Greenpeace Activists Take Over Oil Rig Near Norway

More than a dozen activists from eight different countries have occupied an oil rig in the Barents Sea, as part of a Greenpeace protest against a Norwegian company that plans to drill there.

The protestors decided to board the Transocean Spitsbergen rig — in arctic waters roughly 190 miles off of Norway — after Norway’s government reversed a decision to block oil drilling in the area, Mashable reports.

Greenpeace is concerned that an oil spill accident would cause tremendous environmental damage to the surrounding area and the nearby Bear Island nature reserve, and “could reach the nesting place of a million seabirds in less than a week,” said Finnish activist Sini Saarela, quoted on the Greenpeace website.

Norway’s Minister of Climate and the Environment told the Wall Street Journal that drilling does not violate “current policy or regulation.”

[Mashable]