*Media Release : under strict embargo until 9:00am 20th April 2011 *

*Wellington - **Wednesday the 20^th April 2011*

* *

*Anniversary of the BP oil spill

: People of Wellington visit NZ’s most prominent and reckless fossil fuel extraction companies.*

Today is the anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. As part of an international ‘Day of Direct Action against Extraction’ a large group of concerned individuals, including members of the Workers Party and Camp for Climate Action Aotearoa, are making a series of visits to the Wellington offices of the most prominent and reckless fossil fuel extraction companies operating in New Zealand.

“We are joined by New Zealanders in Taranaki, Wellington, Dunedin, Whanganui, Nelson, Auckland, and the East Cape taking action against the recklessness of extraction projects and the fossil fuel industry in general. Today New Zealanders stand beside Gulf Coast residents fighting offshore drilling, Appalachians resisting mountaintop removal coal mining, Pennsylvania and New York residents opposing natural gas hydrofracking, people of the West Coast of Ireland and Nigeria defending their community from Shell Oil, Canadians fighting tar sands mining in Alberta and indigenous community groups resisting extractive industries all over the world”, said group spokesperson Liz Willoughby-Martin.

“Communities around the world are terrorized by corporate and state ventures to extract fossil fuels. On top of poisoning our water and polluting our air, extractive industries are at the root of our climate crisis. Proposed techno-fix solutions and greenwashed economic growth are both incompatible with tackling the root causes of the climate crisis. If we have any hope of averting the worst affects of climate change we must leave fossil fuels in the ground.”

“Eliminating carbon pollution requires a wholesale industrial economic and social restructuring which necessitates the defeat of the most powerful industry coalition ever assembled. Across the world people are taking action for themselves and successfully defeating these companies in their own back yards.”

“Wellington is /our /community: those profiting from extraction work in /our/ cities, they sit comfortably behind their desks contributing to mass murder and community destruction. Today we are going to pay them a visit. It is the least we can do from within our communities to support courageous communities all over the world defending themselves from extractive industry” said Willoughby-Martin.

*ENDS*

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