"Another colossal leap in the wrong direction"

Oil exploration sites now almost twice the size of New Zealand. Oil Free Wellington says, "Block Offer 2015 is yet another colossal leap in the wrong direction"

Despite the protest by six thousand Aucklanders on Sunday and the 500 letters of opposition delivered to Statoil on Friday the Government has announced more oil exploration permits at their annual Block Offer. Collectively an area almost twice the size of the country will be open to exploration.

Oil Free Wellington spokesperson Fi Gibson says, "with the clear catastrophic risks of climate change we should be pushing for social and economic change, not increasing destructive oil and gas exploration."

The block offer process began in 2012 and has seen more than 476, 000 square kilometres of ocean opened up to the oil industry. At the conference just held another 400,000 square kilometres has been added to potential exploration sites. The permits still include a marine mammal sanctuary and Victoria forest park. Despite knowing this the Government has not removed these sites from permits.

Fi Gibson says, “No matter what safety measures are taken, the risks of deep sea oil drilling are too great., The marine species that occupy the seas around New Zealand must be not be exposed to any further risks. Their existence is already too fragile.”

Statoil faces ongoing opposition in Northland with local kaumatua voicing their anger, many joining hikoi to Auckland and Waitangi, and a thousand-strong march in September last year in Auckland.

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