Statoil in the Bight
June 2017

Statoil to take over BP’s exploration licences in the Bight

Dear ,

Last year, in the face of huge community opposition, oil giant BP abandoned its plans to drill for oil in the deep waters of the Great Australian Bight.

You would think Big Oil executives the world over would have heard the message loud and clear—the Bight is no place for oil drilling.

But no. Last week, the Norwegian oil company, Statoil, announced its takeover of two of BP’s four exploration licences in the Bight.

Please make a tax-deductible donation today to keep Big Oil out of the Bight.

Pressing ahead with oil drilling in the Bight is dangerous in the extreme. Even BP’s own oil spill modelling shows that the risks are catastrophic.

Statoil now joins Chevron and others which plan to drill in the Bight in the next 24 months.

The community stood up and beat BP. With your help, we can beat Statoil and Chevron.

Can you chip in to tell Statoil and Chevron that the Bight is no place for oil drilling?

The next phase of the campaign is ready to go. The voice of the communities—amplified in boardrooms, through the media and on the streets—stopped BP. The decision-makers in Statoil and Chevron need to hear the same message from the community loud and clear: the Bight is no place for deepwater drilling.

donate today

The waters of the Bight are too rough and too deep—the risks of a catastrophic oil spill are too great.

Yours for nature,

Lyndon Schneiders
National Director, The Wilderness Society


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A win for common sense

Good news! The Tasmanian Legislative Council has rejected the Hodgman Government’s chaotic and divisive legislation to log high conservation value forest reserves. It was a seven to five vote for common sense.

This is a welcome step, but in no way delivers a resolution to the issue of forest conservation in Tasmania. The Wilderness Society will continue to campaign for forest areas—like the takayna/Tarkine, Wielangta, Douglas-Apsley and Bruny Island—to be formally gazetted as new national parks and reserves, to properly protect their natural and cultural heritage values and add to the success of Tasmania’s existing conservation reserve system.

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This year’s shortlist features wonderfully illustrated picture fiction, adventurous tales with conservation hijinks and fact-filled nonfiction books that will feed children’s curiosity.

Congratulations to all the authors, illustrators and publishers! Read more

Land clearing on the rise in Australia

Australia is in the middle of a deforestation crisis—one million hectares have been cleared in Queensland alone in the past four years. Land clearing destroys our forests and bushland, kills millions of native animals including the iconic koala and numbat, changes our climate, damages soils and water resources and threatens the Great Barrier Reef. Sign today


Donate to stop Chevron and Statoil in the Bight

The fight for our Bight is back on. BP might be gone, but Statoil—a Norwegian company with a poor track record of safety breaches and oil spills in the Arctic—has now joined the race to drill this precious marine wilderness area.

If drilling in the Great Australian Bight is permitted, we risk a catastrophe on the scale of the Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010—the worst oil spill in history. It destroyed countless marine environments and killed millions of animals.

We can’t let that happen to our pristine Bight—and the thousands of dolphins, turtles and whales that call it home. Please fight for the Bight and make a donation today.

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Photo of the month

IMAGE: Afternoon sun in the Dandenong Ranges | @cathyronalds

For a chance to see your own wilderness photo in the next issue of Wild News, share your nature photos with us via Instagram using the hashtag #NatureWeLove or email it to [email protected] by 21 July 2017 with your name and short description. Good luck! Read the terms and conditions.


Watch this

Antarctica as never seen before. Spectacular footage from The Age. Watch now


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During the Franklin River blockade, these tees could be seen impeding machinery and occupying construction sites for the proposed dam. In total, 1,217 protesters were arrested.

Today, this bold, graphic design—featuring original screen-print artwork—is an enduring symbol of resistance and peaceful protest (it also just looks really cool). Get shopping


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Australia has radically underestimated climate change security threat

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This is deforestation by stealth. Tens of thousands of hectares of bush are being cleared in Australia thanks to vague ‘vegetation thinning’ codes—and our threatened wildlife and climate are copping the brunt of it. Read more


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Authorised by Lyndon Schneiders
© The Wilderness Society

GPO Box 716, Hobart Tasmania 7001, Australia.
ACN: 611 229 086 | ABN: 62 007 508 349
Web: www.wilderness.org.au

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