When a drilling rig leased by BP exploded 40 miles off the Louisiana coastline, eleven workers lost their lives and pipes deep under the surface of seafloor ruptured. Oil gushed for three months into the Gulf of Mexico, and millions of barrels of oil polluted thousands of miles of marine ecosystems, devastating local communities.
Yesterday, the people of South Australia came together to send a clear message to Norwegian Big Oil company, Statoil: They are not welcome in the Great Australian Bight.
I first moved to Australia from a landlocked country when I was 13. All of a sudden, I was surrounded by what felt like endless oceans. The ocean was intimidating, powerful and incredibly beautiful. It completely enchanted me.
Now, I’m a photographer specialising in the oceans, and the Great Australian Bight is our wild, uncompromising, underwater backyard.
As people and governments around the world are starting to act on climate change, the Norwegian government is moving in the opposite direction – opening up the remote Arctic for new oil drilling and putting people’s lives at risk.
After perpetrating what is probably the worst oil-related catastrophe on Earth - a 20,000 hectare death zone in Ecuador, known as the “Amazon Chernobyl” - the Chevron Corporation has spent two decades and over a billion dollars trying to avoid responsibility. In 2011, Indigenous and peasant villagers won an $9.5-billion compensation judgement in Ecuador. Chevron, despite accepting jurisdiction in Ecuador to avoid a US jury trial, refused to pay.
BP and Total have suffered a massive setback in their plans to drill for oil near the Amazon Reef. The companies’ joint application for a drilling permit is in crisis, after the Brazilian government rejected their environmental impact study.
“The Great Australian Bight is the greatest whale nursery on this planet. The whale story where I come from is my university, my school… Whales like sperm whales, blue whales, pygmy blue whales, killer whales, humpback whales – they travel down there to honour that great journey, that song, that story of the great white whale Jeedara that is there now… ” - Bunna Lawrie, Mirning Elder.
How do you know when a tax regime isn't working? When industry demands that it be kept as is! Major oil and gas producers have called on the government to resist demands to tighten up Australia's primary tax on oil and gas, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT). Greenpeace Australia Pacific and the Tax Justice Network have argued that it is time to end the industry's free ride.
