A recent campaign by Greenpeace targeted iconic toy manufacturer Lego in a bid to force them to drop Shell‘s branding. It is the latest in a line of headline-grabbing protests stretching back decades. Using an interactive timeline, Adam Leach looks back at some high profile anti-oil protests and finds out how they have affected the industry for the better.
1969 – Santa Barbara oil spill inspires Earth Day
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In January 1969, engineers working on a Union Oil platform six miles off the coast of California attempted to retrieve a pipe in order to replace the drill bit. As the pipe came up, a drop in the amount of mud being used to maintain pressure resulted in a natural gas blowout that started a leak that would not stop for 11 days.
By the time it was plugged, 200,000 gallons of crude had covered an 800 square mile stretch of ocean. As dead seals and dolphins washed up on the shore, godwits and plovers took flight to find new hunting grounds, public anger at Union Oil swelled. Get Out Oil, founded three days after the disaster by Bud Bottoms, urged people to cut down driving and boycott gas stations associated with offshore drilling in protest. Gathering 100,000 signatures to a call for an end to offshore drilling, the group forced a temporary halt on all activity and prompted a raft of new regulations designed to make operations safer.
Writer John McKinney wrote how the range of people outraged at the atrocity had impressed him, including seeing a society matron transporting oily birds in her Mercedes. President Richard Nixon, remarked: "The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people." But Fred L. Hartley, president of Union Oil, remained unapologetic: "I am amazed at the publicity for the loss of a few birds."
The publicity garnered by the disaster and the death of an estimated 3686 birds, and other wildlife, helped inspire the creation Earth Day in the next spring, which united environmentalists across America.
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By GlobalData1989 – Valdez Blockade
On the 24th March 1989 the Exxon Valdez, which was travelling to Long Beach, California, struck the Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska and spilled an estimated 11 million US gallons of crude oil into the sea. The spill remained the largest ever in American waters until Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill devastated the local area and its wildlife.
Protests against Exxon and the oil industry shortly after the event inspired the Oil Pollution Act 1990 which barred any vessel that had caused an oil spill of more than 1 million US gallons anywhere from operating in Prince William Sound.
However, more than four years after the spill had occurred local fisherman, angered that not enough had been done to address the disaster, formed a 60-boat blockade to block oil tankers from reaching the Trans Alaska Pipeline over. After just two days, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt met with the protesters promised to release $5 million for eco-system wide studies from the Exxon Valdez Restoration Fund. Seven oil tankers were blocked during the protest.
1990 onwards – Conflict in the Niger Delta
The ongoing conflict between the oil industry and minority ethnic groups around the Niger Delta erupted in the early 1990’s after decades of promises from the Nigerian government of great riches and environmental protection for the communities located near to the offshore operations of Shell and other international oil explorers failed to materialise.
Founded in 1992, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) served as the primary campaigner against the Nigerian government and Royal Dutch Shell. Violence erupted from both MOSOP and the government. MOSOP vowed to disrupt all operations within the area unless it received $10 billion in compensation and an immediate halt in drilling until a mutual agreement between the sides had been reached.
The government banned public gatherings and made disruptions to oil operations an act of treason. Extraction dropped to just 0.5% of country’s total output. In 1994, nine Ogoni activists were denied due process and charged with the murder of four of their own elders by a specially convened tribunal chosen by General Sani Abacha and were sentenced to death by hanging.
International outcry at the executions and the treatment of the Ogoni prompted the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union to enforce trade sanctions against Nigeria, which helped ease the conflict. At the time, Shell called for clemency for those on trial, though it later admitted that it had given money to the Nigerian military, which had arrested and tried the ‘Ogoni 9.’
Tensions started to ease in 2006, when Ogoniland was granted. The suppression of the Ogoni and other ethnic minorities in the Niger Delta, such as the Ijaw, led to the formation of the Niger Delta Development Commission in order to try and ensure that the people’s needs were better served.
1995 – Activists force Shell to rethink dumping Brent Spar platform
Having deemed it surplus to requirements, Shell submitted two methods of disposing of the 14,500 tonne oil platform that had been operating in the North Sea. The first proposal would see it towed to shallow waters, decontaminated and stripped of its valuable materials, with the remaining waste being transported onshore and recycled. The second, more straightforward, proposal was to tow it deep into the North Atlantic and detonate explosives to sink it into the sea. Following approval of the second method the company applied to scrap Brent Spar in North Fenni Ridge and was granted permission in December 1995.
