Greenpeace Book Details Full Consequeces of Brent Spar

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GREENPEACE BOOK DETAILS FULL CONSEQUENCES OF BRENT SPAR

London, 26 January 1998 - The Brent Spar campaign has resulted
in far-reaching and significant consequences which many
in industry and Government have been determined to deny
ever since, according to a book released today by Greenpeace.

The book, "Consequences of the Brent Spar Victory," has
been written by Chris Rose, Greenpeace UK's Deputy Executive
Director and political director of the campaign, and dispels the
many myths surrounding one of the most successful environmental
campaigns in history. Advance copies have been released today.

"The Brent Spar campaign was the single most obvious Greenpeace
success of recent years. Many powerful interests were affected
by it and many have wanted to learn from it or to seek
revenge," said Rose. 

"The campaign re-wrote the rules about how British Government
and business could use their version of science to treat the
environment as happened to be convenient. It also exposed deep
seated failings in the relationship between public policy,
science, government and the balancing of public and commercial
interests." 

The document covers the political, scientific, historical and
media aspects of the controversial campaign, "putting to bed a
lot of the mythology which has built up around Greenpeace and
its 20-year campaign against ocean dumping," said Rose. 

After the Spar turnaround, the UK Government used the media in
an attack on Greenpeace, resulting in some sections of the media
developing and sustaining a whole new mythology of how the Spar
campaign was won, which owes more to political spin doctoring
than it does to actual events. 

Since Shell stopped the dumping of the Brent Spar, 12 North Sea
oil installations have been dismantled on-shore. None have been
dumped, although at least three could have under the rules.
Plans for one, the Odin, in Norwegian waters and owned by Esso,
were reversed after the campaign and the Odin has been brought
ashore.

Meanwhile civil servants continue to set international rules
that could allow up to 100 installations to be dumped. Shell
continues to keep open the dumping option, defending
Conservative Government policy, despite the fact that the
Government has since reversed the policy as a result of
Greenpeace's campaign.

The book also details:  
*    The Conservative Government and Department of Trade and
Industry's original intention of using the Brent Spar as the
Trojan horse for creating a precedent for deep sea dumping of
hundreds more North Sea oil installations, despite the "case by
case" basis which it has always vociferously argued;  
*    How Shell's decision making was driven by economics rather
than the environment; 
*    How the Greenpeace oil/sampling mistake had no impact on
the political prohibitions introduced on dumping, the boycott or
other public campaigns and indeed how Shell and its independent
engineering company DNV also made mistakes over the Spar's
contents; 
*    How studies by the UK Government Natural Environmental
Research Council (NERC) and DNV have vindicated Greenpeace's key
scientific case on possibly cumulative impacts of dumping, and
on energy benefits of recycling the Spar; 
*    How Shell has spent more on looking for Spar options and on
PR since the campaign than it devoted to coming up with the
original plan; 
*    How independent marine scientists regarded Shell's case for
the putative dump site as 20 years out of date and the area as
biologically as rich as a tropical rainforest; 
*    How the Spar campaign sensitised the oil industry, most
responsible for the world's single greatest environmental
problem, climate change, and stimulated a re-think of its future
as a sustainable and renewable energy industry.

For Information or copies of the report be available on the
Greenpeace UK website from Monday www/greenpeace.org/uk

Greenpeace on the Internet at http://www.greenpeace.org