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Prestige: one year on

File photo: Greenpeace survey of oil pollution from a spill in Alaska. Enlarge Image

Supertanker leaking oil

How the explosion on the Limburg oil tanker happened is still being debated, but the results are indisputable. The explosion that ripped through the double hulled oil tanker late Sunday produced a gapping hole that spilled as much as 8,000 tonnes of crude oil producing slicks that are visible from the coast of Yemen.

Greenpeace activists sample spilled crude oil from the sunken Prestige tanker. Enlarge Image

Leaked oil blackening Spain's coastline

A ruptured tanker carrying 77,000 tons of fuel oil, almost twice the amount that spilled from the Exxon Valdez, has split in two and sunk off of Spain's coast.

A Greenpeace activist inspects the spilled crude oil from the sunken Prestige tanker. Enlarge Image

Stop the next oil disaster

If it had been within your power to prevent the Prestige oil spill, would you have taken a moment to do so? We can't undo the damage of the Prestige, but we may be able to stop the next disastrous spill.

Greenpeace action against the single-hulled oil tanker 'Byzantio' on its way from Tallin with its cargo of 50,000 tonnes of oil. Greenpeace inflatables attemp to stop and enter the ship displayinga banner reading HAZARD Enlarge Image

Rust bucket oil tanker continues hazardous journey

The tanker left Estonia under the cover of darkness on Friday, but not before 20 Greenpeace activists braved the cold attempting to stop the Byzantio. The Byzantio is chartered by the same company that contracted the ill-fated oil tanker Prestige that sank off the north-western coast of Spain earlier this month. But this new hazard to the seas will not be allowed to pass quietly. More Greenpeace activists intercepted the ship as it passed the straits between Denmark and Germany.

Activists deliever oil waste from the Prestige oil spill to Crown Resources, the owner of the oil that covered Spain's northern coast. Enlarge Image

Byzantio tries to hide

Why would the owners of a 210 metre oil tanker try to elude activists, mislead journalists and try to sneak into the port of Rotterdam? Do they have something to hide?

Greenpeace activists halt movement, by climbing up the mooring ropes of the single-hulled oil tanker Byzantioin the port of Rotterdam, The Netherlands yesterday Enlarge Image

Prestige leaking, but activists protesting another rustbucket are stopped

The first images of the sunken oil tanker off Spain are out. Black oil is oozing out of the Prestige contrary to the Spanish government's assurance that it would freeze up and solidify at the bottom of the ocean. If it continues the Prestige could coat Spanish beaches for years to come.

Greenpeace activists dress in bird costums with black oil stains to simulate an oil disaster at the door of the EU Headquarters where European Ministers of Transport Telecommunication and Energy are meeting to discuss maritime safety. Enlarge Image

Activists bring oil disaster to European ministers

Over 35 Greenpeace activists reenacted an oil disaster at the doorstep of the European Union headquarters as European ministers are meeting to discuss maritime safety. Volunteers dressed in bird costumes with black 'oil' stains carried signs and banners reading: ACT NOW. Oil ran down the flags of EU member states activists carried. Five barrels of oil waste and residue brought from the Prestige oil disaster were unloaded in front of the building.

Greenpeace activists display, at the site of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, a banner reading Oil Hazard EU Clean up your act, referring to the infamous Prestige oil tanker disaster in Spain. Enlarge Image

Another tanker carrying oil in the Baltic runs aground

We said it was only a matter of time, and it seems we were right. Another tanker carrying 55,000 tonnes of fuel oil ran aground in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda overnight. There are conflicting reports whether the vessel is leaking oil but authorities will attempt to tow it into port. Much further south, off the coast of Spain, the Prestige, which broke up and sank a month ago, continues to leak oil, as much as 125 tonnes every day.

A oil cleanup volunteer holds a Comorant covered in oil from the sunken Prestige oil tanker on the coast of Galicia, Spain. Enlarge Image

UN Maritime body seeks to evict Greenpeace

In the eight months since the Prestige spilled an estimated 12,000 tonnes of oil, Greenpeace has been active, demanding an accelerated ban on single-hull tankers, a scale-back in the use of oil worldwide, and a tightening of loopholes that allow dangerous rust buckets to sail under flags of convenience. Today the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which is charged with protecting the health and safety of our seas, leapt into action with their response: they kicked Greenpeace out.

Over one million tonnes of oil were spilled into the world's oceans during the 1990s Enlarge Image

Karachi oil spill devastation

The biggest oil spill in the history of Pakistan is sickening people and destroying wildlife.

The International Maritime Organisation's most visible action in response to the Prestige oil spill: a move to evict Greenpeace. Enlarge Image

IMO seeks to remove Greenpeace

One year following the Prestige oil spill, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has done nothing to prevent further catastrophes. Instead, the organisation is trying to remove the consultative status of one of its most outspoken critics: Greenpeace. Here's what you can do to help ensure the IMO has to factor in the voice of the planet and its people when it makes decisions, rather than just the voices of vested interests in the shipping industry.

Greenpeace campaigner, Melanie Duchin monitoring the environmental impacts of the oil spill resulting from the shipwreck of the Malaysian freighter Selendang. Enlarge Image

Oil spill devastates Alaska... again

Fifteen years after the Exxon Valdez devastated the Alaskan coast, another oil spill is making headlines. Greenpeace is on the scene.

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