Argentina: demonstration against oil exploitation in Mar del Plata
Thousands of demonstrators, environmentalists and left-wing activists marched on the beaches of the seaside town of Mar del Plata on Tuesday, against an oil exploration project off the Atlantic coast of Argentina.
AFP - MARA SOSTI
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
In Argentina, an “offshore” oil exploration project is generating a vast movement of protest and relaunching the debate between ecology and economic development.
Two weeks after massive demonstrations, opponents of the project were back on the streets on Tuesday, January 18.
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With our correspondent in Buenos Aires,
Théo Conscience
They were again several thousand to march Tuesday, January 18 in the seaside town of Mar del Plata to protest against an oil exploration project 300 km off the city. According to Victoria Menghini, of Greenpeace, this project is harmful for the environment, but also for human activities. “
Oil exploitation fuels the climate crisis which affects marine biodiversity, but also the main economic activities of coastal cities like Mar del Plata, such as fishing and tourism
,” she explains.
The government of centre-left President Alberto Fernández has just authorized by decree seismic exploration studies by the Norwegian oil company Equinor, the Argentine public company YPF and the Anglo-Dutch Shell, in the
offshore
areas of the Argentine Sea, south of Buenos Aires, some 300 km of beaches that attract millions of tourists during the austral summer.
Minimal environmental risks, assures the government
The government ensures that the environmental risks are minimal, and prefers to highlight the 22,000 jobs and the tens of millions of dollars of investment that the project would involve. For Agustin, professor of geography, the argument of economic development does not hold. “
They said the same thing when they allowed fracking and agrochemicals. Poverty affects 40% of the population, so let them not come and talk to us about development, they have already lied to us enough,
he is indignant.
Development is sustainable or it is not development
”
The demonstrators hope that the government will back down before the scale of the mobilization.
Similar rallies were held in several other cities across the country on Tuesday, and nearly 200,000 people have already signed the online petition against oil exploration.
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To read also: Argentina distributes oil exploration permits in the South Atlantic
(
May 18, 2019
)
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