After a week at Grimsås Marsh, 30 people from the ‘Restore Wetlands’ group have had 68 criminal complaints filed against them for sowing seeds on the marsh, filling in ditches and stopping machinery. Twelve people have been arrested and one person is being held in custody pending deportation. Many have engaged in peaceful civil disobedience for the very first time.
The police have consulted the Swedish Board of Agriculture and now consider that sowing seeds on the bog constitutes gross criminal damage.
In the context of cultivation, it is important that the peat sold is completely sterile, free from other plants or seeds. This does not apply to energy peat, which is burned in thermal power stations. The agreement for peat extraction at Grimsås bog relates to energy peat, and the County Administrative Board has refused Neova’s request to change the permit from energy peat to agricultural peat.
The Director-General of Svensk Torv, Rickard Axdorff, writes that this is “industrial sabotage – hundreds of millions of years of hell” and that “the bog may well be destroyed for all future harvests”.
“It’s rather ironic that the ‘Peat General’ is saying that we are the ones who have destroyed the bog, whilst Neova’s machinery has destroyed all the vegetation on the bog. Incidentally, it’s perfectly possible to burn the peat despite the presence of a few seeds, just as described in the agreement,” says Pontus Bergendahl.
Peat General Rickard Axdorff from Svensk Torv visited Grimsås bog on Wednesday 29 July. Martin Kinnunen, the Sweden Democrats’ climate policy spokesperson, and the news channel Riks accompanied him out onto the bog. On Thursday, 30 July, Radio P4 Sjuhärad visited Grimsås bog and interviewed Återställ Våtmarker. Neova declined the interview.
“Svensk Torv and Neova have completely marginalised themselves through their actions. At the moment, it is only the Sweden Democrats and their media platforms that want anything to do with them,” says Pontus Bergendahl.
Neova is extracting agricultural peat without a licence at at least six further peat extraction sites in Sweden, according to Restore Wetlands’ own investigation. There are likely to be many more, according to Återställ Våtmarker. Due to theEU’s 2005 emissions regulations, it is no longer profitable to burn peat in heating plants.
- Neova’s contract at Grimsås Mosse covers energy peat, but we know that the peat Neova extracts is being sold as horticultural peat. Just as Neova does at all its other peat extraction sites in Sweden. They are breaching their contracts. Every bucketful Neova extracts is an illegal bucketful. How can this be allowed to continue, asks Helen Wahlgren.
Restore Wetlands is running a campaign against peat extraction in Grimsås, which will continue into August. This is the third summer that Restore Wetlands has been in Grimsås to save the bog and secure a ban on peat extraction in Sweden.
Today, Friday 31 July, Återställ Våtmarker has switched from sowing grass seeds to sowing sunflowers on the bog. The campaign to sow seeds on the bog will continue day after day, whilst the ditches are being plugged up and Neova’s machinery is being stopped.
- Sunflowers are a powerful, universal symbol of resistance. But not only that; sunflowers are also a symbol of vitality and the restoration of nature. These sowing actions are not only powerful, but also indescribably beautiful and aesthetic, and in their beauty, perhaps the most radical thing one can do,” says Helen Wahlgren.