Angered at the potential environmental consequences of scrapping it at sea, Greenpeace launched a campaign that saw activists occupy the platform, who were filmed being attacked with water cannons, and kick started international opposition to Shell and its operations with some of its petrol stations reporting a 50% drop in sales. Shell eventually succumbed to public pressure and opted for its first proposal. The success of the protest scuppered any other plans to dispose of the platforms at sea, with no such structures disposed of in such a manner since.
2013 – Russia detains Arctic 30
On 11th August, the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise set course for the Arctic as part of its campaign against oil exploration and drilling in the area. On its journey, it was refused entry to the Northern Sea Route by Russia three times, before ignoring the directions and entering the Kara Sea. After a further warning from Russian authorities that force would be used to remove them if they continued, the ship left the area, but once again returned having turned off its radio signals.
Following a successful attempt to board the Gazprom operated Prirazlomnaya drilling platform, two activists received warning shots from the coastguard before being removed and held on the vessel. Things escalated a day later when 15 armed officers boarded the Arctic Sunrise, without having sought permission from its flag state the Netherlands. The ship was then towed to Murmansk and all 30 crew were detained and questioned. Charged first with piracy and then aggravated hooliganism, carrying a maximum sentence of 7 years, the activists were transferred to St. Petersburg to await trial.
The response by Russia prompted huge international protest with The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Dutch government, and 11 Nobel prize winners among those calling for their immediate release, while German chancellor Angela Merkel raised concern over the issue with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On 24th December it was announced that the first of the detainees would be given amnesty with the others freed in due course. The activists were all free three months after being taken into custody with no charges against them. Russia released the Arctic Sunrise back to Greenpeace on 6th June 2014.
2014 – Anchored platform raises tensions between China and Vietnam
When the China National Offshore Oil Exploration Corporation (CNOOEC) anchored the HD-981 rig 120 nautical miles east of Vietnams’s Ly Son Island and 180 nautical miles from China’s Hainan Island, it sparked resurgence in tensions between the two over the hotly contested Paracel Islands.
For China, which calls them the Xisha Islands, its ownership of one of the islands allowed it to claim its own continental shelf and anchor the platform. For Vietnam, where they are called the Hoang Sa islands, it was not only breaching its continental shelf, but its economic exclusion zone. The diplomatic fallout saw Vietnam call on China to leave the contested area and sit down for talks, but when China complied, conflict errupted between the Chinese naval escort and Vietnamese ship, with Vietnam claiming that China rammed its fleet and fired on it with water cannon.
Later, footage showed the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat after it was rammed by a Chinese vessel. On shore in Vietnam, the events prompted violent protests and attacks on Chinese and Taiwanese owned businesses, which lead to China evacuating 290 citizens away from Taiwan in order to escape the violence, with thousands more fleeing on boats and ships. The diplomatic fallout emanating from the placement of the platform is judged to have heightened tensions between the two countries to levels not seen for more than two decades and things are unlikely to settle down soon, with Vietnam continuing to protest that China is impinging on its sovereignty.
2014 – Everything Is Not Awesome
Accusing Shell of trying to shield its reputation with the ‘magic of Lego’ through a commercial deal that resulted in the sale of 16 million co-branded toy sets sold at Shell petrol stations in 28 countries, Greenpeace turned its focus to the Danish toymaker. Over the course of the three-month campaign, which was part of the group’s broader Save the Arctic effort, the group carried out a series of stunts and awareness raising activities to highlight Lego’s involvement with Shell.
At Lego theme parks, activists leafleted visitors and replicated poster protests at famous attractions around the site, including building housing Big Ben and the White House. The campaign also saw a number of activists dressed as Lego figures attempt to deliver a 100,000 petition to the company’s UK headquarters and host an event outside the Shell Building where a group of children constructed Arctic Animals out of Lego Bricks.
The most successful part of the campaign was an alternative music video for the Lego movie song ‘Everything is Awesome’ that depicted a Lego brick Arctic complete with Lego polar bears, Shell oil rig and cigar smoking oil man becoming flooded in oil. The ‘Everything is not Awesome’ video registered more than 1,000,000 views on YouTube before being removed temporarily. Since being reuploaded, the video has received more than 6.25 million views.
On 9th October, Lego, which had earlier tried to remove itself from the campaign by claiming it should be between Greenpeace and Shell, announced that it would not be renewing its partnership with Shell once the current deal expired.
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