Save the Arctic is a

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

campaign to protect the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

, principally by preventing

oil drilling An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may ...

and unsustainable industrial fishing in the area completely, surrounded by an Arctic-

Environmental economics Environmental economics is a sub-field of economics concerned with environmental issues. It has become a widely studied subject due to growing environmental concerns in the twenty-first century. Environmental economics "undertakes theoretical or ...

-Zone. The campaign, begun in 2012, calls for a

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...

in the uninhabited high seas area around the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Ma ...

, similar to the

Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, also known as the Madrid Protocol, is a complementary legal instrument to the Antarctic Treaty signed in Madrid on October 4, 1991. It entered into force on January 14, 1998. The ...

. The campaign aims to begin this process by prompting a

United Nations resolution A United Nations resolution (UN resolution) is a formal text adopted by a United Nations (UN) body. Although any UN body can issue resolutions, in practice most resolutions are issued by the Security Council or the General Assembly. Legal ...

on protection for the

. Due to Russian invasion in Ukraine, world's 13% oil reserves could be a melting point in the Arctic.

Background

The Arctic may contain around 20% of the world's remaining undiscovered oil and gas resources. As most easily extractable

fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ma ...

reserves have been exploited, and the Arctic ice pack shrinks, governments and oil companies have begun to look for new resources in the Arctic. Given these possible threats, in 2008 the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...

proposed opening negotiations on a treaty to protect the Arctic.

Support

Greenpeace began the campaign aiming to take a million signatures supporting the campaign to place on the sea bed at the

in April 2013. At the beginning of 2013, the petition registered over 2.5 million signatures. The petition will be accompanied on the sea bed by a

flag A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...

Girl Guides Girl Guides (known as Girl Scouts in the United States and some other countries) is a worldwide movement, originally and largely still designed for girls and women only. The movement began in 1909 when girls requested to join the then-grassroot ...

and Vivienne Westwood.

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

Robert Redford Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award from four nominations, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, the Cec ...

, and

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

are amongst those who support this campaign. The

World Wide Fund for Nature The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the W ...

is running a related campaign to protect Arctic

polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the largest extant bear spec ...

habitat, in partnership with

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance bar, temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pembe ...

Campaign

Oil companies exploring the Arctic, include

Rosneft PJSC Rosneft Oil Company ( stylized as ROSNEFT) is a Russian integrated energy company headquartered in Moscow. Rosneft specializes in the exploration, extraction, production, refining, transport, and sale of petroleum, natural gas, and petro ...

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...

Gazprom PJSC Gazprom ( rus, Газпром, , ɡɐzˈprom) is a Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. As of 2019, with sales over $120 billion, it was ranked as the large ...

, and

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 3 ...

Royal Dutch Shell

Greenpeace and Avaaz have focused their campaigning at the beginning of 2013 on

, including with the use of a

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

website. In 2010, in the immediate aftermath of the BP ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill,

activists painted "No Arctic Drilling" with spilled BP oil on the side of a ship that Shell planned to use for oil exploration in the Arctic. At the protest,

Phil Radford Philip David Radford (born January 2, 1976) is an American activist who served as the executive director of Greenpeace USA. He is the founder and President of Progressive Power Lab, an organization that incubates companies and non-profits that b ...

called for "President Obama oban all offshore oil drilling and call for an end to the use of oil in our cars by 2030." In July 2014, Greenpeace launched a global boycott campaign to persuade

Lego Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocki ...

to cease producing toys carrying Shell's logo in response to the oil company's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic. Lego's partnership with Shell dates back to the 1960s, although a fictional oil company called Octan featured as the corporation headed by the villain President Business in

The Lego Movie ''The Lego Movie'' is a 2014 computer-animated adventure comedy film written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from a story by Lord, Miller, and Dan and Kevin Hageman. Based on the Lego line of construction toys, its story focu ...

. Lego has used the Octan name since 1992 for its fictitious oil company, branding many filling stations, trucks and race cars.

Gazprom

Greenpeace ''Arctic Sunrise'' ship case

After an incident in the

Kara Sea The Kara Sea (russian: Ка́рское мо́ре, ''Karskoye more'') is a marginal sea, separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipel ...

with the Russian authorities in August 2013 during a "Save-the-Arctic-banner-action", the Greenpeace-ship ''Arctic Sunrise'' again was stopped in the

Pechora Sea Pechora Sea (russian: link=no, Печо́рское мо́ре, or Pechorskoye More), is a sea at the northwest of Russia, the southeastern part of the Barents Sea. The western border of the sea is off Kolguyev Island, while the eastern border i ...

: On Wednesday 18 September, two Greenpeace activists were arrested, protesting against Arctic oil drilling on the Gazprom platform

Prirazlomnaya Prirazlomnoye field is an Arctic offshore oilfield located in the Pechora Sea, south of Novaya Zemlya, Russia, the first commercial offshore oil development in the Russian Arctic sector. The field development is based on the single stationary P ...

( de) within the exclusive economic zone. Greenpeace International told on their campaign-website, the activists "were held overnight without charges or legal representation aboard a Russian Coast Guard vessel." On September 19, the

Russian Coast Guard The Coast Guard of the Border Service of the FSB (russian: Береговая охрана Пограничной службы ФСБ России, Beregovaya okhrana Pogranichnoy sluzhby FSB Rossii), previously known as the Maritime Units of the ...

"illegally boarded the Greenpeace-ship, while in international waters. 11 warning shots have been fired at Arctic-Sunrise, the activists threatened with knives and guns. 30 activists were arrested, 27 "are being held by the Russian Coast Guard against their will".

, executive director of

USA, stated that the reaction of the Russian Coast Guard "was the stiffest response that Greenpeace has encountered from a government since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985." To free their activists and end Arctic drilling, the campaigners claimed to sign a petition to the Russian Ambassadors all over the world, and to send a protest-note to Authorities. In continuity of the successful campaign to reach the Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, in 2012 and 2013 protests with "Save the Arctic" banners were started. To stop oil- and gas-drilling, industrial fishing and military operations in the

region completely, a "global sanctuary in the high arctic" was demanded from the World leaders at the UN General Assembly: "We want them to pass a UN resolution expressing international concern for the Arctic." A resolution to protect the very vulnerable wildlife and ecosystem. 30 ''Arctic Sunrise'' activists were arrested in the Pechora Sea, 19 September 2013, witnessing oil-drilling and protesting at the Gazprom platform Prirazlomnaya by the

. Greenpeace members were originally charged with Piracy, then later downgraded to hooliganism, before being dropped altogether following the passage of an amnesty law by the Russian government. Today the Gazprom platform

is the only platform in the world which continues drilling, oil extraction, and storage operations. Though the project has been heavily criticized by environmental groups there have never happened serious emergencies. The platform is compliant with the most stringent safety requirements. There are walls of caisson between the well and the sea. Spill of oil and petroleum products from the well into the sea is excluded.

Criticism

The campaign has been criticised for not accounting for the legal differences in ownership between

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

and the

References

{{Reflist

External links

Save the Arctic
campaign website Environment of the Arctic Environmental impact of fishing Environmental issues with water Greenpeace campaigns Criminal cases in Russia