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Update: Greenpeace activists arrested after boarding oil exploration vessel

November 24, 2015

All five Greenpeace activists that boarded the New Zealand Government’s oil exploration ship on Tuesday morning, have been arrested.

Greenpeace shared the news of the arrests via Twitter saying: “The final three #climbitchange climbers have been arrested. Proud of our people. Over to you to demand climate action #peoplesclimatemarch!!”

 

Read the original article below: Greenpeace activists board oil exploration vessel in New Zealand

 

Five Greenpeace activists boarded a New Zealand Government ship in Wellington Tuesday morning and locked themselves to it, claiming the vessel has been searching for oil.

Greenpeace says the NIWA taxpayer-funded climate and ocean research boat, Tangaroa, has been refitted at a cost of $24 million for oil and gas exploration, and is now surveying for oil on the East Coast of the North Island on behalf of petroleum giants Statoil and Chevron.

In response, three activists got onboard the vessel and locked themselves to the top of its mast, while a further two are secured to the deck.

They unfurled a sail-shaped banner from the mast, reading: “Climb it Change”, while the remaining activists have attached other banners all over the boat with the same message.

According to Greenpeace, the Tangaroa had been preparing to leave Wellington Harbour, where it had made a pit stop, to continue oil exploration.

Greenpeace has accused the New Zealand Government’s “obsessive” oil agenda, “which contradicts climate science which says most of the Earth’s oil needs to stay in the ground if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change.”

“The Tangaroa is trying to find oil, which the industry then wants to burn, heating up our planet. This will cause global suffering, including for thousands of families in New Zealand and the Pacific who could be forced from their homes by extreme weather and rising seas,” Greenpeace climate campaigner Steve Abel says.

Abel says “Climb it Change” is a nod to civil disobedience and the fact that people power and action is what is stopping the fossil fuel industry all over the world.

Offshore Energy Today Staff