ATLANTIC SAFER FROM OIL DEVELOPMENT AS GREENPEACE COMPLETES ROCKALL OCCUPATION

London, 28 July 1997

After 48 days Greenpeace has successfully completed its record-breaking occupation of Rockall, leaving in place a solar-powered beacon as a sign of its intent to stop the oil development on the Atlantic Frontier.

In worsening weather the ship MV Greenpeace successfully retrieved the Solar Survival Capsule last night, in a six hour operation and activists installed a solar powered navigation light on the rock, to replace a broken conventional one placed there by the UK Government.

"We achieved what we came for" said Jon Castle, Captain of the MV Greenpeace which has supplied the Rockall expedition: "We have brought Rockall and the seas around it two steps closer to freedom from oil development & industrialisation".

"First, we stayed there longer than anyone else and we exposed the absurd fragility of the UK's claim to the rock and its seas which was based on just going there. Second, we have helped force political decisions."

Greenpeace has ended its occupation after heralding as a partial victory news that the UK government will sign the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. This means that the UK will face losing its claim to the ocean sea-bed in huge areas west of Rockall. Britain admits it will forego all fishing rights. Some of the UK's Atlantic will now become "international waters" and exploitation rights will again be open to negotiation. In order to conduct oil licensing the UK may now have to take its case to international tribunal.

The UK now has the chance to take a world lead on climate change issue," said Greenpeace's Deputy Executive Director, Chris Rose. "Greenpeace wants nations squabbling over different territorial claims to agree that none of them will exploit the area for oil - in the same way countries have agreed non-development in the Antarctic."

"The world already has enough oil. If all existing reserves were burnt we know it would lead to irreversible climate change, so why are we searching for more oil? The UK as a major industrialised nation - needs to set an example for the world to follow. Robin Cook should now say clearly which areas of sea-bed the UK will not develop for oil."

"The Atlantic Frontier oil development should be stopped on climate grounds but it is already in deep trouble. UNCLOS may severely restrict the UK's ambitions to industrialise the Atlantic, 22 oil companies last week admitted that our proposed Judicial Review of licensing means they are no longer sure their licenses are lawful, and BP's Foinaven ship, the supposed spearhead of the whole development, is still failing to produce any oil. It's time Tony Blair faced reality and pulled the plug on this environmentally disastrous and out of date scheme."

Greenpeace's occupation was designed to demonstrate both the weakness and the wrongness of the UK ambitions - as well as those of Denmark/Faeroes, Iceland and Ireland. Flags of the four nations were lowered at the rock on Sunday, as a flag of Waveland was raised before Greenpeace activists departed the 83 foot high islet.

The MV Greenpeace will now continue to patrol the Atlantic Frontier oil development, while the MV Arctic Sunrise is in operation to oppose new oil development in the Alaskan Arctic and the Rainbow C, a third Greenpeace vessel, is investigating spills and drilling mud pollution in the North Sea.

Greenpeace's occupation included declaring the Global State of Waveland to show that governments should protect the global commons from development, as in Antarctic. Waveland has fired public interest in countries all over the world, from Spain and Germany to Brazil and Australia.

Notes

On 22 July the UK announced it is signing UNCLOS "later this month" Hansard Col WA155-WA156) Answer by Baroness Symons.

It is expected that this means

(a) that Rockall can no longer be held by the UK to "generate" its own continental shelf - because under UNCLOS it is a rock (islet) not an island

(b) the UK will have to define its claim to continental shelf, and if it continues to rely (as it has to now) on geological arguments, it will almost certainly lose some claim - eg west of Rockall in the Atlantic - as the current argument is that the shelf claim is based on "natural prolongation" from the geology of the UK, whereas in fact all geologists think the ocean bed west of the Rockall Trough (which is between St Kilda and Rockall) is more a part of Canadian, Greenland, Icelandic or Faeroese geology.

(c) as the UK has already admitted it won't use Rockall as a base point any longer but will use St Kilda instead, placing large areas previously mooted for licensing, outside its potential claim, including the large sea area (the"Rockall bulge") based on Rockall

3. Greenpeace asked Tony Blair last week to renounce the Rockall Act of 1972. Britain's 1955 Rockall claim for the Queen was based solely on going there, buttressed by a 40 day stay in 1975 by ex-SAS man Tom Maclaean, intended to support UK oil plans. The 1972 Rockall Act was designed to permit UK oil licensing. Now the UK has belatedly agreed to sign the UNCLOS, its claim to a continental shelf west of Rockall is shrinking fast.

Greenpeace expects the UK to be left with the standard UNCLOS 200 mile EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) and as it can no longer use Rockall, which does not qualify as a base point under UNCLOS, it admits it will fall back on St Kilda, leaving huge sea areas beyond the reach of UK oil licensing as well as fishing rights.