A new pledge has been launched to oppose new oil and gas drilling, after the first new application has been made since the repeal of the 2018 ban on new offshore drilling. The applicant – Australian-owned ‘EnZed Energy’ – has applied for a giant offshore oil and gas permit right in the middle of a marine mammal sanctuary. Seismic blasting there is illegal, which means the Government may need to rewrite the law (again) just to let fossil fuels in the door.
350 Aotearoa campaigner Adam Currie says: “Aotearoa deserves to have a thriving ocean without the risk of catastrophic oil spills. Everyone has the right to a stable climate and a future in which Papatūānuku can sustain life in all its diversity.
Yet oil and gas drilling from companies like EnZed Energy puts this at risk. We’ve done this all before. Thousands marched in the streets, mobilised on beaches, sailed in flotillas, fought legal battles, and stood alongside iwi to fight off Petrobras, Anadarko, Shell, Equinor/Statoil, OMV and Chevron. Oil company after oil company were sent off with their tail between their legs. And in 2018, we won a globally significant ban on new offshore oil exploration. Luxon’s Government may have reversed that ban — but people power can still stop offshore drilling in its tracks.”
“When communities unite, investors walk away. Projects crumble. And no company, no matter how large, can withstand determined iwi and public opposition. That’s what this pledge is all about.”
The group ‘Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders NZ’ is supporting 350’s pledge. The group’s spokesperson Christine Rose says: “Māui dolphins are the world’s rarest and smallest dolphin. No one wants to see them become extinct.
The West Coast North Island Marine Mammal Sanctuary was established specifically to protect Māui and Hector’s dolphins. It is dangerous and unacceptable for new oil and gas exploration and extraction to take place in their home.
Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders will resist activities that put the dolphins at risk. “We will actively oppose EnZed Energy and its destructive oil and gas proposals. Māui and Hector’s dolphins are much-loved taonga found only in Aotearoa. The writing is on the wall. EnZed Energy should read it and go back to Australia.”
Currie adds, “There’s barely any gas left in the Taranaki Basin; New Zealand hasn’t found new gas in a new place in over twenty years. Even if they somehow found gas, it wouldn’t come online for more than a decade and would be wildly expensive and risky.
Normally, this kind of project would be so unprofitable that no company would touch it. But this Government has added one crucial ingredient: $200 million in fossil fuel subsidies. This makes uneconomic, climate-wrecking projects suddenly tempting for foreign corporations. But subsidies aren’t everything. There’s still one force that can stop this in its tracks: the people of Aotearoa. That’s what this pledge is all about – stopping new fossil fuel drilling in its tracks, so we can instead focus on delivering the clean, community-powered renewable revolution we so urgently need.”
The pledge comes as part of a long history of resistance to fossil fuels. For example, Rikirangi Gage of Te Whānau-ā-Apanui blocked Petrobras from seismic surveying in the Raukūmara Basin, telling them: “You are not welcome in our waters. Accordingly and as an expression of our mana and our deep concern for the adverse effects of deep sea drilling, we will be positioning the Te Whānau-ā-Apanui vessel directly in your path. We will not be moving – we will be doing some fishing.”
The full pledge can be found here.