Activists Set to Crack Shell Annual Meeting

Indigenous Delegation to confront Shell at AGM in The Hague

Shell to Sea campaigners speaking at a meeting of different communitys that are fighting Shell

May 21, 2012/The Hague – A delegation of Indigenous community leaders and representatives is travelling from North America to The Hague attend the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the oil company Shell tomorrow (22 May). They are attending to protest Shell’s environmental devastation and repeated human rights violations in their communities.

The community representatives include:

• Eriel Deranger – Community spokesperson for Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, in Alberta, Canada - an Indigenous community residing downstream from tar sands operations and who are currently suing Shell for violating past agreements
• Ron Plain, from Aamjiwnaang First Nation, in Ontario, Canada - which has been called ‘the most polluted place in North America’ by the National Geographic Society, and the ‘the most contaminated airshed in Canada’ by the World Health Organization due to its proximity to ‘Chemical Valley’ where Shell’s and other tar sands operators’ refineries are causing serious health and reproductive impacts
• Robert Thompson, Chairman of REDOIL and an Inupiat from Kaktovik, a village on the edge of the Arctic Ocean in Alaska, where Shell plans to drill offshore in Arctic waters this summer

They are accompanied by representatives of the Indigenous Environmental Network and the UK Tar Sands Network.
The group will be present at the Shell AGM, where there are protests and actions planned from 9.30am, outside the Circustheater. They will then be entering the AGM with proxy shares to confront Shell’s Board of Directors and present a newly-released report.

The report, “Risking Ruin: Shell’s dangerous developments in the Tar Sands, Arctic and Nigeria” profiles Indigenous communities impacted by Shell’s operations in Canada’s Alberta Tar Sands, Aamjiwnaang First Nation’s territory in Ontario, Alaska’s Arctic Ocean and Africa’s Niger Delta. It argues that the impacts of Shell’s destructive activities outweigh the benefits and expose the company to both reputational damage and political risk, including litigation.

Click here to read the report.

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For interviews please contact: Suzanne Dhaliwal, UK Tar Sands Network: +44-7807-095-669

For North America: Clayton Thomas-Muller, IEN Tar Sands Campaign, ienoil@igc.org, +1-613-297-7515