Greenpeace's campaign to prevent deep-sea drilling for oil and gas exploration and extraction in New Zealand comes to Dunedin next week.
A collection of "oil" prints of a blue penguin and diving petrel killed in the container ship Rena disaster will go on display at Taste Merchants, in Lower Stuart St, from April 17 to 21.
Greenpeace campaigner Steve Abel said the two birds were found dead and covered in oil on Matakana Island by Greenpeace volunteers helping clean oil off beaches in the wake of the Rena spill off Tauranga last year.
"This memorial to the birds that were killed by the Rena's oil is also a stark reminder of the dangers of opening up New Zealand waters to deep-sea oil drilling."
An art collective from Publicis Mojo and Greenpeace volunteers came up with the concept of making "oil prints" with the birds, using some of the actual oil from the Rena.
Greenpeace was concerned that when exploratory drilling begins in New Zealand, it will be under threat of a Deepwater Horizon-type disaster when 627,000 tonnes of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.
"The authorities didn't have a hope of containing the Rena's oil. Imagine waiting helplessly for more than a thousand times more oil to wash up on St Clair Beach."
More than 138,000 people have signed Greenpeace's petition to stop any deep-sea oil drilling.
