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fortmis OP wrote

As of June 1, Atlanta Police have accompanied contractors Long Engineering, Brasfield & Gorrie and other contracted workers to the woods to attempt to stay on schedule with a forest destruction timeline which sets clearing the forest to begin by the end of June. The project schedule was revealed shortly after work began, as politicians and some members of the APTC Citizen Oversight Committee expressed concerns about lack of transparency from the APF. Activists on the ground have reported heavy machinery clearing trees along the perimeter of the proposed site, as well as seemingly random tree-felling deeper inside the forest. This work is being conducted without the proper permits from Dekalb County Office of Planning & Sustainability.

The tree sits are within the planned site of the “Cop City” campus, located at 33°41’22.7″N 84°20’18.1″W and 33°41’27.2″N 84°20’21.1″W. If land disturbance work continues under these platforms, it risks serious injury or death to those occupying the trees. Tree sitting has a decades-long history as a tactic of civil disobedience to slow or halt environmentally harmful construction projects. Some tree sitters have been able to halt work for as long as 900 days, as happened at the Yellow Finch blockade in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia. In 2008, after decades of protest, the Pacific Lumber company came to an agreement with tree-sitters not to cut down Humboldt County’s Nanning Creek Redwood grove.

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