Stop Shell
Africa
Nigeria Ecocide
The Shell Petroleum Development Company, a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and the Nigerian State, is responsible for almost half of Nigeria's oil extraction (47%), followed by ExxonMobil (22%), Chevron (19%) and ENI/Agip (5%).
Poverty in the oil-rich Niger Delta is inseparable from ecocide. Oil extraction started in 1958, promised to the population as the basis for future wealth. Today, the 70,000km² Niger Delta is one of the most polluted regions in the world.
At 2.5 million barrels a day, the country is the sixth biggest oil exporter of the world. Yet while petroleum provides 90% of Nigeria's public revenue, many of the poorest Nigerians live in the Delta region where the oil is drilled from. Soil, rivers and water are contaminated to such a high degree that agriculture and fishing, the former livelihood base of the people, are almost impossible. The consequences have been disastrous: 20% child mortality, high unemployment rates, mass exodus, extremely high crime rates and forced prostitution.
Water pollution
The Niger Delta is also Africa’s third largest water reservoir and the groundwater is heavily contaminated. In 2011, the World Health Organisation (WHO) found an extremely high concentration of hydrocarbon in Nigeria's groundwater. It was more than 900 times higher than international standards allow and 1000 times higher than the limits defined by the Nigerian State itself.
Soil pollution
Niger Delta soil is also extremely contaminated, damaged up to five metres deep.
Air pollution
Massacre + Exodus
At the end of the 1980s, the government brutally attacked peaceful protests against multinationals and the military regimes. The Ogoni people led the protests, guided by author and human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.
To suppress the emerging protests, Shell-Nigeria asked the military for help. A massacre followed, along with large-scale jailings without charges and a mass exodus from the Delta. Saro-Wiwa was arrested and put in solitary confinement.
Together with eight others, Saro-Wira was sentenced to death and executed in 1995 — despite international protests.
South African Coast
Shell is blasting extremely loud shockwaves into the Wild Coast of South Africa, a vital whale breeding ground.
Each shockwave is louder than a space shuttle launch, and local whales, dolphins, sharks and turtles will be subjected to them every 10 seconds, day and night, for five months, in whale mating season.
If oil is found, the operations and potential oil spills would also disrupt the local communities that depend on eco-tourism and fishing for their livelihoods.
Northwest Eurasia
British Cycling
British Cycling has just announced a sponsorship deal with oil giant Shell - one of the world's worst polluters who are continuing to drill for oil and gas in the face of catastrophic climate breakdown. We can't let them get away with using British Cycling to greenwash their reputation.