NZ businesses continue to profit from Western Sahara's occupation.

The Western Sahara Campaign-NZ expresses is disappointed that two New Zealand businesses Ravensdown and Ballance will continue to profit from the occupation of Western Sahara. A new report from Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW), Powering the Plunder, looks at the wind energy projects that allow the exploitation of Western Sahara's phosphate resources to continue.

At the upcoming COP22, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, beware of what you read about Morocco’s renewable energy efforts. An increasing part of the projects take place in the occupied territory Western Sahara and is used for mineral plunder, the WSRW report documents.

An increasing part of the renewable energy programmes that Morocco is promoting – even on the official COP22 website – are not taking place in Morocco at all, but in Western Sahara, which it illegally and brutally occupies.

Both the Moroccan government and a handful of renewable energy companies will actively market their efforts for the development of green energy solutions during the COP22 climate talks in Marrakech, 7-18 November 2016.

22 newly built mills by the German company Siemens supply 95% of the energy required for the highly controversial plunder of non-renewable minerals from Western Sahara. The green energy production is making Morocco’s plunder of the territory even more lucrative. Both New Zealand companies Ravensdown and Ballance continue to import phosphate mined in Western Sahara.

The former UN Legal Counsel, Hans Corell, stated on the front page of the Danish national paperInformation "If one uses the territory of Western Sahara for the benefit of Morocco and for foreign enterprises, without properly consulting the people of Western Sahara or ensuring that they are the ones profiting from the wind energy, it will be in violation of international law and UN principles for responsible business”.

Report overview: http://wsrw.org/a105x3614

Full report: http://wsrw.org/files/dated/2016-11-01/poweringplunder_eng_web.pdf

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