As we face the threat of more oil and gas exploration by the Luxon Government and the risk of oil spills that comes with that, I can’t help thinking back to the time when a ship called the Rena hit the Astrolabe Reef in the Bay of Plenty and spilt 350 tonnes of oil into the sea.<\/p>\n\n
Greenpeace sent a team of volunteers down to work with local iwi, Nga Hap\u016b o te Moutere o Matakana, to clean oil off their beaches following the spill. During that time, they found a little blue penguin dead \/ koror\u0101 and covered in oil on Matakana Island.<\/p>\n\n
That koror\u0101 was one of many – an estimated 20,000 birds were killed by the oil spill – but it and a came to symbolise the desperate plight that all faced as the oil washed ashore and through their habitat.<\/p>\n\n