50 signatures reached
To: Representatives of the Croatian government; Barbara Dorić, acting President of the Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency; Croatia’s Ministry of Economy
DON'T FRACK & DRILL SLAVONIA
Petition Text
We urge the Croatian government to halt any and all drilling activities in Slavonia. In our opinion turning Slavonia into a massive oil and gas field will be a detrimental, fundamental change to the core essence of Croatia in addition to threatening the health of its people, its rivers, lakes and its thriving tourism and agicultural industry. Indeed, the presence of petroleum infrastructure in the most fertile agriculture fields in Croatia — with its oil rigs, pipelines and possible refineries, storage and/or processing areas — would create unnecessary risks and expose the area to pollution from leaks and spills which are always bound to occur, despite the promises from oil and gas of “high environmental standards”.
Why is this important?
Oil and gas infrastructure is not at all compatible with the image that Croatia has fought hard to carve for itself over the years: that of a naturalistic haven where tourists from all over Europe and the world come for relaxation and to enjoy its pristine beauty. Furthermore, it is the nature of the oil and gas industry to keep expanding over time: once a foothold is attained, they will inevitably try to become larger, and gobble up more and more land and beauty, until it will all be gone. The time to stop them is now. On a larger scale, extracting and burning fossil fuels is one of the main causes of climate change. About 400,000 people gathered in New York in late September asking for change. Our Earth is warming, average temperatures are increasing, ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising. The choices we make today will affect our children and our children’s children.