PRESS RELEASE - Embargo: Tuesday, 28 June 2004
Community People Demand Answers from Shell at Annual General
Meeting in The Hague and London
The Hague, The Netherlands - 26 June 2005:
On 27 June, the eve of Shell’s Annual General meeting,
representatives from the South Durban Community Environmental
Alliance (SDCEA) [1] and groundWork [2]
join community people from Niger Delta (Nigeria), Sao Paolo
(Brazil), Sakhalin (Russian Federation), County Mayo (Ireland),
Pandacan (Philippines), Curacao (Netherlands Antilles), Port
Arthur (Texas, USA), and Norco (Louisiana, USA) demanding
answers and action from Shell to stop their global pollution
of community neighbourhoods.
This comes in the wake of the Chairman of Shell, Lord Oxburgh,
visiting the south Durban area and declaring that the Shell
oil refinery infrastructure in the south Durban area is ageing.
Friends of the Earth [3] and fenceline communities
impacted by Shell’s operations will launch a report
entitled “Lessons not Learned – The Other Shell
Report 2004” (see attachment)
as well as a key set of demands to the company to improve
local conditions in south Durban [4]. This
alternative annual report highlights the destructive impacts
of Shell’s activities around the world. The shadow-report
on the Dutch-British multinational will be simultaneously
presented in London and The Hague. As in The Hague, community
representatives and Friends of the Earth in London will tell
the ‘other story’ about Shell, by launching the
report and attending the AGM.
The report reviews the past year and contains nine cases of
the damage inflicted upon people and the environment by Shell’s
activities in the Niger Delta (Nigeria), Durban (South Africa),
Sao Paolo (Brazil), Sakhalin (Russian Federation), County
Mayo (Ireland), Pandacan (Philippines), Curacao (Netherlands
Antilles), Port Arthur (Texas, USA), and Norco (Louisiana,
USA).
Desmond D’Sa, Chairperson of SDCEA, together with Siziwe
Khanyile, the groundWork Air Quality Campaign Coordinator,
is in London, for the London leg of the AGM. Siziwe Khanyile
raises the concern that the eThekwini Municipality has agreed
to be used by Shell in their “greenwash” in their
2004 Annual report. Viewing this, Mr D’Sa indicates,
“that is clear that the eThekwini Municipality is in
bed with Shell, conspiring against the community efforts to
get pollution reduced in the south Durban neighbourhood by
'greenwashing' the issues in south Durban.”
Bobby Peek, Director of groundWork, is in The Hague for the
Dutch leg of the AGM. “It is important that Shell starts
recognising that this is a global community movement against
Shell’s destructive practices. It is now not only about
big NGO’s challenging Shell. These are people at the
fenceline and more powerful for they are not going to go away”.
Zaks Kikia-Khan, SDCEA Steering Committee member and resident
of Isipingo Hills in south Durban, has Shell as a neighbour
to her community. “Shell is purposely divisive in my
community by setting up their own community liaison forum
to undermine SDCEA’s mandate and challenge to Shell.
We do not need a neighbour such as this!”
At a meeting on Friday, with Dutch NGO’s working on
corporate issues, Cesar Augusto Periera, a community activist
of Coletivo Alternative Verde (DAVE) in Sao Paula, Brazil,
gave the reasoning for the global community gathering in The
Hague and London: “Every solution to the problem at
a local level is trans-national in nature and this is why
we are here working with NGO’s in The Netherlands and
attending the Shell Board meeting.”
End:
Bobby Peek, groundWork & Zaks Kikia-Khan, SDCEA: 0931
6 2745 4457
Siziwe Khanyile, groundWork & Desmond D’Sa, SDCEA:
0944 78 7602 2647
[1] SDCEA is a local environmental
justice organisation based in south Durban that provides a
collective voice for the various community organisations and
residents in south Durban, who live adjacent to the petro-chemical
industrial developments in the south Durban area.
[2] groundWork is an environmental justice
organisation working focusing on air pollution, waste and
corporate abuse and works with community organisations living
adjacent to petro-chemical facilities in south Durban, Sasolburg,
Secunda and Cape Town. (www.groundwork.org.za)
[3] Friends of the Earth chapters from The
Netherlands (www.milieudefensie.nl) & England, Wales and
Northern Ireland (www.foe.co.uk) have together with the various
community organisations and NGO’s produced this report
and will be hosting this global network in The Hague and London.
[4] South Durban Community Environmental
Alliance and groundWork
Demands of Shell, south Durban
Monday, 27 June 2005
- a. To produce a five-year pollution reduction and operational
plan that goes beyond the present legislative requirements
and moves Shell to meet the pollution and operational standards
of the top refineries globally. This plan must be finalized
in consultation with the local community and be completed
and expenditure approved by the Shell Board by February
2006.
- b. A maintenance programme to replace the aging infrastructure
must be produced in conjunction with the five-year pollution
reduction and operational plan.
- c. Independent experts chosen jointly by community and
the company must verify compliance to the plans.
- d. All Shell fuel pipelines running through the community
must be replaced based upon the precautionary principle
and managed in accordance with best global practice, which
should inter alia have public makings, product flow monitoring
that can pick up any discrepancies in product entered and
delivered.
- e. The number of incidents impacting upon the environment,
community health and worker safety must be reduced immediately.
- f. Shell will use gas permanently instead of other fuel
sources for its processing units.
- g. Shell will not obstruct SDCEA, groundWork and local
community participation in government operational legislative
reviews on permits or other such legal processes.
- h. Shell will make all information that is not commercially
confidential available to the community. If information
is considered confidential, Shell needs to give details
as to why.
- i. Shell will negotiate a pollution monitoring protocol,
i.e. in-stack and fenceline monitoring with SDCEA, groundWork
and local community.
- j. Maintenance staff will be employed by Shell and not
through contractors and labour brokers which result in workers
loosing all benefits and rights.
- k. Shell senior management to commit to honest and transparent
process to find solutions to problems and halt the use of
“spin doctors”.
- l. All data presented by Shell to be verified by an independent
expert of the community’s choice.
m. Reporting protocols must be developed jointly between
government, industry and the community. - n. Shell must install a backup electric transformer in
case of power dips and outages.
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