'You wouldn't risk this place for all the oil in the world' - Introducing the Amazon Reef

Posted by Mal Chadwick — 23 January 2017 at 1:43pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Zig Koch / Natureza Brasileira

Big news: scientists have confirmed the discovery of an incredible coral reef at the mouth of the Amazon river!

 

But we can’t celebrate just yet: oil companies are closing in with a reckless plan to drill for oil nearby. Once they get government approval, these companies could start drilling within months. We can’t let that happen.

An oil spill could devastate this amazing place, harming wildlife and ruining local people’s livelihoods. 

So we’re telling the oil companies to leave the Amazon river mouth, and never come back. Will you join in?

This is a place where nature makes magic

The mouth of the Amazon is home to dolphins, turtles, manatees and some brand new species we barely understand.

Inland from the reef, watchful jaguars rest on low branches, tiny fish spawn among tangled mangroves, and flocks of scarlet birds splash colour across the sky. And along the coast, traditional fishing communities (some founded by people who escaped the slave trade) depend on the clean, thriving environment to feed their families.

You wouldn’t risk this place for all the oil in the world.

But if we don’t act, the drills could be tearing into the seabed within months. The French firm Total has bought rights to drill close to the reef, and plans to start exploring near the reef this year. And our old friends BP - the company that trashed the Gulf of Mexico with its Deepwater Horizon spill - aren’t far behind.

If we want to stop them, now’s the time. Can you help defend the Amazon Reef?

Sign the petition

It’s hard to exaggerate how wonderfully strange this place is. Scientists never thought a reef could survive in these dark, murky waters, but these plants and animals manage to thrive despite getting hardly any sunlight. It’s so unusual that they think it might count as a totally new type of habitat.

Some people will say it’s impossible for ordinary people to take on an oil company. But we know better. Just a few months ago, BP shelved plans to drill in the Great Australian Bight after a huge public outcry. And let’s never forget how we stood together to keep Shell out of the Arctic. 



And a few hundred miles upriver from the reef, we’re standing with the Indigenous Munduruku people in their ongoing fight against destructive Amazon megadams.

BP and Total know this is a risky place to drill for oil, but they’re betting that people won’t care enough to stop them. 

Now we get to prove them wrong.

Let’s build a massive global outcry against risky oil drilling in the mouth of the Amazon. 

Let’s get BP and Total on the back foot, and turn this reckless project into a huge liability that keeps their execs awake at night.

Let’s start right now. 

Sign the petition to defend the Amazon Reef

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