| SAN FRANCISCO
- August 29 - Yesterday, fossil fuel giant Shell Oil, a company that has raped countless hectares of virgin rainforest and trampled on the human rights of indigenous communities from South America to Central Africa, “undertook not to explore for, or develop, oil and gas resources within” the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Tower of London, Acropolis, the Vatican City, the Great Barrier Reef, the Great Wall of China, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the Palace and Park of Versailles, the Taj Mahal, Masada, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Kremlin and Red Square, and over 700 other World Heritage Sites, only 149 of which are “natural.” Key sites, including the pristine and threatened Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, do not make the list. The announcement follows an identical commitment by 15 of the world’s largest mining companies last week, further proof of the mounting global grassroots pressure these polluting giants are feeling to transform their barbaric practices.
“While we commend Shell for scrapping a project in the Sundarbans Forest in Bangladesh, home to the endangered Bengal tiger, it would be generous to call naming World Heritage sites ‘no go zones’ a conceptual breakthrough. Shell is too big to be taking baby steps this late in the global environmental crisis. Any school kid can tell you not to drill in the Yellowstone and Yosemite. Shell’s true intentions are revealed by its unchanged plans to exploit the North Slope, Sakhalin, and other endangered ecosystems for yet more oil. The Pope may be relieved that the Vatican City is off-limits, but indigenous communities around the world are still fighting for survival against companies like Shell,” said Ilyse Hogue, Global Finance Campaign Director of Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has actively campaigned on the conservation principle of “no-go zones” for years. Already, companies including Home Depot, Kinko’s, Levi Strauss, IKEA and over 400 others have made meaningful commitments to protect endangered areas. With only about 20% of the Earth’s old-growth forests remaining intact and the increasingly apparent effects of catastrophic climate change, the global community does not need largely empty and symbolic environmental gestures from corporate giants. Shell, which operates in 140 countries, has protected very little by pledging to stay out of World Heritage Sites, few of which hold much oil and natural gas according the Financial Times.
Rainforest Action Network works to protect the Earth's rainforests and support the rights of their inhabitants through education, grassroots organizing, and nonviolent direct action. For more information visit www.ran.org.
###
|
