Civil society teams up against oil drilling in the Canaries
Spain’s major environmental NGOs, including WWF Spain, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Ecologists in Action and SEO/Birdlife, have united under a joint campaign to halt the oil extraction plans offshore Lanzarote and Fuerteventura islands by energy giants Repsol, RWE and Woodside.
The $10 billion project is currently undergoing review by the MAGRAMA, Spain’s Agriculture, Food and Environment Ministry, following a period of public comments on the EIA. According to WWF Spain, the EIA is "plagued with omissions, vagueness and imprecision", which renders impossible a thorough review of the plan.
The contested plan threatens important habitats, protected species and landscapes. It also puts at serious risk the tourism economy of one of the world’s most important visitor destinations.
The coalition has launched an international petition calling for an end to the oil plans in the Canaries: http://savecanarias.org/
Since the wake of the economic crisis, debt ridden states are promoting heavy footprint investments in resource extraction as the spearhead of their economic recovery strategies. Iconic and ecologically sensitive areas in the Mediterranean are at serious risk, due to oil and gas projects in Spain, Italy and Greece. Particularly at risk are the Canary Islands, Pantelleria in Sicily and the area of the Hellenic Trench, extending from Southern Crete to the Ionian Sea.
Sources: WWF Spain, Bloomberg Businessweek.