MEDIA UPDATE 1 ROCKALL OCCUPATION
Rockall, 13 June 1997
Day 3 The Greenpeace activists on Rockall don't need oil to survive.
Their solar panels and wind turbine are generating so much electricity they can't find enough uses for it.
Al reports fulmars, guillemots, gannets and kittiwakes, along with an inquisitive seal. The activists are monitoring wildlife in the area and continuing to settle into their new "home". The weather in the area has worsened with north, north easterly wind force 5 to 6 yesterday and a high wind this morning.
Yesterday, after a fishing session, a pollack supplemented their expedition diet of meusli, biscuits and gravy granules.
It was fried in butter inside the pod.
Yesterday Greenpeace delivered a message in a bottle from Rockall to Margaret Beckett, President of the Board of Trade - calling for "No New Oil".
A live Internet interview with the team began broadcasting at 4.45pm yesterday from the Greenpeace UK Atlantic Frontier page at: http://www:greenpeace.org.uk/atlantic On board the MV Greenpeace Mathew Spencer said, "We did a couple of inflatable trips to deliver extra equipment and provisions to Rockall - even managed to fob them off with a dozen hard-boiled eggs - they thought they'd escaped from the compulsory egg regime that Marco, the cook, has us all under . Close-up the rock is even more spectacular - the East face is an almost perfect vertical plane for 60 feet - so that's where the team lower down their barrel to collect any provisions. It's a tricky operation and even in relatively benign conditions there's a strong current and big swell in which holes open up between the waves around it's base".
In a letter to Tony Blair about the occupation of Rockall Greenpeace yesterday said, "We do not want to own Rockall or the seas around it.
But we believe that the UK's crude seizure and annexation of this defunct volcano to get at oil now ill becomes a nation which aspires to 'sustainable development'.
Rockall Media Update
"We believe it is important that a stand is made against the thinking that drives the world further into the near certainty of a fossil-fuelled disaster and we have therefore seized Rockall on behalf of the planet. We are borrowing it and will be happy to give it back if, as Lord Tanlaw once requested, the Government sets it aside from development."
On the subject of climate change and sustainable development, the letter said, "science shows that humanity cannot burn all the fossil fuel reserves that exist and to explore for more is wrong and foolish.
Britain cannot credibly call for less emissions from fossil fuels while setting out to increase their production. Although we realise it is a policy you have inherited, Britain faces two ways on fossil fuels and your Government's present 'sustainable development' policy is hypocritical."
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Greenpeace Press Office on +(44) 0171-865 8255/6/7/8