A new local campaign is aiming to stop the Government from handing out oil and gas permits for onshore drilling in Taranaki. A petition by community group Climate Justice Taranaki called ‘A bid for the future – no more oil and gas drilling in Taranaki’ has already been signed by over 2800 supporters in just three weeks.

“We have started a new petition to demonstrate community opposition to the government’s plan to reopen over 20% of the Taranaki region for further oil and gas drilling through the Petroleum Block Offer process” says Urs Signer, member of Climate Justice Taranaki.  

“The Government must stop handing out oil and gas permits. Handing out permits for more fossil fuel exploration while the planet is heating at unprecedented rates can only be described as ecocide. The climate emergency demands we transition away from fossil fuels towards using far less energy and only clean sustainable energy sources.”

“We are seeing and feeling the impacts of climate change with our very own eyes. The storms this summer that have brought so much devastation to Aotearoa needs to be our wake-up call. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere keep rising due to increasing emissions from human activity – the use of fossil fuel being one of the main causes.”

“We are calling on the Government to end the block offers on the 1565.5 km² of onshore Taranaki land that would allow oil and gas drilling. Rather than joining the corporate bids to destroy the land, waterways and atmosphere, we are making an alternative bid in defence of our planet. We, the people of Aotearoa, are together bidding for the future – one without more oil and gas drilling in Taranaki” concludes Signer.

The Block Offer is now open now and closes at 5pm on 26th July 2023.

The petition can be viewed (and signed) here: https://community.greenpeace.org.nz/petitions/a-bid-for-the-future-no-more-oil-and-gas-drilling-in-taranaki