carried a colorful aluminum lunchbox to school, with a sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil. Like everyone I know, I drink from aluminum cans, travel in cars, planes, and bikes full of aluminum parts, and cook in aluminum pots and pans. This versatile, ubiquitous material is all around us, all the time, but seems almost invisible because it has become, literally, part of the furniture (even the kitchen sink). The surprising story of this mercurial metallic fabric of everyday life - in our homes, skyscrapers, cars, airplanes, utensils, fasteners, cosmetics, space ships, and bombs - encapsulates the making of global modernity, the creation of multinational corporations, the rise of the U.S. as a world power, the modernization of warfare, and the invention of suburbia, science-fiction futurism, and the American Dream.

you can see some more pictures here. 21/09/07

On the 12th of September 2007, the Global

Trinidadians say NO to industrialisation

Day of Action Against Heavy Industry, people in South Africa, Iceland, Trinidad, Denmark, New York, Holland and the UK protested against the heavy industrialisation of our planet. This marked the first coordinated event of a new and growing global movement that began at the 2007 Saving Iceland protest camp in Ölfus, Iceland. The common target of these protests against heavy industry was the aluminium industry, in particular the corporations Alcan/Rio-Tinto and Alcoa.

Lerato, left, Attillah, right.

Grapevine.is
Issue 10
13 July, 2007

Attilah Springer is a journalist and an activist. She is a part of the Rights Action Group in Trinidad and Tobago, which has fought a long battle against Alcoa over aluminium smelters in Trinidad and Tobago. She recently spoke at a conference for Saving Iceland where she documented the progress of the struggle against the aluminium industry in her country. She is currently staying at the International Summer of Dissent protest camp, organised by Saving Iceland. A Grapevine journalist sat down to speak with Atillah at their beautiful campsite in Mosfellsdalur, joined by Lerato Maria Maregele, an activist from South Africa who has been organising protests against Alcan in her own country.

University lecturer and anti-smelter activist Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh
was forcibly removed from the head office of the Environmental
Management Authority this evening (Thursday April 19) .

Trinidad Express
1/1/2007

Construction of an aluminium smelting plant in Trinidad and Tobago is set to begin before the end of this year. Furthermore, the nation can expect to see two aluminium smelters in operation by the year 2012.

On new years day, campaigners from Saving Iceland climbed St.Pauls Cathedral and the Tate Modern in London as part of our campaign to challenge the destruction of the Icelandic hihghlands, Europe’s last remaining great wildernesses, and the destruction of communities in Trinidad, both at the hands of the aluminium industry and in particular ALCOA, ALCAN and Century Aluminum.

Trinidad Express
29/12/2006

Errol McLeod yesterday bought fresh fish where he usually does-from a vendor at Otaheite Bay. But he feared it may not be long before he would not be able to do so.

In his Christmas year-end review, Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning announced that he is to scrap his plans to build an Alcoa Aluminium smelter by the towns of Chatam and Cap de Ville, where local residents have fiercely campaigned against the government's smelter plan.

For Better or for Worse??
Poem by Marcel, a Cedros resident

28/10/2006 - The following is a report back from one of the people at the London protest against the heavy industrialisation of Iceland and Trinidad on the 27th of October 2006.