Mayo farmers march against Shell

mayo | environment | news report Monday March 28, 2005 15:49 by Cormac

Walk of solidarity in Mayo to support landowners in the High Court and Ogoni people in Nigeria

On Good Friday around two hundred people marched in glorious sunshine in Rossport, Co. Mayo, against Shell’s plans to build a high pressure gas pipeline in the area. The walk was dedicated to the struggle of the Ogoni people against Shell in Nigeria and was intended also as a show of solidarity with the seven local landowners who are fighting injunctions in the High Court.

Shell intends to build the pipeline to carry gas from the Atlantic fields to a bogland site nine kilometres inland where they plan to build a processing terminal. The proposed pipeline would twice cross Broadhaven Bay and would run across the fields of local farmers, in close proximity to their houses. Normally such processing takes place at sea and this project is unprecedented in that the level of pressure in the pipe is far higher than is usual, causing grave health and safety concerns. The pipeline reaches shore in an area that experienced serious landslides two years ago and the site of the terminal itself is unstable bogland. In addition the plans would see toxic materials being pumped into Broadhaven Bay and would seriously disrupt the environmental balance in what is an area of great natural beauty.

The walk began on the farm of William Corduff, one of the local farmers currently fighting Shell in the High Court. The landowners involved in these legal proceedings are disputing the validity of the Compulsory Acquisition Orders raised against them and are fighting for continued access to their land. The march followed the route of the proposed pipeline back towards the shore. According to Maura Harrington, a schoolteacher who is very active in the resistance to Shell’s plans, the route of the walk was symbolic: “We will walk in the direction that we believe the gas should be”, she said, “realistically, the gas should be processed at sea and brought to land and this is what we are demonstrating”.

The walk was dedicated to the struggle of the Ogoni people in Nigeria in their fight against Shell. Ten years ago nine activists, chief among them Ken Saro Wiwa, were hanged by the Nigerian state for their opposition to Shell’s pillage of their land. The walk ended with a short ceremony at Rossport pier, where Majella McCarron, a nun who worked for over thirty years in Nigeria, emphasised the commonality of the Ogoni struggle and that of the people of Erris. “Good Friday is all about remembering painful experiences. What happened to Ken Saro-Wiwa was painful for his family and his community and what is currently happening in Rossport is also truly painful, for the landowners as well as for the community as a whole” she said.

The landowners are back in court on 4 April.